May, 2000. Last minute details at the foundry get ironed out before the installation of a major bronze grouping in Bryan. I am stooping with pain from a serious back injury just inflicted while lifting the bronze girl. I spent months in rehab, and then the insurance refused to pay for any of it, making me swear off any more sculpture jobs... But the entrepreneurial, creative spirit is hard to kill.
I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon if I can. I seek opportunity – not security. I will refuse to be a kept citizen, to be humbled and dulled by having my state and nation look after me. I want to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed – never to be numbered among those week and timid souls who have known neither victory nor defeat. I know that happiness can come only from the inside through hard constructive work and sincere positive thinking. I know that the so-called pleasures of the moment should not be confused with a state of happiness. I know that I can get a measure of inner satisfaction from any job if I intelligently plan and courageously execute it. I know that, if I put forth every iota of strength that I possess – physical, mental, spiritual – toward the accomplishment of a worthwhile task, ere I fall exhausted by the wayside, the Unseen Hand will reach out and pull me through. Yes, I want to live dangerously, plan my procedures on the basis of calculated risks, to resolve the problems of everyday living unto a measure of inner peace. I know if I know how to do all this, I will know how to live, and if I know how to live, I will know how to die.
H. B. Zachry
