Mid-week Grumbling

No, I didn’t watch the so-called debates. Those things make me nervous. I sort of place them in the same category as watching an automobile race. The main objective of the crowd is to hope that someone in the group destroys herself or himself. Petty, inconsequential things rule. One word. One poorly shaven or perspiring face. One second of consideration of a trick question similar to, “Do you still beat your wife?” or “Do you think that, as human being placed on Earth in horrible, debased, cruel, and vicious circumstances, and fleeing to a safe haven to save your family from a lingering and tortuous death … you should receive comfort and basic health care from the richest country on the planet, while thoughtful, reasonable people contemplate your fate?”

Oh, that wasn’t the way the question was asked, now was it? What if the question ended with, “If you think the Galilean would have you say 'yes,' raise your hand?”

It seems we have conditioned too many Americans to say, “No, my Jesus would tell them to go back to where they came from.” They don't follow "the pale Galilean," but the orange evangelist and his crew of merry-makers.

That’s why I don’t watch the debates. I do try, though, to watch what’s happening to us, and it ain’t a pretty sight these days.

Dream A Little Dream

I’ve had this recurring dream for nearly 50 years. No, it’s not about the class I forgot about in college or the test I didn’t study for, or the paper I didn’t write. I read once where a huge percentage of college graduates have dreams along that line, though. The writer opined that we have such dreams in times of stress and they comfort us by beckoning to when we prevailed against great obstacles.

 I don’t know if dreams mean anything or not. Carl Jung thought they did. But gee, his patients, according to his records, dreamed of things like entering a dark and magic forest and seeing a portal through which the dreamer entered a majestic oak, where he encountered wisps of the spirit world.

Hell, I wonder what he would have thought when I told him about the dream of going to the Saturday matinee at the old Community Theater in Pine Bluff with Al Capone and Sandra Dee? Hmm.

But this recurring dream is different. I dream that, at some point, I’ve promised the United State Navy that they could have be back for four more years anytime they chose under some agreement or other. I think it has to do with fast ships and harm's way. I guess you could call the dream a sort of “Military Mephistopheles Metaphor.”

I had the dream last night, and guess what? Yep. They called and told this aged, decrepit, pitiful, unable, unready, and unwilling old man he was due back for military service. Yes, I’m aware of the hyperbole, but it’s nothing compared to the whining I did the first time.

Perhaps the dream has something to do with the fact that, by all accounts, the military is scraping the bottom of the barrel with its all-volunteer effort. It does this while planning to invade two, maybe three, more sovereign nations on the whimsical orders of a leader who never served and doesn’t read. This political party-head does listen to some ultra-weirdos who formed their opinions of history and foreign policy in the 7^th grade and have never seen fit to change them. “Invade someone, for Christ’s sake,” they are telling him.

It will be the most disastrous event, in my opinion, since Operation Barbarossa commenced, but who am I to say?

A brief bit of inductive reasoning: I heard recently about a new trooper recruited into the military. It was a 32 year-old female with two kids. Think they won’t try to come after me?

Or you?

Or your kids?

Or your grand kids?

Back to the dream. I was on the bus headed back to boot camp with an odd assortment of fellow recruits. Years ago, the dream would have included ending back overseas wondering when my first watch would commence. I left that one years ago, though. I suppose there have been too many wars since then, Anyway, I woke up from the dream and rolled over before the bus reached San Diego.

When I started dreaming again, I was somewhere else and it was cold, real cold.

Oh, never mind.
I'll serve again.

Swinging Pendulums of History

I’m sorry, but when you badmouth our cities, you get on the fighting side of me. If a person had nothing more to do, no real sustaining joy in life except to make certain people feel bad about themselves, they traditionally went to the coffee shop a’mornings or became editorial writers for right-wing newspapers. Nobody paid much critical attention to them in any case.

Nowadays, though, Facebook and Twitter form the modern coffee shop, and it’s harder to ignore them. Additionally, nobody, not one person I ever met, not a single one, ever, in my life, suggested that anyone pay the least attention to what anyone, in any coffee shop in America, said.

It’s different with so-called “social media.” It is a form of media to be sure, but it ain’t social. I’ve always wondered what would happen if someone really mean-spirited, with nefarious intent, and with some degree of standing, started posting on one of those outlets? People believe that stuff. Holy mackerel.

Which brings me back to cities. I’ve studied them for nearly 50 years, at times in great detail. Here is my opinion, repeat, my opinion, based on my education, experience, and expertise, (attorney friends taught me that disclaimer). In many, if not most cases, the successes or failures of cities bear little relation to the actions of their leaders.

Lots of it derives from pure luck. For example, when I first attended college just after the Permian Extinction, the richest kids in school were from farm communities in south Arkansas. I attended school, by the way, in a remote, impoverished area described by famous architect Edward D. Stone, as “a hotbed of tranquility.” Only two short generations before me, the last leg on the way there required a stagecoach ride. Getting there when I went was only marginally easier. It was a long way from those rich Delta towns.

What occurred in these areas, and others, since my time? Success on the one hand, and failure, on the other, just happened. That’s all.

Nobody voted to mechanize farming operations, reducing the working, and supporting population, of those farming communities by over 80 percent.

Nobody voted to remove African-Americans from a community after discovering a lingering and smoldering volcano of racial bigotry still extant below the communities of America.

Nobody voted to make industrial labor so much cheaper in Third World countries than in America.

Nobody voted to make an Interstate Highway closer to, or farther from, their city.

Nobody voted to make drug-usage and drug-selling attractive and profitable, though entwined with criminal behavior, by declaring a “war” on it as we once did alcohol.

No …, no community leader usually votes for success or failure in our cities. (I say “usually’ because there was that Federal Express thing, and there was resistance to retraining farm workers for the Industrial Age. Does the term “coal workers” ring a more modern bell?) Mostly, municipal leaders just hang on in the face of impending doom or unexpected success, a success, by the way, that carries its own seeds of destruction, as someone once said.

So, when I heard that the leader of one of the two ruling political parties in America had, on behalf of his party, delivered an official statement regarding one of our country’s major, but distressed cities, I smiled and assumed that leader would offer words of sympathy, succor, and support. We need healing words so desperately these days.

No.

Now, I’m half nauseated, half pissed off, and totally ashamed of what the country—to which I gave four years of my life in service—has become.

It would be best not to speak of it to me, today. I plan to be busy trying to help some of our cities survive. Someone must.

And love. Not hate.

