'You are so wonderful. Being near you is all that I'm living for"! More on the Kennedys, Joe Sr., JFK, Bobby and their high-class minions. How puny, ramshackle and dangerous Camelot looks now because of expert Robert Dallek. And that makes for sad reading indeed.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant.

 Author's program note. I first met author Robert Dallek when we both appeared  on a talk show on NECN, the New England Cable News network. We were both  there to promote something... in his case the then latest volume in his magisterial  3-book series on Lyndon Johnson, a flawed man who had squandered his  presidency and place in history by putting the nation and the world through an  unwinnable war in Viet Nam and in whom I had lost interest years ago.

 ... then Robert Dallek entered the picture.

 He started to talk about Johnson in a low-key, conversational, thoughtful and  intelligent way that forced me, for one, to re-evaluate Johnson as more than  a self-pitying man with low self-esteem and the bullying tactics that he used to  cover the "real" man and his particular demons. In Dallek's words, clear, simple,  compelling Johnson came alive... and so did historian Dallek. I've admired  Professor Dallek and his work ever since, and I'm glad to have this opportunity  to say so in the hope that many of my many readers will arrive at this conclusion,  too. Short and sweet, if you like American history, you're going to love Robert Dallek.

 About Robert Dallek, born May 16, 1934.

 Robert Dallek is an American historian specializing in American  presidents. His  objective is to show them as they were... which is hardly ever how they wish to  be seen, for mere humanhood is never the goal of such people; legendary status is.

 Thus the minute Dallek selected unflinching truth and rock-ribbed integrity as his  fixed objective, he became a revolutionary, a  menace to the mendacious everywhere,  but especially those in the White House; a "must read" for the rest.

 Not an overnight success.

 Dallek began (like my father) as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois,  graduating with a B.A. in history in June, 1955. He did graduate work at Columbia  University, earning an M.A. in February, 1957, and a Ph.D. in June 1964. He then  went on to UCLA where he moved inexorably up the academic ladder, from assistant  to full professor of history... with many positions, engagements and illustrious places  and assignments to come.

 Even this brief biographical paragraph provides crucial Dallek details, namely that he  is a historical workhorse, setting the objective, doing the meticulous research every  historian must master, writing, editing, re-writing, editing again. This is what all historians  must do. Good historians do it better than most. Paragons like Dallek do it better than  all but a handful of the gifted. And so, in due course, Dallek wrote at least 14 books  and one learned article after another. Such a man deserves our thanks, respect and  admiration, for he has done what needed to be done... and he has done it with clarity,  intellect and information we needed to know, though it is often shocking, dismaying,  appalling, each word diminishing the subjects, never enhancing them... starting with  Camelot's king himself, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

 Dallek starts and ends his book with a fact that clearly beguiles him, a fact of  the utmost interest and pronounced incredulity: that poll after poll about the presidents  puts JFK and his starkly abbreviated presidency on a par with those of Washington,  Lincoln, and both Roosevelts, with an approval rating of 85 percent, only Ronald Reagan  (at 74 percent) coming close. This fact intrigues Dallek... surprises and perplexes  him for JFK's achievements were thin indeed when compared with the others; not just  thin, either, but distinctly antithetical to greatness and the great needs of the Great  Republic.

 Washington is great because he decreed the Great Republic and disdained to be its  king; Lincoln is great because he adhered to the Great Republic and its unity, doing  whatever was necessary (whether strictly constitutional or not) to preserve it, one  nation under God. JFK ran for president not to secure some great benefit for the  nation but rather because his father, patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy, told him he would...  then ponied up the grit and the wherewithal to make it happen... and successfully so.  John F. Kennedy, his presidency, the jeunesse doree who staffed it and all its myriad  personnel were conjured by Papa Joe and his seemingly unending money and  unequalled drive. He was the true driving force of all.... the Geppeto of all the  Pinocchios.

 President of the United States. Now what?

