Gold, Fire & Refinement

Chapter Twenty-Four

"The past has been a mint of blood and sorrow. That must not be true of tomorrow."  ~Langston Hughes 

Zarah couldn't believe it, but she actually owed thanks to Thurgood Williams for the smile on her face. On set in the television studio of the Student Union building, at Pennsylvania's The Lincoln University, she was thinking about how it was Thurgood's idea to have the set built for the show at the historically black school. Preparing to interview the two oldest members of the group called The Keepers, she could only watch and wait as members of the production crew scurried around her, making sure everything was right before the interviews started. The set director was making sure lights were right for certain camera angles and shots to be captured by his crew, and every now and then one or two students would come by to meet her, to shake her hand or to ask for her autograph. Still coming together, the set already had a calming power. Just what she needed. It was so well-designed,  her two interviewees didn't seem at all distracted by the crew. Technicians were working overhead, making sure they had perfect lighting for the day's filming, and the director of photography moved in near and between them, making it difficult for her to see or talk to them, but they were calmly talking to each other.  

Watching the students at work with Thurgood's production team reminded her of her undergraduate days at JCU. The students all seemed polite, competent, and capable, and she was glad Thurgood arranged for them to work with his crew. She hated admitting it, but witnessing what he'd caused to happen here was giving her one more thing to admire about a man she'd detested for years. A man she'd only started trying to change her opinion about in the past several days.

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Her interviewees for the day included the same two people she interviewed in Jackson, for the first shows; the same tall and wiry elderly man and the small, stout, somewhat less elderly woman. Both seemed alert and looked eager to talk. Mr. Clinton, the eldest member of The Keepers, looked at her with a frown in his brow, like he was trying to figure out a puzzle. His dark brown skin was smooth, except for deep wrinkles in his forehead and around his mouth. Looking at him, Zarah figured that in his lifetime, he'd done a lot of serious thinking, and maybe even more serious smiling. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, he spoke and revealed what had him looking so puzzled.

"Baby," he said. "How did a youngster like you ever get to have such a great big important job like what you have?"

Zarah laughed, then smiled. "That's a fair question," she said, "and a long story." She looked around the room at the student workers. "You see these college students here?" she asked, "All these young people helping the production crew?"

"I've met several of them." Mr. Clinton said, laughing. "They recognized me from the shows that aired already, from when we came to see you in Jackson. Asked me for my autograph. Made me feel like a celebrity!" The old man's face lit up and his whole body shook as he laughed what sounded like a sincere, heartfelt laugh.

Still smiling from watching him laugh, Zarah said, "It wasn't that long ago, I was just like these kids. I was fifteen when I went to college and I started working right away, at the JCU campus radio station."

"No kidding? Fifteen?"

"Young, huh?" She laughed. "I'm twenty-one now, but if I count the work I did in college? I've been working in my field for seven years. Plus, I'm finishing up my doctorate now at UCLA. I've always been in a hurry, you know, to get my life started."

The energetic seventy-two-year-old woman sitting to Zarah's right, her other interviewee, seemed to possess an exuberance that couldn't be kept inside. It seeped out, giving her a youthful glow, a spirited intensity. "My goodness," said Mrs. Arrington. "That means you're a young genius, huh?"