The story behind climbing Mount Everest for the first time

In the SOWER'S SEEDS, Brian Cavanaugh tells the story of how Edmund Hillary was the first man to climb Mount Everest. On May 29,1953, he scaled the highest mountain then known to man: more than 29,000 feet above sea level. He was knighted for his efforts. He even made American Express card commercials because of it! However, until we read his book, High Adventure, we don't understand that Hillary had to grow into this success. You see, in 1952, he attempted to climb Mount Everest but failed. A few weeks later a group in England asked him to address it's members.

Edmund Hillary walked onstage to a thunderous applause. The audience was recognizing an attempt at greatness, but Hillary saw himself as a failure. He moved away from the microphone and walked to the edge of the platform. He made a fist and pointed at a picture of the mountain. He said in a loud voice, 

" Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I'll beat you the next time because you've grown all you are going to grow... and I'm still growing!"

The girl replied, "I'm drawing God."

A kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they drew ,occasionally walking around to see each child's artwork. As she for  to one little girl who was laboring diligently, she asked what the drawing was.

The girl replied , " I'm drawing God."

The teacher paused and said, " but no one knows what God looks like."

Without missing a beat or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, 

" They will in a minute."

Some time ago in 1899

A giant ship failed. The ship's owners tried one expert after another but none of them could figure out how to fix the engine. Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was young. He carried a large bag of tools with him and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom. Two of the ship's owners were there watching him; hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!

A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars.

"What?!", the owners exclaimed. " he hardly did anything!". So they wrote the old man a note saying, " please send us an itemized bill". The man sent a bill that read 

" tapping with a hammer .........$2.00

  Knowing  where to tap.....$9.998.00"

Is that all it costs to start a university? The question that established Stanford university

Over one hundred years ago a woman wearing a faded gingham dress and her husband dressed in a threadbare suit walked into the outer office of the Harvard university president. The secretary instantly decided that these backwoods had no business at Harvard. She frowned.

" we want to see the president," the man said softly.

"He'll be busy all day," the secrets snapped.

"We'll wait," the woman replied.

For hours the secretary ignored them hoping they'd become gradually discouraged and go away. They didn't. The secretary gradually grew frustrated and finally she decided to disturb the president:"maybe if you just see them for a few minutes, they'll leave," she told him. He sighed and agreed.

The president stern faced and haughty strutted toward the couple. The woman began to speak: " we had a son that attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard and was happy here. About a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him somewhere on campus.

The president wasn't touched. "Madam," he said "we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and then died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery"

"Oh no," she explained quickly. " we don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard."

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and threadbare suit, then exclaimed: " A building! Do you have any idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the buildings at Harvard."

For a moment she was silent. The president was pleased he could get rid of them now. But she turned to her husband and said, " Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we start our own?" Her husband nodded and they left.

The president's face clouded in confusion and bewilderment; Mr. and  Mrs. Leland Stanford walked away and eventually travelled to Palo Alto, California, where they established the university that bears their name -a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.