And here is my story.
It is the longest one ever told, for I began with Adam. And of myself, I, too, can say, "I am both good and bad". I am a poet, a shipbuilder, a tiller of the soil. Sometimes I am master and sometimes I am a slave. I have built towers to the sky, only to see them tumble beneath the might of God's wrath. I have built my cities strong and beautiful, and then have seen them crushed beneath the fury of a conqueror's heel. But I always built again, more enduring, more wisely than before.
Three goals have ever been before me. Power: Power to hold aloft my banner higher than all the rest. Gold: Gold from the depths of the earth and the heart of mankind. And Peace: Peace found in poetry and the bright shadow of a fireside. And yet, all of these goals have been but one, to lay before a woman the power, the gold, the peace I have found.
As Noah, I scorned the taunts of others. I was strong then in the will of God and built my Ark to save from that time hence, the race of all mankind.
I was Moses and gave unto the world the laws which men live by or against. Thou shalt not and thou shalt not, said I. For forty years, I led the children of Israel through the wilderness until at last, they gained their Promised Land. But I, myself, could not enter therein, because once my faith had faltered.
And once I was a disciple of the Christ. I heard his voice lift in such quiet glory as no man before, or since, has heard. I stood beneath the darkening skies and trembled as thunder cracked the heavens; at the foot of Calvary's cross I wept, and yet found peace in Easter's dawn.
But I was Judas too, and worldly passions tempted me with thirty pieces of silver. For thirty pieces of silver, Oh God, I sold my soul. Then I touched the lowest tide by which men live.
I was Alexander, whom they call the Great. What emptiness the title holds, for though I conquered all the known world, and gave to Greece the glory that once was hers, yet, myself, I failed.
I was Caesar too. My armies marched across the earth and brought to Rome new laurels, new victories for her brow. But I died by the thrust of a sword, my blood staining marble steps and the soul of him who betrayed me, Brutus, that was my friend.
I was Martin Luther and sought to find my God in my own way. I changed the history of the world and began again man's everlasting fight for freedom.
Do not forget that I was Louis Pasteur. I, too, gave men a new way of life. I was a gentle man, but still I was strong. By my test tubes, I conquered, too.
I was Napoleon, who was a shopkeeper's son. I conquered Europe from the Black Sea to the British Channel. Nations bowed humbly before me. Power, yes, power was mine to hold in my two hands. But I went to Waterloo and I, myself, at last was humbled.
I was Washington. Remember the winter I spent at Valley Forge. By faith and with God's help, I led the "Thirteen Sisters" to victory. I saw a free nation rise and start the fulfillment of man's eternal desire for freedom.
And I was Benedict Arnold. Yes, you remember me. I, who brought the Colonial forces through to victory at Saratoga, the battle that turned the tide of history. Yet, I became a traitor and was scorned by friend and foe. Lonely is the balance of life and the coming of death to the betrayer.
Once they called me honest Abe Lincoln. I was a common man to whom God gave the power to lead a bewildered nation through darkness. I was not Union or Confederate, but American. From rail splitter to President, I had but one desire, the keeping of this, my land, a nation of the people, by the people and for the people.
I went westward toward the sunset. I crossed the Mississippi, planted wheat fields in Kansas and corn fields in Iowa. I scaled the heights of the Rockies and crossed the great deserts of the west. I dug gold from California and planted orchards in Oregon. I was a gambler, preacher and storekeeper. I felled the great timber and let my cattle rove the sagebrush covered prairies. I built schools, churches, bridges; I made roads, laid rails, dammed rivers and gave a new heritage to the future, the west, for I was a pioneer.
The turn of the century came and I was Teddy Roosevelt. My Rough Riders made legends. You remember them. One was a message to Garcia.
Once I said goodbye to home and country. I went to the Argonne, the Marne to fight again the battle for freedom, the "war to end all wars".
I came back sick at heart and cynical. I tried to cure myself with prohibition and tales of a chicken in every pot. I was afraid of myself, of life, of being called soft. I found new worlds to conquer in the air, the movies, and the radio. And there was a man named Franklin D. Roosevelt who brought again to the forefront the struggle for the freedom, the rights and, yes, the obligations of the common man. Across the seas a man who called himself Adolph Hitler arose to power. I tried to shun, to ignore him. But my new sciences had brought the world to me.
Me? Well you know me. I came into being on a peaceful Sunday morning. I wear Navy blue, Army khaki, the forest green of the Marines and the blue denim of the laborer. Some of my friends I left at Bataan and Corrigedor and Wake Island. I walked through the burning sands of a desert in Africa and crawled on my stomach through the jungles of Guadalcanal. I trained my eyes on distant horizons of Arctic northland and prowled beneath the ocean's surface. I flew through the broad blue reaches of the sky and into space, undaunted by danger or distance. But I also worked in the factories and on the farms. By day and by night I built weapons of war, where once I made the luxuries of peace.
There was a far off land called Korea and something called the 38th parallel. I went there too, to fight and die for an idea called freedom. I airlifted the tools of freedom into the city of Berlin. I have crossed the 'wall' and many of my graves may be found at its foot.
I was John F. Kennedy. An assassin's bullets found me in Dallas and a sadness came upon the world.
In Vietnam I failed to accomplish what I came to do, but not because I lacked courage in America.
A new search for freedom and I was Martin Luther King, seeking to widen boundaries of equality for black and white. An assassin found me too.
But I look toward the future. Looking forward still, to that which I have ever looked forward to since my story began. Today I falter, but tomorrow I shall go forward again, seeking always the light of freedom, the light that sometimes falters and flickers in the winds of destiny and is sometimes fanned into a brightness that shines though out all of the world. My story, a long one already, is a story just beginning, for I am yet good and I am yet bad. I still reach for power, for gold or for peace. I am never content, striving always for that which I do not have, be it good or bad, for I am the race of Man.
The Writings of Zelda Lorraine Brown Kline
Edited by Owen A. Kline and Michael E. Kline. Assistant Photo Editor David O. Kline
Copyright @1999 The Kline Family Organization, Inc.
First published in the United States of America by The Kline Family Organization, Inc. 4381 West 5375 South Kearns, Utah 84118
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