The Hare and the Turtle

Today has been a hyper vs. hypo day. There is going to be a plant sale that I want to go to today and Vern woke me up this morning very early. He isn't going but I guess he thinks that if I am not first in line, I won't get the two plants that I want. I don't see a lot of people rushing in to get a Stevia plant.

My Dad used to tell me about his step-grandfather. He said that Grandpa Bolster always had a very organized farm but Dad never remembered seeing his grandfather moving fast. He said that his tack room was always neat and orderly. His wood pile didn't have a stick of wood out of place but when they walked to town together, Dad did 3 miles for every one that his Grandpa did. He mentioned that Grandpa just moved at his own pace and got everything done in his own time. If he saw a leaf on the ground, he would pick it up as he walked by, not really stopping to do it.

I will have to say that even though I have never met the man, I already admire him. He is one of us, the turtle people. You have heard the story about the turtle and the hare, some of us are just turtle people.

My father was a hare. He was always on the go. He belonged to a lot of organizations, had 30 employees, liked to entertain. How about a boat ride or would you like to go waterskiing? Maybe you would like to play shuffleboard on the board that he just put in the front yard? He was always doing something.

Mother, on the other hand was a turtle person. She walked five pace behind Dad. (I don't think she could have kept up with him if she tried. We, Girls used to joke about Dad being Chinese and Mom walking her 5 paces back.) I must take after my Mother. She wasn't afraid to do things but in her own sweet time.

Sometimes I think that "Hare" people have an inner knowing that they have limited time and they want to get it all done now.

Turtle people know that they can get it done but that if it doesn't get finished today, there is always tomorrow.

I do have to admire "Hare" people. We recently had an electrical outlet that wasn't working. I called an electrician to come and find out what our problem was. He told me that he would come in two weeks. He came and he opened all the outlets in two rooms of our house. Many hours later he still hadn't found the problem. Putting everyting back together he said that he would have his son come with him next time so that they could get into the attic. A lot of time went by and I never heard back from him. Then yesterday, Vern called a different electrician. Now if I had called someone they would have told me that they would be there two weeks from Friday. So you can imagine my surprise when Vern said that the man would be out later that day. (Is this a guy thing?) He came and he fixed it in less than two hours.

One of the other Hare things is to "Run" all the time. When I have things that I need to do, mail a letter, pick up a book, get film: they are all on my list when I leave home. A Hare will run to get one new drill bit and come back. Then a few hours later run to get some spackle or some other things making one trip into several.

Another thing that I have found out about Hares is that when you mention that you would like this or that, for some reason they think you mean now. As an example, I would like to take this to Marretta's. The Hare thinking that you mean within the next 10 min. He has his coat on and car keys in hand. When in fact you really meant within the next week. So I have learned to be much more specific.

I admire Hares. If it weren't for Hares, a lot of stuff that we have today wouldn't have gotten done. My father was always creating faster and better ways to do something. I guess if we have to blame someone for speeding up the world, we can always blame a Hare.

In the meantime, us, turtles will just plod along and clean up whatever the Hare didn't have time to do. Putting some order into the world around us.