Unintended Contributions
Disclaimer: The characters of West Wing do not belong to me in any way shape or form
Spoilers for 20 Hours in America Part II and College Kids
A/N: This is told from Matt Kelley's POV.
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My granddaughter came to me last night. She was in her last days of a high school history class, and had recently learned something that amazed her, though it had come about during her mother's lifetime. "Grandpa," she said "did you know college wasn't always tax deductible?"
Her words provoked a catharsis of emotion, transporting me back to a time decades ago, in a bar in Indiana, on a rainy night.
I had always known that I was not destined to change the world. It was another's place to accomplish great things, and mine to amble through life one step at a time and make the best life possible for me and my family.
Please understand: I wasn't averse to helping others. Indeed, I strived to be as useful to my common man as my potential would allow. But I never imagined being able to help more than one person at a time.
I don't know what possessed me to speak to the prickly bald man at the bar that night. While I had always been a rather congenial fellow, it was not my usual M.O. to attempt a conversation with a complete stranger, who clearly had no interest in talking to me or anybody else.
Perhaps it was a combination of excitement at showing my eldest Norte Dame and the nerves that came from wondering how I was going to pay for her education. His boss went to Norte Dame, he said.
Boss… that's quite a euphemism for the President. That's who the prickly man worked for, the President of the United States.
If an outsider had been listening to our conversation, he might have assumed that I already knew who the man was. After all, I criticized the public school system to one of the chief policy makers for the President of the United States. But I honestly didn't.
Even after my rambling (about how paying for college should be just a tad bit easier), when he told me he worked at the White House, I didn't imagine the impact my conversation with him and his friend would have. I was impressed that he worked at the White House, but I didn't think he had a job that had day to day contact with the President.
When Mr. Ziegler called me a few days later, and told me what they had set in motion I was astounded. When the legislation actually passed, I was amazed.
My granddaughter doesn't know that it was my conversation that made her future education tax deductible. It's not in her history book, and I doubt it ever will be in any others. That information will die with me and Mr. Lyman and Mr. Ziegler. Another man might be upset by that, but I'm not. After all, I was never meant to change the world.