Curve balls and Changing Times

It’s Theology Time and back to the Sermon on the Mount. If we read down to about Matthew 7:1-3, the Galilean seems to quit preaching and starts to meddle. Just listen to this:

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye

That’s a bit of a speck itself. Isn’t the Book of Leviticus all about judgements? And didn’t our speaker tell us, in Matthew 5:17-20 (KJV):

17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Once again, he’s throwing us curve balls and low sliders. I think he likes to do that. Some writers on the subject dwell on the word “fulfill.” Most modern definitions circle around the word as meaning “ … to carry out, or bring to realization, as a prophecy or promise. to perform or do, as duty; obey or follow, as commands. to satisfy (requirements, obligations, etc.) Some writers grant the Galilean some flexibility in squeezing terms like “completing, finalizing, updating. They are the same ones who say “an eye for and eye” really doesn’t mean an “eye for an eye” but is really an extremely humane form of legal compensation.

Whatever.

I like to think about what the Galilean is actually reported to have said. You can sure get some different interpretations otherwise. Was he purposefully trying to mess with our minds? Or was he, as some seem to think, making us learn to hit the hard pitches if we really want to be “Sluggers for Jesus.”

Maybe, just maybe, it gets real complicated here, difficult to explain. I think, though, that I’ll just jump off the diving board at the deep end and hope there is water in the pool. Jesus appeared, if we are to believe what the Gospels tell us, only 200 years after the stabilization of the so-called “Axial Age,” as discussed by Karen Armstrong and other writers. That’s a complicated era to discuss. The “school” definition from The Human Journey runs something like this:

From 900–200 BCE a new mode of thinking developed almost simultaneously in four distinct areas of the world. In each area this was a time of change, social unrest, and political upheaval. People began to question their own beliefs once they came into contact with others whose beliefs were different. In the face of crisis and change, they were challenged to look at themselves in different ways and entertain new ideas or cling steadfastly to their old ones.

A more prosaic writer described it as an era when “The old paradigm was gone and the new paradigm hadn’t appeared.” As an urban planner, I like to think of it as the age in which tribalism waned, people traveled and traded, and it became necessary for humans to rid themselves of some of the fears and mistrusts that had protected them on the Savanna. In other words. we had to start getting along better with one another.

So here we have a Savior, seeking help humankind evolve from the jealous, violent, cruel, tribal, and morally frivolous god of the Old Testament into a more loving and universal figurehead. It’s a tough challenge, but one that he was perhaps trying to tackle.

In this month’s reading, shall we try to contemplate the Sermon on the Mount from this perspective?

The Agora.
When people started trading,
things changed. Even religion.

Magic Saturdays

As I may have said before, Saturdays were always special with us kids about this time of year. I would give my brother the “secret” nod after we finished breakfast. Then we would slip out the kitchen door while he and Sainted Mother attended the early morning rush in our little country grocery. They “waited on” folks headed to work at the farms, the Cotton Belt shops, Ben Pearson’s bow and arrow factory, or at a wartime facility we just called “The Arsenal.” Those workers would return that evening with hands yellowed from some chemical, unknown to them or the general public. I guess they used it for making bombs.

Meantime, we were “outa there,” as long as our sister didn’t notice and tell on us. As soon as the rush cleared, Daddy could think up all sorts of things for us to do, especially if we aggravated him by asking for a Coke or candy bar. There was grass to be mowed, a garden to be watered, and truck loads of sawed-up slab wood to be unloaded. Come fall, Roedock Tiggins and I would haul it to Pine Bluff for five dollars a pickup load, him driving and me finding the way to customers that had been buying from us for years.

But back to Saturdays. Having escaped, brother and I would grab fishing equipment and head for our stock pond. The Hester boys, Robert and Bobby Joe, might already be there. If not, it wouldn’t be long. They had no interfering father, just a 52 year-old mother who, at the time, was keeping company with an 18 year-old boy in the neighborhood who had a car. That’s a different story for another day, though.

We kept a bucket of minnows tied to a tree at the edge of the pond. We dug worms in a shallow flat where the cows drank. On good days, we had part of a package of “ready-mades” stashed away in our secret place. On other days, we resorted to Bull Durham or Prince Albert. A stand of willows provided a shield from our parents for when we needed a smoke. That wasn’t too often, as smoking tended to make us sick. We couldn’t quite understand what the grownups saw in the practice, but if it was good enough for John Wayne, it was good enough for us.

And don’t ask me about the time we found a third of a bottle of Old Yellowstone and decided really to play cowboys. Yuck!

That little pond … that little pond. On a square-foot basis, it surely provided more pure entertainment than any Disney project ever built. At least we thought so.

On Saturdays when the fish were biting, one of the neighbors provided an ice chest, and Daddy left us to our own adventures, we would save fish all day. Come evening, Fred Flynn’s wife would haul out a homemade fish fryer. Other women would bring things for a little party on the banks of our little body of water.

 This was before the day that Mr. Flynn’s wife ran off, left him with their boys, and hung out at a bar on Harding Avenue—living in some way Daddy wouldn’t tell us about—until they found her dead in an alley one morning. These days, she would bring her boys and we might teach them some of the secrets of fishing. We all had fun, even that woman before the demons took her and she dragged her anchor. All I can say about her then was that she could sure cook fish.

Those were the days. On good ones we would end the day with a fine meal and good fellowship. Later, the oldest Hester boy, Robert and Bobby Joe’s brother Wesley, would join the Army and bring home, four years later, a German wife. Sadly, she died not long after coming to America.

That was years later, though. On the magic Saturdays I remember, there is only image of a catfish pulling on a line while the grease popped, the women gossiped, and the young kids frolicked around the banks of that old stock pond.

Sundays were torture,
but Saturdays were magic.

Little Rock Getaway

Fiction Friday: It's a little long. Forgive. Read it in segments if you wish. My little attempt at dark humor.

Pistols in the Pantry

By Jimmie von Tungeln

To his surprise, Ted Mellford found a pistol in the pantry one morning when he went looking for a can of sauerkraut. The pistol lay there, neither mocking nor challenging, just claiming its space with the calm certitude of a half-snoozing watchdog. Ted stared at it with his head cocked to the side for a few seconds. Then he leaned over and examined it with an uncharacteristic interest, but not daring to touch it. He stood upright and looked around as if fearing that someone had observed his discovery. This didn’t seem right.

It was Sunday and he was in the house alone. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been looking for sauerkraut for Marva didn’t allow it. “Too much salt,” she said. In fact, he had stifled more than once a simmering belief that she only kept it around to torment him. Today he planned to sneak it onto a hot dog and dare her to complain—time to claim his rights.

The will to challenge evaporated the pistol appeared between the kidney beans and a bag of rice. The brass rims of cartridges glistened in the cylinder. It was loaded and ready, no doubt. Its smug blue barrel spread an antiseptic chill over the entire pantry. Pretty strange

He was still puzzling over it when Marva came home. She had been to a flea market and carried an old sewing machine that lacked a motor and needle assembly. He was reading the morning paper and beginning his second hot dog. No sauerkraut—just mustard and relish.

“Won’t take much to get this running,” she said as she plopped the machine onto the table next to his plate. Dust rolled across his food and a worn electric cable fell into his lap.

He looked up and considered to himself that there must be at least a dozen sewing machines in various places around the house and none had ever been made to work. They loitered around the house like booby traps in a rice field, along with the other prizes from hundreds of piratical junking expeditions, ever ready to do damage to his careless feet. He said, “I noticed that you have a pistol in the pantry.”

“You noticed, huh?” She removed his plate without asking and placed it in the sink. Soapy water ebbed around the unfinished hot dog as he watched without comment. She grabbed a towel from the counter and spread it under the machine as if it were a baby to be diapered. “My grandmother had one just like it.”

“The pistol?”

“No, this machine. It’s a Singer Model 66. They quit making these in the thirties.”

“Why do you have a pistol in the pantry?” He tried not to sound accusing or critical, just curious. It was too early in the day for a confrontation.

She looked at him signaling that the answer was obvious and anyone who would ask it a fool. She glanced toward the pantry and turned back to him as she continued to clean the sewing machine.

“Rapid response,” she said.

“I see.” He continued to read the paper. Another man in another place might have pressed for more detail but he had discovered long ago that pressing for details was counterproductive. This might be particularly true with firearms around. If Marva had a pistol in the pantry, she must have a reason.

The issue didn’t occupy him long, for his life was about to take one of those turns that sends a person spinning at a tangent to the curve of life. It can happen so quickly, in fact, that it doesn’t leave one as much damaged as amazed. As Ted was to tell people later, “I never took much to change anyway but this just beat all.”

It started the next day. He was thinking about the pantry while he worked on a set of divorce papers for one of his clients. His law partner, Bobby Hinson, opened Ted’s office door without knocking and stepped in, red of face and trying to look calm. “I thought you were still out so I took a call for you,” he said. He took a deep breath, then told Ted to drop his work and get downtown, fast. He had to see about his daddy. Bobby took another breath. “The Police Department called and said he just shot a man.”

“He what?”

“Shot a man was what they said. He gave them your telephone number here and they just called.”

Ted looked at him and asked again, “He what?”

“You want me to drive you?”

“Where?” Ted looked beyond Bobby and blinked.

“They have him at the main Police Station. I told them you would be right there.”

Bobby motioned toward the door and Ted rose. He nearly stumbled over his chair as he turned. Somehow he managed to grab his coat and follow Bobby outside into the parking lot.

Ted functioned, but only with Bobby’s help. His whole being—body, mind, and senses—competed dumbly with bells, stars, whistles and shrieks until they reached downtown and were escorted to the holding area. Bobby led him by his arm and Ted’s head settled when he saw his dad sitting on a concrete bed inside a cell.

“I’ll wait outside,” Bobby said.

His dad saw Ted as he entered the room and smiled. “Fun’s over, son,” he said. An officer told him to be quiet.

“Screw you, Clint Eastwood,” his dad said.

Ted looked at his dad first and turned to the officer. He tried to sound attorney-like. He had been through this with clients, hadn’t he? To be successful, you developed your “attorney’s voice,” harsh, blunt, and condescending. He thought he could pull it off but, when he finally found his voice and responded, it sounded more like whispering.

“What happened?”

“Shut up and bail me out. I want to go home,” his dad said. He yelled it across the room with an excess of authority.

“Let’s go into the next room and I’ll tell you all about it said the officer.

Ted sat in a metal folding chair in the next office while the officer related the events of the day. The shooting occurred at the Main Post Office on Fourth Street. He—Ted’s dad—pulled into the drive-through deposit lane to mail something. Only he didn’t mail it. Instead he sat in his car with his head slumped on his chest, not appearing to move. Several cars lined up behind him and one had honked a couple of times, so some workers in the office building across the street and a jogger had stopped to watch. They saw the whole thing.

The driver in the car behind him—not the one who had honked, incidentally—stepped out of his car and approached the window, as if to see if the old man was sick or something. The jogger heard Ted’s dad yell “Leave me alone.” It turned out that he was in the process of writing whatever he was going to mail as he blocked the drive.

Things happened pretty quickly, but the result was that words were exchanged and Ted’s dad produced a large-bore pistol and fired once, putting, as one witness observed, “A rather sizeable hole through the intruder’s midsection.” He hit the ground, jerked a couple of times, and died.

Ted stared at a calendar on a wall across the room. It advertised the local bus company. Above the month was a photograph of a family waving to a smiling father who carried a briefcase in one hand and a raincoat across the other arm. He was stepping on a bus, obviously headed for work. He thought about Marva and mumbled something.

“Sir?” the officer said. Ted looked away from the calendar and at the deputy.

“My dad?”

“Sir?”

“It was my dad for sure?” He stopped. His head filled with sounds again. He waited until they left and then asked the officer, “It was my dad who shot the man, for sure?”

“Oh yes sir,” the officer said. “A number of people saw it all and your dad was still in the car with the pistol beside him when the police arrived. It all happened so fast that we had it cleaned up and your father here before the TV stations got wind of it. Of course we took the body to the morgue.” The officer stopped. His arms lay on the desk in front of him and his hands clasped one another with the fingers interlocked. He flexed the fingers outward twice, watching them intently. He looked back at Ted. Ted sensed that he was weighing the wisdom of relating the rest. He spoke in friendly voice.

“Want to know the oddest part?” Before Ted could answer he said, “He was still writing the letter. It was to his sister.”

Ted blinked and then said in a wheezing voice, “He doesn’t have a sister.”

The officer didn’t say anything.

Ted also remained silent. The two men sat facing one another until the sounds started in his head again. “What next?” he asked.

“We’ll have to arraign him. There won’t be any bail. He’ll stay here for quite awhile.”

Ted’s head cleared. The sounds stopped. “You’ll keep him here?”

“Why sure,” the officer said. “You don’t think we would let him go home, do you?”

“I don’t have to do anything with him?”

“Well, we could let you talk to him for a minute. I mean, you being an attorney and all. I’m sure you want to advise him.”

