ENTRY # TWELVE.

Good Afternoon,

I had intended to work more on this journal before now, but we are hoping to get a new camera soon, and then we will be able to show some interesting pictures. I am not going to have much to say today. Just wanted you to know that I had not given up. We are having nice weather here. Very pleasant temperature, it was 57 at 4:30 this morning, a 50% chance of rain Saturday. Hope all goes well with all of you. Hope to be back soon. I have another journal Dad's Tomato Garden. Visit me there sometime.

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Below is a poem that touches me.

Ripe Old Age

"If to a ripe old age you'd live,
Then heed these warnings that I give,"
The doctor said: "Drop every care
And every burden that you bear
Be not disturbed by loss or gain
View all things with supreme distain.
Dismiss at once both love and hate
And like a cabbage vegetate."

"A ripe old age!" As there I sat
I wondered what is meant by that.
Summed up in terms of useful years
Commendable the goal appears,
But homeward bound I chanced to see
Witin a yard an apple tree
Stripped bare of every fruit, but one
Which hung the topmost branch upon.

Still to the leafless twig it clung
A withered thing that once was young;
It had outlived its brothers all;
Had seen companions early fall.
It had escaped the storms and missed
The hungry youngster's eager fist.
Too high for men to reach or climb
It had eluded harvest time.

"A ripe old age!" I shook my head,
Recalling what the doctor said.
Away from care and worry run,
And every useful purpose shun.
"A ripe old age!" It sounded nice!
I wondered is it worth the price?
Does any man desire to be
The oldest apple on the tree?
-----Edgar Guest

This is all for today. BYE BYE