Looking back on the rocky Yellow Brick Road.

May 4, 1970. 51 years. A life time? A memory? A veritable smudge on the American Canvas? It was the month I expected to walk across a raised platform and be handed my college diploma from the president of Marist College. But, a terrible thing happened on the way to an event that would mark my first step on the “real world” Yellow Brick Road.

The war in Viet Nam had been raging for what seemed like forever. Many students had either crossed the border to Canada to escape the draft or were drafted. Or…signed up for the National Guard. Or…for people like me, it was life as normal. The only problem…after the shooting and killing of four war protesters at Kent State by members of the Ohio National Guard, normal was turned upside down and inside out.

Marist, like hundreds of colleges across the country put up a “closed for business” sign. There were to be no final exams. Commencement hung in the balance. (In the end, Marist decided to hold a very solemn and subdued Commencement.)

What do I remember most about being on a ghost campus until Commencement exercises? I remember the “Wizard of Oz.” Literally remember it because I was part of a cast of the play rehearsing for a bus and truck tour of the Marist production that was to take us into the poverty belt of Appalachia in Kentucky.

Looking back, it was odd and ironic to be lost in Oz when the world was in mourning. Oz was about escaping from a grey world and finding what was over the rainbow. It was all about going to the Wizard to be awarded what we already had. It was realizing that there was “no place like home.”

If home was anything like the real home where innocent students could be killed, who would want to go home?

51 years after the Kent State shootings, the Yellow Brick Road is not paved with gold. Rather, it is paved with the result of our short-comings.

Is it possible that we left Emerald City without what we went there for? It doesn’t appear we are using our brains the way we should be; our ability to love is torn by so much hatred; and we seem to lack the courage to stand up and do what needs to be done.

We’ve got to do better.

Today’s blog is dedicated to Allison  Beth Krause, 19, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, 20, and Sandra Lee Scheuer, 20, who died on the scene, at Kent State, and William Knox Schroeder, 19, was pronounced dead at Robinson Memorial Hospital in nearby Ravenna shortly afterward.

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Wonder on the YBR. It’s simply complicated.

As I flipped through the pages of our local/daily newspaper, my eye caught a picture of the young actor Jacob Tremblay who played the part of Auggie Pullman in the movie “Wonder.”  The paper’s “blurb” about the movie said: A boy who has a facial deformity attends a public school.

My reaction to the blurb was WTF?  Imagine “Gone With the Wind” described as a movie “about a couple who can’t get along during the Civil War.”  Or “Casablanca” described as a movie “about two people who unexpectedly run into each other in a bar in Morocco.”

Obviously complex movies that are really about something cannot be described in a sentence of a dozen words.”

“Wonder” had to be experienced to understand what it was all about.

So, what does this have to do with the YBR?  How often are you described by people in a sentence of 12 words?  Maybe it’s your occupation that takes center stage or perhaps it might be about your social status.

None of us can accurately be described.  We are all beyond words because there are no words that can describe us…and if who we are can be reduced to a single sentence, there is something wrong.

When Dorothy began her journey on the YBR she was the victim of a limited description.  She was Dorothy the meek and humble. She was Dorothy the house-dropper.  She was Dorothy the girl who wanted to get home.

But we all know she was much more than that.

And so are we. The problem I believe we run into is that we believe how people define us is the same as our “meaning.”  All words have definitions, but the “meaning” of a word cannot alway be found in its definition.

The definition of the word “wonder” is: a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.

Not bad, but “wonder” means a lot more than that.  Wonder is being transported to a world almost beyond our reach.  Wonder is an experience that leaves us “breathless.” Wonder is the driving force that leads us to discover…everything.

Come to think of it, the full title of the Baum classic is “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”  And isn’t that what it’s all about?  Wondering? A life without wonder is not a life at all.

Note: If you’ve never seen the movie “Wonder,” do yourself a favor…watch it.

 

 

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The long and winding yellow brick road will lead you home.

Despite the fact that college commencements have been cancelled, I have been chosen to remotely address the Class of 2020. Having reviewed Dorothy’s 2019 commencement address I could just have easily suggested that it be re-played because it was so 2020 in both scope and content.  But, people who know me, know I never take the easy way out. I am loyal to a fault.

To all the members of the Class of 2020 I say that this year turned to shit. It will go down in academic history as a real WTF year. We all know that, so let’s move on because that’s what we not only have to do, it’s what we should do.

I would like to follow commencement history by beginning my talk with a quote that is supposedly attributed to Confucius. He said, “Wherever you go, there you are.”

Think about it.  Today you are here. Tomorrow you won’t be here, you will be there wherever there might be. You have no choice but to go there to a place that is as forbidding as it is foreboding. It’s a place called the future, a place that we continually think we can control. It’s the place you are dreaming about.

Six months ago no one on this planet would have ever thought the future was so frightening. We thought we had it all figured out. And then we were hit by a virus that introduced us to an oft repeated term, the “new normal.”

I am here to tell you that we should celebrate the “new,” but get down on our knees and pray that we don’t aspire to a “normal,” new or otherwise. Normal is just another word for “ordinary,” and that’s not our purpose. We all need to strive to be extra-ordinary.

You are about to step on what Paul McCartney called the “long and winding road.” There is no doubt it will be long, and thank God it will be winding because who wants to travel a straight and narrow road.

People might tell you the world is in a chaotic state. I can’t argue with that, but I should hasten to point out that in Greek mythology Chaos was the origin of everything and the first thing to exist. From Chaos sprang the future.

You, the class of 2020 should consider yourselves the origin of everything that is to follow. You have a chance, not to follow in the footsteps of other generations, but to be pioneers on the long and winding yellow brick road that will lead you home because as Dorothy said, “there’s no place like home.”

