Pep Talk: "Fulfill A Promise"

I keep bumping into Alferd Williams. Each encounter is a powerful reminder of something important. It tugs at me. I hope it tugs at you too.

The latest encounter came during a quick weekend trip to hometown Kansas City, Missouri to visit family. On a absolutely gorgeous Midwest fall day, while driving mother and sister toward downtown, and a weekend farmer’s market, a billboard along the highway jumped out at me.

There was the Arkansas native, staring down at me with his broad smile and massive hands, which were holding a book. The day before, I had seen a similar billboard on the way to Denver International Airport for the short flight into the town, once known as Westport Landing, nestled on the bluffs above the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers.

Williams was born in the late 1930‘s, the son of a sharecropper and the fourth of nine children. At the age of eight the mild-mannered lad went to work in the fields, picking crops until sundown, on the family farm. There was no time for school. Williams’ mom could read but father could not. Life on the farm was tough, leaving an exhausted mom little time to share bedtime stories with her kids . Williams grew up illiterate but promised his mother, someday that would change. Life went on, Williams spent decades working in manual labor, raised ten children but never forgot the promise made to his mother.

Whenever given the chance to present a Pep Talk to others, we always converse about an important choice we face constantly: being the victim, or student, of life’s experiences, unwanted and desired. Williams chose the latter and seized the moment when opportunity knocked.

As an adult he migrated north to St. Joseph, Missouri, an hour north of Kansas City and birthplace of the Pony Express. A friend, a single mom, needed help walking her children to a nearby elementary school. Williams volunteered for the duty, and in doing so, became acquainted with the school’s veteran first-grade teacher. Her gentle manner gave hope and confidence to accomplish a long-held dream. Williams courageously put fear aside and allowed wonderment to win in asking the teacher, “Teach me to read.”

The teacher agreed and the unlikely duet worked through the summer months. The daily two-hour sessions proved successful and inspired the mentor to approach the school principal with a out-of-the-box idea: allowing a 70-year-old man to continue literacy training in her first-grade class, with a bunch of six-year-old classmates.

I had learned this heartwarming story, first mentioned in a 2008 People magazine article, just a few days before visiting Kansas City during a BNI (Business Network International) meeting in the Mile High City. The presenter, a photojournalist, had personally, and expertly, chronicled William’s story with heartwarming photos and soundbites. Adorable visuals of a 70-year-old man sitting on a short stool amid classmates sitting cross-legged in a semi-circle before their teacher, practicing phonetics and singing sons brought tears to eyes and this to brain: It’s never too late to become superior to our former selves.

While the story’s a bit old, the lesson is fresh. Right now the task before us may be learning to read, losing weight, releasing anger, forgiving self or others, courageously changing careers, retiring unhealthy habits, exercising more - whatever.

The bottom line, thanks Alferd, is this: Where there’s a will, there’s a way. A man never forgot a promise and in the process became a revered member of a school community, gained celebrity status through print, television and radio and inspired others with a “never too late” story.

Where might it be time to find the will to search for the way to transform the circumstances of life? The world’s oldest first-grader is a great example, when the pupil is ready, quite often, the teacher will appear. It is never too late to fulfill a promise. To others or ourselves.