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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday August 26, 2002 Volume IV Number 34 |
FOCUS - Journeys and Journals
It’s been nearly two hundred years since the two now famous explorers ventured up the mighty Missouri River on a mission inspired and initiated by President Thomas Jefferson. We will be hearing a lot about their exploits in the coming months. It’s the Bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. All along their route, locals will set up concession stands and tours and memorabilia and photo opportunities, a chance to get a taste of life along the Missouri River, up to the “Gates of the Rocky Mountains” and on to the Lemhi Pass and over the Continental Divide (not then so named) picking up the Columbia River, downstream (at last) to the Pacific Ocean.
After a crash course in wilderness survival, scientific gathering of data on plants and wildlife and geography, cartography (map-making), medicine and journaling in general, Captain Meriwether Lewis (an Army Captain who became personal Secretary to President Thomas Jefferson) selected a favorite comrade, Army Lieutenant William Clark, to accompany him on a landmark expedition, financed by the United States Government. Jefferson convinced the Congress to fund the journey. They approved a budget of $2,500.
A year before their departure, Jefferson closed escrow on a substantial land deal with the French. For a paltry $15 million, the United States “purchased” a mighty tract of land from the French in 1803 extending the territory of the new nation West of the Mississippi River all the way to the Rocky Mountains, the territory known then as Louisiana. History calls the mega-deal “The Louisiana Purchase.” To this day, some argue that the French had nothing to sell except perhaps, their release of any claim on the land and their guarantee to allow the expansion of the United States into the territory unchallenged. But Jefferson believed that Washington, having paid such a terrific sum, ought to stake a formal claim on its newly acquired territory. To do so required a bold official journey into the unknown. Lewis and Clark were chosen.
Landing in St. Louis after the first leg of their journey from Pittsburg down the Ohio River and up the Mississippi River, the two men, Lewis (age 28) and Clark (age 33) recruited nearly fifty men to accompany them on the historic and dangerous journey. They secured river boats and supplies, all to pre-determined specifications. They also carried a box of silver medallions, attached to neck-ribbons of red, white and blue. On one side of the heavy coin was a likeness of Thomas Jefferson looking like a President and on the other the image of a warm handshake, symbolizing the hope that native peoples occupying the land would welcome their new landlords as friends.
The dramatic story of their journey emerged slowly, rising to legendary status much later. From start to finish, the expedition took nearly three years. When the two returned, they were welcomed and celebrated as conquering heroes. But remember this, in 1806 there was no national media. There were no cameras. No Associated Press or CNN.
Ultimately, what secured their journey as a turning point in American history was their extraordinary written record. The two, but primarily Clark, wrote prolifically as they traveled. Clark the detail man. Lewis the writer of moving narrative. Neither could spell. Handwritten volumes. Stacks of them. When the complete journal was finally published one hundred years later (in 1904) it filled thirteen volumes. Nearly a million words. It is, perhaps, the most comprehensive record ever kept from the era. And it details an amazing journey.
It’s a journey that has something for everyone.
Expansionists
loved the groundbreaking nature of the expedition. It opened the way to trade,
commerce, booming agriculture, transportation and exploration of natural
resources. A brave new world.
Conservationists value the story because of its focus on species, both plant and animal, and the maps and the narratives of life on the prairies and in the mountains and the fresh descriptions of Native Americans in their unspoiled environments just two centuries ago.
Adventurers can only imagine the dangers and the near-misses and the battles against fatigue and disease and starvation, surviving the heat and the cold and the wind and the rain and snow, the high altitude and the barren dry plains, the rapids and the waterfalls, all challenging the party. Only one of their number died.
Social theorists note that the collection of crewmen were an American rainbow coalition. Primarily Europeans, the fifty crew came from every sort of background. Clark brought along his personal slave, a likable man named York, who entertained the troops and the tribal chiefs, worked tirelessly, inspired the others with his winsome ways, and finally secured, as his reward for a successful journey, his freedom (though it must be said, embarrassingly, Clark never really approved). The expedition met with countless tribes along the route, each encounter demanding a new approach. With the exception of one near disaster which almost broke out into violence, the meetings were gracious and friendly.
Amateur and professional psychologists find Captain Meriwether Lewis a fascinating case study. Lewis was a melancholy sort, battling depression throughout his life. Three years after his victorious return to the White House and toasts all around at Monticello, then the Governor of the Louisiana Territory, suffering under the crushing burden of a personal financial mess, in a lonely hotel route en route to Washington, he took a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. (Some refuse to believe it was suicide, but no evidence of foul play exists.) He was thirty-four years old.
Romantics love the mysterious Sacagawea (sack-a-ja-wé-ah), a teenager brutally kidnapped as a child from her native tribe and then given as a “gift” to a French trapper. She became one of his two wives. Just a bit more than half way through her first pregnancy, she joined the party along with her husband somewhere along the river way up in the north country. Along the way, she bore her child, a son, Jon Baptiste, with the help of first-time midwife Captain Lewis, relying on his medical training back in Pittsburg. She accompanied Lewis and Clark on to the Pacific Ocean emerging as a key contributor to success, only bidding the party farewell when they finally returned to her home on the plains. Her value as a translator and negotiator and companion is well documented. Her fortitude and courage carried the expedition inexpressibly. Without the journals, she would be unknown to history. Today, Sacagawea is an American heroine, across cultural lines, right along with Pocahontas.
Patriots see in Lewis and Clark an unwavering commitment to their country. Their fierce courage and good natured co-operation and diligence in the face of a life-threatening, impossible challenge, give living testimony to the American spirit patriots so admire.
