When I was younger I really enjoyed doing a bunch of different things.  For instance, I liked moulding tin soldiers and making armies of them and painting them, and setting them up on the dinning room floor.  My imagination went running wild!  No one died though.  I was very difficult to eliminate a tin soldier....even after I went to all that work heating the lead, clamping the moulds together, pouring the molten lead, and waiting for it to cool. Then when I got enough soldiers poured, I would get out my paints and color them.  When I finished that process, I would line them all up according to what they were. i.e. Rifleman, bazooka shooter, soldier with backpack and pistol there were quite a few different ones that I made.  If they got broken, they didn't die, they just got remolded!  How neat is THAT?

It was pretty easy for me to make these soldiers because my Dad had a print shop. In those days, letterpress printing was still the way to produce jobs.  The printing presses were made to hold "type" which was sometimes individual letters made of an alloy of Lead, Tin, and Antimony. It was soft enough to melt easy, but hard enough to withstand 1000's of impressions on the printing presses.  The type would be secured in a steel frame called a "chase".  The type was 'locked up' in the chase tightly, so it would hold together during the printing process as rollers covered with ink rolled across them, a paper was brought between the type and a feed board or hard impression roller (depending upon the type of press) and the ink transferred to the paper, the paper was either mechanically or manually inserted and removed, and the process started all over again.   An automated press could run 2 or 3 thousand impressions an hour.  A manual (hand) fed press could be operated safely and depending on what was being printed, maybe five hundred to maybe (if you were real good and on a good day) a thousand an hour.  Anyway, I got the damaged or no longer needed type to melt into soldiers and the cost for me was ZERO!  I liked that part.  I suppose me sweeping and cleaning the shop for free was my cost.

Gary's  1950's – 60's Army

Now that I have given you Old Style Printing Lecture 101.....we will continue with the story.  It was fun creating something.  No lying about that.  I have always enjoyed making something, anything it seems.  Not just lead soldiers, but that developed into toy trains and I chose American Flyer. Most all the other guys liked Lionel trains, but they were just too big and expensive for me....I liked to have smaller scale and have more space to do more with.  In our house in Circle Pines, I was building a table for an elaborate layout, but we moved before I got beyond the basic bench work...my fault....didn't focus enough time to the effort.  We moved in town and I grabbed some musty, dusty basement space and rebuilt the beginning benchwork. Time moved on and it never got beyond that.

1961 American Flyer on the Dinning room floor.
Don't ask where the actual train is...can't remember.

Eventually it was abandoned and years later it is now safely in a storage box, ready for a static display to be made for it.  In one of my blogs, I discussed model railroading so I DID pursue it in yet another scale, in another time.

The point of this seemingly rambling of sentences, is this:
Creating is a strong part of my life.  I feel the need to make something better than when I first saw it. Make something more complete, more functional.  Either in reality or my mind, it didn't matter which.
It may be creating music to have a soothing melody to calm a person down, or a song with a message to allow someone think a new way.  We are all here to do something good.  Sometimes it doesn't seem to work out that way.  But when that happens, we pick ourselves up, dust off our sandals and move on.

GOD loves what He does.  He is constantly trying to remake us into the people that He can be proud of.  He does understand that we are not perfect.  My tin soldiers were not perfect.  Each of them had a least a couple blemishes on them.  My trains didn't always run perfect.  I didn't get mad and throw them away!  I still have a big ole coffee can full of my soldiers around somewhere, waiting for me to come and play.

So with all of OUR blemishes and faults, and bad things we have done, GOD doesn't stop loving us.  He continues to patiently wait for us.   Have you realized that GOD is the true...one and only....nobody else as good...PERFECT, Creator?  As the tried and true saying goes, that everyone gets so fretful hearing:   GOD DOESN'T MAKE JUNK.

Now that you understand, go out and create something for someone. Could be happiness, joy, a smile, a kind word.  Could be a helping hand with a talent you have, say, auto mechanics, or window cleaning, or cooking a special hot dish for someone.  "Nobody's done that for me!"  So?  It doesn't matter about that either. This is not about YOU...."Pay forward" is a newish term being used a lot now.  So . . . go forth and pay forward.

Remember?  Keep singing, Keep praying, keep smiling.

Blessings,
Gary


p.s. There were 108 soldiers in my Army's company at the time of the picture.  Some may have actually retired by now.