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Strengthens Family Life ranTERIM"
OiFISZ
Official Organ Of The Slavonic Benevolent Order Of The State Of Texas, Founded 1897 BENEVOLENCE
HUMANITY
BROTHERHOOD
Postmaster: Please Send Form 3579 to: SUPREME LODGE, SPJST, P.O. Box 100, Temple, Texas 76501 VOLUME 67, NUMBER 6 USPS — 658480 FEBRUARY 7, 1979
FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK In retrospective thought the last few, let us say two months, the weekends were mostly unpleasantly cold, dreary, and in some cases, dangerous for travel and your editor has some thoughts in that connection — definitely, for our family, these weekends were rather more enjoyable in the extent that our family had a chance to be together more than at most of the weekends in the year. ..Certainly we are thankful that we did not have to make any out-of-town trips connected with our Society with all of the hazardous driving, especially on the weekends. It seems as though this January of 1979 had the worst weather on the weekends while during the week the weather was more normal. Of course, all of this has to be taken in stride and, actually, we can't do anything about it. The old saying: "Every cloud has a silver lining" holds true even at this time!
** Wednesday, January 31st we were pleased to have SL Vice-President Bernard M. Gebala and SL FinancialSecretary Jerry Mikulas, Jr. visit with us for a while in the afternoon. They had called earlier and we discussed matters pertaining to the Vestnik and the Insurance Department plus other matters pertaining to the best interest of our SPJST Society and, as usual, time fleeted by faster than a person wishes it to do, however, the most important and pertinent things were well-discussed.
WHY IT'S IMPORTANT TO BE A VOLUNTEER, It's not for money; it's not for fame. It's not for any personal gain. It's just for love of fellow man. It's just to lend a helping hand. It's just to give a tithe of self. That's something you cannot buy with ....wealth. It's not for medals worn with pride. It's for that feeling deep inside. It's that reward down in your heart. It's feeling you have been a part. Of helping others far and near. This is why it's important to be a .... volunteer. Why be a volunteer blood donor? An exchange of ideas and opinions is always helpful and certainly democratic...Will Rogers had a saying that: he never met a person he did not like and another; he never met a person who knew it all! Mark Twain, the humorist and author of "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn" certainly knew children and once knew a mean' youngster in his neighborhood. He remarked: "The best way to raise that kid is to put him in a barrel at the age of 13, close the lid and feed him through the 'hung' hole in the barrel with a straw and, when he reaches the age of 16, close the hole." .. Wonder what he would say about some of the "kids" of today !
Since the completion of the atomic bomb in WW II in 1945, there has been a great prolifiration of nuclear and radio-active products and material on the market in the U.S. and many uses of radio-active devices in our agricultural and manufacturing process. Most of these are useful, however, due to absence of strict regulations, some can be cause for concern of all of us because we are not advised of the chances of them being harmful to our health by radiation. ** It is estimated that of the 12 million smoke detectors sold in the past two years, at least half were radioactive ionization alarms. Many states now require smoke alarms in new buildings, but no one has warned the public that the ionization type uses americium 241 (a few contain radon) to create a weak electric current by "ionizing" the air around it. Americium, takes over 400 years to lose half of its radiation, can be a potent cancer-causing agent. Although the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has cleared it, a top nuclear health physicist, terms the use of americium in these smoke alarms "inappropriate and grossly irresponsible." There are safe smokeby on the market, operating by means of photo-electric cells. No clear law regulates smoke alarms; the consumer can detect the radioactive models only by locating the word "ionizing" on the box, or to find the words "Caution: