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Robert The Counter

Can one man make a difference?

All Human civilizations have grappled with this question, but today the question is causing the flag of civilization to pivot in winds of history. All cultures are grappling with the question as they set their sails on the ship of governance.

If one man cannot make any real difference in life, if one man is just like another and can be replaced by any other, then mankind itself exists simply as labor to be applied by the state for its purposes and not that of the individuals living within it. Mankind is to be regulated to save him from himself and the greater danger that he may do to the more valuable structures of civilization. Mankind is to be controlled so as to have his labors put to greater purpose than the satisfaction of the selfish interests of the individual. The state shall serve him as a benevolent patriarch, to see that his labors are put to use within the family of man and not the greedy purposes of the self.

However, If one man can in fact make a difference, and since no one can tell who might be the next Einstein, the next Newton, the next Pasteur, the next Keller, the next Carver, the next Borlaug, then all life is precious and valuable and it must be treated with the respect and dignity it deserves. The value of human life just might be found at any level of society, no matter their breeding, political membership or creed.

You understand of course, just how scary that simple idea is to some people, don’t you? The idea that all humans might just be (GASP!) of equal value! That might mean that I am no better than the guy down the street, and where does that leave me?

There are those who argue that is in fact the case, that individuals do not have any other purpose to their life except in the service of the State. However, there are dissenters like myself who say that the State exists primarily to serve the individual and not the other way around. In our opinion, the State exists to see that the individual is provided the conditions in which they may be able to achieve their own potential, whatever it may be, and that process of individual achievement may in itself be the primary benefit to the state, not in the individuals servitude to the state, but with willing cooperation for the benefit of all.

All of us have choice in how we live and the things we accept and the directions we choose, even those who live under the subjugation by the state. All prisons are capable of being prisons only because the prisoners choose to cooperate. All prisons have more prisoners than guards. All dictatorships have fewer soldiers than subjects.

Some of us in life choose the path of least resistance, to go along to get along. Others choose to take a difficult path with no guarantee of success or happiness. Others plod through life with no particular plan or design, from one day to the next like cattle on the prairie, but we all make choices on what we will accept and not accept in the conditions in our lives.

We all make choices in our lives and we each face the consequences of that choice, but our civilization is also effected by that choice. No man lives in a bubble in which he cannot reach the rest of humanity; we are all affected in some way by the choices in the lives of others.

For example:

One day in World War II a young doctor noticed how frostbitten limbs of soldiers behaved during surgery. He observed that the lowered temperatures reduced the metabolic rate and oxygen requirement of the affected tissue. This key observation allowed him to continue his work that eventually lead to the creation of the pacemaker, a device that has lead to the betterment of life for millions of people.

Once a young man dedicated his life to the study of cancer and his research will lead to the survival of millions.

Once, a young black baseball player was shown the town by a white newspaperman and both men found a friend at a time when such a thing was thought uncommon.

Once, a man wanted everyone to be able to have their own binoculars and as a result introduced a generation to the love of backyard astronomy.

Once a man joined the Marines to serve his country and ended up serving the cause of civilization in another.

Once a man decided that their was dignity in producing chicken at high quality and low price. What was once deemed a job of low breeding was the source of a fortune for himself and a great many of the people who worked for him.

Once a man fell in love with radio and made us fall in love with it too. What could have been a simple job to do in a toss away fashion became an event for all to behold.

Once a man dedicated himself to firefighting and volunteerism. His simple act of choice changed the lives of thousands of people.

One day during Nazi occupation, a young Polish man chose to enter the seminary illegally and dedicate his life to god, and our lives are better now that his actions directly lead to billions of people be freed of their enslavement by the soviet state and the corrupt religion of communism. He didn’t have to do it, it would have been easy to just be an actor, but he chose something much more valuable.

Each of these men made choices in their lives that bettered not only their lives, but our lives as well. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “ What is the worth of a new born babe?”

That question can be answered by examining each of the lives of those who died this week and asking yourself how much your life would have been changed had that man not made his choice. Imagine that the winds of history had been blowing in just a slightly different direction one day and what impact it would have on your life.

