Boundless and Bold

When your deepest disappointment brings a new meaning to your life,
And you’re closer to the ground than you thought you’d ever be,
And the weeks seem long and meaningless and another day brings strife
In the valley of the shadows the soul’s dark night is all you see

The mourning becomes dancing

The loss becomes new gain

Step by step you are  advancing

On the road of toil and pain

In the cauldron of experience

His presence is the power

That perfects the weak-for their defense

Mercy makes a mighty tower

Boundless and Bold is the Father’s love

As it was from old, it is more than enough

We’ll never tame the glorious name

The reckless raging Love  age to age the same

The challenges we face each day exposit our great need

To cast ourselves headlong on grace  for every thought and deed

This transforms our perspective, a so our mind’s renewed

Setting our  hearts on things above will baptize our attitude

The mourning becomes dancing

The loss becomes new gain

Step by step you are  advancing

On the road of toil and pain

In the cauldron of experience

His presence is the power

That perfects the weak-for their defense

Mercy makes a mighty tower

Boundless and Bold is the Father’s love

As it was from old, it is more than enough

We’ll never tame the glorious name

The reckless raging Love  age to age the same

January 28, 2021

Anthony Foster

Too Much Too Good Too Amazing

Words are failing

But I am prevailing

My groans are not of pain

But of the glory I’ve obtained

Overwhelming

Christ indwelling

My heart is overcome

And now I am undone

Too much too good too amazing

Is the fullness of this glory I am praising

Oh the promises that I fail to apprehend

Shall be to His glory in the end.

Grace exceeds

Abundant  needs

And I am satisfied

Under your wings to hide

Beyond all I ask

In glory to bask

I’ve tasted and I’ve seen

Your goodness evergreen

Too much too good too amazing

Is the fullness of this glory I am praising

Oh the promises that I fail to apprehend

Shall be to His glory in the end.

Bridge

You take me far beyond the brink 

Beyond all I can ask or think

From your fountain I will drink

Of life eternally.

Grace surpasses

My trespasses

Mercy is abounding

God’s Grace is so astounding

Glory reigns down

In Christ I’m found

I would be set apart

Give me a Holy heart

Too much too good too amazing

Is the fullness of this glory I am praising

Oh the promises that I fail to apprehend

Shall be to His glory in the end.

Anthony Foster 

January 25, 2021

 

This I Call to Mind

This I call to mind, therefore I have hope:
When this truth I comprehend
The steadfast love of the Lord shall not cease 
His mercies never shall end.

This I call to mind, therefore I have peace

When in this truth I come to rest

The mercies of the Lord ever increase

By this thought I am blessed.

For I cannot reason or reckon my way

Out of this situation today

I can’t pull enough strings 

The harder I try the more failure it brings

God of the impossible remind me

You do impossible things

If I forget, I will languish- If I forget, I shall fail

So set my mind on things above so I can prevail

Bridge

Oh the greatness of Grace, wisdom and power

That avails itself  each hour

Holy Spirit please remind me I pray

Call to mind the lovingkindness 

That sees me through ev’ry day

I will remember the deeds of the Lord; 

