With this issue we begin the third year of publishing SUNSHINE magazine which is now on the internet (www.sunshine-magazine.org). The web-site is advertised in the Bryn Athyn Post each month – thanks Peb! Also I distribute a few copies locally. Perhaps 300 to 400 people read SUNSHINE each month.
Two years ago, as I walked across my family room towards the computer, the thought came to me that I would publish this magazine. I sat down before the computer and started typing, just as I am doing now.
The very first words of this magazine were: “In May 2007 while playing with my two-and-a- half-year old neighbor, Victoria, she began singing. Her words reflected a free-flowing association of ideas about her life. It was an innocent, charming song. This helped me to find a method of presenting, apparently unconnected ideas for this booklet. Let us see if I am as successful as she was as I set out on a literary adventure without a plan of how to proceed. Let the ideas flow. This should be fun.”
Well, Victoria is now in kindergarten and a few months ago she wrote me this letter. “Mr. L. I like you all the time. Every day and weeks. And I like you really much and Mrs. L.”
Thank you, Victoria, for your inspiration. Special thanks also to Alfie Sandstrom for preparing this magazine for the computer. He is an endless source of goodwill and willingness to work on this magazine. In fact it was his idea to put SUNSHINE on the internet. Also thanks to my good neighbor, Mrs. (Paul) Cora (Price) Funk, for distributing SUNSHINE to areas outside of BA and HV (Glenview, Ivyland, Kempton, North Carolina, etc.) Often she inspires me with culinary rewards.
What a tale this magazine has spun of humor, poetry, history and some of the great ideas that our ancestors have written down to share with following generations!
Everyone who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit.
A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.
There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.
He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision.
Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.
Next to selfishness the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory is the want of mental cultivation.
Over one’s mind and over one’s body the individual is sovereign.
No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.
By Anne Bradstreet
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompetence.
Thy love is such I can no way repay.
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
Anne (Dudley) Bradstreet was born in Northampton, England, in 1612. At the age of 16, she married Simon Bradstreet, a 25 year old assistant in the Massachusetts Bay Company. Anne and her family emigrated to America in 1630 on the Arabella, one of the first ships to bring Puritans to New England in hopes of setting up plantation colonies. She had eight children and died in 1672.
Hodie adsit, cras adsit. (Here today, gone tomorrow.)
Vero? (Really?)
Abeo (I’m out of here.)
Die dulci fruere. (Have a nice day.)
Satine caloris tibi est? (Hot enough for you?)
Alma Mater (Old School – literally “nourishing mother”)
JUNE The sixth month of the year takes its name from the Latin Janius mensis, the month consecrated to the goddess Juno.
JULY The seventh month of the year is dedicated to Julius Caesar (Julius mensis in Latin.)
The word “listen” contains the same letters as the word “silent.”
JUST DESERTS comes from the French word deservir, from which we get the word “deserve.” So “just deserts” simply means “what he deserves.”
ONE FELL SWOOP simply means one fierce, sudden onslaught, of a kind a hawk might make when swooping down on a defenseless small animal. Fell is a word rarely met with outside of this particular phrase. It has no connections with the word “fall.” This fell comes from the Anglo-Saxon word fel, from which we also get “felon,” a person guilty of a major crime.
Have you noticed that: stairs are getting steeper; groceries are getting heavier; and, everything is farther away. Yesterday I walked to the corner and I was dumbfounded to discover how long our street has become.
People are less considerate now, especially the young ones. They speak in whispers all the time. What do they think I am, a lip reader? Also people my age are so much older than I am. I ran into an old friend recently and she didn’t even recognize me. Yes, I got to thinking about her while I was combing my hair this morning. In so doing, I glanced at my own reflection. Well, really, even mirrors are not made in the same way they used to be!
Another thing, everyone drives so fast these days. You’re risking life and limb if you happen to pull onto the highway in front of them. All I can say is, their brakes must wear out awfully fast, the way I see them screech and swerve in my rear view mirror.
Clothing manufacturers are less civilized these days. Why else would they suddenly start labeling a size 10 or 12 dress as 18 or 20. Do they think no one notices?
I’d like to call up someone in authority to report what’s going on. But the telephone company is in on the conspiracy too: they’ve printed the phone books in such small type that no one can even find a number in there.
Col. Wells probably had the first car in Bryn Athyn. His daughter Marjorie (Mrs. Don Rose) would sometimes ride to town with him and on the way would count as many as 16 other cars that were either coming or going! Later he bought a touring car in which his wife used to love to ride with the top down at the great speed of twenty-five to thirty miles an hour!
There was a day, during the First World War when a gold star appeared on a small blue flag in the parlor windows that faced S. Avenue. That was the day when Russ Clayton, Bryn Athyn’s well-loved station master walked up the hill from the station to give Mrs. Wells the telegram saying that her son, Roy, had been killed in action somewhere in France.
Mr. Carl G. Soneson, born in Erie, Pa, in 1916, passed into the spiritual world Friday morning in Holy Redeemer Hospital after an extended illness. At the resurrection service Sunday afternoon, the Rt. Rev. Elmo C. Acton spoke of Carl’s faithful dedication in the performance of use and service to others. The family grocery, Soneson’s Store, in which he started as a clerk and which he operated for twenty-five years was an institution in the community, noted for friendly, informal services never experienced in the large commercial establishments. Carl, too, was noted for his assistance to many of the young men who worked at the store over the years. Bishop Acton described the little-known delight Carl had in his study of the Doctrines. He was a graduate of the Academy, Class of ’34, and married Carolyn Simons on January 20th, 1944. Carl and his family were fond of music and he and his wife played in the Bryn Athyn Orchestra until failing health prevented, and this memory echoed through the Cathedral with the sound of the brass ensemble at his memorial service.
Paddy wanted to become an accountant, so he went and took the Irish accountancy exam.
Examiner: “If I give you two rabbits and then I give you another two rabbits, how many rabbits do you have?”
Paddy: “Five.”
Examiner: “Listen carefully, if I give you two rabbits, and then I give you two more rabbits, how many rabbits do you have?”
Paddy: “Five.”
Examiner: “How on earth do you get five rabbits?”
Paddy, “I already have one at home.”
A Dutchman and his wife wanted to divorce. So they went to Divorce Court and after presenting their case the judge said, “O.K. and also I will give the wife seven hundred dollars each month.” The Dutchman responded, “Well, thanks judge and I think I will give her a dollar or two each month myself.”
Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake. Stepped on the gas instead of the brake.
Here lies the body of an Atheist, all dressed up and no place to go.
Looked up the elevator shaft to see if the car was on the way down. It was.
John Penny’s epitaph: Reader, if cash thou art in want of any, dig 6 feet and thou wilt find a Penny.
Here lies Ann Mann, who lived an old maid but died an old Mann.
You no longer think of the speed limit as a challenge.
You know that your secrets are safe with your friends because they can’t remember them anyway.