Gil Spencer: At 51, it’s off to Armenia with Peace Corps

The Delaware County Times, PA
June 9 2004

You ask businessman John Tease what, at the age of 51, he’s thinking
— joining the Peace Corps and going to Armenia to live in a rural
village for two years — and he’ll throw it back at you as if it’s
the most natural thing in the world to do.

“You probably had the same thought in your mind 35 years ago,”
he’ll say.

And when you reply, “No, I didn’t,” he’ll smile acceptingly and try
to explain himself.

It turns out that, early on, Tease was your conventional American
high school kid.

He graduated from Penncrest High School in 1971. But he wanted to do
something a little different from his peers, who were mostly going
off to white-bread colleges.

“The thought of going to Penn State left me uninspired,” he explained.

So, even though he spoke barely a word of Spanish, he went to the
University of the Americas, south of Mexico City, where he majored
in anthropology and met his future wife.

She was from Denver. So, after spending four years in school, he
went back to Colorado with her. They got married and he went into
her family’s business.

Some 30 years and two daughters later, they got amicably divorced.

It was the divorce and a certain level of financial independence
that left Tease free enough to pursue the daydream he had back in
high school.

It was his Penncrest social studies teacher, Emerson Tjart, who got
him thinking about other cultures, other countries and the people who
live in them. Tjart had done his own hitch in the Peace Corps in the
mid-’60s, serving in Iran before the ayatollahs took over.

“Why Armenia?” I asked Tease.

“Actually, I was looking for an African assignment,” he said,
explaining he was almost set to go there when he was injured while
racing his quarter horse in Denver.

After he was cleared medically, he got a call from the Corps.

“They said Armenia,” and that was that.

So, he began to read up on it.

“It’s a tiny country, the oldest Christian nation in the world,” having
declared it the state religion in the 4th century. The literacy rate
is 99 percent, but under Soviet domination it was kept a relatively
poor nation, he said.

Now that the Soviet Union no longer exists, Armenians are trying to
make the painful transition to a market economy. The country is still
recovering from the 1988 earthquake that destroyed almost a quarter
of all the buildings in the north. Still, it’s a country rich in
culture with a strong intellectual tradition and a population with
a gift for commerce.

Tease will start out in a 90-day training program, learning the
language (East Armenian) and getting a feel for the do’s and don’ts
of the culture. Then, depending on the needs of the community, he’ll
be assigned.

Since his own experience is in business, he hopes he’ll be put to
work helping the locals improve their economy: from finding investment
sources to setting up computers systems to just teaching high school
students what’s really involved in a free-market system.

Tease comes by his adventuresome streak honestly.

His father, Sam, who still lives in Upper Providence with his bride
Gin, has traveled the world on his motorcycle. At 82, the retired
Marine is planning a jaunt up through New England later this summer.

As for John’s daughters, they’re no slouches, either. They’re Western
girls.

“They ride horses well and they shoot straight,” he says proudly.

His youngest, Allison, fought forest fires with the U.S. Forestry
Service right out of high school before going into nanotechnology,
while the older one, Meredith, is the chief operating officer of a
hedge fund.

High-spiritedness apparently runs in the family.

So his cars are sold, as is one of his horses. The other, his beloved
Sugar, has been put out to pasture.

He leaves this week. He can bring with him 100 pounds of personal
belongings, which will include a laptop, a short-wave radio and a
sleeping bag rated for sub-zero temperatures. The climate is a lot
like Denver’s: dry but with cold winters.

The pay?

“It’s enough to feed yourself” with a little left over for “some
level of entertainment.”

The housing? Adequate, safe and secure.

He’s been told that “a good sleeping bag, flexibility and a sense
of humor will enable one to survive.” He’s got the sleeping bag
for sure. He’ll find out how much of the other two he has after he
gets there.

“I only hope I can give back as much as I’m going to get out of this,”
he says. “I like to think I have much to offer, but it worries me.”

He doesn’t look worried. He looks happy.

“I’m so exited,” he says, sounding like a kid. “I’m ready for this.”

Gil Spencer’s column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.

E-mail: gspencer@delcotimes.com.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress