My purse tells a story of its own

Do you remember what was in your grandmother’s purse?

My Grandma’s purse smelled like “Juicy Fruit” gum and there always was at least a stick or two in there for the little kid I was at the time.

I don’t chew the stuff today but if I catch the scent of Juicy Fruit wafting by it takes me way, way back.

By comparison, my purse smells like the old moldy apple I found in the bottomless pit of the thing. 

Remember the old 1970s game show, “Let’s Make a Deal”?

Game show host Monty Hall would walk through the audience and ask people, mainly women, to play for money based on what was in their purse. 

If that show existed today and I was a contestant, I would come out of it a winner, because everything Monty Hall asked for I would have had in my purse—even an old, fuzzy-haired, rotten apple.

And I don’t even like my purse. In fact I loathe the thing. It’s heavier than I am and if I have to show up in public swinging the monstrosity on a strap over my shoulder, I can be assured it will pinch off a nerve and render my arm useless all the way to my fingertips. All I can think about is the packhorses out there that carry burdens like that for a living. Poor souls.

Lao Tzu, a Chinese philosopher from the sixth century, once said: “To handle difficulties, handle them when they are small and just beginning.” 

I should have applied that little piece of advice before I bought a purse and instead used the small pockets of my jeans to stuff the essentials in.

In my grandmother’s era, all she had in her purse were the vitals of life—gum, a wallet, and her car keys.

Today we are convinced that we need a bigger everything and we carry the house inside our purses. Quite frankly, there’s only one place where size matters and it’s not in my handbag.

However much to my chagrin I, too, have become a part of the larger all-in-one purse collective and now I can’t find anything that I put in there.   

I had the bright idea to carry a small safety flashlight in my purse but I hope I never have to find it in a hurry.

When I do dig around in there, thankfully I do find my wallet. 

There also are seven tubes of lipstick and two tubes of sunscreen chap stick, one of which looks like it expired in mid-summer 2014. By my obviously sunburned lips, that’s the one I’ve been using while on my sunny winter excursions.

I found keys on chains for locks I know nothing about, a never-before-seen USB memory stick in a sealed plastic bag, and a compass?

Suddenly I am transported into a movie with a “secret documents” plot.

I was as surprised by the memory stick showing up in my purse as I was when I was raising windows in my car with the automatic button and a plastic gift card for a local restaurant came up from inside the door. Lucky me for once. It had enough money on it to buy me a hamburger.

And just when I thought my purse was empty, I turned it upside down and shook the thing. Out dropped a micro-screwdriver, (used once to fix a pair of expensive sunglasses that the next day were flattened under the wheels of my car after I left them on the hood,) a worry stone (rubbed nearly in half in the weeks leading up to tax time,) a corkscrew, three pen knives, a “Leatherman,” a magnifying glass, dental floss, ear plugs, tooth brush, Band-Aids, a comb, bobby pins, a mirror, sticky notes, hand wipes, all manner of grocery lists, a pair of slippers, batteries, granola bars, and air freshener.

Heck, that’s not a purse. That’s the beginning of supplies for road trip waiting to happen.

Trust me, take a walk

Allan Gurganus is an accomplished American novelist and although I haven’t read any of his books, I came across a quote of his during a recent detective project.

“Know what Sugar? Stories only happen to people who can tell them.”

It resounded with me, although I’d hate to think that what I perceive as my somewhat intimate relationship with endings and struggles in life happens because I am good at writing about all that malarkey.

I’d like to think there is something more valuable to my living my book of life than that.

I have only to look across the room at “Louis” the kitten sitting perilously on the arm of the chair and batting the swing lid on the garbage can with his front paw to know that he easily is a “cat”-alyst for my column.

And the fact that eventually Louis fell in, amidst the freshly filleted skeletons and guts of six crappie I’d caught while ice fishing (with a license limit of 10 for those who are wondering) means the feline medium just garnered a second unintentional paragraph in this column originally dedicated to stories that happen to people who can tell them.

I meant every word I wrote in last week’s column about gratitude and no regret but I will admit that I’ve recently had unexpected visits from “Mr. Mad” and “Mr. Angry.” Thinking too much about what is behind me opens the dungeon door to these unwelcome beings.

Thankfully I rallied to walk a road less travelled by such dark capes. To clear these harbingers I really did take off walking, so mad at first that I could have decked a rogue bear or buck with my “fist held tight” had one crossed my path. 

Before I knew it four miles and one hour had passed and a quieter mind had returned.