Ted answered and his answer rang as decisive around the concrete block walls of the room. “No,” he said. “You get him a PD and tell him I had to see to his affairs.” He rose.

“You don’t want to talk to him?”

“Tomorrow maybe,” Ted said.

In the lobby, he told Bobby what had happened. While they were talking, a sergeant approached and handed him a set of keys. His dad’s car was parked on the street by the Post Office and they wouldn’t need it anymore. Would Ted dispose of it?

“Come on,” Bobby said. “I’ll take you over there.”

They drove in silence at first. In addition to the sounds, images fought for possession of Ted’s mind. Alternating sounds and scenes bounced like hail hitting the ground in a summer storm. Through the tumult, he turned to Bobby and worked at framing a question. He thought for a moment and turned look at the scenery silently gliding by as Bobby negotiated the downtown traffic to Fourth Street. Finally, he spoke, as much to the window as to Bobby.

“Did your high school offer a senior trip?” he asked.

“A senior trip?”

“You know, where the whole class goes somewhere.”

Bobby turned his eyes from the traffic and eyed Ted.

“Washington.”

Ted seemed not to understand. He knitted his brow and looked at Bobby.

“Washington?”

“Our senior class went to Washington, D.C.” He looked at Ted again. “Why do you ask?”

“Our class went to San Antonio.”

“Did you have fun?”

“I didn’t get to go.”

“Why not?”

“Dad needed me to help in the store. Or so he said.”

Ted was silent for a couple of minutes. After that he turned to Bobby.

“Your dad was fairly normal, wasn’t he?” he asked his partner.

“Pretty much,” Bobby said. “World War Two was probably the high point of his life. Spent the rest of it farming or thinking about farming—except for telling stories around the supper table.”

“Did he ever tell you he wished you hadn’t been born?”

“Not that I remember,” Bobby said, then added, “I imagine he did a few times though.”

“Yes, I guess. Oh by the way, could you finish the Daltons’ divorce papers? I haven’t been able to get them to reconcile or agree on anything.”

“Sure,” Bobby said. He drove on without talking. Then he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel three times. “Ted,” he said, “This isn’t a good time to offer advice, but job ain’t to reconcile the Daltons. It’s to represent Fred Dalton in a divorce proceeding. You can only represent one side and Fred is the one paying us.”

Ted didn’t answer right away. Talking business kept the sounds from his head. He looked again at the passing scenery. A moment later, he said, “I guess I just see both sides of the story.”

“I’m older than you are and I can tell you that can backfire.” He looked at Ted and determined that he was listening. “Once when I was a prosecutor, there were judges that would do everything in their power to force a plea.”

Ted looked at him. “Isn’t that what they are supposed to do?”

“It is indeed,” Bobby said. “But there are times when the ego gets involved and then the peacemaker just ends up pissing everyone off.”

Ted stared past him at the landscape again.

“And remember, egos always sneak into divorce cases.”

“I’ll remember,” Ted said.

“I’ll finish this one up for you. God knows you’re going to be preoccupied. But next time, try just seeing our client’s side. If you’re good at it, at least one side will be happy.”

“Next time,” Ted said.

Bobby pulled along the curb, behind the car—Ted’s dad’s—that had been moved from in front of the postal boxes. Ted managed not to look back at the scene of the crime but stared ahead at the car as if it were the victim.

“Are you going to need some help?” Bobby asked.

“Ted didn’t move. He just said, “No, my life may be a little simpler now.”

“How so?”

Ted ignored the question and looked at the keys in his hand. In addition to the car keys, there were several others that Ted knew to be various keys to locks the old man kept on boxes stored around his apartment. And of course there was the key to his apartment in the Shady Creek Retirement Home. They dangled from a ring along with a metal disk advertising Gulf Shores, Alabama. Ted had given it to him.

Ted looked at his partner. “Your dad died young, didn’t he?”

“Fairly so. Alzheimer’s when he was 70.”

“Do you miss him?”

“Every day of my life,” Bobby said.

“I see,” Ted said. “I guess I better be going.”

“You take care now,” Bobby said. “And call me if you need anything.”

“I will.” Ted said and he swung open the car door to leave. “Just tell everyone that I’ll be back in a few days.”

Ted decided to drive his dad’s car home and pick his up later. It would cause a scene but there were many scenes to come anyway. One extra wouldn’t matter. On the way, he practiced telling Marva the story. He had to do it well but the best way to do it kept edging away from him. He saw his imagination as a hand trying to stroke a skittish pet: lots of activity with no results. He saw that he was almost home.

Their house was at the end of a long winding road and there was a final dogleg turn that led to their drive. The result was that his house was hidden from the view of any traffic until the last second. His dad had built it in this spot because he didn’t like to be around people but needed to be in the city. Marva felt the same, so she had insisted they buy it from the old man when it became too much for him to manage. Ted gave in, but he had always felt conflicted by living in such seclusion in the middle of large city.

He considered stopping here and practicing his story. He had done it many times before—seeking out the soft words that could postpone a scene or maybe avoid it altogether. This time, though, the appropriate story evaded him, so he drove on. He still hadn’t settled on it by the time he pulled into his driveway.

Marva opened the front door of the house as he was getting out of the car and waited for him on the porch. One look and he knew that she knew already.

“The old bastard finally did it, didn’t he?” she said, as he walked toward her.

“Jesus,” Ted said, “How did you find out?”

“That’s for me to know. Come on in and rest a spell.”

Ted followed her in.

She turned as they reached the kitchen. “I got to feed the dogs, so make yourself something to eat. You can tell me all about it when I get back,” she said.

“Jesus,” Ted said. He pulled off his jacket and draped it across a chair. He considered his options for a meal, but knew right away that he would avoid the pantry. He didn’t want contact with a pistol. Not today or any other day. What business had a peacemaker with a pistol, anyway?

He found a package of salami and some bread and sat down to make a sandwich. He thought about the old man and how they would never share another meal together. The thought wasn’t altogether unpleasant. Their meals together had never gone that well. They had become altogether unsettling over the last four or five years, particularly if Marva happened to be present.

He laid the sandwich on a plate and retrieved a beer from the refrigerator. What else would change? Sunday afternoons at the retirement home would change to Sunday afternoons at the prison, he assumed. A smirking thought from somewhere deep inside him observed that the penalty for failure to show would not be as unpleasant. No more barging in on Marva while she was involved in some project and demanding to know where the hell “that boy” was.

He drove this thought away and tried to expand his mind to encompass all the implications. He was trying to force himself to feel sorrow when Marva returned. She sat down across from him.

“Just a matter of time before he jumped the fence,” she said. “I always knew it ran in your family.”

