1 Interview with Michael Meade Tape 1 New American
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Interview with Michael Meade Tape 1 New American Heroes (01:01:27:15) Well, I don’t know about initiated. Um… You know and I’ve thought about it and I’ve had to think about it, because, like I was saying to the group today, um… Where we have been mentored awakens parts of ourselves, and it’s good to know one’s own mentoring background or history. (01:01:47:03) And I think the first mentoring I experienced was from older guys in the neighborhood. Well actually, I have to back up even one more. I talk about mentoring moments, because that’s how a lot of it went for me. And one of the bigger moments in my young life was a teacher. Um…A nun. I had... I went to catholic grammar school and I had nuns, and mostly that wasn’t so good. But one of the nuns, who was a very young woman and very new to being a nun – so that would have been, I think six grade – really helped me out. (01:02:27:09) She really saw something in me that I wasn’t clear about at all, and just named it and kind of uh…made a point of celebrating it because I was an enigma for the teachers. I would have often the highest grades, or close to the highest grades, but I was always in trouble. I was always like a wise guy with good grades, which wasn’t supposed to happen. It was supposed to be two separate groups. And uh… and she somehow spotted what that was about and figured that out. And um… So that was an early mentor. (01:03:03:06) And she did a startling thing. She told the class that… The way they had the class set up, is the people with the highest grades sat in the front and then everybody descended. And so if you – isn’t that bad (laugh) – so if you were sitting at all the way in the back, it meant one of two things: you had the lowest grades or you had done something bad. And so she said, ‘Well, I have a problem because we have one student who should be all the way at the back for behavior and all the way at the front for performance’. And she said, ‘so I’ve been advised’ – she was very young –‘I’ve been advised to put him at the back’, she said, ‘but it doesn’t feel right to me.’ She said, ‘I was raised with five brothers and I wouldn’t put them at the back. So I’m going to put him at 1 the front and I want you to understand that’ – and this was stunning. I remember it now. She said, “Michael is either going to be a leader for the good or a leader for the bad. And we are going to put him in the front and all pray that he becomes a leader for the good.” (laugh) And she stunned me, you know. This is in front of the whole class. And it was so…what would you call that, psychological and alert. (01:04:09:16) And uh…She was a sweet heart. And she followed that actually, by she began to weep about her brothers, and she took her habit off. It was a stunning thing. You know, you see nuns and they have that thing on. She took the, the habit off and she had a shaved head. Here was this…She was probably in her twenties, early twenties. And she just began to cry in front of everybody. She said, ‘I miss my brothers and I’m not sure if I’ve done the right thing, and I have to wear this, and all this stuff’. (01:04:42:05) So anyway, it was all woven together, this very dramatic and emotional thing, where she was, in a sense, showing this idea that when you see a young person, you really should bless what you see, and that should take precedence over rules and things like that. And she did it right there in the classroom. (laugh) So that was an early mentoring experience that I had. (01:05:06:01) (01:05:51:27) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes good sense. And, and in telling that story which I haven’t thought of for a long time. The way that she revealed her struggle was so moving and so endearing and so authentic. And I don’t know how the other kids felt about it. I mean, it was just something that happened. I think everybody was shocked. But, it was one of those things where you saw her and her struggle, and it made me as a child, as a kid, feel like, okay it’s alright to be struggling, it’s alright to make mistakes and all. Anyways, it was a lot put in there, that she contributed there. (01:06:35:00) And uh… So I think that has a lot to do with mentoring. That willingness to reveal oneself and to join the younger people in the struggle. You know, and then obviously to stand for something that’s meaningful to that person, or an insight, and to just bless it. I felt, I felt a little confused by that, but a little blessed by that. So, that was an early one. (01:06:59:28) 2 (01:07:13:23) And the fact that she could see this odd combination of wanting to learn and do well, and still be intrigued with trouble and upsetting things, you know, which is really how I was. I didn’t want to be a good kid; I wanted to be a good student. And other than that, in the regular stuff she found a way to make that okay, which wasn’t the case in other classes. So… (01:07:42:13) (01:07:49:03) Well, I had a number of them. But I was in the military during the Vietnam War, and um, the experience began before I went into the military, and it was definitely initiatory – what caused me to study initiation when I got out. I had been drafted. I’d gone to college, and right after I finished college I got drafted. And this was early. This was sixty-four. (01:08:13:05) And um… So I didn’t want to go to that war. So I wrote him a letter back and said, ‘you know, I don’t think this is actually a declared war. And as far as reasons for this military action, they don’t seem very convincing to me. And so I don’t think I’ll come. I think I’ll wait. And so if you have another one, and it’s a little more clear, you know, send me another message.’ Well, of course, I got a letter back from them rather quickly, saying, ‘either you come in for this hearing or you’ll be arrested.’ So I went to the hearing, and I was thinking about it a lot. (01:08:58:16) Um, and it’s one of those things I know that young people do. They really take things seriously regardless of how they look and act – they’re really considering. And I was really considering what was right in all of this. And I had this catholic education that talked about what was right and wrong, and I thought this was wrong, what was happening. (01:09:15:29) So I went down and I told them that. And they said, ‘well then you must want to apply to be a conscious objector,’ and so they gave me this piece of paper and I read it. And it said stuff like um, ‘for religious reasons and because I’ve always been opposed to violence and all this kind of stuff. And I said, ‘you know, this doesn’t exactly apply. I mean, I grew up in a neighborhood. I couldn’t claim that I have no interest in violence and there is evidence to the contrary. (laugh) And I said, so this isn’t exactly right. I said, ‘I’d like to write up my own. Can I do that?’ And they said, ‘No. Either you sign that and swear by that or your going to. 3 (01:09:50:07) Anyway, so I wound up in this either or situation. I talked to everyone that I knew, and everyone that I knew said, ‘you have to go’. And so I wound up going. I kind of lost a little bit of my resolve, partly because everyone I knew said, ‘no, you have to do this’. So I went in and uh, a part of it I liked actually. The boot camp was really interesting. It was energetic and I was meeting people from all over the country and all different races and ethnic background and social backgrounds. I really liked it. (01:10:19:26) Um, but when we went into… We went to Panama for jungle training in preparation to go to Vietnam. And then they started to give this kind of instruction about how to kill and how to just follow orders and all. And I was not good at that. I wasn’t good at orders. And so um…So I started to refuse to follow orders. You know, I would say, ‘well, I’ll follow this one, but this one I don’t think is a very good order, so you know, I’m skipping that order.” And of course they didn’t like that at all.