Wonders of old my soul heeds

I will remember and ponder your works, 

And meditate on your deeds

For I cannot reason or reckon my way

Out of this situation today

I can’t pull enough strings 

The harder I try the more failure it brings

God of the impossible remind me

You do impossible things

If I forget, I will languish- If I forget, I shall fail

So set my mind on things above so I can prevail

January 20, 2021

Anthony Foster

The Bullitt County News   December 24, 1909

Continued from last week. The Children’s Corner-

The Watermelon Patch 

In the summer another delicacy was in order- Our watermelon patch was kept safe from coyotes and deer by a fence that seemed to a young boy to be as tall as a barn. Let me say without hesitation that there are few things that taste better than a cold sweet watermelon on a hot day, especially after haying or threshing in the field. We would sometimes chill a nice ripe melon in the creek or the spring by placing it in a shallow location early in the morning before starting in on our labors. Once I was sent to fetch the cold melon after a day of haying. The melon of choice was more than my ten year old arms could manage, and as I approached the haystack I dropped it and it burst open. I was embarrassed as Uncle and Papa laughed but they told me not to fret as it saved them cutting it open with their hatchets or pocket knives. That was the most delicious watermelon I ever tasted, and it was the sweeter for eating it with my family. We would sit with legs crossed and spit the seeds as far as we could while holding onto the rind with both hands. If the juice dribbled on our feet, no matter, that was just an excuse to take a plunge in the pond, as we would not be any wetter than we already were from the summer sweat that drenched us. We had a special patch that was grown from seeds that were given Papa by one of the preachers who frequently came to stay at our house. He called them his Vardiman melons. Papa saved those seed from year to year as they were some of the choicest melons we ever grew. I recall the pride with which papa gave those melons to neighbors. We learned to tiptoe about the vines so as not to step on them and how to tell the ripest one by thumping them. We never had to cut a plug to find the choicest melon. We would then take out our pocket knife and cut it oblong in half while our mouths watered for the ripe red center that was warmed by the sun. As we bit into the melon, its sweet juice would trickle down our chins and make trails in the dust on our legs. When we tired of the spitting competition we would deposit the seeds between our crossed legs as I recall we believed papa when he joked that a watermelon would sprout in our bellies, if we swallowed the seeds. We also made watermelon syrup and pickled rinds. We usually made some watermelon juice the night before syrup making day. Mama poured the juice into a trough and brought it to a rolling boil we children scraped the watermelon flesh and ground it in a sausage grinder. The rind we put aside for pickling, and we separated out the seeds for drying for next year’s crop. Then we put the watermelon pulp into a gunny sack and pressed it with a stone until all the juice was extracted,. This juice was added to the juice in the trough. The fire had to be kept well regulated, for if it got too hot, the juice boiled over. The froth had to be constantly skimmed as well. It generally takes about seven quarts of juice to make a quart of good thick syrup. All day long, we scraped and chunked, pulped and juiced and cooked the syrup, adding more juice as the syrup condensed, skimming the foam off the top, and constantly stirring it up. During the last few hours of the long hot process, no more juice was added, so the syrup would be nice and thickened. The syrup can also be reduced to a cake that is as sweet as maple sugar when eaten! When pouring the syrup into bottles, we were sure to leave the sediment that settled out into the bottom of the pot. Oh how I remember the taste of watermelon syrup eaten with biscuit or with applesauce cake! It is a wonder we had any teeth left in our heads it was so sweet! I must close now due to the dictates of space but will write to the children next of my memories of my early schooling and my early days of teaching in the county. CWR December 24, 1909  

NOTE: This seems to have been the last in the series of writings for the children. There are many other entries related to the Old Folks Meetings written by CWR.

 

The Bullitt County News  December 17, 1909 The Children’s Corner

The Apple Hole and the Watermelon Patch CWR 

An apple is as sweet as candy to a boy in the summer months, and the taste for it does not diminish during the winter months. In fact the memory of the juicy fruit on a hot day of stacking haycocks may make them all the more to be missed for that sensation is forever linked in memory with warm and bright days. An apple is full of sunshine. The sound of the dropping of apples from the apple boughs made for a willing worker when it came to string up a winter stock of the fruit. We had an old root cellar in which we stored apples in the autumn months, and an apple-hole in the back yard later as the first hints of winter approached with jack frost in attendance. The apple harvest time demanded as much time as sugar making. In mid October days we would fill bushel baskets and gunny sacks and stack them on the wagon, our orchard never lacked for produce, and in the late days of the harvest some apples were put in the apple hole for storage. We picked them direct from the boughs and never let them hit the ground, for an unbruised fruit will keep better. I learned early that a boy will bruise as readily as an apple if he falls from the apple tree while picking apples. Our apple hole was used year after year and was cleaned out in the spring like a bob-olink cleans its nest. There is a art to making an apple- hole. First the pit must be dug, a shallow hole about a foot to a cubit in depth and perhaps six feet in diameter. The hole was dug on the north side of the barn as the north side got colder and made for better storage in the winters months. Our apple hole was between the barn and the sapbush, not far from the orchard. Then the pit was lined with the last straw of the season to a depth of about six inches to serve as insulation and bedding for the apples. Then we would dump in as many apples as we could make a mound of and not see them roll off the pile. Winesaps and Pippens and Sheep‘s Nose and Democrats and Russetts and Crow’s egg apples all found a place in the apple-hole at one time or another. Covering them about with more straw and dried grass, we made a nice thick covering which we then covered over with the dirt we had first excavated to form the shallow. At last, an overcoat of dried manure was added to await the final covering of winter snows. This makes an efficient protection from the frosts under which the fruit can sleep and mellow during the silent darkness of the winter months. As the cellars were emptied during the winter months, the apple hole would yield up its bounty! The longer you stored the apples, the more flavorful and juicy they became. I do declare, when the snow is still on the ground in a cold February evening, there is nothing that tastes so good as a cold crisp apple from the apple- hole. It was quite a treat to go out and dig four or five apples which Mama would use to make an apple pie. Continued next week 

