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PAGE 2-B—THE BULLETIN, December 24, 1960 | Joyce Kilmer At Christmas 1 ?f5iaajMiaa3»aaao)»3i».3isi»as)»a»»a«»iaiaaaisa»**a*si»ia*»a2»aiass*»t8ia*a»iaia»3sai3iiaaais»S!aaaaa;' JOYCE KILMER SEASON’S GREETINGS FROM TIM’S AMOCO 2598 Ceniral Ave. REG. 3-9192 AUGUSTA, GA. By Dan Doran Joyce Kilmer loved feast days. He discovered them be fore he joined the Catholic Church. Afterward he enjoyed them more. “It is very nice,” he wrote in his last Christmas letter, “the way feasts seem to be marked.” This was just like him. He carried to a soldier’s grave an impish, boyish spirit that took delight in hobgoblins or mused much on houses with nobody in them, or discovered romances in the wares of a delicatessan store or snatched a theme for verse at tales of eerie midnight fishermen smoking and taking swigs on creeks their mortal frames had long since left behind. CHRISTMAS EXPERT On Christmas, that best lov ed feast day, he was a sort of an expert. In “The Art of Christmas Giving” he could wander in such company as St. Nicholas of Bari, Emerson, Lowell, Wil liam Jennings Bryan and even Mr. Blinker or your Sunday School teacher. CARTER Electric Co., Inc. Specializing In Industrial Municipal Electric Installations C. E. CARTER, President 1503 HICKS STREET — AUGUSTA, GEORGIA COOK’S CLEANERS 536 Broad St. Phone 2-4204 AUGUSTA, GA. 1401 Monte Sano Ave. “You have hitherto,” he re ports, “regarded Mr. Blinker, the notorious efficiency engi neer, with disfavor. “You have regarded him as a prosaic theorist — a curdled mass of statistics. “On Christmas morning you find he has presented you, not with an illuminated ‘Rules for Eliminating leisure,’ or a set of household ledgers, or an alarm clock, but with a cocktail set, or a pool table, or an angora cat or some other inefficient obiect. “At once your opinion of Mr. Blinker changes for the bet ter. He assumes a new and radiant personality. “Your Sunday School teach er has always exhibited to you virtues which you do not en joy. “She has seemed "to you lacking in magnetism. If she gives you for Christmas a Bible or a tale of juvenile vir tue, you will write her a graceful note of thanks — at your mother’s dictation — but your affection for the estim able lady will not increase. But if your Sunday School teacher gives you a Bowie knife or a revolver, or a set of Deadwood Dick novels, then how suddenly will the nobility of your Sunday School teacher be revealed.” Kilmer had a special devo tion — and for good reasons — to the Holy Innocents. In 1913 he had written Fa ther James J. Daly, S.J., at Prairie du Chien, the seat of Campion College, asking him to pray for his daughter Rose who had been stricken with infantile paralysis. “Just off Broadway,” he re vealed, “on the way from the Hudson tube to the Times Building there is a church call ed the Church of the Holy In nocents. Well, every morning for months I stopped on my way to the office and prayed in this church for faith. When faith did come, it came, I think by way of my little paralyzed daughter. Her life less hands led me; I think her tiny still feet know beautiful paths.” When he and his wife, Aline, became Catholics a Tittle be fore Christmas in 1913 he wrote commenting that Father Cronyn, who baptized them, might have been disappointed that they did not show any emotion at the ceremony and explaining that their chief sen sation was merely that of com fort in a feeling that they were now where they belonged and that it was a very pleasant feeling. Now that he was converted, Father Daly sent him some Christmas cards and medals. In reply he wrote; “I did not know such beau tiful cards were made. How is it that in Prairie du Chien, a place of which the name sug gests Indians and tomahawks and Deadwood Dick stages, you can procure better cards than I can get in New York? The medals are highly valued —the workmanship in them is so admirable — and they shall eaJon S (jreetinffS HILL DRUG COMPANY 1432 Monte Sano Avenue Phones RE. 3-3621 — RE. 3-3661 AUGUSTA, GEORGIA PRESCRIPTION SERVICE Our Best Wishes To You ... Friendly Service At All Times SPECIAL CHECKING ACCOUNT No minimum balance is required for you to enjoy the convenience of our joint or individual check ing account— 24 CHECKS FOR $2.00 North Augusta Banking Company Member Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation NORTH AUGUSTA, S. C. Reason & CjroetingA FRANK GOLDBERG CO. LADIES' OUTFITTERS 724 Broad Street Augusta, Georgia Merry Christmas BRIGHAM’S SUPER MARKET 2 FINE STORES 'Augusta Owned — Augusta Operated' Season’s greetings and our thanks to all our friends whose patronage we value so highly! We’re all aglow with warm wishes for a holiday full of love, joy and good cheer l CHRYSLER AIRTEMP PRODUCTS Pinnell Heating & Air Conditioning Company 855 WALKER STREET AUGUSTA, GA. CHRISTMAS IN JAPAN Although the New Year is the greatest holiday celebration in Japan, all Christians honor the Divine Infant in the sacred manner intended. This scene in a Japanese home would seem to indicate that the children’s celebration is very much like that of