 Great presidents are great because they represent, sustain and fight for great ideas.  But John F. Kennedy had no such ideas and so started his administration in search  of meaning... and for the people who could help him get it. Whilst engaged in this  matter he did what he was so used to doing, leading an acute, perilous and  dishonorable double life, using women (including 19 year-old Mimi Alford) in  ways both disgusting and pathological and deceiving the nation about his always  precarious and steadily deteriorating health. No wonder Dallek muses about the  Kennedy mystique and its enduring hold on the awe-struck Great Republic.

 Having achieved the greatest office in the world.... and just 43 years old at that....  JFK needed to do something with it, but what? Domestic policy, the betterment of  the citizens, bored him. He who had every advantage could not be bothered, and  was never interested in ensuring the people shared in his gifts and were better off  accordingly. That was beneath his lordly distractions.

 He adamantly preferred the delights of 007 international intrigue and clandestine  agility; in this thrilling arena were princely reputations made... and lost... never mind  that there he, his men, and their implausible plans could be trumped and laid low by  a man named Castro and his beautiful little Caribbean domain to the astonishment of  all. But then Castro believed in his cause... while JFK believed in nothing but his right  to be president, his father's constant refrain... for only that eased the old man's rage  and corrosive embitterment, for he, of course, had wanted to be president, too.

 Fueled by the unending bile of the father, the favored son moved onward and  upward. In 1952 he defeated the Brahmin aristocrat Henry Cabot Lodge who had  condescended to be senator from the great Bay State of  Massachusetts. In  1958 he persuaded its star-struck inhabitants that he was the Coming Man  and his Republican challenger a joke, thereby winning re-election by an  astonishing majority.

 In 1960 he bumped off awkward and garrulous senator Hubert Humphrey in  pivotal West Virginia by the simple, time-honored expedient of greasing the palms  of its dirt-poor and illiterate citizens. He then achieved his party's endorsement  by such proven ploys as promising future offices for present favors. First Brother  Bobby Kennedy, for instance, promised the U.S. embassy to Equador to three  credulous delegates, all important one minute, useless the next.

 "Bobby, there are 19 such ambassadorial assignments to be made in South  America by the president," he was told. Bobby could do the math... thus he had up  to 60 such promises to make, his cynicism and gall swelling his brother's delegate  total.

 And if there were problems, why time and Daddy's bottomless check book could  solve all of them... and even more. It was despicable. It was ruthless... it was cynical.  But it was how hard-ball politics are played in the Great Republic and how its presidents  rise from the multitude into history, cleansed of sin, sanctified, superior, venerated,  twisted into a perfection that makes eternal mockery of the truth, the merest detail, of no significance whatsoever, especially when the matter involves Camelot and its spoiled,  privileged denizens... for they are entitled only to the best... and must not be gainsaid.

 Camelot's Court: Inside the Kennedy White House, Harper, 2013.

 Kings and puissant princes must have followers; the greater their power and  majesty, the more such followers they must have, and these of high position  and earthly consequence. In the Camelot years these paragons were known  as the "best and the brightest" and were selected for their many skills, exuberant  intelligence, educational pedigrees festooned with Ivy, polished condescension and,  most of all, their undeniable ability to uplift the king and augment his glory and  glorious panache.

 "Jesus Christ, this one wants that, that one wants this."

 To his complete disgust and consternation, the new president-elect discovered  that his ambitious, irksome, tiresome countrymen wanted things from him, every  thing their little hearts might desire, including that much over-promised embassy  to Quito. He didn't like their importunities one bit, how dare they? And so he whined  to Daddy this memorable sentiment, "Jesus Christ, this one wants that, that one wants  this. Goddam it, you can't satisfy any of these people. I don't know what I'm going to do."

 But Daddy, arch realist that he was, knew: "Jack," he said with a soupcon of disgust  in his voice, "if you don't want the job, you don't have to take it. They're still counting  votes in Cook County", the place that determined the winner of Illinois and hence the  election.

 It should be mentioned, in fairness, that he like all candidates ended the campaign  exhausted... but unlike other candidates he was already overshadowed by a plethora  of diseases whose treatment often turned him into a near vegetable. No one knew this at  the time, of course; no one knew just how sick he really was; how near ominous death.

