Thank You RFK

Thank You RFK

Today, I need to go a little off the current happy postings about my Peace Corps life I Armenia. Yes, everything is fine, and I am very happy with my decision to be here.  It is about the decision to be here that I need to write a few words, so please forgive me if I sound like I am proselytizing.

On June 5, 2018, the fiftieth anniversary of the day Robert F. Kennedy was shot, his daughter, Kerry Kennedy, published a book on how her father had influenced some specific people in America.  The preface was so touching because she continually refers to “Daddy”.  Many men are fathers, but you must earn being a daddy.  The title of the book is Ripples of Hope. The title comes from a speech that he gave in South Africa on June 6, 1966 to the National Union of South African Students at the University of Capetown.  It was the University’s “Day of Reaffirmation of Academic and Human Freedom”. It was a period when few United States leaders challenged the Apartheid system in place there.  In the speech is included this line: “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope…” The speech has so much more in it, but MS Kennedy chose this section for the title because she interviews people whom her father directly, or indirectly, influenced in their paths to stand up for ideals, improve other people’s lives, and strike out against injustice. I have just begun reading the book and it is wonderful.

 I, for years, have spoken to new teachers that teaching is like skipping a pebble on a lake.  It bounces a long and then sinks and sends ripples across the lake’s surface and you never see how far the ripples go.  You, as a teacher, must trust the ripples to find their way.  You only begin the process.  I do not believe this speech was in my mind when I first began using the analogy, but it is so closely tied to what I was teaching that I believe it must have influenced me somehow as did so many other things Senator Kennedy said.

Earlier in the same speech, he mentioned the thousands of Peace Corps volunteers serving around the world.  The Peace Corps was new then.  I remember hearing the press conference where President Kennedy announced the formation of the Peace Corps.  I was a little boy, but I remember hearing President Kennedy many times on television.  There was something very special in the way he addressed America.  I wanted to be in the Peace Corps when I was old enough.  Time and circumstance delayed my joining the Peace Corps, but I am here now and feel a tie to the Kennedy family that is hard to explain to the young volunteers with whom I am serving. 

As I read this morning, I became inspired to find the entire speech from South Africa which, thanks to the internet, was easy to find because it is technically the property of the American people because it in the National Archives.  I read the speech and was even more inspired as an adult trying to follow its wisdom.  I reminisced about Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath written much earlier.  Tom Joad tells Ma that I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad, wherever there is a fight so hungry people can eat, wherever a cop is beating a guy,  Look for me Ma, I will be there.  Steinbeck was telling us through Tom to be ripples of hope.

In the parable of Cain and Able, the question is asked if I am my brother’s keeper.  I heard the priests of my childhood use this story so many times to tell us that we were indeed our brothers’ keeper.  The lessons of the Good Samaritan, the Golden Rule of Do unto Others, and on and on rang in my ears from early childhood until today as an old man looking back being asked the question of why I chose to join the Peace Corps instead of taking my retirement and sitting on a front porch somewhere watching the world go by.  I guess I must answer the retirement question with a simple response that I am following the teachings I have been exposed to all my life.

Perhaps, after all those years of political work, and walking picket lines, and writing letters to get someone unjustly imprisoned freed, and boycotting products or businesses that mistreat workers, and so on and so on, I should be ready to sit down for a while.  But I cannot.  There is still injustice.  There is still inequitable distribution of wealth. There are still people being wrongly imprisoned, blocked from voting, forced to go in back doors instead of the front.  No, I cannot sit down yet.

So, today I am working in the Peace Corps with a Non-Governmental Organization in a mountainous village in the developing country of Armenia.  I have just begun so I do not know what all my duties are or will be, but I feel like I am answering Bobby Kennedy’s call to be a “ripple of hope”. I live with the people in their circumstances. I eat what they eat.  I want to be immersed in their culture while sharing the good parts, or at least what I think are, of American culture.  I am calling this beautiful place and these beautiful people my home for at least the next two years.

Of course, today there are many problems facing my beautiful country that I love with all my heart.  I spend time each day reading the news from America. I read what my teacher friends are fighting in Colorado and across the United States.  I read about people being disrespectful to the Constitution. I have just taken an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic and I do not take that oath lightly.  I will vote while I am away even though I know there are people at home who shirk this responsibility.  I am reminded of the old adage that you get what you pay for.  I implore all of you back home who may read this to be involved, to care, to take my place in line and know that I wish I could walk with you.  Know in your hearts and minds and souls, that when I return from serving you by helping the people in Armenia improve their lives, I will be on the picket lines again. I will stand up for the ideals of equality and liberty.  I will shout out against injustice. I will improve the lot of others.  I will not sit down!