The Wall

Have you ever wondered what you thought you were doing after starting some task or other? You know, the direction you thought you were headed ended up being much more detailed than you were expecting it to be? The next question becomes: How often have you run up against this?

If you’re like me, I approach things head on but sometimes without thinking it through first. This is how I learned to pre-plan with things as complex as taking a weekend jaunt to, say, Monterey or Salt Lake City or a train trip across America. A little planning goes a long way, doesn’t it?

The train trip was something I had always wanted to do. In this case, I started near San Francisco and traveled to Washington D.C. Climbing the Sierra-Nevada Mtns. and crossing the plains of our Midwest to D.C. Spectacular is America and ever so much more beautiful than one can glean from a movie. That is but one example. I took the same trip on the return.

Long before this I received my draft notice back in 1968. I had left college to take a semester off to figure out just exactly what my major would be. That was all it took as Vietnam was going full tilt. I then had to make a decision, go to Canada, nope, or enlist in the U.S. Navy. I’ll be damned if I was going into the Army. I chose the Navy, enlisted, and went to Boot Camp. Looking back, I think that a good many people should go to a form of boot camp before they turn twenty-one. There is no B.S. in boot camp. It is discipline twenty-four hours a day and mistakes are what you have to pay for physically. Learning to be self-disciplined only happens when discipline is forced on a person. Whether that be childhood discipline or boot camp discipline. It is the childhood discipline that makes a strong adult. I did great in boot camp!

Now, it would seem that so much that used to be good about this country has been thwarted by some of our colleges. These kids go into college and receive no discipline unless they do so themselves. I think of this as being spoiled through the lack of discipline as a child. Too much ease is not good when we grow up. Then again, one could say that it depends on the child, the person. I think that’s right but rigorous discipline makes an adult quickly and being an adult at a younger age, maturity ie., seems to be missing now. Age does not determine who is adult. As with all of life from cradle to grave, it is self-discipline that makes a good man or woman.

This is my two cents or you can make it a nickle for inflation if you do the books. Either way, what I mention here is tried and true and I am watching my fourth generation of young people. Here’s to those with common sense. Here’s pity for those without. They have no foundation. You be the judge, I am done with judging from here on out.

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