by Everett Reid
This is the end of my writing road. It began 75 years ago when I won first prize in an essay contest sponsored by our local newspaper.
I was in the eighth grade, which was as far as my formal education went, and my teacher, who felt I had some ability in writing, kept encouraging me to pursue it further. Dear Miss Lyons. She probably influenced my life more than anyone else.
Had I noticed that our local paper was offering a prize for a best essay entry? she asked.
I told her that I didn't think I could do anything like that.
She said it would be easy. It was to be written under the title "ON MY WAY TO SCHOOL" and all I had to do was notice something that took my attention on the way to school and write my opinion of it.
Well, sir, as I was leaving school later that afternoon old man Freeman was passing by with his sledge and team of horses. The sledge was piled high with freight he was taking from the railroad depot to Greens Hardware. The load was so big that he took up most of the road.
Coming up behind him was Bert Herbert driving his truck, also piled with freight, and he tried in vain to pass Freeman and his team of horses. He hammered on his Klaxon and yelled, "Get out of my road, you silly old fool." But the old man paid no attention and kept right to the middle of the road.
There before me was the idea for my essay. "Will the automobile ever replace the horse? No –––" I wrote, and proceeded to prove my point. I had a hundred and one reasons why old dobbin would still be around and happily serving mankind when the last automobile would have rusted to brown powder.
I ended my essay in a true tear jerking manner thus: "And who would want to awaken on a morning when a gentle rain was falling and not hear the soft plop plop of the hoofs on the brick road intermixed with the drip, drip of the rain on the window pane. Life would lose one of its great beauties."
I won first prize, was presented with a brand new dollar bill and had my picture on the front page of the newspaper holding my prize.
And so began my road as an author. Looking back through my many years I realize that I'm probably one of the few persons left that remember seeing teams of owen plowing a field or the big full-rigged sailing vessels that once traveled the oceans of the world and, oh yes, I've lived to see my prophecy for the automobile fail miserably. Even old man Freeman could see the handwriting on the wall for it wasn't long after I had won my essay that he traded in his beautiful team of black stallions for a rickety gasoline guzzler.
I hoboed around the states and met good people who were ridiculed for their ignorance and evil men who had the wealth of the earth. I paid into my first social security and marveled at the first medicare.
There was a time when I worked 12 hours a day for one dollar. Today I receive 10 times the income that I once made for a months hard labor.
I've seen my country engage in man's supreme stupidity by fighting in five wars that were none of our business.
As a boy I remember watching Uncle Dan march proudly with the Civil War vets carrying a musket half again as tall as he was.
I've witnessed the coming of the airplane which made it possible to travel the world in a few hours and television which keeps us informed on world happenings almost as soon as they take place and the most unbelievable event of all was watching a man land on the moon.
I've seen medicine advance from sulfur and molasses to heart transplants and so many other things too numerous to list. How this world has changed. From sophisticated ways of life to equally sophisticated war machines for taking it.
We are told that the new babe is born into a world of confusion and at the other end of life I find the world is just as confusing as it was the day I was born.
So, goodbye to my many friends who have read my writings. Through 75 years I have enjoyed your company and letters as I traveled along my road.
Return to Main Page