I had suffocated the assassins of peace. They could not keep up. They were dragged to their deaths down a paved road.

That happened days and days ago. Now I’m hooked on the endorphins of the daily hour’s ritual and I put in my four miles “just because” and passing by the dried up skeletons of my arch nemeses cast off in the ditch between here and there and home again.

Of course there’s always a test in frustration and patience waiting for me in the form of a cat when I get back from my walk. 

There are any number of scenarios waiting to ambush me, the first of which is usually a heap of throw rugs that the kitten, high on energy drinks or some such, decided were evil monsters and had attacked and rounded them up in the most inconvenient place—jammed in front of the porch door so that I couldn’t open it. 

Try coaxing a cat through a keyhole to come fetch a rug.

Stories only happen to people who can tell them. Right you are Mr. Gurganus.  Just call me “Sugar.”

Sometimes clouds have silver linings

Did you know that the heart of a woman only weighs about eight ounces?

I didn’t.

It wasn’t until I recently checked ‘Google University’ that I learned the facts.

I was sure mine weighed more like 10 lbs—stone heavy and sinkable.

I’ve been away, caring for that part of me.

Thanks in part to my friend Don (who is wise beyond words and who also knows how to put caring words together) I am back, sitting in front of my keyboard.

Don told me to “just start writing,” which if you’ve noticed I haven’t been doing for a few weeks. The empty page syndrome happens to me sometimes, especially when my book of life falls off the shelf and I go underground to my silent place where I spend time picking up my pages.

Eventually I had to come back to the light when I realized, as Don pointed out through Ralph Waldo Emerson that I, too, do not want to have any “unspent youth” left within me when my time is up.

Time to get back on the horse of life and “ride, baby ride.”

My heart is making a come back to her old self again, though when I run my hand over the space she takes up thumping in my chest, I imagine I can feel the small break lines that have been opened up on her surface.

But these aren’t wounds. They’re channels where new life lessons and gratitude can flow in and take their turn helping with growth.

Thanks to Don’s reflections, I also have added a new book to my reading list—“No Ordinary Moments,” written by Dan Millman. It will be really good stuff.

The first book I read as I was growing up and into a conscious human being was “The Road Less Travelled” by M. Scott Peck. I was 18 years old at the time, the book had just been published and it had a big impact on me.

Peck began the book with the sentence, “Life is difficult.” He went on to explain that once we truly understand and accept this great truth, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

I’ve never forgotten that first read and yet I’ve sometimes forgotten that it is true.

And I’ve more or less tried to live by Peck’s “Road Less Travelled” principles throughout my life, but that doesn’t mean—as I am reminded—that everything along the road is simple to learn or to accept.

Simple is what my new kitten’s view on life is like—and I’m taking notes.  Eat, sleep, take a run up the kitchen curtains and back down again, and then cuff the stuffing out of a toy mouse and then toss it into the owner’s boot when she’s not looking.

What a way to re-focus on the present moment when I put my foot into my boot at 8 a.m. and feel a furry under my toes. Simply a laughable moment (after the squeal.)

This much I know is true for me. Everything happens for a reason and I would not trade one moment of my most recent journey for a different story. I have had the adventure of a lifetime and I loved every minute of it.

And yes Don, bless your heart, life does go on. Stay tuned!  

No theme weaves a grateful path

I have nothing to say—at least that is what I’m typing at this very moment. 

A wise editor once said to me, “Write about the most important thing first.”

I heed his wisdom.

I have nothing important to write about.

My excuses for said nothingness, pathetic at best, are piled up and stuck to each other like the anti-inflammatory medicine capsules I accidentally knocked into the kitchen sink, slick-wet from a wash of dinner dishes.

The gelatin skins, once independent and full of joint pain relief, conjoin and morph into an orangey-white sludge worse than melted creamsicles. 

I manage to save one or two pills and set them aside with intention. I then forget about them until weeks later when I find them covered in dust just like all the hours in the last week that I’d planned to set aside to write.

The next budding column’s theme eludes me.

Deep down in the heel of my winter boot, it is wedged underneath the orthotic insole, seated in glue slapped in there by an underpaid shoe factory laborer from a third world country, who was thinking about how many other jobs he could take on to make ends meet while building my footwear on a hot and sticky humid-thick Sunday afternoon, that also was his wife’s birthday.

Once again, I wait to the last possible hour to compile my thoughts and the last possible minute to write them down.

It’s a time when the people with true intention, who completed their goals well before deadline, have showered and crawled snugly into their electric blanket laden beds.

