1.Apple tree

A long time ago, there was a huge apple tree. A little boy loved to come and play around it everyday. He climbed to the treetop, ate the apples, took a nap under the shadow... He loved the tree and the tree loved to play with him. Time went by...the little boy had grown up, and he no longer played around the tree every day. One day, the boy came back to the tree and he looked sad.

"Come and play with me," the tree asked the boy.

"I am no longer a kid, I do not play around trees any more" -The boy replied.

"I want toys. I need money to buy them."

"Sorry, but I do not have money... But you can pick all my apples and sell them. So, you will have money".

The boy was so excited. He grabbed all the apples on the tree and left happily. The boy never came back after he picked the apples. The tree was sad.

One day, the boy who now turned into a man returned And the tree was excited "Come and play with me" the tree said.

"I do not have time to play. I have to work for my family. We need a house for shelter. Can you help me? "

" Sorry", "I do not have any house. But you can chop off my branches

To build your house."

So the man cut all the branches of the tree and left happily.The tree was glad to see him happy but the man never came back since then. The tree was again lonely and sad.

One hot summer day, The man returned and the tree was delighted.

"Come and play with me!" the tree said.

"I am getting old. I want to go sailing to relax myself. Can you give me a boat?" - Said the man.

"Use my trunk to build your boat. You can sail far away and be happy"

So the man cut the tree trunk to make a boat. He went sailing and never showed up for a long time.

Finally, the man returned after many years.

"Sorry, my boy. But I do not have anything for you anymore. No more apples for you..." - The tree said

"No problem, I do not have any teeth to bite" - The man replied.

"No more trunk for you to climb on"

"I am too old for that now" the man said.

"I really cannot give you anything... The only thing left is my dying root," - the tree said with tears.

"I do not need much now, just a place to rest. I am tired after all these years" - the man replied.

"Good! Old tree roots are the best place to lean on and rest, come, come sit down with me and rest"

The man sat down and the tree was glad and smiled with tears...

This is you and the tree is your parents!!!

Please enlighten all your friends and your families

By telling them this story,

"Love your Parents "

2.The Dark Candle

A man had a little daughter- an only and much-beloved child. He lived for her- she was his life. So when she became ill and her illness resisted the efforts of the best obtainable physicians, he became like a man possessed, moving heaven and earth to bring about her restoration to health. His best efforts proved unavailing and the child died. The father was totally inconsolable. He became a bitter recluse, shutting himself away from his many friends and refusing every activity that might restore his poise and bring him back to his normal self. But one night he had a dream.

He was in Heaven, and was witnessing a grand pageant of all the little child angels. They were marching in an apparently endless line past the Great White Throne. Every white-robed angelic child carried a candle. He noticed that one child's candle was not lighted. Then he saw that the child with the dark candle was his own little girl. Rushing to her, while the pageant faltered, he seized her in his arms, caressed her tenderly, and then asked: "How is it, darling that your candle alone is unlighted?" "Father, they often relight it, but your tears always put it out."

Just then he awoke from his dream. The lesson was crystal clear, and its effects were immediate. From that hour on he was not a recluse, but mingled freely and cheerfully with his former friends and associates. No longer would his darling's candle be extinguished by his useless tears.

"For You have delivered my soul from death. Have you not kept my feet from falling, That I may walk before God In the LIGHT of the living?"

Poor people One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family. On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?"

"It was great, Dad."

"Did you see how poor people live?" the father asked.

"Oh yeah," said the son.

"So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father.

The son answered:

"I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.

Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.

We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them."

The boy's father was speechless.

Then his son added, "Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are."

Isn't perspective a wonderful thing? Makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for everything we have, instead of worrying about what we don't have.

Appreciate every single thing you have, especially your friends!

Pass this on to friends and acquaintances and help them refresh their perspective and appreciation.

"Life is too short and friends are too few."

