Keeping It Old Skool - Issue No. 12 - The Giving Tree

Geez, okay it's been over a year since a posted an issue of "Keeping It Old Skool" so I want to start my first issue of 2013 with a book I will remember forever.

I can honestly say,  I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who has never read "The Giving Tree," "Where The Sidewalk Ends," "The Missing Piece," or "A Light In The Attic".

The children's books written by the late Shel Silverstein became a staple in every child's classroom .  We either read them at the park, with our friends, or at bedtime when our parents put us to sleep.  And while today we can read them with our iPhones or iPads; They can never replace the actual books themselves.  I still have mine.  

One of my favorite books, "The Giving Tree" was recently named the Teacher's Top 100 Books for Children and is one of the Top 100 Picture Books of all time.

I remember reading this for the first time and balling my eyes out.  I was furious at the boy who took apart this giving tree limb for limb,  And yet the tree loved the boy from adolescence to adulthood.  The tree literally gave all it had.

"The book details the events occurring throughout the life of a small boy, and the friendship that he shares with a tree—with which he is apparently able to communicate. In his childhood, he enjoys climbing her branches and enjoying imaginative play with her; however, as he gradually passes into maturity his requests from the tree change. After entering adolescence, he requests to pick her apples with which to make profit, and after reaching adulthood he cuts down the tree's limbs to construct a house. Years later, he returns to the lonesome Giving Tree as an old man to cut her down and use her wood to craft a boat with which to sail away, after the maturity of his family, reducing her to nothing more than a stump. However, eventually he returns to his friend, asking for a resting place, and peacefully drifts off to sleep on the tree stump." [source]

This book and countless others have helped guide me through life and it will be part of those memories I will honor and cherish forever.  If you've never read them, and I can't believe you haven't, click on the book titles above.

Must Watch... You Will Definitely Share This...

I was reading my news feed on Facebook yesterday afternoon and saw a video my friend Brett Daminski posted on his wall, and I'm not gonna lie, I got emotional towards the middle and towards the end of the video.  

If it's one video you will want to share over and over again, it will be this one.  It's true.  We take so much for granted in our lives, that we never realize how much it would have meant if we had given that homeless guy just 25 cents or that lawn mower man a bottle of water.

There's a neighbor across mine and Ryan's street named Mary, who comes over from time to time asking if I could help her with her A/C repairs up in the attic, check her car because it won't start, or fix her fence when it's broken.  She's in her late 60's, and using her cane she slowly walks over to our house asking for help.  And in all the times I've helped her I knew it made a difference in her life as well as mine. Ryan and I came over one weekend and planted a Crape Myrtle in her yard, because she said anything she ever planted always died.  So we went and got her something that was tolerant to Texas weather, and now that Myrtle blooms every year.  She's not family, and technically she's not a friend, but she's a human being, and we love her regardless.

Feel free to share this video with all your friends, family and anyone you love for that matter, preferably with this blog, because it's important that people read why I posted it.