I never let my schooling get in the way of getting an education.”
-Mark Twain
Graduation day is looming for many of our children—a time when we take a nostalgic look back wondering what they’ve learned, hoping they’ve learned enough. But in fact most of what they learn is not taught in the classroom, it is learned by example and by the words we speak to our kids over time. Rick Rigsby’s 2017 graduation speech at the Maritime Academy at California State University makes that case. He spoke on the subject of his book “Lessons From A 3rd Grade Drop Out,” about his father, who left school to work on the family farm at 8 years of age. It has been viewed on YouTube more than 9.6 million times.
Rigsby’s father had little, but taught himself to read and write. And read he did. He would quote Michael Angelo to his boys saying “I won’t have a problem with you if you aim high and miss, but I’ll have a big problem with you if you aim low and hit.” He would get up at 3:30 in the morning to do chores and get to work on time, telling his children, “you’d better be an hour early than a minute late.” Rigsby said they never knew what time it was at their house because the clocks were all set so far ahead. When he was asked why he got up so early and worked so hard, he said “I’m hoping one of my boys will catch me in the act of excellence.”
Says his son, “in the midst of the end of Jim Crowism my father decided he would stand up and be a man, not a black man, a brown man, or a white man, but a man” and he modeled excellence like he told his children, “as a habit, not an act.” He reminded his sons always to be kind, not to judge others, and never, never to embarrass mommy, always adding lovingly, “how you livin’ today?” Which was his way of asking if they were living up to the family’s high standards.
He called ego “the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity” and pride, “the burden of a foolish person.”
Now passed, this father’s words live on in his sons who followed his advice, modeling excellence in their own lives and attaining multiple college degrees. One is a celebrated author, another a judge.
His advice on work was this: “If you’re going to do a job, do it right. Good enough isn’t good enough if it isn’t better, and better isn’t good enough if it isn’t the best.” In a world of “just get by” and “I’ll get there when I get there,” he was a man who lived life with humble greatness in everything he did, and produced transcendence in his children. I’d say he graduated this life with honors, his cloak was love, and his robe was commitment. His degree: a PhD in Fatherhood. We could use him to teach a class in that today.
Blessings,
Jim
“…With God, all things are possible” – Matthew 19:26
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