Let me lay out a scenario that I frequently encounter:
I walk up to someone and introduce myself; we shake hands, exchange a couple of questions about where they’re from, maybe talk about a mutual friend, and we usually hit it off–I like people and most of them like me well enough.
We talk about where we grew up, and they ask if I knew their friend so-and-so who also grew up in Las Vegas. “What high school did you go to?”
I respond, “Actually, I was homeschooled. I didn’t attend high school.”
The amazed and confounded expression is as constant as it is priceless. “Wait. You were homeschooled? But… you look so… normal!”
Yeah, no duh.
With a look of confusion and doubt they ask, “So what did you do all day? Watch TV?”
The answer to that question, what did I do at home all day as a child and a teenager, is what I’m writing about today.
Smiling, I tell them, “No, I read books.”
Books! What fools learn from books? Don’t you need trained administrators and education professionals to give a child an education? What most people don’t understand is that my parents gave me access to the best administrators and educational professionals money could buy. In fact, they were the best and greatest minds the world has ever seen. Charles Dickens was my guidance counselor and George Washington was my 10th grade teacher. And they didn’t just feed me facts–they mentored me, challenged me, and helped me to become who I am. I had books!
One summer I spent a winter in a tank in the Battle of the Bulge in the France and Belgium of 1944. Later, I marched with Joshua Chamberlain to Gettysburg and cried with General Jackson’s wife when he slipped away in death. I even sat around a campfire and listened to men debate whether two men should be hanged. I’ve witnessed the consequences of a million decisions and have been in the minds of men and women when those decisions were made; you gain a lot of experience when you’ve done all the things that I’ve done in my lives.
The gift that I’d like to give you today is a little window into one of the lives I’ve lived with my favorite mentor, Louis L’Amour. I recently had a conversation with Mr. L’Amour in the form of his book, The Walking Drum, where I was reminded of many of the lessons I learned from him.
I now give you some of the gems I gleaned from my most recent reading of this book. Read these treasures well for they are like gold to me. Take notes. And if you’d like to experience the fullness of this ancient life, here’s the link to the Kindle store.
On Studying History
“Unhappily, history as presented in our schools virtually ignores two thirds of the world, confining itself to limited areas around the Mediterranean, to western Europe, and north America. Of China, India, and the Moslem world almost nothing is said, yet their contribution to our civilization was enormous, and they are now powers with which we must deal both today and tomorrow, and which it would be well for us to understand. “One of the best means of introduction to any history is the historical novel.”“The company, the word taken from com-panis, meaning bread-sharer, had come into being to share perils of travel at a time when the roads were beset with brigands, robber barons, and armies of warlike monks who left their monasteries to attack and pillage caravans.”
“The Chinese, Hindus, Arabs, and Greeks long knew it was nothing of the kind [that the world was flat]. So did many people in western Europe. The story of belief in a flat world has been endlessly repeated by those who would magnify the voyage of Columbus out of all proportion. As a matter of fact, if one studies maritime navigation before and after it will be seen that Columbus had rather an easy time of it. His ships were small by our standards, but oceans have ben crossed by many much smaller craft both before and after his time. “Traveling the routes he followed in his earlier years, visiting or residing in Genoa, Lisbon, etc., Columbus would have had to be both deaf and blind not to have heard of Atlantic voyages. Columbus and his brother made their livings, for a time, copying charts. “Ancient sea voyaging was much more extensive than has been suspected, and there was probably to land on earth that had not been visited before recorded history. Evidences of man have been found on even the most remote islands. “The secret of making a discover then, as now, was to make it at the right time with proper attention to publicity.”
On Doing
“A little pompously, for I was young, I told him who my father was. ‘Men of my family were captains among the Veneti when they fought Caesar, and it is said that there was a Kerbouchard among the monks who welcomed the Vikings when they first came to Iceland.’ “‘A ship does not sail with yesterday’s wind,’ Red Mark replied. I know what Breton corsairing men have done, but what of you?“To be reckless is not to be brave, it is only to be a fool. “Caution always, but when a man acts he should act suddenly and with decision.”
“It has seemed to me that each year one should pause to take stock of himself, to ask: Where am I going? What am I becoming? What do I wish to do and become? “Most people whom I encountered were without purpose, people who had given themselves to no goal. The first goal need not be the final one, for a sailing ship sails first by one wind, then another. The point is that it is always going somewhere, proceeding toward a final destination.”
“Yesterday I arrived hungry and in rags; today I was the confidant of kings; so can a man’s fortune change. Yet power, riches, and the friendship of kings are but transitory things. Riches are a claim to distinction for those who have no other right to it. Ancestry is most important to those who have done nothing themselves and often the ancestor from whom they claim descent is one they would not allow in the house if they met him today. “…Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. the wish, however, must be implemented by deeds.”
