I grew up in Lakeland, Louisiana, one of seven children. We all lived on my parents’ _____.

At 12, I got a job, ______ cows to help support the family. I did this twice a day ─ at five in the morning and once again at two in the afternoon. One Saturday before daylight, I remember complaining to my father and grandfather about having to go and milk those cows. It was so ______. “You know, boy, to work is a ______,” said my father. I looked at those two men who’d worked harder, feeling that I had been told something really ______.

Going to college was then ______ for kids from Lakeland, Louisiana. People in our area mainly lived on farming. “Choose something that you like doing to study, and you will always look forward to your work,” my father said to me, “but even having a job you ______ is better than not having a job ______.” I wanted to be a farmer, ______ I joined a military training program to help pay for college. And what started out as an obligation to the army became a way of life that I remained ______ to for 37 years.

In the late 1980s, when visiting Bangladesh, I saw a woman with a baby on her back,______ bricks with a hammer. I asked an officer ______ they weren’t using a machine to make the work _____? He told me a machine would put that ______ out of work. And bad though that woman’s job was, it was ______ to keep a small family alive, which reminded me of my ______ words.

And I came to believe that people without work are not free. They are ______ of crime, poor health, and unhappiness. People with work can have a home, develop a sense of pride and _____   the good of the community. I don’t think I’ll ever ______ working because when we can work, we’re ______ and we’re blessed.

As a child, I was truly afraid of the dark and of getting lost; these fears were very real and gave me some_________ moments.

Maybe it was the strange way things looked and sounded my _________room at night that frightened me so much. There was never total darkness but a streetlight or passing car_________ made clothes hung over a chair take on the _________of a wild animal. Out of the corner of my_________, I saw the curtains seem to_________when there was no wind. A _________sound at night would seem a hundred times louder than in the daylight. My _________would run wild, and my heart would beat fast. I would lie very _________ so that the “enemy” would not discover me.

Another of my childhood__________ was that I would get lost, especially on the way home from __________.

Every morning I got on the school bus right near my home—that was no problem. After school，__________，when all the buses were __________ up along the street, I was certain that I’d get on the__________one and be taken to some unfamiliar neighborhood. On school or family__________to a park or a museum, I wouldn't let the leaders out of my __________.

Perhaps one of the__________ of all I had as a child was that of not being liked or accepted by others. Being__________was so important to me then, and the fear of not being liked was a powerful one.

One of the processes of growing up is being able to__________and overcome our fear. Understanding the things that frightened us as children helps us achieve greater__________ later in life.