Sunday

26 November 2017

— Last leaves gliding down between heavy raindrops. 

Good Morning All,

Lord love a duck, it turns out our representative in Detroit kept a journal during our Peace Corps training in Baker Louisiana from early September until we flew home for a week of Christmas before flying to Swaziland on the 30th of December. Below is his entry for 26 November 1968, forty-nine years ago today. (I did write and get permission to cite this entry.)

Among other things, he mentions the Peace Corps selection process. None of the sixty or so people in our group had any guarantee he or she would be chosen to go to Swaziland. We had to prove our worth, reliability, work ethic, social skills, tooth-brushing technique, and God knows what else. 

If we failed to do that, the eleven staff members in charge of our training (including the chief selection officer, an alcoholic psych professor from Norte Dame) could choose to deselect us and send us home to see if we had any new mail from our selective service office. 

One example, two of our members fell in love and got married while we were there. They were deselected on the grounds that such an action demonstrated a level of immaturity that would impede their work and effectiveness in Swaziland. (The horseshit level during our training could sometimes run knee-deep or more.)

He also mentions feedback sessions, which were actually encounter groups,  all the rage back then. With people we’d not met until early September, we sat around in groups of seven or eight being frank, candid, and honest with each other. We got up close and personal. Each group had a staff member present to encourage us to—in the parlance of the day—let it all hang out. You may well imagine how much a New Englander like myself enjoyed that sort of fun. 

Anyway, some of what our Detroit rep says here about me embarrasses me more than a little. I tried taking out some of it and toning down the rest,  but the entry did not hang together then. I’ve decided to leave it in as a testimony to his optimism and generosity of spirit.

I can’t say to what extent this entry will interest you non-Peace-Corps folk on the Day Book list, but I’ll wager you Peace-Corps compatriots will get a kick out of reliving one of the many nutty aspects of those three months in Louisiana:

26 November 1968 Tuesday

A day passed where I worked out crossword puzzles during education meetings dealing with TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language). 

We went to staff evaluation readings today. I was below normal by about .3 to . 5 on all topics, but it really didn’t bother me.  It indicates that I should increase my eagerness and ass-kissing, but I don’t feel up to it for the moment. Perhaps later toward the end of our final evaluation.

There were feedback group meetings tonight. I was switched into a new group due to my assignment change [from rural development to education].  The group meeting I found myself in turned out to be long and interesting because a lot of repressed conflict surfaced.  I did not perceive it during the meeting but many said later that I was the catalytic agent at the meeting and added that it changed the past complexion of the meetings.  This was  a super shot to my ego and now I’m trying to control my reaction of being egotistical.  

In thinking over what happened, I remember my attacking Collie Coleman—a black staff member—for being too aggressive to get to know.  He responded aggressively causing others to jump in and concur with my statement.  This touched off a whole series of personality conflicts and the words were blunt and many for about one hour. Further gas was thrown on the fire when I told Collie (in response to a query) that I didn’t consider my feelings and thoughts changed when I conversed with him because he was, as I put it, as white as anybody in the group.  

For a while attacks were turned on Ron Pierce by both Collie and LaDena Schnapper (Mel’s wife).  Ron is a rather eccentric fellow who lives across the hall from me, but it is an eccentricity that I really admire.  Now for the same reason—eccentricity—he is not too popular with the staff (the American staff). Hence the attacks.  

Ron has a peculiar but profound manner of expression similar to that of Mike Robertson’s [intellectual college roommate of mine, also a writer] but in a different language, so to speak.  Ron, like Mike, also writes rather proliferately hunched over his Smith-Corona typewriter smoking odd-shaped pipes and long smelly cigars.

He writes well too.  His manner is mild and gentle like Robertson’s. He is a good person—like Robertson—and for that reason I defended him tooth-and-nail and not, as I later told him, because I felt sorry for him.

I mentioned the witch trial analogy where the people who lied and said they were witches were freed.  Whereas those who denied the accusations perished in the fires. 

Ron’s sense of feeling is very acute. In the midst of the meeting he said that he was probably twice as serious as anybody in the room.  He is, I think. He then produced some evaluation copies he had found.  He described them as people’s lives.  There were extremely important to these people—a lump of xeroxed statistics stapled together—as they were Warren Enger’s [staff member] copies and he (Ron) had found them on the dirty lounge floor. With classic, and now recognized, Piercian cant he said, “And that worries me.”  It worried me too. After his three minute description there was silence. The meeting ended by 1AM…long.

Collie thanked me and was very happy  when we met at the coop later.  That did a lot for me because I wasn’t sure whether I had hurt him or not.  I had hoped not. I had hoped to come through to him that I desired to know him, even though I feared him [for what he could do to my selection prospects]. I had succeeded and this was a great moment for me in a different sort of way, but great.

Thanks, Detroit!

Go Well and Stay Well

Bhekaron

P.S. Erratum: Esther was surprised to learn I finished my novel in 1911, thirty-five years before I was born. It should have been, 2011. 

P.P.S. Two snaps from Peace Corps times. (Probably second time around, but who is counting.)