Forest City Courier, June 30, 1938
Queen Anne’s lace with its fancy foliage and exquisite lacy blossoms a pest to the farmer and a joy to the flower lover. What would our June brides do without the aid of his beautiful wild flower in making heir bridal altars into a bower of loveliness? Few florists’ arrangements can surpass the beauty and adaptability of this lovely flower for decorative purposes. From Europe it has come to spread its delicate wheels over our summer landscape until whole fields are whitened.
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There was a man of our town,
And he was wondrous wise,
He jumped into a bramble bush,
And scratched out both his eyes.
If we must have poetical associations for every flower and bush Mother Goose furnishes several. As I poured new jelly into jars this morning my mind went back to the days of my childhood when we children went black berrying, Always possessed of a brimming tide of energy we were off early each morning during blackberry time to wander along the creek banks and into the fields to gather the plump juicy berries from off the slender ascending branches. Laughing gaily, and eating all the while, we filled our pails to overflowing, pausing to wade in the cool waters of the creek, or watch the birds fly excitedly about as we passed too near their low-hung nests. As we tip-toed away and watched at a safe distance we saw the mother bird supply these insatiable babies with worms at intervals of every few minutes when the little heads would spring up, with gaping mouths, like Jacks-in-the-box. We no longer go black berrying, or wade in the creek, but about our yards and during our most prosaic occupation, the birds still offer us their companionship. And with its clusters of blossoms and fruits in various stages of green, red and black hanging on the same bush, few a ornaments in Nature’s garden are more decorative than the blackberry bush.
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Ann O’Nym’s “Scattered Leaves” has always held my interest with a good grasp. It is a genuine pleasure to see again another of her delightful compositions in a recent issue of The Courier. I am sure she must be just as good a read-a-louder as she is a writer, too. Reading the lengthy “Gone with the Wind,” aloud to her mother was a good test as well as good practice. Ability to express the thoughts of another so as to hold the attention of the listener is an accomplishment of which anyone may well be proud, and in my opinion confers a benefit upon the reader as well as upon those who listen. Come again, Ann, with another of your inspirational columns. I am very appreciative of your kind approval to my feeble efforts at writing.
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We renovated our son’s room recently while he was away from home on a few days visit. As I put up fresh curtains and hung pictures of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln I wondered, as all mothers do, what the future holds for him. We are all ambitious for our children and should feel thankful that we live in a land where we are bound by no caste rules, where there are no fixed social classes, and where our educational institutions are open to everybody, and where our systems of government makes it more and more possible for a man to come forward by sheer ability. The spirit of ambition is natural to every child born into the world and he or she is entitled to encouragement and help in bringing this ambition to the point of fruition. The true meaning of ambition embraces the steadfast determination and unflagging effort which lead to the achievement of some worthy purpose. There is a famous motto: “Let the highest achievement of yesterday be the starting point of today.” Ambition keeps us constantly pushing forward toward a clearly-visioned goal, ever trying to get ahead of ourselves, surpassing our record of yesterday and not a neighbor’s achievement.
Reprinted with permission from The Daily Courier. Copyright owned by The Daily Courier.
