When Mother Cooked With Wood

I do not quarrel with the gas,

Our modern range is fine,

The ancient stove was doomed to pass

From Time's grim firing line,

Yet now and then there comes to me

The thought of dinners good

And pies and cake that used to be

When mother cooked with wood.

The axe has vanished from the yard,

The chopping block is gone,

There is no pile of corkwood hard

For boys to work upon;

There is no box that must be filled

Each morning to the hood;

Time in its ruthlessness has willed

The passing of the wood.

And yet those days were fragrant days

And spicy days and rare;

The kitchen knew a cheerful blaze

And friendliness was there.

And every appetite was keen

For breakfasts that were good

When I had scarcely turned thirteen

And mother cooked with wood.

I used to dread my daily chore,

I used to think it tough

When mother at the kitchen door

Said I'd not chopped enough.

And on her baking days, I know,

I shirked whene'er I could

In that now happy long ago

When mother cooked with wood.

I never thought I'd wish to see

That pile of wood again;

Back then it only seemed to me

A source of care and pain.

But now I'd gladly give my all

To stand where once I stood,

If those rare days I could recall

When mother cooked with wood

                         by Edgar Albert Guest

Sod's Law

Sod's law is a name for the axiom that "if something can go wrong, it will", with the further addendum, in British culture, that it will happen at "the worst possible time". This may simply be construed, again in British culture, as "hope for the best, expect the worst"

The phrase is seemingly derived, at least in part, from the colloquialism an "unlucky sod"; a term for someone who has had some bad unlucky experience, and is usually used as a sympathetic reference to the person

Sod's law is similar to, but broader than, Murphy's law ("Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong"). For example, concepts such as "bad fortune will be tailored to the individual" and "good fortune will occur in spite of the individual's actions" are sometimes given as examples of Sod's law in action. This would broaden Sod's law to a general sense of being "mocked by fate". In these aspects it is similar to some definitions of irony, particularly the irony of fate. Murphy's technological origin on John Stapp's Project MX981 is more upbeat—it was a reminder to the engineers and team members to be cautious and make sure everything was accounted for, to let no stone be left unturned—not an acceptance of an uncaring uninfluenceable fate.

According to David J. Hand, emeritus professor of mathematics and senior research investigator at Imperial College London, Sod's law is a more extreme version of Murphy's law. While Murphy's Law says that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong (eventually), Sod's law requires that it always go wrong with the worst possible outcome. Hand suggests that belief in Sod's law is a combination of the law of truly large numbers and the psychological effect of the law of selection. The former says we should expect things to go wrong now and then, and the latter says we remember the exceptional events where something went wrong, but the great number of mundane events where nothing exceptional happened are forgotten.

Examples

    "When you toss a coin, the more strongly you want heads, the more likely it is to come up tails"—Richard Dawkins

    "Traffic lights turn red when you're in a hurry, or your e-mail crashes just as you are about to hit 'send' on that critical message"—David Hand

    "...a composer such as Beethoven loses his hearing, or a drummer such as Rick Allen...loses an arm in a car crash"—David Hand

Survivorship Bias

Survivorship bias is a cognitive bias that occurs when someone tries to make a decision based on past successes, while ignoring past failures. It is a specific type of selection bias.

Suppose you're trying to help the military decide how best to armour their planes for future bombing runs. They let you look over the planes that made it back, and you note that some areas get shot heavily, while other areas hardly get shot at all. So, you should increase the armour on the areas that get shot, right?

Wrong! These are the planes that got shot and survived. It stands to reason that on some planes, the areas where you don't see any damage did get shot, and they didn't survive. So those are the areas you reinforce. This was the brilliant deduction of Abraham Wald, a Hungarian-born Jewish statistician who fled Europe to work for the US military during World War II, which also goes to show you that you shouldn't try to kill your best thinkers.

 Other examples

Survivorship bias is also at play when considering the quality of artistic works throughout history. It's easy to look at Shakespeare and think that writers today are much less intelligent than they were in his day, but there were also plenty of writers of Shakespeare's day whose work wasn't as good, and so either didn't survive into the modern era or lacked the influence on Anglophone discourse that Shakespeare achieved.  Used in this way, survivorship bias can lead to nostalgia for an imagined glorious past.

Survivorship bias can obscure the effects of workplace exposure upon health problems. When new employees with prior exposure to, say, asbestos or silica are inappropriately combined with employees without prior exposure, the apparent exposure effect is reduced. Employees exposed at prior jobs become ill sooner than previously unexposed employees making exposure at the current employee appear negligible.

Good Books

Good books are friendly things to own.

If you are busy they will wait.

They will not call you on the phone

Or wake you if the hour is late.

