The Etchegary Family Code

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The following quote is taken from a column by Harold Blake Walker, a one-time syndicated columnist in the United States, and is tacked to the door of Gus Etchegary’s basement study at his home in Portugal Cove-St. Philip's. The column is titled, “The key to courage,” and is dedicated, in Etchegary’s handwriting, to Glenn and Grant, his two sons, in November 1974, followed by his own headline, "The Etchegary Family Code." Etchegary has just published his book, Empty Nets, How Greed and Politics Wiped Out The World's Greatest Fishery ... 

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“There is an old-fashioned word my grandmother used that I haven’t heard for a long time. The word is  ‘mettle.’ It means courage and even more than courage. It is an ingrained capacity to bear up under strain after the fashion of a finely tempered sword blade. To be on one’s mettle is to be roused or prepared to do one’s best with spirit, courage, ardour.”

“Life is not an everlasting picnic in perfect weather. On the contrary, it is a matter of struggle, a mixture of triumph, and failure, joy and sorrow. It takes mettle to keep on going when circumstances conspire to thwart our hopes and aspirations, to meet strain in the heat of battle and then to wait for the final verdict … faith in ourselves is one thing we can never afford to surrender. It is the key to mettle, to courage, to keep on going when we feel drained. When we cease to believe in ourselves and our God-given powers and possibilities, we are finished. It is the man who can go on believing in himself while the incredulous world assails him with its utter unbeliever who comes thru undefeated.”

“These are the times to test the mettle of us all.”
               



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