Skip to main content

At Christmas

In this episode - At Christmas . . . by Edgar Guest, narrated by Lori Ball.

I stumbled upon this poem while doing a Google search for holiday poetry to recite for the Podcast. Allow me to tell you a bit about the Poet. Edgar Albert Guest was a British-born American poet famous in the first half of the 20th century and became known as the People's Poet.

He began his career at the Detroit Free Press as a copyboy and then as a reporter; his first poem appeared on December 11, 1898. For 40 years, Guest was widely read throughout North America. From his first published work in the Detroit Free Press, until he died in 1959, Guest penned 11,000 poems syndicated in over 300 newspapers.

Guest was named Poet Laureate of Michigan, the only Poet awarded the title. His popularity led to a weekly Detroit radio show he hosted from 1931 until 1942, followed by a 1951 NBC television series, A Guest in Your House.

He also had three times weekly transcribed radio programs that began on January 15, 1941.

We hope you enjoyed this special Holiday gift from our family to yours. May you be blessed this Christmas season.

I'm Patrick Ball; thanks for listening. See you in the next episode.

Comments

Most Popular of All Time

Back to School (Without the Triple Lindy)

I hadn’t set foot inside a public library in over thirty years. Last Saturday, when I walked through the sliding doors of the modern County of San Diego branch on Eucalyptus Avenue in Vista, my eyes instinctively scanned the floor for the familiar, comforting sight of varnished oak cabinets and brass pull-handles. Nothing . No card catalog. No little wooden drawers. No rows of index cards typed by someone who presumably had beautiful penmanship and a pension. I walked up to the front desk, looked the librarian dead in the eye, and asked with complete earnestness: "Where’s the card catalog?" She didn’t laugh, though she had every right to. Instead, she offered a warm, dry smile: "We magically had the computer digest it." And just like that, I was enrolled. Not the Rodney Dangerfield kind of back-to-school. No diving board, no loud blazer, no campus party, and thankfully, no need to convince anyone I belonged there. Just an overdue reminder that while I was busy with ...

Beyond Facts-The Deep Dive

✨ In this episode, Beyond Facts: Reimagining School–in the Age of AI . . .   This week's podcast is a bit different; it's another example of how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can offer tools to creatively enhance your analytical presentation of information. We took this week's blog and copied it into Gemini with the question, “If a story is to work, it must, on some level, create an illusion of escape and also achieve a goal simultaneously. Does this apply to my blog post that follows?” What's created is not just an analysis of the writing, but an AI-generated discussion produced “On the Fly” - Enjoy! Did you know that the word "school" comes from the ancient Greek word scholē , which originally meant "leisure"? Not a rigid schedule or droning lectures filled with "facts," but free time for thinking and conversation. To the Greeks, learning happened best when life slowed down—when you had room to reflect, to ask questions, and to wrestle ...

The Rhythm of the Woodpecker

The morning in Vista often begins under a heavy, gray marine layer that rolls in from the coast, pressing a damp, muffled stillness over the neighborhood. At 4:30 a.m., the driveways are still full. The local commuters are either blissfully unconscious or stumbling blindly toward their showers, clinging desperately to their last shred of peace before the nine-to-five grind claims them for the day. I, on the other hand, am voluntarily wide awake in the dark. When your agenda consists of absolutely nothing, it is critical to get an early start. Inside the house, the quiet is profound, broken only by the sharp, mechanical click of the kettle as it reaches a rolling boil. I stand at the counter, watching the dark ground coffee bloom as hot water hits the French press's stainless steel. The smell is sudden and heavy—a deep, roasted-earth aroma that cuts through the morning fog. I push against the plunger’s gritty resistance, pouring a cup that radiates dark, stinging heat against my pal...

How to Horrify a Professional Skeptic

Today’s " Professional Skeptic"  knows exactly how retirement is supposed to unfold: you lose your job, your identity, and your purpose. Within months, you're complaining about restaurant portions and detailing your blood pressure to strangers in line at the post office. For a generation distrustful of leaders, convinced the future is a rigged game, a peaceful retirement is an outdated myth. The working world expects you to stay “on the hook.” Former bosses are quick to ask, “Can we call you? What are your consulting fees?” So, just for fun, picture a deeply suspicious, invisible observer lurking in my kitchen. Let's call him Captain Content. The Captain doesn't wear a top hat or wring bony fingers. Instead, imagine a younger guy glued to his smartphone, heavily caffeinated, and entirely convinced the system is broken. He live-streams my morning routine to his echo chamber while on a conference call with 48 attendees on his second phone, waiting for the inevitabl...