Thought 31JAN2008

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND
When I was working as a disc jockey in Columbus, Ohio, I used to go to University Hospital or Grant Hospital on my way home. I would walk down the corridors and just walk into different people's rooms and read Scripture to them or talk to them. It was a way of forgetting about my problems and being thankful to God for my health. It made a difference in the lives of those I visited. One time it literally saved my life. I was very controversial in radio. I had offended someone in an editorial that I had done about a promoter who was bringing entertainers into town who were not the original members of a particular group. The person I exposed literally took a contract out on me!

One night I was coming home at about two o'clock in the morning. I had just finished working at a night club where I was the emcee. As I began to open my door, a man came out from behind the side of my house and said, "Are you Les Brown?" I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "I need to talk to you. I was sent here to carry out a contract on you." "Me? Why?" I asked. He Said, "Well there's a promoter that's very upset about the money you cost him when you said that the group that was coming to town was not the real group"

"Are you going to do something to me?" I asked. He said, "No," And I didn't want to ask him why because I didn't want him to change his mind! I was just glad! He continued, "My mother was in Grant Hospital and she wrote me about how you came in one day and sat down and talked to her and read Scripture to her. She was so impressed that this morning disc jockey, who didn't know her, came in and did that. She wrote to me about you when I was in the Ohio penitentiary. I was impressed with that and I've always wanted to meet you. When I heard the word out on the street that somebody wanted to knock you off," he said, "I accepted the contract and then told them to leave you alone."
Les Brown - extracted from 'A 2nd helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul' Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, Health Communication, Inc., 1995
The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people - Ashanti of Ghana