My Redacted Life: Chapter Five (Cont._3)

Things were going well at my new job until I ran into a primal fear situation. I don’t why I hadn’t anticipated it, but it happened.

It started on Thursday afternoon when Tom Hodges called me into his office. “Got any plans for Saturday?”

I didn’t and told him so.

“The planning association is having a meeting in Russellville on Saturday. We thought you might want to ride over with us and meet folks.”

Of course. I had no apprehension. Maybe I’m ready for the big time. What should I wear? Casuals were fine, a relief cause that’s all I had.

They picked me up early Saturday and we headed west. Russellville was nearly two hours away in those days. I-40 was only completed in stretches. We were to meet on a point overlooking Lake Dardanelle, which is basically an expansion of the Arkansas River. Land had been leased on the point for construction of a Ramada Inn and the group met in a conference room there.

Back then, the professional organization was the American Institute of Planning. The professional designation was “AIP,” They changed it years later when a far right-wing bunch of characters named themselves “The American Independent Party,” i.e. “AIP.”

As for then, we were still AIP. On the way up, they told me that they had signed me up as an associate member and explained what it would take to achieve full membership. Since I didn’t have a master’s degree, it would take five years experience followed by an oral exam. I had over a month in already, so that didn’t seem so bad.

When we got there was when it all went to hell. It started out okay. Most of the ones attending knew one another. Some had even attended school together. Tom and Jim were gracious in introducing me to the group. They bragged a bit about how fast I was picking things up.

Then the president of the group started the meeting. We all sat around a large table and waited. After a few preliminaries, he said. “I see lots of old faces and some new ones. Why don’t we go around and introduce ourselves? Give a little information about your background, what your experience has been, and what the association could do for you?" He waived an arm to his left.

Oh hell! Speak to a group of strangers in a public gathering? Christ almighty. I hadn’t spoken to a group since they made me take public speaking in college. I only survived then because a roommate was having a fling with the instructor. He passed me with a “C” and a wink.

The last time before college had been in the fourth grade when I gave a presentation about the planet Mars. I said it was a planet that could be seen by the naked eye. Reading from cribbed notes, I pronounced the word “naked” to rhyme with “snaked.”

The entire class laughed at me, including Penny Perdue, Nell Phillips, and Rita Rowell, three of the prettiest and most popular girls ever to attend Lakeside Elementary. I had avoided speaking in public since. I never considered a career in law because I assumed one had to speak to juries. Not me, you betcha.

The thought of public speaking was a white-knuckled, heart-pounding, dry-mouthed, knee-trembling fear that I avoided at all costs. And now, the roundabout was closing in on me.

One thing about most urban planners is that they love to hear themselves talk, so it took a while for the conversation to get around to me. Instead of allowing time to prepare, it only increased the terror.

My time came at last. I felt sure I wouldn’t be heard over the pounding of my heart. “Hello,” I said and stated my name. There followed a silence during which the entire Gettysburg Address could have been recited, then, “I’m new in the business and I am proud to be here.”

Man, did that portend greatness or what? I sat red-faced while the next speaker expounded for ten minutes about the subject of his master’s thesis.

The meeting ended and we went home. Tom and Jim mostly gossiped about the others who had attended and left me to my shame. I stared out the window, thinking about a career in the Merchant Marines.

This urban planning business wasn’t going to be so easy after all, and the Sea has forever been a seductress for souls adrift in human misery. Call me Mushmouth.

But, I thought at last, maybe things would look better on Monday. Hopeful optimism is better than the Balm of Gilead.

You want me to do what?

My Redacted Life: Chapter Five (Cont._2)

Payday came again and I had a little extra money with which to live. I wasn’t in tall cotton, but I wasn’t depleting savings anymore. My brother had decided to play the unemployment insurance game, so he came up on occasion and we drank beer and swapped stories about military life, although his had lasted a mere six months or so.

As it had turned out, he learned, after completing Marine Corps boot camp, that something in the leather of combat boots caused in him a rather severe skin reaction. He had finished radioman school and, I found out later, learned that his next orders would be to “WESTPAC.” That meant Vietnam. After repeated hospital stays for serious skin reactions, the Marine Corps decided that a trooper who couldn’t wear combat boots had little utility as cannon fodder. They gave him an Honorable Discharge and sent him home.

Perhaps there’s a name missing on “The Wall.” Who knows?

At work, we were completing the projects in somewhat orderly fashion now, and so far without a major mistake. Tensions eased, and the atmosphere became quite pleasant. We would work until five o’clock, whereupon everyone would go home for supper. Around 7:00 p.m. we would reassemble at the office and put in a couple of more hours.

It was about that time that I discovered “happy hour.”

No, it didn’t involve libations. But, it did involve popcorn. Back then, there were three “first-run” theaters in downtown Little Rock. The Arkansas was directly behind and to the south of our office building. The Center sat a ways up on Main Street. The Capitol was near the corner of Capitol and Broadway, on my way home. All showed newly released movies.

At a little after five o’clock, the theaters all presented “happy hour” shows for a dollar. When new films arrived, I would often take “supper” at one and enjoy a box of popcorn, a coke, and a movie before going back to work. Since the others didn’t see me leave, nor did they see me return, what business of mine was it if they may have assumed that I had worked through the “supper break?”

Very often, as I was beginning to find out about the world of business, it is useful to dole out information as an investment rather than as idle chatter provided with no intention of return. Thus, the massive redaction due this humble narrative of one young man’s battle with the vicissitudes of life.

My legend grew, and for the next two years, and for the only time in my life, I had seen every American film considered for Oscar nominations.

I still had no social acquaintances in Little Rock, only work and a little cheap entertainment. We generally worked half a day on Saturday and I would drive home to see the family. It was beginning to seem to me that success was an easy thing if you had nothing else to do.

As I say, I had no contacts in the city. That was about to change.

Is there a  hint of
the devious lurking
behind that smile?

My Redacted Life: Chapter Five

With the rancor subdued, we went to work on the remaining projects due inside two months. There was still some cleanup waiting. The guys at the blueprint shop still weren’t speaking to us. It was over their being blamed for the big screw-up. Of course they would do our work but the effort would lack any enthusiasm.

Here, I was stuck in a sea of ignorance. My folks in the office weren’t going to teach me the printing business. They were to busy or too obstinate; take your pick. I knew “jack-diddly” about it, and figured one couldn’t learn it from a book.

