Sandra Day O'Connor
Well, I'm all weighted down now with this fantastic medal. And my husband and I are so happy to be at this beautiful campus today and what a day you will produce for us. It's incredible. We don't have days like this in Washington DC. We can even see the snow capped mountain Mount Baldy. MM, this gorgeous campus. And we're thrilled to be here and I'm so honored by the presentation to me today of the LM browning scripts award. You know Ellen browning scripts was a very special moment. When we look back and try to identify those women who've made a significant difference for the lives of all women who follow. We would include Ellen scripts on our short list. She lived a simple, brutal life, obtained an education largely by our own efforts eventually helped her brothers found a newspaper Empire and Layton life founded this very college Scripps College for Women. She had no money to go to college, and worked for two years to pay the cost of going to Knox College back in 1856. She graduated and became a teacher. She saved money has a teacher and moved to Detroit and help her brothers establish a newspaper. She even wrote a newspaper column as you've already heard. For many years, it was called Miss Ellen's miscellany. She moved to California in 1890, where she remained until her death at age 96. All of her resources, which were considerable and time, she gave to charitable causes which interested her. She's been described as a person who was a principal architect of the times in which she lived, and who contributed much to the shaping of the future in ways which left each succeeding generation in her debt. hers was alive that should inspire each one of us here today. Her life and in 1930, to mine began in 1930. Like Ellen brown and scripts, I've lived through a period of enormous change for women, not only for the legal profession, but in every field. I am all of you have benefited from the effort and progress made possible so slowly, first, by the courageous and determine women in the past, such as Ellen browning scripts. Now today, I want to share with you a small story from my own past a story about hopes and dreams and opportunities. I grew up on a cattle ranch on the Arizona New Mexico border. The ranch was started in 1881, Arizona, New Mexico were a single territory. We were 35 miles from any 10. A trip to town was a significant event and occurred only about once a week to buy groceries and pick up the mail. My favorite author Wallace Stegner described the West best. He wrote, there is something about living in big empty space, where people are few and distant under a great sky that is alternately serene and furious, exposed to the sun from four in the morning till nine at night. And to win that never seems to rest. There are some things about exposure to that big country that not only tells an individual how small he is, but steadily tells him who he is.
As a child, I remember driving around the ranch with my father hour after power. Bump slowly along over rocky terrain, to check on a windmill or a water pipe or a tank to see if there was a salt block out for the cattle at a certain place. Or if a cow with sore eyes was doing all right or needed some medication. We would watch the skies constantly hoping for rain. Rain was our life's blood. It produced the grass and the vegetation that cattle had to have to survive. Like all the arid Southwest rain was the essential element. The most treasured event, prayed for hoped for anticipated, savored when it came treasures celebrated and enjoyed every drop. In summer when the big cumulus clouds would begin to form around noon. On the days when moisture was moving in from the Gulf of Mexico. We would watch those clouds when they produce rain and was often in the late afternoon. The clouds would grow dark, almost black. And then there would be a strong wind blowing dust leaves small bits everything lying around. Then a sudden stillness, the earth silent and waiting for the momentous the band. Then the crack of lightning touching something on or with all the electric fury of the universe. seconds later in the incredible sound of the thunder, the sound produced by the lightning bolt rolling through the clouds and then wonder of wonders the first few big drops of rain forming muddy places on the dusty windshield. Then more and more until we would just stop the pickup welcome sit insider unable to see even the closest objects outside because the rain would come in waves and sheets and words. Joy wonder incredible gift from above our salvation rain. After a few minutes it would slow again we could distinguish our surroundings. More lightning more thunder. Now it just a shower a sprinkle and we could watch the eye of the storm move off a few miles and another direction. The dark clouds meeting the earth in a different spot. The thunder the lightning now more distant. Then we would watch with wonder that changed world about us. That dry arid, dusty soil is muddy brown rivulets of water running down every slope and gold all the grass and plants sparkling with drops of water clinging to the grease would Bush's normally so great Wayne and doe releasing their incredible perfume produced by the rain on their damn soil a leaves the birds chirping frantically. The rabbits peeking out from their burrows. Everything stirring and excited from the rain and no one more excited than my father. We were saved again. saved from the ever present threat of drought of starving half of anxious creditors we would survive a while longer. And as proof we would look and wonder at the rainbow that had formed up in the sky with the end of the rain. And there would be with the sun shining through all the colors so vivid. The art going high up in the sky and the ends touching down where we could see them right over the next hill down by this so cleats near the gullet. You know what the old timers say? My father asked know what they say there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. No, really? That's what they say. Do you believe them? Well, of course. Why not? Have you ever seen it yourself? Well, no, not really. Well, let's go daddy. Let's go find it. It's right over there. Don't you see the end of the rainbow is right there. Right there about the hill. Come on. Let's go find the pot of gold.
All right, we'll go. And off we would go. sliding along the wet, slippery mud jumping across country rocks, cactus and all tough going hanging on tight. We slid up and down scary places. But a strange thing happened. As we approach the hill where the rain OM did the rainbow and moved off to the right more distant still. Oh, come on. Let's keep going. Let's go out there and find the pot of gold. After a while as we moved in the rainbow did to my father would say you know, I think we'd better get back and go home. Your mother will be worried about us. And that rain may mean the canyon will run with water so we couldn't even get home. We're so close. But we kind of bonded. Oh well next time promise we'll find out next time. And so it is the little girl who chased the rain rain grew up to be a big girl. And sometimes she still chases a few rain. A different kind of beautiful idea out there with a pocketful of solutions at the end. But the Chase is always worth it. Indeed, the search is what it's all about. It's the fun of life. Not all little girls have that chance, the fun of chasing rain moms of learning who may are under that great western sky. Indeed, a great number of children worldwide grow up in the circumstances of shocking brutality and abuse, knowing us in their lives, just threats to their very existence. That's why it's important that we women must get as fine an education as we can. That we equip ourselves to participate as part of the solution to the problems facing the world. not part of the problems that we stand together occasionally to take notice that those who have helped other women in their own search, and to work together to help mobilize attention to the needs of other women around us today. There is a big rainbow out there. worldwide. It has all the different colors of our skins, black, brown, white, red, yellow, and every hue and the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow contains the formula for peaceful coexistence with all peoples, for respect for women at every age, and for the chance of every little girl to grow up secure and happy and able to chase her own rainbows in her own lifetime. Let's all go search for that pot of gold. Thank you and for this wonderful award and Godspeed