Each of us has value in our lives as humans. To have value we need not have graduated of the finest institutions of higher learning, belong to the right club, church, mosque or synagogue, drive a Prius or a Hummer. Each of us contributes to the great chain of life, whether we take active steps or not. Some contribute by doing nothing; allowing the guards to assert their illusion that the prison of dictatorship is legitimate. Others will quietly sharpen their toothbrushes on the cold cement floors of their cells in anticipation of the day when freedom is at hand.

As I said in the beginning; “Can one man make a difference?’

One day in the great depression, a man saw how the world was impacted by drought and the shortage of food and decided to dedicate his life to changing it and now billions of people are alive. Unlike the others, he did not die this week, but he deserves recognition just the same. Try to remember his name and example the next time someone talks about ‘Frankenfood”. Dr. Borlaug made a difference,he made a difference to you and you probably don’t even know it.

And who made a difference in my life? For the sake of brevity, I will just use a single example where one person made a difference to my life. Who shall it be that I use as an example? Astronaut? Doctor? Teacher? Priest? The “Great Men of History”?

Nah…

When I was 16, I was a volunteer youth camp counselor. I volunteered largely to get away from my family during the summer but that year I was tricked into taking a position at a special camp. The camp was for severely brain damaged and physically disabled kids. These kids were barely ambulatory, could hardly speak and for a white suburban surfer dude kid of 16, it was just a bit more than I could handle.

It wasnt till the first night of camp that the adults let us in on “the big secret”. You see none of us would have come if they had let us know what the camp was really for. The next day we met the kids and their parents. It was a pitiful sight. Here we were, amidst all the natural beauty of the Sierras, young and healthy with all the promise of the world being presented with kids who were a just a mess. I looked at the kids, in their wheelchairs, their thin bones, sunken cheeks and pale white skin. Their eyes, and their parent’s eyes all looking back at us, standing in the parking lot of the camp, wondering what we had all gotten ourselves into.

The first day was tough. The adult care volunteers did their best to keep us going, a few of us feigned sickness and headed back to the cabins desperately looking for a way out of this arrangement.

At dinner that night we all say in the cafeteria and pondered what to do. After a few minutes we were joined by a character known as “Kami” as in “Kamikaze” as his driving into town for supplies in his big Chevy Suburban was not for the meek or those prone to motionsickness.

He listened to us wallowing in our misery and then he stopped us and said:

“Look you guys, instead of looking at what the kids don’t have, why don’t you look at what they do have?”

We all sat there stunned and thought about it for a second and then he said this:

“ Look, if these kids were aliens from another planet, one that didn’t have as much gravity as ours, would you look at them like their was something wrong with them or that they just had bodies that didn’t prepare them for life on earth? They are smart, they are intelligent, its just that their bodies have betrayed them in some way. You might be surprised what they have to teach you”

“Teach us?” How could that be? Then he left us with one more thought:

“Try to remember, none of them is their condition by choice, but you are. You may not believe this but what you do next is going to matter a lot in their lives, if not you own”.

We all went to bed that night under the stars of the Sierras uncertain what to do next. As we lay their going to sleep, one of the kids liked to count out loud. I mean really, really loud.

1,2,3,4,5,5,6,…….7…….7….8,9,10 and so on. This went on for hours. This is what he did. He was a “counter”. His name was Robert.

As all of us took Kamis words to heart we all gradually got used to the kids, and they to us. We took them on guided trips into the woods and pointed out the differences between Ponderosa pine and sugar pine, Stellar Jays from Blue jays and listened for the sound of eagles when we tried to be quiet and listen to the woods.

As always, we were interrupted by Robert counting. One of my charges was Jamie, I looked at her one day while he was counting smiled and asked her “ Does he always do that?”

“Yes” she said slowly, her body wracked with cerebral palsy, her hands gnarled into balls. “ But he never gets beyond 25 and he only counts loud when he’s happy”.

“ Do you think he’s happy now?” I asked.
“ Oh sure! He’s very happy. He’s gotten to 25 twice in the last two days, that’s very good!”

I had been introduced to a new scale of success and accomplishment. I shared my tale with the other councilors. It became a cadence that we listened to. His tone, his speed, did he drone off or did he go all the way to 25.

