Dan Rather Does It Again.

Ever wonder how your parents met? I know how mine did. With the radical diversity of my ancestry (for the record, as far as I know, I'm mostly Filipino, Irish, with some French, and Chinese), I had to know how my parents got together and made me and my brothers.

If my mother was to tell the story, these are the details I remember. My father joined the Peace Corps to get out of the draft for the Vietnam War. He was first assigned to Hawai'i (the Big Island) for his "boot camp", then sent to the Philippines where he taught biology. There, he met my mother who was a student of his. They fell in love. He moved back to Hawai'i where she eventually joined him and they got married and made babies.

I'm sure my father has a similar take on the whole story. The part that always interested me was his joining of the Peace Corps. I had thoughts of joining the Peace Corps and following in his footsteps, but as my life progressed, I found my path flowing elsewhere.

For those with HD (High Definition) television in one form or another, check to see if you receive HDNet as one of you channels. I said it before and I'll say it again, the hour long "Dan Rather Reports" is a terrific example of investigative journalism. "Bikini Destinations", also on HDNet, is an example of awful awful television... But I digress.

This week, Dan Rather had an interesting story about the resurgence of the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps was founded in 1961 by President Kennedy as a way to serve the country in a peaceful manner. Back then, it was marketed to baby boomers just graduating from college. The image of a Peace Corps volunteer many years was of a beatnik, a hippie who was trying to avoid serving in the army.

Today, the resurgence of the Peace Corps is mostly due to, believe it or not, retiring baby boomers. Dan Rather followed a retired couple who were volunteering in Jamaica. The wife had always wanted to join the Peace Corps, instead, she got married and raised a family. Now in retirement, she convinced her husband to join. Together they serve a small community far from the touristy part of Jamaica. They teach the children how to use computers and organize the record keeping at the local hospital. They even spend days doing the back breaking work of clearing brush to create a soccer field.

It gives me hope. Maybe one day when I retire, I can convince Nicole to join the Peace Corps and we too can do something to help. That's off in the future though. Right now, I just gotta get through years of changing poopie diapers.

...