“Culture shock”! It was a phrase drummed into us during out training in New Paltz. Just as a marathon runner must run into that invisible “wall” long before he or she finishes the race, so before us sometime during our two years in Sierra Leone lay the ineffable phenomenon our mentors tried to capture in that phrase. They promised it would test our mettle, and so it did, and each of us carried away from Sierra Leone our own sense of its impact on our lives.
Yet, ironically, my greatest “culture shock” came not in Sierra Leone, but on the bus that carried me from the JFK airport to the YMCA in downtown New York City on my return to the United States. As the bus raced toward midtown, my growing anxiety left me cowering before the sheer size of this metropolis, at the pace of its citizens and the ridiculous largess of their living. Do you remember how big a 1964 Cadillac was? How an eighteen-wheeler would have dwarfed a lorry in Sierra Leone? I felt like the young Vietnamese woman in Oliver Stone’s film “Heaven and Earth,” so completely stunned by her first visit to an American supermarket. Yet this was “home,” this bastion of conspicuous consumption, this place that was the envy of the entire planet. As Bob Gross has intimated, it was home to all the privileges we had been born into and, not more than two years earlier, had assumed our birthright and unconsciously taken for granted.
I wanted to grab “my fellow Americans,” shake them—make them realize that not all human life is so privileged, not all humans can afford the luxury of leaving half of their meals upon a dinner plate or change their apparel, their cars, their furnishings, even their homes at the dictates of some fashion designer’s whim or, as the wisdom of our culture says, “to keep up with the Joneses.” I wanted to pack up all of them to spend two years in Sierra Leone or any of the other dozens of countries where life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is not an entitlement.
And so I spent several years wrapped in my bitterness at my fellow Americans and angry with myself for all of the foolish choices I had made in Sierra Leone and the opportunities I had squandered while there.
So many times over the past 47 years I have been struck with an aching sadness for the simplicity of life in Sierra Leone: for the beatific smiles of its children, for the innocent awe of what they felt we might bring to their lives, and even for the diseases, short life spans, and infant mortality that, for me, put the miracle of living in its proper perspective.
The anger and bitterness still flare up but, as Tennessee Ernie Ford was fond of singing, I also try to “count my blessings”--something I failed to do as a young man. My life with my wife, Carolyn, and our four wonderful children is a source of grace that cannot be quantified but is, nonetheless, amazing. In my own reckoning of this life, I have come to realize that grace is not something earned or deserved, nor am I even certain it is one of God’s gifts. But I know with certitude it exists and feel compelled to bear witness. One of its sources, I know, is my wife, and back in 2005, at the end of the school year when we both retired, I wrote her a “Hallmark verse” on Mother’s Day.
When you say to me in early morning, “Love must be
blind,”
Or ask me what it is I see in what your age has left behind,
Let me answer that love is not subtraction,
Nor the cold calculus of the body’s loss.
Not what was once the flawlessness of flesh,
Nor the defiance of gravity in the ripeness of your breasts,
Nor the once untinted auburn wealth of hair,
Nor the slender waist you tended with such care.
No, it is the sum of things I see in golden morning light:
Those moments when your eyes have proffered absolution
To all my trespasses against our love's communion,
The times when you forgave what should not be forgiven.
It is addition, the living promise of our children,
Your love that gave them security and confidence,
A tenderness that nurtured generosity,
A patience multiplied outlasting eccentricities.
And last it is the years that we have shared together,
Breaking each day’s bread, sipping from the cup of union,
Shared rituals that will never have a staleness
In their being, for we will take their reckoning forever.
So on this special day we set aside to honor mothers,
Let me tell you that my love for you cannot be blind,
That it is measureless and sure because it is requited
And will grow and not diminish till the end of time.
- Jerry Mills
* * * *
Have been putting this off … I wasn’t exactly articulate in the moment … had a hard time keeping the tears and depth of feeling from overwhelming my intended words … but here goes.
I want to speak of the present and the future. My past is just that. The near future is what I have some influence on.
Playing chamber music for pleasure and soul flight is deeply important to me. Hope to continue to do that.
