THE LANCE, OCTOBER 23,1975
ek, She Charmed St. Andrews
phy
ON HEIR ACTIVITY IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
My daughter was, oh, tiiirteen or fourteen when I
was in the thick of the movement in Charlotte.
Fd get “breathers” on flie phone at night find let
ters from the Ku Klux Klan - they were price -
less! I treasured them. Then the FBI came along
to investigate and took them all away.
At any rate, during those days Carol kept up with
my activities pretty closely, and one day she said,
“I’ve decided what to get you for your birthday.’’
and I said, “What?”
“One of those thirty cup coffee makers.”
“Why on earth do I need a thirty cup coffee
maker?”
“Because when they bum a cross in the yard
you’ll go out on the front step and say “Won’t you
come in and have some coffee.. ”
From the small window of the PanAm jet
The gridirons of the towns are lit
Like Christmas trees.
I cannot see the filth of Harlem or of Watts,
Invisible the bumed-out fields of Viet Nam.
So it must look to God.
He made it well, this little bluish sphere
He gave to man.
With seas and plains and forests,
And rivers running free.
Then flung it out into the black and endless universe.
Just as I see the world from this high-flying plane.
So God, near-sighted, must see his earth.
ON ST. ANDREWS
I looked out at that sea of bright young faces, most
of them bom when I was middle-aged, and tried to
teU them what it is like to grow old, to be old.
I say ‘You must go on growing, go on learning, and
them age is not a dreaded thing.’ I tell, as illustra
tion, how only yesterday I leamed, here on this
campus, the meaning of the world ‘obscene’. It
means ‘off-stage’. I never knew that before. And
then a voice from the back of the room: “Are you
always so full of hope..
What shall I say.. I find a simile and say ‘One al
ways has hope if one is doing something. You
would not do it if you despaired and knew that in
the end you’d lose. A soccer team that loses every
game up to the last, goes out upon the field to win
that one.’ That brought the house down. I’d hit the
mark. This was the trath!
But then I had them, had their ears. They listened
• then. I went on as far as I dared, to tell them ‘No,
not always hope. Sometimes despair, sometimes
instead of probing death one longs for it.’
They are so young. I saw them play .. . and play
it weU . . . “Guys and Dolls”. It must have been
for them a period piece, historic theatre. They had
cut their hair! What sacrifice for authenticity!
But then again they are mature. They have a
world so different'from mine, and campus life,
compared to what I knew, of another culture. They
call their teachers by first name. There is liquor in
the dorms, and not forbidden. The girls are on the
Pill. But they wori( as hard as any regimented
group, and with more joy.
And everyone, the English Majors, the Freshmen
and Sophomores, still undecided, even the Scien
tists, all write! They write reams and reams and
most of it is good. I sat up well past midnight
every ni^t reading the sheaves of papers brought
to me. I am no expert critic. I’m certainly not a
teacher. All I can tell them is ^at I like and why.
But these five days have given me far more than I
gave.
THANKYOU!