I have never felt ashamed of being gay, even when people have tried hard to make me feel that way. I know how I feel isn’t wrong. There can be nothing wrong with loving another human being, regardless of their gender.What is wrong is to be prejudiced against those you don’t understand or who don’t feel exactly like you. Occasionally, someone will throw the Bible at me and I say, “Are you saying that God had us evolve in every way over the last two thousand years but the Bible has not?” I ask them to look at the Bible. It justified human slavery, genocide, the sacrifice of animals. We’ve evolved beyond those things! The Bible has evolved in those things, why not in human sexuality? Then they might say, “Well, it’s not normal.” I think of Naomi Judd’s words. She said, “Normal? Normal is just a cycle in a washing machine.” You can have a normal temperature, a normal water level, but what is a normal human being when we are so full of emotion, love, and sexuality?
Being visible has helped give gay people strength, but I think what matters is not whether I’m gay or straight, but that I stand up for who I am and what I believe. I’m not outspoken, but I say what I think and often say what others think, too, but are afraid to say. Apparently this makes me “outspoken” and even controversial! So, while what I say may be completely “normal” or at least acceptable ten or twenty years from now, it does not help me now when it comes to being marketable. I was recycling batteries decades ago and I bought stock in Whole Foods ten years ago.
My fans seem to come from all corners of the world as well as all corners of society. Anyone oppressed likes me for sticking up for the underdog, but there are many other pockets of fandom: Straight housewives go crazy. They say, “Oh, Martina, we love you!” and I think “Whoa there!” Kids tell me they love the way I play and they think it’s super cool that I’m older than their moms and I’m beating a woman half my age. There’s an old conservative man from Utah who has watched me play for years and has become my pen pal! Diversity is the great and wonderful thing about life.
I try to be a good role model by being a consummate athlete setting an example in that way. I advocate eating nutritious food (I’m a vegetarian), working out, being in top form mentally and physically, and by cultivating a team of positive people around me. One of my strengths is in listening to advice from people I trust. For example, if my coach told me to change my stroke, I would put that change to work that very day, not in a week or a month. I’d make it start working for me then and there. I also have a knack for selecting what bit of advice, perhaps one piece out of ten, is relevant for me in the moment. Years later, a light bulb might go off and I will think “Ah, that other advice can work for me now,” because everything has its time. W. Somerset Maugham once said, “Only average people are at their best every day.” I love that! Never hang back and play it safe because you fear that you’ll fail. To me, the only failure is the failure to try. Most people can do more than they think they can, so go ahead, push that envelope. It’s like they say,“nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
WILLIE NELSON
Greasing the Wheels to
American Self-Reliance
“Hi, it’s Willie,” he says when he calls, and from among the billions of people on the planet, you know there is only the one. His voice is unmistakable, and like Willie himself, it seems to smile down the line at you. I have loved the man since I first heard him sing “Good Times” in 1968.You can just tell he’s fun, he’s irreverent, and, well, he’s just plain decent. His big heart includes a mile-wide soft spot for the state of Texas and for people everywhere who are like those he grew up around—hardworking and hard playing and looking out for each other.
Willie could have left those good ole country values behind when he hit the big time or later when he settled in Hawaii, but he never did. He campaigns for the little guy—and for the horses, too, helping close down U.S. slaughterhouses that cater to the horsemeat market overseas. His story is about the power of one person to keep on remembering what’s important in life, no matter how high up the ladder you climb, a value a whole lot of “rich folk” sadly forget. That’s why I am happy to include Willie in this book.
I was born in Abbot,Texas, just twenty miles away from where my old friend Carl Cornelius runs a truck stop. Abbot, like most Texas towns, is a small and special place. It’s a farming community, and when I was a boy it consisted of about 300 people, and I think it still does! We all knew each other; we kids went to school together, we worked the fields together, and played ball together, all that kind of thing. I grew up thinking everyone in the world was like me, because everyone around me sure was. It wasn’t unusual to care about everything going on with everyone, and because of that I’m particularly not inclined to sit back and watch what’s going on around me. I participate. As a born troublemaker, you might say that I have been dumb enough, nervy enough, and nosey enough to be into everything!
Carl and I go way back. Some forty or so years ago, I met him through another of my friends, Zeke Varnon. Zeke has been a huge bad influence on me; we used to run around, gambling, drinking, and having a high old time. Then I kind of lost touch with him until, one day, I was driving along the highway from Dallas to Waco and what did I see but a billboard with a picture on it of Zeke, Carl, and . . . me! It was advertising Carl’s Corner Truck Stop. I knew Zeke and I knew Zeke’s tricks, but I didn’t know Carl until that day. I stopped and went in the place and met Carl and we had a lot of fun. I found out that he had started the truck stop just so that there’d be somewhere a person could get a drink in this dry county, a hangout where truckers coming up and down the highway could get something to eat, play some cards, and have a good time. Ever since then, I’ve been fond of that place, and I’ve watched it go up and down, from good times to bad and back again.
