I first discovered Ideals magazine in 2011 when David and I helped Aunt Karen clean out David’s grandparents’ house on Simms Ave in Topeka. I really liked the illustrations and poems about Nature in there. We were living in a chaotic neighborhood in Saigon at the time. This publication helped cheer up my spirit a great deal.

5 years later, on one evening, while anticipating my parents’ visit to our home in Campbellsville, I had a think about my life. Well, we are busy from dawn till dusk, from when our children wake up till they go to sleep. Except for precious gems of joyful moments together as a family, overall lightheartedness seems elusive, especially when the financial pressure of a one-income family aggravates the atmosphere.

The blessings are that the kids always have fun, that I do find time to read, and that David manages to fish on the weekends.

My mind instantly went to Ideals magazine. I remember the comfort, nostalgia and idealistic sentiments that magazine provoked. Perhaps some day I will have time and attention for the articulate New Yorker, but for now Ideals fits the bill. It is a beautiful, visually stimulating and heart-warming publication!

When David saw the Ideals Thanksgiving issue that I ordered from Amazon, he said, ” My grandmother used to have these.” Well, Ideals magazine will also serve to remind us of Grandparents, whose photo is in our study. I’m sure David misses them and is glad to be reminded of them and the sentiments they held dear when he sees Ideals around the house.

Ideals is quintessentially American. I found this wonderful poem in the first few pages of the 2006 Thanksgiving issue:

The Landing of the Pilgrims
Felicia Dorothea Hemans

The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches tossed;

And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters o’er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame;

Not as the fleeing come,
In silence and in fear;
They shook the depths of the desert gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard, and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free!

The ocean eagle soared
From his nest by the white wave’s foam;
And the rocking pines of the forest roared–
This was their welcome home!