Barrett Dorko
12-02-2008, 02:11 AM
It’s been a quiet week in Cuyahoga Falls…
So this was my thinking: I go to these meetings to market my courses, mainly, and I understand that continuing education is a highly competitive field. As an individual I have no real sense that I ever successfully compete against those with much greater resources. If you look at it in terms of The Office (http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/), I’m Ryan (while he was still working as a temp) and everyone else is Staples.
Now, I say all of this in order to explain why I decided to have some guy shine my shoes in the Cleveland airport early Wednesday morning. I was soon to leave for the APTA meeting in Nashville and though I had rehearsed a few lines about my background in an effort to sound spontaneous and wise I know from experience that it isn’t the construct validity of my approach that really interests potential sponsors. It’s something else that may seem trivial and unrelated but has a deeper, unconscious effect. Yesterday I convinced myself it was my shoes – hence my decision to have them well-shined. It wasn’t an expense, it was an investment.
Early each morning Beth runs through a small village in the Sudan. I imagine she has her grandfather’s legs and lungs. Maybe even mine. She runs alone but senses a connection to this place few can. At least, I don’t feel it. This despite the fact that we were raised very near to the same place and spent many holidays together in my parent’s home. We were both nurtured by my sister and have her fair skin. I wonder how she endures the desert sun, but that’s just another thing I would avoid for personal, even selfish reasons. It seems that Beth doesn’t consider such things.
As the man bent over my shoes he was approached by a middle-aged gentleman with a breakfast sandwich half finished in his hand. They greeted each other as friends and talked about why the man was again at the airport. “We played in a club downtown last night,” he said. “It was pretty good.” I could tell by his hair and his dress that he was a jazz musician, he was that cool. While buffing, the first man asked, “Where to next?” and the jazz man said, “I’m leaving for Ethiopia.” Again, I thought of Beth, my niece and the first of the Dorko grandchildren. I remember the day she was born.
A wonderful writer, she imagines what it would be like to take up the life of a Sudanese woman; how she might conform to a culture that wouldn’t allow her to dress or behave as she was taught in Cleveland Heights Ohio. A proper Sudanese life wouldn’t allow her to run in shorts, or, perhaps, at all. She writes of the young girls there who have had enough courage to turn from the culture that has both nurtured and betrayed them and wonders what will become of all this. She actually feels this, and I, for the life of me, simply cannot. I admire Beth’s authentic empathy and compassion more than I can say, and admit that I never would have done the same.
Now working for a relief organization, Beth travels to Khartoum with some regularity, her running gear in her luggage and her parent’s strength in her heart. Some of it comes from her aunts and uncles as well, I suppose. I hope.
I found myself telling the man at my feet about Beth and he listened intently. When I had finished he said, “You know, people think I have a lousy job, but every day I meet and hear about people like that. I know it’s a good world, really. I hear about it. Thank you for telling me about her.”
Maybe when I try to get people to know me, trust me, want to hear from me again, I shouldn’t worry about my shoes.
I should just tell them about my niece.
So this was my thinking: I go to these meetings to market my courses, mainly, and I understand that continuing education is a highly competitive field. As an individual I have no real sense that I ever successfully compete against those with much greater resources. If you look at it in terms of The Office (http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/), I’m Ryan (while he was still working as a temp) and everyone else is Staples.
Now, I say all of this in order to explain why I decided to have some guy shine my shoes in the Cleveland airport early Wednesday morning. I was soon to leave for the APTA meeting in Nashville and though I had rehearsed a few lines about my background in an effort to sound spontaneous and wise I know from experience that it isn’t the construct validity of my approach that really interests potential sponsors. It’s something else that may seem trivial and unrelated but has a deeper, unconscious effect. Yesterday I convinced myself it was my shoes – hence my decision to have them well-shined. It wasn’t an expense, it was an investment.
Early each morning Beth runs through a small village in the Sudan. I imagine she has her grandfather’s legs and lungs. Maybe even mine. She runs alone but senses a connection to this place few can. At least, I don’t feel it. This despite the fact that we were raised very near to the same place and spent many holidays together in my parent’s home. We were both nurtured by my sister and have her fair skin. I wonder how she endures the desert sun, but that’s just another thing I would avoid for personal, even selfish reasons. It seems that Beth doesn’t consider such things.
As the man bent over my shoes he was approached by a middle-aged gentleman with a breakfast sandwich half finished in his hand. They greeted each other as friends and talked about why the man was again at the airport. “We played in a club downtown last night,” he said. “It was pretty good.” I could tell by his hair and his dress that he was a jazz musician, he was that cool. While buffing, the first man asked, “Where to next?” and the jazz man said, “I’m leaving for Ethiopia.” Again, I thought of Beth, my niece and the first of the Dorko grandchildren. I remember the day she was born.
A wonderful writer, she imagines what it would be like to take up the life of a Sudanese woman; how she might conform to a culture that wouldn’t allow her to dress or behave as she was taught in Cleveland Heights Ohio. A proper Sudanese life wouldn’t allow her to run in shorts, or, perhaps, at all. She writes of the young girls there who have had enough courage to turn from the culture that has both nurtured and betrayed them and wonders what will become of all this. She actually feels this, and I, for the life of me, simply cannot. I admire Beth’s authentic empathy and compassion more than I can say, and admit that I never would have done the same.
Now working for a relief organization, Beth travels to Khartoum with some regularity, her running gear in her luggage and her parent’s strength in her heart. Some of it comes from her aunts and uncles as well, I suppose. I hope.
I found myself telling the man at my feet about Beth and he listened intently. When I had finished he said, “You know, people think I have a lousy job, but every day I meet and hear about people like that. I know it’s a good world, really. I hear about it. Thank you for telling me about her.”
Maybe when I try to get people to know me, trust me, want to hear from me again, I shouldn’t worry about my shoes.
I should just tell them about my niece.