They stand together row by row,

Upon the low shelf or the high.

But if you're lonesome this you know:

You have a friend or two nearby.

The fellowship of books is real.

They're never noisy when you're still.

They won't disturb you at your meal.

They'll comfort you when you are ill.

The lonesome hours they'll always share.

When slighted they will not complain.

And though for them you've ceased to care

Your constant friends they'll still remain.

Good books your faults will never see

Or tell about them round the town.

If you would have their company

You merely have to take them down.

They'll help you pass the time away,

They'll counsel give if that you need.

He has true friends for night and day

Who has a few good books to read.

                                      By Edgar Guest

The Book of Memory

Turn me loose and let me be

Young once more and fancy free;

Let me wander where I will,

Down the lane and up the hill,

Trudging barefoot in the dust

In an age that knows no 'must,'

And no voice insistently

Speaks of duty unto me;

Let me tread the happy ways

Of those by-gone yesterdays.

Fame had never whispered then,

Making slaves of eager men;

Greed had never called me down

To the gray walls of the town,

Offering frankincense and myrrh

If I'd be its prisoner;

I was free to come and go

Where the cherry blossoms blow,

Free to wander where I would,

Finding life supremely good.

But I turned, as all must do,

From the happiness I knew

To the land of care and strife,

Seeking for a fuller life;

Heard the lure of fame and sought

That renown so dearly bought;

Listened to the voice of greed

Saying: 'These the things you need,'

Now the gray town holds me fast,

Prisoner to the very last.

Age has stamped me as its own;

Youth to younger hearts has flown;

Still the cherry blossoms blow

In the land loused to know;

Still the fragrant clover spills

Perfume over dales and hills,

But I'm not allowed to stray

Where the young are free to play;

All the years will grant to me

Is the book of memory.

                                                                                         by Edgar Albert Guest

Editorial Influence

It is a solemn thing, to think when you sit down to splatter ink, that

what you write, in prose or verse, may be a blessing or a curse.  The

gems of thought that you impart may upward guide some mind and heart;

some youth may read your Smoking Stuff, and say: "That logic's good

enough; the path of virtue must be fine; I'll have no wickedness in

mine."  And some day, when you're old and gray, that youth may come

along your way, and say, in language ringing true: "All that I've won I

owe to you!  When I was young I read your rot; it hit a most responsive

spot, encouraged me for stress and strife, and made me choose the best

in life."  And this will warm your heart and brain; you'll know you

have not lived in vain.  But if you write disgusting dope, that thrusts

at Truth, and Faith and Hope; if you apologize for vice, and show that

wickedness is nice, it well may chance, when you are old, and in your

veins the blood runs cold, there'll come your way some dismal wreck,

who'll roast you sore, and cry: "By heck!  And also I might say, by

gum!  'Twas you that put me on the bum!  Your writings got me headed

wrong; you threw it into Virtue strong; and in the prison that you see,

I'm convict No. 23!"

                                                                            by Walt Mason

1% rule (Internet culture)

In Internet culture, the 1% rule is a rule of thumb pertaining to participation in an internet community, stating that only 1% of the users of a website actively create new content, while the other 99% of the participants only lurk. Variants include the 1-9-90 rule (sometimes 90–9–1 principle or the 89:10:1 ratio), which states that in a collaborative website such as a wiki, 90% of the participants of a community only view content, 9% of the participants edit content, and 1% of the participants actively create new content. A related observation is that 1% of users generate the majority of revenue in free-to-play games

The terms lurk and lurking, in reference to online activity, are used to refer to online observation without engaging others in the community, and were first used by veteran print journalist, P Tomi Austin,when her presence was noticed by other users in chat rooms, who queried her reasons for not engaging in chat. There were repeated inquiries about her identity and her refusal to engage in chat. The etiquette was, apparently, to greet other users upon entry into the chat rooms/sites. At the time, (then in her 30s, surfing among users averaging in their teens and 20s) she was only identified as "Bilbo", she explained that she was a mature, but computer-literate, user and novice to chat, and preferred to lurk, or was lurking to familiarize herself with the chat culture, etiquette, and the sites to which she had logged on.

Words and Deeds

A fire broke out in Bildad's shack and burned it to the ground; and

Bildad, with his roofless pack, sent up a doleful sound.  And I, who

lived the next door west, hard by the county jail, went over there and

beat my breast, and helped poor Bildad wail.  Around the ruined home I

stepped, and viewed the shaking walls, and people say the way I wept

would beat Niagara Falls.  Then words of sympathy I dealt to Bildad and

his wife; such kindly words, I've always felt, nerve people for the

strife.  If I can kill with words your fears, or argue grief away, or

drown your woe by shedding tears, call on me any day.  I have a

sympathetic heart that bleeds for others' aches, and I will ease your

pain and smart unless the language breaks.  And so to Bildad and his

mate I made a helpful talk, with vital truths that elevate and break

disasters' shock; I pointed out that stricken men should not yield to

the worst, but from the wreckage rise again like flame from torch

reversed.

