A+couple+of+Hazel's+stories

Hazel was a prolific writer who had many stories and poems published in a variety of magazines and newspapers. The first one below, **//"Time Beats Us All"//** was found on a handwritten piece of paper amongst some old photos. There is also one about her brother Joe reproduced elsewhere in the Anderson Photos section.

//**"TIME BEATS US ALL"**// I have battled with time all my life. As a child I was frequently chasing the clock to be finished with my morning chores so that I would not be late for school. Sad to say, more often than once, Time beat me. My dawdling could not keep up with the clock, neither could my final spurt redeem the wasted minutes, and many an afternoon detention I drew from teachers who apparently did **not** agree with Oscar Wilde that "//Punctuality is the thief of time//"

Years later, it was not dawdling, but pressure of work that caused my downfall. Try as I would, I could not get through all that was expected of me in the allotted time during my early months of nursing; my invariable excuse being "I didn't have time" only to be told, "You must **make** time nurse". Oh, if only I could have done just that. Making Time, however is something none of us can do. we cannot add more seconds to the minute than the sixty that are there. Of course we can make full use of every second, thus instead of idling time away, make time to do things to improve the quality of living, **bu**t, make time last longer so we can do everything we want to do in an hour, we cannot.

As we get older the problem gets worse. Our bodies slacken off, our movements grow slower, and we find we can't do as much in a day in the Autumn and Winter years of our life as we were wont to do in the Spring - yet the same schedule often awaits us. We grow frustrated until we learn to temper our activities to the body's rhythm, and perhaps stretch our mental muscles a little more instead of our physical.

As the years grow shorter, the days become more precious, and, if we are wise, we learn to live each day as it comes, with no regret for the past, and no idle dreaming about tomorrow.

Instead of an enemy, we learn to accept Time as a friend, thankful each morning that another day has been vouchsafed for us. A day which is ours to make beautiful or ugly depending on how we use it. A day when twenty four hours can drag wearily by on leaden feet, or fly so quickly we look back in wonder on the boon it has been.

In the final accounting, if we can truly say with Kipling that we have //"filled each unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run"// we can be assured that we have lived life to the full and more than that we cannot expect. In the end Time may have beaten us, **but**, by using every minute to its fullest capacity we too can claim that **WE** have beaten Time.

The story below was published in the Newcastle Herald on April 16, 1983 and refers to William Stanley Watts.
 * [[image:reflections_1.gif width="800" height="1448"]] || [[image:reflections_2.gif width="720" height="730"]] ||