As my Sainted Mother would say, I “backed my ears,” and called the print shop, when no one was listening, and asked to speak to the printer. He came on and I introduced myself. He responded with such chill that I felt cold air coming through the phone’s receiver. I took a deep breath and said, “Look, can I just come over and talk?”

Sure, why not?

The shop wasn’t far from the office, so I walked over. Once there, a pleasant man—I found out later that he was the owner’s son-in-law—showed me the way to the print shop. I opened the door and a familiar smell overwhelmed me.

I knew the smell from having worked my last year of college drafting for the U of A Editorial Service. We prepared graphics and did printing for research papers and dissertations. The job was a huge step-up from being janitor at the Chi Omega house, but I had missed the sorority girls, some of whom liked to run into the hallway wearing bras and panties when I yelled up, “Man on the floor.”

 But, I digress. Back to the printing business and the smell of the presses.

It was a smell I would come to love. In the room stood a rotund man with swept-back gray hair along with a sour-faced man, balding and wearing dirty spectacles. The heavy-set man was Bob French, the printer. The other was Bob Wilson, the photographer.

Before the dialogue had a chance to deteriorate, I said, “First, may I apologize for any misunderstanding that our two companies have had?”

It caught the two by surprise. In fact, one of the cruelest lies that I’ve seen foisted on young people is from a character on television who tells his underlings, “Never apologize. It’s a sign of weakness,” That’s the crassest piece of bull hockey I’ve ever heard. There is, when you have been wrong, nothing more disarming and effective than a sincere apology. Trust me.

Anyway. After a moment, Bob Wilson said, “So you are in charge of printing at your company now?”

“I’m in charge of trying to get it all done.”

“What’s your experience?”

“Absolutely none. That’s why I wanted to ask a favor of the two of you.”

“What’s that?” Bob asked. His demeanor had softened but still displayed suspicion.

“I want to ask you to help me learn how to do things. I know you have better things to do than teach beginners, but we have lots of work to do and, if we can work together and get it done, I’ll be your friend forever. No more confusion. No more blame. No more bullshit of any kind. I’m asking for your help, and your friendship.”

They gave it. It started that day, particularly with Bob French. He was my pal and mentor from that moment until his untimely death from cancer 30 years later.

On that day, we agreed that I would come over each time a new printing job came up that required close coordination. They would help me to understand the processes involved, and I would give them both due credit and respect. Those are tactical maneuvers that have gotten me over many a hump throughout the years, and I recommend them without reservation.

I never heard him, but it’s told that Bob French was a talented singer and quite popular in small venues after working all day as a printer. He looked a bit, and evidently sounded a lot, like the singer Charlie Rich. I wish I had taken the time to hear him, but regrets are the songs that teach us to be better people, if we only listen.

After I promised to bring the next job in and go over it with them before any step was taken, they showed me out. I started walking back. Knowing that I had steered around a dangerous shoal, I began to hum to myself, mindlessly and with some degree of satisfaction. Then I started singing, so no one else could hear, an odd tune.

Of all things, it was The Marine Corp Hymn.

“Never apologize.” What a crock of shit.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Four (Cont._5)

I guessed right. My promotion at the new job failed to scour in the back room. My two co-workers returned from their briefing and said nothing. There was a silence so stony it could have been used to fashion arrowheads. I ignored them, choosing instead to spend the rest of the day amending my list of projects into a more detailed plan of attack.

That night, I listened to Chet Atkins playing Spanish guitar, finished off the bottle of Ripple I had started the night before, and contemplated strategy and tactics. From my naval experience I knew that critical elements for a successful mission included buoyancy, propulsion, and maneuverability, along with firepower, of course. From a book called Vom Kriege (On War) by Carl von Clausewitz, one that I had found in our ship’s library, I remembered other principles. It was critical, in a campaign, not to let friction slow progress. That implied a need for tactical analysis. I thought and planned.

I slept the sleep of the chosen and arose early. After a calorie-laden “Bear Claw” and coffee at the Lion’s World snack bar, I headed for the office and was deeply involved in scribbling when the rest of the staff arrived.

The drafting crew went to work without looking my way. After an hour or so, I stopped what I was doing and asked where they kept some supply or other. “Don’t you know?” came the reply from the once head of the drafting room. I sensed, rather than heard, a suppressed giggle from the woman across the room.

I ignored it and searched for myself. One must avoid war at all costs, and they should be initiated only for irrefutable justification. Just ask the families of those tens of thousands who were still coming home then in coffins or wheelchairs. One shot, supposedly fired at a small naval vessel, isn’t worth 58,220 American and over three and a half million Vietnamese lives.

No, I waited for a more positive opportunity, one that could be a learning experience for us all. It wasn’t long in coming.

Jim Vines stuck his head in the drafting room and asked me to bring a print of the notes we had taken at the city of Dierks a couple of weeks before. I rose and walked to the map file. Stopping, I chose the calmest voice I could muster and asked the head drafter where the maps of that city were kept.

He completed the line he was drawing, set his pen aside carefully, turned to me, and said, “You’re the head man who’s in charge now. Ain’t you supposed to know things like that?” He turned and reached for his pen.

Here was the test. As a petty officer in the proudest branch of military service, I had profited from months on end of high-level management training, some of the best, I imagine, in the world. I mentally ran through scenario after scenario of dealing with insubordination, applied practical knowledge to empirical analysis, formed a mental “decision-tree,” and walked closer to him, calling him by name.

“What say we review that last exchange?” I said.

He laid his pen aside and looked at me as if I had just interrupted a complicated surgery. “What?”

“Let’s ask ourselves,” I said, “whether I politely asked you a question, the answer to which was simple and would help us move progress along?” I stopped, guessing correctly that information needed to be provided in small bites. When he turned to look at me, I said, “Or did I by some chance ask you for a cheap ration of shit?”

That confused him. I heard the woman swivel in her seat. I knew she was licking her lips in anticipation.

“Now,” I said, “if that sort of wise-assed response is going to be typical, I can just leave. I'll tell Tom and Jim I quit, and let you and your pal over there start back running things. That was working real well, wasn’t it?”

The air fairly roared with furious silence. He looked at me and I could feel the wheels spinning.

“Make up your mind,” I said. “I don’t have all day to put up with someone’s bullshit attitude and eighth-grade humor.”

Daggers flew from his eyes. I had seen the look hundreds of times from big, strong, men contemplating orders they didn’t particularly like, knowing how easily they could smash the giver of the orders.

He relaxed, forced a half-grin, and said, “Dierks is in the third file from the bottom.”

