To My Magnificent Agents, Staff and Friends:
One of the many gifts passed down to me from my grandfather and father is a love of reading and the thrill of a good story or verse. That love has opened me up to countless teachers and mentors from throughout history, have not only blessed me, but all of us who treasure the written word, with entertainment, wisdom, inspiration and guidance. One of my favorite masters of verse that I was first introduced to as a boy, and who may be unfamiliar to some of you of younger generations is Edgar Guest.
Guest was born in Birmingham, England in 1881. As a young child, his parents emigrated to the United States where he grew up and was educated in Detroit, Michigan.
At the tender age of 13, Eddie Guest was hired as an office boy by the venerable newspaper The Detroit Free Press. He remained with that organization for 60 years.
Three years after he joined the Free Press, he became a club reporter. He worked the waterfront and police beat covering that scene from 3:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. every day. Within a year, when he should have been completing high school, Eddie had garnered a reputation among both his readers and peers as a being scrappy reporter in a very competitive environment.
It wasn’t until 1898, when he was promoted to assistant exchange editor at age seventeen, that Guest decided to write in verse. His job entailed culling timeless items from other newspapers that the Press could use as fillers. Many of these items were verses and Guest decided that he might just as well write verse as clip it. So, he submitted one of his own to the Sunday editor. Although the Press was choosy about publishing literary efforts of their staff, especially that of a seventeen-year-old dropout, the editor saw merit in the piece and decided to publish it. Guest’s first verse ran on December 11, 1898.
As it is often said, “the rest is history.” More contributions of verse and witty observations led to a weekly column entitled “Blue Monday Chat,” and then to a daily column, “Breakfast Table Chat.” The readers loved it and Guest, though shunned by what he called his “highbrow, longhair, intellectual critics and writers” never stopped his devotion to verse. In describing his consistent emphasis on the gentle human touch that typifies his compositions, and that endeared him to millions, Guest said “I take simple everyday things that happen to me and I figure it happens to a lot of other people and I make simple rhymes out of them.”
In keeping with the Holy Spirit who is still motivating me after returning from my recent Salvation Army Hungary mission trip, I’d like to share the following Edgar A. Guest verse with you. It’s titled “He Who Serves.”
He has not served who gathers gold,
Nor has he served, whose life is told
In selfish battles he has won,
Or deeds of skill that he has done;
But he has served who now and then
Has helped along his fellow men.
The world needs many men today;
Red-blooded men along life’s way,
With cheerful smiles and helping hands,
And with the faith that understands
The beauty of the simple deed
Which serves another’s hour of need.
Strong men to stand beside the weak,
Kind men to hear what others speak;
True men to keep our country’s laws
And guard its honor and its cause;
Men who will bravely play life’s game
Nor ask rewards of gold and fame.
Teach me to do the best I can
To help and cheer our fellow man;
Teach me to lose my selfish need
And glory in the larger deed
Which smoothes the road, and lights the day
For all who chance to come my way.
Have an AWE-Full weekend!