April 4, 2024joynealkidney

Dale Wilson’s Favorite Poem: “If” by Rudyard Kipling

Dale R. Wilson, 1939 Dexter High School graduate

Dale Wilson grew up in the small town of Dexter, Iowa, during the Great Depression and was a 1939 high school graduate. He enjoyed sports, especially football and basketball, but he had mentioned that this poem was his favorite:

                                 If

                 by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
   Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
   But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
   Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
   And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
   If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
   And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
   Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
   And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
   And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
   And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
   To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
   Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
   Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
   If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
   Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

—–

This poem is in the public domain. That it was Dale’s favorite certainly tells you something about the young man, doesn’t it.

So does this story about what Dale spent bounty money on when he was about the same age.

25 comments

    • Oh, you are so dear, Vicki! Dale is the Wilson brother who went down in a B-25 near the end of 1943 and has never been found. He was my Aunt Darlene’s twin. lump in throat

      Reply

      • I can’t imagine…it won’t ever matter how much time passes, the loss must be unbearable. Still…I appreciate you for making the introductions – not just to Dale but your whole, big, beautiful family, Joy. Remembering is everything. 💕💕💕

    • Thank you, GP. They watched it modeled by their imperfect and jobless father, then his work ethic when a tenant farmer, the way he treated his wife and brood of kids. (I wish I’d known Clabe Wilson.)

      Reply

  10. Hi Joy, I’m planning on posting my review today, but I wanted to know if I could use any photos from your blog. I don’t want to assume. 🙂 I’ll wait to hear from you before I click on publish. ❤️

    Reply

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