This is from Chapter 6 of a book called "The Noticer:
Sometimes All A Person Needs Is A Little Perspective." After reading tell me you won't or haven't made an impact in your lives.
“While it is true that most people never see or
understand
the difference they make, or sometimes only imagine their actions
having a tiny effect, every single action a person
takes has far reaching
consequences.
“A moment ago, you and I were talking about
particular
people who had accomplished great things during the
later
years of their lives. Do you know the name Norman
Bourlag?”
Willow shook her head. “Norman Bourlag was ninety-one
when
he was informed that he had been personally
responsible for
saving the lives of two billion people.”
“Two billion people?” Willow exclaimed. “How is that
possible?”
“Norman Bourlag was the man who hybridized corn and
wheat for arid climates,” Jones answered. “The Nobel
committee,
the Fulbright Scholars, and many other experts calculated
that all across the world—in Central and South
America, Western
Africa, across Europe and Asia, throughout the plains
of Siberia,
and America’s own desert Southwest—Bourlag’s work has
saved
from famine over two billion people . . . and the
number is
increasing every day.”
“Incredible,” Willow said.
“Yes,” Jones agreed. “Isn’t it? But the most
incredible part of
the story is that Bourlag, for all the credit he has
received . . .”
Jones glanced around as if to prevent someone from
hearing
what he was about to say. “For all the credit he’s
received,
Bourlag was not the person who saved the two billion people.”
“What?”
“That’s right,” Jones confirmed. “I believe it was a
man
named Henry Wallace. He was vice president of the
United
States under Roosevelt.”
“I thought Truman was vice president under
Roosevelt,”
Willow said suspiciously.
“He was,” Jones agreed, “but remember, Roosevelt
served
four terms. His first two terms, John Nance served as
vice president;
his fourth term, Truman; but it was during
Roosevelt’s
third term that his vice president was a former
secretary of agriculture
named Henry Wallace. While Wallace was vice president
of the United States, he used the power of his office
to create a
station in Mexico whose sole purpose was to somehow
hybridize
corn and wheat for arid climates . . . and he hired a
young man
named Norman Bourlag to run it. So, while Norman
Bourlag
won the Nobel Prize . . . it was really Henry Wallace
whose initial
act was responsible for saving the two billion
lives.”
“I never knew,” Willow said. “Why, I don’t even
remember
the man.”
“That’s okay,” Jones replied. “Now that I think about
it,
maybe it wasn’t Henry Wallace who should’ve gotten
credit
anyway . . .”
Willow appeared startled. “Now, why would you say that?”
she asked.
Jones dropped his eyes to the ground and rubbed his
chin, as
if deep in thought. “Maybe it was George Washington
Carver
who saved the two billion lives.” Then, his head
popping up
again, he said, “You remember him, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Willow answered quickly. “Peanuts. But what
does
he—”
“What people don’t know about George Washington
Carver
is that while he was nineteen and a student at Iowa
State University,
he had a dairy sciences professor who allowed his own
six-year-old boy to go on botanical expeditions every
weekend
with this brilliant student. George Washington Carver
took that
little tot and directed his life. And it was Carver
who gave six year-
old Henry Wallace a vision about his future and what he
could do with plants to help humanity.”
Jones shook his head in wonder. “It is amazing, isn’t
it?” he
said. “That Carver could spend all that time with the
peanut?
Hours and months and years of work. I mean, the man
developed
two hundred and sixty-six products from the
peanut—that
we still use today. And then there’s the sweet
potato. Eighty-eight
uses he developed from it.” Jones leaned forward,
hands on his
knees. “He also wrote an agricultural tract and
promoted the
idea of what he called a ‘victory garden.’”
Willow smiled. “I remember victory gardens. We had
one.”
“Yes. So did most people,” Jones said. “Victory
gardens—
even in the middle of major cities—fed a significant
portion of
our population during World War II.
“But with all the time and effort and years that
Carver spent
on things like peanuts and sweet potatoes and victory
gardens,
isn’t it amazing that a few afternoons with a
six-year-old boy named
Henry Wallace turned out to make that much difference!”
“Truly,” Willow said with awe in her voice. “So it was George
Washington Carver whose action saved all those
people.”
“Ahhh . . . ,” Jones shook his head. “Not really.”
“What?”
“It had to have been the farmer from Diamond,
Missouri.”
Jones grinned as Willow threw up her hands.
“There was a farmer in Diamond, Missouri, named
Moses,”
Jones continued, “who had a wife named Susan. They
lived in a
slave state but didn’t believe in slavery. Well, that
was a problem
for those crazy people who rode through farms at
night, terrorizing
what they called ‘sympathizers.’ And one cold winter
night,
Quantrill’s Raiders attacked Moses and Susan’s farm.
They
burned the barn, shot several people, and dragged off
a woman
named Mary Washington . . . who refused to let go of
her infant
son, George.
“Now, Mary Washington was Susan’s best friend, so
Moses
sent word out immediately, trying to arrange a
meeting with
those cutthroats, trying to do something to get Mary
and her
baby back. Within a few days, he had the meeting set;
and so, on
a January night, Moses took a black horse and went
several
hours north to a crossroads in Kansas.
“There, he met four of Quantrill’s men, who arrived
on
horseback, carrying torches, wearing flour sacks with
eyeholes
cut out over their heads. And Moses traded his only
horse for
what they threw him in a burlap bag.
“As they thundered off, Moses fell to his knees.
There, in the
freezing dark, with his breath’s vapor blowing hard
and white
from his mouth, Moses brought out of that burlap bag
a cold,
naked, almost dead baby boy. And he opened up his
jacket and
he opened up his shirts and placed that baby next to
his skin.
Moses fastened that child in under his clothes and
walked that
baby out! Talking to that child every step of the
way—telling
the baby he would take care of him and raise him as
his own . . .
promising to educate him to honor Mary, his mother,
who they
knew was already dead.”
Jones looked intently at Willow who stared back in
wonder.
“That was the night,” he said softly, “that the
farmer told that
baby he would give him his name. And that is how Moses and
Susan Carver came to raise that little baby, George
Washington.
“So there. It was obviously the farmer from Diamond,
Missouri, who saved those two billion people.”
They sat quietly for a moment until Jones raised his
finger
as if an idea had just come to him. Teasing, he said,
“Unless
maybe . . .”
But then, seeing the tears in Willow’s eyes, he said,
“So you see, madam, we could continue this line of
reasoning all
evening. For the truth is, who knows who it really
was whose
single action saved the two billion people? How far
back could
we go?” Jones reached over and took Willow’s hand.
“And how
far into the future could we go, dear lady, to show
how many
lives you will touch? There are generations yet unborn, whose
very lives will be shifted and shaped by the moves
you make
and the actions you take . . . tonight. And tomorrow.
And tomorrow
night. And the next day. And the next.
“No matter your age, physical condition, financial
situation,
color, gender, emotional state, or belief . . .
everything you do,
every move you make, matters to all of us—and
forever.”
“Thank you,” Willow said faintly. “Thank you.”
“And thank you, young lady,” Jones said as he stood. “Thank
you for the opportunity to spend a few moments with
you and
rest in such a beautiful spot.” He began walking
slowly westward,
toward the canal. “Let’s not rest too long, though,”
Willow
heard him say as the evening darkness took him from
her sight.
“Time
is precious, and you have much to do.”
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