Show a n n A CP vol HOMER ER 8 C roy e C a mol 1 P A K k SERVICE THE STORY TITUS THUS FAR amos croy and his wife titled settled on a farm in mis bills where homer was born nomer homer was the first croy to go to bl high gb school and college in new york he be worked on a magazine wrote a novel and it a play a dealer training film aim and published a magazine lor for authors which he be sold at a profit visits to the farm since the death of 0 his lather father and mother showed him how much everything was changing even his farm manager now owned a bor horseless seless carriage lie ile still loved the place but would not settle there as he be knew his wile wife and daughter were too city bred to enjoy the missouri farm life lie he was determined however to keep the I 1 lana arm as he had bad promised CHAPTER MW on one of the these se trips I 1 was told that newt kennedy was sick and wanted to see me his hands were on the outside of the covers those great hands that had tamed so many wild mules but now the joints were knobby and the flesh wasted away between them and his eyes that had twinkled so many times were sunken and hollow I 1 sat down beside him deeply affected after a while the paid woman who was waiting on him left the room and he and I 1 were alone together the years slipped away we were back on adjoining farms 1 I spoke of the captured weasel but he had forgotten it but he forgotten breaking the mules he laughed then had to cough this giant this strongest man in the neighborhood this man who got so much fun out of living this boyhood hero his voice grew weak for I 1 stayed too long living over the old days finally the paid woman came in III but newt still had a message we had lots of fun we he whispered for his voice was about gone we did I 1 said it was the last time I 1 ever saw him but I 1 will remember him all my life newt kennedy the man who taught me to have fun sometimes I 1 ask myself what are the best ideas ive got out of life sometimes I 1 am saddened by how few they are but as I 1 look back I 1 realize that certain ideas have helped me I 1 am a bit shocked by how few are religious at least religious in the accepted sense I 1 think the first helpful idea I 1 had was how deeply absorbed each person is in himself and how important each person is to himself I 1 realize this is almott almost self evident but I 1 did not discover it for a long time and when I 1 did discover it it opened up a new world of understanding it made me expect less of people and it taught me not to be disappointed when they seemed indifferent or neglectful even cruel it has helped me in making and keeping friends for when friends have wounded me I 1 have realized it was because they were thinking of themselves and not of me and I 1 have forgiven them and made allowances ive learned that the way to understand der stand others is to study myself for or I 1 have found that im a little of every person ive ever known when I 1 am prone to condemn another I 1 try to stop and say well if I 1 had been surrounded by the same influences and hedged about by the same conditions I 1 would have probably ilone done as he did I 1 suppose it gets down to the ability to make allowances and that is what I 1 try to do but sometimes I 1 find myself flying into a person or into a situation as if I 1 learned anything at all its pretty discouraging ive learned how many people suffer from an inferiority complex and ive learned to deal gently with them this is especially true on a first meeting when people are cold or indifferent or aloof or inimical I 1 say to myself its the old inferiority complex at its work I 1 must make allowances he may be a pretty good person after all its surprising how many arel are I 1 ive learned that most people away down inside often teel feel dismally alone and inadequate and are haunted by frustration and the conviction that the world is too much for them and realizing this from reading my own secret heart I 1 try to be a little more gentle and a little more considerate ive learned that when two persons meet they at once begin the process of trying to impress each other each tries to show how important he himself is this comes out ut in a thousand ways by sly indications icat ions of how much money he has or how much he has traveled or how important his friends are I 1 watch this in others with a sort of knowing smile to myself yet pretty soon I 1 catch myself busy at the old game of trying to impress the other person my passing years have taught me the folly of trying to change people people it seems to me are born with certain traits trait and predilections ind find you can no more change these traits than you can change the length of dt their fingers it seems to me that you must either accept a person for what he is or pass him up fri there is no middle ground ive learned to be tolerant of other peoples ideas and beliefs and ways of at life sometimes Sometime sp later to my astonishment ive found myself ac epting the very beliefs I 1 once thought were crackpot then I 1 won ler jer why other people pl ople got gumption ump tion enough to take them up ive learned when im aged and at the bottom of the trough not to make decisions at night when fatigue and weariness are heavy upon me I 1 say to myself then well things are pretty black but ill get a good nights sleep and see how they are in the morning thus in the morning and with my vitality at its full im able to cope with situations that the night before had all but done for me I 1 do not know exactly when or how I 1 got the following idea but I 1 do know it has helped me in understanding people and in getting along with them and that is every person berson wants to be considered important sometimes I 1 think this one of the deepest cravings clavings cravi planted in a human being once I 1 got this idea I 1 could see it working itself out in a thousand