Archive - June 2024

HUSTLE The Making of a Freelance Writer  by Lawrence Grobel (Ghana) In my career as a freelance writer, I’ve had moments of doubt. I’ve suffered rejections and cancellations. But there were crossroads along the way that allowed me to continue pursuing my dream of working for myself, doing what I wanted to do, and figuring out how to survive. Freelancing is a lifestyle. In preparing this book, I marvel at how I somehow managed to avoid all the pitfalls and not drown in pessimism. When Alfred Hitchcock, Leonard Bernstein, and Fred Astaire all backed down from interviews they had agreed to, I had to learn how to bite the bullet and move on, how to move forward, and not backward, and that’s what this book is about. It begins with my first byline for an essay I wrote when I was just 15. It continues with articles I wrote when . . .

By Andrew Silow-Carroll  Kinky Friedman (Borneo 1967-69), the cigar-chomping, mustachioed Texan country singer and mystery novelist whose body of work often seemed like the un-kosher marriage of the Borscht Belt and the Bible Belt, died June 27 from complications of Parkinson’s disease. He was 79. As frontman for the flamboyant 1970s country group Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, he was notorious for satirical songs such as “They Don’t Make Jews Like Jesus Anymore,” a raucous sendup of racism, and “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in Bed,” which poked fun at feminism. He could also turn serious, with songs dealing with social issues such as abortion and commercialism. His 1973 song “Ride ’em Jewboy” is a haunting elegy on the Holocaust, recorded by Willie Nelson and sung in concert by Bob Dylan. The lyrics transform cowboy cliches into a rumination on Hitler’s victims: Now the smoke . . .

JUNE 26, 2024 Inaugural Recipient: Harris Wofford Joint Service Award Peace Corps and AmeriCorps! Published by ghettogirltravels Welcome to GhettoGirlTravels.com KJ Hunt, aka “GhettoGirlTravels,” was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. A former sergeant in the United States Air Force and Peace Corps Volunteer in East Africa, Armenia and Ethiopia GGT longs for the open road, a hot cup of tea, and free Internet service. Instagram @Ghettogirltravels TikTok @GhettoGirlTravels Facebook @GhettoGirlTravels View all posts by ghettogirltravels   Harris Wofford served as an advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr. Wofford also helped to launch the United States Peace Corps and served as its Associate Director. While a member of the US Senate, Harris led the effort to establish the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) which created the AmeriCorps program. The Harris Wofford award is given to individuals who have successfully completed full-time service in both AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps (including . . .

  The current issue of Worldview (Spring/Summer 2024) has an article by Beatrice Hogan (Uzbekistan 1992-94) entitled Common Cause. It is about RPCVs who have built communities around issues and affinities. We were selected to be profiled. Thank you, Beatrice!   Peace Corps Worldwide Friends since their Peace Corps days together, John Coyne and Marian Haley Beil (Ethiopia 1962–64) together produce the blog Peace Corps Worldwide and the Peace Corps Writers imprint. Their efforts lie at the heart of the Third Goal of the Peace Corps —  bring the world back home — and they’ve helped hundreds of writers tell their stories and publish their work. “RPCVs are the ones who tell the real story of the Peace Corps,” Coyne said. “They tell of their experiences in essays, articles, short stories, and memoirs. Stories that are the true historical documents of the agency.” Coyne and Beil’s collaboration began in the . . .

Photographed By Dave Buchanan, 2024 Peace Corps Pioneers Marker – 1 Inscription In 1961 President John F. Kennedy established the US Peace Corps, concept originally proposed by Minnesota Senator Hubert H. Humphrey. The Peace Corps was created from the President’s call to “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” Among the first Peace Corps Volunteers answering the President’s call in 1962 and completing their tours in 1964 were Plainview area residents: Kenneth Fliés serving in Brazil, Philip Mahle in Sierra Leone, Walter Mischke in Venezuela and Charles Rheingans in Thailand. “I was present at the creation, when the bright flame of conviction took hold in the imagination of the country and the Peace Corps became a promise fulfilled.” – Journalist Bill Moyers In 1962 there were some 25,000 incorporated cities and towns in America, many with populations in the tens . . .

In the news – Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Bob Arias (Colombia 1964-66)       Soraya Bilbao says the South Pacific is where she “fell in love with teaching.” She was a Peace Corps volunteer teacheing in a classroom in Atata, an outer island in the Kingdom of Tonga, a nation of 170 islands located west of the Cook Islands and east of Fiji. She taught in a classroom in an area where she was unfamiliar with the native language. So at the same time she taught English, she struggled to learn the language her students spoke, Tongan. It was a challenge that Bilbao sought and embraced. At the time, she was working in the nonprofit sector. Bilbao, who now teaches at Danbury High School, said because of her three years in Tonga, she learned she wanted to become an educator. “It just never crossed my mind to be . . .