REMINISCENCE

Yesterday I attended the funeral of a friend who died at the ripe old age of 88. I was her teacher when she graduated from the eighth grade in the spring of 1936. That was a one-room school in south Callaway County near Portland, MO. Also, I performed her marriage to Vincent Boone in June 1941. There's something about all of that which makes me feel old. Or maybe it's something else.


Now here is something for which I am profoundly grateful. I have prayed that the Lord would keep my mind working as long as I needed it, and my memory sharp enough to recall all the good things I have stored up. I urge all of my readers to focus on the things that really matter, and as St. Paul advised Timothy: "Meditate on these things." If you don't remember the passage, check it out. I Tim. 4:15. Note that in verse 13, he says, "Give attention to doctrine;" and in verse 16, "Take heed unto thyself, and unto doctrine." Doctrine in its simplest meaning is something taught, and the specific meaning in the context here is the principles and requirements laid down in biblical instructions. We fix these things in character by careful and constant practice, not just by knowing, but by doing! I like the words of Amos R. Wells: "Strict adhesion to the rugged best."


Speaking of memory, much of our former teaching was by rote. I would have defined this as by repetition, but the New World Dictionary defines "by rote" as "by memory alone, without understanding or thought." I like my definition better because our teachers intended for us to both think and understand.


I entered high school at 13, and in my first English class was required to memorize a passage from Daniel Webster: "Mind is the great lever of all things. Human thought is the process by which human  ends are ultimately answered, and the diffusion of knowledge, so astonishing in the last half century, has rendered innumerable minds variously gifted by nature, competent to be competitors on the great theater of intellectual operations." So there! Teaching by rote sometimes fixes things in the mind for a long time.


Here's a story for you. When I was just a boy my Uncle Hallie, really my father's uncle, born 1861, I believe came back to the old home where he was born to spend his last days. It was our house where all of our family of 9 were born also. He was a jovial old fellow. I remember his chuckle as he recited a piece that Jackson Maddox had spoken at a school gathering:


"Some folks are troubled much with fleas;


They nip so hard, they do so tease.


Do kill them! I just found out the trick;


First get the candle, And then the candle stick,


Place the head close to the wick


Jam their eyes out with a brick.


Then get a pan of boiling fat,


and when the fat has cooked the head


Puff! Blow out the light, and go to bed!"


So I remembered that to this day; but the surprise was when recently I was going through some microfilm at our local library, searching out some of the history of the old country grade school where I and my dad and his uncle Hallie all attended, I ran across a program on Feb. 25, 1875 at the close of Mr. Finley's school. The first item on a very long program was a declamation by Hallie Stucker. About half way through the list was a recitation by Jackson Maddox entitled "Fleas."


So now you are advised! If ever you are troubled by fleas, there is a guaranteed remedy from the distant past. Fleas are not good company. It is reported that someone said concerning fleas. "I don't mind his board bill so much; it's his traveling expenses."