>> from time to time all over ew england, we gather at our town hall to hammer out opinion of the politic -- opinions of the public in meetings like this. sometimes the meetings get out of hand and we argue back when the margaret -- when the moderator asks for order. but we like it that way, because we figure we elected him to the job in the first place. because we figure we elected him to the job in the first place. this particular meeting was pretty much like all the rest, except that the moderator alled on joseph. joseph was self-conscious and i had to persuade him to speak. this was his first town meeting. his first and his last. six months before, joseph had been a stranger to cummington. as his minister i thought i had come to know him better than others had in those six months and watching him speak, as a neighbor and friend, i was remembering the day that joseph arrived with his wife,

anna. i had heard of these refugees at a conference of ministers. they needed a place to live. my church had a house standing acant. had heard of these refugees at a conference of ministers. they needed a place to live. my church had a house standing ministers. they needed a place to live. my church had a house standing vacant. and i had an idea.

perhaps the refugees could have found another place to live. undoubtedly the good people of cummington would have preferred it that way. but then, that's what gave me the idea. anna. the first night, what do people do their first night in a strange house?

>> >> certainly, you don't want to alk to anyone. so, i said good night and went home to work on my sermon for sunday. sunday. sunday was clear. a good day for church.

because we like to make a social event out of it, it is a close community feeling we have about our church. we like to stand around and chat before the service. that's me, with the blind organist. sometimes i think it's too close. almost parochial. but maybe that's because originally hundreds of years ago, our communities were built around the church. the first church in cummington, 1780. first house, 17 years later. 1787. almost before i had begun my sermon, i heard commotion on the balcony and looked down to ee the refugees filing in. late, of course, i was moved. because i knew that they came from many different churches and denominations. catholic, jewish, protestant.

i took it as a gesture to me. so, i began again, taking my text from leviticus. the stranger that dwells with you shall be unto you as one born among you. and you shall love him as thyself. i was sure it helped the lonely feeling of the refugees. i wasn't so sure about the townspeople. only time would tell. oward the end of the service i noticed one incident that gave e some hope.

i guess with the music and all, t was too much for anna. but when i heard about joseph's visit to the grocery store, i egan to realize that sermons take a while to sink in. it seems he ran smack into the old stove league, the most exclusive club in america. in another place where the boys carveout public opinion. everyone went right on doing what he was doing. and joseph felt at first like no one knew he was there. but that wasn't true. because the minute his back was turned, they looked up, curious s kittens.

nd joseph knew it. i have given a lot of thought to that day. i'm sure the boys were just a self-conscious as he was. the trouble was, no one knew ow to begin. how to make the first move. so, i realized i would have to ake the first move myself. take people by the arm and lead them together. peter, one of the refugees, had been a printer of fine books back in austria. so, i took him out to the press o meet jim archer. i knew jim could understand the

old man's desire to get back to his craft. it wasn't hard to tell that he had been away from his work for a long, long time. for all his politeness, he could not keep his hands off the presses. so, jim agreed to take peter under his wing. as i left, jim was already promising to take peter over to see the collection of books at the memorial library across the meadow from the press. the great american poets house has been kept as it was since he day he died, with his own

collection of fine additions and manuscripts. here were the things that peter loved most. things he had been away from or too long. he must have remembered how many of these same books he had seen burned in the streets of his own hometown. he must ever call that emerson, thoreau, whitman, sat in the same room 100 years ago, planning, arguing, writing against slavery. and the plan for the work you've is going to do began to orm in his mind.

then? ax went to work helping out on widow suzanne archer's farm. susanna's boy had just been drafted and she needed a man who could handle the farm machinery. max had been a mechanic and zechoslovakia. and over at the sawmill the workman got to know sasha and understand his shyness and the best practical way, over the workbench. during the summer, joseph and anna opened a knickknack shop. the local girls got into the

habit of dropping around to elp out. i used to come around myself on a saturday afternoon, to enjoy a little bit of music to joseph. frankly, i think that they were a little bit surprised to find mozart in cummington. surprised that pleased. i think that in many different ways while we were getting to know the refugees better, they were learning about the new england countryside and its eople.

our land is similar to their own. chopped into small, one man, two-man farms. the soil is difficult and the eather is cruel sometimes. we are not the bread basket of america, but if you work hard the autumn harvest will give you back enough for your family and a little left over to take to market. and, of course, we set aside one of the best of everything to exhibit at the fair.

it's a hard life, often a lonely life. maybe that accounts for the way that we act sometimes.

and with the father was a harvest in human relations, too. one day the boy from down the street came bearing gifts. he had his speech all prepared. but he promptly forgot, like his mother knew he would. but it made me feel that perhaps my idea had taken root to. e had his speech all out of the press, peter was having a harvest of his own. he was finishing his woodcut of bryant, to be displayed in his art exhibit at the fair. the title page that he designed for the emerson essay on self-reliance was coming off the press.

he was back at work in his out of the press, peter was craft, a part of the shop. that night joseph was taken to sit with the old stove league, that was a good night. i don't say that all the self-consciousness was gone,

i think the excitement of the fair must be the same all over the world. to me it's a celebration, putting the! n the end of a good -- exclamation point on the end of a good harvest. to learn from each other in good, friendly competition. and at the end of the day, you know a little more about ourself and your neighbor.

you have a picture taken so that you won't forget a good day in your life. i was thinking of all of these things as i watched joseph speak. he was telling the town meeting that he would be leaving soon to go home and help rebuild his own country. but he would take with him many things that he had learned from his neighbors in cummington. a picture of the land and the people, very much like his own. that's about all there was to my idea in the first place. that the strangeness between people breaks down when they lived, worked, and meet together. as neighbors. i think the idea worked. at least, if the boys on the post office porch had been reluctant to welcome strangers, they were also reluctant to say oodbye to friends.

>> well, welcome to the kennedy caucus room of the russell building. vicki, it's good to see you again. i very much appreciated the opportunity to come to boston and to participate in one of your first programs. and also to enjoy the extraordinary replica of the united states senate that the key has put together up there. many of you have probably been there, but if you haven't, you should go. as someone who spends a good deal of time on the floor itself, it gave me an eerie feeling that i was right there in the senate. ted kennedy and i did not have much in common, to put my -- mildly, but he came down to the university of louisville, the mccoll center there, which i