I pour over the chicken scratch notes on ideas for this column. Oh, the computer memory I have sacrificed for these ideas and yet nothing in them strikes me to task.

The clock ticks on and it’s cold outside.

After fidgeting like a six-year-old I drag my creative side kicking and screaming from inside myself, out through the ends of my fingers and reach for the last eight squares of fruit and nut infused chocolate sitting on my desk. It’s nearly 9 p.m. and eating chocolate at this hour is sure defeat of a good night’s rest.

And just as I was filling my diet quota with the last two morsels, I hear a voice on the radio say, “And how was your Blue Monday? Did you feel like the rest of us today? Did you feel like you’d hit rock bottom, cold, miserable, in debt, out of shape, and feeling like a loser because you’d flushed your willpower from the New Year down the loo?”

Suddenly I had my theme.

Cookies baking in the kitchen, tea with my dad, a swift winter’s sprint down the frozen creek in the sunshine of a Sunday afternoon, the soft light at my parents’ house down the way, a kiss for someone special whom I hadn’t seen in nearly a week, a laugh with a grandchild, a connection, a hearty meal, gratitude—lots of gratitude.

Sometimes I forget how good I have it.

Where I am with all that

Honestly this has been the best, most genuinely “soul filled with peace” holiday season I have had in years.

I didn’t mope about my past, I didn’t pick apart my present day, and I didn’t fret about my future. I quite simply was “right here, right now.”

I won’t be able to express within the confines of the English language how much acceptance is in my heart. And if I had feathered wings I would fly.

I have gunned for the bright side through counseling with gurus and reading self-help books, and writing positive affirmations to launch me forward. I’ve fallen short, pressed on, gained ground, lost a shoe, found it, lost my flashlight, and so on.

And then in a moment of grace in late November a simple yet profound conversation with a very special friend transformed me while driving on a highway in the middle of the afternoon. It changed me inside once and for all. It changed me forever. I know this to my core.

Most of all it transformed me out of dread of the holidays, which have for various reasons over the past four or five years been a dark and melancholy time.

I just knew in that moment on the long drive to where we were going that everything I’d been through had finally come to rest in a good and quiet place.

It was like I turned off a switch and turned on another and there was no need to go back in that room again.

This is not to say I won’t make new resolutions and then regret it after I eat more pizza than I should, or that I won’t kick myself in the shin for—after the pizza binge--consuming the last two chocolate bars left over in the cupboard from my holiday stash.

I will make my promise list for 2015 that will no doubt include getting more exercise, eating regularly and with health paramount, saving more money, and practicing anger management when I find another nesting hole in a box.

I will make good on my list and I will not. I’m teetering right now, having just eaten a second butter tart after I vowed to give the last three to my dad.

I will for sure make good on that squirrel, whose menacing carcass is still on the loose in my garage, having found its way into boxes of old dishes and, yes, into another sleeping bag I had missed when I raided the shelves of all manner of possible rodent attractions.

Who knew one sleeping bag held that much white fluffy insulation?

Who knew a squirrel could shred that stuff into such a high volume disaster, now strewn all over the garage floor when, in momentary madness I channeled my inner child tantrum and flung fuzz everywhere in another attempt to thwart my nemesis.

Hans Christian Anderson once penned, “Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”

I think I’m there.

I sure could use a live trap though.

Young at heart key in 2015

It never crossed my mind how much I would treasure peace and quiet until I looked across the room just now and realized the kitten was fast asleep. Asleep instead of tearing around the house strafing curtains and racing up the back of my reading chair only to launch itself into the bookcase.

Of late around here it’s been a crazy cross between the inside of a pinball machine with the steel ball ricocheting from one corner to the another and energy bursts that rival the speed of particles inside the “Large Hadron Collider” near Geneva, Switzerland.

And oh yes, “Lucy” is now “Louie,” after it was discovered that the kitten I thought was a female was indeed born with the family jewels.

I also think Louie was reincarnated from an ace hockey player, given the precise aim on that leftie kitten paw that can shoot a stuffed mouse through the middle of a cardboard ribbon holder, and into a bag of gift bows that was on the floor as I wrapped Christmas gifts this past week. 

The kitten then “cat”-apulted into the bag after it’s toy, exploding all manner of red and green bows everywhere.

I admit a small twinge of payback pleasure when I saw the bug-eyed look of panic in the kitten’s eyes on Christmas Day when the kitchen door opened and all six of my grandchildren burst into the room like the break after the eight-ball.

