Blog — 650,000 Hours

by Ken Budd

Go ahead. I’ll follow.

Franco Lalama said those words to colleagues on the morning of September 11, 2001. He had led the evacuation of engineering offices on the 64th floor of One World Trade Center, but then, moments after heading down the stairs, he turned back. He wanted to check the offices one more time—to make sure no one had been left behind. He lost his life ensuring that others would live.

As an engineer for the Port Authority, Frank ensured that bridges were safe—including the George Washington bridge.

“He put himself last and everyone else first,” his wife Linda said.

Frank worked for the Port Authority, overseeing the structural integrity of bridges and tunnels. Now, on the 15th anniversary of 9/11, to honor his memory, his life, and his sacrifice, I am pleased to announce the launch of the Cross-Cultural Solutions Franco Lalama scholarship, which will help CCS volunteers to build cultural bridges in Costa Rica.

The Costa Rica connection comes from Frank’s stepdaughter, Marianne, who volunteered in San Carlos in 2006. My wife Karen and I also volunteered with CCS in Costa Rica that year, arriving the same day as Paul Gass, a CCS volunteer from the UK—and Marianne’s future husband. Paul and Marianne met while volunteering, and were married in New Jersey in 2011.

Nine years earlier, on the one-year anniversary of the attacks, Marianne paid tribute to Frank at the 9/11 memorial service at Ground Zero. She said these words:

I don’t remember the last time I told him that I loved him. I would give anything to go back to the morning of September 11 and tell him how much I appreciate everything he’s done for me. But I think he knows that now. In my eyes, he died a hero, and how much more could you ask for.

There’s a quote that pretty much speaks for itself:

You never lose anything. Not really. Things, people—they go away, sooner or later. You can’t hold them anymore than you can hold the moonlight. But if they’ve touched you, if they are inside of you, then they are still yours.

Frank, as I look back on these days, I realize how much I truly miss you and how much I truly love you. You were the best father I could ask for. I miss you. And I hope you didn’t hurt too much.

Marianne with her mom Linda and her husband Paul on their wedding day in 2011.

Frank was known for many things. For his generosity. For his skill as a structural engineer—and the cannoli he’d bring to meetings. For his love of family and traditions (he was seven when his family came to New Jersey from Italy in 1963, and every autumn would use a family recipe to make homemade Italian wine). I’m thrilled that Frank’s legacy, and his ideals, will live on through this scholarship, which was funded by my memoir, The Voluntourist, along with contributions from Linda, and Paul and Marianne, and from the estate of my mother, Sandra M. Budd, who died on September 13, 2015.

The Franco Lalama scholarship will help volunteers to fund their travels as they connect with others, learn from others, and create their own Costa Rica memories. The scholarship will provide funds to one volunteer per year. To apply or to contribute to the Franco Lalama scholarship fund, contact Cassandra Tomkin at cassandra@crossculturalsolutions.org.

Ken Budd is the host of 650,000 Hours, a web series launching in 2017. He is the author of the award-winning memoir The Voluntourist and his writing credits include The New York Times, National Geographic, Smithsonian, The Washington Post, and The Chicago Tribune. You can follow 650,000 Hours on Twitter and Facebook.

by Ken Budd

Recently I watched my favorite sports documentary: Survive and Advance, the tale of N.C. State University’s inspiring NCAA basketball championship run in 1983 and Coach Jim Valvano’s fight against cancer. I’m always moved by the story of his legendary 1993 speech at ESPN’s ESPY awards, where Valvano, despite having “tumors all over my body,” despite vomiting throughout the flight to the event, despite needing assistance to reach the podium, outlined his emotional and spiritual philosophy for life.

Valvano crowdsurfs while announcing a game in the early 1990s.

“There are three things we all should do—every day!,” he declared. “Number one is laugh—you should laugh every day. Number two is think—you should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears—it could be happiness or joy. But think about it: If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heckuva day.”

Like many people who have seen the speech, that passage stayed with me. I certainly laugh every day. I certainly spend time in thought. But it’s rare that my emotions are moved to tears. As a kid, I remember hearing the song “It’s All Right to Cry” from the Free to Be You and Me album and wanting to wretch. Years later, I saw the movie Terms of Endearment and the entire audience was weeping. Except me. I looked around the theater and thought… Am I the only one not crying? Is something wrong with me? Do I have defective tear ducts?

A friend of mine cries during Hallmark commercials. My uncle sobbed so loudly during Forrest Gump that he stopped going to movies. But typically—and this is a total gender cliché—men are discouraged from crying. It’s considered wimpy. Bawling does not equal balls. And maybe it’s an evolutionary issue. Perhaps our hunter forefathers were more likely to be snacks for saber-toothed tigers if they stopped to boo-hoo at the beauty of a daisy-filled meadow. (One exception: If you fight the tears, but casually wipe a red eye, you manage to seem both sensitive and tough, an art perfected by many politicians.)

But Valvano’s larger point, I believe, is that we should revel in the microscopic joys of life, which often escape us amidst distractions and obligations. And so on a recent trip to Lucerne, where I attended a conference, I escaped to a bench and watched two happy toddlers throw gravel into the lake. I spent evenings with two sponsors—old friends from Ireland—who make me laugh, and keep me out too late, and lead me to drink more beer than I really need. It’s about wrenching ourselves from headphones and screens, and immersing ourselves in the world rather than shutting it out. It’s about feeling something basic and essentially human.

I confess: When I watched the documentary again, I laughed. And I thought. And I cried. If you want to do the same—or if you just like basketball—you can find Survive and Advance here. Go to the 1:24:00 mark to hear the story of the ESPY awards speech, which Valvano gave less than two months before his death at 47. And if you really want to shed a tear, and to hear a man in the macho world of big-time college sports talk about, yes, love, go to the 1:59:10 mark to see his final moment with his team at a 10-year reunion in 1993, three years after he was fired by the university. Grab some tissue. And then, since May is National Cancer Research Month, make a donation to the V Foundation for Cancer Research.

Ken Budd is the host of 650,000 Hours, a web series launching in 2016. He is the author of the award-winning memoir The Voluntourist and his writing credits include The New York Times, National Geographic, Smithsonian, The Washington Post, and The Chicago Tribune.

Photos courtesy of the V Foundation for Cancer Research.