Archive - May 6, 2009

The Ying and Yang of the Peace Corps has always been whether a PCV is an expert technical advisor (written small), or an American just off on a Third World Walk About. The three goals of the Peace Corps give a mixed metaphor to the real reason of being a PCV. Many HCNs see us as CIA agents, and back home in Americans we’re thought of as missionaries without a religion. PCVs for the most part just want a job, want to feel wanted, and need to believe they are getting the job done. So, on the macro side there is this grand design of the whole agency encouraging peace by sending Volunteers into the world and on the micro side there are just men and women-mostly young and inexperienced–hoping that at the end of the tour they will have been somewhat successful. These competing goals are not necessarily bad. . . .

In his history of the PGA, Gerald Astor tells how Fred Corcoran first met George May behind the 18th green during the USGA amateur championship at Winged Foot. Then at a banquet celebrating the 1940 Chicago Open played at the Tam O’Shanter Club, May, the president and principal owner of the club, announced the prize money for the following year would be bumped from $5000 to $11,000, settling it a notch above the $10,000 offered by Los Angeles and Miami for their Opens. May further surprised the audience by declaring admission prices would be slashed to the level of grandstand seats at the ballpark, $1.10. May did much more to cause excitement at his tournaments. He had pros shoot from the front tees; lower scores, he reasoned, would impress people. His first four-day tournament drew 41,000, including 23,000 on the final day. May was also ahead of his time – . . .