The Other Side of the Coin

© 2003 Boaz Rauchwerger

It’s interesting in life, when we look at people, that we don’t always see both side of the coin. There is usually much more to most of us than appears on the surface.

You may think you know the subjects of this story. However, there are some interesting things about them that may not be apparent.

His parents were immigrants from Jamaica and he grew up in the Harlem area of New York. Starting at the age of fifteen, mopping floors to make extra money, he has worked hard his entire life. He states, “I was never without a job. Most of the time it was just pure manual labor while I was in college and high school.”

By 1963, having been recently married, he was in the military, serving in Vietnam. She, his bride, faced another type of war. Her view of the world was from the eyes of a black woman in Birmingham, Alabama, where she went when he left on his tour of duty. She had grown up in that southern city.

Birmingham’s role in the civil rights movement received national attention in 1961 when thirteen Freedom Riders boarded two buses in Atlanta and headed for Alabama. As one of the buses stopped six miles outside of Birmingham to fix a slashed tire, it was surrounded by a mob and a firebomb was thrown inside the back door.

Between 1957 and 1963 there were eighteen unsolved bombings in black neighborhoods in Birmingham. The first of the bombings occurred there when she was a child. Now she was an adult, an expectant wife, facing an increasingly dangerous situation and doing her best to stay calm. It was in that atmosphere, in March of 1963, that she gave birth to their first son.

Meanwhile, in July of 1963, as he was out on patrol in Vietnam, he stepped into a pit where a Viet Cong booby trap was hidden. It consisted of a sharpened, poisoned bamboo stake with a point. It went through the instep of his right foot and came through the top. Despite being wounded, he performed his duties. Using a makeshift cane, he finally made the two-hour journey back to camp. By then his foot was badly swollen, discolored, and he was in severe pain. After a few weeks of recuperation in a hospital, and having received a Purple Heart, he was back on duty.

As he continued to pursue his military career, the family ended up spending many years in the Washington, DC area. He became a big fan of Thomas Jefferson. The two men seemed to have a number of character traits that were similar. For example, a large capacity for affection, very attentive, gentlemanly, not afraid to embrace warmly, capable of strong masculine comradship.

Their thought patterns were also similar. Jefferson said, “How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.” Our subject’s viewpoint is similar: “Never take counsel of your fears and naysayers.”

Jefferson was actually one of a trio of great inspirations for him. The other two were Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. He sees the work begun by Jefferson as consummated by Lincoln. He would often say, “Lincoln freed the slaves, but Martin Luther King set the rest of the nation free.”

Through the years, his leadership abilities were honed by a list of thirteen personal rules including: “You can’t make someone else’s choices. You shouldn’t let someone else make yours,” and “Check small things.” He would often give these rules on cards to young people who visited him in his Washington office.

You would think, by his many accomplishments, that this couple would live a life of opulence. Although their taste for the finer things has grown, they live a simple life, modestly, without great comforts. Until recently, there were almost no vacations, much the less lavish ones.

Not many people know that his favorite hobby is fixing Volvos. He usually buys used ones for a few hundred dollars, piecing these old cars together and selling them for a modest profit. He and his wife didn’t buy new cars very often. In 1989 he bough her a new car to replace a string of beat-up and often unreliable station wagons the family had driven for many years.

His first Volvo was a white 1977 240 model. That one, named Vince, got him hooked. In a four-year period in Washington he and a friend bought more than twenty-five Volvos and resold more than fourteen. They often salvaged parts from one to fix another. The two men became well known at local Volvo dealerships and at used parts stores.

Although he and his wife enjoy the wonderful restaurants available in the Washington area, his favorite food is hamburgers. He has them as often as he can.

They have raised a wonderful family, are very close to each other, and have given us a great example of all that is good and honorable and hopeful about America. They inspire admiration and confidence and yet are ordinary, real people.

He and his wife show us what can be done with dedication, honor, hard work and commitment. His name is Colin. Her name is Alma. You’ve just had a glimpse, at the other side of the coin, into the lives of Colin and Alma Powell.

A Daily Affirmation of Dedication

I am dedicated to a life of close family ties, hard work, honor and commitment.