Children and Their Ways, continued

I am running out of pictures of GGGrandpa Charlie, but here is a photo of some of his offspring...taken around 1931-32, the year my Dad was born. On the left is my Grandma Alma - Grandpa Charlie's son Grandpa J. O. Ridgway is holding her oldest, my Aunt Bertha. the short lady is GGrandma Mattie.

 August 2, 1908- BN Continued from last week 

One time when James Simmons and Ernest were little boys, Kirby Simmons came home one evening and Ernest was standing around the yard looking sneaking, Kirby said “what is the matter?” and at the same time said “where is James?” Ernest said, “He is upstairs lying down, he don’t feel good.” Kirby said, “What is the matter with him?” Ernest said, “We were playing on the hillside rolling one another in a barrel and the barrel got away from me and rolled down the hill with him in it and he has not been feeling good since.” Kirby laughed a little out of the corner of his mouth and said, “Well you make haste and do up the evening work.” It seems a little funny that that should ever have happened, for they are both men now and James is married and Ernest wants to marry. I will tell that where the girls will hear it. But that was the last time they rolled each other in a barrel; that broke up the barrel business. A mother wanted to appear good and asked the preacher to return thanks at the table, a little boy, standing at the back of her chair, looking on in surprise said,” Mamma, please get him to say that again.” Children will sometimes betray their parents. Manners plays a big part in child life as the following little incident will show. On one occasion during the Bullitt County Fair, two ladies had driven some distance over a dusty road, and on arriving at Shepherdsville walked in one of the modern stores and asked for the mirror and a dust brush, and having bought a box of whitening proceeded to prepare for the Fair, when a lad came to their relief and applied the dust brush and helped them in various ways, and when everything was in order, he said admiringly, “Now you ladies look nice enough to get married today” and walking away, left them, when one of the ladies said, “Isn’t he nice?” the other said, “Yes he is as cute as he can be.” But about this time another boy came along and stared at the ladies who were getting ready to start, when one of the ladies said to the other, “do I need a little more starch on my face?” The impudent boy said: “you have enough on your face now to make a biscuit,” and grinned in their face and ran away. One of the ladies said “Isn’t he hateful?” and the other said, “yes he is a despicable little boy.” Why was one a despicable little boy and the other just as nice and cute as he could be? Boys you might think about that a little; there is a lesson in it. There are but few things that pay a better dividend on the investment than manners. Children should be polite to all, especially to old people. They should Mr. and Mrs. Those older than themselves. It is nice to hear children say, good morning, Mr. Jones, or good morning Mr. Joe, and not how are you , John? Or how are you Joe? and finish up with it. Every child should try and be an honor to his parents,, and every good parent should be an honor to his children. C. W. R.  

The Children's Corner

always click on image for larger view- This is Mary Jane Ridgway ca 1860

July 19, 1908 BN The Bullitt County News   Children’s Corner

Children and Their Ways. 