Building on what we all started to learn in Sierra Leone about race and racism … I will continue to contribute my small part to anti-racism work in my local area, within my faith community, and between many of the denominations in our metro area. As an older white male in our society I feel a deep obligation to explore and understand my “white privilege” – and then use it as positively and effectively as I can to diminish the chasms among us.
As part of the greater community of Unitarian Universalists I have felt valued and have received strong support and lots of opportunity for spiritual and personal growth. I intend to continue to grow well into the future.
Thank you all for being part of the history I’ve had the good fortune to experience. May we all continue to be of service and play vital positive roles in our multiple communities.
* * * *
I will not bore you with any more about my biography. The written version is sufficient. I would like to tell you two of my strongest memories from my two years in Sierra Leone.
I taught at St. Andrew's Secondary School in Bo. During the summer of our two years there St. Andrew's built its first dormitory. Most of the labor was volunteer labor, including some of the students. One day, one of my students said to me. "When I was little I thought white people didn't have bones." I asked him why he thought that. His reply: "I never saw white people do any physical labor. I assumed there must be a reason, and that reason was because they had bones."
The second memory comes from the morning of Saturday, Nov. 23, 1964. You all know what had happened the day before. Our cook, Smila, a very smart man although he was illiterate, usually never woke us on Saturday mornings. However, on that morning he did wake me. I was the oldest of the three of us living together; therefore, to him I was the "Pa." I already knew about President Kennedy's assassination, but he was not aware of that and he wanted me to know. When he found out that I knew of the incident he said: "He be fine man. He want to make one world where white man, black man all same. For this they kill him."
Bob Rawson
* * * *
In 1962, I was Judy Salisbury, a senior at Vassar. After graduation, I was expected to get married, go to graduate school, or take a short-term but respectable job before becoming a housewife and community volunteer. When I accepted a call to the Peace Corps rather than take an excellent teaching position in wealthy, suburban Greenwich, Connecticut, my parents were devastated. My father, a staunch Republican, blamed that “pinko” Kennedy, and said he’d cut me off without a cent. My mother broke down in tears and refused to speak to me. Both worried about my going to Africa and dying of malaria, or worse, marrying an African.
I doggedly continued with my plans anyway. It was my first real effort to become my own person, to exhibit the measure of independence I had learned at Vassar but was just now able to put into action. The Peace Corps was the adventure of a lifetime, and I was not about to give it up over my father’s threats or my mother’s fears. Besides, I was ready to teach students other than wealthy suburban brats, and I believed in peace.
In training, I especially relished becoming physically fit. I also enjoyed happy hour and the casual friendships of the university crowd, so unlike the intense intellectual friendships I had experienced with my friends at Vassar. I had learned to hold my own in confrontational college dorm debates. Now I had to learn to get along and work together with others, regardless of their opinions, backgrounds, or race.
For me, Peace Corps training was the first cultural hurdle I had to cross. The fact that I managed to do it is no small wonder to me. I was the first Vassar Peace Corps Volunteer, expected from the beginning to fail training. Thanks to all of you, I did not fail, because you accepted me and even gave me a nickname: “Vassar.” In return, I gave all of you a tour of the campus which lay on the other side of the Hudson from New Paltz, but in many ways, it was another planet.
When it became obvious that I was really going to Africa, my parents reluctantly accepted the fact. Eventually, as they began to receive letters, tapes, and slides of my Peace Corps teaching experience, they became proud of my contribution to a political project that was becoming a national success and media darling. I responded by sending an African Episcopal bishop to look them up when he got to New York. Entranced by what they thought was his white British accent, they invited him to speak at their church and have dinner at their country club. Soon, I got an apology (a first!) from my father, who was very impressed with the bishop. I think he was the first black man they ever met who was more educated and travelled than they were. Ah, how much we all had to learn back in the 60s, and that learning was not at all from books.
My bio tells more of the rest of my life, which was not a book-learning experience either. My three greatest achievements were completing my tour in the Peace Corps, having my daughter, and marrying a good man the second time around. I learned the hard way about most things, but I am grateful for those experiences. I have written a poem called “The End of the Day.” It may express what we many of us feel after learning from our life’s experiences.