Let me explain how this is tied to my bio-fuels idea. It was actually my wife, Annie, who started this. She asked me what I thought about her buying a Volkswagen Jetta that ran on bio-diesel. I asked “What’s that?” I was a bit leery at first, but as soon as I heard that this stuff came from 100 percent vegetable oil my mind started to race. I instantly thought of the family farmers who are going under, who can’t make ends meet, the very reason I started Farm Aid back in 1985. There are fields full of cotton in Texas, and here was enormous potential for a new use for the cottonseed, as well as a reason to grow more soy or corn, because all that can become bio-fuel. Here was a way to boost the farmers’ income, to shine a light at the end of the tunnel for those farmers. For them, times get harder and harder, but with bio-fuel they could make money again.
I got together with these two great people, Bob and Kelly King, man and wife from Maui, real pioneers in bio-fuels who had started Pacific Bio-diesel, and I learned a whole lot. They actually go around and collect used vegetable grease from restaurants all over Hawaii, where I have a house, and they recycle it into fuel. I learned how good bio-fuel is for the environment, how it costs less, gives better mileage, your engine runs smooth, it can go in anything that has a diesel engine, and it’s biodegradable. The other thing that resonates with me is that if Americans can produce it from homegrown crops, we can stop depending on foreign oil. Everyone knows that we went to war with Iraq for the oil; it has the second largest oil holdings in the world, but there’s no excuse for killing people over oil. There’s no need to start wars over oil when we can grow our own. I put a 300-gallon tank up at my house and we run the vehicles on bio-fuel, including my Mercedes. Every household can put a tank by the garage. When you run your car, the exhaust will smell like peanuts or cracked corn! The potential is huge, and the surface hasn’t even been scratched yet.
Carl was going through a bad personal patch right about the time I was learning all about bio-fuels, and he was thinking of closing the truck stop down. I got hold of him and said we could do something. How would he like Carl’s Corner to be the first place in the United States to sell “Bio-Willie” at the pumps? We started with just a bit of it, hoping it would sell, but it took off like a rocket. I w
as on XM Satellite radio with another old friend, Bill Mack, who hosts the Open Road show, and we started talking to truckers about bio-diesel.Word spread up and down the highway and soon everyone was pulling into Carl’s to try it. Now we are building a bio-diesel plant right next to the truck stop. It’ll be run by all local-based people from the community, so people who were thinking of quitting the area can stay and make some money.
Change is all about thinking positively. What you think is what you’ll be, so I try to be positive, and that’s what I tell all the kids. By concentrating on the possibilities, you attract good things. Bio-fuel is one of those good things.
PETRA NEMCOVA
Put a Little Love in Your Heart
Petra Nemcova always wanted to be a model, and after being spotted in a national talent contest, her dream came true. Her beautiful countenance (and body) has since appeared on the covers of, among others, Bazaar, Sports Illustrated, and Cosmopolitan; she has starred in videos for Vogue; writes editorials for Elle; hosts the TV show A Model Life; and was hand-chosen by designers including Valentino and Armani to work the catwalk in their favorite creations. In 2005, her world was turned upside down. She was vacationing on the Thai coast with her fiancé, Simon Atlee, when the tsunami struck. Her beloved Simon was washed away and drowned, and although Petra survived, she was badly injured. It took great resolve for her not to succumb to her emotional and physical injuries, but she succeeded. Her professional comeback was celebrated as complete when, in 2006, she was featured again in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Her long-standing personal determination to help others, particularly children, was only strengthened by her experience. Love has become a Hallmark card word, bandied about casually and often without a grain of sincerity, but in Petra’s case love is the word that guides her conduct.In 2005, she launched the Happy Heart Foundation to help youngsters who suffer loss or hardship in disasters all over the world.
My childhood was a happy one. Although we weren’t rich financially, it left me with many rich memories, memories that I rely on to get me through rough times. For instance, I remember that my grandfather used to bake delicious cakes. There was one in particular that was fabulous: a flat cake full of fruit with a sugary crust. My sister and I couldn’t resist eating it while it was still hot, and so my grandfather would make us whistle tunes because if we were whistling, we couldn’t be eating! When I have especially down moments, when something in my life gets too oppressive or stress attacks me, there’s one treasured scene I return to in my mind. It’s of me when I was eight or nine years old, sitting on a hill in high grass, looking down into a beautiful valley. I used to pick mushrooms in that area by myself, and I’d roll down that hill for the sheer joy of it. The scene is so peaceful and comforting that it calms me.
I have always wanted to bring happiness to people, to help them, especially children. I’m so appreciative of what I have in my life. I knew what I wanted to do from the time I cut apart my mother’s skirts and stitched them into clothes I’d want to wear, and my career has been a steady rise. Some girls become only runway girls, but I have succeeded in commercials, catalogues, and editorials, in all sorts of ways as well as on the runway. That gives me a good balance, and I’m grateful for being so lucky. I know that any of us can help others no matter what we have, but it’s wonderful for me to have so much good fortune that I can share.
