There is an absolutely execellent blog post over at the Sonlight blog on the importance of teaching children to fail. This is something about which we frequently speak in the Chapman household. Sarita Holzman reminded of us of one our absolute most favorite Sonlight books, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch. It is a book about the life of a man who lived in Colonial America who, when he was young, did not have a lot of advantages in terms of education, but availed himself of everything within his means and perserved in educating himself to the benefit of the shipping world, even today. We also liked it a lot that he was a multilingal math guy. Part of failing successfully is not looking back, but learning from the failure going on in the best way possible under the circumstances.
A book you would probably enjoy is Remme’s Ride for the Gold. It is also a true story of how a guy on horseback raced a steam powered stern wheeler from Sacramento to Portland in a bid to save his gold from bank closure. It goes through the Applegate area – close to home – and occurred before the telegraph lines had reached Portland.
We will get Remme’s Ride for the Gold. I need a good read. It sounds awesome. Did you know my great, great grandfather was a scout on the first wagon train that took the Applegate Trail (the Southern route of the Oregon Trail).
[nods] Fail forward. My wife and I recently read “Carry On, Mr. Bowditch”… such a good book. Though, I didn’t remember all the romance stuff from when my mom read it to me as a kid [laughing].
~Luke
It is an excellent adult book, too. That is a good reminder for me to read it again for myself. The thing I forgot was the level of tragedy in Bowditch’s life. It must have been majorly tough. What a guy.
I didn’t realize the Chapman roots went that deep in the area! Very cool! I have ordered both the Bowditch book and the Blackbird pond books – looking forward to a couple of good reads. Planning on some Raspberry Pi this summer as well. 😎
All of this sounds excellent. As soon as I own my life again, we really should do something together. I think your mechanical skills are something I am really missing and it might be fun and rewarding to try to invent something.
As for the Chapman roots, that side of the family only goes back to mid-1920’s. It is the Jenkins side (my maternal grandfather) that came to Oregon from Kentucky in 1846 and the Raia Maki (my maternal grandmother) that came from Finland a little later in the 1800’s.