Enthusiasm

 

Norman Rockwell "The Music Man",

My Dad warmed instantly to anyone who showed enthusiasm, for anything at all. Someone would tell him about how they were enjoying delicious breakfasts of mushrooms on toast every morning now they were growing their own mushrooms. The next day our bathroom would be filled with boxes of earth, we would patiently wait for the mushrooms to appear,a nd eventually get fed up with them taking up so much room, ha ha mushroom. Get it? Someone else might enthuse about  their delicious home-made wine, easily produced using a wine-making kit, and the kitchen would be taken up with plastic buckets and tubes and a strange fermenting smell. Enthusiasm was a delight for him, but none enticed him more than those with a business venture. My Mum and me would be given unusual silk painted, totally unwearable clothes, bought to support a local shop, or the house would be full to overflowing with silk flowers to support someone in difficulty. He  had a great big generous heart and was always ready to help someone in need. When the couple who lived over the road had to move, he bought their whole partridge farm, birds, incubators, cages, the lot. Thereby started a real passion and interest in birds. Pheasants, partridges, geese, chickens, never failing to marvel at the hatching of the eggs. He would bring them to my children in bed in the morning, so they could witness the miracle. He was like this till the end. One day I saw a letter on the kitchen table, from a Jehovah's Witness. I asked if I could read it. They were asking him to attend a special meeting, would he come and join in. They were overwhelmed by his generosity. He brushed it aside, "Well -he said- they were so enthusiastic about their cause, I couldn't help but admire them."

He really did have a passion for life.Never stop being passionate about life."You've got to live your life", he said to the end.

Be enthusiastic today, whatever you are doing. Whether you are teaching, making a deal, reading a bedtime story, at home, at work, at play. It can work wonders.

The mushroom joke comes from a song called My Old Man's A Dustman, by Lonnie Donegan. The words went like this:

Oh, my old man's a dustman
He wears a dustman's hat
He wears cor blimey trousers
And he lives in a council flat

..........................................

I say, I say, I say (What you again)
My dustbin's absolutely full with toadstools
(How do you know it's full)
'Cos there's not much room inside