Everyone knows that privates are stupid. All privates are stupid. I was a private, so it stood to reason that there was thickness between my ears. With the exception of a few other stupid privates, I was out-ranked by the whole world. Everybody from the privates-first-class to the Colonel anticipated ignorant behaviour from me, and to my amazement, their expectation proved accurate. The first assignment given following six months of clerical training was to type a simple letter in two copies. After investing 25 minutes of concentrated effort at the typewriter, I realised that the carbon paper was inserted upside down. Reverse lettering was smudged all over the back of the main copy, which did not exactly overwhelm the First Sergeant with gratitude. Similar complex procedures, like marching "in step" were strangely difficult to perform. From today's perspective, it is clear that my performance was consistent with my image. Likewise, many children who fail in school are merely doing what they think others expect of them. Our reputation with our peers is a very influential force in our lives.

Every home should have a daughter,
For there's nothing like a girl
To keep the World around her
In one continuous whirl...
From the moment she arrives on Earth,
And on through womanhood,
A daughter is a female
Who is seldom understood...
One minute she is laughing,
The next she starts to cry,
Man just can't understand her
And there's just no use to try...
She is soft and cuddly,
But she's also wise and smart,
She's a wondrous combination
Of a mind and brain and heart...
And even in her baby days
She's just a born coquette.
And anything she really wants
She manages to get...
For even at a tender age
She uses all her wiles
And she can melt the hardest heart
With the sunshine of her smiles...
She starts out as a rosebud
With her beauty unrevealed,
Then through a happy childhood
Her petals are unsealed...
She's soon a sweet girl graduate,
And then a blushing bride,
And then a lovely woman
As the rosebud opens wide...
And some day in the future,
If it be God's gracious will,
She, too, will be a Mother
And know that reverent thrill
That comes to every Mother
Whose heart is filled with love

People are more important than things. When Harmon Killebrew, the great baseball player was being interviewed upon his induction into the Hall of Fame, he told the story of how his mother once yelled at him, his father and his brother because the three of them were tearing up the grass while playing a game of touch football in the back yard. Harmon always remembered his father's response to his mother and used it as a guiding principle in raising his own family: "We are raising boys, not grass."

One of my favourite stories concerns the farmer's wife who had a brood of 9 children, She worked hard and was never ill. One day the doctor commented to her, "How is it that I have patients who have nervous breakdowns and yet they don't have as much to do as you have?" The farmer's wife looked wistful as she replied, "Doctor, I've often wanted to have a breakdown but always someone wanted me to fix a meal."

Since the coming of television we no longer have family circles--we have semi-circles.