“Thanks,” I said. I turned to the woman, “Are we okay?”

She nodded and they both returned to their work. We never had any more problems after that. In fact, I found them to be nice people as time passed. It’s funny how well things work out within the structure of sophisticated management techniques.

Contemplating applied
management training

My Redacted Life: Chapter Four (Cont._4)

To this day, I can’t say who caused the snafu that they uncovered at work next day. Almost everyone received some blame. I didn’t, for I had nothing to do with it. As I’ve reported, we had a total of 17 projects due in less than two months, and I had finished two of the smaller ones with no problems.

It seems the staff had assembled a complete plan for one of the cities involved and had taken the first bound copy to Tom for review. I can imagine the head drafter placing the document on the desk of his boss like a second lieutenant placing his first set of battle plans before the commanding general.

He walked back into the drafting room with a slight swagger. He sat astride his drafting stool and took up a Leroy Lettering Pen. This was a small ink pen held in a device that rested comfortably in one’s hand. Two metal inserts fit into a ruler into which letters had been formed. By positioning the front insert, or scribe, one could guide the ink pen into the form of letters, numbers and symbols. The rear insert, or tail piece, kept the lettering horizontal. It was an invention spawned in Hell.

But that is how you added verbiage to ink drawings in that era. Different rulers allowed for different fonts and sizes. And of course, what you saw as you touched the ink to film or paper was what you got. It could be anything from precise lettering to a glob of India ink spreading across your drawing. At this moment, the drafter carefully wiped its nib on a tissue, relaxed his shoulders and leaned forward to place the pen in its guide.

It never reached it.

As his hand descended, there came a volley of oaths from Tom’s office so loud and clear that I imagined those in the building across the street could hear it. They ended with a call for the head drafter to “Get in here.”

There was no problem it seemed, with the drafting. It was clear, fine, and precise. He was one of the best drafters I have ever known. There was nothing wrong with the maps at all as for as the quality and workmanship was concerned. They were works of art.

The problem was, they were for the wrong city.

And some of the printed pages were in backwards.

This presented a high degree of concern. Tom expressed it in clear terms. The drafter blamed his assistant. She blamed the drafter. Then the drafter blamed the printer and the photographer at the blueprint company. Somehow in the melee, word of this got back them and they were swearing that they would never do work for the company again. Tom and Jim even had words.

I tried to make myself as small as possible, a trait I had picked up in the Navy and one at which I excelled.

The furor raged for another day while they took corrective action. The intensity lowered more from exhaustion that from satisfaction, and I completed another of the simpler documents. Three down and 14 to go. After proofing it at least 20 times, I presented copies to Jim and Tom. Tom flipped through his in an abrupt manner, snorted, and said, “Thanks.” I fled as he rose and started toward Jim’s office.

I was sitting at my desk grappling with the fact that I was about to run out of the “easy” reports when Jim appeared in the room asked if they could see me for a moment.

Oh hell, this was it. Somebody’s head had to fall and it would be mine. The money saved from my salary for a month would just about pay for the cost it would take to fix the recent problem. Oh well, easy come, easy go.

We went into Tom’s office and he motioned for me to take a visitor’s chair. Jim took the other. Tom took a deep breath and said, “How long have you been with us now, nearly a month?

I just nodded. He could fire me, but I wasn’t going to help.

“He picked up the three reports I had assembled and waved them at me. “In that time,” he said, “you are the only one who has completed a goddam thing.”

I relaxed a bit. Jim looked out the window.

Tom pointed to a report cover. “And these are the first things produced from scratch that I didn’t end up doing myself.”

Maybe they weren’t going to fire me after all. I relaxed even more as Tom nodded to Jim, who turned to me and said, “What we would like to know is if you would be willing to take over all production in the drafting room and see if by some miracle, we might get these projects done on time and done properly. You would be totally in charge.”

I couldn’t speak, But Tom did. “It will mean a hundred dollar a month raise immediately, more if things work out.

I said yes, of course. I would to anything to help the company.

But, I thought, this wasn’t going to go over well.

Designed by the Dark One, 
manufactured by his minions,
and avoided by the faint of heart.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Four (Cont._3)

The company I was working for now was busy. Tension and fear swirled around the floor of the drafting room like snakes in a swamp. There were 17 projects due for completion in less than two months and not a one had been completed. On top of that, more work was coming in.

I had been asked to help, so I pitched in. I began by asking for a list the projects due. There wasn't one. "They just pile them up and we do them."

Ahh.

I had to learn the procedure pretty much on my own. In those days, documents such as these were done by the offset printing process. Each page was photographed, the photograph imprinted on a plate, and the plate used to coat the ink, in proper form, to the paper.

The printing was being done by a man named Bob French at a company, long vanished, called Graham Blueprint. The only proof I have that it ever existed is a small mirror that once contained a calendar. That mirror has checked my hard-featured face for over 40 years.

Everyone called the printer "Frenchy," but I never was certain that he liked it so I called him Bobby.  The photographer was Bob Wilson. He didn't talk a lot and one had to handle him carefully.

The process was only a little complicated with simple black and white printing and half-tones. It got hairy with the colored sheets used for land uses and zoning districts. We couldn't afford a highly expensive photo process for these, so the drafter prepared them by hand. A sheet of red film was placed over the map of the city and carefully aligned with register marks. Anything red wouldn't show up when photographed. So wherever a block of color was to go, the film had to be cut away with great precision. The drafter prepared a separate sheet for each three runs of colored ink, red, yellow and blue, printed over the black base

Of course maps used more than the three primary colors. They were mixed to produce a plethora (I've always wanted to use that word) of colors. Mixing was done by reducing the intensity of the colors with various screens. It was a "hairy process" and that's all I have to say on that subject, except to suggest that you think about that next time you hit the button that says, "print."

I got with the typist and made my own list of projects. I then noted them by complexity. A few were simple little "boilerplate" jobs that didn't take much time, expertise, or education.

I offered to do these, so the drafters could concentrate on the ones that needed maps and drawings.

You would have thought I had just laid out a new technique for removing a brain tumor.

I drew up a simple cover sheet for one of cities. We could use it on all that city's reports by simply changing the color of ink for each report.

Damn, but that was a good idea. It sure would save lots of time.

I mastered the process of punching and binding the collated reports, and within two days had delivered the first complete report, in multiple copies, to Jim and Tom.

They were impressed. The drafters were happy because I let them take the credit. The tension in the drafting room lessened a bit.

