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ON LIFE AND LIVING
There's another kind of hero

Author Unknown

A cold wind blew the golden leaves across the hard ground. They made a rasping sound, like a death rattle. It was a sound that matched his breathing. Harsh and grating and painful. The sweat was frozen in crystal crusts at the end of his hair that flopped each time he took another stride and his feet fell heavily, jarringly, on the ground. He wore sneakers that were tattered and shredded from the shrapnel of a thousand small pebbles over which he ran. His sweatpants were gray. It was a color that matched his complexion. His arms drooped with exhaustion, like flowers bending to give way to winter, and his was a lost, hopeless cause. For the winner was already across the finish line, far ahead, out of sight. And the other runners had long ago left him behind. His legs screamed at him to stop. His scorched lungs pleaded for a rest. Even his socks seemed to fly at half-mast around his ankles, soiled flags of surrender. Still, he ran.

In the autumn of our dreams, we are all quarterbacks. We are cunning and graceful and when we step into the huddle everyone bends forward eagerly and the crowd rises expectantly because it knows we will deliver the bomb just as the clock blinks to zero. Ah, but that is in the autumn of our dreams, not in the winter of our reality. You want to know reality? Then go watch the other autumn sport. It is called cross country. Watch it and you know what they mean when they speak of the loneliness of the long distance runner. Cross country runners don't get scholarships. Or no-cut contracts. Or offers to endorse deodorant or pantyhose or coffee or cars. Cross-country runners get shin splints and blisters on their feet and runny noses and watery eyes. One thing more. They get a special kind of self-satisfaction that few of us are ever privileged to experience. Oh, it is not from winning. It is merely from finishing, from ever going out there in the first place and running through puddles and briar patches and up hills and down hills and telling lies to your legs, and running on even when the others pass you, one-by-one, and geez, don't they ever get tired, don't they have a chest that's on fire, don't they ever get the dry heaves, and who cares anyway because there's no crowd, no cheerleaders, just hard ground and ugly ol' trees with no leaves and some guy driving by in a car, honking his horn and grinning like an idiot, and oh God, why don't I just slow down and walk for a little ways?

That, friends is reality. Oh, us silly damn sports writers, we get all caught up in the down-and-outs and slam dunks and power-play goals and frost-bitten World Series and sometimes we get the notion that what comes out of the mouth of some semi-literate who is a millionaire only because his glands went berserk at an early age ranks right up there in importance with the Dead Sea Scrolls. So we tend to dismiss things like cross-country as "minor" sports, and besides, who the hell knows how to read a stopwatch past the 4-minute mile anyway? So in our jock fantasies, the hero is the guy who scores the winning touchdown. But that is not reality. Reality is the kid you'll see when you're driving through a park or past a golf course, the kid with the stocking cap and the sweat-stained sneakers, loping along way behind the field, his eyes rolling wildly, his hypnotic trance of pain and puzzlement contorting his face. Maybe he will not be able to put into words exactly why he still runs. Maybe he will mention something about "gutting it out" or pushing through the pain barrier or running on because he has this curiosity that drives him to discover just how much his capable of...or not capable of. That can be the harshest kind of reality, and anyone who is willing to confront it, then he is, in the truest, purest sense, an athlete.


"The life of the arts, far from being an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is very close to the center of a nation's purpose-and is a test of the quality of the nation's civilization".--JFK (on the ceiling of the Kennedy library in Boston, MA)

"Fear is what makes otherwise intelligent people place blind faith in leaders underserving of their trust, it is what makes us want to believe in fairy tales of good versus evil, and what makes us passively accept severe curtailments of our liberties."

"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite".--Wm. Blake

"A cynic knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing".--Oscar Wilde

"How shall I talk of the sea to the frog who has never left its pond"--Chuang Tzu, Chinese sage, 4th century BCE.

"You don't choose the day you enter the world and you don't choose the day you leave. It's what you do in between that makes all the difference".--Anita Septimus, NYC Social Worker for HIV infected children.

"EDUCATION IS NOT THE FILLING OF A PAIL, BUT THE LIGHTING OF A FIRE".--WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

"I GO A GREAT DISTANCE WHILE SOME ARE CONSIDERING WHETHER THEY WILL START TODAY OR TOMORROW". ---MANUEL LISA, EARLY 19TH CENTURY FUR TRADER & PIONEER

"YOU DON'T GET TO CHOOSE HOW YOU'RE GOING TO DIE. OR WHEN. YOU CAN ONLY DECIDE HOW YOU'RE GOING TO LIVE". ----JOAN BAEZ

"EVERY NEW DAY BEGINS WITH POSSIBILITIES". ----RONALD REAGAN

"ONLY THAT DAY DAWNS TO WHICH WE ARE AWAKE". ---HENRY DAVID THOREAU

"NOTHING IS PARTICULARLY HARD IF YOU DIVIDE IT IN TO SMALL STEPS". ---HENRY FORD

"GREAT THINGS ARE NOT DONE BY IMPULSE, BUT A SERIES OF SMALL THINGS BROUGHT TOGETHER". ---VINCENT VAN GOGH

"LIFE IS THE SUM OF ALL YOUR CHOICES". ---ALBERT CAMUS


ON MILITARY AND LEADERSHIP
BY ANTON MYRER

"THE HIGHER YOUR RANK THE CALMER YOU MUST BE. YOU MUST INSTILL CONFIDENCE...EVEN IF YOU DON'T ALWAYS FEEL IT YOURSELF".

