Spring at last has come again – With
all it’s showers and spendors,
And with it comes the dear old Sun,
To which the snow surrenders.
Some days it’s warm, some days it’s
cold-Some days the wind is blowing,
It turns round to ‘snowing’.
Thin sheets of ice from here and there
From late at night till morning,
The white frost plays an important
part, without giving heed or warning.
Then come the birds, the pretty birds,
The robins and the blue jays,
Building homes and repairing nests,
On these bright and early spring days.
The farmer now prepares his fields,
For grain, corn and potatoes,
The housewife has her garden,
With its onions, radishes, tomatoes.
So goodby winter, Hello spring,
With your ever changing weather,
We’re glad your back, we’re proud
you’re here, We welcome you together.
This is a poem sent to us by E. H. Tostenson, 3609 24th Ave. S.,
Minneapolis 6, Minn., who wrote it in the Spring of 1920 while in
the Army. We think it tells the story we’re all waiting for
this time of year.
And following is an interesting humorous story sent in by Jim
Todd of 477 Owego St., Painesville, Ohio. He says it was taken from
a letter written to him by a friend who spent a lifetime building
Steam Models.
One day my grandson came to me and said, ‘Grandpa, someday
build me a traction engine because I love them so.’ I said,
‘Alright grandson, someday before I die I will build you a nice
traction engine.’ The boy went out on the back steps for
awhile, then came back and said, ‘Grandpa, you will never die,
you will never rust away, because your hands are full of iron
chips.’ The boy is 10 years old. This seems to fit a lot of us
who are in the hobby end of steam.
We thought a lot of you folks would appreciate that story.
I had a nice letter from Walter B. Clement of Box 104, Clemson,
S.C. and in the letter he states: ‘Traction engines were never
very popular down here, but the portables were quite well liked for
sawmill work, and we have some still in use. I have a 6hp Peerless
Portable which gives me a a great deal of pleasure. The 4 and 6 hp
portables were quite popular years ago for pulling shingle mills.
When I got mine, it had been providing power for a small printing
company in the mountains of North Carolina. The number of this
engine is 3852: I wonder if your readers could shed some light as
to the age of this engine.’ Well, how about it? Can any of you
help Walter?
And another letter from Joe Rhode, R.R. 1, Pine Village,
Indiana, asks: ‘I have been curious for a long time about a
picture on Page 14 of the Sept.-Oct., 1958 ALBUM. The picture shows
a Reeves with the front pedestal under the smokebox instead of
under the boiler as usually found. Now in the Mar.-April issue of
1961 I find another picture of a Reeves with the pedestal under the
smokebox. I never saw one in this community so constructed; nor
have I talked to anyone who could tell me what model of Reeves was
built like those in the two pictures. I hope some Album reader can
tell me why these engines have the pedestal farther out front than
any other Reeves I have ever seen.’ If you have the answer,
please write to Joe and let him know.
And now I can’t help but share my happy occasions with you
folks too -I know some of you like to hear what goes on here in the
household for you have told me that, so I thought I’d tell you
this week our local newspaper carried a story on our older
son’s basketball activities as he came out high scorer in the
Blue Mountain League (or in other words, these are the other school
teams that our school played). But the thing that makes the story
here is that his father did the same thing 26 years ago when he
came out high scorer in the League. I don’t think that happens
too often. Forgive me for beaming, but I do think it was nice.
That’s about it for this time and I hope you all have a
Blessed Easter, and a wonderful Spring and Summer. I know
you’re anxious to get ‘going’ to the Reunions and meet
your friends.
And in closing, I always like to leave you with a few thoughts
to ponder:
There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness – A lot of people
believe in law and order as long as they lay down the law and give
the orders. The trouble with blowing one’s own horn is that it
seldom leaves any wind for climbing Look before you leap and you
won’t limp Too many people cast a stale crust of bread on the
waters and expect chocolate cake in returnIt takes along time to
feather a nest on a wild goose chase – Business is like a bicycle,
when it isn’t moving forward at good speed it wobbles The
trouble with some people is that they won’t admit their faults
(we’d admit ours, if we had any)!