I went home and congratulated myself with a bottle of Ripple Wine. This city planning stuff was going to be a piece of cake. One down, 16 to go. Life was good.

Next day, the shit hit the fan.

Don't worry. Mr. Cool
is on the job.

Break

Taking a break. Back tomorrow. Heading out to SW Arkansas and NW Louisiana on a "photo-road trip" with my journalist friend, Sonny Rhodes. You could guess until next year and not figure out where our main destination will be.

I think I needed a day's break from the story of my professional life. I had too much hope and enthusiasm back then and it pains too much to see where all the efforts of my good Americans have landed us.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Four (Cont._2)

The first payday at my new job came and I was able to pay bills but not much else. I hated to delve too deeply into savings. Who knew what necessities lay ahead? I didn’t. I paid what I owed and obtained one of the world’s greatest treasures without spending a cent.

I did it this way.

The main library of the City of Little Rock sat only two blocks from where I worked. Can you imagine that? It was like an eight-year-old living a few hundred feet from the city’s largest free candy store.

Before starting work, I’d gotten an updated driver’s license. With that, they, the nice folks at the library, gave me what appeared to be a card but which really was a key to an entire universe of delight. I augmented the assigned reading foisted on me by my mentors with masterpieces by the likes of Hemingway, Dickens, Eliot, and Frazer. When I wasn’t off with one of the bosses at a planning commission meeting or such, the evening offered a soft blanket of calm and reflection.

At work, I was getting along okay. At least they talked to me. There were some good-natured pranks. One that I remember involved my trying to find Cantrell Road, one of the most popular and well-regarded corridors of the city, gateway to glorious entertainment and shopping venues.

“Oh,” said the head drafter. “You live near it. Just go north on State Street a few blocks and you will run right into it.”

I did. No Cantrell Road. Just a series of streets before State Street ran into the Arkansas River. I asked again next day.

“Don’t see how you missed it. State Street intersects with it just a few blocks north. The other drafter smiled and nodded in agreement.

Well, the joke was on me. Little Rock, Arkansas was the worst city I’ve ever known for situational nomenclature when it came to naming streets. Consider this example. Arkansas Highway 10 exited from Interstate 30 and headed west. After a few blocks, it became La Harp Boulevard, named after one of the early explores making harbor at La Petite Roche. I had found La Harp each time I headed north from where I lived, no problem there, but where the hell was Cantrell?

What I didn’t know was that a few blocks further west, La Harp made a curve and headed up what is known from history as “Carpetbagger Hill.” The name was foisted on a subdued city by incoming northern victors following the unpleasantness of the 1860s. They built nice homes atop the hill, overlooking the train depot, and forced a stretch of the street to change from La Harp to Lincoln Avenue. That's Yankees for you.

After descending from the posh neighborhood atop the hill, Lincoln Avenue became Cantrell Road. At some point, the exact location and impetus unknown, the corridor became Arkansas State Highway 10 again, a classic case of “where you are depends on where you’re at.”

And so it went. There was some unknown giggling going on behind my back due to my discomfiture over being unable to find my way at times. I ignored it. I did that also when I found out about the advice I was getting, that I could probably find cheaper and better lodgings in the historic Capitol Hotel. A handsome structure, it is now a locally famous five-star hotel, proud of the fact that President Ulysses S. Grant and wife once stayed there and that he even gave a speech to city residents from its balcony.

In 1971, it was pretty much a whorehouse as I found out to my great embarrassment when I mentioned, to a native of the city, the advice I had gotten about finding an apartment there.

I took it all in stride. The jokes. The misleading advice about where one could find office supplies. The catty questions about why I wasn’t married and jibes about the joys I was missing. The still smoldering concern about why I chose to walk to work. The disdain about the age and condition of my apartment building. The insinuations about being a drug-crazed sociopath like my fellow veterans.

I smiled through it all. Along with my nightly readings, I was teaching myself to type and trying to learn to read French. One phrase still lingers from those days:

 La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid.

The Packet House still stands
on Carpetbagger Hill. A few
hundred feet west of it, my
life would later change forever.

Break

Off to do some planning work today. I can’t seem to quit. Working with local governs rewards one in so many ways. It represents the most direct link between the public and government. Empty promises, lies, and bullcrap won’t cut it at the local level. As a man once told me, “Thinkin' don’t do it. Doin' do it.”

Local government, particularly at the municipal level, may be the truest form of democratic government left in America. It’s hard to go into politics at the local level in order to get rich. First, there isn’t enough money. Second, there are too many people watching. Oh, there are some who would seek to enrich themselves by getting elected mayor, but it rarely works. The greatest reward is the satisfaction of improving the lives of one's brothers and sisters.

So-called "dark money" avoids the local level. There is too much transparency. It favors the state and national stage where secrecy and skulduggery offer greater returns. 

From time to time, you see someone run for local office to "get even." They usually hurt themselves more than others. There are also those who would use public office to divide the citizenry for selfish purposes. I’ve seen it work, but not for long. People demand better from their local officials. They usually get it.

Back tomorrow.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Four

An air of tension existed in the workplace of the company I had joined, and I didn’t create all of it. It was there when I arrived. It did seem to worsen after I came, although I had little contact with the production staff. After a couple of weeks, it dawned on me. The company, and thus the staff, was “snowed under” with work. In fact, the staff faced what seemed like an impossible mission.

Here is a bit of background. The job facing the staff was the production of 17 reports having to do with planning projects of several Arkansas cities. Some were small background reports such as an analysis of various neighborhoods or a documentation of housing conditions. Then there were the much larger plans themselves. Most of the documents contained folded maps.

A local “blueprint” company printed the individual pages of reports. The staff collated the reports, punched the pages, and bound them into final products. The federal government was paying for the documents, so a strict format ruled, with no exceptions.

How did such a young company wind up with such a work load? Simple, the country and the state were serious about planning in those days. Arkansas even had an office of planning. Actually, I think it still funds one, those funds having long ago been removed from anything pertaining to planning or collective strategies, to a highly obfuscated line in the budget of the governor’s office.

Arkansas even produced a comprehensive state plan in the 1930s. That was the last one of its kind and faced universal disregard, a fact that would not surprise anyone familiar with our state’s current standing on any grand scale of progress.

Anyway, the office of planning had a requirement in those days that one authoring a planning document funded by the government had to bear the title, “Planner in Charge.” This generally required membership in the American Institute of Planning, a title most easily obtained by the acquisition of a master’s degree in urban and regional planning.