It would seem impossible to do justice to this subject in a little article like this for there have been children in the world ever since the first children were born unto Adam and Eve, and it would require several large volumes to tell all about children and their ways. In all times children have played a big part in the home life, and in every nation children have their peculiarities that belong to that nation; hence the difference in children in different nations and countries. Children receive their first impressions at home, and are, to some extent, what their parents make them. This little article is not a wise dissertation on child life, but a rehearsal of a few of the circumstances that have come under my observation or that I have heard from others, and is more for the amusement of children than for the instruction of the old. Children are the purest and best part of society, and are generally good until they learn too many ways of older people. The sweetest theme in life is childhood and youth,, and children should be permitted to enjoy their innocent life as long as possible. There is nothing more pleasing than a sweet amicable child where reason first begins to dawn upon it. If all older children understood training children right there are but few children who might not be trained to be useful. Children are fortunate who have parents who will train them in the way they should go. Once in my travels when I was spending the night with an hospitable family I was favorably impressed by the deportment of a little girl about five years old. When it came time for her to retire for the night she went and leaned lovingly on the mother who undressed her and put her night clothes on her after which the little girl stood hesitatingly and looked first at her mother and then at me. In fact, she looked inquiringly at me as if considering something of importance. She then went to her mother and dropped down on her knees by her mother’s side who placed her hand on her little head while she, in sweet childish accents, said her little evening prayer. She arose perfectly composed. When she kissed mamma and told papa good-night and ran away to her little bed- a sweet specimen of parental training. But there are some parents who neglect their children altogether and some ever set them a bad example, and it is distressing to see how early some children take to bad habits. Shortly after the occurance just mentioned above I was approaching an humble dwelling when my attention was attracted by two small boys in a potato patch near the road side. They were apparently about 5 and 7 years old and they were distressed with each other from some cause and they were using curse -continued- July 26, 1908 BN Continued from last week words at rapid and fearful rate. I thought, poor little boys, where did you learn all that. And it occurred to me that the parents were to blame; possibly had set the example. It has been my fortune to spend a great portion of my life among children and I have frequently enjoyed their sweet, trite, funny little ways. On one occasion when I had offered a prize to the scholar who would make two capital letters exactly alike a little girl who thought she had the succeeded in winning the prize came to me with a great deal of confidence and showed her specimen, but when I began to point out the difference in the letters, she said, innocently, “Now Misser Widgway, don’t tell me a tory.” I said, “N, I don’t tell you a tory; look here (pointing to the letters)you see this letter is larger than that and wider across the top.” She nodded assent and went back to her seat to try again, never dreaming that she had said anything out of order. In fact, I did not even let her know that she had, for where there is no harm intended there is not much harm done. One pleasant day in winter I had occasion to go to the barn to catch a horse, about half way from the house I saw one of my little grand children sitting on a stone under a large persimmon tree that was full of persimmons. He was sitting there as contentedly as a bird on a limb with his elbows on his knees and his chin resting in his hands, the very picture of contentment. I said “Ernest, what are you sitting there for?” He said, “I am waiting for a persimmon to fall.” I caught the lesson at once. We are all more or less waiting for persimmons to fall, from the man who courts the presidency of the United States down to the man who lingers around the country bar room and some wait for persimmons that never fall. I was riding with a little girl one morning and they had a sick cow at their house, and I said to her, “How is your sick cow this morning?” She said in a subdued voice: “Uncle Charley, she is bad off, she died last night.” Of course it was a little trite, but it would have been a sin to laugh. Another little girl was looking thoughtfully at her mama one day when she said, “ Mama, you did not have many beaux when you were young, did you?” Mamma said, “Well, no, not so many, why?” “Well I thought you did not or you would never have taken papa.” A little girl six years old who seemed to understand personal rights said to me, “Uncle John gave me a nickel, now that nickel was all mine, wasn’t it?” I said “yes it looked that way.” Well she said, “I sent that nickel by papa and got candy, now that candy was all mine wasn’t it?” I said, “Yes, it looks that way.” Thoughtfully, she said “Well papa took a part of it and gave it to brother, now do you think papa treated me right?” I said, “ Well you wanted brother to have some didn’t you?” She said, “Yes, but I thought I ought to be the one to divide it.” That is the principle that underlies the whole government of the United States. Little did she know the magnitude of her question. To be continued-