A LEADER'S PRAYER: "AH GOD. GOD HELP ME. HELP ME TO BE WISE AND FULL OF COURAGE AND SOUND JUDGMENT. HARDEN MY HEART TO THE SIGHTS THAT I MUST SEE SO SOON AGAIN, GRANT ME ONLY THE POWER TO THINK CLEARLY, BOLDLY, RESOLUTELY, NO MATTER HOW UNNERVING THE PERIL. LET ME NOT FAIL THEM".

"THE ESSENCE OF LEADERSHIP IS AN UNERRING ABILITY TO WINNOW THE ESSENTIAL FROM THE TRIVIAL OR EXTRANEOUS".

"DEATH IS NOT AN INDIVIDUAL MATTER. WE LIKE TO THINK IT IS, BUT IT IS NOT. THE DEATH OF ONE MAN TOUCHES US ALL, STRIPS US ALL. WE ARE ALL ONE CARING FAMILY, AND NOTHING MAKES US MORE CONSCIOUS OF THIS UNALTERABLE FACT THAN LOSS".

"THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR MALINGERING OR COWARDICE DURING BATTLE. IT IS THE TASK OF LEADERSHIP TO STRIP IT, BY WHATEVER MEANS WOULD SEEM TO BE SUREST CURE, ALWAYS MAKING CERTAIN THAT IN SO DOING IT WILL NOT MAKE A BAD MATTER WORSE".

"WAR IS COMPOUNDED OF NOTHING BUT ACCIDENTS, AND THE ALERT COMMANDER LOSES NO OPPORTUNITY TO PROFIT BY THEM".

"WORSE THAN ANYONE CAN IMAGINE, BECAUSE EACH PERSON SEES ONLY ONE SMALL, NASTY PART OF IT, BUT WAR IS LIKE THE OCEAN, ROARING AWAY EVERYWHERE, TURNING US ALL IN TO COWARDS OR TIGERS OR SLAVES, OR SINNERS".

"TO THINK ---TO REFLECT, TO SPECULATE, TO REMEMBER IS TO RENOUNCE THE CLAIMS OF THE MOMENT, THRUST OUT IN TIME. THAT IS WHAT IT'S MEANT TO BE A MAN".

"A MAN IS ONLY ONE MAN, ONE MEAGER ENTITY, BUT HE IS SO MANY DIVERGENT THINGS TO OTHER MEN".

"IT OCCURRED TO ME THAT IF I COULD INVENT A MACHINE--A GUN--THAT WOULD BY ITS RAPIDITY OF FIRE ENABLE ONE MAN TO DO AS MUCH BATTLE DUTY AS A HUNDRED, IT WOULD TO GREAT EXTENT SUPERCEDE THE NECESSITY OF LARGE ARMIES AND, CONSEQUENTLY, EXPOSURE TO BATTLE AND DISEASE WOULD BE GREATLY DIMINUISHED". ---RICHARD GATLING

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf".--George Orwell

"This is a war of unknown warriors; but let all strive without failing in faith or in duty...".-Winston Churchill

"CIRCUMSTANCES ----WHAT ARE CIRCUMSTANCES? I MAKE CIRCUMSTANCES". ---NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

"THE GREATEST GENERAL IS HE WHO MAKES THE FEWEST MISTAKES". ---NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

"WE WILL FIND A WAY, OR MAKE ONE". ---HANNIBAL

"WHEN YOU GET TO THE END OF YOUR ROPE, TIE A KNOT AND HANG ON". ---FDR

"IT'S A ROUGH ROAD THAT LEADS TO THE HEIGHTS OF GREATNESS". ---SENECA

RANDOM WANDERINGS

"THE MORE SAND THAT HAS ESCAPED FROM THE HOURGLASS OF OUR LIFE, THE CLEARER WE SHOULD SEE THROUGH IT". ---JEAN PAUL SARTRE

"Murder is not absolved of immorality by committing murder. Murder is absolved of immorality by bringing men to think that murder is not evil. This only the perversion of the mind can bring about. And the perversion of the mind is only possible when those who should be heard in its defense are silent". ---Archibald MacLeish, Poet (1940)

"YOU HAVE FIRST AN INSTINCT, THEN AN OPINION, THEN A KNOWLEDGE, AS THE PLANT HAS ROOT, BUD AND FRUIT. TRUST THE INSTINCT TO THE END, THOUGH YOU RENDER NO REASON". ---RALPH WALDO EMERSON

"IT IS NEVER RIGHT TO COMPROMISE WITH DISHONESTY". --HENRY CABOT LODGE, JR.

"I BELIEVE HALF THE UNHAPPINESS IN LIFE COMES FROM PEOPLE BEING AFRAID TO GO STRAIGHT AT THINGS". ---WINSTON CHURCHILL

"WHAT'S THE ANSWER OF 99 OUT OF 100 QUESTIONS? ANSWER: MONEY".

"Ours is not to ask why...ours is but to do or die".

"THE FINAL TEST OF A LEADER IS THAT HE LEAVES BEHIND IN HIS SUBORDINATES THE COURAGE AND CONVICTION TO CARRY ON THE MISSION".

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