3.Sara Went Shopping

Sara Smith, a Pasadena resident, went shopping. She is 30, and has lived at 3037 N. Foothill Street since 1992. Sara has been married to John for seven years. They have two children; Bob is five years old and Nancy is three. Sara owns a 1995 four-door blue Toyola. At 9 a.m., Sara got into her car and drove to Barget, a department store a mile away.

Barget was having a holiday sale. Sara bought a four-slice toaster for $29.95 plus tax. The regular price was $39.95. She paid by check. On her way home, Sara stopped at MilkPlus to buy a gallon of nonfat milk. The milk was $3.50. Sara got 50 cents back in change.

Sara arrived home at 10 a.m. John and the kids were still sleeping. She woke them up and then made a hot and nutritious breakfast for everyone

5.Man Injured at Fast Food Place

A 79-year-old man was slightly injured on Saturday while waiting in his brand new convertible in a drive-through lane at Burger Prince restaurant. Herman Sherman of Northville suffered a mild burn about 9:00 p.m. when a young female employee accidentally spilled a cup of coffee into his lap. Sherman said the coffee was hot but not scalding.

He refused medical aid, saying the only problem was the stain on his slacks, but it would wash out. He was given a fresh refill. Before Sherman drove off, the restaurant manager, John Johnson, gave him two free gift certificates--one for an extra-large coffee and one for the restaurant's newest sandwich, the McRap.

The employee, who was a new hire, was let go later that evening. She was quite upset. She said she would probably sue Burger Prince for letting her go. She said it was the man's fault for ordering something that she might be able to spill.

6.A Life-Saving Cow

Six consecutive days of spring rain had created a raging river running by Nancy Brown's farm. As she tried to herd her cows to higher ground, she slipped and hit her head on a fallen tree trunk. The fall knocked her out for a moment or two. When she came to, Lizzie, one of her oldest and favorite cows, was licking her face. The water was rising. Nancy got up and began walking slowly with Lizzie. The water was now waist high. Nancy's pace got slower and slower. Finally, all she could do was to throw her arm around Lizzie's neck and try to hang on. About 20 minutes later, Lizzie managed to successfully pull herself and Nancy out of the raging water and onto a bit of high land, a small island now in the middle of acres of white water.

Even though it was about noon, the sky was so dark and the rain and lightning so bad that it took rescuers another two hours to discover Nancy. A helicopter lowered a paramedic, who attached Nancy to a life-support hoist. They raised her into the helicopter and took her to the school gym, where the Red Cross had set up an emergency shelter.

When the flood subsided two days later, Nancy immediately went back to the "island." Lizzie was gone. She was one of 19 cows that Nancy lost. "I owe my life to her," said Nancy sobbingly.

7.Driver Loses Mabel, Finds Jail

A fifteen-year-old boy was injured in a car accident when the minivan he was traveling in was hit by a pickup truck at an intersection. The boy was taken to a nearby hospital. The paramedics said that it appeared that the boy had nothing more serious than a broken left leg, but that internal injuries were always a possibility. The boy was conscious and alert. His mother, who was driving, was uninjured. She said that the truck appeared out of nowhere, and she thought she was going to die. She turned the steering wheel sharply to the left, and the truck hit her minivan on the passenger side.

The driver of the truck was a 50-year-old man who was unemployed and apparently had been drinking-police found 18 empty beer cans inside the truck. The man denied drinking, but he failed the police test for sobriety. When asked to touch his nose with his arms outstretched and eyes closed, he was unable to touch any part of his head.

The handcuffed man asked the police if they knew where "Mabel" was as he was put into the back seat of the police vehicle. The police asked him if Mabel was his wife. He said, "She's my dog, my dog! Where's my baby?" A dog with a collar, but no identification, was found minutes later, half a block away. The man was taken to the city jail and booked on suspicion of driving while intoxicated and on causing an accident.

8.Jerry Decided To Buy a Gun

Jerry Baldwin was 30 years old. He was the manager of a pizza restaurant. He lived in an apartment about one mile north of the restaurant. He walked to and from work. When it was raining, he took the bus.

