Inspiration

“The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature.”

- Antoine François Prévost d'Exiles, Manon Lescaut

My dad gave me one dollar bill
'Cause I'm his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
'Cause two is more than one!

And then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes--I guess he didn't know
That three is more than two!

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

- Theodore Roosevelt

I was the new coach of a Little League baseball team and had not yet learned the names of my players. At our first game I called each boy by the number on his uniform. When I yelled, "Number 5, your time to bat," Jeff Smith came to the plate. When I called for "Number 7," Steve Heinz jumped up. Then I yelled for "Number 1," but no one emerged from the dugout. Again I called for Number 1. Still no one came forward.

As the umpire looked on, annoyed at this delay of the game, I shouted; "Who's Number 1?"

That's when the whole team yelled, "We are, Coach! We are!"