Day 26th Ouch...my leg hurts. Good News, Bad News Who is to say?

Friday, day 26, ran 1.5 miles/ total so far: 65.4 / Miles to go: 934.6



It was a beautiful day and I left work in the sunshine intent on running 5 miles at the Katy Trail before going to a dinner at the Petroleum Club for the Scholarship Program that was responsible for my coming to SMU Law School. The Hatton Sumner's Scholarship is a full ride and this is the weekend the Trustees invite 30 some odd students to interview for 5 or 6 slots. I remember my interview weekend 34 years ago.



But first, the background. I had decided to go to Vanderbilt Law School. I had been invited to a weekend at Vanderbilt for a scholarship program they had called the Patrick Wilson Scholarship. It was a $5,000 a year scholarship which was a big deal back in 1976. The Sumners, all inclusive scholarship, was about 8,400 a year. The Patrick Wilson Foundation had a similar weekend interview event...only it lasted two days and they only invited 15 students. Five would get the scholarship. On Sunday afternoon you were told to go to your dorm room and wait for a phone call. If it did not come by 4 pm you did not get the scholarship and if you got the call you had to accept on the spot or they would go to another candidate. I waited knowing it was my manifest destiny to win the scholarship or else, how could this poor boy from Tyler, Texas who had gone to Tyler Junior College and then a small liberal arts college, Centenary College of Louisiana, have been selected to be one of the finalist for the Patrick Wilson Scholarship?



I did not get the call. I kept looking at the clock from 2:00 when we finished our interviews until 4 o'clock. But no call. Devastated I started packing my bags. Then at 4:30 the phone rang, but it was not the Foundation. It was from the Dean's Office. He wanted to see me. In his office he said he was sorry that I had not received the scholarship, but they really wanted me to come and they would give me the same amount of money: half in a scholarship and half in loans. I was pleased to be "wanted" even if I was disappointed not to be a Patrick Wilson Scholar.



Back at home I determined to go to Vanderbilt. A few days later there was a Pre-Law weekend event at Centenary College and Dean Charles Galvin from SMU was on campus talking about the law school. He told us about this Hatton Sumners Scholarship. One of my academic advisers, Dr. Walter Lowery, told me I should apply. So on the last day to apply, I sent in my application. Not long afterwards came the invitation for Hatton Sumners Weekend, I would only need one suit for this event so I packed my brown pin stripe and left the burgundy suit and burgundy patent leather shoes that I had taken to Nashville for the all weekend Patrick Wilson affair at home. Only later, in retrospect, did it occur to me that perhaps that burgundy suit had something to do with me not getting a phone call in my dorm room at Vanderbilt.... but what did I know?.. I thought I was styling in my JC Penny suits that fit in perfectly well at Commercial National Bank, Shreveport LA, where I was a teller. More about me as a law school fashionista in a later post!



At the Hatton Sumners weekend I remember being asked, since my LSAT score was good but not as good as some of the applicants, but my GPA was really high, if my grades were so good because I did not go to good schools? I was upset and said something like, "No, but I am sure If I decided to come to SMU I would do well as I had always done well." I left the weekend thinking even if I got this scholarship I am not sure I would come. But when a couple of weeks later a letter announcing that I had won the scholarship arrived, there was no doubt that I would go to SMU and I am forever grateful to the Foundation for allowing me to go to SMU and not to have to borrow. I am sure that the decision to go to SMU was one of the most monumental in affecting the course of my life. And not getting the Patrick Wilson meant that I applied for and received the better Sumners Scholarship and the rest is history.



Which brings me to the Good News, Bad News, Who is to Say part of this post. If you have been reading these entries you know that I often say the Good News is or the Bad News was, etc. It is a way of thinking about life that I have adopted from an old Chinese proverb. I have told this story at every orientation since I came to SMU and it has become a part of the culture of the place. Recently the students made a music video of me telling this story for a production called Follies. The story goes like this:



There was an old man in China whose wealth was his horse. He used it to work and to go to the village. One day the horse ran away to the mountains. All the villagers came to the old man and said, "Old man, such bad fortune, your horse has run away." The old man merely replied, "Good News, Bad News, Who is to say?"



A couple of weeks later, the horse returned with 5 wild horses. Suddenly the old man was rich. All the villagers came to the old man and said, "Old man, such good fortune, you now have 6 horses and you are a rich man." The old man merely said, "Good News, Bad News, Who is to say?"



Later the old man's only son broke his leg trying to train one of the wild horses. All the villagers came to the old man saying, "Old man, such bad fortune. Your only son has broken his leg." The old man merely said, "Good News, Bad News, Who is to say?"



While the son was recovering, the warlord in that region declared war against a neighboring region and conscripted all the able bodied young men who went to fight and many were killed. Of course, the old man's son was spared because of his broken leg. All the villagers came to the old man saying, "Old man, such good fortune, you one and honorable son has been spared." And of course, the old man merely said, "Good News, Bad News, Who is to say?"



At this point in the orientation address I turn to the students and say, "So here you are in you first day at SMU Dedman School of Law and here I am, you Dean of Students. Good News, Bad News, Who is to say?" Many times students will come to my office and start the conversation with the words, "Dean Camp, the Good News, Is.....but the Bad News Is....." It is helpful to realize that at the moment when anything happens to us we do not know where it will lead, or in the words of the famous radio commentator, Paul Harvey, we do not always know "The rest of the story."



So my Good News, Bad News about today is that once I got to the Katy trail, my shins started hurting and my calf cramped. My legs felt like two led pipes sunk in cement. My resolve to run 5 miles faded and I was only able to run 1.5 miles. I realize that I may have been pushing myself a little too hard too fast at the beginning of this one year, 1000 mile journey. I do not want to get hurt and I want to finish. I will wait and see how I feel tomorrow, Saturday before decided what the next step is. Maybe being a little hurt this early is a good think, a wake up call to take things easy and build up the miles....So I did not run my five miles today and my legs hurt...Good News, Bad News, Who is to say? But I do know that Life is Good!