1928: arizona
why not be jubilant?
dear son Jack,
Well it has been some time since i received
your fine letter. it makes me a bit proud and
swelled up to get letters from five young fellows
by the names of charles, Mart, Frank, sande,
and Jack. The letters are so full of life, interest,
ambition, and good fellowship. it fills my old
heart with gladness and makes me feel “Bully.”
Well Jack i was glad to learn how you felt about
your summer’s work & your coming school
year. The secret of success is concentrating in-
terest in life, interest in sports and good times,
interest in your studies, interest in your fellow
students, interest in the small things of nature,
insects, birds, flowers, leaves, etc. in other words
to be fully awake to everything about you &
the more you learn the more you can appreciate
& get a full measure of joy & happiness out of
life. i do not think a young fellow should be too
serious, he should be full of the dickens some
times to create a balance.
i think your philosophy on religion is okay.
i think every person should think, act & believe
according to the dictates of his own conscience
without too much pressure from the outside.
i too think there is a higher power, a supreme
force, a governor, a something that controls the
universe. What it is & in what form i do not
know. it may be that our intellect or spirit exists
in space in some other form after it parts from
this body. nothing is impossible and we know
that nothing is destroyed, it only changes chemi-
cally. We burn up a house and its contents, we
change the form but the same elements exist; gas,
vapor, ashes. They are all there just the same.
i had a couple of letters from mother the
other day, one written the twelfth and one the
fifteenth. am always glad to get letters from
