August 2, 2022 a thought for today, Truth becomes lost in the turmoil of arguments. Latin Proverb

On August 1, 2022 my first upload of one of the photos of the day is was titled “I am....”. This month’s overall photo theme is “about the photographer...me”, so today’s for this month is I am....an animal lover. I had to set the timer on the camera which was on a tripod to get this shot.

I was planning on going to the church where there fall sale sorting and pricing going on but I had to take the only appointment I could get for a while to get my hair cut. I also took my sister to vote. I’m sure someone will send me photos for the next newsletter. 

The second upload for yesterday is a pop up challenge, for my Sudbury Photo Club friends, “bridges, boats or birds”. I took this one at the zoo the last time I had the pleasure to make a visit there. Now days my visits to the zoo are limited due sadly to ‘walkability’ on my part. 

I also use the irobot in one of the bed rooms that usually gets left out. Now it’s stuck under the bed and I can’t move the bed by myself so I will have to wait for Bob to get home from work to help.

The weather is perfect today. Maybe just a bit on the hot side but it has been hotter many times this summer and it’s half over.

The upload today from the “about the photographer” is “I love this colour...”. I like most colors but the one that grabs my fancy right now is green. 

The word today is compassion.  If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men. Francis of Assisi.  Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation, Henry Ward Beecher. Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle, Plato.  If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again, William Penn.  The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something, and has lost something, Proverb. A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble, Charles H. Spurgeon. You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you, John Bunyan.  It is a great consolation for me to remember that the Lord, to whom I had drawn near in humble and child-like faith, has suffered and died for me, and that He will look on me in love and compassion. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  The dew of compassion is a tear. Lord Byron. The final causes, then, of compassion are to prevent and to relieve misery. Joseph Butler.  I could not have slept tonight if I had left that helpless little creature to perish on the ground, Abraham Lincoln. 

The second upload for today, to the pop up challenge of “bridges, boats and birds” is this on that I took some time ago on one of my trips with my sister. We searched out the covered bridge that she remembered was somewhere in the area that we were cruising through. 

In one of my recent letters I mentioned my family and the fire department. I came across this article today and thought I would share it. It is quite a long article so I am going to try to summerize it. The title is “ 200 YEARS OF FIREFIGHTING. Columbus Fire to share historical yearbook”. After Columbus was formed and in that period there were serious issues with wooden buildings. Not to much was done until eight buildings were destroyed in 1822. The Columbus Fire Department was created on February 21 of that year. The 200th anniversary was recognized earlier this year. At the same time of the celebration the mayor had not agreed with the authorization or the City Council for a “$1,000 in “hero pay” for front-line workers during the pandemic. Apparently that neglect was amended eventually.  Now a team of four current and retired firefighters are working on a historical yearbook that will go into mor detail that previous editions. The article mentioned that some things in earlier edition may have been “whitewashed” or ignored. According to the article the editors hope to of every firefighter available. (Maybe my uncle, my father, my husband and maybe even the great-uncle I didn’t even meet). It will include demographic changes over time like about women and people of color joining the Division of Fire in recent years. The article goes on to report that a draft of the yearbook shows that there are 1,578 firefighters, paramedics and EMTs on board, 55 are women, 90% white and 10% minority in uniformed staff. In this book there will be some emphasis on Ned Pettus Jr. who in 2002 was the first and only black fire chief who ten years later became the director of public safety. He was later inducted into the Columbus Hall of Fame. The book will become available to the public at the Central Ohio Fire Museum at the former Columbus Fire Station 16 at 260 N. 4th Street. One of the points in the book was that the department was begun as a volunteer force or fifteen men of the “hook and axe company”, a twelve man ladder company and a twelve man “company responsible for guarding property. Each occupant of the dwelling, store or shop should furnish as many as ten leather buckets or face a fine. The first engine came in 1823 with a hand pump which made it “more effective at extinguishing fires than the bucket brigades”. A gong and bell was used in the early 1900s to let the firefighters know the location of the fire; later street boxes were used. Horses were used to pull the “fire engines” until 1855 when steam engines began to be used and firefighter were then paid moving on from the volunteer system. In 1909 the motorized equipment came into use. In 1912 a gasoline powered water pumper came into service in the newly built Engine House 17, the first on built without a barn for houses. The article went on with still more history but I will leave it you if you would like to buy one of the year books when it becomes available.  The story was in the Columbus Dispatch, you can Google to find it. 

I’m thinking I am going to have spaghetti for dinner tonight. 

Joy

                         forgotten .....or.....a hiding place