Originally broadcast on CHED Radio, Edmonton, Alberta Canada. Undated.

In an article in the Edmonton Journal Saturday evening, City Planner William Hardcastle stated that there exists in Edmonton “an extremely low standard of design in many downtown buildings.” He named the new Empire Block and the new Bank of Montreal classic examples of bad design. Here, here Mr. Hardcastle. All the Empire Block needs is bars on the windows and it could pass for a jail. The Bank of Montreal, with its bile green exterior is an eye sore on the face of the City. Mr. Hardcastle stated that City Council never took seriously his objection to the designs of some buildings on which his department wanted to withhold development permits. What a pity. We have to face it. This growing city IS ugly. There is filth and dirt everywhere you look. For eight months a year we are faced with mountains of snow and in spring and fall with thousands of acres of mud and slush and muck. And then we compound all these natural conditions by allowing companies to put up monstrosities like the Empire Block and the Bank of Montreal. Why do so many Canadians feel it’s a little “sissy” to have an appreciation for beauty? Is it that too few of us have ever seen beautiful buildings, parks in the City Centre, malls filled with flowers, boulevards lined with trees? These things can be done if enough people care. We don't have to have a city of tall, grey, bleak, ugly, boxes like the Empire Block. There is nothing we can do about the buildings that have now been built. We’re stuck with them for another hundred years, but for heavens sake let’s give Mr. Hardcastles department some support from here on in. We’re building for tomorrow, so let’s build for beauty not for ugliness.

Originally broadcast on CHED Radio, Edmonton, Alberta Canada. Undated.

Remember always that TODAY is the fulfillment of the promise made by your YESTERDAY...and TODAY is the foundation of your happiness of TOMORROW.

Today is a day for happiness, peace, prosperity, success, growth, progress, change, and thanksgiving for your blessings. Today is your opportunity to give expression to the life of God, to the love of God, to the light of God, to the peace of God, to the power of God...all of which you must know if your rightful heritage as a beloved child of the one Father.

Let's not procrastinate. Let us not put today’s joys off until tomorrow. Today’s need for happiness is today’s assurance that the source of happiness is at hand, is within each one of us. Today is sufficient unto itself. Today is blessed and a blessing. Let it bring us fulfillment. Let it reward us with the good of the present moment. 

Today is whatever is before you, first tune yourself in on God through a period of quiet meditation and prayer. Then buoyed up by the courage and confidence such prayerful communion can bring to you, you can step forth to meet whatever problem or condition lies before you. With the wisdom of God to guide you, you need never feel at a loss as regards any situation, you need never feel unequal to any demand that may be made upon you. Through prayer, you are tapping the infinite wellspring of Divine wisdom...and through prayer you will make your TODAYS wonderfully happy, building upon them the joy of your TOMORROWS.

Originally broadcast on CHED Radio, Edmonton, Alberta Canada. April 1964. Labeled #01a

When I went to work in the morning, the trees were there. It was autumn and their leaves were a riot of colour. There were about fifty trees in all on the boulevard, skirting the main artery into the city centre. The trees had been there as long as I could remember. I used to watch them in the spring for they seemed to be the first trees in the city to announce the season with a suggestion of green. During the summer the tall trees provided shade for the boys and girls from a nearby factory, as the enjoyed their lunch on the green grass under their boughs. It was autumn now, and the trees were brilliant with colour, accented by the morning sunrise. That night, when I drove home, the trees were gone. The earth lay in great ruptures, black and barren. I assumed at the time that the city was going to widen the road. Six years have passed but nothing more has been done. Again and again this is happening in city after city. Parks torn up and trees rooted out all in the name of progress. Where yesterday we had a park, flowers, trees and tranquility, today we have a ribbon of concrete jammed with automobiles. There is little enough beauty in most western Canadian cities, and yet we stand by and let administration destroy what we have, to build bigger and better roads, and often for no apparent reason at all. A concerned citizenry is the only safe-guard against the appropriation of parkland.  I’ll concede we need to solve the traffic problem, but not at the expense of what little beauty we have left.

Originally broadcast on CHED Radio, Edmonton, Alberta Canada. January 1964. Labeled #07a

When your road of life leads all uphill

And you feel that you can’t go on,

When the path you walk is hard and cruel, 

And you long for the night, not the dawn, 

Find someone who loves you and test that love,

He’ll pick you up if you fall.

If you give him a chance, he’ll show his worth,

Find that someone who loves you, and bawl.

No man’s been made who can take on the world

And not get hurt now and then,

And it matters not how oft you go down,

As long as you get up again.

Just keep remembering the someone who cares,

Who’ll hear you whenever you call....

So if now and then, life becomes too much,

Find that someone who loves you...and bawl.

Originally broadcast on CHED Radio, Edmonton, Alberta Canada. January 1964. Labeled #06b

A very encouraging public opinion poll was taken recently at the annual convention of the Catholic Youth Organization, attended by 7,000 young people at the Hilton Hotel in New York City. The modern teenager, understandably bewildered by the peccadillos of playboys and people in high places such as John Profumo and Bobby Baker and Richard Burton...is still convinced he can conquer the world of tomorrow. “People in high places go haywire,” said Roseanne Gargan of Denver. “Some of these people,” she went on to say. “adopt the lowest moral standard. Somehow, for a while at least, a kid’s ideas of right and wrong go down the drain.” Charles Rucker, 17, of Omaha, pondered this question. “Should you cheat just because it seems the way to succeed in business, government, in anything without really trying?” His confusion was echoed by Howard Hanna of Pittsburgh who said, “Your friends, being pressured to maintain an 85 average so they can get into college, start to cheat on tests. I know one kid who got every quarterly exam from someplace and never studied a minute.” The young people were a bit more worldly in their discussion of the social mores of our time. Betty Reid, a young lady from Mississippi said, “I know many of my friends drink. Some start when they are 15, usually because they are going out with freshmen or sophomores. They want to be like big shots. But it’s the worst thing in teenage life today. It takes away your intelligence and knocks down your morals.” I have to think that these tall, clear thoughts reflect teenagers the world over. I frankly believe they have an acute sense of right and wrong. It’s a wonder too, for we have given them very few guide posts these past few years.

Originally broadcast on CHED Radio, Edmonton, Alberta Canada. Labeled #11

Like it or not, we’re living in a world that is moving ahead so fast that life seems like a chapter from science fiction. We have been greatly shocked that the Russians have the jump on us in the race to conquer space. Now there is a great deal of speculation that it is only a matter of time ‘til man can control the entire weather picture. There are two things we can do; turn our backs on it all and say, this is too fantastic to believe, or face up to it and try to keep abreast of developments behind the Iron Curtain. Well. we tried to hide our heads before, and we just about got our world blown out from under us. So, face up the the pace we must.  But, where do we start?

There is no doubt about it. We start with our children. We start with our schools, our educational system. Almost overnight, the emphasis has switched from development along sociological lines to development along the lines of learning. Very simply...it’s high time our young people stated using their brains. All the multi-million dollar schools we build, the personality development courses we give, the social activities we plan, the psychological approaches we use have become secondary to the true function of any educational system...the function of learning. If the democratic system in which we believe so strongly is to survive, then we have to teach our youngsters HOW TO THINK and this can start from the day they are born. It is a world that is moving so fast it frightens you. We can go along with it, mould and direct it in the channels we think and strongly believe it should go, or we can be consumed by it. This is no time for coddling our leaders of tomorrow...it’s time for firm realistic direction. Today, the teacher is the most important person in our society. On the shoulders of our teachers lies the entire future of our civilization. My friends, they need your help, they need your prayers, they need your faith, and may God give instruction to their schemes.