Spiders Never Quit

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.

Dale Carnegie
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My Uncle Stanley was an artist. His studio was next to his house. He never let his wife clean out the spider webs that adorned the corners. The afternoon sun would light them up and he enjoyed oll the various shapes and colors that occurred.

I was hiking one day with a friend in a forest. We came across a large tree with a cavernous hole in it. Across the hole was a large spider web. My friend took a dead leaf from the ground and dropped it on the web. A few moments later a spider emerged to check things out. I asked her how she knew to do that and she told me her boyfriend was an entomologist, and he showed her. The spider was attached to the web and any movement was a signal that there might be some food captured in the web's sticky arms. I was fascinated.

In the north countries they say you can tell how much snow is coming in the winter by how high the spiders build their webs.

But one of the best stories about spiders is the one involving Robert the Bruce. Robert, who eventually became King of Scotland had been fighting against England's King Edward the First for Scotland's freedom. Having failed six times he was hiding confused, tired and hopeless in a barn. While there he watched a spider trying to fix its web to a beam. After six tries the spider still had not accomplished it. On the seventh try it succeeded. Robert thought it was a great lesson the spider taught him. So he picked himself up, gathered his army and went after his goal a seventh time. He succeeded and Scotland eventually gained its freedom.

Whether that story is true or not the lesson is clear. We have had many examples in this country of the perseverance of the spider. Nothing is impossible. It wasn't to Thomas Edison or the Wright brothers or the army that attacked Normandy Beach. It is impossible for man to go to the moon, they said.

The lesson is for all of us.. You don't have to go and watch the spiders. Let the entomologists do that. But the tireless spider has the lesson we need to go ahead another time and finally do the thing that they say or you say is impossible.

Never give up.

DB - The Vagabond
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AUTUMN QUESTION

(This is not a contest.)

At what event of the past do you wish you could be present? Why?

8 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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