I have posted this before, got to thinking about my kids, grandkids and great grandkids, and thinking of what might lie in their future. Yea, it's depressing, but out of my control. I think I worry more about the grand and great grandkids more than I did our kids. I really have no control over them, just admire, be thankful for, and worry. I worry a lot, always did. Mom had to drag me to birthdays parties and such, got there, and didn't want to leave. Once, had to worry about having a catheter taken out for a couple of weeks, I was a nervous wreck when my wife dragged me to the doctors office. I remember cringing, eyes tightly closed, hands sweating, tense, "When are you going to take it out," I reluctantly asked the doctor .... "It is out."
I first heard this poem in about '44 at the Great Lakes Naval Station in Chicago. My brother was going through a V-12 program and we went up for a visit. The Chaplain used this in his sermon. Eddy Peabody played hymns on his banjo. I knew my brother would soon be going off to war.
Some have asked.
An old man, going a lone highway,
Came at the evening cold and gray
To a chasm vast and deep and wide
Through which was flowing a swollen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The rapids held no fears for him.
But he turned when safe on the other side
And built a bridge to span the tide.
“Old man,” cried a fellow pilgrim near,
“You’re wasting your time in building here.
Your journey will end with the closing day;
You never again will pass this way.
You have crossed the chasm deep and wide;
Why build you this bridge at even-tide?”
The builder lifted his old gray head.
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There follows after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This stream, which has been as naught to me,
To that fair youth may a pitfall be.
He too must cross in the twilight dim —
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”
