Another turn of the wheel, another cycle, and here is another New Year coming up. Some of us have been together a good long while in our Household comradeship, though few of us have ever met face to face.
Can you believe it is almost 30 years since "Hope Took the Helm"? In the beginning we had three little tykes around our house, Ruth, Wilbert and Ernest Vail, aged about nine, five and four. Our tagalong Joe wasn't born for several years after that. Many of you had about the same number of children, about the same ages, and many of you had postscript babies, even as we. These children of ours and yours have gone through school, gone through war service, married and had children of their own; and many of you have kept us posited on all these occurrences, with the problems and pleasures that come along with each stage. And now we have nine grand-children -- just about up to the average, according to what we hear from you, though many have out-stripped us in that line. Let's drink a cup of kindness now, for auld lang syne!
We wish you all good fare, good fellowship and good fortune. And may there be goodwill between us all and between the nations of the world this New Year. -- Hope.