“Maybe not right now,” he said.

“What?” she said.

“Maybe you could go easy on me. I assume that you know the details.”

“Most of them,” she said. “He really did it this time, didn’t he?”

“It seems so.” He focused on his sandwich, thinking she might go away.

“Can you and Bobby get him off for being crazy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you better damn well find out.” She picked at a nail. “He is, you know.”

“He is what?”

“Crazy. He still thinks I stole his woodcarving tools.”

A rolling, horrible thought rumbled somewhere in Ted’s head like thunder approaching on spring afternoon. He pushed it out.

“Maybe I could be alone for awhile,” he said.

“Yeah well, sure,” she said. “Don’t pout.”

“Jesus,” he said. “Not right now.”

“Whatever,” she said. I’m going to go upstairs and paint. If you want to talk or anything, you just whistle. You do know how to whistle, don’t you?” She rose and tried to sway her hips.

“Jesus,” Ted said.

He avoided the news on television that night and went to bed as usual. He slept well and rose early. It was odd, but he felt relieved. Marva had left him alone—a rare instance of mercy. She had gotten up before him so he showered and dressed without commotion. He’d have breakfast and go back to the police station. After that, there wasn’t much he could do. There weren’t any relatives left that would need explanations. He just had to avoid the press and count on his friends to avoid him. He considered going back to work that afternoon.

He called Bobby. Bobby picked him up and took him to the office where he retrieved his car and headed downtown. The morning was fair with a hint that late fall would soon turn to winter. The morning breeze swirled the leaves that bounced across the lawn like puppies. Out in the city people were making plans for the holidays or for a winter vacation in the mountains. What joy that must be!

He stopped at a coffee shop in midtown and had breakfast: two eggs with link sausage, grits, biscuits and gravy. Marva would be so pissed if she knew. To make the defiance complete, he had a glass of whole milk. Screw her watered down shit.

It was late morning before he reached the police station. He retrieved a card from his wallet, looked it over, and asked the sergeant in charge if he could see Lieutenant Crawford.

“I’ll see if he’s available,” the sergeant said. He picked up a phone and punched a number. Ted studied the sergeant’s hands. They were huge and red with nails bitten and chewed as if come animal had tried to destroy them. They were more like his dad’s hands. Marva had hands like that too. Ted’s were pale, with long, manicured nails. They were like his mother’s. That was why he hated to get them dirty.

“He’s on the way up,” the sergeant said, and Ted snapped back into the room.

“What?”

“Lieutenant. He’s coming to get you—sounded happy by the way.”

“Happy, I see,” Ted said. He allowed his mind to free-form thoughts again.

In a moment the door to the receiving cage burst open and Lieutenant Crawford emerged with his hand extended. “Mr. Mellford,” he said. He shook Ted’s hand with excessive enthusiasm and said, “Come on back. I have some good news for you.”

In was in Ted’s mind to ask what but the officer had already turned and started through the door. Ted followed. He felt suspicious and confused.

            They entered the same office in which they had met the day before and Ted sat in the same folding chair. The officer noticed the confusion in his face and beamed a huge smile.

            “Mr. Mellford, have you ever heard of a man named Larry Sikes?”

            Ted stared at him.

            “You don’t do much criminal law, do you?”

            Ted continued to stare.

            “Even if you did, you may not have heard of Larry Sikes.”

            “What do you mean?” Ted knew he sounded disoriented. “I mean, no, I do mostly civil litigation. My partner handles the criminal work. He used to be a county prosecutor, by the way.” He wanted the Lieutenant to know that he had plenty of resources to draw upon if he needed them. “Why do you ask?”

            “Larry Sikes is one of the biggest drug-lords in this state. From up north. He handles the flow of drugs from Little Rock north to St. Louis. He has a rap sheet a mile long.” He stopped. “Or at least he did have.”

            Ted’s mind soared over thought after thought and wouldn’t stop. It was like a horse jumping hurdles and it made him feel dizzy. He looked at the officer.

            “Larry Spikes is the man your father shot and killed.”

            The ride stopped. A menacing dread rose and began to circulate. It climbed Ted’s legs and seemed to laugh from beneath the earth.

            “After we received the full report from all the investigations at the scene, a different picture started coming into focus.”

            The temperature in the room began to drop, it seemed, and Ted stared at the officer.

            “Your dad may be a cantankerous old man, but Larry Spikes turns out to be the one who escalated the whole scene.”

            “Escalated the whole scene,” Ted could only manage to repeat what he was hearing.          

“You will be interested to know that at least two of the witnesses heard him threaten your father at the post office.

            Ted’s mind sullenly prepared itself for danger. An ancient alert system began to spread to his nerve endings. His muscles tensed for instant action.

            “There’s more,” the officer said.

            “More?”

            “More, as in we found a loaded pistol in Spikes’ overcoat and he had apparently reached for it—at least that’s what the closest witnesses told us. We think we have a case of justifiable self-defense.”

            “You do?” Ted placed a hand on the desk in front of him for support. He appeared to be ready either to leap across the desk or spring for the door.

            “I told you we had some good news for you.”

            Ted didn’t move.

            “It seems that your dad has just done the State of Arkansas a huge favor,” the officer said.

            There would have been silence in the room except that the pounding, rhythmic beat of Ted’s head was loud enough that it had to be heard outside the building, or so he imagined.

            “Do you want me to leave you alone for a few minutes?”

            “No,” Ted said and knew that he had said it too quickly. “Just let me think.”

            “I can sum it up for you.”

            “You can?”

            “It will be a cold day in Hell before the prosecutor tries anyone for killing Larry Sikes in self-defense.”

            “Self-defense?” Ted said. It sounded weak, almost pleading.

            “That’s the way we see it. We may stop just short of nominating your dad for Citizen of the Year.” He began to laugh, but stopped when he noticed that Ted wasn’t smiling. “Are you okay?” he asked.

            “Okay? Well sure.” Ted looked at his hand and then removed it from the table.

            “We were in luck. Court was in session so he is being arraigned at this very moment and should be released on his own recognizance within an hour our so, pending a full hearing. It will take us awhile to process him out, but you can come back in about an hour and a half and pick him up,” the officer said. “It’s over as far as we’re concerned.”

The phrase “Pick him up” rotated in Ted’s consciousness. The officer watched him. Ted didn’t move.

            “Are you okay?” the officer asked.

            Ted nodded and looked directly into the other’s eyes.

            “You mean you have to let him go?”

            “I thought you would be happy,” the officer said. “Yes, we have to let him go.”

