Saturday, March 24, 2007
Memphis, TN

I woke up this morning at the home of my friends Vern and Lenore in Carbondale, Illinois. They host a coffeehouse series called Cousin Andy's that's been running for about thirteen years now, and I was last night's show. Vern and I stayed up late after the show talking about faith, hope and politics and where they all intersect, and he gave me some Obama bumper stickers. Good livin.'

Then I drove the four hours down to Memphis, popped into the Whole Foods to get some healthy food (always a challenge on the road) and went straight to the National Civil Rights Museum. I had been trying to get there for years on various trips through Memphis, and somehow the time always seemed to evaporate. Today I finally managed to show up and buy my ticket, but the time evaporated once more. The hour and a half that I had when I arrived was enough to cover about the first quarter of the museum or so. I'm hoping to go back Monday morning before I head to Missouri for the next show.

Part of the museum is located in the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, where Dr. King was shot and killed. It's very well put together, and most definitely worth the trip. The museum is packed full of information, so it's important to leave plenty of time, as I learned. Getting there late in the day, though, did hold one gift for me.

When I got to the part of the museum with a replica of the bus on which Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery in 1955, no one else was around. I walked onto the bus and sat down across the aisle from a tasteful sculpture of Rosa sitting there looking out the window. Just me and Rosa. If you go to the museum some time, sit down there beside her. When you do, a tape starts playing of the words the bus driver said to her that day - yelling for her to go to the back of the bus and threatening her with calling the police, which of course he did in the end.

Rosa is a hero of mine, as she is to many people, but I think in a slightly different way. I'm not old enough to have lived through that painful time when Rosa went to jail for justice, but I'm at least young enough to have been taught about it in school. The sad thing is that I was only taught half of the story.

The way I got it in school, Mrs. Parks was just tired that day, Dec. 1, 1955, and decided she wasn't going to take it anymore. She wasn't going to stand up and move to the back of the bus for a white man just because she was black and he was white. She paid for her ticket and she refused to move. So she was arrested, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott was born, which eventually led to the end of segregation on buses.

That's a good story, and it's not untrue. But it's significant in what it leaves out. Here's some more information that's also true. Rosa Parks was a committed long-time activist. She had been the secretary of the Montgomery NAACP for twelve years by the time that day came on the bus. She had tried to register to vote four times (virtually an act of civil disobedience in that time and place - she was rejected as illiterate). She had spent ten days the summer before training in non-violent activism at the Highlander Center in Tennessee.

The point is that this was not a spur-of-the-moment decision on her part, nor was it much different from many, many other days she had taken a stand for justice. I suspect that while that day stands out vividly for most of us, it was not as big of a contrast for Rosa.

She, like every activist I know, had slogged away day after day for years making small changes and looking for elusive signs of progress.

And here's the danger in the half-told version of the story - it seems to teach us that the way we change the world is by watching for a moment to be a hero and make a dramatic stand. It seems to say that our lives will come down to one moment and we'd better be watching and not blow it. I think Rosa would disagree. She understood the power of small changes. They tend to add up to big ones. I think that's what Gandhi meant when he said ""Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."

So I sat on the bus today, alone with Rosa, listening to the bus driver yelling at us, and tears filled my eyes. Yeah, I'm kind of sappy in general, but there was no one there but me and a statue of someone I admire, and I let them come. We've come a long way, and we have a long way to go. It's right to mourn the tragedy, and it's also right to joyfully celebrate the triumph. Those tears held both ingredients.

So that's what I've been thinking about today. That and some possible new adventures in my future, but I'll tell you more about that at a later date.

Last year was my best year since I started this experiment in being a traveling troubador, by any measure I can think of. More fun, more CDs sold, more and bigger awards, a few fewer days on the road, more airplay, you name it. It's been a good run. And the great thing is that the biggest payoffs are mostly things I really care about - getting to see old friends and make new ones, meaningful conversations and moving experiences. And sure, there are lots of lighter moments, too, and even occasional brushes with fame.

A couple of weeks ago I did a show with my long-time friend Beth Wood in Shreveport, Louisiana. Through a funny confluence of events we ended up doing an extra third set after the concert, and about half the crowd stayed. What happened was that Bill Sadler showed up. He's best known as an actor. Though you may or may not know his name, you probably know his face. He's been in tons of movies - everything from Shawshank Redemption and the Green Mile to Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, and he's also a regular on TV shows like Law and Order and C.S.I., and lately the Black Donnelys (yeah, I know what you're thinking - I still don't actually have a TV, but I try to keep up with the world anyway).

Turns out that aside from being a talented actor, he's a talented songwriter and very funny guy. So we broke the instruments back out and played another set, all three of us hanging out on stage together, and joined by a local band that hopped up with bass, percussion and sax, and a harmonica player that was on the crew. It was a big time. Oh sure, a troubador's life on the road always includes lots of caviar and red carpets, but the movie stars are always a treat. At any rate, Bill was.

(March 27)

And now it's three days later and I'm waking in Springfield, Missouri. Road life, of course, doesn't really involve much caviar (good thing, as I couldn't stand the stuff the one time I tried it), but it does hold the charm of a certain kaleidoscopic menage of images. It's fascinating to lead a life with no routine whatsoever. I seldom wake up in the same place more than a day or two in a row, I meet wonderful people and have great conversations, but seldom get to have the second conversation. I don't eat or wake or sleep at the same time on any two given days. Everything changes from day to day. Even the road signs occasionally go surreal on me.

Maybe that's been good training for the work in Guatemala, where things get more unpredictable still. I was down there again a month ago and got to celebrate Valentine's Day (el Día de los Cariños) at Escuelita de Preschool David LaMotte in Tzanchaj. That was great fun.

kids posing outside the Escuelita de Preschool David LaMotte

taking water to the Escuelita for the Valentine's Day party

While I was there some people from the local clinic came to the school to do a baseline study on the health of the kids and work toward finding any problems there are and treating them. They'll be checking on the students every six months now to see if we can improve their overall health. As a result, some of the kids have now been treated for asthma, they've all been de-wormed, etc. Next we're working toward getting fresh water to the school (the spigot currently there is just lake water).

checking one student's height against a tape measure

On this trip I finally connected with Ryan Stimmel, too, who's running a school in Panabaj, just down the road from Tzanchaj. We've now started helping with funding for his school by paying for an assistant teacher's salary, and have plans to support some other needs of the school in the near future.

talking with Ryan at his school in Panabaj

I also got to visit a school in El Tejar where we're working to put in a music program. The Mayan children rarely get to learn musical instruments because they can't afford the instruments, and the schools can't afford music teachers.

happy kids at the El Tejar school

The director of this Montessori-style school in El Tejar, though, has had a dream for some years to put in a music program, and PEG is teaming up with the Lake Eden Arts Festival to midwife that dream. I visited the school last month, and will bring the funding in June. We've set it up so that people can buy individual instruments for the school if they'd like to. As always, 100% of the donations go straight to the projects with nothing taken out for administration unless donors specifically instruct that part be used for administration (which is always appreciated as well).

For more information, send an email to pegATpegpartnersDOTorg (substitute the appropriate @ & . - writing it this way cuts down on automated spam). This program will take place at an elementary school, but will be a Saturday class for older children. We're also buying some percussion instruments for the smaller children from the elementary school, though, some of whom are giggling in the picture above.

Deanna will be coming down in June, too, so we'll get to be back there together for the first time since our honeymoon three years ago. Life's good.

Thanks, as always, for these sixteen plus years of support. It remains a good adventure.

Peace, justice and Barack Obama,

David