Stuff That I Have Noticed #62: Never Quit!

It’s unclear to me from whence my lifelong drive to never quit or give up came from. It must be innate because I do not recall that ever being drilled into me or even taught to me by anyone – with the possible exception of my four football coaches. But that persistent characteristic was within me from my earliest memories.

Even though , maybe because, I was raised (or “reared” as my parents would put it) in a traditional, authoritative southern baptist culture, from childhood to my present very senior years I have also been resistant to any imposed code of behavior or rules that I find to be unreasonable or arbitrary.

This unwillingness to abide by unreasonable rules seems, in my mind, to be the companion of the determination to never give up, never quit. No matter the difficulty, even the seeming impossibility, of an aim, goal or barrier, like Elizabeth Warren, I persist.

I recall a time about twenty years ago when I was dealing with a brand new piece of software that came with sketchy instructions. No matter what I tried I couldn’t get it to do what I needed and was very perturbed and frustrated. My friend Gary asked, “What are you going to do if you can’t figure it out?” Without a thought I replied, “That is not an option.” This story points me in the direction of another inexplicable tendency I possess, self-learning, on the job training as it were. No need to explicate that here since I wrote a piece about it a couple of years ago.

Being an only child and living a somewhat isolated existence until I started the first grade no doubt was a contributory factor in all these independent tendencies even to the extent that at age six, when Mom tried to take me to school that first day, I walked on the other side of the street from her. No mammas’ boy, I.

Excerpt from Three Stages: “The next strong memory I have of grammar school is Timmy Roach. The Bully. That kid beat me up nearly every day of the second grade. I was a chubby kid with zero self defense and athletic skills at that stage of my development and an easy mark for Timmy and his gang of youthful thugs. … Bish [my Dad] had never taught me to protect or defend myself so I just… tried to avoid him, taking increasingly circuitous routes to and from school, and sometimes it worked. One day at recess I saw him coming and one of my classmates (I wish I could remember who) told me to hit him. Strange as it seems now that idea had not occurred to me. He strutted up to me, prepared to take a swing and I doubled up my fist and popped him right on the nose. What a difference one blow can make! Blood gushed, Timmy cried, I was kept after school for fighting but the Roach reign of terror ceased.”

I believe that this simple act implemented a subconscious sea change in my young mind; I could solve a problem myself!

As anyone who has written an autobiography (by definition, a self involved person) knows there are moments which – while completely unconscious at the time of their occurrence – are life changing and profound. Punching Timmy Roach was one of mine.

Of course, while extremely satisfying in the moment, no such insights were extant at the time. In fact I just had this particular idea as I’m writing this piece. I did however, in that punching moment, learn on a subconscious level that I could solve my own problems.

Anyhow as life progresses and I retrospectively consider such events there were other breakthrough moments such as when we moved from Bristol Tennessee to Hollywood and I was presented (at thirteen) with the opportunity to reimagine my life. I introduced myself to my new world not as the somewhat sissy Benny, but as the more manly Ben.

Then there was football, three seasons at Hollywood High and three more at Whittier College. One does not play six years of football at any level if one is a “quitter”.

Looking back analytically from the vantage point of eighty-seven years and the memory of my Mother, who walked a brisk five miles in the Hollywood hills every day (for thirty years) until six months before she died at ninety-eight, maybe the no-quit characteristic is genetic after all.

 

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