“If an enemy can be pushed into moving in haste, he may be pushed into mistakes and indiscretions. It was an old policy: Never let an enemy get set; keep him moving. “Countermeasures, whether in diplomacy or war, are never so good as direct measures. Attack, always attack should be the policy of all men, all nations, when facing an enemy. Attack here, there, somewhere else; always keep the enemy on the defensive and in a state of uncertainty as to where the next blow may fall.”
On Who I Want to Become
“His name, I discovered, was Redwan, and he was a warrior as well as a statesman, a man of consequence.”“Yet here, now, lay the land of my dreams. Here were the cities of Granada, Seville, Toledo, and Córdoba. How long had I dreamed, waking and sleeping, of such cities? For I wanted a life wider and deeper than my own Breton shores could offer. To make my way in a larger world, to see more, to learn more, to be more. This was my dream.”
On Manhood
“Alone I was, but he who stands alone is often the strongest. By standing alone he becomes stronger and remains strong.”“This–this was what made life: a moment of quiet, the water falling in the fountain, the girl’s voice… a moment of captured beauty. He who is truly wise will never permit such moments to escape.”
“An old man’s advice? Speak little, listen much.”
“You have made a powerful enemy, but a man may be judged by who his enemies are, and their power.”
“Trust you instincts. Life teaches us much of which we are not aware. Our senses perceive things that do not impinge upon our awareness, but they lie dormant within us and affect our recognition of people and conditions. But you must be patient. In impatience there is danger.”
“Win or lose I must make an effort, for if I remained hanging there, I must surely fall, and there was no one to come to my rescue.”
“Akim was no coward, and he had a half-dozen men to help him, but he was accustomed to fear. In the old days he would have met my challenge at once, but he had been spoiled by the fear of those around him, and the idea of facing again a man who was unafraid took some getting used to.”
“It was ever my way to go toward an enemy, and I went now.”
I have never known a man who better understood his role. He accepted rights due him without comment or apology, and he made the responsibilities of command seem a privilege.”
“Whatever plans one has were best kept to oneself, for those with whom you share them might themselves share them with someone else, and he is a wise man who mentally keeps a hand on the door latch.”
“Remember this, Julot, even a rebel grows old, and sometimes wiser. He finds the things he rebelled against are now the things he must defend against newer rebels. Aging bones creak in the cold. Seek warmth, my friend; be discreet, but follow your own mind. When you have obtained position you will have influence. Otherwise you will tear at the bars until your strength is gone, and you will have accomplished nothing but to rant and rave.”
“A man should not compromise his principles, but he need not flaunt them, as a banner. There is a time to talk and a time to be still. if a wrong is being done, then is the time to speak out.”
“We stopped will back under the trees, for an observer who knows his business remains back under the trees where he is concealed but can see just as well.”
“Suzanne, a wise man fights to win, but he is twice a fool who has no plan for possible defeat.”
“I, son of Kerbouchard the Corsair, a seafaring man, a swordsman, a merchant, a scholar, a linguist, a physician, and even an alchemist of sorts, had the possibilities of being an acrobat or a magician, but what trade is beyond a man with wit?”
“‘I am not alone,’ I told him; ‘I have my sword.'”
“‘I shall come,’ I repeated, ‘for today he who rides before an army may tomorrow lie in its dust. I have only a sword, but a strong man need wish for no more than this: a sword in the hand, a horse between his knees, and the woman he loves at the battle’s end.’ “‘Nobly spoken.'”
“‘I have said to stay away, but if you do stay away, you are a fool.'”
“There is no miraculous change that takes place in a boy that makes him a man. He becomes a man by being a man, acting like a man. “Now was the time to show what I was made of. No help would be coming from the outside. I was alone. “So it ever is in moments of trial or decision. One is born alone, one dies alone, and usually faces the trials and tribulations alone.”
“‘Go,’ he said, ‘it is the way of sons, and better so. A knife is sharpened on stone, steel is tempered by fire, but men must be sharpened by men.'”
On Education
“‘Your sword is not enough?’ “‘A sword is never enough. The mind is also a weapon, but like the sword it must be honed and kept sharp.’ “‘Why do you wish to learn? Do you seek power? Riches?’ “‘What I shall seek tomorrow, I do not know. Today, I seek only to know. My mind asks questions for which I have no answers. Within me there is a loneliness for knowledge. I would know what is thought by wise mean and what is believed in other lands, far from here. I would open the dark and empty avenues of my mind to the brightness of a new sun and populate it with ideas.'”“The wider my knowledge became the more I realized my ignorance. It is only the ignorant who can be positive, only the ignorant who can become fanatics, for the more I learned the more I became aware that there are shadings and relationships in all things. “…In knowledge lay not only power but freedom from fear, for generally speaking one only fears what one does not understand.”
