Little boys need encouraged and even though I don't believe I ever got to be a little boy in size, I was a little boy in spirit. Some folks just seemed to be born with self confidence and some earned it the hard way. Now I am not saying that learning the hard way is bad as I believe everyone needs challenges in their life to assist them in learning to overcome obstacles. As many of you know I was huge for my age starting in the first grade when Geneva Snyder was still teaching and they brought down one of the 8th grade chairs for me to sit in while all the others got to sit in those tiny little wood desks. Mrs. Casselman took over Aung Geve's teaching when she got sick with the brain tumor and she always had a place by the door where you could be measured for height. I was always the tallest ever in her class and in fact during the second grade I was almost as tall as she was. In fact Mrs. Shumate, the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade teacher was short and I was taller than her. So you probably get the picture of why I was somewhat shy and reserved.
If it were not for recess and games and a small class of 5 sometimes 6 when Joy Frank showed up or Ralph and I think at one time we did have 7 but it was short lived, I would have never come out of the shell I was in. And I would have to give a shout out to Hugh Allen Jones for assisting as he never noticed I was about three times his size because he always was trying to beat me at sports and once he and I had a contest in the second grade to see who could count to 1000 on one page of paper by writing the smallest and fastest. I think that is the one thing he won at. Dodge ball was brutal and Hugh Allen was always on the other side and I would throw that ball as hard as I could at him or anyone else. My idea was that if I missed someone the ball would hit off the back wall and come all the way back to me. Softball and alligators were our other favorite sports and Hugh Allen was about the only person willing to stand in my way during alligators because I would just run straight over anyone in my way. It was Hugh Allen about every time and he would just roll over backwards and get up and run after me to get knocked down again. I guess that is why he turned out to be a great U.S. Marine and I am proud to say I made him what he became, just kidding. He was and still is tough as nails.
I could name off more heroes in my life but Jack Gilbreth just gave me the vision. I did not even know a thing about football but when he was coaching in Shidler and played in Grainola (basketball) he saw me and how big I was and encouraged me to come to Shidler and play football for him. Between him and Aunt Gladys Snyder I got so much encouragement that I could become more than I had dreamed about that I wanted to perform to please them. Maybe by nature I am just a pleaser, but they were like people reaching down to pull someone up who needed help getting over a tall wall. I am sure they got a laugh out of me because I had no idea what I was doing but I gave it 110% because they believed in me.
I did not believe in myself so much as I believed them. I truly loved them for being a mentor to the biggest clumsiest guy to ever come out of Grainola. They put gasoline in my tank.
Well, I just had to give a shout out to those folks.
So what do you learn in the Osage?
- small kids hear those small words so choose them wisely and spread them around
- overcoming your negative thoughts is critical and then listening to those of encouragement
- if you want to be a winner you have to overcome something and sometimes it is losing first
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