Tuesday

28 November 2017

— Blackbirds at the feeders.

Good Morning All,

Our Detroit representative’s journal entry for 26 November 1968 put me in mind of what I still consider to be one of my best life moments.

The three-months that we were in Louisiana allegedly training to go to Swaziland was—in the parlance of the day—a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, I liked virtually every other member of our group of hopefuls, as well as all of the dozen Swazis who’d come over to teach us siSwati. I liked some of the staff members, including Collie Coleman, whose support was probably the only reason I was not eventually deselected.

But a couple of the staff members truly rubbed me the wrong way for their self-importance practice and all the bogus bullshit they put us through. Fred, my Peace Corps comrade from Winthrop, and I, for example, usually had to carry the Chief Selection Officer (the psych professor from Notre Dame) home from one of the two local Black bars within walking distance of the defunct Negro college where we were being housed. Fred would laugh and say to me, “Carry him gently, Ron, he holds our future in his hands."

When they decided we were not learning siSwati fast enough, when we were no longer permitted to speak English at all, even after classes were over, when they staged a funeral for the English language, dug a hole, and buried a dictionary in the hole, I was not all that tickled.

But the encounter sessions were the worst, by far. Here we were a bunch of college kids who’d only recently met each other, and here were a few of the staff members actively encouraging us to bear our souls, confess our sins, make accusations against the behaviour of others, whatever. 

Not only was that anathema to my New England sensibility and regard for privacy, I could not see the point of it. Was it supposed to be some sort of modern-day Puritanical purging, sort of willingly putting our heads and hands into metaphorical stocks, so that the other people in the room (most of them not yet much more  than acquaintances) could toss tomatoes at us?

Which gets me to a very quiet girl in our group, who completed the training program, but did not go to Swaziland, either because she was deselected or changed her mind. She seemed to me a very shy and reserved person. She was not a beauty queen, and perhaps that had an impact on her self-confidence. The couple of times I’d chatted with her, including one longish walk, I found her to be a person blessed with kindliness and humor, two qualities high on my list.

Anyway, at one of these encounter sessions, the staff member in charge decided it was time to go after her. She’d been too quiet, he said. She’d not been forthcoming enough. It was time for her to assert herself and tell us something about herself, since she seemed so aloof. She needed to participate, especially if she hoped to go to Swaziland with the rest of the team.

The other half dozen people in the group, bless them, were far more gentle as they encouraged her to open up and be more a part of us. She responded to that and did her best, but then—for however many complex reasons—she seemed to lose control, and suddenly all sorts of private things were being hinted at, as if somehow she thought she was in the midst of her closest friends back home, and not a group of people she hardly knew.

When she got onto the general topic of physical appearance and how important it was for a person’s success or failure, I simply could not sit there any longer, feeling all too sure of what was coming next. Instead, I went to the corner of the room, fetched the metal trashcan, placed it in the middle of our circle, sat down again, took out a deck of cards I happened to have in my pocket, and began flipping them into the trashcan where they made quite a racket.

  Needless to say, I caught hell for that from the staff member and one member of our group. I was asked to defend this rude behavior. Another member of the group said—kindly, I thought—I was just Ron being Ron. I might have been kidding myself, but it seemed to me I saw on the faces of most of the others relief.

Still, I didn’t sleep much that night, mostly for worrying about what the girl had thought of my actions, but also about how exponentially my chances of getting deselected had gone up.

Happily, the girl herself caught up with me next morning on my way to breakfast, gave me a semi-hug, thanked me for coming to her rescue, and (as if reading my thoughts) hoped I’d not damaged my own chances too much. What she actually said was: “I’m certainly glad I’m not packing my suitcase now and calling a cab for the airport.”

Okay, I know that’s boasting. But the sad truth is, there have been all too few moments in my life when I have risen to the occasion, so it’s nice to recall one when circumstances (Lowell’s journal entry) bring one to mind.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. Two Holly snaps.