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[JimDunlop2]

The Kidnapping � Harland�s Story

(From Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story"

Being creative is not an optional �nice to have in your life�; it is a fundamental component to your growth. However, many people experience fear when they come to being creative. They�re afraid to step out, they�re afraid to risk the status quo. Sometimes we have no choice, we have to step out or nothing will change in our lives. They do not know that the ruthless determination and relentless persistence are fundamental life cells in the creative process.

Some people do not experience complete release in the unleashing of their creative genius until it is almost time for them to check out of this world.

Take Harland for example. Picture with me Harland. Harland is lying in the tall grass on a small hill. He is lying there thinking, watching. He has studied the habits of the little red-haired girl and he knew she would come out, outside to play, outside from her grandfathers house about mid-afternoon. Harland lay there, lay there almost hating himself for what he felt he had to do. In his whole miserable messed up life, he had never considered anything as low as what he was going to do, as callous as he was going to do. He was going to kidnap this little girl. Yet here he is lying in the grass, hidden by the trees from the house and waiting for this innocent redhead, two year old girl to come out so he could kidnap her.

It was a long wait and Harland had plenty of time to think. �Maybe I have been in a hurry�, he thought. �Too much of a hurry in my life�, Harland thought to himself. Then he remembered when he was five years old, when his dad had died, he remembered the hardship, the loss, the pain, the tears. He remembered that at the age of fourteen he dropped out of school and hit the road, living off his ability to find part-time jobs on farms and other places along the way as he went along.

He remembered that he hated bring a farmhand. He remembered his attempt to be a street car conductor � he hated that as well. At sixteen he lied about his age and he joined the army � he hated that as well. When his one year enlistment was up he headed for Alabama and tried blacksmithing � he failed at that because he hated that as well. He became a railway locomotive fireman with the Southern Railroad. He liked that job and he thought he had finally found something that he could become very successful at.

At the age of eighteen he got married and within a few months his new bride was pregnant. He remembered that day as though it was yesterday because it was the same day that he got told that he was fired again.

One day while he was out job hunting his wife gave away everything they owned and moved back with her parents on their farm. The timing could not have been worse. The next day the headlines announced the beginning of the great depression. Harland could not win for losing, as the old saying goes. Over the years Harland tried about everything he could to make a living. He had a succession of railroad jobs, he studied law by correspondence. He dropped out after a few months of doing correspondence.

He tried selling insurance � failed. He tried selling tires � failed. He tried running a ferry boat � he was fired. He tried working at a petrol station � fired.

Face it, Harland, in anyone�s book was an unemployable loser.

Now here he was, lying in the long grass on a hill plotting a kidnapping. He sat and watched for several days now and he knew her habits. This day however he failed yet again. Today of all days, the day that he had his courage up to finally do something, she did not come out to play. His chain of failures remained unbroken. Now he could add to his failures his abortive kidnapping attempt.

I know that you are wondering why Harland wanted to kidnap this little girl. In fairness to Harland, the little girl was his daughter and his wife and daughter both came back home the next day.

Harland went on to become the big chief and bottle washer at a little restaurant and they were all very happy. People loved his cooking, and the owners loved having him there. Harland had finally found something that he was very good at and that he wanted to keep doing. He stayed at this job and if was not for the new highway that was built several miles across the way which bypassed the little restaurant, the business would have survived. The business was not the same, customers did not come by anymore. Harland arrived at the twilight of his life just like many other people, with nothing really to show for it. It was not for lack of trying, that�s for sure. He stayed honest except for that one lapse when he went to kidnap the little girl.

He did not feel old until one day he walked out to the letter box to meet the postman and he was given a letter. Harland had put his hand out, he was given a letter, he looked, he saw, it was from the government. He instinctively knew that this was the first of his social security cheques from the government. Harland began to feel something rise up inside of him. He resented what this cheque meant. He did not want anyone feeling sorry for him. True, he had not been the greatest success in life but he did not want anyone to feel sorry for him. He felt that the government was saying to him �You have been at bat so many times Harland, yet you still remain hitless. We think you have had it, we think it is time for you to sit down and stop playing. We will give you this money each month just to help you sit down.�

Harland took that letter and that cheque to the restaurant and told them that he was now 65 years old and that the government thought that it was time for him to hang up his cooking utensils and retire. Well the people that were in the restaurant, the three or four of them, said that they would really miss his cooking and they wished that there was some way that they could keep him around.

All day long Harland thought long and hard about this and he became angrier and angrier as the day went on, so at the end of the day he took that cheque that was for $105 and said that �I�m going to start my own business.� The customers cheered him on and they promised that they would be right there with him and that they would buy his food. Harland, a man who spent his whole life in the batter�s box and not one time really making a hit. Harland, a man who tried everything he could to be a success in his productive years, finally found what he was best at, in his later years.

Harland was a man who refused to quit. Harland was a man who showed ruthless determination and relentless persistence, and Harland was a man who sought to seize every opportunity that ever came his way, even though he failed at almost everything he touched.

Harland, who one day became so consumed with the vision that was inspired by an independent streak that was left in him. Harland who did not really get a start in living his dream until it was almost time for him to stop living.

Harland, who is better known as Colonel Harland Sanders, started his business with his first security cheque, and he called that business Kentucky Fried Chicken.

[Henry_Cowell]

And now -- you all know ... the REST of the story!!

This is Paul Harvey. Good day.

[sallycat]