Christine B's Stories
If I Won Five MILLION Dollars
If I won five million dollars … hmm … I would do nothing.
NOTHING?
Well, nothing for about six months. But first I would give all my family (including my five, eight, eleven and thirteen year old grandchildren) about two thousand dollars each to spend on absolutely anything they would want to buy, without worrying if we can really afford it or if it is really worth the money. I think I could get more fun out of it by watching the grandchildren getting all excited choosing toys or games in the shops as I would spending the money for myself.
The rest of the five millions ($4 980 000, I think) would be invested for six months, so we can plan and daydream about it. After that time, I would pay off all their mortgages and maybe get them all a new car. That would take about one million dollars and bring it down to $3 980 000.
About two million I would like to give to various charities who are involved with research into children's ailments and preventions.
The rest I would like to set up, so that the children would only get about twenty thousand dollars a year to complement their income, rather than encourage them to rely on the handout.
On the other hand, I would give all the money to the person who can come up with a solution to end all the fighting in the world, or the person who can find a cure to all the sickness in the world.
I would … I would… Thank goodness it is just hypothetical. The thought of winning such a big amount of money scares me. I think I might stop buying lottery tickets from now on.
Time Capsule
Dear great great great great grand child,
I am writing you this letter in June of the year 2010. It will be June 2110 when you read this. The world in which we live at the moment is very worried whether we are doing the right thing about the environment. I hope that when you read this letter, somebody had worked out how to keep it in reasonable shape, or you may never read this letter.
I live in the small coastal town of Busselton, about 200 km south of Perth. When I drive to Perth, as I did last weekend, to celebrate the birthdays of my son Robert and my daughter Eva, their 47th and 49th birthday respectively, there is still a lot of open space and bushland on the way. It takes me about two and a half hours to get there on the new Forrest Highway that was opened in September of 2009. Speed limits are from 80 to 110 kmph on the highway. My car is a 2002 4 cylinder Hyundai sedan, which cost me about $15 000.
I am sixty-seven years old and have three children. There is Eva, Robert and also Sylvia who is forty-two years old. I have four grandchildren. Jess, aged thirteen and Gigi, aged eleven, live in Perth while Bailey aged eight and Oliver who is five, live in Carbunup River, about fifteen minutes out of Busselton.
I live in a three bedroom house, about one kilometre inland from the beach at Geographe Bay. The beaches are beautiful, white sand and clear water.
Living in Busselton is quite peaceful, except on long weekends, Easter and Christmas holidays, when there is a constant stream of tourists coming to the south west for holidays.
We have three big supermarkets in town, which are open every day until about 6 p.m. We push trolleys around the aisles to gather our shopping.
Noise, Noise, Nothing but Noise
What is a noise? It can be annoying, or it can be a beautiful sound. Nothing can be more annoying, when you try to go to sleep and the whiny noise of a mosquito makes you get up and get the insect spray. The noise of a bark down the street, a passing car with a souped up motor or a police car on a chase, can also deprive you from getting into dreamland.
Foolishly, I offered to take my two grandsons to a disco at their school. As we arrived we could hear the noise of the music from the car park and I began to regret what I had got myself into. And that I would have to endure for the next two hours. I wished I had brought my earplugs.
But as I sat back, amongst the other parents and grandparents, I began to watch the faces on my grandsons and all their friends. Their eyes were shining, all of them had big grins on their faces as they were trying all the moves they'd seen on TV or from their older siblings. I thought back to when I was young and the fun we had. When they played a song from the times when their parents were young and the kids were asked to dance with some adults, my grandson came and asked me to do the 'Eagle Rock'. I hesitated at first, but he insisted and so we had a dance.
So all of a sudden that noise was not so bad at all and I was glad to be there as the annoying noise turned quite beautiful.