[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 11817]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



              APPOINTMENT OF ACTING PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will please read a communication to 
the Senate from the President pro tempore (Mr. Byrd).
  The legislative clerk read the following letter:

                                                      U.S. Senate,


                                        President pro tempore,

                                    Washington, DC, June 26, 2001.
     To the Senate:
       Under the provisions of rule I, paragraph 3, of the 
     Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby appoint the Honorable 
     Evan Bayh, a Senator from the State of Indiana, to perform 
     the duties of the Chair.
                                                   Robert C. Byrd,
                                            President pro tempore.

  Mr. BAYH thereupon assumed the chair as Acting President pro tempore.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arkansas.
  I shall take the privilege of the Chair and say that was an 
especially moving invocation this morning.
  Mrs. LINCOLN. I thank the Chair.
  I thank the Senator from Nevada and all of my colleagues for the 
opportunity to share with you all this morning a very special 
individual in my life. I have been very blessed to grow up in a very 
close-knit family of supportive and encouraging people. My uncle, the 
Reverend Lawson Anderson, is just one of those wonderful people. I grew 
up within walking distance of both sets of my grandparents, and on hot 
summer days I would walk over to his mother's home and in the cool of 
his house play the organ that she practiced as she was the organist for 
our church.
  One of the most wonderful stories and I think lessons I have learned 
from my Uncle Lawson I would like to share with my colleagues. He did 
not get started in ministry. His degree is in forestry. He began as a 
forester. He then went into banking and figured out, in order to really 
make it through life, he needed the wisdom and the courage that came 
from the ministry, which he joined later in life. He did say, however, 
that one of the best lessons he learned was not necessarily from the 
ministry but from his time in the forest industry.
  He talked about dealing with problems in life, and he said one of the 
best lessons he learned as a forester was when he was very young and 
was presented with a forest fire, a difficult problem. He was beating 
at that fire with a shovel, and one of the older members of the 
forestry team came up to him and said: What are you doing? He said: I 
am putting this fire out; I'm putting it out. And the wise forester, 
who was beyond I guess his years in wisdom, looked at Uncle Lawson and 
said: That is not how you conquer a problem. The way you conquer a 
problem and, more importantly, a forest fire is you walk around it; you 
approach it from the front; you evaluate the circumstances: Which way 
is the wind blowing? What kind of moisture is there in the area? And 
then you dig a hole all the way around so that you encircle your 
problem and you actually take care of the whole thing. You do not just 
beat at it, but you make sure you get in front of your problems, you 
assess the situation, and you face them head on.
  I am honored and privileged to serve the people of our great State of 
Arkansas. It has been something that has certainly been incredible in 
my life. But when I am able to bring to the Senate and share with these 
individuals, these incredible individuals with whom I serve in this 
great body, someone who has been a major part of shaping my life and 
molding me into the person that I am, it is, indeed, my honor and 
privilege to do that and to have him with us today.
  I thank the Chair.

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