The End of the Day
Birch trees bend gently
in the mid-summer breeze.
We talked by the campfire,
lingering over coffee,
planning our days.
It was the time of our youth,
The margin of life’s puzzle.
The pieces would all dovetail
To fill the void in the middle.
Black clouds rose suddenly
in the autumn afternoon.
We looked for shelter,
counting our losses,
finding our way.
It was the time of reckoning,
Moving on to different lives,
Learning gratitude for puzzles
With odd and missing pieces.
Evening stars come silently
in the early night sky.
We huddle close to old friends
knowing to be thankful
at the end of the day.
It is the time of remembering,
Sympathizing and sharing,
Finding those lost puzzle pieces
And knowing that everything fits.
Judy Salisbury Cline
A couple of years after my return to the States, my recently acquired wife and I were in downtown DC to attend an evening concert, and while waiting to cross the street at an intersection, we noticed an individual diagonally across from us waving his arms, apparently at us. He was shouting something, which I realized was my name. “Mistah Johnston! Mistah Johnston!” The light changed and we hurriedly crossed the street. He rushed up to us, his arms open, his dark face sporting a wide toothy grin. Then I recognized him.
“Kargbo!” I exclaimed.
“Yessah!” he replied, nodding vigorously.
“What are you doing here?!”
“I get scholarship, come here to study.” No surprise – Kargbo had been one of my better 5th form students at Methodist Boy’s High School in Freetown. He proceeded to regale me with all his activities and scholastic achievements since my departure.
I introduced him to Emily, and we chatted for several minutes, reminiscing about the two years spent as teacher and pupil. Then Emily reminded me about the time, and Kargbo and I parted with hugs and handshakes.
As we walked toward the concert hall, Emily was shaking her head.
“What…?”
She looked up at me. “You really were in Africa!”
I stopped and stared at her, aghast. “You thought I was making all that up?!”
“I just… I mean, you never seemed like the type to go tooling all around the world….”
I reflected on this as we headed for the concert, and it occurred to me to wonder how many other RPCVs had experienced the same skepticism from acquaintances regarding their whereabouts for two years.
Jack Johnston
* * * *
When we finished our debriefings in Freetown in 1964, I doubt that we were thinking about the distant future, much less whether we would ever get together again. We were thinking about going home and about the business of getting on with our careers.
Now, almost half a century later, we are in a sense writing the epilogue of the story we began when we arrived in New Paltz. We are having the chance to reflect on our shared experience and the ephemeral drama of life itself.
Your biographical sketches bring our story full circle, in a way. Many experiences were reported simply, in the ease of acceptance and reflection that time has afforded us. We don’t need an abundance of detail to guess what each of us might have gone through in different ways: the heights and the depths, the lessons learned, all of us seasoned in the schoolhouse of the world.
And what blessings we have had, many unspoken and deeply personal, and other blessings outward like the opportunity to serve together.
As children born into a world war and matured in a cold war, we were given the opportunity that no American generation had been given before. Our youngest president, who would pull us back from Armageddon and who died too soon, believed in our capacity for peaceful work abroad, and called us to it.
We felt the lift of the tide of history and the brightness of the days, moving us with a sense of purpose into a great adventure in which the American people wished us well and paid our way.
Beneath it all was a risk—that we might make missteps that would harm this new cause. We coped with that and other great pressures, too, heavy with the distance from our homes.
To my surprise, in November of 1999, for the last project of my newspaper career, I had the chance to go back to Sierra Leone. This time I didn’t enter Freetown on a ferry, but on a Russian military helicopter with a soldier aiming his machine gun out the open door. I was with two congressmen confronting the aftermath of the horrific, heart-rending assault on Sierra Leone earlier in the year. It was an experience of extreme highs and lows—the pain of the suffering, and the inspiration of the forces that were now arrayed against it.
When a Peace Corps friend read my series, he asked if I thought our work there had been in vain. I didn’t think that at all. I don’t think any good is lost, even though good seems overwhelmed sometimes.