Keep in mind that Dorothy meant that home was a place in your heart. She was telling us to find that home in us on our yellow brick road.  I challenge you to be the first genuine generation. A generation that does not discriminate. A generation that has no borders. A generation that breathes new meaning into those forgotten words of the Great Seal of the United States: Novus Ordo Seclorum (a new order of the ages).

Let me bring this home by letting me tell you that you won’t be alone on your journey. No matter how dark it might get, don’t worry, you will be found.

 

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Getting to the top of the mountain on the YBR.

Dorothy never had to climb a mountain in Oz because, as far as I know, there were no mountains mentioned by L. Frank Baum. There was, instead, the long and winding Yellow Brick Road (YBR) that stretched from Munchkin Land to the Emerald City.

I had the privilege this morning of having a phone conversation with one of the best students I ever had the good fortune of having during my 17 year “tenure” at Marist College. (He was actually not one of the best, he was the best.)

During the course of our conversation I talked about how in life we climb a mountain.  Obviously it was an analogy, but I thrive on analogies. Hence, a blog about mountain climbing.

Rare is the person who doesn’t envision a mountain they want or need to climb.  It becomes a goal. The desire to reach the summit becomes a driving force in their life.  Making it to the top of the mountain often becomes an obsession.

I like mountains.  I think having a mountain in your life is a “thing.”  I don’t say a good or bad thing because there are so many factors involved in climbing the mountain that could eventually define us and be the pinnacle of our life story.

I hasten to add that the mountain must be your mountain.  We should never climb someone else’s mountain or else we risk wasting our life on the climb up. And if we are sure we are climbing our mountain, it would help if we knew what we hoped to accomplish be making the climb.

In one of his most famous speeches, Martin Luther King, Jr. told us he had been to the mountaintop and saw the promised land.  That’s something only a handful of people ever achieve. But, as we all know, MLK’s journey to the mountaintop was arduous.

I don’t know of any MLK mountain climbers, but that’s not because I am not surrounded by many good people, it’s just that most of us see fame, success, riches, etc. at the top of the mountain. We don’t see what Lincoln, MLK, Gandhi, Rosa Parks, Anne Frank…did when they set out to climb their mountain.

Today there have been many people who have reached the summit of their mountain only to be enveloped in a cloud that prevents them from seeing “the promised land.”  Instead of having increased vision, they settle for the fame or notoriety that came from scaling the mountain.

I applaud all those noble mountain climbers who are selfless trekkers. I salute those who did see a promised land.

However, I need to add that our lives are not diminished if we are not mountain climbers.  We need to take pride in our journey on the YBR because along the way we will learn to think more clearly, love more dearly, and have the courage of our convictions.

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You will be found on the YBR.

Optical illusions. Just parlor tricks to amuse and entertain us?

In the pen and ink drawing above, you see. And then again when you look at it you see. The amazing thing is you can see both (but not at the same time). There is no right or wrong. Or at least there shouldn’t be.

We are living in what I call optical illusion times.  You might see pain, suffering and death. Or you might see sacrifice, selflessness and courage. Then again you might see grave administrative mistakes. But then again, you might see political power used to benefit…all of us.

Having only 300 posts to my name since I started this blog one thing remains constant.  I keep following the yellow brick road. Over 70 years as a passenger on planet earth I can’t even see the Emerald City. And that’s a good thing.

Despite the fact that I don’t have enough followers to be considered as crowd and despite the fact that none of my posts have gone viral, I continue taking one step after another on the YBR. (Maybe the word ‘viral’ shouldn’t be used during a pandemic. Just saying.)

My drive or motivation always seems to come from pieces of life that don’t really go together until they all do come together and I understand what was going on in that old head of mine.

This afternoon my youngest son sent me a very old but classic puzzle. It’s called the Trick Donkey puzzle or what I call the Donkey Trick.

If you are game, print it out and follow the instructions.  It’s just the thing to make you totally bonkers during the quarantine.

I printed out the puzzle and followed the instructions.  My head was filled with questions and doubts.  The puzzle looked impossible. I It was a joke.  It was a waste of my time.  So after ten or fifteen minutes, i put it aside and had dinner.  After dinner I cleared my desk and placed the puzzle pieces down and didn’t think about how impossible it was.  I knocked down my walls of doubt. Wonder of wonder, without thinking about it, I didn’t solve the puzzle. It solved itself.  I let it happen.

That got me thinking.  We are living through a period of time that challenges us. It is filling us with doubt.  On the road to Oz we’re in the deep, dark part of the forest that is closing in on us.

It’s an optical illusion. We are alone. We are not alone. We are on the verge of despair. We see rays of light.

Dorothy’s journey to Oz eventually led her to the Wizard. He, too, was an optical illusion.  He looked powerful and scary. But when Toto pulled back the curtain, the great and powerful wizard of Oz was a humbug.

With a twister going on inside my head, I sought relief in a movie. For reasons that escape me, I watched The Great Debaters with Denzel Washington. (If you’ve never seen it, I heartily recommend it.)

The movie is really an optical illusion. It’s about the racial disgrace that polluted America during the depression. (Racism is and continues to be a pandemic.)  It got me thinking that no voice should go unheard.

In the end, the puzzle, the oppressive sense of pandemicism, and the movie all came together.

Every day we are on the yellow brick road we have opportunities to understand that we don’t take the journey alone.  We have opportunities to discover new and wonderful things about the power we have to make a difference.

I only hope that after the corona bug is put to rest that we don’t forget the lessons we (should) have learned on the YBR.

We are not lost. We will be found.

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