Home and Friends

Oh, there's a power to make each hour
As sweet as heaven designed it;
Nor need we roam to bring it home,
Though few there be that find it.
We seek too high for things close by
And lose what nature found us,
For life hath here no friends so dear
As home and friends around us.

We oft destroy the present joy
For future hopes and praise them
While flowers as sweet bloom at our feet,
If we'd but stoop to raise them.
For things afar still sweeter are
When youth's bright spell hath
bound us,
But soon we're taught the earth
hath naught
Like home and friends around us.

~ Author Unknown

www.bellhomestead.ca for historical information and photographs

The Bell Homestead ~

Bell Homestead National Historic Site, Brantford, ON



Brian

"So much of the practical development of the telephone has been in the United States that I think the fact that the telephone was invented in Canada should be more widely known than it is ~ at least in the United States." *

~ Alexander Graham Bell (1847 - 1922) inventor.

Brian, our tour guide today, ardently describes the scientific breakthrough that led to the invention of the telephone and points out the path to the banks of the Grand River where Alexander sat in a spot he called his "dreaming place."  (Thank you, Brian.)

Visit:  www.bellhomestead.ca for information and photographs.

* Address, "The Substance of My Latest Research," Empire Club of Canada, Toronto, 1 Nov. 1917.
~ Famous Lasting Words, Great Canadian Quotations, John Robert Colombo, Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 2000.
Photos:  lbwalker

Photos: lbwalker

 About Animals ~

 "...they are so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long,
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.

~ Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892) American poet, journalist.  Leaves of Grass, 1855, "Song of Myself."

Smile For Today ~

Ginger

"You may have noticed that a cat's first commitment is to himself.  Therefore, he is mainly concerned with pleasing himself.  If this pleasure should simultaneously please you, you might call it coincidence or even a gift."  A cat has innately solved one of the most important mysteries of life by using all his energy to make himself happy.  Since a cat devotes his whole being to whatever it is he desires, his returns are multiplied."

~ Carole C. Wilbourn, Cat Therapist, Cat Talk, What Your Cat Is Trying To Tell You, MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1979.

Local Fall Fairs ~

Caledonia: September 27 to 30
Theme:  "Remember When"

Norfolk County Fair & Horse Show: (Simcoe) October 2 - 8

www.caledoniafair.ca
www.norfolkcountyfair.com

Photo:  lbwalker

"Authors should, and usually do, appreciate the fact that one of the editor's most crucial challenges is to be able to articulate, clearly and appealingly, the signal virtues of a given book.  From editorial reports on through catalog copy, jacket flaps, and publicity releases, it is the editor's initial core descriptions that implicitly explain why the book has been chosen in the first place and explicitly set the tone for how a book will be perceived both in and out of the house....

"...the role of editors, like everything else, is bound to change.  Corporate pressures for economies in overhead and benefits are likely to lead to more outside free-lance editing and diminished house staffs.  It's a toss-up question as to whether more or less editing in general will be needed.  On the one hand, entropic degeneration of the language, diminished devotion to accuracy, and word processor bloat all cry out for increased editorial ministrations.  On the other hand, the legions crying "Who cares?" show no signs of fading away either."

~Alan D. Williams (Two decades at Viking Press among other editorial positions) Editors on Editing, edited by Gerald Gross, 1993