My Dear Children,
It is a nice warm evening here in Arcadia Florida and we will be leaving to head north in two weeks. We shared a pizza for dinner with Chris and Elaine they will be leaving on the seventeenth. I am getting a little restless to be on the road again.
I was sitting here thinking about my childhood. Now I realize that many folks considered us poor folks but as I look back I never thought I was poor. We always had food on the table, heat in the winter, cloths to cover our body, a good house to live in and a nice loving family. We had Aunt Mary and Uncle Charley next house down the road and we were always welcome there. I used to stop there often. They had a big round stove in the middle of the living room that was higher than my head and it was always so warm and comfortable as long as you didn’t get to close. I remember the pantry, a little narrow room with a long narrow sink a hand pump on one end and on the other end was a pipe sticking out of the wall where the water ran continually. There was a rag hanging from the pipe that kept the water from splashing. There was also a bucket with a long handle cup that everybody drank from. Today that would be a no-no for sure. They had to keep the water running all the time because it came from a spring and if they shut it off in winter it would freeze and in the summer it would become air bound. This was the good old days and it was a blessing to have running water and not have to prime and pump all the time.
Another thing I remember about their home was a barn about a hundred feet away and that is where the toilet was. You had to go up to the barn and in one corner a little room with a two holes in it and the wind would blow right up those holes. There were covers for the holes but you had to lift upone of the covers to use it. If I remember right there was big hole and small hole and a catalog hanging there with half the pages torn out. I used the small hole because I did not want to fall down through that big hole.
Aunt Mary made the best cookies so every time I went by I made it a point of seeing if she had any extras and she always seemed to have some. I know some people thought we were poor because we didn’t have much money. It is not money that makes you rich! A lot of rich people are poor and they don’t even know it! The things that really make you rich you can’t buy with money.
My dear children do not think for a moment that money will make you rich, that is a lie. Money is only a commodity to use and if it is not used it is worthless. If money gets the upper hand in your life then it will own you and drive you to make more and more and more and you will become poorer and poorer. We have never had a lot of money but we are rich and I can’t say we have ever gone lacking. Some would look at us and say, “You are failures!” I don’t think so. I think we are successful. I remember one night at a prayer meeting and the group wanted to pray for us and we agreed. They gathered around us and laid hands on us for a blessing and someone asked, “What are your needs?” Pauline and I looked at one another and realized we didn’t have any needs, maybe a few wants but no needs because we are rich and lacking nothing.
My dear children I pray that you will see clearly what is poverty is and what riches are. Up there on May hill in Barton Vermont, we were rich.
Your Loving Father