            “You can’t keep him for, say, observation?”

            The officer leaned forward. “Don’t you understand? We’re letting him out. Why would we want to observe him?”

            “I just worry,” Ted said.

            “About what?”

            “That he might not be the same now that he has tasted blood.”

            The Lieutenant stood and looked Ted over. “We’re finished,” he said. “Can you come back and pick your dad up or not?”

            Ted nodded, and rose. Lieutenant Crawford extended his hand and Ted took it.

            “Oh, in case I forget. Here’s something that wasn’t with his other belongings. I’ll go ahead and leave it with you.” He reached into his coat pocket.

            Ted looked confused.

            “It’s the letter he was writing when the altercation occurred. We won’t be needing it. Will you return it to him?”

            “Sure,” Ted said. He took the folded letter and placed it in his own pocket. The two left in opposite directions.

            Ted left the police station and headed east on Markham Street. He had time on his hands so he would walk to the city’s River Market area and have a cup of coffee. As he walked he sorted through the morning’s events. He concluded that, by any measurement of family loyalty, he should be happy.

            Why wasn’t he?

            He walked on in no hurry, block by block. As he continued, the buildings changed. He crossed an intersection and was no longer on Markham Street but on President Clinton Boulevard. It was like stepping into a different world. There were shops now, along with bars and restaurants lining the busy street. A tour bus passed him and the joyful sound of a trolley bell clanged before him. Everyone seemed happy and busy.

            Everyone but him—he wasn’t even sure he could define happiness. He saw a newspaper box and wondered how the news had covered the shooting. That’s what it would be now: a shooting. It wouldn’t be a cold-blooded murder by a hard-headed, selfish old man but an act of self defense. It might even be presented as a heroic stand by a member of one of the county’s true victim classes.

            “Jesus,” he said, and kept walking.

            Two blocks later, he reached the coffee shop. It was late morning now and the shop was nearly empty as the attendants waited for the noon crowd. He considered something fancy like a “skinny latte” but settled for a cup of the house brand. He sipped it in a corner and watched through a window at the people on the street. Customers came and went, talking of the day’s promise.

As he was finishing his coffee, a couple stopped on the sidewalk by Ted’s window and began to talk. The man reached in his pocket and retrieved a flyer, which he began to read to the other. Then Ted remembered the part about his dad’s writing his sister. He pulled the letter from his pocket and unfolded it as gently as he could.

            There, in that unmistakable manly sprawl was the instrument that had started the episode. He read:

            Sister—this is it! You have always underestimated me for the last time. I will not be withheld from my own house and from my own son. Listen, but good!

            I know what to do. I have done it before if you know what I mean. It wouldn’t mean no more to me than stomping a bug. So don’t hang up on me again.

            I just want some of my tools and they are in the shop and I don’t even have to go into the house but I guess I should if I want since I built it to begin with. So don’t cross me. I am ready and I am resoluted. This is not your meely-mouthed husband (and mine as well, I know) that you are dealing with. This is a man resolved to get back what is his and who don’t care. There won’t be a soul stand in my way. Not nobody.

            When I call you next time, here is what you do because I will be ready to go the limit if you know

            The letter paused there. That’s when it must have happened. Ted rubbed his eyes and drank his coffee. The letter skipped a space and started again.

what I mean. You just tell me when I can come and get my stuff. That fool don’t have to be there as he would muddie things up and you know that as well as I do. Trying to patch things up won’t work no more.  I will give you a day to get this and read it since I suspect that you read real slow. Don’t tarrie.

            “Jesus,” he said, and folded the letter.

            He dropped the coffee cup into a trash receptacle and moved toward the door. He reached the street and turned to the west. He jogged at first but after a block his breath left him. He darted across an intersection against the light and heard a horn honk to his left. He reached the other side somehow without being hit and continued past the Convention Center hotels as fast as he could.

            He was nauseated now and regretted the breakfast. He stopped in front of the Robinson Auditorium and caught his breath. The figure of a walking man flashed on the traffic signal and he started again, past City Hall and then just another block to the police station. Blood pounded in his head and he felt that he would faint. Reaching the station at last, he raced through the door and into the lobby. He was in luck!

            Lieutenant Crawford was standing by the front desk. He looked at Ted with concern.

            “Mr. Mellford,” he said. “Am I glad to see you.”

            “Where’s my dad?” Ted said, wheezing.

            “That’s why I am glad to see you. I think we had a little mix-up.”

            Ted froze. “You mean he’s not getting out.”

            The officer looked pained. “No, he’s getting out alright. In fact, he’s already gone.”

            Ted looked at him, shocked. “Already gone?”

            “I thought you were coming right back so I left him here to wait for you.” As soon as I left, he apparently ran out the door and hailed a cab. He told the sergeant here that he was going to get something from his house.”

            “Jesus Christ!” Ted said. That’s a helluva mix-up.”

            The officer regarded him with a confused look. “That wasn’t the mix-up,” He said. “I hate that he inconvenienced you but we released him. He was free to leave as he chose.” He stopped, and Ted noticed he was frowning.

            “The mix-up was something else,” Lieutenant Crawford said, looking downward.

            “Something else? What?”

            “Well,” the officer seemed uncertain as to where he might begin. Then he explained.

            “We had his personal belongings in a paper sack,” he said. He scratched his chin. “We didn’t intend to return the pistol until we had the final ballistics report back.” Then he sighed and said, “Rookies. God bless them.”

            “Rookies?” Ted said.

            “Rookies. The gun never got sent to ballistics like it should have. We didn’t mean to give it back to your dad.”

            He stopped. “It evidently wasn’t clear to the young fellow in Checkout. He put the gun in the sack with everything else.”

            Panic must have showed on Ted’s face.

            “It won’t be a problem,” the officer said. “We have an officer on the way to his house now.”

            “Oh Hell!” Ted said and he raced for the door.

            “Just for a few days,” Lieutenant Crawford yelled after him. “Tell him I’ll personally see that you get it back when it’s all over.”

            Ted ran from the Police Department building and across the street to where his car waited. He tried to thrust a key into the door and realized, when it didn’t work, that he held the keys to his dad’s car. He thrust a hand into his pocket and retrieved his own. Following a short but fierce struggle, he entered the car and started the engine. Without looking, he darted into traffic. A car horn sounded behind him. He ignored it and sped toward Broadway where he turned right and headed for the freeway.

