A jingle a day - Keeps the jitters away. Or does it? We might try a few - if only for the sake of variety. If we can't put a jingle on paper, let's set our hearts in tune each morning - with a tintinnabulation that makes us, like the sleighs of old, glide along the road of endeavor - instead of plowing along. It's surprising how a song in your heart lightens your daily task. Even the so-called monotones can sing on the inside. Nat Nesbitt used to say, "I'm full of music. I must be, for none of it ever came out." We have learned in our mature years that there is a music not made with instruments nor vocal cords.
Tuesday -
Cleveland will soon become famous
as the city of ignoramuses.
Here we are - still without a daily paper. Pity the brides and debutantes, who have no place to mount their pictures for all the world to see. Pity the advertisers, who may have lost - for awhile - their chief medium of advertising. (Just by way of parenthesis, let me tell you that Sears & Roebuck, of Cleveland, spend about $2000 a day in advertising.) Pity the poor children, who have no funnies to read. Pity everybody but the pressmen, who are among the highest paid in the country. God pity America, who is fast losing her prestige among nations.
Wednesday -
Oh dear, oh dear, that rich meat pie
Makes me look at the world with a jaundiced eye.
But through an unjaundiced ear poured one of the tender stories of this war. It is like a water-lily that rises, unsullied, above the post-war bog. It is the story of a bridegroom who put all wedding-ring-fumblers to shame. Robert Langstaff, 32, of Columbus Junction, IA., practiced and practiced the beautiful little ceremony until he mastered it - with a pair of hooks in place of the hands and arms that were shot away in France. The lovely bride, the former Ruth Spaulding of Anderson, Ind., sent all doubts and fears scurrying for cover when she said, "My husband won't need his arms, for he has mine." As we follow the war stories - of boys who came back sightless or minus an arm or a leg - or both arms and both legs, as in the case of Sergeant Hensel of Corbin, Ky., we learn that the unbeatable combination is a man's own pluck and the love of a good woman, LOVE IS THE GREATEST FORCE IN THE WORLD. "For God so loved the world..."***
Another sweet story, much nearer home, is analogous to the one I have just told you. The story of Lloyd and Maryann Kist has been told once before in the BY-WAYS - on the wedding day of their daughter, Alice. Lloyd lost one eye in a boyhood accident. Now the other is nearly sightless from glaucoma. Glaucoma is a dreadful thing, because it is accompanied by pain. But Lloyd has not for one moment breathed the foul air of defeat. His courage and confidence are so robust and magnetic that the rest of us gravitate toward that home. He has been a real estate and insurance broker since his failing sight forced him to give up his splendid job as advertising manager for a dry-cleaning firm. The seed of success is within his own soul. But his loyal wife, with the sparkling brown eyes and the buoyant spirit, brings that seed to a full-blown flower. Maryann is not only Lloyd's excellent cook and flawless housekeeper, but is also his secretary, chauffeur, and bosom companion. Last Sunday evening, when Estelle and Tommy, Virgil and I sopped in there for advice and inspiration, Maryann confessed to Estelle in an aside, "I'm nuts about him - after 26 years." During the past year this unbeatable team sold 12 houses, that netted them a nice little nugget of $5,850 in commissions, this, in addition to his affluent insurance business. Maryann, who creates her own heaven on earth, never refers to her own share in Lloyd's success. But if she were given to declaration of courage, she would say, "Lloyd does not need his eyes, for he has mine."
Ever yours,
Florence B. Taylor
Next - 2/7/46 - Junior Department. Gladys & Elwood's Wedding
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