Joe Edward Langley

My father, Joe Edward Langley Sr., was a school teacher in the late 1940's. One of this classroom assignments required all of his 9th grade students to memorize this poem. Even though the end of the poem implies that the poem itself was a message from a man to his son, my father insisted that it was much more than that. He believed that the poem spoke to men and women regarding that best way to handle the conflict that they would both encounter in their life. My father died when I was 8 month old so I never knew him. However, many of his students shared with me how important that he thought this poem was and his requirement for them to memorize the poem.