November 1970

There is a nail at the top of the basement steps. It's just like the old one in the house across the field. This is where my newer "handy cap" hangs.

Early morning in an interesting time. In the mad scramble of jumbled thoughts as one attempts to find that pin point of focus for the activities of the day, there come memories, ambitions, frustrations and concerns. There is family, work, Thanksgiving, welfare, recreation, income vs. out-go, health, memory and hats.

How can you separate one from the other and make your day and your reason for being make sense. Like the Alice of Wonderland you are in a maze of mirrors, trying to find the looking glass to walk through, and knowing that unlike the Mad Hatter you will not be able to balance all of the shapes and styles upon your whirling mind at once.

So, to the nail and the cap. The dogs knew the signal of a bolt sliding in the lock and woke up the neighbors in anticipation of a run in the woods.

The collies led the way in a joyful dash. They had been to the sassafras stump before and were content to lie quietly for the moments the fellow wearing the handy cap seemed to relish as he sat. This morning there was a dew covered spider web and the owner worked back and forth to leave a perfect lacework pattern. The handiwork was perfection and much like others I had seen before. How do they know to follow a path similar to those who have deposited their thread in like fashion over so many years? Nature has such a way of balancing things out...maybe we'd better try to straighten out our own disorganized thinking.

There are bonnets and caps and hats. Some fit and are attractive while others are better relegated to the foot of the basement steps or the corner of the attic.

For years the urge to try on hats has overwhelmed me. There is always a laugh in a hat when it is deposited upon the wrong head.

For a period the LFRA hat was my vocation. It is still one of my strong interests and hopes. The first birthday of the Recreation Register is a happy occasion for me and I join the 75,000 readers of our 140,000 membership in a salute. The long struggle is not over but the vital communication link is alive and rendering great service. For this we can all be thankful.

And on to another hat... This one is the Committee for the Handicapped, People-to-People... This is a mighty comfortable fit. Those who have such a variety of problems make life so worthwhile for all of us. This was the fleeting thought on that sassafras stump and I almost left it there to complete my walk.

Then the colorful leaves and pine needles sifting down told me it was fall...November...the month of Thanksgiving... We gather the family together then...all of us...past and present...the well and strong, the sick and lame, the blind and deaf, the young and the old, the paralyzed and the voiceless... All of us... And we each have a pad and pencil to go with a ten minute time limit. We write down those things for which we are thankful.

This Thanksgiving we are thankful for those who care about the Recreation and Welfare of others. That there is a League and a union of the employee associations. Then we are thankful for those around us who give so much inspiration and make out problems seem so small. I am thankful for the hat of service to the disabled that so many wear, even for just the moment of helping someone up the stairs or across the street.

Before me is the note from the paraplegic who says, "Each person is an individual and we do not sit in our wheelchairs like so many blobs, smiling incessantly...I am not always patient and cheerful...I criticize, I knock, I get mad and swear, I seldom have time to smile..."

I'm wondering how many of us would trade our lives for the life of any other individual we know. Remember, you would be trading all of the life, not part of yours for part of his. Not every lid that fits another man's kettle will go on yours.

All of a sudden the sun is getting brighter; there is no insect in the web and the spider is resting. This is a good time to be saying thanks to --

The God that gave me eyes that I might see,
And ears that I might hear,
A voice that I might tell to all
His story far and near.
To me He gave a heart too full
To pass my brother by,
Two legs, two feet, two arms and hands
To use to serve my fellow man.
A mind, a looking back, a soul set free
Thank God! He gave these gifts to me.
So I my duties must not shirk
For God made man to do His holy work.
The young, the lame, the old and gray,
The boys and girls who cannot play
Extend to us their searching hands.
To know the touch of one who truly understands.
Empathy, compassion we ask of Thee,
To help us do and see
The tasks which Thou hast given
That we might know the taste of Heaven.

I guess I better put my cap back on and go now. It's funny...after a few minutes on the Thanksgiving stump the "handy cap" really feels good when you are relating life to handicapped. I am thankful for my love of hats!

David L. Brigham
Executive Director