Conversations and power

It was early evening on Thursday, and I sat on a bench by the living room window. Bill sat in his rocker while Colin plopped cross-legged on the living room carpet. We'd enjoyed a summer dinner and had just finished watching a video documentary about a mutual friend dealing with cancer. That friend is a former student, and the creator of the video is also former student of mine and friend to all of us.

"Powerful" was the first word coming from Colin's mouth once the credits ended. Colin, a wordsmith himself, had arrived at that instant assessment fresh off from a three-week trip to Kenya and Nairobi where he lived as a guest with several African families. During his visit to Africa he saw poverty and suffering at their extremes residing right next door to an upscale golf course. He stood on the railroad track depicted in last year's powerful movie The Constant Gardener, a murder mystery dealing with pharmaceutical company experimentation on Africans.

Having just come from his own cultural odyssey, Colin was visibly moved by the video as was Bill. We talked about the documentary, and as we talked about the individuals associated with the video, I could not help but express my oft-felt exhilaration of being "so lucky" to have worked with so many wonderful people during my tenure as a teacher. And, to have done it all in this little ol' North Idaho town.

Colin agreed. He remembered a comment made many years ago in his English class when I'd told him and his classmates about the power of growing up and learning in Sandpoint.

"You can go anywhere," I had told them. "You can do anything you set out to achieve." That statement seemed so true at that moment, as I thought about Colin with his magnetic personality, his quick intelligence, his ability to ignite people into action and his choice to use all those wonderful attributes right here in his hometown.

Colin is an assistant pastor at a growing and active church called Cedar Hills. Colin has coached, taught, preached and studied. He was a finalist in the Rhodes Scholar competition while doing his undergraduate work at Seattle Pacific University. He worked on his Master's at Rice University; he now goes to Seattle every week in pursuit of a divinity degree.

He lives in an older home in Sandpoint next to his father's veterinary clinic. Colin had come to our home Thursday night on his mountain bike after a grueling ride with his colleague up and down the Mickinnick Trail. He has chosen to do his life's work here. He has proven the notion that his hometown provides all the inspiration he needs to achieve the great goals of his life, which boil down to something so simple as making a difference in people's lives.

As I write this morning, I think about the visit with Colin on Thursday night and a visit with Kari Saccommanno on Wednesday night. Like Colin, she just dropped in after seeing me walking around my yard. She'd been in the neighborhood for a Festival of Trees meeting. While sitting in one of our backyard Adirondack chairs, Kari batted away mosquitoes as she, like Colin, proclaimed that there's no place else on earth she'd rather spend her life than right here in this community and on her farm near Wrenco.

She told me about the secluded spot in their woods where the family has set up a picnic table and where they go to enjoy the simplicity of family just being family. She hardly even mentioned her high-powered job in the photographic department at Coldwater Creek Catalog Co. Instead, she focused on the good work of gardening, helping her husband Clay cut wood and watching her daughters learn how to work and to learn responsibility while growing up on a farm.

Kari also told me about telling her daughter Kendall that of all the places she's traveled and worked in the film industry, Sandpoint, Idaho, is the place she prefers the most. Kari lives in the same general neighborhood, not far from the farm where she grew up. She graduated from Sandpoint High School in 1983 as a great student and phenomenal athlete.

She received her degree in cinematography from Montana State University and set off on a career as a production assistant with the filming of nationally-televised commercials. She worked up and down the West Coast but always dreamed of returning to Sandpoint. That dream has come true, and Kari couldn't be more thrilled.

I couldn't be more thrilled either, and I couldn't feel any luckier than to have the good fortune of knowing Colin, Kari and a host of other phenomenal former students in their adult lives. I pinch myself every time I get to share in their enthusiasm toward all richness that their hometown offers them as they pursue their professional passions and enjoy the simple pleasures of life.