It was not only in farm life but in the whole world that we saw change during this "Hope Needham era" we're talking about this week. Electricity revolutionized our whole way of life, and now the electronics industry is performing still more wonders. It seems that no age could possibly have seen so much progress in so short a time. With our color TV and transistor radios, does anyone remember the wonder of the old crystal set? Then the progress to the battery radio? We still have marks on the floors where the acid leaked. And the first all-electric radio -- followed so soon by the incredible TV?
I started with Household in August, 1926. Within a year (April, 1927) Lindbergh made the first flight over the Atlantic. We were as excited about that as we were recently when everyone breathlessly watches the launchings of men into space, to orbit the earth.
At this moment we have a vehicle on its way to Mars, and are calm enough about it. We have come to expect wonders as a way of life.
What a pity that we can't be as successful in improving human beings so there will be less crime and murder and war. We seem to be much slower in correcting human emotions than in building machinery. But even in that line we have made more progress than we sometimes think.
Take the Negro question: Results seem slow in coming, but it is something to have the whole nation aware at last of the smoldering resentment of a century or more among that under-privileged part of the poulation. So many of us lived almost a lifetime unaware of the strength and power of that resentment. Progress is slow, to be sure, but truly I believe that it is real and will last. -- Hope Needham.
Friends
When you get on and you've lived a long time
And the walk up stairs is a mighty high climb,
Though your eyes are dimmer than what they were
And the page of a book has a misty blur,
Strange as the case may seem to be,
Then is the time you will clearly see.Often the blindest are youthful eyes,
For age must come ere a man grows wise,
And youth makes much of the mountain peaks,
And the strife for fame and the goal it seeks,
But age sits down with the setting sun
And smiles at the boastful deed it's done.You'll see, as always an old man sees,
That the waves die down with the fading breeze,
That the pomps of life never last for long,
And the great sink back to the common throng,
And you'll understand when the struggle ends,
That the finest gifts of this life are friends.-- Author unknown
Hard to Leave
It's kind of tough to have to leave
So many folks you've learned to know,
And have them grip your hand and tell
How much they hate to see you go!
It's kind of tough to say goodbye
To friends you've seen day after day --
It's hard to break the happy bonds
Of comradeship and move away.But say! It's great to find new friends
Just waiting for a chance to show
Yow glad they are to have you come
And live with them! It's great to know
That folks are just about the same
No matter where you chance to roam,
And if you let them have their way
You'll soon be feeling right at home.So it's a long farewell, old friends.
May God be mighty good to you!
Across the miles and down the years
You'll find my friendship always true.
And now I turn with eager heart
To meet whatever life extends --
To greet the folks that welcome me,
And try to make them all my friends.-- by Lawrence Hawthorne