Five Points, Vol. 14 No. 2

Spring 2011

From David Kirby: “Take your time. I’m afraid if I say “patience” one more time, whoever’s reading this interview will lose patience with me. But it works.”

Sample Content

Mark Winegardner
Agent Halvorsen Addresses the Space Coast Optimists

[This speech is among forty-four linear feet of files Barnaby “Hal” Halvorsen left to the Golden Valley Lutheran College library. Block letters at the top read, “Cocoa Beach, Fla./June 8, 1986.”]

Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today, as I have always had a “soft spot” for the Optimists Club. Though I am not a member, I am related to you via my old friend and your fellow Optimist, Mr. Roy Nygard, who worked so hard to organize this program. [pause + applaud Roy.] If I may say so, I am also your ally in spirit. It is an honor to recite your creed with you, especially the last tenet, which to me is the most stirring: the promise to be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble. What lofty aims, however elusive, especially for a man who spent his salad days dancing with the twin devils of cynicism: one, that nothing is what it seems and, two, that everyone has something to hide. I, gentlemen, applaud you. [step back from podium + applaud them.]
Every law enforcement officer who has been engaged in investigative matters has that one case that gnaws at his soul on sleepless nights. For yours truly—a former Special Agent in Mr. Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation—that case involved a Mr. Kenneth Allen Kitts.

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