 To help keep his explosive secret, JFK used different doctors; no one, absolutely no  one must know all... and no one did until Professor Dallek got permission to study the  medical records for his brilliant, deeply troubling book, "An Unfinished Life: John F.  Kennedy; 1917-1963" (Boston, Little Brown and Company, 2003). It is the best of the  best of Robert Dallek about some of the worst of JFK, but not perhaps the very worst.

 That, some would surely argue, would have been his continuing vulgar usage of  women. In the days following his election, his erotic habits inhibited by instant,  constant, 24-hour-a-day secret service surveillance, he felt trapped and oppressed.

 He did in due course connive at remedies, always putting his high office and  reputation at risk; insulting his wife whenever possible, knowing the depths of  her adoration for him promised instant, unconditional forgiveness.

 This was what he expected from spouse; this is what he expected from everyone...  and in his make-believe court of Camelot, this was what he got, as Robert Dallek  makes so abundantly clear in prose that distresses, dismays, discomfits, disconcerts,  but never palls. We are unsettled, but this is our president, our history, our cross to  bear... and we must see it as it is, in all its ignominy and disgrace, for this president,  his unrestrained usages, his prevarications, his deceits besmirched and threatened  us all, for remember, the nuclear button to kingdom come was his and thus the  future of the world and everyone in it.

 "You are the wonderful one."

 This, of course, is why as the sun rose over the Kennedy White House, the courtiers  of Camelot, Bobby, Ball,  Bowles, Bundy, McNamara, Rostow, Rusk, Salinger,  Schlesinger, Sorensen, et al, gathered each morning to serenade the Apollo of  their imagining, their demi-god, the president they aimed not merely to advise  but to influence and control.

 Their song was "You're A Wonderful One"  first sung by  Marvin Gaye in 1964 on  the Tamla label. Find it now in any search engine and feel not mere love but  adoration and submission.

 "You are so wonderful/ Being near you is all I'm livin' for/  You show me more kindness in little ways/ Then I've ever known in all my days.../  Tell me we'll stay together/ Let me love you forever/  'Cause you're a wonderful one/ You're a wonderful one."

 What a shame he wasn't.

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is the author of over a dozen print publications, several ebooks and over one thousand online articles on a variety of topics including political commentary and US history.  Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com

Son of a gun. The murderous bullets of Sparks. Monday, October 21, 2013. The ineradicable shame of a great nation, knowing what must be done, unable to do it. And Mozart... who turns our tears and rage into the majesty of Redemption. A tale.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant.

 Author's program note. This is the story I didn't want to write about. Didn't want to  hear about... didn't want to think about... didn't want to deal with in any way... but  all to no avail. This is a story that demands the telling... insists upon our honest  rendering... and calls upon us for anger! Outrage! Enmity! Fury! Impatience!  Indignation! Ire! Resentment! Gall! And above all for action, swift, thorough,  complete, grossly overdue.

 It is a tale that demands to be told with the unmitigated clarity of Mozart  and the masterpiece that carried him from the light of the life he loved unto the  unimaginable darkness of darkest death which all approach with awe, resignation,  and hope.

 For this universal situation which touches us all, we need the genius of Mozart  who took this great fear called death, the great fact of life, and gave us, always  with God's love, absolution; the thing we all desire but only God may give...

 Thus for this article of sharp, sickening pain and terrible loss, the more terrible  because unnecessary I give you the necessary antidote, the Requiem Mass in  D minor (K. 626), written in Vienna by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1791 but  unfinished at his death in December of that year. Find it in any search  engine.  Turn up the volume and be glad this work of genius, empathy and compassion  eases the universal way into the eternity into which we all progress and forever  abide. Amen!

 The city of promise.

 The people of Sparks, Nevada, numbering 90,264 in the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau  count are the very essence of America. They believe in God... the Great Republic...  family... and their right and responsibility to seize the imperfect present and create  the always better future. They are proud of the good life they have fashioned for  themselves since the city's founding in 1905, transforming the previously searing  and inhospitable land called "snow clad" ("nevada") by the Spanish hidalgos who  were the first Europeans to tread its immensity. Their civic motto is "It's Happening  Here!"... and so it is ... for good and now with bitterness and rue for ill.

