Teddy Roosavelt

He was born Theodore Roosevelt. As a child, it was not thought he would live past an early age. He battled Asma, and many nights found him unable to breath. However, his father was not a man to let a son grow up a weakling, or a man who was pampered. He told his son "You have the mind, but not the body. Build your body, and you will go far." to which, the indomitable Teddy replied "I will build my body." His father had a room torn out to make a veranda, and on it, Teddy;s gym was born. He spent hours every day working on parallel bars, lifting weights, and doing push ups.

Theodore Roosevelt is never thought of as a scrawny little boy who should be dead very soon because of his illness. We remember him for such things as his presidency, his charge up San Juan Hill, and his exploration, with his son Kermit, of the River of Doubt, a trip on which he thought he was going to die. At one point, he told his son to leave him, to which his son replied "You are leaving this place dead or alive, but alive would be much easier."

Theodore Roosevelt, author, father, soldier, explorer, president of the United States of America, stands as a tribute to manhood, and to what men can accomplish, if they will go anywhere, as long as it is forward.

In closing I quote the man himself.

"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."

Through His Strength We Will Conquer,

Andrew C. Abbott