{"id":160,"date":"2007-01-30T13:56:55","date_gmt":"2007-01-30T13:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/?p=160"},"modified":"2007-02-02T11:54:46","modified_gmt":"2007-02-02T11:54:46","slug":"wizard-of-oz-scarecrow-dorothy-toto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/?p=160","title":{"rendered":"If I Only Had a Brain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many of us remember the delightful scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz<\/strong> movie classic. At first, he was very scary to Dorothy, the young impressionable girl with her canine companion, Toto. The scarecrow was caught up on a post where he just stayed there trying his best to scare things away. He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have very much luck doing that, and he was falling emotionally and personally apart even more each day.<\/p>\n

One of the most memorable scenes in the movie was when he explained that, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153if I only had a brain,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he could do many good things in the world and better at who he was.<\/p>\n

I was reminded of the scarecrow when I had lunch recently with some friends and their son at a gathering.<\/p>\n

I have followed the life of this young man since his youth. He, his parents and my son, Pierce, were friends when we lived in their small community. They still live there even now and I enjoy keeping in touch with them.<\/p>\n

This young man has graduated from college and is working with a law office in town. It was his job to go out to the storage area and get some papers. The unit was used for storing many things, including holiday decorations.<\/p>\n

As he walked into the shed that morning he thought he saw a Halloween scarecrow sitting there in the back of the storage unit on top of some boxes. It was looking straight toward him and appeared to have a stick in its hands.<\/p>\n

He had an eerie feeling about that scarecrow but he knew it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t real so he went on toward the box he needed.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Did that thing move?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He asked himself silently as he thought he saw the stick point toward him in the shadows.<\/p>\n

To his surprise, the stick moved again and it was clearer that it was a shotgun. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s loaded.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said a voice.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

He stood there as motionless as the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153scarecrow\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and they talked to each other for awhile as they both maintained their distance.<\/p>\n

It didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take long to discover that the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153scarecrow\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was a young man that had been missing from his nearby home. Apparently, he had made some bad choices and he left home to avoid getting into trouble.<\/p>\n

As the two conversed, our young friend helped the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153scarecrow\u00e2\u20ac\u009d determine that there were some things he could do that would help in the situation\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6one of which was not to shoot at him but just to understand he was there to do a job and could help him if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d permit it.<\/p>\n

Eventually the frightened youth was able to get home and take care of what he needed to.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, our friend was fine and didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t suffer any wounds from the gun or the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153scarecrow.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Fortunately, this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153scarecrow\u00e2\u20ac\u009d had enough of a brain to realize he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to get in anymore trouble than he was already in. He had simply gone to the shed to hide while he thought about what to do next.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was a scarecrow timeout\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I thought.<\/p>\n

As my young friend relived the event, he said he will likely always remember going into the shed that day.<\/p>\n

Seeing a scarecrow will likely never be quite the same for him I thought.<\/p>\n

My wish for you today<\/strong> is that you use your well developed brain to practice making good decisions and that you do as much good as possible. Just like the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz<\/strong>, you have what it takes to make good decisions and be wise if you practice it daily – but only if you use those mental resources you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve probably had all along.<\/p>\n

~ Joellen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of us remember the delightful scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz movie classic. At first, he was very scary to Dorothy, the young impressionable girl with her canine companion, Toto. The scarecrow was caught up on a post where he just stayed there trying his best to scare things away. He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,22,16,27,31,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-familyfriends-gatherings","category-friendship","category-life-events","category-living-life-to-the-fullest","category-releationships-general","category-teenagers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}