Do your own Work!

"Nothin's given to you on a silver platter." This is a quote from my grandmother on my dad's side. Basically it means that you do not get anything immediately just because you want it. You have to work hard for it. A story told by my dad was that Maw-Maw took care of eight kids with very little help. At one point in time they were living in a two-room shack. She got my dad and his older brother to get cardboard boxes from a local store and help her nail them to the walls to keep the wind out. Her family was poor but she knew how to make their life more comfortable. The shack was a share-cropper's shack that her dad let her live in until she could get on her feet. She worked hard for her dad in his strawberry fields when my dad was a little boy (as did my dad and some of his siblings). This helped buy groceries to feed her family. she expected to work for her dad to get whatever help he gave her. She was already instilling in my dad's head the importance of hard work by setting an example.