Jolted from its cat nap with a look of shock, Louie’s escape route was all but thwarted by very excited little people who scurried after a furry tail that raced to disappear in the bedroom and under the bed.

It wasn’t long before one of the children returned with the kitten, holding it like a squeeze toy. I stepped in to dispel the over-loving with a reminder of presents under the Christmas tree, liberating Louie from the clutches of a child. 

The kitten leapt into my arms with gusto, meowing a promise of good behavior for having saved its life.

For the rest of the day everyone observed how docile and well behaved the kitten was, as it lay prone just out of reach of small eager hands. His mask came off five minutes after the children left the house for home on Christmas evening.

Youth—all manner of it—is so very refreshing.

That is my goal for the coming year—to remain youthful in my attitude towards life.

2015 sounds like a youthful, healthy number—one full of fun and adventure and opportunity and possibilities—endless possibilities. I’m all for that.

Go forward. Stay wide open to change. Upset convention. Expect joy.

Happy New Year to you!

Memories keep the magic alive

“What if I choose not to believe?”

It’s a line from one of my favorite movies of the holiday season, “The Santa Claus.”

I’ve always believed in the power of mystery and magic.

I have of course mailed letters to Santa for my children when they were small and I’ve been known to mail a “Dear Santa” letter written solely from me.

I’ve put down on paper all my wishes for the Christmas season, folded the letter into an envelope and addressed it to “Santa Claus, North Pole, Canada.” (After all, he does live in Canada, right?)

Santa writes back. A “Dearest Beth” letter back to me, stamped and postmarked from the North Pole with a handwritten acknowledgment of my wishes. He told me in that letter he would do his best to help those wishes come true.

Getting that letter was more enriching for my grown up soul than a front row seat at a Mark Nepo workshop, although I haven’t yet had that experience. It’s still on my bucket list.

The older I get the more I understand that attitude really is everything. Believe me when I say I know what I’m talking about. But then again, you will figure that out—or not—all on your own, just the way it is meant to be for you in your own life. That’s the beauty of the mystery and the magic.

Pay attention to the magic of life.

One of my very favorite stories about the magic is encapsulated in a memory of when I was sitting in a local restaurant enjoying a Reuben sandwich. Long chewy strands of sauerkraut hung from my lips as the woman approached my table, where I sat with one of my grandchildren.

The little person of my heart was busy dipping a French fry repeatedly in ketchup and licking off the red glob.

We’d been talking about letters to Santa Claus and the excitement of waking up on Christmas morning to find our stockings filled with candies and other delights. The little person of my heart was explaining to me how Santa managed to fit himself into each house—even the ones that didn’t have chimneys.

My sandwich was warm and my attention was focused on how good it tasted and on listening to the conversation that revolved around the magic of Santa.

The woman stopped at our table. I looked up at her standing over me and, feeling a piece of sauerkraut dangling from my lip, pushed it in with my finger as she promptly put her hand on the top of my shoulder.

This woman, with tousled gray-hair and dressed in sweat pants and a big overcoat was a complete stranger.

I’m not normally easily startled and initially I wasn’t in that moment, until I felt her fingers apply what I can only term as a direct and clamping pressure to the muscles near my neck where she had touched me.

I know my eyebrows rose. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t have time.

She looked directly into my eyes with palpable urgency and without blinking said, “There is no choice you've ever made, nor any you will ever make, that will limit you as much as you may fear. Get the mud out of your wings. Do it now.”

And then she let go of me, turned and walked out of the restaurant.

My grandchild hadn’t stopped poking the French fry in ketchup during that few seconds of mysterious intervention. I, on the other hand, had to reach up and catch my dropped jaw before the masticated sauerkraut tumbled out of my mouth onto my plate.

The little person of my heart licked off another red glob and said most confidently, “I’ve seen your wings Granny and they aren’t muddy. You just have to believe you can fly and then leap, like I do.”

There is a quote by an unknown sage that reads,” The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle, which is exactly what it is—a miracle and unrepeatable.”

That’s the truth.

The young have much to teach me

As I watched the thing jettison across my kitchen floor and catapult into the spare room, it reminded me of the “Tasmanian Devil” of the ‘Looney Tunes’ series I used to watch on television when I was 12 years old.

And then the fur ball ricocheted back into the kitchen and leapt onto a kitchen chair and launched itself through the swing lid of the garbage can.

Hind legs and a tail stuck out of the can as the thing clung to the bag inside having caught itself mid-hurl when it realized the yucky fate at the bottom of the can.

