By RALPH STONE
MVI columnist
Back in the school year of 1938-39 I was a first-grader at the Iowa Elementary School, the same spot on the corner of Oneida Street and Schoonmaker Avenue where a high rise now stands.
During those exciting formative years, my very favorite part of each day came when Miss Currie, soon to become Mrs. Glenn, read us a favorite fairytale. It did not matter if that story was “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Hansel and Gretel,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Goldilocks,” or any of several other exciting tales, they always began “Once Upon a time” and ended with “They lived happily ever after!” I, like my 20 first-grade counterparts, loved those stories and walked away with some sound moral lessons and positive feelings that good overcomes evil. I love those happy and forever endings and felt certain that my own life story would be one of living happily ever after.
There is, however, one big fallacy to that promise. Happiness does not last forever. It is a fleeting moment at best. We are happy when events go our way and saddened when the reverse is so. Our happiness soars when the person we love says, “I do!” But we are saddened if they say they no longer love us. We are happy if we hit the lottery, but that happiness turns sour if we lose great sums of money.
The first steps of a new baby bring great happiness, but our laughter turns to tears if that child should experience a threatening injury.
In short, happiness comes and goes with our circumstances. We experience those wonderful mountain top moments, but those mountains can topple and dissolve into valleys of sadness and depression.
To read the rest of the story, please see a copy of Thursday’s Mon Valley Independent, call 724-314-0035 to subscribe or subscribe to our online edition at http://monvalleyindependent.com.