Diary Pages H

The Stars and Stripes Forever
Key of F       (Sousa-1897)

Chorus 

Hurrah for the flag of the free,
May it wave as our standard forever,
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right.
Let despots remember the day
When our fathers with mighty endeavor,
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray,
That by their might and by their right it waves forever.

A THOUGHT FOR THE YEAR AHEAD 

The things that haven’t been done before,
Those are the things to try.
Columbus dreamed of an unknown shore,
At the rim of the far-flung sky,
And his heart was bold and his faith was strong
As he ventured in dangers new,
And he paid no heed to the jeering throng,
Or the fears of the doubting crew. 

The many will follow the beaten track
With guide posts along the way.
They live, and have for ages back,
With a chart for every day.
Someone has told them it’s safe to go
On the road he has traveled o’er,
And all that they ever strive to know
Are the things that were known before.

The things that haven’t been done before
Are the tasks worthwhile today.
Are you one of the flock that follows,
Or are you one that shall lead the way?
Are you one of the timid souls that quail
At the jeers of the doubting crew,
Or dare you, whether you win or fail,
Strike out for the goal that’s new? 

Russia Atom Explosion Announced By Pres.

President Truman broke the electrifying news in a calmly-worded announcement that U. S. officials “have evidence that within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the U.S.S.R.” 

His brief but epochal statement did not say in so many words that Russia has produced an atomic bomb. 

But scientists and statesmen agreed that it marked the abrupt end of a short-lived era in which this country alone had the power to decide whether the most dreadful weapon in history would be used in warfare. 

Mr. Truman clearly shared this view.  In his report to the American people, delivered after a cabinet meeting, he recalled repeated warnings in the past that the American “monopoly of atomic weapons” could not last. 

“This recent development,” he said, “emphasizes once again the necessity for truly effective and enforceable international control of atomic energy.’ 

Authorities diplomatic quarters said there was no reason to expect that the Russian achievement has made the prospect of war greater or more immediate.
 

External Links referencing script above:

[The Avalon Project: Atomic Explosion in the U.S.S.R. at Yale Law School]
["The Thunderclap" by Time Magazine - Oct. 3, 1949]
 

I got to thinking the Food that I share with others is the Food that nourishes me  The strength that that I spend for others Is the strength that I retain  The Freedom I seek for others Makes me forever free  The pain that I ease in others Shall take away my pain  The load that I lift from others Makes my load disappear – The love that I feel for others comes back, my life to cheer  The path that I walk with others Is the path God walks with me. 

The week after Ota’s Funeral.
 

Willa Dean Spiker provided the following background in reference to the script above.

Ota E. Sheets Zinn was married to Okey Zinn.  She died in 1942

[Send e-mail to Melanie Spiker-Fouse for access to Spiker Family Tree]
 

Just thinking back to about 1910 of cousin Buckner Anna Father Mother and community neighbors, And everybody’s neighbors.  Friendly kind and good.  Helping each other every way.  From seedin time to sawing wood.  That’s the reason every night Just as I went to bed I say a little prayer like this Thanks God for memories. 

Gay 

Down the Valley of memories and Dreams.  Where the Middle Fork River sing in the shadow and the gleams.  Snow in West Virginia but I know Beneath its depth The Johnquills and Daffodills were softly asleep. 

Gay.

“No Better Friend”
By Randolph L. Howard 

“My religion is the best part of what I have to give Burma…I am a farmer plus a preacher of the gospel of Christ, which I think is unique and wonderful.  I believe it is needed to bring the abundant life to the farmers of Burma.” – Brayton C. Case 

Greater Love 

Soon he was with General Stilwell again, with advance units pushing back into Burma’s hills.  A soldier told how he helped war-scattered villagers.  “Case has planted many nurseries where the refugees can get seedlings and so save two months on their new gardens…He will go into the jungle and find the hidden stores of food and talk the owners into sharing with less fortunate neighbors.  He will organize native boat-convoys to carry food to stranded areas, and his true love will be to start the gardens to growing again,” 

On July 14, 1944, as he was traveling on Indawgyi Lake, the boat overturned, and he was drowned.  And the soldier wrote”  “Mr. Case is a symbol that must remind us of the Christ.  Money or praise could mean nothing to him.  He is a big man, strong as an ox, and a fighter as intense as any who carry guns”…And later, “drowned because he couldn’t wait for the end of the monsoon before trying to take food and seed to his hungry people.”

Greater love hath no man that this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.  (John 15:13)

Published by the
COUNCIL ON FINANCE AND PROMOTION of the NORTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION

For the
American Baptist Foreign Mission Society
Woman’s American Baptist Foreign Mission Society
152 Madison Avenue New York 16, N. Y. 