American youngsters. Notice the boy at the right absorbed in his toy train. be worn properly as soon as I can afford to buy some sil ver chains, which will be next Tuesday.” ENLISTMENT The close bond that existed between Joyce Kilmer and his wife should certainly have made the Christmas season for them a glorious adventure, especially when they had the children with them. In a happy mood she once wrote: If people should ask me, I always relate I have four nice children and hope to have eight, And though my four children are certain to please, Who knows hut the rest will be better than these? With the sinking of the “Tuscania” off the Coast of Ireland and Joyce Kilmer’s great surge of emotion that impelled the composition of “The White Ships and the Red” there was only one an swer to what seemed a per sonal challenge and a bugle call. He must enlist. To be with the Fighting Sixty-Ninth was to him a great pleasure. He had been muster ed into another regiment but he succeeded in effecting a change because he liked to be among the Irish who came from New York. His only pang was his sep aration from his wife and chil dren. This is reflected in al most every letter from the camps. But it is done so in a capricious, matter-of-fact, vein which give an insight into one who accepted God’s will with the utmost resignation. Perhaps it is best pictured in the incident which Robert Cortes Holliday, his friend and biographer, details vividly. Kilmer appeared at Holli day’s office in New York clad in uniform. “It was in what followed,” writes Holliday in his book, “that he displayed the most extraordinary measure of spi ritual stature that I have ever observed in any man or read of in any book.” Settling himself, as was his wont, in Holliday’s chair, he at once demanded some pipe tobacco, and, since his host had none, very properly denounc ed him in emphatic terms. Then he said: “Bob, my affairs are some what in disarray.” Holliday, thinking that he wanted to borrow two dollars, or even something more than that, asked him his trouble. “Well,” answered Kilmer in his ordinary way, “several days ago Rose died. Yester day, Christopher, my son was born. Kenton is with my wife at her mother’s. My family is in fact very much scattered. I’m expecting to go to France in a few days and I have many other difficulties.” Thus he summed up, as a soldier might report, the trag edies that would probably evoked, from other souls, an outburst of emotion. His vib rant faith had given him such a confidence in God’s provi dence that no hardships or BARTON HOUSE WRECKING CO. NEW AND USED LUMBER, SASHES. DOORS. BRICKS AND PLUMBING All Kinds of Building Material HOUSE MOVING 1229 D'Anfignac Si. Dial PArk 2-6662 Semitone STARK - EMPIRE Laundry Cleaning Dyeing Rug Cleaning Safety Savings AUGUSTA, GA. TWO GOOD nut DRUG STORES MONTE SANO PHARMACY 1427 MONTE SANO AVENUE KINGS WAY PHARMACY 2106 KINGS WAY — AUGUSTA. GA. sorrows seemed to touch him. ENJOYED PENANCES He was enigmatic. He com plained about the penances that priests gave. “I wish,” he once wrote, “that I had a stern medieval confessor —• the sort that one reads about in anti-Catholic books — who would inflict real penances. The saying of Our Fathers and Hail Marys is no penance — it’s a delight.” That delight to him was borne out in his poem “The Rosary” for which he was awarded a first prize in a competition among many Catholic writers. Yet the fluid intellect that could pen passionate lines as “Rouge Bouquet” or find such inspiration in “Trees” or con jure up such a delightful vista as heaven as in “The Blue Valentine” must have evoked responses in the souls of mil lions. I remember the day when news of his death was flash ed over the wires to all the great syndicates that he had been reported killed in battle. I was writing war news for the Hearst papers and my ed itor, Justin McGrath, asked me to turn out something special on him. The deadline was in half an hour. The essential news, a meager flash; was already on the street. I started four times in the first five minutes and each time threw the copy away. Like all reporters on such stories I was trying to write something with a heart- throb in it. But it wouldn’t come. So I merely wrote a few lines of verse — lines which came to me in about ten min utes: SO YOU ARE GONE, OLD FRIEND! I say old friend, although I never knew you, Although I never held your outstretched hand But just because it seems that it was through you There are so many things I understand. So many things. Who else but you caught sight of, Old houses by the side of railway tracks And thought of folks who lived in them to write of— Like eerie fishermen at midnight snacks? (Continued on Page 3) Elliott Sons Walton Printing Company 117 Eighth St. Augusta, Ga. HENRY T. JONES, Prop. “We Print to Please” Ijcrrij (Christmas W. E. RAINES CO. INCORPORATED Building Specialties and Supplies 10 - 12 - 14 Seventh Street Dial PA. 2-5553 AUGUSTA, GA. - /j> 40, ■' Lis this festive season gets - into full swing, we take pleasure in wishing you a full share of its joys and blessings. RICHMOND COUNTY BANK AUGUSTA, GEORGIA