My outburst of laughter was meant to balance sheer hilarity with the sudden realization of “What was I thinking?” when I decided to get a kitten just because I wanted to give an old cat something new to play with.

The new kitten had been in the house but two hours and already I was kicking myself for listening to my heart instead of my head.

But what else is new. I am forever listening to my heart and putting out “Missing Person” ads for my head, hopelessly lost in the greatest battle ever known to womankind and animal lovers. 

And then there was “Millie,” a 14-year-old matriarch feline well beyond change. When that little kitten entered the house for the first time, Millie’s jaws opened to reveal a second row of teeth I have never seen. Her eyes turned black and she spewed out a guttural bemoaning with bodily contortions the likes of which I never want to witness again.

I nearly called an exorcist.

But my optimistic “cat cohabitation side” persuaded me to wait it out, and in fact things have improved in the days since “Lucy” entered the picture.

Millie no longer contorts, but has mastered the “flat stare of impending death” and a motionless hierarchal statuesque embodiment of a cat ancestor from ancient Egypt.

Nonetheless Lucy has brought a refreshing young spirited flow to my neck of the woods. Curiously this small ball of fur teaches the lessons of moment to moment living as it scampers after the catnip mouse and then plunks itself prone on the floor for a nap, only to awaken 15 minutes later for a pounce and a leap up the new curtains in the living room.

And if the lessons about enjoying the moment aren’t apparent enough for me through the “here and now” of a kitten, I can dwell on the quotable indelible words of my grandson who’d impressed me enough when he said all he wanted for Christmas was to spend time with his family.

Then from the back seat of my car last week he said (without an iota of persuasion) after listening to his favorite song “Hey Brother” by Avicii on my car stereo—“That song fills my mind and empties it of all the things I did in school today.”

Ben is six years old. 

Making happy a place called home

“Read many books.”

My history teacher in high school said those three words every time we left his class.

It’s crowding 38 years since I last walked past that teacher flashing his white-toothed smile and chanting his literary mantra to the group filing out of his classroom.

“Read many books” made me chuckle this morning when I looked at the pile of ongoing novels I have on the table by my reading chair.

I have four books (not including my daily “Letting Go” series) that I pour over for that precious quiet time with my cups of coffee in the wee hours of my waking day.

The little pile of reads that share my chair include a western frontier saga called the “Sisters Brothers” by Patrick DeWitt, Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” and of course my sunny read, “The Alchemist” which continues to show me the way to my own heart.

I’ve also added a 222-page marvel to the mix penned by Gretchen Rubin and entitled, “Happier at Home.” 

Happier at home. I’m not quite there yet.

I still work at being okay with living alone and anything I can do to help me find the gratitude within the little cubicle in my neck of the woods is worth my time.

As the matter of fact, today it was all I could do to get here after work without speeding, smoking a stop sign, or taking out a bridge railing.

Happier at home indeed.

All I could think about was that I had furnace, which was a marvel of invention I had gone without all day while at work. The office was a balmy 9C when we walked in at 8:30 a.m. and never inched up, leaving us clad in winter boots, mitts, and coats for our eight-hour stint.

I didn’t even have to put my sandwich in the lunchroom fridge. It was fine where it sat on my desk, right next to the glass of water that still had an ice cube in it at 4:30 p.m.

I was half way home before I realized I had turned the house thermostat down to 12C when I left this morning because I’m a cheapskate and didn’t want to waste energy.

I had to wear my earmuffs for a half hour after I turned up the thermostat before the house kicked out enough heat so that I couldn’t see my own breath.

And it was a challenge right out of a “Survivor” series when I attempted to change out of my work clothes and into the casual stuff hanging on the hook in the bathroom.

Standing outside an ice cave buck-naked would have been easier than putting a frozen pair of sweats and an ice-cold sweater on my already rigor carcass.

“Happier at home!” I belted out loud as I suffered tortuously through the changeover.

And then I practiced what I am preached.

I turned on the music and turned up the speakers and slinked around my living room to my new favorite tune, “Classic” by MKTO.

Yep, I danced my heart out. 

Happier at home indeed.

When I listen, I learn

Charles Schulz penned, “Life is like a ten speed bike, most of us have gears we never use.”

I recently came across this quote in my stash of philosophies and low and behold it got inside my head and begged me to answer the question;

“Which gears in my life do I never use?”

I’d like to think I use all of life’s gears and that I never miss a step and that that is why I often feel like a gerbil running 24-7 on an exercise wheel.

