I’m in the process of downsizing which means looking through a life’s work of paper files and documents.
My Grandpa Webb was a high school teacher in Taylorville, IL for almost six decades. In a letter to me dated Feb 26, 1963 in my first year of college which was challenging, he quoted the preacher Henry Ward Beecher:
It’s not work that kills a man; it is worry. Work is healthy; worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolutions that destroy the machinery, but the friction.
He also reported that the night before the temperature had reached 20 degrees below zero at the local area airport.
Now as a grandpa, I have never written a letter to any of the four grandkids. Maybe a birthday card or two. Certainly numerous short text exchanges. All now gone. Makes one wonder how prior generations experiences are passed on.