Tom Hodges and Jim Vines carried this designation. Our company was now completing, as a subcontractor, a number of projects for a firm that had no Planner-In-Charge.

Now, one can begin to see why such a newly formed company suddenly had such a workload. Further, it had a staff facing a task for which it had neither the experience nor resources to accomplish. As my Sainted Mother would have said, “Their asses were working button holes.”

Tom and Jim were on them daily for progress. Any mistake lessened the chance for success. Any lessening of the chances for success created more stress. Any stress increased the chances for a mistake. And so it went.

There was no surprise, therefore, when Tom and Jim called me into Tom’s office and asked if I would agree to help complete this massive assignment. I had been working with the receptionist/typist in proofing and working with the planners in assembling data. Now, if I would agree, I could help in the actual assembling of final documents.

I agreed, with both alacrity and sincerity, to help in anyway I could. Little did I know that the seeds of a strange future had just sprouted.

A new future takes flight.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Three (Cont._10

I finished the first week of my new job back in 1971, and settled in. Want to know about my love life? There, that sums it up. Nonexistent. On the positive side, it gave me more time to study my adopted profession. I read a lot too, encountering fewer entanglements that way.

There were two women who shared an apartment across the hall. They both worked at Timex Corporation, a large concern that graced the city back when low-skilled jobs were available in the South. One was rather thin and possessed of more inner than outer beauty. The other was ample and possessed a wholesome “stay-away” attitude. Neither seemed overly impressed with my physique, and since we all thrived on scarcity, we became friends without benefits other than cordial conversations.

There was a third woman who lived downstairs, a very attractive person, but lacking a great deal of education. She worked with the other two. They say she was taking night courses at the local college, but before I got to know her, she disappeared. After awhile, the girls told me that she had trusted a supervisor at the plant once too often. He chose to stay married, and she returned to her hometown in the Arkansas Delta. There was a shoe factory there at the time. Maybe she found work therein, but it closed not long after. What happens to such individuals? I wish I knew.

Payday came, and with a small supplement withdrawn from savings, I managed. For the first time in years, I established a routine that wasn’t totally mandated by higher authorities. Tom gave me a key to the office, and I made a decision that would greatly affect both my career and my future.

For the foreseeable future, I mandated to myself that, on normal work days, no one in the company would ever see me get to work, and no one would ever see me leave. You would be amazed at the outcome.

It really wasn’t that hard. No one arrived before 8:00 a.m., so I didn’t have to rush. We usually worked late, but I would simply remain when the others left. On some days, my total sacrifice was less than 45 minutes, but it made me a legend.

I always arrived in time to visit the snack area on the ground floor of the building. It was one of those stands officially known as vending areas established by World Services for the Blind, an institute located in Little Rock. They were operated by visually-challenged folks and known irreverently by a term that would make the Political Correctness Police sail into orbit, “blind stands.” At least that’s all I ever heard them called.

The counter contained a sunken metal bowl where one placed money. The operators could count change like a carnival barker at a striptease show, but only by feel. They say some could tell the difference among paper bills of differing denominations, but I never put that to the test. I seem to remember the operator in our building was named Carl. I’m not quite sure. He was a jolly character who, in addition to selling goods, also served as “gossip-central.” He could tell you by your footsteps, and phrase his daily report accordingly.

The only time I ever remember him and me having a problem with communications, was when he was trying to tell me about a ne’er-do-well tenant who was suffering from “the collapse.” A stroke? No. Muscle problems? No. Back or knee problems? No. After much back and forth banter, we came to the understanding that the poor fellow had “dillyed” with the wrong “dally” and would be back at work following a round of penicillin, a moral lesson from which to be instructed, both in communication and behavior.

I’d buy a breakfast snack, a cup of coffee, and the daily newspaper: the grand old Arkansas Gazette. Then I would go upstairs and prepare to continue my new career.

Life was good. To borrow a line from Dylan Thomas, someone who knew me then would say of those days, “He was almost always happy, I think.”

Sunday Break

I took the weekend off after my first couple of weeks at my new job back in 1971. So I'll take today off and get back at it tomorrow.

Odd how many are finding these tales interesting. I always thought of my life as lacking any ability to make the earth tremble. Now the class ahead of me at old Pine Bluff High was full of the smart ones. Had it been integrated, it would have surely been even more outstanding. This class was full of geniuses who went to on to great heights; physicians, attorneys, business owners, craftsmen, mayors, teachers, you name it.

It was sort of like the West Point class if 1915, from which Omar Bradley and so many others graduated, that was described as "The class the stars fell on."

I can't forebear repeating a story from that class of geniuses and pranksters. It involved an old acquaintance who died last week. It seems that most of the brain-children of whom I speak took physics under a very popular teacher their senior year. I can't remember the teacher's, but never mind.

Now this is how old the story is: We used to  have a morning Bible reading in homeroom class. Yes, believe it or not, we listened to, or read when it was our turn, scriptures from the Good Book. We avoided God's treatment of the Midianites as well as King David's way of hooking up with his best friend's wife. And, the entire Song of Solomon was off-limits. It made the boys giggle, and the girls fidget, too much. But the rest was fair game.

It happened one day that a substitute teacher was due for the class. The individual of whom I speak was scheduled for the scripture readings. On the way to the podium, he locked the classroom door. As he began reading, from the Book of Leviticus the story goes, the substitute came to the door. Recognizing what was happening, he politely waited.

And waited.

On an impulse, the lad continued to read. The substitute waited. And waited.

The reading continued for several minutes before the teacher softly knocked on the glass of the door.  The reader gave him a scowl that indicated a sacrilege of cosmic proportions, picked up the Bible and pointed at it, and continued to read.

Here, legend becomes myth. There are subplots and additions that will never be proven. Eventually, the principal, who, it was rumored, had survived the Bataan Death March and harbored no fear of a student genius, interceded. The length of time the scripture reading filled is a subject of controversy until this day.

I'll bet, though, that there are educators all over our great country who will wish, tomorrow morning, that harmless pranks by student over-achievers would be their greatest fear. May we all hope for a day when that will be true again in America.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Three (Cont._9)

It was a nice chilly day in January and Jim Vines and I headed north, almost as far north as you could go and still be in Arkansas. The city of Harrison was located in the north-northwest part of the state a few miles below the Missouri line. I felt kindly toward the city as my family had taken our first vacation there as soon as my brother was old enough to travel.