“He glared at me, furious. He liked me not one bit, and I liked him no more, nor was I to be put upon by boasting. I could match him, lie for lie, boast for boast. It was true I was no soldier, although trained in arms. My blade had been blooded as a good blade must be, yet at such a time the truth is for those lacking imagination. If it was war he wanted, I would match him war for war, battle for battle, and lie the better as I was the better read.”
“There is power in the word whether written or spoken, for words can create images for those who have not themselves seen.”
“It was a concession from Akim that he suggested I stay on, and I learned then that many a victory is easier won with words than a sword–and the results are better.”
“Learning to me is a way of life. I do not learn to obtain position or reputation. I want only to know.”
“I am an empty gourd that must fill itself.”
“A fair question. What kind of scholar was I? Or was I a scholar at all? My ignorance was enormous. Beside it my knowledge was nothing. My hunger for learning, not so much to improve my lot as to understand my world, had led me to study and to thought. Reading without thinking is as nothing, for a book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.”
“‘You asked if I have reverence? I have reverence for truth, but I do not know what truth is. I suspect there are many truths, and therefore, I suspect all who claim to have the truth.’ “Walking my horse a few steps cooer, I added, ‘I have reverence for the inquirer, for the seeker. I have no reverence for those who accept any idea, mine included, without question.'”
“There is no curtain knowledge cannot penetrate, although the process can be slowed.”
“No, I am no blasphemer, but something worse, I am an asker of questions.”
“The merchants of the caravans, while they kept their thoughts to themselves for safety’s sake, were generations ahead of these students, for they had traveled and they had listened.”
“In a sense I had always been alien. …I had mingled with the men of [my father’s] crews, almost half of which had come from other lands, other cultures, until I had become a stranger in my own land.”
“Study, Julot, gain prestige, and people will ask you solemnly for advice about things of which you know nothing.”
“My Druidic training taught me the basic principles of reasoning: to first define the problem, for a problem clearly defined is already half solved, to gather evidence pro and con, to discard the irrelevant, to formulate a tentative solution, and finally to put the solution to the test.”
On Human Nature
“Her fear gave me strength, for when is one not the stronger through being needed?”“Much of command is the ability to take command.”
“Honor can be a troublesome thing, but if one has it one does not lightly yield it.”
“My father, a skilled fighting man, always told me to notice the position of a man’s feet, for if a man can be taken off-balance he can be beaten. There is a limit to how far a man can reach without shifting his feet.”
“Even in a comparatively small city, and Córdoba was a large one, a man can lose himself by choosing another way of life.”
“It had been my experience that the political or ecclesiastical mind is laggard in making decisions.”
“Authority, in this world in which I moved, implied belief in and acceptance of a dogma, and dogma is invariably wrong, as knowledge is always in a state of transition. The radical ideas of today are often the conservative policies of tomorrow, and dogma is left protesting by the wayside. “Each generation has a group that wishes to impose a static pattern on events, a static pattern that would hold society forever immobile in a position favorable to the group in question.”
“If people were sold only what they wanted, there would be little trade, my lady. The should of business is to inspire people to buy that which they neither want nor need.”
“Before too many factors are involved the vision is often clearer.”
“Smiling, I remembered a saying: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”
On Love and Women
“Sharasa could be trouble, yet a woman worth having must be fought for, or stolen.”“So far the sword had been my weapon, and I had not learned that wit and wisdom are keys to open any door, with the heart of any woman.”
“Man’s greatest advantage in the battle of the sexes is woman’s curiosity.”
“We had known each other for many months, and she was always disturbing to me, yet there is a moment in the acquaintance of a man and woman and once that moment is passed it may never be recaptured. Not at least with the same essence.”
“‘Come then.’ I took her hand and helped her through the grass, something she was perfectly capable of doing without me, but I have observed the easiest way to reassure a woman is simply to be courteous, as with anyone else.”
“‘I have been a fool,’ she said then. “Who is not a fool? Often when one is in love one can only win by losing.”
“Nor was I one to shield a woman from truth. Women are neither weaklings nor fools, and they, too, must plan for what is to come. He does not prepare his woman for disaster is a fool.”
“A man who has not known many women cannot appreciate the value of one.”
“Now I, who had been invulnerable, was so no longer, for now I knew what love was, and knew too late. That sound! A sound like the beat of the walking drum, that was my heart beating out sadness from the emptiness within me.”
“I had made a slave of myself to dark eyes and long dark lashes, to a slim waist and graceful hands! “Yet, why not? If slave a man must be, why not, then, be a slave to these?”
Everything is MacKay 