We received more than we gave, and don’t even know the extent of what we did, any more than our students and the people of Sierra Leone know what they gave us. What we know is that we returned stronger and wiser than we went.
You have family who know you, you have friends who know you, you have co-workers who know you.
But only we here know the mix of anxiety and anticipation with which we trained. We have the remnants of Mende and Temne and Krio in our brains.
We know the scent of the rainy season and the smell of textbooks in the tropics. We know the life without telephones. We know the driver ants and mongooses, lorry rides, jollof rice, O level exams, and a place we called home in another time, on the far side of the world.
It is to me a wonder that we were there, and that we are here again.
Hap Cawood
* * * *
Our time in DC was a wonderful reunion--much better than anything, speaking for myself, I had dared hope for. Thursday night and the two Saturday events stand out especially in my mind. Thanks so much to Char for her steady hand throughout, to Rufus for taking care of all the logistics in advance and then turning Saturday night into a climactic celebration at his home, and to Bob Hopkins for coming up with the idea for Thursday’s dinner and then providing the funding to make it possible.
The feeling for each other, when most of us hadn’t seen each other for nearly fifty years, was startling. The gap in time may have had the same effect on you as it did me; I was able to see that so many people have been on pilgrimage. The loud-mouthed, crude, boisterous Char of our training days is still loud-mouthed, crude, and boisterous--as well as gentle, compassionate, and wise. Jane has a radiant vitality and love of life, Mary Mullin D’Amico an aura of kindness, Ursula an openness that has made her stronger rather than vulnerable, Bob Gross a quieter attentiveness to others and an ability to listen and hear, Jerry Mills the courage to reveal his love and pain, Mary DeWan a steadfast, ageless commitment to justice and making a difference, Steve a spiritual home in Buddhism, Wilbur a healthy gratitude for who he is and for a life that almost slipped away....
It seems wrong to stop there when I could go on and on, but I wonder if others had that same sense that this was a group of people in which many had, over the course of an often-difficult life, struggled toward the light. I was humbled and honored to find myself among such friends.
Tony Russell
* * * *
First, here is my ten-minute effort: As I set out to fulfill Char’s command to say something in no more than 10 minutes and to write it down, the word ‘reunion’ delivers not only the punch of meeting up in the flesh with those people who had become ghosts in my fading memory, but there is an additional punch. The anecdotes piling into Tony’s blog triggered many vivid happenings in that younger self of mine that I’d lost touch with. So a mosaic of memories and emotions came alive again, the pieces fitting nicely into me and I found myself incredibly happy to have found you all, and thereby I am finding more of the me of now.
In the photos I catch glimpses of the once known among the masses of unknown.
I ask myself what influence did Peace Corps have on my life?
At the time I decided to join, I was in a funk: out of college, floundering around New York City and not a happy camper. I applied in ’61 when Kennedy put it together. A whole long year I heard nothing. Then my god! the telegram! “You have been selected to join the Sierra Leone II group.” I was working in an office not far from the 54th street branch (Donnell) of the NY Public Library and in my lunch break went and looked it up on the map. (When I’d applied, I had requested Thailand or Tanganyika -- Tanzania now -- so I was disappointed these were out.) I looked all over South and Central America and couldn’t find Sierra Leone ANYWHERE. So I went to the index files. The first book listed was ‘Sierra Leone, the white man’s grave!’ But at least I’d found the correct continent.
Well, it certainly wasn’t a grave for me, or perhaps it was for the lilly white limited attitudes I carried with me. So much changed for me there. I was only sort of half living up to then. Miss Driscoll, the formidable Methodist principal, shoved me into the classroom with the words: “Now go ahead and teach!” slamming the door behind. And the girls at Njalahun took me on and Mary Reed opened my mind in a thousand ways, especially about the history of West Africa. She threw out the mission textbooks she had been given and wrote a new lesson plan every day. I was so stretched with the challenges I had no idea what I was becoming. But I knew I was loving it.
Sierra Leone educated me in the sense that it pulled out of me what became central to my life thereafter. I became fascinated with The Other: the stranger, the strange cultures, the stranger in myself, the strangeness of the unknown in the world and within every human psyche.