            The blocks flew by as Ted forced his car through intersection after intersection. He nearly sideswiped a delivery truck as he entered the freeway. He veered to the outside lane and only left it to pass a slower car on the right. “Jesus God,” he repeated over and over. Traffic was light this time of day, so he raced westward. The buildings sped by on either side like wisps of fog but he concentrated solely on driving. He sped on, though it seemed to him as if he were driving through molasses.

Three violent eternities later, he saw his exit. Hurtling off the freeway, he took the nearest street and put the accelerator to the floor. Now he was racing through residential streets in a frenzy kept him on the verge of collision and near the limits of his ability to function.

He was in such a hurry that he missed the first turn to his road and screeched to a halt. As he put the car into reverse and backed past the turn, his mind rumbled without stopping and without pity. He considered outcomes. The rumbling rose in volume.

            As he turned toward his lane, the familiar scenes calmed him. He felt his body jerk as a long, clear, pure note slipped through the mocking rumbling, as if unnoticed. It was a thin streak of whitest light that somehow had pierced the bank of dark and overpowering clouds. He embraced the light affectionately and another shaft shot through the gloom and confusion. He slowed the car.

            As he approached the final turn, light became ascendant. Darkness disappeared and, with it, the rumble.

            The car barely moved as he approached the dog-leg. Instead of turning, he stopped just out of sight of the house. The light filled his head with peace now. He willed this to his hands and they relaxed their grip. He stopped the car.

            As he waited, he moved his left hand slowly to the control panel on the car’s door and lowered both front windows. He listened. The grateful sounds permitted him to enjoy a confusing peace—a peace that had defeated the violent storm that ruled only seconds earlier. He held the steering wheel lightly and waited. The sound captured and moved him like soft music might as it drifted through willowing curtains on a spring night. Now a crescendo of song entered him like purified air. He held it for a moment and relaxed.

Then he heard the first soft popping of gunfire.

Streaming Thursday Thoughts

I’ve been reading Rick Bragg’s account of the life of Jerry Lee Lewis. He mostly tells it in Jerry Lee’s own words. Bragg only fills in with recordable facts of the era that brought “The Killer” to stardom. I’m sure that some of the stories were made up on the spot, and some were the results of the “Liberty Valance Syndrome,” i.e. “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Still, it’s a fascinating book, by a fascinating writer about a fascinating character in a fascinating place during a fascinating time.

Top that if you can. The book sure points out the idiocy of not locating the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Memphis. But that’s neither here nor there.

The book is bringing forth some personal memories, some of which test me. I had always remembered hearing about the death of Hank Williams while sitting in my grandmother’s front yard. Now I know it couldn’t have happened that way. We didn’t sit in front yards in January then and we don’t now either. It must have been in the living room. I’ve recalled the incident involving a cousin, or cousin’s wife, breaking the news. “Did you know that Hank Williams died?”

Nobody did. Such things weren’t considered front page news back then and some of the folks gathered around didn’t, or couldn’t, read much anyway. I had just turned nine, and figured that Hank was an old man and ready to die, not a young person of 29 who should have been ready to live.

It was years later that I learned I had seen the legendary Hank Williams in person once when he appeared at Robinson Auditorium in Little Rock. With supreme effort, I’ve dredged up a fuzzy image, much like a scene from one of the early silent movies, of a man in a bright suit with dark circles under his eyes saying something like, “This next song has bought me and the boys a lot of beans, lately.” I suspect that’s just a case where the legend has become fact.

Memories are funny that way, a fact that makes us wonder about the reporting of history. I read once that they’ve never been quite sure how long the cannonade lasted before the assault on Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg. Memories range from a few minutes to an hour or more, and there were maybe 100,000 witnesses.

I do remember hearing about the death of Elvis, and I remember pretty much exactly where I was. I was on Highway 67/167 headed south from Searcy, home to Little Rock from a meeting. I was somewhere between Searcy and McCrae, Arkansas and it was the night of August 16, 1977. I was bored and twisting the dial on the car radio when an announcer gave me the news.

Not much changed. People knew Elvis was overweight and not taking care of himself. Of course there were hard-hearted purists who claimed, with a fervor born of true love, that Elvis—the real Elvis—died when his beautiful hair hit the floor at the Fort Chafee, Arkansas Army Receiving Center.

Back to Jerry Lee Lewis. He truly must be a crazy person, the kind about whom you warn your kids. I hope I don’t lose any friends, but I wasn’t that much of a fan. I was an Elvis man. The main thing I recall as a youth was hearing about Jerry Lee’s marriage to his cousin (third cousin) Myra Gale Brown, who was only 13 years old at the time. He was 22 or so and she would be his third wife as soon as the second was fully dissolved.

I was fascinated but didn't condemn. Myra was only a few months younger than I was, so she was about the same age as Betty Jean Colclasure. Heck, she wasn’t that much younger than Annette Funicello. Case closed.

Sainted mother was more bemused than scandalized about all this. She didn't care what Jerry Lee did in private. Besides, like me, she thought Elvis was king, and hell, his own marriage story wouldn’t slide from a Norman Rockwell painting. In SM’s little corner of the world, 14 to 16 was the proper age for marriage, so Myra had just broken out of the coral a few months early.

Anyway, it’s a good book. Rick Bragg is a treasure. Jerry Lee’s life is a cautionary tale: being a genius carries its own struggles. But, if one believes in an afterlife, one can imagine the day that Jerry Lee and Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart (I’m told they go by full names in Heaven because of the large numbers) will go ripping through the clouds in a celestial blue Cadillac singing, loud enough so that it reaches Earth and you can hear it if you try real hard,  “I’ll fly away, oh lordy, I’ll fly away.” Yeah, Jerry Lee will teach it to him first thing, don't you know?

Hmmm

Day Off

Off to earn today. I think I shan't read the news today. I think it's having a negative influence on my state of mind.

Dream a Little Dream

Sometimes I think it pays not to think too much, or at least to take a break from thinking about current problems and let your mind soar, like an eagle on an updraft, with loftier and more regal rumination. Put the cell phone away and try it sometime. I do.

Here’s the deal. We still have Brenda’s grandfather’s farm in north Lonoke County. It comprises 120 acres, of which maybe two thirds are cleared pasture.

Now consider the situation and make a couple of guesses.

Who gets to mow it each year?

Why is it particularly grassy and overgrown this year?

Right on both counts.

I go out each day that I’m not busy actually earning money for working and try to mow for two to four hours. My IOT, i.e. “instrument of torture” is a 1960 John Deere 60 HP tractor held together with bailing twine, bubble gum, and a bobby pin. No, wait, that’s Brenda’s smaller tractor that’s held together with a bobby pin. I’ve tried to get her to let me replace it with an actual cotter pin, but her explanation? “It’s worked just fine with a bobby pin for two years, so shut up.” (Apologies to Ring Lardner.)

