There was nothing I could do about it. Nobody told me that. Nobody told me that there were things I couldn’t change. I wasn’t warned. No one said that there were forces out there that I couldn’t control. Perhaps I didn’t have the experience. The fire lit by President Kennedy wasn’t easily extinguished, unless you got too close to Vietnam. And it was possible perhaps that his spirit could live on and in spite of the forces that contradicted him I could make a difference.
Little ol’ me, what could little ol’ me do? Everywhere there were people who were smarter than me, people who went before me, and knew, just knew what we needed to do to make a difference in the world. I would give anything to know for sure that I did that…that I made a difference. (I mean beyond with an individual.) Here I was going to be teaching science when I didn’t have the language skills to do that. Over and over I debated about what I should do. I don’t know how many other volunteers were going through a similar crisis. Apparently not many, from what I could see from how other people around me were picking up Tagalong. I began to worry and lose sleep at night; however I didn’t know enough to quit. Quitting was not an option. Quitting would’ve been un-American. So I had to come up with an idea or a strategy big enough to save me.
So hanging in there with a lie, with the lie that I felt confident, still (for the sake of my image back home and because I had pushed my wife into this after she had come up with the idea), pretending to love it, but tormented as I said, I played along. I would change the world, damn it! No one would need to ask me what I did for my country, and I was determined to succeed. I was going to make Uncle Sam proud. No, I wouldn’t approach the CIA; we had been warned not to do that; (there was an agreement between the CIA and the Peace Corps that the CIA would stay away from volunteers) or start another war, hopefully not that. Any fool could start a war, and I was no fool.
Yes, I was determined to succeed. Nothing wrong with that. It was the way we all should think…after all Uncle Sam was counting on all of us and had forked over a lot of dough to get us there…but for me it would have to be something that would have a lasting effect, something spectacular that my father and mother would approve of. I had never been interested in teaching science in a nipa hut. When I joined the Peace Corps, no one had told me I would have to do that, but then after I was accepted that was exactly where I found myself.
I would bide my time. I was almost ready to sacrifice myself for the cause of science, the science that had fueled the space race, critical science capable of destroying the world, that wonderful genie that also made the world go around, yes, that girl I could never approach even if my life depended on it. I would find something worthy to do, serve in spite of it all.
I actually had a connection. Connections help. There was a Filipina in the theater. I knew her there. We had gone to graduate school together. I knew she worked in the theater in Manila. She was dynamic and motivated, always in charge, very creative, with more juice than I would ever have. She attracted people to her that were also very bright and very capable of creating anything they wanted. She would create her own theater. Mrs. Marcos paved the way, as she could. Mrs. Marcos was known for her extravagance and a fetish for shoes. That, in fact, was not important to me. But a lot of people were trying to get something from Mrs. Marcos. She didn’t know me. I’m talking about Mrs. Marcos. Mrs. Marcos held the key to my success, yes Mrs. Marcos, and why not skip to the top? Of course, to get to her I would have to rely on my connection. And the importance of that could not be underestimated.
Randy Ford