Along with this was the spirit of the Kennedy years, Camelot, Jackie, wanting to help and wanting to be an Ugly American in the best sense. And when Char’s email came and the others followed, I couldn’t believe there were those who remembered that era that is now quite dead, dying slowly for decades. I feel so sorry for those who never knew what that was like, even my children don’t understand, it’s very sad.
I had been sent to a psychotherapist at 17 by my mother because of the bad fights we had. Bless her heart, she said we needed a referee. She didn’t figure that the referee would take my side. One of the precious books passed around by PCV’s was the newly published autobiography of C. G. Jung. He had died in 1961. I decided to go through Zürich on my way back to the US to see the house he’d built himself. Once there, I came down with malaria, got cured, and decided to enroll in the Jung Institute. Steve Burgess had gone to Paris but joined me later. We had what I thought was a stormy year, ending in terrible heartache when he returned to Utah. But absolutely no regrets about that relationship.
I married a Swiss and had two Swiss sons and raised them in super safe Switzerland. I completed the training as a psychoanalyst and opened a practice, taught at the Institute and slowly grew into that not particularly welcoming Swiss society. I loved the work and the teaching. But I was not good at my marriage. My husband and I grew inexorably apart. After 30 years we divorced. Not long thereafter both sons were on their own. I was again a free agent.
The opportunity came to teach at the Jung Centre in Cape Town and I leapt at it. After my second visit I decided to move there at the tender age of 63. It was as good a decision as joining the Peace Corps had been. (I had tried to rejoin the PC in ’99 but was turned down, to my chagrin. The young interviewer said I’d not done enough volunteer work in the interim.) But I found an NGO in Cape Town, LifeLine, originally a telephone crisis intervention organization, but just evolving in 2000 to reach out into the black community to help with the HIV-Aids epidemic. I helped train and supervise township HIV counselors, absolutely thrilling work. It was astonishing to see how some of the very poorly educated people, mostly women but some excellent men, too, could catch on to the principles of counseling, many of which were in conflict with their own cultural values. (e.g. the patient/client goes with his/her family to the ‘doctor’, never alone. The patient/client NEVER tells the ‘doctor’ or person in authority what the problem is. That is for the ‘doctor’ to say.) So the individual is not supposed to take responsibility. The person in authority has to give the solution from his/her position of wisdom. Still, some of my counselors ‘got it’, that there was another way and they could even catch on to non-directive counseling, that the ‘answer’ is in the seeker, not in the counselor. This is a HUGE leap because there is no comparable value in their own culture. In fact this approach is decidedly undermining to their deeply cherished social structure.
I was of course a new kind of missionary, but missionary nevertheless, motivated in a similar way as I was in the Peace Corps. At that time I wanted the kids I taught to question things, be really curious and challenge authority. In Cape Town I was a little less naïve but still wanted to ‘enlighten’ them about the freedom of choice and taking agency in their lives.
When I heard from Tony that Pat Preciado had been murdered in South Africa in 1998, I shuddered. That could have been me. This is surely the horrific, dark side of S. Africa, one of the most murderous countries in the world. Pat became a medical doctor after SaLone and eventually went to Hogsback, a very rural, stunningly beautiful area of the Eastern Cape. She was exposing corruption in the hospital where she was working when hired guns shot her and her artist partner in the heart as they were unloading groceries. Although I did not know her well during training, I miss her here now as I am sure we could have had a grand time comparing notes. I’d been to Hogsback a few months before I moved back to Zurich in 2008. May her soul rest in peace.
And yet I am deeply attached to S. Africa and Cape Town. My older son begged me for four years to return to Zurich and help him with raising his two sons but I was too attached to my life in Cape Town. Finally in 2008 I gave in. And then in 2009 he moved with his family to Connecticut! And I’m still in Zurich.
I had bought a tiny place in Cape Town which I’ve rented out, so I still have a toe in that world. At this juncture in my life I’m unsure on which continent to end my days (if I should have the choice): Europe (Zurich) where I’ve spent most of my life? The US, my roots? Or Cape Town? What with the economy going down the tubes, I could survive in Cape Town on Swiss Social Security better than in Zurich or the US.
