Senior Daze

by Katie Bourg

About Katie: Having arrived in time for the Great (?) Depression, WWII, and all other 20th century problems, I am endowed with long and varied memories. Writing classes have long been my home away from home. Other people's stories are fascinating, and sharing is growth at its best. Hope you seniors will join me with your stories. Try it. You'll like it.

Sometimes even a piece of paper can become a treasure. I was recently privileged to enjoy one belonging to my friend Dorothy Norris Herivel. Like me, Dorothy is now well into her 80s, but she still plays piano for several singing groups in the area.

She first played as the small daughter of two dedicated officers of the Salvation Army, and calls herself not a PK (Preacher's Kid), but an OK (Officer's Kid). She had nine children, and still found time to play for the Lutheran church she joined after moving to the northwest with her family. Her husband was also musical, and sold organs and pianos in the Everett area for many years. She is a delightful person, and in spite of a stroke about a year ago, very active still.

No longer affiliated with the organization, Dorothy retains great respect for those who serve in the Salvation Army. And she is obviously very proud of the poem written by Edgar Guest to honor her father. It is her treasure.

It brought back memories to me, too. Memories of comfort and doughnuts and stories told by veterans of WWI. Working at the Veterans Administration after WWII, I heard them again and again. I hope you like the poem as much as I did.



Lines to a Salvation Army Man

(Albert S. Norris)

By Edward A. Guest



I have heard them singing hymns on the sidewalks of the slums.

I have heard them calling sinners to the beating of their drums.

I have heard them nightly pleading with the craven and the weak

To forsake their way of living and a better one to seek.

And looking mortals over in this curious worldly plan

I would choose, for earnest labors, your Salvation Army man.



Here's no cozy sheltered parson preaching sermons from a book,

Picking soft and easy cases, dodging drunk and dope and crook,

But a cleric of the gutter meeting humans at their worst,

Who will seek the soul's salvation but will feed the body first.

And upon the Master's business, which is sometimes bitter grim,

Does more real good with doughnuts than with any gospel hymn.



Here's a man who lives his teaching, and the booming of his drum

Shows he doesn't pick and choose them but will take them as they come.

Where the most of us are willing to perform the pleasant tasks

We don't like the uglier labors which the good Lord sometimes asks.

But Salvation Army heroes try to rescue to the end

Since the lower down they've fallen it's the more men need a friend.



So here's to you, Colonel Norris, and your forty years or more

Of living your religion, going round from door to door

Or standing at the gutters where men's lives are swirled and tossed

In the hope that you might save one which would otherwise be lost!

You are bigger, braver, finer than the most of us, I swear,

By the work that you are doing and that uniform you wear.



I'm no Edgar Guest, but this I would add:



In times of desperation, fear, and hate and painful war,

There are some who are insistent that they must do something more.

They are known by ringing bells, compassion, doughnuts, too

And the many, many other acts of charity they do.

So feel around your pockets, finger coinage, if you can

And drop some in the kettles of the Salvation Army man.