 For the sad fact is an overwhelming majority of these people of the sierras adheres,  and adamantly too, to their right to keep and bear arms and to use these arms, thereby  paying the terrible price, now regarded as the "cost of doing business".  In such  circumstances what does it matter if a few children and their teachers are gunned  down, dying in their own blood, in their once amiable classrooms? Yes, it's just the  cost of doing business after all; a mere bagatelle.

 The facts.

 Before the opening bell on Monday, October 21, a student at a Sparks, Nevada middle  school opened fire with a 9mm semi-automatic Ruger handgun, wounding two 12-year-  old boys and killing a math teacher who was trying to protect children from their  dangerous and determined classmate.

 The still unidentified shooter then killed himself with the gun after a rampage in front  of 20 to 30 students who had just returned to school from a weeklong fall break.

 As news of the shooting got out 150 to 200 police officers responded, including some  from as far away as 60 miles. The two wounded students were taken to hospital  for treatment and are now listed in stable condition. One was shot in the shoulder,  and the other was hit in the abdomen.  Students from the middle school and neighboring  elementary school were evacuated to the nearby high school, and classes were cancelled.  The middle school will remain closed for the week so that the scene of grim carnage  may be scrubbed clean and be pristine again... as if that were even possible... or desirable.

 For we do not need to forget. Instead we need to remember, that is the thing of utmost  necessity, for only memory can help us solve this problem, now seen by many as  inevitable and unsolvable, no longer a conundrum to be unraveled but an immutable fact  of life in our murderous age where there is nothing odd or even noteworthy about a 12-  year-old blowing his former friends and beloved teacher to kingdom come. But of course  this is not merely odd but a chilling abomination and profound moral outrage.

 To accept evil as inevitable when it can be eradicated is evil itself, not a fact of life, but a  fact of death, mayhem, and our descent from grace. Michael Landsberry not only knew  this, not only lived by this but died by this. Thus he woke up Monday a math teacher... but  ended both day and life an American hero, the victim not just of the child who pulled  the trigger but the larger society which enabled him to do so, failing to act to prevent such  predictable and periodic slaughter.

 "Mr. Landsberry".

 Just 45, a man in his prime, Michael Landsberry was a contented man, a man  respected by his peers and grateful community for his actions in war and peace;  loved by an affectionate spouse and even by his two step-children, a success not  given to every step-parent; admired and looked up to by his eighth grade mathematics  students and by the young people he coached in soccer and basketball with strict  guidelines and an unyielding belief that while winning the game was important, playing  it with enthusiasm, integrity, heart, and honor was the real objective. This is the true  Semper Fi and Michael Landsberry, once a Marine, always a Marine, was its  unwavering example and proud ideal.

 Michael Landsberry, the man who survived war, only to be cut down in the peace  that is no peace.

 This modest and unassuming man was a dedicated and caring leader, his gruff  demeanor fooling absolutely no one. He did his bit... more than his bit, including two  tours in Afghanistan. Thus when the pint-sized angel of death entered Landsberry's  classroom intent on inflicting maximum pain with a gun he had so easily taken from his  parents' house, the good teacher did what he taught others to do... doing the right thing,  the valorous thing, the most perilous and sublime thing; interposing his own body  between gunman and his adolescent targets.

 In this way did Michael Lansberry die in the most righteous fashion of all. Thus was  his bald head, which students loved to touch for luck before a big game, dappled  with the blood of a hero. Thus did the man who posted on his drole website his "one  classroom rule and it is very simple: 'Thou Shall Not Annoy Mr. L' " expire, the most  honorable of men, the noblest of deaths and the most unnecessary for we all know  what needs to be done, don't we, though we seem, from the very White House  itself unable to change courses, to move a single inch towards the necessary solution...