Anyhow, back to my original point … let’s see … what was it? Oh yes, it had something to do with thinking, and mowing. Yes, quite right.

Sometimes, when I’ve cleared the edges by the forests, and the grass left is in a nice, semi-rectangle, the tractor nearly drives itself, and I think.

Oh, I don’t think of how we seem to becoming a nation fueled by hatred. I don’t think of how a group of madmen seem to be pulling the strings of America. I don’t think about how racial prejudice seems to be the prime moving force of politics today.

Hell no. I think of movie scripts. Yeah, movie scripts. Like yesterday.

During lunch break, I watched a bit of one of those 1950 science fiction films about how a major disruption to the earth’s crust had unloosed a terrible insect monster. You know, the kind in which the denouement always begins with, “It just might work.”

Naturally, as I mowed a large piece, I wrote a movie script in my mind.

It’s in the future, see. A group of forward-thinking women had taken over the country, educated women who believed in linear thinking, kindness, contemplation, and the ability of government to be a positive force in the lives of all. Together, they had moved men into inferior position without power. Their main job was to follow orders and remain silent. It worked like magic.

They had brought about an end to the escalation of global warming.

They were beginning, with the help of their sisters around the globe, to balance the demands of food production with population control.

They had replaced the cruel teachings of the old religion with one that blessed the least privileged of society.

The had eliminated war as a solution to religious problems by institution a universal requirement for public service.

They had formed an efficient working relationship between government and free enterprise.

We felt good about ourselves. Poverty was disappearing, replaced by goodness and concern.

Then it happened.

The San Andreas Fault showed its ass. Big time. It showed its ass all “ …down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.” The state of Mississippi disappeared under a sheet of brown, roiling water. The state of Alabama split into.

Then the trouble started. There, from the pits below Alabama, as from the pits of hell, wild creatures flowed out, hell bent on making up for eons of bondage. These creatures, part human-like and part furry, four-legged monsters, exhibited a ferocious appetite for all things good and wholesome.

Food began disappearing. Shortages appeared in all goods that had made the nation prosperous. Neighbors fought one another for scarce resources. Some began joining bands of the recently released monsters, forming great packs that controlled areas of the country where the population was most in need of enlightened administration.

Leaders arose who directed the human-monster packs. These leaders promised all resources to their followers. They chose groups of their foes and branded them traitors to society. They began attacking resistors, and resistance began to disappear. The resistors began turning on their own leaders in desperation.

The earth began to turn brown.

Well darn. I finished the patch I was working on about then. Time for Happy Hour. It’s nice, though, to quit thinking about current affairs for a while and just dream.

Be Thou Not Afraid

Sometimes I think things happen because they are planned. Sometimes I think they happened by accident. Sometimes I even wonder about divide intervention.

Last evening, one of those occurred. Brenda was in the kitchen. I was doing my part to help with supper by reclining and selecting a film to watch with the meal, teamwork at its best.

A black and white trailer appeared announcing the film Good Night and Good Luck. I recognized it immediately as the film about legendary TV pioneer Edward R. Murrow. The film, I knew, dealt with his courageous stand against Joe McCarthy and his evil henchman Roy Cohn. I knew the film was about the time we almost lost America.

The trailer read, “America was afraid.” I can remember those times. A country we had once befriended had turned into our worst enemy. It threatened our national security, our lives, our homes, and our way of life. We were afraid, very afraid. Those in power, and those who claimed to speak for them, made us so. We were made to contemplate the most primal of fears by hiding under our desks at school.

We had learned about the causes there. Russia had sat out WWII until America had carried the brunt and had been bled white. Then, when victory had been assured, Russia and Great Britain had jumped in and taken some credit for the final victory.

Well, that’s not exactly the way it happened. That’s what we had been taught in school. I had to find out, much later and on my own, what had really happened. At the time, we only knew that Russia hated us and that a Communist was worse than the Antichrist. The faintest, most specious, most fragile connection to one was cause for “social death.”

Editors note: It’s different now. Much more different. One of the current “soldiers of darkness,” a Franklin Graham, told us when he visited our state, “Humanists are worse than communists." Oops, that took me in, despite my country's having made me spend a year of my life fighting communists.

Back then, though. with the specter of dark Armageddon hanging over our heads and promoted by the communists, we went about our business because we weren’t one. But, when I was around ten or eleven, national affairs entered my life. Oh, I had lived through the horror of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s election. My sister had assured me that, if a Republican got elected as president again, we would have another “depression.” “What’s that?” I had asked.

“That’s when the communists will take our house and our store and we will have to live in tents out in the woods.”

Oh, that kind of a depression.

School ended without a depression, though I had hidden my Boy Scout compass and a couple of other items I won’t mention (mainly reading material) in a dark corner of my daddy’s barn. The summer of 1954 came.

Summers were hot in Arkansas. Still are. We played outdoors anyway, mostly. There was this new thing, though.

Television.

During the day, shows mainly consisted of filmed plays where adults said silly things to one another. Sometime during the day, though, on the one channel we had, they played a cowboy show. That summer, it was different. Instead of the cowboy show, there were just a bunch of old men, some in uniforms, arguing with one another, mentioning the communists a lot. We watched as much as we could bear, then went and made a cowboy show of our own, practicing living in the woods in tents.

Yep, it was the result of when Joe McCarthy made the cosmic mistake of taking on the United States Army. It almost makes me cry to think I may have actually watched Joseph Welch live when he destroyed the Monster with “You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

We cleansed America of the evil of McCarthyism, almost treating is a joke as time went by. You can’t imagine the surprise to those like me who are watching it arise again like some 1950s monster liberated by nuclear testing. Just substitute ‘immigrants” for “communists.”

I fear, and this is only my opinion, that our country is afraid again. Yes, I think, afraid. We’re afraid on the one hand that our country has lost its bearings and is adrift in a fickle sea buffeted by angry waves, with our anchors ripped away by social media and Fox “news.” We’re afraid because some of our dearest friends seem to have awakened from an alien pod of hate, bigotry, and mendacity fostered by a pro-wrestling promoter and his cadre of faux “Christians.”

We need, I believe, another cleansing.

If I offend. I’m not sorry. America is too great a country for silence in the face of evil. If only we could ask Joe Welch.

Oh, and the high point of the movie I mentioned was when then U.S. Senator from Arkansas, John McClellan, became a large hero by attacking Roy Cohn in a way that only old, articulate, brave Senators from our state once would do.