Gleaner
By Ethel Hope Hodson 

She gathers joy from little things –
A whistling boy; the whir of wings
As birds fly past the windowpane;
A sky o’ercast, presaging rain;
Or, then again, the setting sun
As it flames when the day is done;
The wind at night that brings perfume
Of flowers at height of summer bloom. 

From little things she gleans content –
The peace that clings when time’s well-spent
In baking bread or planning meals;
In praise oft said, in hopes it heals
Some troubled heart; in kindly smiles;
The thoughtful art of bridging miles
With letters to dear ones afar
To cheer them through each absent hour. 

In these and other happy ways
She garners through the passing days
Things that increase tremendously
The wealth in her heart’s granary.
 

Mother of the Year Stresses Need for Discipline 

Mrs. Helen Gartside Hines of Springfield, Ill., 60-year-old mother of 10 children, who was named 1948’s American Mother of the year by the Golden Rule Foundation, stresses the importance of discipline in the home with a simplicity and conviction that make her comments worth repeating. 

“The best place to teach the great principles of real living is the home,” she says.  “There has been a growing tendency to leave the job to the school and the church, but 25 hours a week in one and two at the most in the other are not going to accomplish the job.  Presumably the other 78 waking hours belong to the home. 

“Children should be taught very early two principles:  Respect for authority, and a consideration for the rights of others.  If they haven’t learned this before they enter our public schools, they are a real discipline problem to their teachers and a menace to other children.

HOW TO LIVE 

“The principal aim of education should be to teach people to live together in pace and harmony.  The problem is how and when to do this.  I am old-fashioned enough to believe that the parents, not the children, should run the home, and that the children should accept the guidance of mature experience until they have learned how to conduct themselves so as to insure their greatest happiness and security. 

Mrs. Hines continues:  “There seems to be a decided trend in education to make things easy and enjoyable for our children, rather than a matter of honest-to-goodness hard work in mastering an academic subject.  I contend this is not preparation for life.  Life isn’t easy, and hard work never hurt anyone.  If we let our children believe that anything can be accomplished without hard work, we are doing them an injustice. 

“I believe strongly that the children of parents who have strong religious convictions, and are loyal to and active in the church of their faith, have a much better chance for happiness than those from homes where spiritual things have little value. 

“To that end, I believe profoundly in regular attendance upon divine worship.  It presupposes a belief in God, an acknowledgement of our dependence upon Him, and an interest in things of the spirit – all of which are essential for the mother who would influence the lives of her children for noble adulthood.”

TO “DEFEATED MOTHER,” “TRYING HARD,” MRS. D. F.”:  These stirring words should inspire you to greater efforts to train your children, and mitigate the recurring disappointments which all parents experience.  Mrs. Hines should know.  She has served on the school board of her city, does part-time teaching, has written articles on family life.  Her children have gone into nursing, construction, engineering, music, chemistry and education. 

I am all Mothers everywhere… 

I stand now, in a world torn branch from root,
and feel the need to reaffirm my faith
in all I hold most dear,
cling fast to, cherish and protect.
Love of kinfolk, love of home –
Love of treasured, small familiar things –
Yes – and these – and something more besides.
It seems to me I love this world
and all the people in it. 

I love the seeds of life – the kernel things…
…the growing, springing, surging,
tall-reaching need for warm and decent,
kind relationships.
I want a world in which there can,
and some day will be, fellowship –
a kindredness among us all –
so that what I have cherished, long held dear,
and fondly loved, can truly come to pass
for one, for all. 

GARTER & BENDER, INC. PUBLISHERS
104 S. Wabash Avenue, Chicago 5, ILL.
 

DON’T APOLOGIZE!
By Ralph Barton Perry

Author of “Puritanism and Democracy” 

“It is a poor heart that never rejoices.” – Anne Fremantle in “James and Joan”

In recent years, we have, as Americans, become increasingly self-critical.  We have been overtaken with a conviction of sin.  We have converted our heroes into blunderers, our saints into self-seekers, our legends into lies our cheers into sneers.  Ashamed of our reputation for boasting, we have taken to apologizing – to ourselves and all the world.  Let us go back to the root of the matter.  Self-criticism may teach you to measure yourself more severely and more truly.  But it is good to demand more of yourself only if you respond to that demand.  There can be no wholehearted effort without pride – pride in the goal itself, pride in one’s latent power to move forward, and even pride in the attainment. 

We have swung so far towards self-abasement, that we can now recover a right balance of moral force only by a conscious recovery of pride.  I would have every man be proud of what he is – proud of being old if he is old, or of being young if he is young, proud of being American, and above all proud of democracy. 