It was a tricky, twisted, mountainous drive up, but Jim handled the curves skillfully and we arrived without incident. I had almost forgotten how beautiful the northern part of our state is. Geologists say it boasts one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world, once home to huge peaks that wore away in geologic time. Marine fossils still abound from when ancient seas still covered parts of the area.

I was surprised when we drove into town to see the old log cabin motel where we had stayed those many years ago. I wondered if the rooms still had the “pay to play” radios where you could deposit a quarter for 30 minutes or so of music. Didn’t take much to fascinate kids and irritate parents back in the day.

I didn't know it at the time, but the town square contained a monument honoring the victims of the Mountain Meadows Massacre in which some 140 members of the Baker-Fancher wagon train were massacred in southern Utah in 1857. The wagon train had formed just outside Harrison before heading west. 

That day, we found a quiet town that had covered from a major flood a few years earlier. That had convinced the town elders that some planning was due. The town now had a plan and supporting regulations. They paid Jim $300 per month to attend planning commission meetings and make recommendations. That sounded like an easy way make money to me.

What followed was the first planning commission meeting I ever attended. There was some good-natured conversation and minor business that came before the commission, so far nothing complicated.

The mayor owned a local music store. That made him a nice man in my book. The city attorney and I had attended college together and we pretended to remember one another. He had married one of the hottest women ever to attend the U of A. I’d had a secret crush on her and still resented him a bit, but he was a nice fellow. Still is.

When the scheduled business was over, Jim asked if anyone had questions. One of the commissioners held up a group of papers, shook them, and said, “I want to know where they are?”

Everyone looked at him. Jim answered, “Excuse me?”

“These preliminary figures from the 1970 census you handed out last time you came. I want to know where they are.”

“The figures?”

“No, the blacks.”

“The what?”

He brandished the papers again, “It says here that our “population is one percent black and I want t know where they are.”

Silence roared into the room like clouds covering a mountain top.

“One percent?” Jim fidgeted.

“That’s what it says. If that’s true, there are 70 or so living here and I want to know where they are.”

“That’s bound to be a mistake,” someone said.

“Yeah,” someone else said.

“A mistake for sure,” a third said.

“I’m sure it’s an error. I’ll check on it and get back with you,” Jim said and we got the hell out of there.

It was a quiet ride back, and Jim told me a lot about his life and about the world of planning. I could tell he was a little on the thoughtful side. From where did that one percent come?

He solved the mystery next day, reported back, and eased any tensions that might be brewing. Turns out that 1970 was the first year that computers had played a major role in establishing census data. In some places, the computers were only programmed to go as low as one percent. So sometimes areas had people reported as living in a place whether they were there or not.

I never heard of any major uprisings or house-to-house searches because of it, but it provided me great lesson as I launched off into my new career. In the words of a Charlie Chaplin character, “Numbers sanctify.” They can also terrify.

Monument to the victims of the
Mountain Meadow Massacre.
A person destined to become a
major part of my life had relatives
among the victims.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Three (Cont._8)

January 1971: Back at the office, I settled into my new job. Having told by boss Jim about finding a typo in a published report, he made me proofreader. My fellow shipmates would have found that a hoot if any of them knew what a proofreader did.

Anyway, I was minding my own business one day, a week or so into the job, when the head of the drafting room walked over to my desk, plopped a dollar-bill down and said, “Run down to the Post Office and get a dollar’s worth of postage stamps.” I think they were eight cents apiece at the time, so that would buy a lot.

But, “Run down to the Post Office?” What was I, a marathoner? I had stopped a two-pack a day habit only a year earlier, and had gained 30 pounds as a result. Run down to the Post Office? What was I, a summer high-school student running errands, or a house-servant “fetching for Massa?” I felt, as they say these days, disrespected.

I looked at the other drafter. She cocked a smile like a cat watching a mouse. Hunger gleamed in her eyes.

I took the money and left. I didn’t run, though. In fact, I walked very slowly up Capitol Avenue toward the Post Office. Run down to the Post Office? Hell, I once drove the official “barge” of a two-star admiral in the United States Navy. Christ, once they entrusted me with an M-60 machine gun and told me I could fire on anything in front of me that moved. Hell, I could tie a fifteen-strand “Turk’s Head” knot.

But, “run down to the Post Office?” Intercourse that. I spent the walk there and back computing just how long I would have to keep a job running errands so that it would look good on a resume once I reached California. They could take their “run down to the Post Office” and stick it up their hawser-pipe.

I arrived back at the Hall Building and said to the old girl, “Just stick with me for six months and I’ll be the hell out of here.

Upstairs, I laid the stamps and change on the layout table and didn’t say a word. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway for both drafters were bent so hard at work that their noses almost touched their boards. I settled down and started making notes of potential employers that might be waiting for me in the Golden State once I finished my incarceration in Little Rock.

I looked up to seen Jim Vines standing in the hall motioning for me. I stood and followed him into his office. He closed the door, motioned for me to sit, then sat himself. He placed his fingertips together and said in a voice that could have eulogized a dead saint. “I’m afraid that we have made a mistake.”

Oh hell. It was coming. I wasn’t even going to make the six months. If the worst came to worst, though, the Navy would take me back in and send me to Officer Candidate School. They had already contacted me and told me so. I stared back at Jim with what I was sure could not be misinterpreted as anything but defiance. “Do not go gently …”

He continued. “We didn’t bring you into the firm to run errands. Furthermore, we didn’t bring you here to work for anyone but Tom and me.” (He actually said “Tom and I,” but I’ll clean up his grammar out of a long-standing respect.) “The staff knows that now and there will be no repeat of today’s incident. Now, would you like to ride up to Harrison with me tomorrow to their planning commission meeting?”

I allowed as how I would, without commenting on the other part of the conversation. Walking back into the drafting room, thoughts of OCS began to fade. They were replaced by the smell of a roaring fire of resentment flowing from across the room. As for myself, I imagined that I probably gave off a faint smell of sulfur.

Sitting down, I mentally fastened my seat belt.

Was I headed for a rocky ride?

Back from our first road trip, Jim gave the notes we made to the drafting crew and I wondered what waited next. This world of urban planning was interesting. I felt it would be even more so with a larger city. I didn’t have to wait long. Tom came in next day and wanted to know if I wanted to go to the City of Hope the next night. They were going to consider a proposed urban renewal program.

It sounded good to me. I had gone to work for a city planning firm in the final years of a long period of trying to repair urban decay through massive governmental intervention. One can decide for one’s self how successful it was. By the beginning of the 1970s, the effort had been expanded to countless government assistance programs, attempting to create what was then called “The Great Society.”

