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(crossposted from the Clark group)
Last Saturday morning at 10am my guy and I pulled out of the driveway headed to Little Rock around 10am. For six hours the man I love drove us through nightmarish torrential downpours just so we could be on time for the "Red Jacket Ball". Gert Clark was this years honoree and Bill Clinton was the guest speaker.
We arrived shortly after 6pm, among the first 50/75 people to arrive (it eventually swelled to about 450/500). After getting a beer, we met a very passionate young lady from Maine who told us exactly what the "Red Jackets" were. They are a branch of Clinton's Americorps program who work with literacy etc to help children in a very few selected impoverished communities.
I saw Gert first, then Wes, around 6:30pm but decided to wait until after the speeches to meet them and get pictures. Very bad mistake. Their kid and his family were in town and they left immediately after the ceremony.
We were seated with a very interesting corporate lawyer and his family from Little Rock. He worked with Bill in the 1966 Arkansas gubernatorial primary for the same candidate. Clinton drove the candidate's wife and daughter and our dinner-mate drove the candidate. It just so happened I read the first 100 pages of Clinton's biography on the drive up and the guy is right there-on page 84. He, his wife and their daughter from San Francisco made Michael and me feel very comfortable.
I had 2 beers, at least 5 glasses of wine, and the food was certainly above average (baked chicken, grilled vegs, nice salad and cheesecake).
The program was divided into several parts. Primarily, the "Red Jacket Ball" is meant to build up these kids and show them some support. The first portion had a couple of corpsmen speaking of their experiences, some marching and military calisthenics. After a brief break were we were able to talk, the program returned with corps members singing "America the Beautiful".
Then General Clark took the stage! The hometown audience obviously loved him but not as much as he loves Gert. His job was to introduce her and he did it with great style. Against a photographic backdrop of pictures taken over the last 40 years he described a remarkable woman that he obviously adored. My absolute favorite moment of the night was when Wes PROUDLY said "She doesn't bake cookies either. She's way too busy serving in taking care of others."
Gert, herself, was wonderful. She spoke graciously of the program and its effect on kids, how it allowed them to think beyond themselves into service to others. I was greatly impressed.
Now its time for Bill Clinton's keynote. An 11 year old child from the 9th ward of New Orleans introduced him. When he and his mom were forced to evacuate to Little Rock, she got him involved in the junior auxiliary to the "Red Jackets" called "Young Heros". The kid spoke about how they had helped him come to see himself not as a hurricane victim but as a hurricane survivor. Then this sweet child, his voice frequently breaking, introduced the 42nd president of the United State, Bill Clinton.
The audience went wild (even my rather reserved partner whooped it up!-it was his first time to see Bill in person). He spoke of the importance of the program to young lives and how essential it was to keep funding. In his only political statement of the night, he urged us all to lobby for continues funding, saying the Rethugs wanted to abolish the estate tax to save rich folk like him money while they refused to fund port security (checking cargo freight) or programs like "Red Jacket".
Then Bill spoke of Nelson Mandela and how he hoped to be in South Africa for his 80th birthday celebration and of how he'd made Chelsea watch his release from prison because it was a historic event.He said he asked Mandela if he hated the South African politicians who imprisoned him for so many years. Mandela replied that he had, at first, but had realized that only by releasing that hate could he truly free himself from them.
After his speech, Clinton morphed into Elvis, surrounded by hordes of people waiting for a second. I waited until the worst was over and slowly made my way to him. When I was on his immediate right, several young women were on his immediate left. I was able to stand next to him for 4-5 minutes, with my hand on his shoulder while he was seemingly oblivious. It was really amazing. Eventually he turned, I asked if I could have a picture, and we posed. We'll see if it worked (it was a cheap, disposable camera).
The next day we went to the Clinton Presidential Library and were blown away. It deserves a thread all its own, as does the beautiful city of Little Rock and "Bosco's-The restaurant for beer lovers". Hopefully, I'll get around to it eventually.
It was a magical trip and the perfect way to kick off my better half's retirement! We honored Gert, admired Wes, and loved our President. It doesn't get much better than that!
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