External Links referencing script above:

[Ralph Barton Perry at Wikipedia]
 

August 7, 1945

WALTER WINCHELL
By Nick Kenny

(Radio Editor and Song Writer)

Ahoy Mates!  This is your Uncle Nick, the old sailor, batting for Walter Winchell, who is probably spending his vacation in the cool depths of the Cub Room of Sherman Billingsley’s Stork Club, far from the maddening throngs at the beaches, gnats and humidity…a smart boy, that Winchell. 

I’ve been writing little rhymes about my daughter Patty, once a week, since the day she was born.  Friends used to laugh at me for it.  Today I have the laugh on them.  Now that Patty is grown-up, almost seventeen, I can still see her as a baby in such poems out of the past as this one:

As long as she can hold my hand
There’s nothing frightens Patty;
She’d brave a lion’s den, I think,
If she could cling to Daddy! 

As long as she can hold my hand
She likes a spooky story…
She’ll hold me tight with all her might
And all is hunky-dory!

As long as she can hold my hand
She goes to school quite willing
And even finds the boogie-man
A personage quite thrilling! 

As long as she can hold my hand
I want no other flower.
For to my hand there clings a bud
That sweetens every hour. 

I take no credit for my writings.  My mother loved poetry and music so much that her five boys and daughter were born with the expression she lacked.  All except Nick could play every musical instrument without taking a lesson.  Nick wrote poems inspired by thoughts that mother said she had before I was born.  This Mother’s Day poem expresses how my mother must have felt when she saw her five sons march off to World War Number One.  Two of them came back. 

Flowers for mother, whose anguish is hidden
While sons march to war – some to far-away graves –
She’d rather they died in the battle for Freedom
Than stay home and live in a world of slaves. 

Flowers for mother – today they are heaping
Honors and praises on mothers of men;
Flowers for mother – perhaps she is sleeping –
Sleeping and dreaming she’s with us again.

Our daily mail is full of inspiration.  A friend wrote asking if we couldn’t get some electric safety razors for a hospital for soldiers blinded in the current war.  “It lifts a blind boy’s morale to be able to shave himself,” he wrote.  We published his letter.  Readers sent in a flood of electric razors, more than enough to equip every blind lad in that hospital.  We turned over the rest to the U.S. Navy for blinded sailors.  Out of that letter came the thought for “There Are No Blind.” 

There are no blind
For friendly voices bridge the dark
And give blind eyes the magic spark
That helps them SEE the singing lark… 

There are no blind
For friendly hands reach through the night
And send the shadows into flight
Flooding the darkest hearts with light…

There are no blind
Not when a pair of loving eyes
Can paint for you the trees and skies
And make earth seem a Paradise…
There are no blind.

Every once in a while we like to knock off what we call a “Futility Poem.”  We take all our futilities and put them on paper and they become realities.  For instance: 

When I was young I used to dream
Of fishing in a woodland stream
And walking through a sylvan glade
With some sweet understanding maid.
I used to long for chicken coops
And wide, old-fashioned country stoops,
“I’ll get a farm” I thought, “Some day
With great big lawns where kids can play.”
It’s Summer now – I’ve got the farm –
My dream place, quaint, and full of charm…
I should be happy but, alas,
I’ve got the farm, but not the gas!
 

External Links referencing script above:

[Walter Winchell at Wikipedia]

The data below is the text printed on the reverse side of the newspaper clipping shown immediately above.  It is being provided for its historical relevance.
 

PERSONALS 

Miss Joan Fowler, daughter of Mrs. Lawrence E. Flower of 253 Magnolia avenue, who has been attending the summer term at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Cincinnati, O., has returned to her home.  Miss Fowler was enrolled in the piano, cello, orchestra and theory classes.

WEST VIRGINIA WAR CASUALTIES 

The Office of War Information yesterday announced the names of Central West Virginia war casualties which included all Navy wounded.  All next of kin have been notified of any change in status. 

Navy Wounded 

Myers, William Harold, Pfc., USMCR.  Parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wirt C. Myers, Jane Lew.
Piperio, Andy, Pfc., USMCR.  Parents, Mr. and Mrs. Sam Piperio, Haywood.
King, Sylvan Glen, Pvt., USMCR.  Wife, Mrs. Thelma M. King, Elkins,
Benda, Michael Daniel, 1^st Lt., USMC.  Parents (xxxxx) John Benda, Flemmington
Pifer, Carrol Joe (xxxxx) USMCR.  Parents, Mr. (xxxxx) L. Pifer, Tunnelton

ANNOUNCEMENT 

Dr. B. J. McWhorter
Naturopathic Physician