Minor Carey Seward, 86, departed this life on September 24, 2009 at home surrounded by his family.
He was born March 8, 1923 at High Point, NC, and spent his formative years in Richmond, VA. He joined the Navy during his freshman year at Virginia Tech in 1941, serving during WWII as a fighter pilot in the Pacific Theater flying Hellcats from the carrier USS Langley. He resumed his studies at Virginia Tech after the war graduating with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Mr. Seward was a design engineer for DuPont's Power Design Division in Waynesboro, VA, Wilmington, DE, Camden, SC, and finally at Louviers in Newark. He was also an avid golfer, woodworker, and gardener.
He is survived by Mary Lee Seward, his devoted wife for 65 years, and his four sons, Michael and his wife Candy, Richard, David and his wife Pam, and Robert and his wife Cami, and his daughter-in-law Julie. He is also survived by his grandchildren, Paul and his wife Debbie, Carey, Hadley, Lee, Marian, Rob and Anna; two great grandchildren, Olivia and Jack; sister, Anne Allen and her husband, Stuart; and half-siblings, Rosemary, Glenn, Thelma, Paul and Bonnie.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
September 20th, 2009
I participated in the A&E network’s Recovery Project in New York City on September 12th. I have posted some of the photos we took that day right here http://raisehightheroofbeamcarpenterseward.blogspot.com/
Quotes of the week
If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
~Mark Twain
Meditation of the week
Two things a man should never be angry at: what he can help, and what he cannot help.
--Thomas Fuller
In the Serenity Prayer, we pray for the wisdom to know the difference between what we can change and what we cannot. That distraction can be hard for many of us to recognize. When we finally see the reality clearly – that some things we face cannot be controlled by our own will or fixed by force – new possibilities open up to us. When we stop trying to move a mountain, our relationship to the mountain changes. We start to live at peace with the mountain. At the same time we can take greater responsibility for those parts of our lives that we can change.
Peace of mind comes from accepting what we can do nothing about and taking responsibility for what we can.
--Thomas Fuller
In the Serenity Prayer, we pray for the wisdom to know the difference between what we can change and what we cannot. That distraction can be hard for many of us to recognize. When we finally see the reality clearly – that some things we face cannot be controlled by our own will or fixed by force – new possibilities open up to us. When we stop trying to move a mountain, our relationship to the mountain changes. We start to live at peace with the mountain. At the same time we can take greater responsibility for those parts of our lives that we can change.
Peace of mind comes from accepting what we can do nothing about and taking responsibility for what we can.
Poem of the Week
An Inheritance
"Five dollars, four dollars, three dollars, two,
One, and none, and what do we do?"
This is the worry that never got said
But ran so often in my mother's head
And showed so plain in my father's frown
That to us kids it drifted down.
It drifted down like soot, like snow,
In the dream-tossed Bronx, in the long ago.
I shook it off with a shake of the head.
I bounced my ball, I ate warm bread,
I skated down the steepest hill.
But I must have listened, against my will:
When the wind blows wrong, I can hear it today.
Then my mother's worry stops all play
And, as if in its rightful place,
My father's frown divides my face.
One, and none, and what do we do?"
This is the worry that never got said
But ran so often in my mother's head
And showed so plain in my father's frown
That to us kids it drifted down.
It drifted down like soot, like snow,
In the dream-tossed Bronx, in the long ago.
I shook it off with a shake of the head.
I bounced my ball, I ate warm bread,
I skated down the steepest hill.
But I must have listened, against my will:
When the wind blows wrong, I can hear it today.
Then my mother's worry stops all play
And, as if in its rightful place,
My father's frown divides my face.
Author of the week
“We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it.”
..."You see, our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem. They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom. But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, and the vulnerable can be exploited. And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter – that at that point we don’t merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves.
What was true then remains true today. I understand how difficult this health care debate has been. I know that many in this country are deeply skeptical that government is looking out for them. I understand that the politically safe move would be to kick the can further down the road – to defer reform one more year, or one more election, or one more term.
But that’s not what the moment calls for. That’s not what we came here to do. We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it. I still believe we can act even when it’s hard. I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility, and gridlock with progress. I still believe we can do great things, and that here and now we will meet history’s test.
Because that is who we are. That is our calling. That is our character. Thank you, God Bless You, and may God Bless the United States of America.
What was true then remains true today. I understand how difficult this health care debate has been. I know that many in this country are deeply skeptical that government is looking out for them. I understand that the politically safe move would be to kick the can further down the road – to defer reform one more year, or one more election, or one more term.
But that’s not what the moment calls for. That’s not what we came here to do. We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it. I still believe we can act even when it’s hard. I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility, and gridlock with progress. I still believe we can do great things, and that here and now we will meet history’s test.
Because that is who we are. That is our calling. That is our character. Thank you, God Bless You, and may God Bless the United States of America.
