Old Time Television

Recently I was telling a young friend what I used to enjoy on TV and she didn't believe me. For instance most people know that Ed Sullivan hosted a variety show. But did you know that one of his most popular guests was a hand puppet?

One night, when I was a young teenager, the First Lady of the Stage, Miss Helen Hayes was a guest. She was old. And she looked old. No face lift for Miss Hayes! What did she do on national television? She read a poem.

I was so moved that I wrote NBC for a copy.

It became one of my favorites. I memorized it. About 25 years ago I was speaking to a group of professional women at Hilton Head, North Carolina. I finished my presentation by reciting the poem. Several of these women were in tears.

It's more meaningful to me now than ever before. Here it is. It's kinda long - so hang in there.

THE WHITE MAGNOLIA TREE by Helen Deutsch

The year when I was twenty-one
(John that year was twenty-three)
That was the year, that was the spring,
We planted the white magnolia tree.

"This tree," said John, "shall grow with us,
And every year it will bloom anew.
This is our life. This is our love,
And the white magnolia grew and grew...

O, youth's a thing of fire and ice
And currents that run
Hot and white,
And its world is as bright
As the sun...

I was twenty-one...

And I wore a plume in my hat, and
We went to the movies and wept over
"Stella Dallas," and John sang
"Moonlight and Roses" (a little
off-key, but very nicely really,) and we
hurried through our crowded days
with beautiful plans, boundless
ambitions and golden decisions.

Oh, valiant and untamed were we,
When we planted the white magnolia tree!

And the white magnolia grew and grew,
Holding our love within its core,
And every year it bloomed anew,
And we were twenty-one no more.

No more untamed, no more so free,
Nor so young, nor so wild and aflame were we.

Dearer to us then grew other things;
easy sleep, books, a day's quiet
holiday, good talk beside a fire, the
beauty of old faces...

We have known many things since
then: the death of a child and the
bitter lesson that a heart which
breaks must mend itself again (that
it can and must be done,) and what
loyalty can mean, and how real a
word like courage can become and
that solitude can be rich and grati-
fying and quite different from
loneliness...

There is s little the serious heart
requires: friends, faith, a window
open to the world, pride in work well
done, and strength to live in a world
at war and still maintain the heart's
own private peace...

Dear God, I give thanks to thee
For the things I did not know before,
For the wisdom of maturity,
For bread, and a roof, and for
One thing more...

Thanks because I can still see
the bloom on the white magnolia tree!



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