For me this time in DC has been like a three-day arc, beginning at the banquet with the flood of images from that life in ’62 making me fall in love with it all and everyone, so sensual, exciting and bright. Then the African lunch with Walter and the Bundu mask, a punch in the solar plexus, and ending with our attempts to find our footing (?) and meaning on the slope toward death.
Meeting up with all of you is encouraging and the highlight in this phase of aging. Thank you all.
-------------------------------
Second, a note of contrast to our entire Peace Corps experience: A therapist colleague of mine’s brother was in Viet Nam and suffered PTSD badly but never sought treatment. He never could respond to his sister’s gentle probing and never spoke of Viet Nam to anyone. Recently his marriage was falling apart although it had lasted a long time. Here is a letter describing another legacy of the John F. Kennedy era, another reunion almost simultaneous to ours. How did we get so lucky?
Dear Ursula,
...
With regard to Washington. My brother, after learning of the Vietnam reunion scheduled for September 2011, coincidentally was "found" on the internet by several of his Manchu platoon who were planning a more intimate/smaller reunion of fellows who served in that company over a year's time or so. They had been planning this since last fall to commemorate the death of two of their own who died 41 years ago on May 19, 1970. It is a great story of how this committee of 5 found the guys who were there on and near that fateful day. This reunion was in Washington D.C. from Thursday, May 19 to Sunday, May 22nd. Gary and I drove to Washington from Ohio to be there in the afternoon on Thursday.
This was the first time many of the men ever attended a reunion and some had never been to the Wall. We were asked to be at the hotel by 5:00 as a bus would be leaving to take everyone to the Wall. There was to be a presentation of a wreath for the two men and a reading by one of the men. A brother and two sisters of one of the fallen also joined us. It was so, so moving. There was about 35 of us, 23 veterans and the rest, wives and family. My brother's wife did not go. We were also asked to wear the shirt that was designed by one of the guys. So there we were approaching the Wall. I was not prepared for the hundreds, hundreds of people on the mall, near the Vietnam Memoral , the Lincoln Memorial. Spring in our Nation's Capital with lots, lots of students. As we came near to the place on the Wall with the names of the two, there was a moment of uncertainty. So, so many people around, difficult to get near the Wall. A deep voice called out "Manchus, attention"! Everyone, I mean everyone stopped and was quiet. I could hear teachers whisper to students, "watch and listen, these are Vietnam vets and there will be a ceremony". There was so much respect. The wreath was placed next to the Wall with the poem read. It was so very moving, very emotional. I am so pleased so have been a witness and a participant to this event. I believe there was healing that acutally began several months earlier as the men prepared for this moment. So many stories as they remembered more of that long ago day. The wives confirmed that none of this had been shared.
Ursula, there are so many other stories surrounding that long ago date; poor decisions made, commanding officers not qualified to lead, cover-up, lies. One wonders why we do not learn from our errors. (Well, I do know why).
Anyway, thank you for listening and keeping the reunion in your mind.
I do look forward to more talks and your kind hospitality.
Warmly,
Kathleen
---------------------------------
Third, a lighter note but also important: I am so impressed with the many warm, articulate men in our group. Men haven’t had it easy since women’s lib, and these guys are the greatest, their wives and partners to be envied. Some women have written most movingly as well and I am so grateful for what they share and give.
In the back of the extraordinary biographies volume (mine is already becoming thumbed) I’d like to fill in a couple of blanks:
Page 150 Town: Segbwema; School: Njalahun Methodist Mission School;
PCV’s: Mary Reed, Ursula Bitter
Town: Segbwema; School: Catholic Mission School; PCV: Bill Graham
Page 155 Ursula (Bitter) Ulmer, Address: Landoltstrasse 22, 8006 Zürich, Switzerland, Phone: +41 43 536 1594.
I’d love it if anyone coming my way would get in touch.
Who is Tom Brooks? pg. 151 (not listed in the ’62 New Palz book) [Tom Brooks is now the name of the man we knew as Tom Birnberg. - Tony]
Is anyone planning to go to Sierra Leone? Please let me know.