ways I 1 learned to let the other person exert his desire to be considered important and to suppress my own I 1 made the other person the star of the show and talked about him and his desires and his views and said little about my own the effect was almost mi ra culous for no one in the world can resist the appeal of being the center of attention it comes to me easily to make the other person the hero for his adventures and his views interest me tremendously my own are an old story I 1 have learned to be considerate of people for life has taught me that most people most of the time are discouraged and carry on their shoulders a whole bag of troubles I 1 cant see along with this I 1 have discovered how deeply people want praise and how much good it does them and so I 1 have learned to give praise more readily than I 1 did during my younger years when I 1 saw somebody then who deserved praise I 1 took it as a matter of course and said nothing now I 1 arn am more generous with my approval but it must be honest approval or otherwise I 1 would not be deceitful enough to give it nor would it be worth receiving sometimes it goes straight to my heart to see what wonders a bit of praise will accomplish another lesson I 1 learned is that one must not be too sensitive a soul in my early days I 1 was constantly receiving rebuffs and arrow pricks some imagined some deliberate but as the years went by I 1 discovered that to live successfully I 1 must learn not to be so easily wounded I 1 did learn it and now arrows glance off that used to draw blood another is the matter of fear in my younger days I 1 suffered greatly from fear mostly it was fear of the unknown I 1 could cope with the troubles that were upon me but was apprehensive about those that might come one day I 1 came upon a quotation at the bottom of a newspaper column a filler it was from emerson do the thing you fear to do and the death of fear is certain I 1 must have seen the quotation before but if I 1 had it had made no impression on me or my mind W aint ripe for it now in a kind of blinding flash I 1 realized the truth of those few words and I 1 began to try to put it into practice I 1 have not eliminated all fear but that one simple idea has been of great help sometimes I 1 forget all about it usually when things are going well when I 1 find myself in trouble and harassed by fear and misgivings I 1 remember my emerson quotation and am usually able to decide on a course of action instead of worrying about what is going to happen I 1 think I 1 can say that emersons quotation has helped me more than any other precept in all my life I 1 have come to look upon complete happiness as unattainable happiness as I 1 understand it is a sense of present well being bedrij on which is hung like a christmas wreath the tha belief that some fine bit of good fortune lies just ahead I 1 have come to have less and less respect for the power in people that thai makes money it seems to me this is wholly a selfish trait and the least admirable of all the major drives in human beings I 1 realize this takes in a great deal of territory for I 1 know that a certain amount of money is necessary but it seems to me ma that a life dedicated to money mak ing is about as empty a shell as one ona could crawl into I 1 have learned to live today and not wait till tomorrow during my early life I 1 kept thinking to myself well im not getting much out 0 ol 01 1 today but soon ill be in another r city or have more money or will be selling more manuscripts or will have a new group of friends then ill really get some tun fun out of life written june alth 1913 1943 sometimes we have to look back bach on a day to know it has been one of 0 satisfaction but sometimes we wa know the day is a satisfying one at al the very time it is racing by and today is one of them for today the tha third generation of cloys set foot on this land carol had arrived from the university of arizona at tucson where she had been in school and then on this day my dream camf cam true we walked across the farm together just she and I 1 and I 1 showed her the scenes I 1 knew so well we came to a great gully this is where your grandfather and mr shannon and I 1 dug a five inch ditch with tiling spades and it must be right along here I 1 said as we wa walked on that old dave was buried we stopped in the calf lot it must have been about here that I 1 taught a calf to drink out of a bucket and wrote a piece about it we went to the old house behind the new house this is the house where I 1 was born and now ill show you the very room thank god there were no chickens in it and here is the very hole in the floor where the scrubbing water ran away to mystify me so and heres h e res the shelf where hostellers Ho almanac used to hang it was a strange world to her but she had heard me talk of all this a thousand times and now she seemed to understand what it meant to me and what it meant to have her on the soil where her grandmother picked up buffalo chips then into the new house where I 1 showed her the room where I 1 had pecked oft off my first stories and the wall where the panel had hung and where we had packed the telescope the mouse hole then into Ren Renz zos ris room thank goodness there is no seed corn in it today at last the morning was over and dinner was over and we went out and sat on the porch where my mother had said where yo your father and I 1 came driving across the prairies on our honeymoon carol looked across the commands com corn lands incredulously was this ever the prairies to ill say it was I 1 answered in her own vernacular we went to the barn bam which I 1 had built word by word behind the manger was a horse and on a peg behind the horse was a saddle her eyes were immediately upon them and her eyes danced and so did her voice oh daddy can I 1 go horseback riding it just about floored me THE END |