Lessons From Old No. 27

posted at 10:44 am on June 26, 2009 by The Other McCain
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“Can’t never could.” Whenever I hear someone speaking pessimistically — “Oh, there’s no point even trying . . .” — that three-word phrase recurs to mind.

Nothing is so necessary to victory as the belief that victory is possible. Believing that you can win, your next step is to determine that you will win. Once you’ve done that, all that is required is that you devote every fiber of your existence, all the sweat and adrenaline and mental toughness you can muster, to the task of winning.

How do you learn to think that way? to borrow a phrase from Hank Williams Jr., for me it’s a family traditon:

When he was 16, Bill McCain told his mother, “You won’t ever have to worry about me again.” He left the family farm in rural Randolph County, Alabama, and moved 40 miles away to West Point, Georgia, where he went to work on the night shift in a cotton mill.
You’ve heard of people who worked their way through college? My father worked his way through high school. Most of his cotton-mill pay went for room and board and books — in those days, public-school students in Georgia had to buy their own textbooks — at the school where he became a football star. . . .
“Boy, hold your head up high,” my parents and grandparents repeatedly told me. “There ain’t nobody better than you.” . . .

Read the whole thing.

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