Then Johnson interrupted me as I was growing hoarse.  A rude, offensive

person he, a tactless man and coarse.

He said to Bildad, "Well, old pard!  You are burned out I see!  You

can't keep house here in your yard, so come and live with me!"

The neighbours who had gathered round applauded Johnson then, declaring

that at last they'd found the kindliest of men; not one appreciative

voice for me, who furnished tears, who made the sad man's heart

rejoice, and drove way his fears!

                              by Walt Mason

The Snowy Day

I like to watch the children play, upon a wintry, snowy day; like

little elves they run about, and leap and slide, and laugh and shout.

This side of heaven can there be such pure and unmixed ecstasy?  I lean

upon ye rustic stile, and watch the children with a smile, and think

upon a vanished day, when I, as joyous, used to play, when all the

world seemed young and bright, and every hour had its delight; and, as

I brush away a tear, a snowball hits me in the ear.

                                                                      

                                                                                                 by Walt Mason

Don’t Tell Me

Don’t tell me what you will do

 When you have time to spare;

Tell me what you did today

 To ease a load of care.

Don’t tell me what you will give

 When your ship comes in from the sea;

Tell me what you gave today

 A fettered soul to free,

Don’t tell the dreams you have

 Of conquest still afar;

Don’t say what you hope to be

 But tell me what you are.  

                                   

Author Unknown

Old-Fashioned Letters

Old-fashioned letters! How good they were!

And nobody writes them now;

Never at all comes in the scrawl

On the written pages which told us all

The news of town and the folks we knew,

And what they had done or were going to do.

It seems we've forgotten how

To spend an hour with our pen in hand

To write in the language we understand.

Old-fashioned letters we used to get

And ponder each fond line o'er;

The glad words rolled like running gold,

As smoothly their tales of joy they told,

And our hearts beat fast with a keen delight

As we read the news they were pleased to write

And gathered the love they bore.

But few of the letters that come to-day

Are penned to us in the old-time way.

Old-fashioned letters that told us all

The tales of the far away;

Where they'd been and the folks they'd seen;

And better than any fine magazine

Was the writing too, for it bore the style

Of a simple heart and a sunny smile,

And was pure as the breath of May.

Some of them oft were damp with tears,

But those were the letters that lived for years.

Old-fashioned letters! How good they were!

And, oh, how we watched the mails;

But nobody writes of the quaint delights

Of the sunny days and the merry nights

Or tells us the things that we yearn to know—

That art passed out with the long ago,

And lost are the simple tales;

Yet we all would happier be, I think,

If we'd spend more time with our pen and ink.

                                              by Edgar Albert Guest

Guessing Vs. Knowing

If I were selling nails or glass, or pills or shoes or garden sass, or

honey from the bee--whatever line of goods were mine, I'd study up that

special line and know its history.

If I a stock of rags should keep, I'd read up sundry books on sheep and

wool and how it grows.  Beneath my old bald, freckled roof, I'd store

some facts on warp and woof and other things like those.  I'd try to

know a spinning-jack from patent churn or wagon rack, a loom from

hog-tight fence; and if a man came in to buy, and asked some leading

question, I could answer with some sense.

If I were selling books, I'd know a Shakespeare from an Edgar Poe, a

Carlyle from a Pope; and I would know Fitzgerald's rhymes from Laura

Libbey's brand of crimes, or Lillian Russell's dope.

If I were selling shoes, I'd seize the fact that on gooseberry trees,

good leather doesn't grow; that shoe pegs do not grow like oats, that

cowhide doesn't come from goats--such things I'd surely know.

And if I were a grocer man.  I'd open now and then a can to see what

stuff it held; 'twere better than to writhe in woe and make reply, "I

didn't know," when some mad patron yelled.

I hate to hear a merchant say: "I think that this is splendid hay," "I

guess it's first class tea."  He ought to know how good things are, if

he would sell his silk or tar or other goods to me.  Oh, knowledge is

the stuff that wins; the man without it soon begins to get his trade in

kinks.  No matter where a fellow goes, he's valued for the things he

knows, not for the things he thinks.

