Kenny Rogers sang a song about a black man unfairly blamed for crimes not committed, and a man who did not turn his back on an innocent white child born out of wedlock. The chorus goes like this:
All the folks from Madison County cussed your name...
Until your lonely pinebox came
Just a preacher and me in the rain
Just to sing one last refrain for Reuben James.
Reuben James, you still walk the furrowed field of my mind
The faded shirt, the weathered brow
The calloused hands upon the plow
I loved you then and I love you now, Reuben James.
I have my own "Reuben James" hero. His name was Gilberto Marquez. He was an immigrant from Castro's Cuba. Gilbert, along with several other Cuban immigrants, worked for the same division of the bank in Atlanta for which I worked. Gilbert had been a professor of Accounting for the University of Havana, but was forced to leave everything to escape Cuba.
Now in Atlanta, Gilbert had taken a lowly bookeeper job for the bank. He knew more about Accounting than I will ever forget, in spite of my Masters in Accounting and my CPA designation. I was fortunate to manage the night shift for the bank while I was working on my undergraduate degree in Psychology. For some strange reason I left college with just one quarter left for my degree. For the year that followed I moved to the day shift, and managed an Accounting section. It was then that I worked closely with Gilbert. He was the most humble and kind man that I probably will ever meet.
He never complained about all that he left in Cuba. Instead he, like the other Cuban rufugees that I worked with, were grateful for the opportunity to work and live free in the United States. I now would like to add my own chorus for my hero.
Gilberto, you still walk the furrowed fields of my mind.
Your gentle words, your kindly face, your humble life that filled a space
A space I never will replace, my friend Gilbert.
I hope that you have your own hero like Gilberto. Sometimes it is not the self-sacrificing efforts that define a hero, but the almost overlooked life of quiet integrity that inspires us to follow. Gilberto, I loved you then and I love you now, fifty years later.
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