POE Fans  call an end to Grave Tradition
LONGVIEW NEWS JOURNAL:
  BALTIMORE--Edgar Allen Poe fans waited long past a midnight dreary,
but it appears annual visits to the writer's grave in Baltimore by a
mysterious figure called "The Poe Toaster" shall occur nevermore.
  Poe House & Museum Curator Jeff Jerome said early Thursday that
die-hard fans waited hours past when the tribute bearer normally arrives.
But the "Poe Toaster was a no-show for a third year in a row, leaving
another unanswered question in a mystery worthy of the writer's
legacy. Poe fans said they would hold one last vigil this year before
calling an end to the tradition.
  "It's over with," Jerome said wearily.
  It is thought that the tributes of an anonymous man wearing black
clothes with a white scarf and a wide brimmed hat, who leaves three
red roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac at Poe's original grave
on the writer's birthday, date to at least the 1940's.

My note:  Edgar Allen Poe was born January 19, 1809. On October 3, 1849, 
  he was found lying by a polling place (some writers say he was found
  lying in a gutter) by a friend, and died about four days later. He was, as
  are his works, a man surrounded by gloom and despair, his poetry and
  prose masked in irrationaal mystery and dark mythology.
    No one among his faithful fans who came to the grave site for the last
  time was led to volunteer, and carry forth into posterity the baton of
  love and devotion to Poe as evidenced by the faithful hooded stranger
  with his offering of beauty and sustenance.
    Who among us has not chilled at the voice of the Raven's "Never More?"
  Who at the slow swing of The Pit and the Pendulum? Or the cunning
  planning of death in The Cask of Amontillado?   How long since you opened
  a volume of Poe's works on some night dark and dreary ?
  
 


              After  Visiting
the New London School Disaster Museum

            PEACE
  My peace does not depend on circumstances
or possessions. It is that which dwells within me
to help me overcome circumstances.
  Peace must be pursued through Grace, and
the knowledge that God is the giver of Grace.
All my efforts at attempting to earn Grace has
come to naught--it is a gift wrapped in the love
of God, mine to accept, that brings with it the
gift of Peace that, once I possessed it, through the
miracle of Promise, I discovered Being and
Purpose, and the significance of the footprints
I will leave behind.

A Forgotten Lesson--My opinion...
Published, Henderson Daily News, June, 2001
    It is no longer unusual for our headlines to reveal men without an internal morality base who assert a personal power over the norms of Society, and feel no need to qualify their right to do so.
    To what arena of life are we guilty of assigning the instruction of our children in moral self-discipline? And at how early an age? 
    Should we expect a 13 year old to make constructive decisions without having been enlightened as to the privileges, pitfalls and consequences of the options offered?
    When I was old enough to graduate from my mother's lap to my own place at the breakfast table, I claimed the seat, as did all  my brothers and sisters who preceded me, on the right side of my father, who set at the head of our table. One of the first memories I claim is of the warm, tasty teaspoons of creamed and sugared coffee he fed me between bites of biscuit softened with milk gravy.
    The milk and sugar liquid was  to satisfy a child's taste; the solidity of biscuit and gravy was to acquaint and prepare me for the plate of food a liberal world serves up, from which I would be faced with making a choice.
    What percentage of today's children sit at breakfast tables with fathers who offer up thanksgiving, and ask for blessings on those partaking of God's bounty? And are taught, directly or by example, from an established base of self-discipline?
    It is said that our houses have become classrooms for the making of delinquents. And we, in turn, ask how many of the laws of leniency passed by self-effacing officials (that we elected, that seek reelection) affect the moral strength of our breakfast tables today. As long as our children's enlightenment is reassigned to the continental breakfast plate of others, our headlines will shout of men who embarrass us with experiences of complete lack of moral self-discipline.
    Comments accepted...
    

    

What is it about a Father? 

    Why do we love this man--giver and keeper of our lives? He came out of nowhere special--from the sagebrush,
the blacklands, the piney woods. He was a smart boy, but not too smart, because he never said it himself, accepted it humbly from others.
    He could do a good day's work--knew how, but would rather go fishing, or tell tall tales, or watch geese in their homing instincts, veeing north. He holds no awards for philosophy; doesn't claim to know what's in all those books. The things he doesn't know, he learns from his mistakes
    He has weathered harsh winters and arid summers, good politics and bad, and learned to stand alone on his convictions when necessary, yet it takes so little to make him glad--an open door, kitchen fragrances, baby smiles, good stories, strong coffee, the biggest fish.
    Why do we love this man?  Because we respect him; we count his life worthwhile, we know his gentleness. We know he remembers he was a boy before he was a man.
     Evelyn      (Excerpted from an Editorial written for the Henderson Daily News.)