The New Life, Inc.

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  

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 26th, 2009 at 3:08 AM and is filed under Letters To My Children. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.