 Thus more children, achingly young, must die tragically... more families must suffer  and grieve their loss through the long days and longer nights... innocence no shield...  the most worthy of professions and the most important of work affording no protection  whatsoever. So much pain is sure to come, the unarguable result of accepting "business  as usual", convinced by naysayers that what is is what must be, despite the little we have  done to solve a problem which was not so very long ago unthinkable, a challenge for the  Great Republic to be sure, but surely not too great for our collective mind and capability.

 Or have we indeed sunk so low that we not only tolerate such a matter but accept it as  given, understandable, unfortunate to be sure, certain, tolerable, tolerated, an occasion  for a president... a governor... a mayor to send a formulaic message and prattle futile  generalities about "an isolated incident", then disengage from the matter as soon as  possible, while everyday people leave teddy bears and home made signs about love  and loss at the death scene, nothing accomplished, absolutely nothing; no progress  made, or even a beneficial discussion about what must be done, at once, with  commitments, not platitudes.

 Thus are we condemned to repeat this maddening process over and over again, less  consideration given to this outrage than to the one before; less consideration given to  the next outrage than to this one, whilst people, good people, die, along with our high  ideals once sacred guidelines for our purposeful endeavors, now flagrant ironies mocking  who we were, who we are, and the widening chasm between these glaring, irreconcilable  realities.

 "I fear I am writing a requiem for myself." Mozart, 1791.

 In such an unsatisfactory, worrisome situation we need hope, we need to believe  that things can be better, that we can make them better. We need Mozart who on the  very threshold of death wrote a stirring tribute to the glory of life and the possibilities  which exist to its very last moment before eternal repose.

 "I fear I am writing a requiem for myself," he wrote as he worked day and night on his  last great labor... and so he was... for himself, for you, for me, and for the victims of  Sparks, especially a hero named Michael Landsberry whose work at its unexpected  conclusion was as tragically incomplete as Mozart's requiem... left for us, the living, to  finish, a matter of the utmost necessity for us and what we owe our honored dead  whose ranks are sure and unnecessarily to grow apace if we fail to act as we have  failed to act for so long.

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is the author of over a dozen business and marketing books, several ebooks, and over one thousand online articles.  Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com

10,000 (Wo)men of Harvard. Oprah Winfrey at Commencement, May 30, 2013 and I am proud to be there for

Author's program note. I knew I would go to Harvard Commencement this year after I read a disconcerting article in The Boston Globe some months ago. It cited the opposition of certain alumni to having Miss Oprah Winfrey as this year's principal speaker and honorary degree recipient, Harvard's chief honor. Their argument went something like this, some of it overt, some (the ugliest) not.

She wasn't up to Harvard standards, she was not a woman of education, not a woman of merit, and most important, NOKD, "Not our kind, dear." As these words, written and implied, rolled out, I knew in my bones that come hell or high water, I would be present, in full regalia, to honor the lady and what I knew would be her message of hope, inspiration and empowerment.

And so yesterday, on the unexpectedly hottest day of the year, I went back to Harvard, on the day of my own 43rd graduation anniversary... to show solidarity, support, good manners and discerning judgement. And no one cheered her more loudly and with greater sincerity than I did... for I recognized that this was not merely an event to honor a single woman, no matter how deserving of such honor. But far more important to honor the sisterhood and their gentle revolution, an epochal event that changed the world and liberated not just women but men, too, for the liberation of women has certainly meant the liberation of men, though not all such have recognized this yet.

Dramatis personae.

Before I go on I want to take this opportunity to introduce you to the principal players in yesterday's production. First, there is Mr. Aime' and Mrs. Mercedes Joseph, born in Haiti, two of the principal reasons why my life works so well and smoothly. I took them to Commencement to thank them, to show them an aspect of Americana they would not otherwise see, and, frankly, because it is easy to trip and fall amidst the undulations of such a huge crowd... and their support was very useful indeed.

Drew Gilpin Faust, President of Harvard University, Lincoln Professor of History.

Sandra Demson, '58, distinguished attorney in Canada, veteran of the revolution.

Oprah.

