I would, years later, learn that I had been legally
prescient in the course I followed. I would learn that it didn’t make a hell of
a lot of difference by then. In short, I would survive the ordeal, but I still
carry the scars.
As I say, it started out with good news, double good news.
First, my company had learned that my hometown of Pine Bluff, Arkansas had
hired it to prepare a parks plan for the city. Second, my bosses had decided
that it was time for me to take the lead on a planning project. A parks plan was
ideal for such an intro, for they were pretty straightforward. Or at least they
should be. This one proved otherwise.
To prepare such a plan, one first analyzes a city’s population
and gauges public sentiment. Next, one analyzes the existing parks system. One
then compares the existing system with national standards for acreage allocated
to parks, recommended facilities per population, and spatial allocations. One
then prepares a draft for consideration by the public and the city government
One needed to be aware of taboos and social restrictions, some
racial, some not, some a little of both. For example, some baseball fields,
though city-owned, were reserved for the exclusive use of white boys between the
ages of 9 and 12. No exceptions. There would be no footfall profaning this sacred
soil with the exception of coaches, umpires, and maintenance personnel. Empty
fields, unused school grounds, and vacant lots served the other kids.
Armed with this background, I set about my business. Then I
learned of an additional angle. I learned what Vaughn Black, the parks
director, had meant when he said that he had a problem that involved city
government, rich people, and a newspaper editor. He claimed that he faced a
real problem.
Did he ever.
His problem also involved the muddy, smelly, wandering floodway
known as Bayou Bartholomew. It had been a favorite area of exploration in my
youth. Kids could build hideouts there, sneak around within its dense
vegetation to smoke pilfered cigarettes, and hunt for snakes until their mischievous
hearts were content. Fishing was allowed, but most folks considered consumption
of those fish chancy, for the stream was contaminated both by municipal sewage
and agricultural pesticides. The poorest of families partook from necessity. Others
didn’t.
What was the problem? Its tentacles spread in a number of
directions. First, there was an existing municipal ordinance that sought to
establish the bayou and its environs as a “greenbelt” marking the end of urban
development to the south of the city, at least in the current phase of its
development.
Next, there were rich landowners who objected to parts of said
ordinance. Then there was mayor, who like any successful mayor who has ever
lived, tended to listen when rich folks spoke. Then there was a citizenry that
didn’t much care one way or the other.
Finally, there was a newspaper editor named Paul Greenberg. It
turned out that he hated Mayor Offie Lites with a long-simmering passion that pre-dated
the present storm that was approaching.
In the account that I will relate, the central fact wasn’t that
Greenberg detested the mayor. Nor did it center on the apparent belief that
controversies, whether real or concocted, could increase, by the fanning and reporting
of those controversies, newspaper readership.
It really wasn’t confined to the fact that Greenberg was a
mean-spirited soul, governed by situational principles, who never hesitated for
a second to use his position as editor to demean, damage, diminish, or destroy
a person’s reputation in order to promote his own ends through his editorials.
No.
The real problem was that he was so damned good at it.
a cliffhanger ...
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