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#171 FRIENDS AND FANCIES by Bob Moreland

Soapweed

Well-known member
This is my dad's current column for the local papers. It seems pertinent for the topics of the New Year.

#171 FRIENDS AND FANCIES

by Bob Moreland



These past few days the C Span Channel has covered the memorial and burial services of President Gerald Ford who died the day after Christmas. President Truman also died on the 26th day of December in 1972. The date of December 26 is special to me. My father, Jack Moreland, passed away 40 years ago on that day in 1966. It almost seems like yesterday.

I hope many of you were able to watch the wonderful tributes to Gerald Ford who was credited with healing the nation during the crisis era of Watergate and Vietnam. He had a unique low-key ability of drawing people together without seeking personal praise and probably was more respected by politicians on both sides of the aisle than any president in recent history.

Cousin, Violette-Mae Kuross, in St. Paul, MN, was confined to bed with the flu last week. As a result she tuned in on C Span and sent the following message: “Have you been watching the programs on President Ford? They had his biography on last night. His brother said that when Gerald was young he had such a temper. One time when his mother had had enough she made him memorize the poem, “If”. After that he didn’t lose his temper anymore. It’s a wonderful poem that Dad used to know and brother, Wayne, memorized it because Dad did.” Violette-Mae convinced me I should watch the rest of the memorial services and I am glad that I did. She found the poem in an old book of poetry and sent it to me. Here it is:



IF by Rudyard Kipling 1865-1936



If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowances for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired of waiting,

Or being lied about, and don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated don’t give way to hating,

And you don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;



If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same,

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;



If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss;

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them; “Hold on!”



If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!



Thankyou, Violette-Mae! President Ford seemed to follow the advice in “IF” to a “T”. He modestly stated, “I’m a Ford not a Lincoln!” Someone asked about his golf game. He said, “It’s improving. I don’t hit as many spectators as I used to!”
 
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