Vol.XVII No.X Pg.8
December 1980

Stuff About Things

Robert F. Turner

By the time you receive this paper the old bearded fellow (Father Time) will have reversed the hour glass, turned it over to the New Year baby, and vanished into history. I do not know who dreamed up these symbols but I know it was not one of many winters. A fellow even my age would never imagine a year could grow old in such a short time. It seems only yesterday that we were welcoming 1980; and 1960 is still "recently." Without a doubt, it was a very young person who suggested a single year should be represented by an old man. It was one who practically waited forever for marble season, school out, or Christmas.

College students are returning to campus from their first homecoming, and they will tell me wistfully, "My home town has changed!" I didn't have the heart to warn them. In '79 I attended a reunion of my High School graduation class, schoolmates of '33. But for some reason or other the only ones present were some slightly familiar old folk — a little bit disappointing. And their memories were terrible. No one seemed to recall those important things I wanted to discuss. They kept bringing' up things that may never have happened. Well, anyhow, they couldn't prove them by me.

Of course I knew from previous experience that there is no such thing as "going back." The "green green grass of home" is not quite as green as we remember it, and the old girl friend is not the same because we are not the same. Both the transmitter and the receiver, the object and the eye of the beholder, have changed.

This is a good time for check up, for remembering the past, and how swiftly time has flown; and for taking stock of the changes time has wrought in our lives. It is a good time for resolutions affecting our future — realizing that tomorrow will arrive as swiftly as yesterday departed. But for the greatest benefit our reflections must convince us that NOW IS A GOOD TIME!

Our yesterdays brought us to today, and today will shape us for tomorrow. There is no going back; and there is a going ahead only upon the foundation we are laying NOW. The moment you now hold in your hand is the seed for the tomorrow of your dreams.