                                                                                          by Walt Mason

Random Shots

I shot an arrow into the air, it fell in the distance, I knew not

where, till a neighbour said that it killed his calf, and I had to pay

him six and a half ($6.50).  I bought some poison to slay some rats,

and a neighbour swore that it killed his cats; and, rather than argue

across the fence, I paid him four dollars and fifty cents ($4.50).  One

night I set sailing a toy balloon, and hoped it would soar till it

reached the moon; but the candle fell out, on a farmer's straw, and he

said I must settle or go to law.  And that is the way with the random

shot; it never hits in the proper spot; and the joke you spring, that

you think so smart, may leave a wound in some fellow's heart.

                                                                                           by Walt Mason

The Politician

I will not say that blade is black, nor yet that white is white; for

rash assertions oft come back, and put us in a plight.  Some people

hold that black is white, and some that white is black; to me the

neutral course looks right; I take the middle track.  If I should say

that black is white, and white is black, today, some one would mix the

two tonight--tomorrow they'd be gray.  In politics I wish to thrive,

and swiftly forge ahead, so dare not say that I'm alive, nor swear that

I am dead.  You say that fishes climb the trees, that cows on wings do

fly, I can't dispute such facts as these, so patent to the eye; with

any man I will agree, no odds what he defends, if he will only vote for

me, and boom me to his friends.

From Rippling Rhymes by Walt Mason

Show Me!

I would rather see a Mason, than hear one any day,

I would rather one would walk with me than merely show the way.

The eye's a better pupil and more willing than the ear,

Fine counsel is confusing, but example's always clear.

And the best of all the Masons are the men who live their creeds,

For to see the good in action is what everybody needs.

I can soon learn how to do it if you'll let me see it done,

I can watch your hands in action, but your tongue too fast may run.

And the lectures you deliver may be wise and true,

But I'd rather get my lesson by observing what you do.

For I may misunderstand you and the high advice you give,

But there's no misunderstanding how you act and how you live.

                                                      

                                                                     by Edgar Albert Guest

I Am Habit

It is mighty hard to shake me;

In my brawny arms I take thee;

I can either make or break thee

I am habit!

Through each day I slowly mold thee;

Soon my tight’ning chains enfold thee

Then it is with ease I hold thee

Thus is habit!

I can be both good and vile;

I can e’en be worth your while,

Or cause of your bitter cry;

I am habit!

Oft I’ve proved myself a pleasure

Proved myself a priceless treasure,

Or a menace past all measure

Thus is habit!

Harmless though I sometimes seem, yet

My strange force is like a magnet;

Like a great and greedy dragnet;

I am habit!

Though you sometimes fear or doubt me;

No one yet lived without me;

I am present all about thee;

This is habit!

Choose me well when you are starting

Seldom is easy parting;

I’m devil or darling;

I am habit!

                                 

                                                                  By Robert E. Sly

Adapting Your Message to Your Audience

An old hill farming crofter trudges several miles through freezing snow to his local and very remote chapel for Sunday service. No-one else is there, aside from the clergyman.

"I'm not sure it's worth proceeding with the service - might we do better to go back to our warm homes and a hot drink?.." asks the clergyman, inviting a mutually helpful reaction from his audience of one.

"Well, I'm just a simple farmer," says the old crofter, "But when I go to feed my herd, and if only one beast turns up, I sure don't leave it hungry."

So the clergyman, feeling somewhat ashamed, delivers his service - all the bells and whistles, hymns and readings, lasting a good couple of hours - finishing proudly with the fresh observation that no matter how small the need, our duty remains. And he thanks the old farmer for the lesson he has learned.

"Was that okay?" asks the clergyman, as the two set off home.

"Well I'm just a simple farmer," says the old crofter, "But when I go to feed my herd, and if only one beast turns up, I sure don't force it to eat what I brought for the whole herd..."

From which we see the extra lesson, that while our duty remains regardless of the level of need, we have the additional responsibility to ensure that we adapt our delivery (of whatever is our stock in trade) according to the requirements of our audience.

Only a Dad

Only a dad, with a tired face,

Coming home from the daily race,

Bringing little of gold or fame,

To show how well he has played the game,

But glad in his heart that his own rejoice

To see him come, and to hear his voice.

Only a dad, with a brood of four,

One of ten million men or more.

Plodding along in the daily strife,

Bearing the whips and the scorns of life,

With never a whimper of pain or hate,

For the sake of those who at home await.

Only a dad, neither rich nor proud,

Merely one of the surging crowd

Toiling, striving from day to day,

Facing whatever may come his way,

Silent, whenever the harsh condemn,

And bearing it all for the love of them.

Only a dad, but he gives his all

To smooth the way for his children small,

Doing, with courage stern and grim,

The deeds that his father did for him.

This is the line that for him I pen,

Only a dad, but the best of men.

by Edgar Albert Guest