30 Years Ago Today.....

[shooter]

Steve, very impressed my friend!

Reagan and his kind are the last of an exemplary breed; the torch has been passed to the current generation and now it's up to us to similarly conduct ourselves with a wisdom and class worthy of being passed to the ones coming up behind us.


You're either an A-hole or a dimwit to do what this guy does:

Me thinks BOTH. This so-called great orator , this "brilliant scholar". I'm not putting him down. From what I've seen I think at best he is of average intelligence. And that may be generous. I would like to see the results of a standardized IQ exam.

[taxfree4]

Thanks mate. I liked it a lot. Is that a taxfree original?

I wish, that's a Memorial Day poem written by Edgar A Guest that is read every Memorial Day Ceremony at my chapel.

[53driver]

I wish, that's a Memorial Day poem written by Edgar A Guest that is read every Memorial Day Ceremony at my chapel.

Edgar A Guest? Oh my goodness. No wonder I liked it.
My all time favorite poem is by him: "It Couldn't Be Done."

My dad had a gorgeous Old English Script of that poem framed and hanging in his home office for years.
He knew I liked it.
When I got promoted to LtCol, he gave it to me and wrote on the back how proud he was.

It Couldn’t Be Done
BY EDGAR ALBERT GUEST

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it!

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it;”
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure,
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.

[taxfree4]

Edgar A Guest? Oh my goodness. No wonder I liked it.
My all time favorite poem is by him: "It Couldn't Be Done."

My dad had a gorgeous Old English Script of that poem framed and hanging in his home office for years.
He knew I liked it.
When I got promoted to LtCol, he gave it to me and wrote on the back how proud he was.

It Couldn’t Be Done
BY EDGAR ALBERT GUEST

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it!

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it;”
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure,
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.

That's coincidence if I've ever heard, every Memorial Day when my priest read it he never got through it without his voice crackling a little. He was a WWII battlefield chaplain with the Belgium Resistance who gave a lot of last rites and was an escaped POW from the Nazis. Guest had a way, I guess, of capturing the essence of what he was feeling like no other writing he ever read and precisely why he picked that poem to read every year.