Fight to Learn

Anyone who knows the old Colonel well knows I love books and movies.  Over the years, I have compiled a collection of my favorite quotes for specific occasions.  This one from Top Gun serves as a good opening for today's blog.  "Gentlemen this school is about combat; there are no points for second place."  I know you will be starting college this fall, and it put me in mind a collection of quotes my father Fred put together to send me off to school that fateful fall of 1975.  There were quotes from Vince Lombardi, Calvin Coolidge, and even St. Paul but the one that stuck with me all my life was from Gentleman Jim Corbet.  No not the LSU basketball star but the famous pugilist.  Gentleman Jim was the last bare-knuckles professional boxing champion, from then on every prizefighter wore padded gloves.  Corbet said, "Fight one more round. When your arms are like lead and you can hardly lift your hands to come on guard, fight one more round. When your legs are like rubber and you can barely shuffle back to your corner, fight one more round. When your nose is bleeding and your eyes are black and you are so tired that you almost wish your opponent would crack you one on the jaw and put you to sleep, fight one more round remembering that the fella who always fights just one more round is never whipped."  Those words shepherded me through many of the trials of my life.  True they did not stand alone and I fell, many times. "Why do we fall, Bruce?  So that we can learn to pick ourselves up."1  The famous allegory, "Footsteps" tells of a man looking back on his life with Christ as footprints in the sand.  At first, there were two sets of prints as the man walked side by side with the Lord. Sometimes there would be knee and hand prints where the man had fallen and once during the greatest trial of his life, one set of prints vanished! When the man asked the Lord why he had left him alone, Christ replied, "that single set of footprints was when I carried you, my brother."  Let nothing but your honor stand in your way during this phase of your life.  Be selfish of anything that keeps you from your studies.  Praise God for the well-done job and feel no shame in your small rewards.  For if a dog trainer rewards his animal will not Our Father reward you better than this?  If motivation runs out, seek diligently for another, and do not rest until you have it.  It is only a few very short years.  Work it up the hill.  In closing, I will take poetic license firmly in hand and paraphrase the Fighter Pilot's oath, "Learn to Fight, Fight to Learn, Learn to Win!"

Sitting in a rocker at the Old Place I am,

Col. Jim

1 - Thomas Wayne in "Batman Returns"