Long, Long Trail A' Winding

I read another article today about the passing of one of the last few WWI veterans. He was 109 years old. The ones I knew are all long dead. I knew a lot of them decades ago. I liked a lot of them. They were men who knew hard times for a lot of their lives. They were a lot less likely to be judgmental than some who were of a younger age. I don't mean to say that they were men who rewarded or respected failure. They just realized that a man who failed after giving it everything he had, maybe didn't have the intelligence or personal endurance to prevail. They weren't so likely to kick around and make a joke of someone like that. They realized that the failure itself was usually more than enough punishment for a man who had gone through it. A lot of them had maybe gone through that kind of experience and lived to play the game again another day. Maybe even chalked up a win or two before they turned out the stadium lights. I find no fault with that kind of thinking.

A lot of the WWII generation have little tolerance for failure. They like to think of themselves as get it done at any cost or die trying kind of guys. Hard men for hard times. They don't have any time for those that don't measure up. There's something to be said for that but I always found them hard to take and still do. I won't miss them as much when they are gone. I probably won't have to. Many will undoubtedly outlive me.