We are entering the downhill slide of another Norfolk Pine. I have always loved them, especially since my Chicago days. But they dry out and die, or they get sick and dry out and die. I stopped getting big ones because I felt guilty about buying one. At Christmas time, however, the grocery stores sell small ones with bows and stars on them for under $10 and they look really, really nice in the nursing home room.

I thought maybe this year’s candidate might beat the odds, but it is getting that stiff feeling on the ends of the branches. I’ll look up possible treatments on the Internet, but I don’t have much faith in my abilities. I don’t know, maybe if I water it with my tears, it will take heart and survive, if not thrive. That would make a good kid’s fairy tale, but I’m not betting the farm on it working. Although, it might be excellent pro-active therapy for me in stress containment.

Yes, that would be one-third of the life recipe provided by Jim Valvano in his last speech before his death:

If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.

I wonder about the thinking, though. Does it have to be top-notch philosophical musings, or can mundane thoughts qualify in a pinch? Probably not; I’m thinking C.S. Lewis would suggest prayer.