The New Life, Inc.

My dear Children,

I am in Arcadia Florida.  I just came in from a brisk two-mile walk and I enjoyed it.  It got my blood flowing and made me feel good.  Pauline always gets up earlier than I do.  At seventy-one, she is a pretty busy lady.  She starts off with an hour of exercise and then a two-mile walk.  We don’t often walk together because we walk at different speeds and she often walks with some of her friends of which she has many.

Pauline is more of a people person then I am, she loves to be busy all the time.  She love’s to play games.  I, on the other hand, am not a very good game person.  I like to win all the time and I don’t, so I don’t enjoy it so much.  Pauline enjoys it if she wins or not.  As a result, she plays games every chance she gets.  I only play when I have to.

Now I enjoy working picture puzzles.  I can work on them for hours. Pauline doesn’t like the way I work on them because I put all the edge pieces together first and then I pick some particular object in the puzzle and put that together and so I have several parts I am working on. That is to much disorder for Pauline so she will not do it. She would start in one place and keep building on it till she was done.  So I work on a good puzzle and Pauline plays her games with her several friends and we both enjoy what we are doing.  We are enjoying life and we have stopped robbing one another of enjoyment.  I remember something Donald my brother shared at a meeting many years ago.  It had to do with a bucket of joy.  Whenever your bucket is full of joy there is always someone around that would like to take it from you or kick your bucket over.

Dear children don’t insist that everyone be like you, and you don’t have to be like everyone else. Try to enjoy life to the fullest and don’t hinder someone else from enjoying it.

Several years of our marriage was not very good because we were expecting more from one another than what we had to offer.  One thing I have learned over a long period of time; It takes time to learn to be a good giver and expect nothing back.  It also takes a long time to learn to be a gracious receiver from those that want to give something to you and not get paid for it.  I pray that you will learn this faster then I did.

So many people wanted to help me through the years and I did not know enough to axcept that help.

Why didn’t I accept that help?  I had too much pride!  And I had no reason to be prideful.  I had never done anything to be proud of.

My dear children may the Lord Jesus bless everyone of you with a little humility.

I pray for every one of you every day.

I love you,

Dad

To My Dear Children,

            I was just thinking how much you have to contend with compared with when I grew up. I remember sitting around the table with a kerosene lamp and we had one little bulb hanging from the ceiling for our kitchen light. I expect you know this, but my mother Lena died when I was a child one and a half years old. We lived in Lyndonville Vt. That was in 1930.  Dad worked for the railroad; there was a large railroad center there at that time. They made railroad cars and rebuilt the steam engines. My dad was a machinist, worked rebuilding the steam engines for about thirty years. When my mother died, he moved back to Barton to the old homestead on May Hill. I believe that my Grandfather Henry built that house before he went blind. My grandmather was a full blooded Abenakie Indian from New Hampshire and Maine area.

We moved to Barton and she took care of us five children until she died and my dad traveled back and forth to Lyndonville all those years. When she became old and sick my Aunt Marjorie came and lived with us and took care of us. I remember a lot of good times in that house. Aunt Marjorie could play the piano and we would all gather around that piano and sing a lot of old songs. We all loved it. There was a porch all across the front of the house and we spent a lot of time out on that porch watching the people go by.  To begin with it was mostly horse and wagons and the a few truck and cars. One was a truck that picked up the milk each morning, another was an ice truck that delivered ice to cool the milk cans and to put in our ice box. They would come around about two or three times a week. We lived on a small farm about a mile from the village square.

I remember the town square and a lot of good memories about ice cream and candy and running around having fun with all the other kids. We had a band concert every week and all the folks around would come. Most places they don’t do that any more. We live a second-handed life through someone on TV.

My dear children; you have only one lifetime, don’t be afraid to live it to the fullest. You will encounter a lot of people that have an agenda for your life. Don’t fit into someone’s agenda just to make them feel good. Take a real good look at what you are capable of and go for it.

I want to encourage you to live an active, first-hand life. In this day it is so easy to live someone else’s life instead of your own. I think that every one of us is a lot more capable than we think we are. My prayer is that you will see all of your capabilities and use them to the fullest.

God Bless You,

Your Loving Father