A person can demean the results, but in the current age of avarice and greed, that person would be cold-hearted indeed to demean the intentions. They came straight from The Sermon on the Mount, perhaps one of the most beautiful and inspiring works of literature in the western world. It has largely fallen out of favor in both the secular and religious worlds, unfortunately.

Anyway, off we went to Hope next afternoon, back down Interstate-30 past Malvern, then Arkadelphia, cities that were to become as familiar to me as my own home town. We passed where you turned off to go to the small community of Gurdon. One day, far into the future, I would meet a fascinating man from there, who had earned a PhD and spent a career teaching at Columbia University in New York City. He would later retire, move back to Gurdon, and become mayor. He once taught me to do a “Subway Fold” with the daily newspaper

 I’ve met some interesting people in my work.

A funny thing (funny now, not then) happened on the way there. I hadn’t been paid yet and had a dollar and twenty-five cents to my name. Just out of Benton, Tom says to me “We’re running late and had better stop and grab something to eat up ahead at that Stuckeys.”

Fine with me, until he said, “Dammit, I forgot my wallet. You have any money?”

"A little."

“Good. I just want a hot dog and something to drink. Got enough for that?”

“Sure.”

I checked the price of a hot dog and drink carefully. Just enough cash. I handed him my fortune. What did I want? "Oh nothing, I had a big lunch and I’m trying to lose some of the weight I put on when I quit smoking."

We started on, with him munching the hot dog and me looking out the window. A hot dog had never smelled so good in my life, nor has it since.

We arrived in Hope on time. City Hall was a fine old building. The meeting room took up part of the ground floor. Still does. Hope was a “city-manager” city. That meant they used a professional city manager and the governing body was a “board” instead of a council. I seem to remember that the city manager was named Garland Meadors or something like that. It’s funny how you remember things about your first time at something.

The Board members, mostly middle-aged, were all white and all male. This was despite the fact that half of the city's population was female, and the same percentage was what they called "Colored, or Negroes" back then, Change came slowly over the years. As for then, it hadn't even begun.

Back to the meeting. There was a fair crowd in attendance for a meeting with no controversial items on the agenda. That doesn’t happen much these days. They approved what Tom had come for and we headed back. I was sure glad that he was anxious to get home and didn’t mention stopping to eat again. So far. So good.

The old days. Today's new buildings
look like they are made from
plastic shipbuilding parts.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Three (Cont._6)

My boss and I, urban planner Jim Vines, arrived at the town of Dierks, Arkansas at late morning. Our first stop was the Mayor’s office. A nice man, he was glad for attention. If the local mill, which dominated the city, wanted a plan and zoning control, he was all for it.

I sat flabbergasted at the skill at which Jim answered questions and soothed any concerns the Mayor had about the process. All would be well, just let us get busy and start gathering data. If anyone called in about strange men taking notes on their property, just tell them the men are working on behalf of the city.

We went to work. The job involved documenting the land use of every property in town, the condition of any structure or structures, and the type of street serving the property. The drafter back at office had provided us with a nice map on which to make notes. No problem.

Jim drove so he could make mental notes as well. He instructed me as to what to write on the map, and we wove in and out of the neighborhoods.

It was fun and instructive, but there were times when a former sailor who had stood unphased on the fantail of a ship slogging and rolling through heavy seas in the Bermuda Triangle, would become slightly nauseated. Jim anticipated this. Surveying land uses could be a nauseous process, Why, he said, I should have been along when, as a student in a summer job during graduate school, he had assisted undertaking a land use survey in Downtown Oklahoma City in August.

That didn’t help, but we made it through the day and proceeded to a local motel. We checked in, had dinner, talked and watched TV. Bedtime came, and I showered first. While Jim was doing so, I prepared for bed in what had been my nighttime attire for the last four years, navy skivvies.

When the bathroom door opened and Jim walked out, I felt a sharp pang of embarrassment. He had donned silk pajamas and a rather elegant bathrobe. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen a man wearing pajamas other than in the movies, and the old ones at that. I made a mental note to buy a pair. I also resolved never again to spend the night in a motel or hotel room with anyone other than a wife, should I ever have one, as long as I had control of things.

We got to work early the next day, finished, stopped to tell the Mayor we had, and headed back to Little Rock. I felt like an explorer who had just discovered a hitherto unknown river. My first planning job was underway, albeit a tiny town of less than fifteen hundred people. It stood among the grandest of cities to me.

I still go through the town on occasion. Time has dealt unkindly with it. Plants close or shrink without a sigh in our state. Our supreme court ruled recently that corporations are humans. If so, they lack the one thing that holds out hope for our species—a heart. The city of Dierks recorded a population of 1,133 at the 2010 census, down from 1,230 in 2000, following a trend for most small communities in southern Arkansas.

Do they still have a plan? I don’t know. I’ve never stopped to ask.

Things change, especially our cities

My Redacted Life: Chapter Three (Cont_5)

 Jim Vines picked me up about 8:30 next morning and we headed for my first day of field work in my new job as urban planner. He filled the car with talk. I was happy for that, as I didn’t have to risk sounding stupid.

We turned west on what is now Interstate-30 and headed out of Little Rock. There wasn’t much to see, just some large industrial buildings and a lot of vacant land. We passed a large office tower that Jim said was where the Arkansas Highway Department had located itself. It seemed a bit detached from civilization to me, isolated and unconnected to the complexities of urban transportation, but I was just a novice.

We passed a small village that had been formed around a sawmill, and then a blue-collar “union” town that had grown to serve a large Bauxite mining operation. Then we crossed the Saline River, not far from the site of the Battle of Jenkins Ferry where an African-American regiment from Kansas had helped fight off a frantic attack by Confederate forces that included my great-grandfather’s unit. I knew nothing about this at the time.

From there, the land grew vacant and rolling, peaceful to the eye and comforting. Jim filled the silence with all sorts of information, including a brief autobiography. He had graduated from high school the same year as I, after a strange year away during the so-called “Central High Crisis” in Little Rock. He then headed for Fayetteville, where, by his own admission, he promptly began matriculating in fun and frivolity.

After a semester of such fun, Marvin yanked him home and he completed his bachelor’s work at a small commuter college in Little Rock, now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock where, years later, I was to earn a Master’s Degree.

