Originally broadcast on CHED radio Tuesday, June 1st, 1965

It’s a Winner

This world is a winner, my neighbors, the troubles may on us descend; 

We always live through the disasters, and everything’s right in the end. 

I've lived through a surfeit of sorrows, I've lived through an ocean of cares,

I've wept through the night, and the morrow, convinced me my woe wasn't there. 

Some people are always abusing the planet whereon we abide; 

They hint that if they had the choosing, on some other world we would ride.

But when they are scheduled to leave us, and flee to a happier clime, 

They look on the journey as grievous, they think their departure a crime. 

The longer I live on this planet, the better and smoother it seems,

This mixture of gumbo and granite is surely the world of my dreams. 

The knockers are dealing in fiction who call it a wilderness drear, 

There's just enough grief and affliction to season the happiness here. 

There's just enough hustle and hurry to spur us to showing our worth;

There's just enough trouble and worry to keep us from dying of mirth. 

If others are putting up dirges, your voice to the wailing don't lend; 

The world from all shadows emerges, and everything’s right in the end.

Originally broadcast on CHED radio - Date unknown

When I was an impressionable 19 years old I met a man who had made and lost two fortunes and was again on the way up.  I was fascinated by this fellow for at the time I was a struggling underpaid writer trying to keep a home and raise a family on a very modest wage.  I thought at the time that if I ever should make a fortune and lose it overnight I would simply give up and quit. As I got to know this man better I saw that it wasn't really the money that counted with him.  It was the challenge that kept him going, his wealth was merely a byproduct. He viewed each day as another opportunity to prove himself to himself.  I asked him one day how he felt when after so many years of labor he found himself once again, not at the finishing line but at the starting post.  He stated that truly this didn't bother him for he had never counted himself out. He likened life to a boxing match. As long as you can get up and go another round, you are never knocked out.  Perhaps right now YOU are facing adversity. Perhaps your every instinct tells you to give up.  Dear friend, don't do it.  Remember, no one can count you out but YOU. If you can get up, dust yourself off and go one more round, you may end up a winner.

Originally broadcast on CHED radio - April 15th, 1965

 With one of my small boys, I looked at a picture of Jesus on the cross, and my boy said, "daddy, they nailed Him to the cross, right through His hands they nailed him. “  yes, they nailed Him to the cross, through the palm of His hands, and blood ran from the wounds in those hands and they left him there to die.  And I've thought…those hands…those gentle, miraculous, loving hands…those hands which did so much in such a few short years on earth… those hands that were forever extended in fellowship to those who worshiped Him…in forgiveness for those who hated Him…and help for those who needed Him, and in love even for those who crucified Him.  Those tender hands that lifted little children to His lap…those hands that broke bread and poured wine with the poor and wretched…those hands that gently touched the blind man so he could see again…the hands that lifted the lame and the crippled so that they may walk again…those willing…miraculous hands of Jesus of Nazareth… the hands through which they drove the spikes as they nailed him to the cross.  And I thought…as we looked at the picture of Jesus on the cross… are not those hands extend today… offering peace and love and hope and tranquility and forgiveness for those who will but reach out and grasp them.

Yes… Jesus must surely have been the son of God to extend even today, those merciful hands through which they drove the spikes on that cross so many, many years ago.

Originally broadcast on CHED radio Tuesday May 4th, 1965

Every Sunday afternoon in millions of backyards across the nation you see him, that 1965 phenomenon, the male outdoor cook.  He is the product of the womanization of America. He is the escape hatch created by the female by which she escapes on every sunny Sunday from the burdensome chore of cooking dinner.  In his kitchen is a chrome lined, wall mounted, button bedecked oven. On the countertop are burners-with-a-brain, again complete with dials, gauges, knobs, buttons, clocks, thermostats, fans and hoods.  The oven has a window and is equipped with lights on the inside which go on when the door opens and resting halfway up the oven is the automatic revolving electrically controlled spit. But where is father? With $1000 worth of cooking equipment in the kitchen where is the Canadian male?  He is out in the backyard with a grimy round grease-laden, foul-smelling receptacle, a pail of filthy charcoal and the most expensive meats his money can buy.  He has a box of fire starter, a box of hickory chips, a jar of barbecue sauce, a can of liquid smoke, a bellows, a sprinkle bottle filled with water, several long spears, daggers, diggers, spades and he is ready.  After eight starts, he finally gets the fire going and then on go the steaks. In the course of the next two hours the fire gets too hot and he lifts the grill. The steaks aren't cooking so he lowers it again. Lowers it again. When he lowers it the grease drips into the fire and he fights an open flame for two minutes which leaves the meet jet black on the outside and bleeding on the inside. He sprinkles on hickory chips, sauce and liquid smoke. He prods, peaks, cranks, gets smoke in his eyes five times and smells up the entire block and to do all this he must wear a silly apron and a big cooks hat.  After a long tortuous hour he is ready to serve what he has destroyed. Everyone scrapes off the gray ash and eats the poor chard-on-the-outside-bleeding-on-the -inside steak.  And then it is ‘lie time’ as everyone says "boy, you just can't cook ‘em that way indoors.”  Do I do it? You bet I do, but something I still can't figure out. If you just can't cook up like that indoors, why did I put 1000 bucks into a kitchen set up that looks like a launching pad at Cape Kennedy?  Furthermore, millions of years ago cavemen loused up meats with an open fire just like we males do every Sunday.  Are we going AHEAD or are we going BACKWARDS? I dunno. But what are you going to do?

Originally broadcast on CHED radio Tuesday, May 18th, 1965

If you are familiar with the laws of marine communication, you know that there are two periods each hour during which all marine radio equipment falls silent. For three minutes at a quarter past the hour and 43 minutes at a quarter to the hour, radio communication ceases on the high seas and from shore installations. These two periods are cleared each hour for the broadcast of distress signals. Except during these silent periods, marine radio bands are jammed with ship to ship and ship to shore radio transmissions. It is just one message on top of another. I was thinking, wouldn't it be a good idea to have two silent periods per day in our lives during which we all concerned ourselves with picking up distress signals from our fellow man?  So often after some tragedy has occurred in the lives of a friend, or within our family, we say “ I wish I had known. I wish they had told me. Maybe I could have helped”.  Well, if you are a perceptive person you can easily spot people who need help. They need someone to lean on for a while; someone to talk to; someone to be a friend.  In spite of the fact we are always surrounded by people, this is still a lonely world for so many. They cry out for our help, but we are all so busy, we are all sending out so many messages of our own that we feel are important that we fail to pick up the distress signals from those among us who need help.  How much better the world would be if twice each day we just shut our mouth's and opened our ears for the S.O.S’ s. How many lives could be saved if we got these distress signals loud and clear and then threw out the lifeline. Today, why don't you try turning into the needs of other human beings. Today, perhaps you can help someone in rough water. Tomorrow, maybe you will need that lifeline. What a pity so many human souls sink into the deep just because nobody, not one single human person heard the distress signal.