My dad speaks fluent, precise English but never felt totally sure of it, so from the age of 10 I've been editing his business memos ("Lucy, when you have time, will you have a look at this?") This got easier after email!
He began his career in radio broadcast and got to interview all sorts of people (the most famous were I.M. Pei and Bobby Kennedy); but I was in my teens before I realized he had a lot of fans in Asia-Pac who listened to his programs out of Voice of America and (if they lived in Communist countries) had their fan letters smuggled out to reach him at the VOA. Some said his programs made their lives bearable. Can you imagine?
In the 1980s he and Mom went to China to help VOA establish their Beijing bureau. Mom got a job within the American embassy. One day some Iranian students protested the embassy and when all the employees were gathered at the windows, nervously watching Marines contain the trouble at the gates, one of her colleagues said, "Hey, Jean, isn't that your husband down there?!" Mom looked and — yup, yup — there was Dad, on the other side of the barbed wire, interviewing the students, asking why they were demonstrating.
He later took a producer's job with the State department, leading international documentary film crews across America to cover topics from "public education" and "public health" to "the transcontinental rail" and "TV heroes." Along with helping them interview celebs (Bob Hope, Shirley Temple Black, Stephen Cannell), he also took these crews to public parks and grocery stores and shopping malls, to tell them, "Americans aren't like the people you see on TV shows like 'Dallas' or 'Dynasty.' They worry about the same things as other people on the planet." When he retired at age 69 ("65 means nothing!"), then-vice president Al Gore sent him a letter of thanks, but we had a feeling he wasn't yet done.
And he wasn't. He's spent the past 14 years working freelance for the State department, still leading film crews on "co-op" assignments with our government. Now he's in his early 80s and last week he asked me to edit his "real" letter of resignation. I know my mom's relieved because she's worried for his health each time he traveled with these crews, but I felt a big lump in my throat checking that "swan song" letter.
On the other hand, his way is how I'd like to live/work — "65 means nothing!" — just keep going until I know it's time to stop. Everything I learned about the value of work came from my dad.
(Photo: When Dad started with the VOA, John F. Kennedy was president of the United States. The Kennedy campaign had worried about their candidate's Catholicism. Back then it would've been unheard of for a black man to become president; in the span of his career, that's come about, and my father's had that headline clipping in his office since 2007).
(Photo: When Dad started with the VOA, John F. Kennedy was president of the United States. The Kennedy campaign had worried about their candidate's Catholicism. Back then it would've been unheard of for a black man to become president; in the span of his career, that's come about, and my father's had that headline clipping in his office since 2007).
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