On the road…again!!! 
Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams 
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester  
By Dick Pellek 

 

The Pluggers 

The Pluggers in life have been my own chosen groupies.  They know that they are not elite, highly skilled, ultra talented, or the fastest runners on the track.  But they know that if they have good legs, clear vision, and strong hearts...they know that they can go far, finish the race and bask in the knowledge that they were true to their conviction to give it the best they had in them.  Let’s hear it for the pluggers! 

The Footloose Forester thought that he might be plugger, even when he was in grammar school.  In those days he wasn’t thinking about challenging others in foot races or in spelling bees.  Oh, he won his share of foot races and spelling bees, but he also lost some, enough to make him into the introspective type, not the whiney narcissistic type.   Early in life, he thought of himself as a plugger.  It would be years later that he ran across the comic strip Pluggers and upon its discovery he knew that there were others in the world who shared the knowledge of their own limitations, even celebrating it in the comic strips.  And he knew that he was one of them. But that does not mean that he has not been hurt or been scorned for coming up short, from time to time.  And he remembers the feeling of hurt directed to an average college student who was being celebrated for his pluggers singular accomplishment, just because he was also a plugger and not a maestro of his art.  The person calling out the plugger was sitting next to the Footloose Forester, and his demeaning comments about the man's mediocrity were wounding.  It was a case of one plugger feeling the pain of another plugger.

As a plugger, the Footloose Forester glommed on the picture of two other pluggers enjoying a break while sitting outdoors, in the sunshine, on stools that were forester approved.  The tree stump suited his choice as a stool, being sturdy and a signature feature, and all that. 

A plugger has enough self-confidence to give it a try, to take a chance, to compete in life. 

One of the external stimulations wafted in on the wind, in the form of an anonymous poem, sometime in 1959 or thereabouts, is recalled here.  Although the poem is attributed to somebody else in 1973, the Footloose Forester remembers reading it in 1959. 

If you think you are beaten, you are;  

If you think you dare not, you don't. 

If you'd like to win, but think you can't 

It's almost a cinch you won't.  

If you think you'll lose, you've lost. 

For out in the world we find 

Success begins with a fellow's will: 

It's all in his state of mind.  

If you think you're outclassed, you are: 

You've got to think high to rise, 

You've got to be sure of yourself before 

You'll ever win that prize.  

Life's battles don't always go 

To the stronger or faster man, 

But sooner or later the man who wins 

Is the one who thinks he can.  

Attributed to Author Napoleon Hill circa 1973 

Finding encouragement to do most any task takes an inner dialogue with oneself; to start, to continue, to stay the course, and to finish.  In other words, you tell yourself that you have to plug away. You have to become a plugger. 

One other encouragement came from a paean to roosters, in Ode to Roosters.   

When darkness retreats, you stand tall, 
Cock-a-doodle-doo, a proclamation of existence, 
A reminder that life persists, even when shadows linger, 
And the world stirs from slumber, roused by your proclamation. 

You need not be the Cock-of-the-Walk, you need not cluck or crow the loudest. Many a rooster is also a plugger, reminding us that inspirations are all around us.