Well, by the time you are reading this GEM I suppose Christmas
will have come and gone and the New Year will be upon us. And by
the way with this issue, I guess we can say GEM is no longer an
infant. It is growing up–it’s now a toddler, so to speak–and I
think it has grown in quality. We look forward to the third year as a
challenge to make it even better than before as we are getting more
material and more interested folks all the time. Thanks to you each
and every one! So we are progressing, but we have our ups and downs
and our errors. Try and remember we are still a young magazine. We’re a growing magazine in more than one sense of that word and we shall keep growing and
trying to make each issue better.
We have a good deal of material about gas engines, vintage tractors, and the like coming in right now, so if your
picture or story doesn’t get in right away, please try and be
patient. And this is FINE that we are getting the material like
this. It makes us feel real good and if you think it really is too long
that we’ve had your material and haven’t gotten it in, drop
me a line and let me know and I’ll try and make a special
effort to get it in–you see we’re not trying to favor anyone. We try and get stories and pictures in from all the states, but
it’s pretty hard to keep track of. Don’t get
discouraged if your items aren’t in right away. We do have a
few that send us articles pretty regularly and they are in more
frequently than others because they are sending data in steadily
and also, we feel they have information you are seeking.
Family news: daughter Dana recently moved to Williamsburg,
Virginia where her husband Bob is stationed. They have a lovely
little apartment in which to start out their married life together,
but she wasn’t there more than two weeks when he was shipped
out for two months so they will not be spending their first
Christmas together. He’ll be back in January and they will
have a belated Christmas. It’s too bad they will be separated
for the Holidays, but one thing for sure they are not alone in this
as there are so many couples experiencing the same thing. If only
we could have “Peace on earth, good will toward men”
forever and end these terrible wars; but I’m afraid it will
always be and as long as man makes the world the way it is
we’ll all suffer the consequences in one way or another.
Our little grand daughter is now a grown-up toddler in her
second year as she celebrated her first birthday December 2nd. We
couldn’t be with them, but I’m sure it was a big event.
We’ll celebrate one of these days when we get the clan
together.
I really haven’t any news from letters this time so there is
no use in me rambling on and taking up space that can be used for
more important subjects. However, I would like to use this
paragraph I came across in my book Leaves of Gold. It’s called PROGRESS and we could take from it for the New Year
and work on ourselves:
“Our business in life is not to get ahead of
other people, but to get ahead of ourselves. To break our own
record, to outstrip our yesterdays by todays, to bear our trials
more beautifully than we ever dreamed we could, to whip the tempter
inside and out as we never whipped him before to give as we never
have given, to do our work with more force and a finer finish than
ever.
This is the true ideal–to get ahead of ourselves. To beat
someone else in a game, or to be beaten, means much or little. To
beat our own game means a great deal. Whether we win or not, we are
playing better than we ever did before, and that’s the point
after all–to play a better game of life.” —Evangelist
