Read Online Our Last Best Chance: The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril by King Abdullah II, King Abdullah - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: King Abdullah II, King Abdullah
Tags: Fiction, General, History, Biography & Autobiography, Political, Political Science, middle east, International Relations, Royalty, Diplomacy, Arab-Israeli conflict, Peace-building, Peace, Jordan, 1993-
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problem was, I weighed 130 pounds and was in good shape. I realized that the only way I could lose all that weight was to stop eating, so for three weeks I ate nothing but wafer crackers and diet Jell-O. I made the team, won all my matches, and in the third match pulled off a victory by pinning my opponent in a record eleven seconds. But my success was short-lived. Because I had been undereating, I could not concentrate in class and my grades took a sudden turn for the worse. Also, I started passing out and went on sick leave for a time. As a result, they took me off the team and put me on the backup squad.
Although it was hard being so far away from home and from my family, the egalitarian spirit of America was refreshing. Back in Jordan I would always be the eldest son of the King, and this would bear on all my interactions, whether with teachers or fellow classmates. But at Deerfield it did not matter whether you were the son of a chief executive officer, a scholarship kid from Chicago’s South Side, or one of the Rockefellers—everyone had the same tasks to perform and the same opportunity to shine. Each day at mealtimes some students acted as waiters, serving their classmates. At one point, when it was my turn to serve, I was not doing a very good job. Jim Smith, who ran the dining hall and was also the football coach, good naturedly yelled, “Abdullah, I don’t care if your father is the King of Jordan, I am the king in this dining hall!” I got the message and my performance improved. Smith was quite popular with the students. He had a large family himself, several boys and a girl, and looked on the school as an extension of his family. He would frequently break out into song in the dining hall—and although he had a fine voice, the students enjoyed pretending that it reminded them of the sound of fingernails on a blackboard.
At Deerfield I made my first close American friends: George “Gig” Faux, from outside Boston; Chip Smith, a preppy New Englander; and Perry Vella, who had come on a scholarship from Queens, New York. My classmates knew my background, but they did not stand on ceremony. To them, I was just Abdullah or, as they more often called me, “Ab.” Deerfield allowed me to have a normal childhood and gave me the tools to turn into the man I needed to become. To this day, some of my closest friends are my old Deerfield classmates.
Since Jordan was too far to go for anything but the longer holidays, I spent many vacations with Gig and his family. Halfway around the world from home, I valued the chance to spend time in a family atmosphere. Back then you had to schedule an international phone call days in advance, so I managed to speak to my father only once or twice a semester.
My security guards lived close by, in a house on the edge of campus. They gave me an early taste for “covert action”: I used to delight in finding new and innovative ways to escape from the dorm at night without being observed. Although we did not often succeed, it provided great training for Gig and me when in our senior year we became dorm proctors. By that point we knew most of the tricks, sometimes the hard way. Gig’s father was an air force fighter pilot, and Gig had somehow managed to get his hands on a military distress flare. Curious to see how it worked, one night we snuck out of our dorms along with two other friends and set the thing off. The flare soared through the New England night, illuminating the campus with a bright red glow, and headed toward the white-pillared entrance to the Old Gym, a magnificent, sturdy building that housed the squash courts and wrestling facilities. Panicked that it would burn down the gym and maybe hit the neighboring dining hall, we sprinted toward the building as fast as we could. I can still remember my relief when we figured out that the flare had shot over the roof of the gym and landed in the playing field.
Although my guards had not been terribly useful in protecting
Although it was hard being so far away from home and from my family, the egalitarian spirit of America was refreshing. Back in Jordan I would always be the eldest son of the King, and this would bear on all my interactions, whether with teachers or fellow classmates. But at Deerfield it did not matter whether you were the son of a chief executive officer, a scholarship kid from Chicago’s South Side, or one of the Rockefellers—everyone had the same tasks to perform and the same opportunity to shine. Each day at mealtimes some students acted as waiters, serving their classmates. At one point, when it was my turn to serve, I was not doing a very good job. Jim Smith, who ran the dining hall and was also the football coach, good naturedly yelled, “Abdullah, I don’t care if your father is the King of Jordan, I am the king in this dining hall!” I got the message and my performance improved. Smith was quite popular with the students. He had a large family himself, several boys and a girl, and looked on the school as an extension of his family. He would frequently break out into song in the dining hall—and although he had a fine voice, the students enjoyed pretending that it reminded them of the sound of fingernails on a blackboard.
At Deerfield I made my first close American friends: George “Gig” Faux, from outside Boston; Chip Smith, a preppy New Englander; and Perry Vella, who had come on a scholarship from Queens, New York. My classmates knew my background, but they did not stand on ceremony. To them, I was just Abdullah or, as they more often called me, “Ab.” Deerfield allowed me to have a normal childhood and gave me the tools to turn into the man I needed to become. To this day, some of my closest friends are my old Deerfield classmates.
Since Jordan was too far to go for anything but the longer holidays, I spent many vacations with Gig and his family. Halfway around the world from home, I valued the chance to spend time in a family atmosphere. Back then you had to schedule an international phone call days in advance, so I managed to speak to my father only once or twice a semester.
My security guards lived close by, in a house on the edge of campus. They gave me an early taste for “covert action”: I used to delight in finding new and innovative ways to escape from the dorm at night without being observed. Although we did not often succeed, it provided great training for Gig and me when in our senior year we became dorm proctors. By that point we knew most of the tricks, sometimes the hard way. Gig’s father was an air force fighter pilot, and Gig had somehow managed to get his hands on a military distress flare. Curious to see how it worked, one night we snuck out of our dorms along with two other friends and set the thing off. The flare soared through the New England night, illuminating the campus with a bright red glow, and headed toward the white-pillared entrance to the Old Gym, a magnificent, sturdy building that housed the squash courts and wrestling facilities. Panicked that it would burn down the gym and maybe hit the neighboring dining hall, we sprinted toward the building as fast as we could. I can still remember my relief when we figured out that the flare had shot over the roof of the gym and landed in the playing field.
Although my guards had not been terribly useful in protecting
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