"Communication..........

“I am not anxious to be the loudest voice or the most popular, but I would like to think that, at a crucial moment, I was an effective voice of the voiceless, an effective voice of the hopeless”………… Whitney M. Young Jr.

Kentucky State is a formerly “all black” college, its present population yet slightly tilted, percentage-wise, toward that ethnicity; and there are yet those who wrinkle their facial features when I’ve spoken of my grandson opting to accept its offer of a “full ride” scholarship there, earned via both his baseball and academic skills. They tell me his paternal grandmother is somewhat aghast concerning the decision. “Big Blue” and several others were on the table. Beth and I, however, are quite pleased, walking with him and his mother around the campus grounds yesterday, entering both the library and the student center, the two of us thoroughly impressed by the friendliness of all encountered. It’s located in Frankfort, close enough to home to allow his parents at least a sense of yet maintaining contact, its complex a mixture of buildings exhibiting modern architecture, but some displaying the history it holds. We were there an hour or so, our stroll taken to invest ourselves into his life, to express our pride in his accomplishment, and undertaken at a pace to accommodate the elderly. Dinner afterwards at a local seafood establishment with a view of the Kentucky River flowing over the dam just outside our window completed the visit. The above quote stuck with me, however, inscribed on the base of a memorial erected in honor of its author, a former graduate, the statue one of the first things our exploration discovered. While the words were initially spoken by one living in a time marked by extreme prejudice, racial bigotry still holding much of this country in its grip, I stood there letting its message sink into the depths of my own identity, believing my antiquity no reason to dismiss myself from such challenge, and trusting Steven, as he continues down the path, to likewise let such mission mark his own life. Like the Marines, God can always use “a few good men”…..