Father & Son
This past Memorial Day weekend will be one of the most memorable Memorial Days in my lifetime. My son Austin and I spent the weekend in Indianapolis, we went to the Indy 500 on Sunday.
It was a 1st for both of us.
I felt very fortunate to sit there being entertained by the greatest open wheel drivers in the world. I felt equally fortunate to be an American.
Many men and women have sacrificed so much for people like myself to enjoy an event like the Indy 500.
Our country has endured much, overcame even more and have fought with courage and resolve to complete "every" task that they have been presented with. The goal of every armed service man and women is to successfully accomplish the mission at hand and to return home safely to their loved ones.
Things haven't always worked as smoothly as we Americans would have hoped.
The casualties of war are sad and sobering, but with each mission, skirmish and war our country has produced men and women that have displayed faithful patriotism and selfless acts of courage.
They were leaders that understood what leadership was about and what it took to lead.
One of those men was Abraham Lincoln, our countries 16th President.
He was a true leader during a time our country lost over 750,000 serviceman in the American Civil War. The deadliest war in our country's history.
Abraham Lincoln was a great man and one of the greatest examples of leadership our country has ever seen.
Below is a letter displaying that leadership in a personal and private way.
The letter is from one of the best websites I've ever visited. It's wonderful.
The website is called "Letters of Note".
Enjoy! - sbb
"You are not lazy, and still you are an idler"
Late-1850, Abraham Lincoln's step-brother, John D. Johnston, wrote to him and asked, yet again, for a loan with which to settle some debts. Said Johnston:
I am dund & doged to Death so I am all most tired of Living, & I would all most swop my place in Heaven for that much money [...] I would rother live on bread and wotter than to have men allways duning me [...] If you can send me 80 Dollars I am willing to pay you any Intrust you will ask.On previous occasions Lincoln simply would have agreed to such a request. This time, however, sensing an opportunity to impart some wisdom, he responded with the following letter of advice and a proposal.
( Source: Lincoln and His World: Volume 3; Image: Abraham Lincoln, via.)
January 2, 1851
Dear Johnston:
Your request for eighty dollars I do not think it best to comply with now. At the various times when I have helped you a little you have said to me, "We can get along very well now"; but in a very short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now, this can only happen by some defect in your conduct. What that defect is, I think I know. You are not lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether, since I saw you, you have done a good whole day's work in any one day. You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it. This habit of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should break the habit. It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it, easier than they can get out after they are in.
You are now in need of some money; and what I propose is, that you shall go to work, "tooth and nail," for somebody who will give you money for it. Let father and your boys take charge of your things at home, prepare for a crop, and make the crop, and you go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get; and, to secure you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you, that for every dollar you will, between this and the first of May, get for your own labor, either in money or as your own indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for your work. In this I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines in California, but I mean for you to go at it for the best wages you can get close to home in Coles County. Now, if you will do this, you will be soon out of debt, and, what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again. But, if I should now clear you out of debt, next year you would be just as deep in as ever. You say you would almost give your place in heaven for seventy or eighty dollars. Then you value your place in heaven very cheap, for I am sure you can, with the offer I make, get the seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months' work. You say if I will furnish you the money you will deed me the land, and, if you don't pay the money back, you will deliver possession. Nonsense! If you can't now live with the land, how will you then live without it? You have always been kind to me, and I do not mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more than eighty times eighty dollars to you.
Affectionately your brother,
A. Lincoln
sbb 28.5.12
1050
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