What Difference Do It Make? by Ron Hall Page B

“Alex was looking beyond the next hour, the next drink, at what the future might hold.
    When he first started teaching at the mission, Don had hoped to uncover some hidden talent—the next Picasso or Remington, undiscovered, wrapped in rags instead of a fancy art degree. Perhaps inside one of these broken men lay an artist who had only been waiting for the right nurturing.
    Soon though, Don realized that it wasn’t the art itself that was making a difference to these men but “the doing of the art, the stories surrounding the art.”
    Drawing and painting calmed the men down, helped them express themselves in a different way. “You don’t have to put everything into words,” Don says. “Sometimes you don’t have words.”
    Beautiful gardens surrounded the mission—flowers, vines, and trellises sheltered in leafy canopies of shade. One day, Don took a handful of men outside and told them, “Pick anything you want to draw. But whatever you pick, you’re going to draw it eight times.”
    It was an exercise in commitment. “Commitment and follow-through is hard for addicts,” Don said. “They want something that’s immediate. When something doesn’t work quickly, they move on to something else.”
    One man picked a vine-covered trellis. But as he sketched and sketched, he focused on the trellis itself, struggling over and over to render the spots where the thin, white wood crossed. It was as though he didn’t see the vines or the leaves or the flowers at all. Meanwhile, he became more and more frustrated and impatient.
    â€œSlow down a little,” Don coached him. “What else do you see here? Do you see leaves? Shadows? Colors?”
    The man tried again, this time relaxing a little, sinking into the moment, less intent on the hard detail and more open to the total picture. After a few more tries, he showed his piece to Don, who was impressed with what the man had achieved in the end.
    Art, said Don, teaches something we all need to learn, especially about people who are different from ourselves: “To see things the way they truly are, sometimes you have to look more deeply.”

15
    Ron
    W hen Same Kind of Different as Me finally came out, I took Mama and Daddy a copy and wrote inside: “Thanks for being who you are. If it hadn’t been for you, there would have never been me! Love, Ronnie.”
    Mom read the book first and declared it a literary masterpiece. Of course, my mama had also declared me handsome that time she sewed me a matching shirt and short set from blue and black plaid, a new outfit she made special for my first date with a sorority girl from Texas Christian University.
    Dad started reading the book a few days later and stopped on page 18 after reading, “Somewhere during my childhood, he crawled into a whiskey bottle and didn’t come out till I was grown.”
    A couple of days later, I pulled into their driveway. They were sitting on the porch in their wrought-iron rockers, and Mama was working a crossword puzzle.
    â€œWhy did you say what you did about me?” Daddy asked the instant I walked up.
    â€œWhat did I say?” I said, knowing without asking which part he was referring to since it was about the only time I referred to him in the book.
    â€œAbout me crawling in a whiskey bottle,” he said, taking a sip from his Jim Beam and Coke.
    From out of nowhere, my Mama cut in like a linebacker intercepting a pass. “Because it’s the damn truth, Earl!”
    My mouth fell open. I think it was the first time I’d heard her cuss.
    Earl stuck out his chin, defiant. “Is that what you think of your old man?”
    â€œDaddy, I’ve forgiven you for that,” I said, without really meaning it.
    â€œWell, I’m not gonna be reading the rest of your book,” he said.
    Neither, it seemed, was anybody else. When Same Kind of Different as Me appeared in