Joseph L. Kagle, Jr. Essays

A Letter to My Granddaughter About the Giants Among Us

There are giants who live in my home town, Waco, Texas. You and I played a game the other day when I was babysitting for my child, your lovely, mature mother, when she allowed your grandfather to take you, a three year old beauty, around my town.  I showed you some of the giant’s toys and tools, like the soup bowl where Baylor University plays football, the plow ditch where the Brazos River now runs, and the golf ball and “T” which is behind the HEB on 19^th Street which some unimaginative people call a water tower. At three, I know that you believe all my stories about the giants. What I did not show you is the giants themselves. They are hard to see. At times, they walk among us as ordinary persons. I am writing you this now so that later you will be able to see the giants in your life.

The other day I got a call from a friend asking if he could come over with his granddaughter who is older than you. Her name is Emily and she writes and paints beautifully but needs some help in an expertise he does not have. That grandfather was Bernard Rapoport, a giant in my life and the lives of many others. He seemed to be like any other grandfather, proud and wanting the best for the one he loves. Knowing how I feel about you and him, you can see that I could not deny help in this instant. B is a giant. He walks with presidents and kings, poets and paupers, and gives all his time and money to forward every child’s education. I have a mental picture always of him and his wife, Audre, reading to children in the Waco schools as well as being invited to the White House and other giant houses in the world.

As you know only too well, I was away last year in Georgia on a Fulbright Scholar’s grant. One of the giants who helped me when I needed a letter of recommendation was  the Honorable Lyndon Olson, Ambassador to Sweden. As a man with no time, he found time to help another Wacoan, another Rotarian. We got to know each other years ago when he left politics in Austin and came back home to Waco. We both were working on education in East Waco and crossing paths. His shoes are enormous to fill and the footprints he made in the diplomatic arena stamp him as a giant.

Last Thursday night, your grandmother and I attended a special evening for Paul Baker and his wife Kitty at the Dallas Children’s Theater. His daughter Robin had the rare opportunity to honor her father and forward her Theater with the help of 400 other friends, former students and relatives. What Baker did for regional theater in America is Herculean and the stuff of legends. Charles Laughton and Burgess Meredith came to Waco to learn from the master as equals who recognize other giants. Robert Johnson, a former student in the Baylor University theater program, and his wife gave one million dollars to begin a drive to name the new Children’s Theater after Paul and Kitty. By the end of the presentation, another $200,000 had been pledged toward the $1.5 million needed for the task. Some of the guests attending are now giants in their field of creative endeavor because of what Paul had started for them in his sessions in Waco or Dallas or San Antonio.

One giant not present at the presentation was another student of the Bakers, Robert Wilson. Wilson is a visual artist, dramatist, writer, director, etc. who works mostly in Europe but was born in Waco and whose father was city manager. When he walks into the Paris opera, the audience stands as one and applauds. When he directs the Metropolitan Opera in New York or the Alley Theater in Houston, it is a media event to rival any other (whether the reviews are good or bad). In Europe, he is a legend who sleeps only a few hours a night, wears out assistants like Kleenix during a cold, and leads the world’s young into the 21^st century in his creative school on Long Island each summer  

Some of the giants are writers who walk across the world in seven-league literary boots, like Robert Fulghum, and touch our souls so that we are tempted to stand on our tiptoes. Some are no longer with us, like the Iconocast in the early 20^th century or a recent departure, Martha Beard, whose heart and reach was so vast that it still surrounds all us who knew and loved her.

So my granddaughter, I tell you a little about the giants in my life in Waco, Texas, but you will find your own. Some will try to confuse you by saying that they are just people (which they are) but you will recognize them from the imprint they make upon the landscape of society and your life. As I said, there are giants amongst us.