Barbara M. McEntire, Editor
This is a letter written by Ma Witcher to several members of the '49 football team, prior to the state championship game. Sent to the Editor by Bert (Leroy) Terrell.
Last night you faced your final and perhaps severest test on the gridiron as Brown High Representatives. I attempted no cheers, no verbal stimulants, no moral pointings. Your skill, your resourcefulness, your modesty, your growing self restraint placed you beyond words of mine. I knew that you knew you were rated as underdogs by some folks. I was not concerned with such predictions. I believed the score would be in favor of Brown and sincerely hoped you would achieve that final satisfaction. In one conclusion, I have unshakable faith - regardless of the score, you are winners.
This last word of mine is less for today and more for the tomorrows that lie ahead of you. I have watched you grow in physical and moral stature - more rapidly and more surely than any single group I have ever previously watched, so much so that I am daring to hope that when you as adults become a part of that greater confluence of humanity that lies beyond the school exit, you will not only NOT be lost in its turgid current, but will become a power-laden directive for good. To expect such is to expect much - have you ever stood on the bank where great rivers meet and watched the tumultuousness of the waters, the discoloration of the purer stream?
Perhaps you will think these words of mine are foolish and sentimental, that they stem from an ineffective, aged craft shut off from the adult current of life by school walls. I realize I am not conversant with all the flotsam and undertows you must encounter, but I am painfully aware of the need of such individuals as I envision you. Indeed, your very own continuation is dependent on such a realization.
Just last week the radio transmission of the drone of a plane traveling faster than sound intensified my already agonizing awareness of the contraction of our world. Your business date, your dinner guest in the not too distant future could conceivably be from beyond the oceans with plenty of time to be home by the wee small hours.
The conclusion of the wiser and more experienced thinkers of our day that our present intellectual, civic and spiritual development is far behind our scientific "know-how" seems indisputable. Somehow, I hope you can help find the means of eliminating that lag. To do so I would have you think not of the destructive forces - the atom bomb and even more terrible weapons of war - but of the need for and application of the constructive influences. I know only vaguely their names and even less of their form, but you must find their identify and put them to work. The answers can only derive from an intense interest in and love for an ever increasing awareness of, and a continuous search for a fuller knowledge of people at home and beyond the seas - their customs, their mode of thinking and living, the driving forces that motivate them. You could begin to recognize the earthiness of these forces, the desperation that leads many people to grasp at any and every kind of trickery, political subterfuge and ideology;
1) if you could have walked with me down the streets of Hong Kong of 1937 and seen people eating dried grass and palleted on the side walk;
2) if you had been warned as I was not to give even a crust of bread to the emaciated beggars lest you be mobbed when the word spread;
3) if you could have stood with me in a silk mill of Tokyo and seen girls of twelve working 12 to 14 hours per day - the flesh of their fingers deeply split by continual submersion in water - girls sold into the slavery of industry and "pleasure-houses" by poverty stricken parents so that the remainder of the family might stay alive;
4) if you could have listened with me as a young Japanese college student about your own age quaveringly said that at the risk of his life he must let us Americans know that not all Japanese approved of the direction of their nation's affairs - and never see that boy again;
5) if you could have sailed with me into Chinese harbors where no gulls appeared because humans consumed the garbage of the ships;
6) if you could hear the outpouring bewilderment of potential converts from other religions, floundering in a sea of confusion because they could not see that our official and commercial representatives acted in accord with the teachings of our missionaries; indeed, of the conflict between the missionaries themselves;
7) if you could have witnessed with me the bodily ejection of a young school boy from an elevator in Rio de Janeiro because he courteously insisted on accompanying us, his guest, to a radio station;
8) if you could read a 1947 letter now in my desk from a perplexed Professor of the University of the Philippines, educated in the USA and feeling strongly the bonds of fellowship with us. It reads in part, "Then Osmena and your fellow Americans came; they were fine boys, these fighting young men. After Japan gave up many of the boys from your country were only interested in women and strong drink. I guess they were home sick." (How would you have replied to such a letter, in the face of the fact that for years we had flaunted our superiority over those islanders?)
The above are but some of the more dramatic eye-openers of my experiences. Perhaps you will say they belong to the past. They do, but if we can believe the observations of our best reporters, these conditions, and worse, exist today, not only in the geographical settings pictured but in more widely spread areas, indeed, to some extent, even here in our own land. These tinderboxes of world inflammability must be removed and a positive way of life must replace them, if you and yours are to have stability and peace in the days ahead, or for that matter, if you are to survive. The responsibilities and the consequences are shortly to become increasingly yours.
I see marvelous potentials but I know you lack, oh, so much, if you are to become performers sufficiently effective to preserve and strengthen our way of life.
My prayer grows ever more fervent that you may become as eager and as determined to develop your intellectual selves for a potent place in the less glorious but more important life struggle as you have been here at Brown to prepare yourselves for the gridiron tests; that you will be selfless in the service of your fellowmen as you have been in the service of your school. Do not be discouraged by seeming failures. The measure of your participation and success is frequently directly proportional to the buffetings you experience. But listen to Browning - he says it so forcefully.
Then welcome each rebuff that turns Earth's smoothness rough
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-part pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
Therefore I summon age to grant youth's heritage.
Life's struggle having so far reached its term;
Thence shall I pass, approved a man for aye removed from the developed brute;
A God through in the germ.
With all sincerity,
"Ma"
P.S. As one step may I suggest you read Dr. Vanevar Bush's "Modern Arms and Free Men" or the excerpts entitled "Moral Armor", published in the Dec. 5, 1949 edition of Life. I am presuming I realize but I am sending a copy to each player in my classes as well as to each 12-H 3 member of the team.
Dear Don,
Thank you so much for your nice note to Everette. Unfortunately, his dementia is such now that he can't read nor understand about the coming Brown High Reunion. I'm so grateful that he did attend the reunion where he saw and knew and talked with so many of his students. He truly cherished that time with all of you. Everette is in excellent physical condition, looks much younger than his 85 years. However, he has lost short term and long term memory to a critical degree. We are still on our beloved mountain farm, and I intend to care for him as long as I can. This is a very caring community, a small county with lots of loving thoughful people. That means a lot to both of us as does the fact that all of you Brown High people still think of him.
Gratefully,
Jane DeVaughn
...,,,,,,,,More about the Coach
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It has come to our attention that there is a misunderstanding among some of our graduates that in order to attend the reunion in the year 2000, a person must be a member of the Brown High Alumni Association and up to date with his or her dues. This is completely erroneous. You do not have to be a member of the association in order to attend the reunion. The purppose of the association is to raise money to cover the cost of this newsletter, its printing and postage and the maintenance of the roster. Membership in the association with paid up dues through the year 2000 will entitle the member to receive a free video of the reunion activities.
It needs to be pointed out that membership does not, I repeat, does not cover the cost of admission to the reunion. This admission cost will be additional. If there are questions please get in touch with a member of the Executive Committee and we will try our best to clarify.
Bill Baker, Treasurer