Ursula Ulmer
* * * *
remember that time in the church ... each of us having our moment ... and everyone having a most sacred moment, really. of course some were just breath taking .... tony russell brought us to tears , jerry mills as well, rufus entertained us royally, bob rawson reminded us how desperate JFK's assassination was felt -- by all of us -- even by our african brothers. each person shared their heart, soul, personality ... it really was a most memorable event.
* * * *
remember that time in the church ... each of us having our moment ... and everyone having a most sacred moment, really. of course some were just breath taking .... tony russell brought us to tears , jerry mills as well, rufus entertained us royally, bob rawson reminded us how desperate JFK's assassination was felt -- by all of us -- even by our african brothers. each person shared their heart, soul, personality ... it really was a most memorable event.
i ended it by doing an on the spot poem about how the u.s.a ... and the world ... would be better if our group ( and me as president ) would run the government ... and it was an honest assessment of how intelligent, wise and compassionate we were/are.
i also shared how i've grown into a connector, a spiritual wander ringing the bell of life. as a survivor of cancer of the colon -- i encouraged all to get their colonoscopy's. i encouraged all to be living their passions and dreams -- to like and love themselves first ... and celebrate that with ceremony and witnesses. ( marry yourself ... as i did on my 65th birthday)
and i ended it with an encouragement that we/all of us on the planet can't give up ...ever ... on doing some thing , just one thing even, to further global peace ... no matter what it is. in that spirit, rufus helped me with an original Peace Poem of mine, and the gang chanted the chorus ... i am peace ... i am thought .... i am deed ... i am possible!
as the fire of the reunion turns to a bright ember .... it's like the eternal flame ... it'll never die. god bless you all ... you're all mighty fine hearts, minds, bodies , souls. we were blessed!
Char Roycht
* * * * *
I asked Char if she would send the full text of her poem which she and Rufus recited, and she cheerfully obliged. See below. - Tony
* * * *
* * * * *
I asked Char if she would send the full text of her poem which she and Rufus recited, and she cheerfully obliged. See below. - Tony
i've been waiting for you -- poem for peace
-- char starts
psst. i'm here . the other side of the door.
i hear you. you've been knocking.
are you the one who tried to turn the handle , before?
turn the handle ... turn it. push a bit harder on the door.
it isn't locked!
come in, i've been waiting. i've been waiting for you.
ALL SAY CHORUS. i am peace. i am thought. i am deed. i am possible.
-- rufus continues
you got distracted. you've been here. i remember you.
don't carry your cell! don't watch too much t.v. don't waste so much time!
come back to the door. turn the handle. push on the door. it's open!
come in. i've been waiting! i've been waiting for you.
ALL SAY CHORUS I am peace. i am thought. i am deed. i am possible.
-- char continues
i am here. always have been. don't you know how easy it is to get to me?
all in your mind. your mind. choices. you make choices. choose me!
do i have to shout? maybe. but i don't do that.
i am quiet. i'm here. in here. i really am.
i can't come to you. you must come to me. it's just the way it is.
make the time. choice. make the choice. you can. you can.
i've been waiting! i've been waiting for you!!!
ALL SAY CHORUS i am peace. i am thought. i am deed. i am possible.
-- rufus continues
you can do a lot. or a little. hey ...it's up to you. but ... you have to do something!
now ... it's time. now! do one thing. even one. one thing for peace. one.
come on, come back to the door. turn the handle. push on the door. push.
come in. come in .... i've been waiting.
i've been waiting for you!
ALL SAY CHORUS i am peace. i am thought. i am deed. i am possible!
* * * *
Bob Rawson and I are the oldest people at this session. Bob said he was 81 and I am 76. The past 47 years have sure gone by rapidly.
