Month: September 2016

The year was 1983. In Australia, the long-distance foot race from Sydney to Melbourne was about to begin, covering 875 kilometers… more than 500 miles! About 150 world-class athletes had entered, for what was planned as a six day event.
So race officials were started when a 61-year-old man approached and handed them his entry form. His name was Cliff Young, and his ‘racing attire’ included overalls and galoshes over his-work boots.
At first, they refused to let him enter. So he explained that he’d grown up on a 2000 acre farm, with thousands of sheep. His family could afford neither horses nor tractors so, when the storms came, his job was to round up the sheep. Sometimes, he said, it would take two or three days of running.
Finally, they let Cliff enter and the race began. The others quickly left him way behind, shuffling along in his galoshes. But he didn’t know the plan included stopping each right to rest, so he kept going. By the fifth day, he had caught them all, won the race and became a national hero.

He continued to compete in long-distance races until well up in the seventies. He was an inspiration to millions and a great encourager of younger runners. In his honor and memory, in 2004, the year after his death at age 81, the organizers of the race where he first gained fame permanently changes its name to the Cliff Young Australian Six Day Race.
What was the key to Cliff Young’s success? It goes by various names, determination, perseverance, persistence, tenacity.
It means keeping one’s eye fixed steadfastly on a goal and not stopping, no matter the difficulties or the obstacles, until that goal is achieved. A strong will, a settled purpose, an invincible determination, can accomplish almost anything, and in this lies the distinction between great men and little men.

Everyone wants a blue ribbon. Blue. First place. The best. Even kinder-gardeners want that blue ribbon. In sports, I was never a blue-ribbon person. In a race I was always last. In baseball I was as likely to get hit on the head as to drop the ball. In basketball I was fine as long as there weren’t nine other players on the court with me. Where I got my horrible sports ability, I don’t know, but I got it. And I got it early.
During the spring of my kindergarten year, our class had a field trip to a park in a town about 20 miles away. Making that drive now is no big deal, but when you’re six and you’ve lived in a town of 300 all your life, going to a town of a couple thousand is a very big deal. Nonetheless, looking back now, I don’t remember much of that day. I’m sure we ate our little sack lunches, played on the swings, slid down the slide, typical six-year-old stuff. Then it was time for the races.
However, these were no ordinary races. Some parent had come up with the idea to have the picnic kind of races, like pass the potato under your neck and hold an egg on a spoon while you run to the other side. I don’t remember too much about these, but there was one race that will forever be lodged in my memory, the three-legged race. The parents decided not to use potato sacks for this particular race. Instead, they tied our feet together.
One lucky little boy got me for a partner. Now what you have to know about this little boy is that he was the second most athletic boy in our class. I’m sure he knew he was in trouble the second they laced his foot to mine. As for me, I was mortified. This guy was a winner. He almost always won, and I knew that, with me, he didn’t have a chance.
Apparently he didn’t realize that as deeply as I did at the time. He laced his arm with mine, the gun sounded, and we were off to the other side. Couples were falling and stumbling all around us, but we stayed on our feet and made it to the other side.
Unbelievably when we turned around and headed back for home, we were in the lead! Only one other couple even had a chance, and they were a good several yards behind us.
Then only feet from the finish line, disaster struck. I tripped and fell.
We were close enough that my partner could have easily dragged me across the finish line and won. He could have, but he didn’t. Instead, he stopped, reached down, and helped me up, just as the other couple crossed the finish line. I still remember that moment, and I still have that little red ribbon.
When we graduated 13 years later, I stood on that stage and gave the Valedictory address to that same group of students, none of whom even remembered that moment anymore. So, I told them about that little boy who had made a split-second decision that helping a friend up was more important than winning a blue ribbon.
In my speech I told them that I wouldn’t tell which of the guys sitting there on that stage was the little boy although he was up there with me. I wouldn’t tell because in truth at one time or another all of them had been that little boy, helping me up when I fell, taking time out from their pursuit of their own goals to help a fellow person in need.
I told them why I’ve kept that ribbon. You see to me, that ribbon is a reminder that you don’t have to be a winner in the eyes of the world to be a winner to those closest to you. The world may judge you a failure or a success, but those closest to you will know the truth. That’s important to remember as we travel through this life.
You may not have a red ribbon to prove it, but I sincerely hope you have at least a few friends who remember you for taking time out from your pursuit of that blue ribbon to help them. I’m thinking those will be the ones that really count. I know it’s the one that counted the most to me.

A man and a woman had been married for more than 60 years. They had shared everything. They had kept no secrets from each other except that the little old woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet that she had cautioned her husband never to open or ask her about.
For all of these years, he had never thought about the box, but one day the little old woman got very sick and the doctor said she would not recover. In trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife’s bedside.
She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box. When he opened it, he found two crocheted dolls and a stack of money totaling $95,000. He asked her about the contents.
“When we were to be married,” she said, “my grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a doll.”
The little old man was so moved; he had to fight back tears. Only two precious dolls were in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all those years of living and loving. He almost burst with happiness.
“Honey,” he said “that explains the doll, but what about all of this money? Where did it come from?”
“Oh, that?” she said. “That’s the money I made from selling the dolls.”