I have a quote that I’d like to live by. Unfortunately, I don’t stick to my guns as often as I should. Anyway, it goes something like this: “My time isn’t yours to waste.” If there was ever a quote that ends up DOA no sooner than one exchanges their marriage vows, it’s that one. And just when you think there’s a possibility it might get some traction, here comes the kids, those adorable parasites to whom you get to assign names. So, my quote is one I think of often, but rarely apply.
Here’s something I actually live my life by, but it’s not a quote; it’s a poem. It’s called The Bridge Builder by Allen Dromgoole. Many years ago, I discovered it in a compilation called The Children’s Book of Virtues. Then, Secretary of Education William Bennett chose all the material for this meaty volume that every parent should share with their children. The Bridge Builder crystallizes each generation’s responsibility to the next. Often, I had read the poem to my son.
The Bridge Builder
An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.
“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim, near,
“You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again must pass this way;
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you the bridge at the eventide?”
The builder lifted his old gray head:
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”
by Will Allen Dromgoole
Michael's Corner 
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