Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.”

Booker T. Washington

If you arrive there at that perfect time, when the new summer sun is just about ready to set down for the night, you might find the rabbit hole that leads back a hundred years.

Up through the reeds and along the rocky coast, you will be greeted by the old lady who remembers well the ghosts who walked these paths. If you are quiet, you can almost hear them talking about the future, about education, about equality. The grass is sprinkled with dreams of a better life. Open doors no matter color, race, or creed.

A hundred years ago reaching forward on Cousins Lane, on the bluffs of the Long Island Sound.

There is a lot of controversy about Booker T. Washington and a lot of condemnation. It brings to mind a quote by Roosevelt posted below.

It I s not the critic who counts; not the man who points 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.

VIRGINIA MALLON

VIRGINIA MALLON

on a cigar box