No, my life’s no worse than yours.
That was the title of the
Harder family newsletter
that my mother used to write.
My sister found a stack in
Mom's old boxes.
I think the whole thing started,
back in the early Fifties,
after Mom had overheard
Granddad Harder’s tired old joke
about a local skinflint:
"Old Stone is a hard man, but
I'm still Harder!"
Mom took that and ran with it.
While most folks were still writing
short notes in their Christmas cards,
she took the mimeograph,
the one she’d bought for church work,
and started a newspaper
on a small scale.
She had a homemade light box
that she used; with a stylus,
traced pictures on the stencil,
alongside the family news.
Before the Times
ceased printing,
Mom upgraded to Xerox,
with photographs.
The Times never
lost its soul,
as the creative outlet
of the amazing mind of
that young Bible college grad
whose mission field was family.
If Mom were still living now,
she'd be an avid blogger
and go viral.
Copyright ©2018, Paul H. Harder II
This poem is licensed under a Creative Commons
BY-NC-ND 4.0 License.
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