Remarkably, I once again find myself so far out in left field with that sort of thinking that I suspect the only way I’m going to get back to first base is with a simple and direct instruction manual called “Life Gears for Dummies,” for which I am the perfect storybook character.

I know there are many gears in my life I don’t use enough, though none come to mind as I fold laundry with one hand, flip an egg in the cast iron pan with the other, type these words, and clean the toilet all at the same time.

Mark Nepo, a philosopher I highly respect, states “authenticity, the experience of truth, is our richest food and that without it we will freeze to death.”

It seems of late I have dwelled on those words too.

I don’t use my authenticity gear enough.

Sure, I give an authentic face to my relationships with my friends. Who they see is who I am. I don’t wear a mask nor do I pretend to be someone I am not.

But if I’m headed up “Honest Street” I’d have to admit I often ignore the heart of the woman I see in the mirror every morning—me. I don’t listen to my own truth.

In fact, I was pretty sure my personal authenticity and most assuredly my intuition gear were about to jump ship because I’d been fighting them so long in my Olympic “head versus heart way” that they were growing impatient with me.

But I was wrong.

I only can speak for myself when I say I think this soul bodyguard called intuition is at work in all my life in magical countless ways. 

This sage is, I believe, part of a very, very patient Universal Plan because when I do not follow my intuition, it just hangs around in the corners of my life while I peddle the wheel, until the next best opportunity arises in which to whisper to me again.

That whisper begs to be heard and stands out from reason and logic. Some things are true whether I believe them or not. Intuition is one of those things.

I have not yet done what it is I have been put here to do. This I know for sure and I know for sure what that thing is.

The Universe has whispered this to me in countless ways through people, places, and things since I was a young girl and still I have turned my heart away.

And then I walked into a bookstore in the city to kill some time. I wasn’t looking for it but I was quiet enough to hear it. That little whisper made me look down at a little orange, sunshine-embossed paperback by Paulo Coelho called “The Alchemist.”

Right place, right moment. Write on.

Remember those who fought the fight

My grandfather John Murdock Caldwell joined the 35^th Battery of the Canadian Field Artillery on February 26, 1916. He was 19.

He was among the survivors of the Great War who returned home to family.

Grampa Caldwell passed away in the early 1970s when I was a teenager. Lucky me to have had him in my young life, where he made me feel very special and very loved.

I never asked him about his service in WW1, but over the years I have been fortunate to acquire some valuable keepsakes from that time in his life, including poems in which he laid out the reality of war.

I am drawn most often to the poem he entitled, “I Wonder,” which I believe he penned years afterwards, perhaps while sitting comfortably in an old chair by the fireplace in his southern Ontario home while his children, including my dad, played at his feet.

The poem is three pages long, written in black fountain pen ink and full of sad and wandering memories that include:

I wonder, Oh a thousand things whenever I’m alone,

About the days spent over there from Calais to Cologne

Across the years that intervene comes memory as a guide

And once again I’m on the march, ghost comrades at my side

I wonder do the roses climb the walls of Vlamertinghe

Are ruddy poppies growing in the fields of Elverdinge

Do nights at Hell Fire Corner ever give a hint or sign

Of the many lads who fell there as they foot slogged up the line

I wonder if the children romp their happy way to school

Along those often shelled paves we trod affront Bailene

And does some happy peasant sing atop his creaking load

Where bullets used to whistle out along the Vierstraat Road  . . . .

On March 31, 1939 one of Grampa’s war comrades wrote him a letter and enclosed a dozen or so poems he also had written about their experience in World War One. 

The letter includes a paragraph that I think applies even today, which makes me very sad and very ashamed of this world in mayhem.

John, one thing I do find rather interesting now is to see how we did feel about the last war. How it was to bring peace to the world and straighten out so many of the difficulties that exist then. Poor fools! World affairs then were a picnic compared to the mess they are in today.

Douglas wrote well. Perhaps his best poem was about playing the game of life. Heaven knows those war time boys learned quickly about the value and quality of their living. 

Three of the six verses include:

Have you played the game, as you should today?

Does the record you've made run high?

Have you put every ounce of you into the fight that you can put in, if you try?

What if sometimes the fight seems hard?

Each fall is not a knockout blow!

Just pick yourself up and get at it again,

That’s the way that champions grow.

Why! Life is only one great big game,

--But the greatest game of all--

And those who went out in the grueling test

Have felt fall many a fall.

  

May we remember them.