Sailing To Oblivium: July 14, 2017

It’s pretty obvious by now that wealth is not a causal factor in having class. Some rich people have it. Take Oprah Winfrey or Jimmy Carter. Some poor people have it. Lincoln and Gandhi come to mind. You just never know.

For example, I knew a man when I was growing up. His name was Ferdinand Thompson and he had class by the trailer-load. People respected him. Men talked business with him as an equal. He had a good job with the railroad in my home town. Everyone spoke well of him. He was a role model. When the FBI came to my neighborhood doing background for my military security clearance, he was the first person with whom they visited.

He told them that, as far as he knew, I was as good as the next person and trustworthy. That was one of the great honors of my life.

He lived in the depths of the Jim Crow South of the 1950s and he was black as the Ace of Spades. I can’t recall ever having seen him wearing anything other than denim overalls. How did he manage this level of respect? Darned if I know. One person living in a six-room frame-house in the Arkansas Delta has class, that’s all. Some people living in a Manhattan high-rise haven’t a shred, that’s all. One thing is for certain. You can’t buy it. That’s for sure. That’s for danged sure.

People judge class by different standards, I suppose. Years ago, where I grew up, a farmer who didn’t keep his fence rows clean was judged not to have it, as did people who talked too much to others about their religious beliefs. School teachers, police officers, and firefighters were generally deemed to have it, although the latter two represented professions closed to a majority of citizens where I lived.

Sometimes appearance played a part. What they called “short-shorts” were a bad sign, as were flattop haircuts, beards, tattoos, fake smiles, and gold caps on your teeth. Judgements tended to start at an early age. One especially bad harbinger of growing up to lack class was a child's habit of speaking without being asked to. As for adults, one who could afford to, but didn’t help a person in need would never “fit the bill,” so to speak. Those were different times.

Back to Ferdinand Thompson: we know he encountered raw prejudice, but not from people who mattered. Maybe it had something to do with his bearing. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he was respectful to everyone but fawning to nobody. Maybe it was because he was a quiet man, never crude or boastful, who minded his own business and cared for his family. Maybe it was because he spoke well of others and never mistreated or denigrated the least of those among us.

Maybe it was because he was more like the Galilean and less like Franklin Graham.

At any rate, I’ve thought about him many times over the years. I think about him a lot lately.

A former slave, Texarkana, AR
Class personified?