Bill's General Store

A Fellow I Met

By Bill Shiver

            I was piddling around in the front yard.  Old folks do a lot of piddling.  Piddling is something I’m real good at.  Actually, I was charging the battery on our ancient Honda.  The cold weather pulls down the battery, and the alternator has a mind of its own.  Sometimes it charges and sometimes it doesn’t.  It’s cheaper to charge the battery than to fork over $300 for a new alternator.

            So, I was hooking up the charger in the cold wind when I felt a presence.  I turned around and a guy was standing there.  I thought he looked familiar somehow.  He said “hello Billy.”  Now, Billy was the name I went by when I was a kid.  In my teenage year’s lots of folks started referring to me as Bill Shiver, Jr.  I wasn’t then or have I ever been a Junior.  My Dad was William Henry Shiver and I’m William Burton so I don’t qualify for the Junior tag.  There was only one Bill Shiver and I certainly can’t fill shoes that big.  But, the Bill stuck.  Anytime anyone calls me Billy I figure they knew me way back when.

            This fellow was not very tall and was about as big around as he was tall.  He had a knit cap pulled down over snow white curls.  The cold breeze made his beard wave slightly.

            He said his name was Nick.  When I asked if he lived around here he simply replied, “No, I live north of here.”  I asked what kind of work he did and he said, “I work from home.  You may say it’s a cottage industry.”

            I could tell he hadn’t missed many meals, but I invited him into the house and he saw a platter of peanut butter cookies Matt had just made and he allowed as to having a fondness for milk and cookies.  So, we put away a healthy portion of cookies and milk.

            He saw our little Christmas Tree with just two gifts beneath it.  Matt had bought me a new pair of sneakers and I got her a new bird feeder.  She insisted we wrap them so we could open them Christmas morning.

            Nick then asked if I had been good this year.  I said that at my age what else could I be?  I’m too old to be bad.

            We walked back outside and he said he had to be on his way.  He had a lot of loose ends to tie up and things to do.  I asked if he traveled much and he said only once a year.  Then he just vanished.  I could swear I heard a Ho Ho Ho sound disappearing in the clouds.  Then I woke up.  It had all been a dream.  Yes, fortunately old folks dream too.  We dream about times gone by.  Better times, Happier times.  Cherished times of our youth.  This time of year we often dream of Christmas’s past.  When the tree sparked brightly and the church chimes played carols.  And our stockings were hung by the chimney with care.

            My thanks to Nick and my dream for bringing it all back again.

            Merry Christmas to all…and to all a good night.

            I invite you to visit my new web site at www.billshiver.com. 

The Joomla Core Team and Working Group members are volunteer developers, designers, administrators and managers who have worked together to take Joomla! to new heights in its relatively short life. Joomla! has some wonderfully talented people taking Open Source concepts to the forefront of industry standards. Joomla! 1.5 is a major leap forward and represents the most exciting Joomla! release in the history of the project.