‘None of us can avoid the shoals.’ Wit, wisdom and life lessons from Max Cleland
Editor’s note: Joseph Maxwell “Max” Cleland, a former U.S. Senator from Georgia, died Tuesday at age 79. He had also served as a state senator and as Georgia Secretary of State, as well as in other high-profile roles. In 2008, Telegraph reporter Joe Kovac Jr. spoke at length with Cleland for an interview that was published as part of the newspaper’s “This I Know” series. Cleland, who was raised in Lithonia, shared insights on politics, the world at large and the leadership roles he ascended to after a grenade explosion in the Vietnam War left him a triple-amputee. Cleland’s words of wit, wisdom and life lessons — in paragraph form and lightly edited for clarity — appear below:
I wear a Mickey Mouse watch. It helps me keep perspective as well as time.
Many are strong at the broken places, but not everybody.
Thomas Jefferson is talking to John Adams and Jefferson has just lost his wife and his daughter in the same year. Jefferson and Adams, they’re in Paris. Jefferson says, “I’ve found the art of living is avoiding the shoals and the rocks. But the truth of the matter is none of us can avoid the shoals and the rocks.”
When I sign my books or sign autographs, people throughout the years have said, “Oh, you’re left-handed too.” It’s really funny. People see but they don’t perceive. They don’t think that that’s my only option.
I’ve had some people look at me and say, “Where were you in World War II?”
A missing limb is the most eye-catching thing about a person other than a facial injury. And to have three of them, wow.
I was with some youngsters yesterday at a school for disabled kids and the first little kid ran up to me, about 3 or 4 years old, and he looked at me and says, “You can’t walk.” And I said, “Yes, but I can talk. And I talk a lot.” And then he says, “I do, too.”
After I got wounded and lost my right hand, I said, “Well, hell, there’s two things I can do with my left hand: I can shoot a left-handed shot in basketball and I can still play a French horn.”
A big old thick chocolate cake, layer upon layer just dripping with chocolate. White on the inside, not chocolate on the inside. I mean, I can talk to you about my sin of gluttony. I mean, that’s one of the ones I really worked at. But just to put my big old left hand in the middle of that chocolate cake and try to put that whole thing in my mouth, that would be ecstasy.
In my apartment in Washington, I have a button that says, “Forget Love, I’d Rather Fall in Chocolate.” If I’m gonna drown, I don’t want to drown in love. No, no, no, that’s too painful. Just put me in a vat of chocolate.
Max is a great name to have. And now all the stores have it — OfficeMax, whatever-Max. I thought Maxwell House coffee was named after me until I was 12.
Happiness is the ability to get some enjoyment out of today.
When I was in Vietnam, Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” really stopped me in my tracks. You’re there halfway around the world in the damn jungle. You’re out of your mind with homesickness and the moment that came on the loudspeaker or on somebody’s radio, I would literally stop. It was just hitting me in my gut. All those names of those towns in the song, it’s just home. It’s home and love.
With all the prices going up, I’m really teed off that grits have gone from a dollar a box to three dollars.
There is a God and I’m not it. It’s been hard to learn that. As an only child, that’s been a very tough reality to face.
When I really, really want to spoil myself I go and dance to some oldies but goodies at Johnny’s Hideaway.
I was head of the Veteran’s Administration and I almost got punched out by some veterans when I was out in San Francisco. They were wild and crazy, hardcore-militant, anti-V.A. Vietnam veterans like me. And I was head of the V.A. This was 1977, fresh right out of the Vietnam war. The V.A. up to that point had been crap. They had massive computer errors and screwed things up. And by the time I landed in San Francisco and went to this meeting, man, there was this crowd lined up on each side. A couple of people took swings at me. I’m thinking, “Wait a doggone minute, I’m one of you guys! Don’t swing at me!”
With one hand, when I try to do paperwork or try to get around in my office or apartment and I drop something, it’s just darn-near automatic — damn-near automatic — that I come out with some expletive that should be deleted. I get so frustrated. I’ve dropped my cellphone twice in the toilet. It’s cost me $140 each time. They don’t work too well under water.
What you have in Iraq is an American occupation force that will be ultimately withdrawn. The British were there before us. Other nations have been there before us. This is the birthplace of civilization, 5,000 years. We ain’t gonna change it — no matter how long we stay. And so Iraq is a disaster militarily and politically.
They say the goal in life is to postpone dying young as long as you can.
Basketball was my love. I miss the fade-away jump shot from the corner, where you fade away into the cheerleaders and the popcorn stand.