In the days and months ahead, we will all revisit the remarkable expedition of Lewis and Clark and the “Corps of Discovery.”
The team of tireless travelers will once more provide us with lessons in leadership.
* * * * * * * * *
Until last week, I had never heard the name Rich Beem.
Rich is a regular guy. Thirty two years old. Lives in El Paso, Texas with his wife Sarah where the cost of living is reasonable. And you can play golf year ‘round. The green fees are about as low as anywhere in the country.
Rich had a reputation. He could blast a drive farther than most everyone else around. Over three hundred yards, just about every time. Right in there with Tiger Woods and John Daly. The rest of his game needed work. But his drives. Off the tee. Guys would sign up just to get a first hand look at those monster hits long and straight deep into the fairway. They would just laugh and shake their heads. Impossible, they would say. And then take the long cart ride out to the landing site, point, and laugh some more. Whoa. Look at that.
In 1994, Rich got his professional (PGA) card, and made an attempt at becoming a real tour pro. But like so many un-named wannabes, the pressure and the demands and the financial realities caused him to give in to the “reality check.” There was no shortage of friends and family who were quick to remind him that this was an impossible dream and that he ought to get real about his future. Get a real job, they said.
So he quit. He moved up to Seattle. Took a position selling cellular phones and car stereos. And for the first time, brought home a regular paycheck to Sarah.
One Sunday afternoon in 1998, glued to the television set, he watched his old pal J.P. Hayes from El Paso, Texas play in the Buick Classic. J. P. won. He defeated Tiger Woods. On the final stroke on the eighteenth green, as J.P. rolled the ball into the hole and then reached down to pull his ball out of the cup and the crowd cheered and J.P. stood tall and smiled and tipped his hat to the enthusiastic applause and then tossed his ball high into the assembly of admirers, Rich jumped up and down around the living room, screaming, pumping his fist as though he was there with his old pal… he wanted to high five him in person.
He wanted it so bad it hurt.
He told Sarah. “Pack your bags. We’re goin’ for it.”
He resigned his Seattle sales job.
They moved back to El Paso.
* * * * * * *
It is no surprise, really, that this literary gold mine, one million words filled with drama, scientific observations, brilliant colors, descriptions of landscapes and mountain ranges and prairies, lazy wide rivers and roaring rapids, sunrise and sunset on the horizon of big open skies, countless new species of creatures and plants, strange communities of nomadic tribes, wearing costumes of a different sort, beads and feathers and tanned leather, living in villages filled with cone shaped tents, houses like circular pyramids, conversations in peculiar dialects, unforgettable campfires so far from home, that all these words could contain so many misspellings.
“Innoumerable.” “Beatiful.” Clark made “Looner” observations. Enjoyed juicy “water millions.” Noted that the Indians were “bearfooted.” Wrote of his home country, the “Untied States.” One researcher counted twenty-seven ways Clark spelled “Sioux.”
The journals of Lewis and Clark were written about the same time that Noah Webster worked on the first American dictionary. A first edition was published three years after Lewis and Clark made it back home. Webster’s Classic, which got a wide reading shortly after his death, was not published by a major company, G. C. Merriam until 1830. The Merriam-Webster remains a standard to this day.
But too late for Lewis and Clark. When they wrote, the American version of the English language was up for grabs. There were no rules. Their journal remains in rough form for historians and the curious to rediscover this astonishing journey. Grammar goofs and spelling errors just as they are.
* * * * * * *
Rich Beem didn’t have the money to join the tour. He couldn’t find a sponsor. Ten investors believed in him. They fronted the thirty thousand dollars he needed.
There were long weekends on the tour. Many weeks missing the cut. But in the fourth Major tournament of 2002, the PGA Championship at Hazeltine National Golf Course, Tiger, coming off the disappointing performance at the British Open, was the favorite.
Rich Beem emerged as the only real challenger.
His confidence got a boost when he hit a record breaking 63 on his final round of the Qwest International winning his second PGA tournament, and a substantial cash purse. But now, he was nose to nose with the best player in the world. He was ahead of the entire field, including Tiger Woods.
Tiger, ahead of Beem in round 4, finished with four birdies in a row.
Beem answered with an Eagle on thirteen. And then a long birdie putt on sixteen. Beem was playing in the zone.
At
the final hole, under enormous pressure, Rich Beem, with wife Sarah watching
from the edge of the green, sank a putt one stroke ahead of Tiger Woods, an
unlikely winner, taking home his first PGA Major win.
Between the Qwest and the PGA, he’s fourth this year on the money list - $2.6 million. We can rest assured, he has paid back his investors.
All along the course that Sunday afternoon a week ago, people were asking, who IS that guy?
Rich Beem.
Stereo salesman.
* * * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader.
Like Lewis and Clark, you’ve been commissioned for a journey. It’s filled with drama and surprises, hardship and moments of pure grandeur. Strange creatures come out from behind the rocks, and you are challenged with new problems to solve around just about every bend. Often, it feels like you are pulling up-stream.
Take time to write down your thoughts. Your observations. Your sense of what it means.
Don’t worry about the grammar or the misspellings.
And dream big.
Rich Beem was interviewed on the second round of the PGA. Some picked him as a possible winner for the week, but he played it down. “No, I’m playing with the best in the world here. I don’t think of myself as a major contender,” he said. “I’m just here to play my best and to have a good time.”
How ‘bout you?
Play your best.
Have a good time.
Posted in Valley Center, California
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2002
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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