Along the way, he met his future wife Linda, one of the finest people our state has ever produced. I’ll have more on her later. They headed to Norman, Oklahoma following their marriage, where Jim would receive a Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional planning from the U of O. He landed a job afterwards with the state of Missouri in “Jeff-City” as he called it.

The rest, of course, is history that involved me. Tom Hodges lured him into returning to Arkansas with his wife and young child, and there we were, headed to the tiny mill town of Dierks, Arkansas to practice urban planning on a mini-scale.

Ahead of us on I-30 were three cities that I still call “The Triplets.” These three are of the same size and population, and share many of the same urban characteristics. Fine cities with fine folks. On that day, they were vibrant and thriving, having been fortunate enough to border the newly emerging interstate highway system, in this case, one connecting Little Rock to Dallas/Fort Worth.

Had I been able to look into the future, I would have seen looming the Supreme Court case, Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971). It would hold that busing was an appropriate remedy for the problem of racial imbalance in schools, even when the imbalance resulted from the selection of students based on geographic proximity to the school.

Perhaps America would feel the earth tremble on the day of the judgement. No matter what one feels about the decision, there is no argument that it would change urban America forever. Vibrant cities such as the Triplets would sense the rush of an exodus of white families.

Hitherto undistinguished and unheard-of communities with all-white school districts would hear a stampede approaching. The concept of urban neighborhoods based around neighborhood schools, the basis of Jim and Tom’s graduate education in urban planning, would begin to fade into history.

That was in the future, though. Today, we just drifted along, very happy with the present.

What would the future hold?

On Heroes …

Please forgive me if I take a lengthy break today. I feel I must say something about Senator John McCain while he lives. After that, I will observe the ancient mandate, De mortuis nihil nisi bonum.

John McCain is the son of a Four-Star Admiral of the World War Two era. John Sr. was the leader of the Fast Carrier Attack Force that once battled a much larger enemy fleet heroically and famously in the Pacific Theater. He also appears, if one knows where to look, in the famous photograph of the signing of the surrender documents by the Japanese on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Navy Secretary James Forrestal said of him, “He was a fighting man all the way through.”

The junior John received an appointment to Annapolis due to his father’s service and influence and completed the four years. His was a checkered performance and might have ended without a commission had he not been an admiral’s son.

Being in good physical shape, he qualified as a Naval Aviator, flying from the USS Oriskany (CV-34) in the South China Sea.

Here is where I want to express my feelings. On October 26, 1967 John McCain was flying a bombing mission, his 23^rd, over selected sites in Hanoi Vietnam. He was following orders issued by the military command of the United States of America. Whether he fully agreed with those orders is a matter that only he knows.

I question them. This was an unprovoked and savage attack upon a nation that had done no harm to our country. Oh, there was a trumped-up (good word these days) charge that one of their boats had fired a round at one of our warships in the Gulf of Tonkin but I don’t think a single serious historian believes that happened as reported, or, if it did, justified the millions of deaths that followed.

Certainly, the women and children who were victims of John McCain’s bombs had done nothing to deserve the horrible, blistering, firestorm that his bombs created.

Whether one supports the war or not, John McCain, on that day was flying his A-4E Skyhawk directly into fire from an anti-aircraft battery. Incoming fire hit his aircraft and he had to bail, injuring himself severely in the process. Captured, he was paraded through the streets of Hanoi and humiliated by the victims of his bombing. The Vietnamese took him to a notorious prison, called “The Hanoi Hilton.” There he remained, untreated and tortured.

A month later, I arrived in Da Nang, South Vietnam as a war-giver, certainly not at the scale and grandeur of a naval aviator, but as one who followed the orders of my country, the same as John McCain.

On the second day in country, I received orders to escort a Vietnamese woman and her baby to the Sick Bay on base. Wanting to make sure I understood why she was there, she removed bandages from her child’s face and I saw nothing but raw blisters and scabs where a baby’s face should have been. One dark and bottomless eye, surrounded by raw flesh, looked at me in bewilderment. I still see it sometimes late at night.

That’s what happens when the bombs fall on the innocents. That’s what made me hate war as anything more than an absolute last chance at survival.

But, I followed orders for the next 12 months, doing some things I’d rather not talk about and others that still make me smile. I spent two more years in the service afterwards and then went into a professional civilian job, an adventure about which I am currently reporting. In 1972. I met a young girl with long reddish hair, a mind like a polished diamond, a smile that could melt steel, and a figure that could make a monk do a double-take.

On August 17, 1972, we had a modest but marvelous wedding with friends and relatives in attendance. Then we left on our honeymoon.

On that date, John McCain remained in the Hanoi Hilton, lacking medical care for his injured body and suffering repeated torture. My new wife and I were in Aspen Colorado enjoying life. Our families waited at home, anxious to hear about the trip. John McCain’s family continued to hope for his release.

 I’m not sure where Donald Trump was on that date. I’m sure he was having fun with whatever trophy-wife he enjoyed at the time. He had avoided the whole military thing. His career, too, had been boosted by his father, not by his father’s service to our country, but by his father’s money.

John McCain stayed in prison, loyal to the country on whose behalf he had landed there. On one occasion, he was offered release, the Vietnamese believing that positive publicity awaited the release of an admiral’s son. McCain refused the offer unless all his fellow prisoners went home as well.

More time passed. In 1973, the inmates of the Hanoi Hilton were finally released. McCain later became a respected United States Senator and ran an honorable, but unsuccessful presidential campaign against Barack Obama.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump, a draft-dodger, insulted the service of John McCain, saying that he (Trump) preferred military heroes that “didn’t get captured.” For this sin, and similar behavior, we elected him president of the United States of America.

This week, as John McCain faces death from cancer, another of Donald Trump’s staff demeaned a statement from Senator McCain, saying that it didn’t matter because “he was dying anyway.” Donald Trump has not disowned it as of yet, nor, I imagine, will he. Oh well, when a worm challenges a mountain, the butterflies must flutter and laugh.

Here’s what I think:

- I don’t agree with what John McCain and millions of us were ordered to do.

- I believe we were of the post WWII generation that believed in duty to our country uber alles.

- I believe we served faithfully and thanklessly in a misguided war, perhaps making us “The Greatest Generation.”

- I believe that our country never forgave us for our service, as witnessed by the lack of a national uproar when people like Donald Trump, and his sort, besmirch the heroic service of brothers like John McCain and John Kerry.

- I believe Americans will pay a dreadful price for our misguided blindness.

Today I’m ashamed. Tomorrow I’ll press on, having said my piece.

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remember'd;

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

William Shakespeare – Henry V