We had followed the city’s direction and had studied the
issues surrounding an existing “greenbelt ordinance” that denied certain property
owners any use of property that touched Bayou Bartholomew, a sluggish stream
that bordered the city on the south of its urban area. Somehow, it seemed to
me, it was excessive to frame the restrictions along property lines. That prevented productive use of portions of a person's property that was to hell and gone from any public need or purpose.
In a public setting, we suggested that the boundaries of the
restrictive ordinance be reshaped along an elevation line, assuring both a uniform
boundary and a regulatory restriction that only affected unusable parts of a
person’s property.
It seemed like a reasonable revision to me. The city got its
greenbelt and the property owners got the use of portions of their property
that weren’t needed for that greenbelt.
Reasonable it may have been, but all hell was about to break loose nontheless.
As I have mentioned, the editor of the Pine Bluff Commercial,
a vicious and talented scribe named Paul Greenberg lay in wait for an opportunity
to harass, humiliate, and torment the existing mayor, Offie Lites.
I was to be the vessel for pouring on the fiery rhetoric, a naïve,
optimistic young man, totally inexperienced in the intricacies of local
politics. I doubt, as well, if my name helped.
The first indication that I was headed for trouble was when
a local genius from the city sought me out. Arthur Stern was a brilliant man
who had graduated a couple of years after me from the all-white high school in our
city. He was an architectural graduate of MIT and attended, I was led to understand,
the same synagogue as Mr. Greenberg.
Arthur stormed into our Little Rock office one morning, snarling
and frightening the receptionist, and demanding to see, under the Arkansas Freedom
of Information Act, all our notes related to the city’s park plan. The law was
fairly new and, rather than argue as to whether a private firm had to follow
its mandates on a moment’s notice, we offered up the material. Arthur and the toady he had brought with him began to pour over the material like dogs searching
in the grass for a piece of dropped beefsteak. The toady was a former classmate named Tom, whom I had always considered a friend .... until that moment. Life is strange.
As I say, Arthur was a true genius and he was to die young. Following the
dictum of De mortuis nihil nisi bonum, I
shall refrain from describing the arrogant, insulting, demeaning, and humiliating
way that he treated me and my colleagues that morning. In simple terms, the city’s
greenbelt ordinance was a modern manifestation of the noblest works of humankind and we were
all idiots educated in low-class public colleges if we suggested any alteration.
Compromises were for sissies.
To his credit, he never cursed me. In fact, I don’t remember
his ever actually calling me by my name. He just took notes, grimaced, and pointed
from time to time for something that elicited particular disdain. After what
seemed like an hour of agony, he rose and pushed the pile of papers toward me.
“Just wait,” he said, “until the paper gets hold of this.”
And so it began.
It wasn’t my particular dream to have the first appearance
of my name in the newspaper as one describing me as a low-class idiot threatening
to destroy a city with no more concern than a cow flicking away a horsefly. It
left my Sainted Mother in tears, and her sisters in giggles, their having found proof at last of my long-suspected worthlessness.
After all, there it was in the newspaper, and newspapers wouldn’t
lie. It got worse when the editor discovered a typo in an early draft of the
plan. I had misspelled the work “athlete,” and that offered the Pulitzer Prize-winning
editor a chance to spend half of an editorial exalting in a description of me as an
untalented Yogi Berra without the good looks.
I, believing in truth, justice, and the American way, stood my
ground. It didn’t matter, I was doomed by simple association, but I saw no reason
at the time to back down. I looked around for help. Local politicians and the
affected property owners were steadfast in support of my recommendations, but
nowhere to be seen when the rhetoric ripened.
I saw myself as Will Kane. Greenberg presented me as Norman Bates.
It was about this time that I began having trouble falling
to sleep. It would only get worse.
 |
| Maybe I should have stayed in the Navy. |
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