Lessons from the life of "Somebody"

Never having had to suffer severe economic hardship myself, I am attracted to stories of people who have had to overcome great odds. Sidney Poitier writes in Life Beyond Measure that he arrived in New York City alone at age sixteen with fifteen dollars in his pocket and, not knowing anyone, having nowhere to stay! That night he used the nickle required to open the door of a pay toilet stall in a bus depot, and spent the night there. Many similar nights followed, until he graduated to the rooftop of a New York building. Finally, to escape the cold, he joined the Army, where he stayed for a little more than one year.

After he was discharged from the Army, he returned to the same challenges of living in New York City, earning money from various dishwashing jobs. He applied for an acting job at the American Negro Theater, but after just a few minutes of auditioning (reading), was summarily thrown out, and told to get a job as a dishwasher. On his way to take the bus downtown to apply for dishwashing jobs, he suddenly realized that being a dishwasher was what the man at the theater thought was all Sidney could ever be! His father had raised him to think of himself as "somebody," and he was determined to prove that. He remembered the times he learned how to avoid being stung by wasps as he successfully reached to the top of trees for ripe fruit as a boy in the Bahamas. He later went back to the Americn Negro Theater and volunteered to be the janitor, if they would allow him to study there.

While doing yet another dishwasher job, he waited one night while the waiters finished their cups of coffee, so he could wash their cups. An "older Jewish waiter" saw Sidney browsing through a newspaper someone had left. He walked over to Sidney and asked, "What's new in the paper?" Sidney stammered, and then answered honestly, "I wish I could tell you, but I can't read very well." (Sidney had quit school at age 12 to help his parents pick tomatoes in the Bahamas). The waiter asked him if he would like to read with him. That started a nightly endeavor in which the waiter explained the basics of reading to Sidney. The waiter eventually took a waiter job elsewhere in the city, and one of Sidney's greatest regrets is that he was never able to properly thank the man for his kindness in opening up the world of literacy to the young dishwasher.