Some of you may have seen a recent television interview with Pierre Berton and Al Kapp, that talented humorous man who creates Li'l Abner. During the course of the interview Kapp discussed his "wooden leg". He prefers this earthy term for his artificial limb to those more modern and more socially acceptable terms for such appendages. Kapp related a story of a visit to the lake John Foster Dulles, who was then Secretary of State. Just as he entered the Secretary of States office, his entire lower artificial limb fell apart. He looked back to see the thing sitting in the middle of the floor. Nuts and bolts and straps kept falling out of his vacant pant leg. Kapp clung to another member of the party until they could get some help in putting the limb together again. To Al Kapp, this was one of the most humorous situations of his life. They called for an ambulance to get him to a hospital. He insisted they get a truck to take him to the nearest garage. There is a great lesson here good friends if you will but heed it. We all have difficulties, deficiencies and shortcomings. We all have things with which we must live. When we get to the point where we can LAUGH at these shortcomings, then we have arrived at the point where we can successfully cope with them. I know this is easy to say and hard to do, but Kapp has learned that there is not a single thing he can do about the loss of one leg. For that reason he has accepted the situation. Once that was done, the battle was half over. I had a friend who made his life miserable because he was so ashamed of the fact he was going bald. A very patient and loving wife convinced him, over a period of years, that his lack of hair was attractive. He learned to accept his baldness and today deeply regrets the fact that for so long it robbed him of so much happiness. Regardless of your own shortcomings, remember this. You can live with it…. if you can laugh at it.
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