The Country School Distinguished Alumni Award 2014 Remarks by Stephen Davis 70 May

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1 The Country School Distinguished Alumni Award 2014 Remarks by Stephen Davis 70 May Many thanks for this high honor. Between my brothers and our son Gabriel, our family has logged no less than 31 years at TCS, so this place is close to my heart. I am particularly proud to have my parents Jack and Helen Davis here. They were among the pioneers of Country School history my mother, for instance, served on the board of trustees many years ago. Now I know this is an exciting time for everyone, what with the end of school coming close. So I am going to relieve you of the extra stress of suspense by going straight to the conclusion of my remarks. In about 15 minutes I am going to end by saying that I learned two important life lessons at The Country School that I wish solemnly to pass on to you today: First, there is nothing quite as powerful as a great mentor. When you find one, do all you can to learn from him or her. Second, never, Ever, do wrestling. I will explain later. But now that I ve got the ending out of the way, I can relax and take you on a small journey of how I came upon those two pieces of wisdom. It starts with a question: Has anyone ever suspected you of being an enemy spy? No? Well I found myself in such a circumstance, and the reason has to do with a figure many of you recently studied: Nelson Mandela. The story starts one summer day in 1981 in Cambridge, Mass. I was in the middle of writing what would become an 800- page doctoral dissertation on South Africa. Before going to prison for his beliefs, Mandela had tried to fight for democracy by peaceful protest and, when that failed, by a kind of war for independence like we had in America. That was what I was writing about when there came a knock on my apartment door. I answered and found two men on the step. In retrospect, I think they looked a lot like the guys in the Men in Black movies, minus that

2 2 memory erasing laser thing. They said they wanted to ask me some questions. I figured they were FBI guys checking out a classmate who wanted to work in Washington, so I invited them in and sat down without a worry in the world. Then they posed a question I can still hear echoing in my head to this day: Does the name Gordon Elphinstone mean anything to you? For a moment I drew a blank, and then suddenly realized what this was about. Gordon Elphinstone was a loopy name I had made up and quickly forgotten two years earlier. To protect myself, I had disguised my real identity while reaching out to secretive characters for information about the guerrilla war Nelson Mandela had once commanded to fight for democracy in South Africa. But those contacts had led nowhere, so I d forgotten about the whole thing. Until the Men in Black arrived. And after a time, while answering their questions in my small apartment, I began to realize that these guys thought that I might be a Russian spy. A Russian spy? I only found out years later the full story of what had happened. It turned out that a classmate of mine in graduate school, a South African, had himself been a spy for South Africa s apartheid government. As some of you know, these were the days when a small minority of white people ruled in South Africa. That racist system was called apartheid in the Afrikaans language, or separate- ness in English. The men in charge were desperate to keep power for themselves, and away from Nelson Mandela, who wanted democracy for all South Africans, regardless of their skin color. When the government s informant reported that someone namely, me! was trying to expose more information about the war going on against apartheid, those South African rulers saw danger. So they decided to threaten me by secretly telling the CIA that I might be a Russian spy. The FBI began a long internal investigation of me of course, without my knowing anything! that led to the visit that summer s day in It took nearly a year to convince them that what they had was some innocent graduate student and not a communist agent. Today it is easy to make light of this. But it was a pretty scary lesson for me at the time to see what instruments of power could be summoned by a ruthless state. And mine was frankly a minor story. My life had not

3 3 been threatened. But while in South Africa researching my book I met hundreds of blacks and whites whom I considered everyday heroes. They put themselves at grave risk for a great cause. Some wrote protest music. Some gathered intelligence for war. Some led demonstrations. Some offered free legal advice or health care. And some, like Nelson Mandela, sat in prison for decades, silently providing the moral strength that, finally, led to the downfall of apartheid. He later became South Africa s first democratically elected leader. I count it as a great gift to have met President Mandela when he visited the United States shortly after his release. What does all this have to do with the Country School? More than you think. When I was here I found lots of teachers who encouraged me. But one saw that I could do more and challenged me to try. Mr. Tom West, my English teacher in 7 th grade, later a TCS headmaster, became my first mentor. The word mentor means a lot more than advisor or teacher. A mentor means a friend, someone who teaches you not just facts and figures, but character and integrity; who sees your potential and is in turn a role model. A mentor is different from a parent, who connects to you through love and family. A mentor chooses to connect to you because he or she is drawn to something inside you. Mr. West counseled me to push boundaries, write the best I could, and to go beyond assignments. To be brave. And if I did, he would be there to help. Here s what he wrote in my 7 th grade report card in June 1968 (yes, I still have it!): Whenever a student desires to volunteer a composition, I am pleased beyond measure, and will always correct it and make necessary changes for improvement. Bring your work to me! Go for it, was Mr. West s message. I remember how that played out one night in 7 th grade when I found myself writing a very personal poem, not for class, but because I had been seized by words. It was almost as if a force beyond myself had physically taken hold of the pen and words had come out. I was jarred by the wonder of it. But I was also exhilarated because I had discovered something that would stay with me ever since. It is the sense that if I can get a word placed just right, a sentence fit precisely for purpose, a statement pitched morally true, I could feel an almost mystical sense of fulfillment. I treasured the confidence and courage that flowed from Mr. West s care. As my mentor, he helped in addition to my amazing

4 4 parents to give me the strength and determination that led from poetry at TCS to writing I did on South Africa and other subjects. The truth is that the closer I look at what I do today, the more I detect seeds planted in Country School moments. For instance, I spend a lot of my working life in Washington and London. Well, I first became obsessed with Washington, DC in third grade. I still have drawings of the Capitol I did for Mrs. Fountain; they were published in The Little Owl. And while my 6 th grade sugar- cube model of Victoria Tower in London melted away (quite literally!) long ago, I still see it in my memory every time I pass the Houses of Parliament. But maybe the most lasting lesson I found here was the value of a mentor. Since Mr. West I count a handful of others who have guided me, in high school and beyond. You may find teachers you admire who are in subjects other than English or history, which were my personal favorites. Maybe you will find that magic feeling of fulfillment through numbers, science, language or engineering. But my advice is this: When you find a mentor, do all you can to learn from him or her. Have you ever heard the phrase seize the day? It s better known in the Latin I studied here: Carpe diem, and it comes from a poem written by the Roman author Horace some 2,000 years ago. He meant: take action for the future today. I humbly offer a variation: Carpe mentor. Seize a mentor. I don t mean kidnap anyone. That wouldn t be very polite. But find a mentor, stay close, ask to help any way you can, keep eyes and ears open. Through mentors you can take powerful action for your future today. Then there s that second lesson I learned here. Wrestling back then was a winter sport in the gym, right on that stage. I well remember the rubber blue mats, because I saw them up close. Really close. That s because I think I spent most of those hours getting pinned beneath someone as sweaty as I was, who was much better at wrestling than I could ever be. In fact, you could say that I spent a lot of time pancaked on that stage. I learned wrestling wasn t for me. Ever. But here s the point: I could not have known that about wrestling had I just watched from the sidelines. I had to do it. That s what I learned, too, at TCS, from both Mr. West and wrestling. Sometimes, to find your

5 5 future, the paths to go forward and the paths to avoid, you need to screw up your courage and write a daring poem. And sometimes you need to get pancaked on a big rubber mat. Thank you.