Beech Tree News Network

The ordeal of CHANGE.
    It is said we can never be really prepared for that which is new..  “it needs inordinate self-confidence to face drastic change, without some measure of fear.” 
We are afraid of the new- we don’t like it.  My daddy, Luther talk of the time when his grandfather, Charlie Locke- whom I remember quite well- saw his first automobile.
They were sitting on the front porch visiting, when a model-T Ford came down the road.
Grandpaw Charlie looked up with his one, good, eye and opined; “Luther, the world is going to the dogs.”  Grandpaw was like the old fellow to whom someone said, “Uncle, I guess you have seen a lot of changes in your time?”  “Yeah”, he said, “and I’ve been agin’ every one of um.”
We can seldom look down a new road with the same ease an old road brings, someone said…. We can never be wholly at ease in that which is new: the country boy going to a large city the first time; a young man interning the military; a virtuous bride on her wedding night.  My-Cd.
On entering the military: a friend of mine joined the Navy.  On the bus going to boot camp, my friend said the officer on charge was “the nicest guy you can imagine.”  But when we went through the gates at boot camp, the “nice” officer turned into a raving maniac.”
Sometimes we even dread an old road if we haven’t traveled it in a while; one we were once at ease with.  For some time now I have been without a typewriter- I’ve gotten used to writing with a ball-point pen: notes, letters, my newspaper column, etc.
Not long back I acquired a used electric typewriter, it is ok, except the eraser-type doesn’t work.  No problem- I bought a bottle of white-out to erase.  Typos with. 
I haven’t used the typewriter yet- I keep finding excuses not to, despite the fact I typed my column for years.
Has my typewriter- once my old road- become a new road?  And my ball-point pen the old, comfortable road?  I promise I’ll begin using the typewriter tomorrow… if the Ordeal of Change doesn’t overwhelm me.
                            Kindest regards…