My ordeal in Thailand when the tsunami struck was a true test of my belief in the power of love and positivity. It was a terribly hard experience, for me certainly, but also for millions of people who were affected in so many countries. When the waves hit our beach at Khao Luk, the love of my life, my fiancé, Simon Atlee, and I were in our bungalow. The water came in and we were swept away in seconds. There was instantly debris everywhere: bits of broken building, wood, trees, objects. I was dragged down and under and debris was hitting me, causing internal injuries and breaking my pelvis. I tried kicking my way out, but the water was black and I was going down, not up. I thought, “This is it, I’m meant to go.” I accepted my fate, trusted that whatever would happen would happen and stopped struggling. I can’t explain it, but I felt suddenly peaceful. In fact, it was the most peaceful moment of my life. When someone says “go with the flow,” I know now what they mean, exactly!
Almost at once, I saw blue sky, and I was on the surface of the water again. I managed to reach a tree and cling there for almost eight hours. Around me, I could hear children screaming, adults crying out. After about thirty minutes, the children couldn’t hang on, they were not strong enough, and the screaming died down as they drowned. The worst thing was that I couldn’t go and help them because my broken pelvis didn’t allow me to move. The wonderful thing was that all around me strangers were working hard to save everyone. Even though they knew that another wave might come in, that didn’t stop them trying to rescue people they didn’t know, had never met. There were so many helpers, reaching out to others at the risk of their own lives.
In those long hours in the tree, I worried about Simon, whether I would ever see him again. He was so gentle and kind and always laughing and helping others laugh. I clung there, sending out energy, prayers, and good thoughts to all the people in difficulty. I wasn’t angry at Nature, but I knew this was a very big event. Of course, I only found out later just how big it was.
From what I have heard, it takes most people at least two years to heal from the kind of injuries I had. But I took three and a half months because of the energy work I did and my strength of mind. The mind is a very powerful tool, and you can easily enter a downward spiral of depression and negative thoughts. I wanted to get stronger, not weaker, to heal emotionally and physically, so I did not allow it to look at the minuses, only the plusses. It is always a choice, and I chose to concentrate on getting stronger, on appreciating all I have. I still had loved ones, I had my sister, my mother; I could breathe, I could feed myself, eventually I could walk. I was very lucky, and all I wanted to do was get well enough to go back and help others. You can die any time. Poof, you are gone. So, if you are alive, I think it’s best to make the most of it. We all have to go through hardships, maybe not a tsunami but something else devastating to us, and there will always be something good that comes from it, whether 50 percent or 1 percent.You can concentrate on that good bit. In the tsunami, I remember all the unconditional love that flowed from it, all those who helped each other because of it, the amazing and spontaneous unity we saw in its aftermath. That is very powerful.
The heart is the key to everything good. I began Happy Hearts Foundation to help children who have suffered loss or hardship as a result of natural, economic, or health-related disasters in many different countries, not just Thailand. It not only makes them happier but makes me very happy, too. I think the world would be a very different place if we didn’t think of me, me, me and thought of we, we, we. It would make us less likely to take and take and take and more likely to give and give and give. If I could be granted one wish, it would be to convert “me” into “we.”That way, we could fill our hearts with love and kindness and there would be no room left for fear or hate.
WADE RATHKE
Powerful Communities from
Little ACORNs Grow
Wade Rathke is chief organizer and founder of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a grassroots group that has a long history of lifting up the working poor. Wade calls me “Sister Newkirk,”a reminder that he has been a workers’ organizer almost all his life! I admire Wade because he has devoted decades to working for the underdog, even when quaking in his boots and doubting his own ability to succeed. Wade’s underdogs are people who need help in pulling themselves up out of poverty. He has made a crucial difference to millions by organizing whole neighborhoods to lobby, vote, and protest; he’s helped them unite to secure a living wage, protect workers from environmental hazards, disrupt professional loan sharking, even to get a traffic light installed at a dangerous intersection.
Years ag
o, Wade helped create the “People’s Platform,” to lobby for fair treatment for the poor, capturing the support of the Reverend Jesse Jackson.Marching onto national park land, he established tent cities for the homeless that no politician could ignore, then marched on Washington with thousands of people whose basic needs were being ignored even as military and other spending increased overseas. Starting from scratch, but drawing around him a legion of “sisters and brothers,”Wade has secured the rights of the often disenfranchised and forgotten underclass of, first, the United States, and now other countries too.I’m including him because his story can empower us all.
I was born in Laramie, Wyoming, but my dad worked for the California Company (now Chevron) and was transferred frequently, so I spent my childhood more or less on the road from Colorado to Montana to New Mexico to Kansas. We finally settled in New Orleans, but that sense of rootlessness had a big influence in my life, as did the public high school I attended. My class was the first to be integrated outside of the elementary grades in New Orleans because under “separate but equal” there were no equivalent African-American high schools. Most high school teams would not play our high school in sports after integration. This and the time spent in Mississippi watching the impact of what was happening in the Delta where my grandmother and cousins lived and where race was a big issue, forced me to have to think about where I stood and what I thought about issues like human equality.
One Can Make a Difference Page 17