Speech for Larry Sagan's International Hall of Fame

by Hazel Wolf - October 18, 1998

 

Good afternoon all you youngsters.

It is a pleasure to see so many famous people gathered here because I want to talk to you about the bogeyman. Have any of you seen one -- could I have a show of hands?

When I was a very young person there were lots of bogeymen. I suppose there were bogeywomen, too. In those days so long ago when I was five years old the place just swarmed with these meanspirited creatures.

When parents in those days ran out of options to make their kids shape up, when all else failed, they called on the bogeyman. They don't do that much anymore.

Anyway, my parents would say: "If you don't behave yourself there is a bogeyman out on the front porch with a big sack and he will take you away." That always worked until one stormy night.

I do not remember what mischief I had been into, but my parents fell back on the bogeyman with the big sack.

I finally got fed up with this threat -- just couldn't put up with it any longer. Do you know what I did?

I opened the door and the bogeyman wasn't there.

I learned a lesson that night. I learned that the bogeyman is never there and I opened all doors for the rest of my life.

That is all I want to say to you: The bogeyman is never there .....

well, hardly ever.

There are all kinds of things we worry about. Most of them never happen, so why worry about them ahead of time?

The things we worry about usually do not happen. It is the things we don't know are coming that we should be worrying about, but how can we worry about things that we don't know are coming?

I must tell you about two baseball players who worried about whether they played baseball in heaven. So they made an agreement that whoever died first would try to get back and report on whether they played baseball up there.

One died and a couple of weeks later he heard his friend's voice. "It's me, Bill. I have good news and bad news. First the good news: yes, we do play baseball up here. The bad news is that next Friday we have a game scheduled ....

And you're pitching.

(Last updated October 15, 1999)



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