Time was, we were determined.

What makes us so? We give up too easily. De + terminus, Latin for a limit or firmly resolved, as in a terminal, like a bus or train station. A journey complete, with an end. Determined to pass a test, finish a job, quit a bad habit — smoke, drink or chew, or go with girls that do. Start a new life, ride out a hurricane, buy an old house, paint a picture. Where does that stamina come from?

Job 14:8: “Man that is born of a woman is of a few days and full of trouble. Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass.:

Some things can wear you down.

Yankees would make good telemarketers. They are rude enough and don’t take no for an answer. Whey don’t they call on Sundays? They must know God will “git” them, but they don’t give up. Pests, like fire ants, termites, ground hogs and roaches.

Where does that will power come from? Are they looking for a helpless victim? “They’ve got high hopes. Oops there goes another rubber tree plant.” Thanks, ol’ blue eyes, Frank. Get right up, dust yourself off and start all over again. Just remember that goat.

Some people are determined not to do whatever. They seem to get by on others’ Goodwill store. Others are destined for a daily dose of drugs. Some are too stubborn or pig-headed, as we say, to have good sense. They make it harder for us. There is an art to throwing in the towel.

The Methodist hymnal:

“We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;

“We have hard work to do and loads to lift.

“Say not the days are evil — who’s to blame?

“And fold the hands and acquiesce, O shame!

“Faint not, fight on, tomorrow comes the song.

“Be strong.”

Compliments of Maltbie Babcock (1858-1901)

“Right is might” of the Round Table was never more true in the early days of our country. Especially if you had a gun. That tradition continues. In 2015, some 357 million guns outnumbered people. U.S. citizens own 47 percent of the guns worldwide, and 30 percent of all adults own guns. Where do you stand? Smile when you say that, pardner.

Hopefully, you will never have to use one, but if you did, would you be that determined to make it count?

“Down by the riverside, gonna lay down my burdens. Ain’t gonna study war no more.” — Louis Daniel Armstrong

Prisoners of war had to have the most determination — not knowing the outcome. Do paid protesters have the same sense of commitment?

When is the last time you were really determined to do something?

How fearless, brave or courageous would you have to be to paratroop or come ashore in the water at Normandy?

How determined to take your place at the Alamo? To fight brother against brother  and go on to an uncertain fate at Gettysburg? To live through frozen Chosin Reservoir and to cross the DMZ? Or pick sand out of every pore of your body in the horrific heat of Iraq? To charge up Hamburger Hill 937 with Viet Cong hunkered in, Dave? To drop a bomb over Hiroshima, or be chosen to raise the flag at Iwo Jima?

Most were in foreign lands, no family, no comforts of the homestead. Some never came home, some never forget. They can’t. You can’t buy that kind of patriotism “pro deo est patria,” but it’s not too late to reward it.

VA benefits should be extended to all public servants, firefighters, police, sheriff, Highway Patrol et al. They give their lives for their country. They have all “seen service.”

We will never know the price of freedom, except in a museum.

Tennyson recounts:

“Cannon to the right of them …

“Honor the brave and the bold

“Long shall the tale be told

“Yea, when our babes are old

“How they rode onward.”

Clyde is a Salisbury artist.