Random Thoughts: Compliments and penguins
"Hey, I've got a trade list you!" Can you remember a friend or maybe an enemy coming up to you with that remark? Then you begin to rack your brain for something nice that someone has said about that person.
Sometimes you just have to make something up because, of course, you can't tell them that no one has said a compliment about them. As soon as you do they are to tell you a compliment about you. Maybe it is made up too, just to get your attention. As Shakespeare said, it may become a tangled web we weave when you first practice to deceive.
In Saturday's Wichita Eagle there was an interesting article about the strangest creatures on the face of the earth. There is a documentary out about them called "The March of the Penguins." They don't fly but they waddle on long walks — sometimes 70 miles to the breeding ground. Here the female lays one enormous egg. She then walks 140 miles to the open sea to gather food for the young chick to be hatched. In the meantime the male is holding the egg between his legs and feathered belly until it hatches.
I guess you know they live in the Antarctica so the egg must not touch the ice. The parents seem to be caring and loving and grieve when a child is lost. They seem so clumsy and helpless, you wonder how they ever survive. Their black coats and bright white fronts remind you of men in formal attire. And we complain!
— NORMA HANNAFORD