Jerry loved gangster movies. When a new one came out, he would go to the theater and watch the new movie three or four times. Then, when it went to video, Jerry would buy the video at Barney's Video Store. Jerry had a home collection of over 1,000 gangster videos. Old ones, new ones, color, black and white, English, Spanish, Japanese--he loved them all. He could tell you the name of the movie, the director, the stars, and the plot. Did you say you liked "Pulp Fiction"? Well, Jerry would rattle off all the details of that movie. And then he would invite you to his place to watch it some time. He was a nice guy.

Jerry finally decided that he would like to own a gun, just like the gangsters. So he saved his money for a couple of years. Then he went to a gun store and bought a used .38 caliber revolver for $300. While there, he also bought a couple of boxes of ammunition. The following Saturday morning, he went to the gun club to practice with his new revolver. He was in the club for only 10 minutes when he accidentally dropped his pistol. The gun went off, and the bullet went into Jerry's right knee.

Jerry now walks with a limp and a cane, just like some gangsters.

9.Freeway Chase Ends at Newsstand

A 24-year-old Los Angeles man was taken to a hospital and then to county jail after leading police on a one-hour freeway chase in a stolen SUV. The chase ended in downtown Los Angeles in front of the Spring Hotel. Most of the chase was uneventful, except for an empty bottle of whiskey that the driver threw at one police vehicle.

When the driver got into downtown, things started to happen. He ran over a fire hydrant. The water spewed out of the hydrant, causing a geyser that ruined all the books in several carts that a vendor had put outside to attract customers into his bookstore. The driver hurriedly turned west onto Grand Avenue and managed to bang into three parked cars on one side of that street and two cars on the other side. The driver also tried to run over a police officer, who was standing in the crosswalk ordering him to halt.

Turning north, the driver caused a bus to slam on its brakes to avoid a collision. The bus was empty, and the bus driver was uninjured. However, two police cars that were pursuing the SUV from different directions were not so lucky. One of them ran into the front of the bus, and the other into the back. Because the drivers had braked early enough, the damage to their cars was minor. Both officers resumed the chase.

They only went two blocks north to find that the SUV had come to a full stop because it had plowed into a newspaper stand. The driver, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was slumped behind the steering wheel. The proprietor of the newsstand was yelling at the driver and shaking a magazine at him. The police called for the ambulance. They charged the driver with failure to yield to a police officer and driving under the influence.

10.Better To Be Unlucky

Sam, an unemployed piano tuner, said it was only the second thing he had ever won in his life. The first thing was an Afghan blanket at a church raffle when he was 25 years old. But this was much bigger: it was $120,000! He had won the Big Cube, a state lottery game. To win, a contestant must first guess which number a spinning cube will stop on. The cube has six numbers on it: 1X, 10X, 50X, 100X, 500X, and 1000X. If he is correct, the contestant must then guess which of two selected variables is going to be greater. So, just guessing which number appears on the cube does not guarantee that you will win any money.

Sam correctly guessed 1000X, but he still had to choose between two variables. One variable was the number of cars that would run the stop sign at Hill Street and Lake Avenue in six hours. The other variable was the number of times that a teenage boy would change TV channels in a three-hour period. This was a tough decision.

Finally, Sam flipped a coin. It came up heads, so Sam picked the teenager. He picked right. The stop sign was run only 76 times, but the teen clicked 120 times. Sixty-year-old Sam jumped for joy, for he had just won 1000 times 120, or $120,000. Sam dreamily left the lottery studio. Talking excitedly on his cell p hone while crossing the street, he got hit by a little sports car.

Sam is slowly getting better. He was in the hospital for a month. His hospital bill was $110,000. And the insurance company for the little sports car's owner sued Sam for $9,000 worth of repairs. Also, Sam still has to pay federal taxes on his winnings. Sam doesn't play the state lottery any more. He says it's better to be unlucky.