From The Mind Of Wag...

Voltaire believed he had seen the beginning of the end. The celebrated French philosopher had spent years criticizing Christianity and challenging the credibility of the Bible. Then, according to the story, he made a bold prediction: “One hundred years from my day, there will not be a Bible on earth except one examined by an antiquarian.” Voltaire died in 1778. Christianity did not. The Bible did not disappear. Instead, the story tells us that something wonderfully ironic happened. Within a few decades of Voltaire’s death, a Bible society purchased his former home and converted it into a warehouse filled with Bibles. Some versions add an even more satisfying detail: The printing press Voltaire had used to attack Christianity was eventually used to print the very book he believed would disappear. The skeptic was gone. His prediction had failed. And his house had become a distribution center for the book he could not destroy. It is the kind of story preachers love. It is tidy. Memorable....

It was her fiftieth birthday. As he had done so many mornings before, her husband brought her breakfast in bed. He had prepared everything himself and arranged it carefully on the tray. But when she looked at the toast, her heart sank. Once again, he had given her the heel of the loaf. The hard, crust-covered piece she had never liked. Of all the days, she had hoped this one might be different. She had hoped that after all their years together, he might finally notice. That on her fiftieth birthday, he might give her one of the soft slices from the middle instead of keeping it for himself. Her disappointment finally broke through. “Why do you always give me the heel?” Her husband looked surprised. Then he answered: “Because it’s my favorite part.” All those years, she had believed he was giving her the piece no one wanted. All those years, he believed he was giving her the best. What she experienced as thoughtlessness had been intended as love. I have always heard the story told that w...

  A railroad bridge operator brought his eight-year-old son to work. His name was John Griffith. His son’s name was Greg. The year was 1937. John operated a massive drawbridge spanning the Mississippi River. When ships needed to pass, he raised the bridge. When trains approached, he lowered it back into place. That afternoon, John raised the bridge and stepped away to eat lunch with his son. Then he heard it. The whistle of the Memphis Express. Four hundred passengers were racing toward an open bridge. John ran to the control room and reached for the lever. But before lowering the bridge, he looked into the enormous gearbox beneath him. Greg had fallen into the gears. John had only seconds to decide. He could leave the bridge open and allow the train to plunge into the river. Or he could pull the lever, close the bridge and crush his son. John buried his face in his arm and pulled the lever. The bridge descended. The train crossed safely. Through tear-filled eyes, John watched the ...

I have listened to Paul Harvey for as long as I can remember. I loved the voice. The timing. The pause before the reveal. He could take an obscure moment from history and make you feel as though you were being entrusted with something the rest of the world had somehow missed. And if Paul Harvey told the story? I believed it. At least, I did until he told me about the bullet that impregnated a seventeen-year-old girl. That was the first time I remember listening and thinking: There is no damn way that happened. The story we heard According to the story, it happened during the Civil War. A young soldier was struck by a Minié ball. The bullet shattered his leg, ricocheted upward and passed through his scrotum, carrying away one of his testicles. At almost precisely the same moment, a seventeen-year-old girl standing near a house behind the battlefield screamed. The same bullet had supposedly continued across the battlefield and entered her abdomen. She survived. Two hundred seventy-eight ...