My experience in Sierra Leone was different than most of yours. I was assigned to the Technical Institute at Kenema, north of Freetown; as was the custom, I was assigned to live in a house on the compound. I taught 12 clerks from the various districts English, Math, Typing, and other appropriate subjects. After teaching September, October, and the first part of November, the headmaster appeared in my classroom one day and introduced a new teacher for the group. He did not say anything to me. So, I took my books and went to my house. (Two weeks earlier, I was asked to move in with a first-year volunteer nearby, which I did.) I then notified the Freetown office and requested another assignment. In the interim, I volunteered to teach at the secondary boys’ school nearby; I taught English. After waiting for a time for the Freetown Peace Corps to reassign me, I finally went to Freetown to check on the reassignment.
After this, I was reassigned to the Technical Institute in Freetown; I taught a group of governmental secretaries who had been released from their jobs in Freetown to upgrade their skills. I have fond memories of both groups and appreciate letters I received from them after I left Sierra Leone.
When I talked with the Peace Corps office in Freetown, I was told that the headmaster at Kenema Technical Institute though I was a spy for Freetown officials. I never dreamed of anything like that. I can understand this view today but could not at the time—an incident from the culture I never even considered.
When I returned to the U.S., I took at piece of gold from Sierra Leone—gold on a front tooth. On the way to Kenema by train, a certain young Peace Corps volunteer hit me in the mouth with a Coke Bottle and broke my front tooth. Here’s an explanation: Judy Salisbury Cline (I use her name since she told the group she was that person) had an empty Coke bottle and decided to give it to one of the kids who crowded outside our window at one of our train stops. Because they were so excited, she decided to organize them and give the bottle to one child. So, she yanked back with the bottle. I was standing behind her, and she hit my front tooth with the bottle. I returned to Freetown to get my tooth repaired—and they made me a gold front tooth. The gold fell off in 1987 and I had it replaced with a white tooth. I still have the piece of gold, however.
Throughout the Fall of 1962, I corresponded with Shirley, whom you all have met, as she is now my wife. I decided that she was the person I wanted to marry. And I knew I needed to go back to the U.S. and convince her to marry me. So I decided to leave the Peace Corps and pursue my special interest.
I returned to my previous position at Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO), Cape Girardeau, MO, where Shirley also taught. I was successful in convincing her to marry me—in June, 1963 we were married; we celebrated our 47th Anniversary this past June.
Today we still enjoy our two children (Mark, now 44 and Kendra Kay, now 40), their spouses, and four grandchildren. Mark and his family live nearby in Chattanooga, TN but K.K. and her family live far away in Portland, OR. You can read more about them in my biography.
In August, 2011, my wife Shirley and I went to Portland to babysit while our daughter and her husband went on a vacation. Thanks to the e-mails collected by Tony Russell, I was able to reconnect with Bob Rawson on this trip to Portland.
Before entering the Peace Corps, I had already taught for 3 years at the elementary school level (1 year in a one-year school house in rural Missouri, grades 1-8; and 2 years in Colorado, grades 4-5). Before entering the Peace Corps, I had already completed my Master’s degree and had taught for 2 years at Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO), Cape Girardeau, MO. During my first year at SEMO, I received an invitation to join the Peace Corps; the invitation came too late in the year since I had already agreed to teach the next year at SEMO. The next year (1961), I received a second invitation to join the Peace Corps, which I accepted (Sierra Leone II group).
I received my Ph.D. from The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH in 1966. While there, I went to the swimming pool one day and was surprised to see Hap Cawood. He was there to pursue his Master’s degree. We renewed our friendship; my wife and I also became friends with Hap’s wife, Sonia. What a small world! After getting my Ph. D. in 1966, I continued my higher education career.
I taught 26 years at the higher education level (both undergraduate and graduate students); and then I became a College of Business administrator (3 years as a Department Head in Information Systems and 7 years as the Dean of the College of Business—3 years at Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL and 4 years as Dean of the Simeon School of Business, St. Louis, MO). In 1997, I retired.
After my wife and I retired, we moved back to the Knoxville, TN area and built a house in Alcoa with a view of the Great Smokey Mountains. Come visit us and enjoy the vistas of the Great Smokey Mountain National Park plus the entertainment provided by one of the world’s best family theme parks, DollyWood. Just give us a call.
In summary, the past 47 years have been a “Wonderful Life.”
Ray Smith