Diane Neal Emmons, Ed.M., an old friend rediscovered, another soldier for the cause, her weapons of choice her wit, ebullience, and an optimism that will not waver, despite the provocations life throws at each of us, delighting to see what we will make of them.

Fate.

As a social scientist, student of the material world in all its manifestations, I should not believe in such matters as destiny, providence, or kismet. Should not. But when a day arranges itself as felicitously as yesterday's did, the right things happening in just the right order, one is forced to consider the inconvenient notion that something other than random chance is present, "inconvenient" because unpredictable, though that doesn't necessarily mean bad. Yesterday's serendipities were anything but...

Security.

Since I arrived at Harvard in the fall of 1969, I have passed through the great Class of 1877 Gate thousands of times. But when I passed through it yesterday I was patted down by a female security officer. It is a sign of our times, a blip that tells us the world has changed, and not for the better. Once inside a recollection from "Gone With The Wind"  came to mind. It was at the beginning of the film, where the newly engaged couple, Ashley and Melanie, stand on the balcony of Twelve Oaks and look out at their world of grace, luxury and privilege, a world they love, threatened with destruction whether the South wins or not.

I stood for a moment, just next to the president's office in Massachusetts Hall and looked at the vibrant scene before me. It, too, is challenged, roiled by even positive change...  I was determined to see, determined to remember what I saw this day and what was part of me: class marshals in top hat and cut-away; their female counterparts wearing bright red rosettes with bright smiles to match; academic gowns from every renowned and prestigious university on Earth; new graduates wearing the most desirable costume of all, their unflinching youth. They would shortly sing "Gaudeamus igitur, Juvenes dum sumus" (Let us rejoice while we are young.) They would not understand... but the alumni before them would... for the words, once just lyrics of a well-known song, gather their profound meaning with every passing year in an exercise we call wisdom and which we cannot approach unmoved.

Rubbing for luck.

Every alumnus becomes perforce a guide when escorting guests to Commencement, and so, hobbling, I lead the Josephs to the statue of John Harvard, the Founder. Only it isn't. There are no extant images of the man whose gift of books, lavish as all gifts to Harvard should be, launched the greatest educational establishment on Earth (1636).

What to do? Improvise! And thus a suitably attractive young man of noble countenance from the class of 1884 was invited to pose for the famous statue by Daniel Chester French. It stands in the center of the Yard, the faceless Founder facing eternity in the body of flawless youth. Both have thereby been immortalized, and this is perhaps why one is advised to rub the shoe for luck... for seizing eternity is certainly worth the doing. This is something every Harvard student knows.

The President!

When you talk of The President in Cambridge, you mean the President of Harvard. It was my privilege to share a few minutes conversation with the current occupant yesterday, Drew Gilpin Faust, president since 2007. An historian herself, she is a person of history; the first woman to lead Harvard. Let me tell you this: she is well and truly on her way to becoming one of the most respected and beloved leaders of this historic institution and thus one of the great benefactors of the Great Republic and the wider world beyond, for Harvard is universal now and forever more.

When you think of President Faust think of what has happened to and in the world since her historic appointment. You will then understand she has presided over six turbulent years, years when even Fortress Harvard knew anxiety. If she never did another thing, she would find an honorable place in Harvard's story. But at just 65, she is in her prime... ready to do battle for the light. What will she do? Here's a clue to one of her projects...

In her remarks yesterday she drove home one essential point; that the impending massive cuts in federal research funding are short sighted, self destructive, ill advised in every way.  Research is what gives us the improvements we desire; slicing any part of it gives us less. Does this make sense?

President Faust will ensure Harvard's clout is used to avoid this folly. And she has my support in doing so. Just as she will always have my support in any and all endeavors to strengthen the liberal arts and humanities, always the great beating heart of Harvard.

"Is this seat taken?"

There were just three seats left in about the fourth row, and I knew we should grab them. But first I needed a positive response to the question asked through the ages: Is this seat taken? And so I came to meet a new friend, Sandra Demson, Class of '58. She had come to participate in the 55th Reunion of the Harvard and Radcliffe Classes of 1958. I introduced myself and in just a minute or two we were chatting like a house afire, discovering one person after another we knew and had in common. Harvard meetings are like that.

