March 2023 -

Inclusiveness and unity

First published in “The Daily Journal,” August 3, 2022, https://www.smdailyjournal.com/opinion/guest_perspectives/inclusiveness-and-unity/article_22db207a-12e3-11ed-9cfc-fb16ad56a5b4.html

In July 2022, I completed a 5,137 mile motorcycle trip to St. Louis and back. This particular trip was shorter than others I have made, but this trip was particularly memorable. I met dozens of folks at gas stations, restaurants, and motels in Red State America, and I made some observations and formed some conclusions about inclusiveness and unity.

In Eureka, Nevada, another biker, Mike, invited me to join him for breakfast. We talked a lot about motorcycles until Mike halted our conversation. He signaled our waitress that he wanted to buy breakfast for a down on his luck local, but she waved him off. Someone else had already paid for the meal.

The next day, near Granada, Colorado, I passed a lone walker headed east. I remembered Mike’s compassion and pulled over. The walker saw me waiting and his body tensed. I removed two frosty bottles of water from a saddlebag, and he relaxed. He accepted the water with a simple, “Thanks, brother.” David was on his way to Wichita, Kansas. He remarked that he walks from Colorado to Kansas “every couple of years.” David looked rough around the edges, but I found him articulate and interesting. I wished him luck and continued riding east.

In Hutchison, Kansas, I walked into a gas station and was greeted by a young woman dressed in traditional Amish attire. A mechanic named Larry introduced himself as a fellow motorcycle rider. He was planning a trip to Lakeview, Oregon. I shared with him a story about my visit to Lakeview and the extraordinary roadside assistance I received from a Lakeview biker. Before we parted ways, Larry unashamedly offered to pray for my safe return to California. I thanked him and told him that I would pray for his trip to Oregon.

Riding west, I stopped in Kadoka, South Dakota for a cold drink. While I chatted with the cashier, Aubrey, we watched a young boy drop some coins on the counter to pay for a large fountain soda. The boy did not have enough money, so I laid a couple of dollars on the counter. His beaming, “Thank you, sir!” was worth a lot more than two dollars.

Aubrey mentioned an increasing number of locals appear to be shopping at her gas station even though prices are higher than nearby stores. They seem to value the opportunity to connect with others in a familiar setting that promotes community. The next day, in Sheridan, Wyoming, I met Don at a gas station. Don said folks are worried about things like gas prices but joining together can help them persevere. I commented that my trip has been made more enjoyable by meeting so many gracious people. Don smiled and said it must be the “Midwest hospitality.”

Last stop… Austin, Nevada. Just east of town, I passed a jack-knifed big rig and a damaged pick-up. First responders were on scene. After checking into my motel, I moseyed over to one of two restaurants in town. I told the proprietor, Sarah, about the accident. She heard a Sheriff’s car go by with siren blaring but she did not know about the crash.

Another local, Kim, came into the restaurant and pulled Sarah aside. A look of complete sorrow enveloped Sarah’s face. The two women hugged each other and cried. Minutes later, Sarah walked over and told me the pick-up driver, a 22-year-old local, had been killed in the collision. I felt awkward but seeing people come together in a time of extreme sadness was comforting… for them and me.

On my trip, I met lots of folks focused on taking care of their families. They are worried about things like gas prices and the economy, but not one person made any reference to politics or said anything disparaging about others with a different ideology… not one.

I believe folks in Red State America are generally more accepting of different political opinions than their Blue State cousins. Inclusiveness must include diversity of thought… that is a crucial step toward unity. While there are rabid partisans on both sides, I’m fairly confident a conservative motorcycle rider would get a liberal dose of progressive philosophy if they were riding through the far West. With progressives describing conservatives in derisive terms… and a media that supports a liberal agenda… we should not be surprised the vocal left largely excludes the right from meaningful and productive dialog. Even so, it looks like one side is ready to try unity.

Billie the Hobo Kid

It may take years or even decades to fulfill your purpose, but you can get there.

Wow… waaay back to 1962. I was a 9-year-old 4th grader at an intermediate school in California’s Central Valley. We had a movie day at school every other week or so. Teachers would share a 16 mm projector on a cart laden with reels of film in metal cans on a lower shelf. This was high tech back in the day. I remember watching Disney’s “Johnny Appleseed” and a science movie featuring the Dyna-Soar spacecraft. It looked a lot like today’s space shuttles, and it was designed to glide to earth while being flown by a pilot. This was 25 years before the space shuttles started flying. However, the movie I really remember because it had a profound affect on my life was “A Desk for Billie.”

It’s a story about a migrant family in the 1930s and the eldest daughter, Billie Clare Davis. She was an inquisitive girl and desperate to learn, but her parents were against her spending time in school when she could be working. Eventually, her mother and father relented, and she started school at 8-years-old. She attended a couple of dozen schools as a girl because her family was always on the move following the harvest seasons on the West Coast. Against all odds… Billie graduated from high school in Bakersfield… with honors. She became a missionary, teacher, writer, and completed PhD studies at 59-years-old. Billie was also a passionate advocate for public education. She wrote about her struggle to get an education in a 1952 article for the Saturday Evening Post titled, “I was a Hobo Kid.” A movie followed four years later. It was very inspiring, and at the end of the movie, she credited overcoming so many challenges on the path to get an education to her teachers. I watched that movie more than 60 years ago, and Billie’s struggle just to go to school… for the love of learning… has always stayed with me.

The NEA made the movie… they would not make it today… it would not serve certain political agendas. In the 1960s, “A Desk for Billie,” was routinely shown to aspiring teachers while they were still in college. Teacher credentialing programs don’t show “A Desk for Billie” these days.

Fast forward to 2007… forty-five years later. I am a teacher. One of those special people who can change lives. One day after school, while sitting at my desk, I thought about Billie Davis and checked online for information about her. I was surprised to learn she was living in Springfield, Missouri, and still active in education. I wrote to her and thanked her for telling her story so many years ago, and for inspiring me forty-five years later. I was a teacher!

Billie wrote back. She sent me one of her books on teaching and a copy of her 1952 article along with a personal note. Billie told me that a teacher has to love his or her students because students will want to learn when they know a teacher really cares about them. That is the core value of teaching.

I could see that core value in action watching my wife who teaches piano. She didn’t study teaching like Billie, but she intuitively integrates a sincere caring for her students when she teaches. She inspires a love of music in her students and they are better for it. Even if my wife’s students stop playing one day, they will always remember how much fun they had learning with a teacher who cared.

Billie passed away in August 2019… just before the start of a new school year. We need teachers like her more than ever.