As the weeks went on, we overcame our initial fears of our charges and we did learn to look at them as human beings, and not aliens as Kami had suggested.

Then one day it happened. At lunch, one of the councilors said “ Hey get this – Robert went to 35!”

We were amazed. For two weeks, this kid had only counted to 25, and when he made it to 25 it was like he had climbed to the top of Everest, it took everything he had to strain to do it. When he counted to 25, his entire body counted, not just his mouth. When I told Jamie, she sat surprised “ I’ve known Robert for 10 years, I’ve never heard him count over 25.!” We both sat there and looked at each other as we shared in the accomplishment of another kid.

After awhile we all found ourselves counting to 25. We began to say “25” in place of “ok” or “cool”.

In the last few days of camp, Robert got real quiet. It used to bother us a lot when we were all woken up at 4:00 AM to the sound of Robert counting to 25, but when it stopped we all missed it. Robert never talked; he never held conversations with us councilors or any of the other kids. Robert counted, its what he did. If you asked Robert what was wrong, he would just stare at you and then start counting, sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly. We always felt he was trying to tell us something, we just didn’t know what it was.

On the last day of camp we began to clear our Cabins and began to gather our charges and their arts and craft projects and take group pictures of each other. Suddenly, one of the councilors came running down the hill into the gathering and shouted breathlessly while she ran:

“ He’s counting again!”

And we all smiled. But then she said something else when she reached us.

“ …AND HES UP TO 50!”

We all bolted up the hill to Roberts Cabin. Sure enough, he was counting in the meadow between the cabins

51, 52, 53, 54….

A steady cadence, he was sure of himself this time. I stopped, turned around and went back to the parking lot to get Jamie
“ You have to hear this, Roberts going for a record” I said and I wheeled here up the hill her arms flailing about. She let out a big “whoohoo” like it was a ride at Disneyland.

When we got back to the Meadow we heard “60,61,62,63,64 “ and still he kept going.

Jamie sat with a smile and clapped at the wonder of it. The entire camp had now gathered to hear a boy with Cerebral palsy count. No one knew where it would end but we all sat there in wonder at the sound of it.

“ How far do you think he’s going to go?” They asked. We had no idea, but it was clear that he was going as far as he could.

As Robert approached 90, Robert began to get more deliberate,

90…….91……..92……93…….94…………..95………….96……

97

98
and at 99 he stopped. For a full minute we all sat their and willed him to say his first three digit number in his life and then his whole body strained his arms went up and he said it with a roar.

100!!!!!!!!

We all clapped and shouted and let out a yell. Robert clapped, Jamie clapped and everyone sat there amazed at this simple basic human act of communication. We all approached Robert slowly, not wanting to startle him or upset him. One of the kids said to him “ You did it Robert, you did it”

Then he said the first three words we ever heard him say at Camp.

“ Yes, I did”.

Up till then I wasn’t sure he could talk, but up till then I don’t think I could have really listened anyway.

When all the kids left we said our goodbyes and told their parents what we had learned and thanked them for letting us have their kids for a few weeks. We all gathered and told Roberts parents that he had counted to 100. They were aghast, they had never heard him go beyond 25 and he rarely spoke to anyone. We had brought something out in Robert, but Robert had also brought something out in us. He was counting for himself, but his accomplishment bettered all of us.

We felt that we had witnessed Mallory climbing to the top of Everest, and in some small way we had. We had seen a man accomplish a great task and the simple majesty of it reminded us all of the miracle of human life.

After all the kids were gone and we began packing Kamis suburban for the trip back into civilization, Kami asked us what we had learned from the kids. Then it hit us. Everyone just stood there and looked at their shoes in shame. We all thought we were giving to the kids, but then we all realized it was really the kids were giving to us.

Kami just looked at us and said “ So, who’s the cripple now, eh?”

One man does make a difference. You make a difference with your lives and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. There is a simple majesty to be found in every day life and you are a part of it whether you believe it or not.

Posted @ April 03, 2005 03:07 PM | Current Affairs

Posted by: leelu at April 4, 2005 03:20 PM

Posted by: SquareSlant at April 5, 2005 06:42 AM