However, the most important aspect of our conversation concerned my questions to Sandra about the differences she discerned in the situation of Radcliffe students in 1958 and the position of women undergraduates today. And here a pleasant afternoon's smooth conversation became more than chat, an insight into history, something she wanted to tell... and I very much wanted to hear.

You see, Sandra Demson, smart, attractive, charming, was part of the generation which placed every aspect and feature at the foot of Man... and lived to regret it, like so many other women who not only discovered father didn't know best; they discovered that father knew hardly anything at all... and this made for many problems, ructions, and difficulties, especially when Man continued to insist upon a superiority he clearly did not possess.

And so Sandra, like every "good woman" of her age and outlook learned to carry on, bite her tongue, and somehow keep the faith alive, that better days, and lasting love, too, would come to her. And, in due course, "this too shall pass" passed... And God granted her marital love, peace, and the easy, "woman of the world" manners which we have all erred in not insisting our young successors should have and which she graciously shared with me on this sweltering day.  

Oprah!

It was Sandra Demson who looked at Oprah and said, "She's nervous. She's trembling"... No wonder. A poor black girl from the Deep South,had by dint of unceasing work, determination and an attitude of "must" not just "can" do had scaled the heights into the very citadel of American prestige. There she was, physically smaller than her outsized television presence, quivering just a bit but the crowed roared for her... and so the lady of embracements, hugs and love, was soon awash in the huzzas which must have been heard blocks away. In a very real sense, Oprah Winfrey had come home, and she was greeted accordingly.

The music.

When the tumult ebbed a bit, Oprah began. Soon, just in passing, she mentioned a tune she loved. I looked it up when I got home and immediately understood her better as well as why she'd referenced it, holding it close, a security blanket. It is "We'll understand it better bye and bye". Written by Charles Albert Tindley (1851- 1933), an ex-slave and "the Father of Gospel Music", it is a rousing, barn stormer of a song, the lyrical equivalent of Oprah herself. Go now to any search engine and listen carefully..."We are tossed and driven/ on the restless sea of time... We will understand it better bye and bye." I prefer the inimitable version by Mahalia Jackson. Listening to this mistress of godly soul, you can believe, deep in your heart, that better times will come as they came to Oprah Winfrey.

Then Oprah told us how they came to her, what she learned, what she had to do... and what she had to share with others. She spoke, like a female Polonius, of being true to thyself, of living your own life, not the life assigned to you or allowed by others. She spoke of the commitment one must make, the unceasing focus one must maintain. And she spoke of what must be done in the inevitable days when troubles come and one faces the reality of dread and defeat. This was not mere eloquence, though the lady excels at eloquence. It was not mere rhetoric, though the lady's rhetoric is notable... no, indeed. Instead she was speaking from what the world knows as her great heart... so motivational, so inspirational, so uplifting that along with her massive crowd of the eminent, learned and well connected, I was on my feet, not just cheering, but shouting approbation and encouragement... yes, Oprah had come home.... and for the lady who loves there was ample love indeed.

Dee-On.

My day was, I thought, over and completely successful. Aime' and Mercedes Joseph had given support. President Faust impressed and reassured. Sandra Demson gave charm and friendship. Oprah gave the formula not merely for success, but how to conquer failure. It was enough, more than enough, but there was more....

Leaving the Tercentenary Theatre, Oprah whisked away by the omnipresent security, I saw a face I knew so well... and it was Diane (always pronounced Dee-On), Diane Neal Emmons. And so serendipity continued, unpredictability its metier, for here was a long-lost friend, benefactor when I was a penurious graduate student, forty years ago, success in the future, but when? Diane and her legendary hospitality helped make waiting bearable. This time she invited me to her home for the 4th of July celebrations when the known world gathers in her front yard  to extol the Great Republic. I may even go... for there is a story there... and I want to be the one who tells it, for only thus will we "understand it better bye and bye..."

  About the Author Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc. at www.worldprofit.com, providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.