Sunday morning I was all pumped up to write a serious column. I had all my facts and just needed to tie it all together when I sat down for Sunday evenings writing.

Sunday evening arrives and everything unravels. The story just is not there anymore.

I started to consider something I always said when I was a boy growing up in Oliver. My pet phrase was, “there is nothing to do in my spare time.”

I said that because I didn’t want to do anything in my spare time, at least I didn’t want to do anything organized.
I thought I was having fun just hanging around on the street watching cars go by. At least there were no adults around to make me do things.

It took me years to figure out that the way to have the most fun is to volunteer my time in helping to do projects for other people.

Mixing work and pleasure is one of the best ways to vacation.

I think back about when Wally and Auntie Kay would volunteer for the United Church dinners at Thanksgiving and Christmas. We children would sometimes help set up tables and wash or dry dishes when the meal was in full swing and after dinner, but it didn’t mean the same as it does now.

Today I recognize the value in volunteering in a way that I could not as a child. Today, I see the bigger picture which is something I didn’t know existed then.

Society’s structure was vastly different then from what it is now. Can today’s children value volunteerism or is that something they have to wait for as I did for so many years?

In a nut shell, I had to stop seeing the “me need” and start seeing the “you need”. This revelation began my journey as a volunteer.