Keep-a-Goin’

I missed a few lessons early in life. But I caught up later, thanks in part to several wise mentors who showed up to fill in the gaps in my knowledge with practical experience. It should be no surprise to anyone that much that anyone gathers in the wisdom business is tied to one’s mistakes. There are few better teachers than failure, despite the goodie-two-shoes in society who want to shield every man, woman, and child from any aspect of failure. That mentality is itself a failure. A failure of wisdom. Why? Because when we fail and are faced with what to do about it, we frequently learn from those mistakes and strike out to be successful. And if we fail again, we try again.

My wife’s father, Victor Evers Glick, had a favorite poem that he would recite to us even after he had suffered a stroke late in life and struggled with aphasia. I can hear him now reading ever so slowly but resolutely to our kids, and his grandkids. That poem, Keep A-Goin’!, was by Frank Lebby Stanton.

If you strike a thorn or rose,

  Keep a-goin’!

 If it hails, or if it snows,

  Keep a-goin!

 ‘Taint no use to sit an’ whine,

 When the fish ain’t on yer line;

 Bait yer hook an’ keep a-tryin’—

  Keep a-goin’!

 When the weather kills yer crop,

  Keep a-goin’!

 When you tumble from the top,

  Keep a-goin’!

 S’pose you’re out of every dime,

 Bein’ so ain’t any crime;

 Tell the world you’re feelin’ prime—

  Keep a-goin’!

 When it looks like all is up,

  Keep a-goin’!

 Drain the sweetness from the cup,

  Keep a-goin’!

 See the wild birds on the wing,

 Hear the bells that sweetly ring,

 When you feel like sighin’ sing—

  Keep a-goin’!

This was my father-in-law to a T. He didn’t give up. And life threw him some curveballs. That’s appropriate because he loved baseball and the Chicago Cubs. So, he knew when those pitches came your way, you step up, take a swing, and knock it out of the park. And if you don’t, then wait expectantly for the next pitch.

Victor Glick didn’t teach me that, but when he labored hard to regain his ability to read and speak after a stroke that nearly took his life, it was stirring and reminded me of all the people I’ve met along the way who did inspire me to keep-a-goin’ when it would have been easy to give up and take another path. 

Fortunately, I didn’t miss that lesson from the earliest days of my life and, despite my shortcomings, I resisted being a quitter. Indeed, notwithstanding my failures—I’ve had many—I thought being a victim was an ill-suited role. 

To be sure, like all of us at one time or another, I’ve engaged in self-pity when things didn’t go my way. But I abhor self-victimization. Why? Because that sort of thinking saps the ability of a person to, well, keep-a-goin’. I can thank my experience at the Virginia Military Institute for driving home the point that a pitiful frame of mind does not produce a resolute and productive approach to life. There I was taught—emphatically so—to embrace my own mistakes; to acknowledge my failures without excuses; to learn from deficiencies and in turn, to be a positive example to others around me. Moreover, I learned at VMI, to come alongside a classmate—we called one another “Brother Rats”—who had a rough go and to then encourage them to, you guessed it, keep-a-goin.

America could learn a lot from Stanton’s poem and Victor Glick’s love of it. Maybe if more people subscribed to the spirit of that country rune, we would be a better nation. Not one where hands are extended to the government every time we stub a toe. Not one where the government showers money on people to compensate them for debts they freely assumed but find hard to repay. Not one where history was cruel and despotic to their ancestors, but now obligates today’s taxpayers to pay reparations for the wrongs that progeny never suffered. Not one where a healthy adult is paid to stay at home sprawled on a couch uninterested in finding a job or earning a living. Not one that elevates welfare over genuine wellbeing.

And the common denominator? These people now think themselves victims. They wallow in their victimhood. How did we get here, America? We arrived in this awful place when we came to the decision that it is the role of government to rescue us from failure, disappointment, and even the mistakes we’ve freely made of our own volition. It has turned us from a nation where individual dignity and the work ethic have been supplanted by self-pity. And how do we stop that? 

Keep-a-goin’.