President Obama- September 2009
Video of the week
It was on September 7 in 1927 that a man named Philo T. Farnsworth transmitted the first ever all-electronic television picture in history.
Websites of the week
Your weekly Presidential address and much more
And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor
Sunday, September 6, 2009
August 6th, 2009
Quotes of the week
Sow a thought, and you reap an Act;
Sow an Act, and you reap a Habit;
Sow a Habit, and you reap a Character;
Sow a Character, and you reap a Destiny.
Samuel Smiles (1812 - 1904)
Sow an Act, and you reap a Habit;
Sow a Habit, and you reap a Character;
Sow a Character, and you reap a Destiny.
Samuel Smiles (1812 - 1904)
It is a curious thing that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilised taste.
~Evelyn Waugh
If you have any fault to find with anyone, tell him, not others, of what you complain; there is no more dangerous experiment than that of undertaking to be one thing before a man's face and another behind his back.
Robert E. Lee (1807-1870)
Robert E. Lee (1807-1870)
Meditation of the week
Poem of the Week
And Here You Are
It's such a relief to see the woman you love walk out the door
some nights, for it's ten o'clock and you need your eight hours
of sleep, and one glass of wine has been more than enough
and, as for lust—well, you can live without it most days and you
are glad, too, that the Ukrainian masseuse you see every Wednesday
is not in love with you, and has no plans to be, for it's the pain
in your back you need relief from most, not that ambiguous itch,
and the wild successes of your peers no longer bother you
nor do your unresolved religious cravings nor the general injustice
of the world, no, there is very little that bothers you these days when
you turn, first, to the obituaries, second to the stock market, then,
after a long pause, to the book review, you are becoming a good citizen,
you do your morning exercises, count your accumulated blessings,
thank the Lord there's a trolley just outside your door your girlfriend
can take back home to her own bed and here you are it is morning you
are alone every little heartbeat is yours to cherish the future is on fire
with nothing but its own kindling and whatever it is that's burning
in its flames isn't you and now you will take a shower and this is it.
some nights, for it's ten o'clock and you need your eight hours
of sleep, and one glass of wine has been more than enough
and, as for lust—well, you can live without it most days and you
are glad, too, that the Ukrainian masseuse you see every Wednesday
is not in love with you, and has no plans to be, for it's the pain
in your back you need relief from most, not that ambiguous itch,
and the wild successes of your peers no longer bother you
nor do your unresolved religious cravings nor the general injustice
of the world, no, there is very little that bothers you these days when
you turn, first, to the obituaries, second to the stock market, then,
after a long pause, to the book review, you are becoming a good citizen,
you do your morning exercises, count your accumulated blessings,
thank the Lord there's a trolley just outside your door your girlfriend
can take back home to her own bed and here you are it is morning you
are alone every little heartbeat is yours to cherish the future is on fire
with nothing but its own kindling and whatever it is that's burning
in its flames isn't you and now you will take a shower and this is it.
Author of the week
Later, Pirsig became something of a recluse, turned off by his sudden fame. He said: "In the first week after I wrote Zen I gave maybe 35 [interviews]. I found it very unsettling. I was walking by the post office near home and I thought I could hear voices, including my own. I had a history of mental illness, and I thought: it's happening again. Then I realized it was the radio broadcast of an interview I'd done. At that point I took a camper van up into the mountains and started to write Lila, my second book."
Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals was published in 1991, and although it wasn't as successful as his first, it still got rave reviews and spent six weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. Those are his only two books.
Best of Craig’s List of the week
(Language alert: the bad language in this post makes it infinitely funnier. But it is bad language for those of you with delicate sensibilities…wait…if you had delicate sensibilities, you wouldn’t be reading this blog anyway, would you…)
Video of the week
Pam and I are going to the Recovery rally in New York next weekend to do research for Delete Me First. Join us on September 12th wherever you are that do in celebrating the recovery from chemical dependency of millions of individuals and the recovery of their families from this disabling health disorder.
Video of last year’s rally can be viewed here
PSA’s are here
For more information visit therecoveryproject.com
Websites of the week
Raise Me Up 4,551,266 views
http://www.rotary.org (I joined Rotary. I felt like I was wearing my father’s clothes!)
INTRODUCTION: AGENDA FOR A GENERATION
We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.
When we were kids the United States was the wealthiest and strongest country in the world: the only one with the atom bomb, the least scarred by modern war, an initiator of the United Nations that we thought would distribute Western influence throughout the world. Freedom and equality for each individual, government of, by, and for the people -- these American values we found good, principles by which we could live as men. Many of us began maturing in complacency.
Your weekly Presidential address and much more
Donnie Calloway and Jeremie and Joseph L. King and Astrid (Hey, if you haven’t yet, watch these interviews, they are really neat!)
And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor
Bon Qui Qui (thanks go out to Shablabla!)
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