EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 CRIME

A short recounting of the time I almost went to prison, or thought so. To may friends in my home town, this happened at the old Lion Oil Station at Fifth and Pine and is true best I remember.

My father decided, the year I turned fifteen, that a summer job would provide just the catalyst through which to redirect me from a life of idle languor to one of resolute achievement. He was, he assured me, there to help. Little did he know that his efforts would nearly veer me into a life of crime.

It happened this way. Daddy procured for me a job at a “filling station” in downtown Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It was during the late 1950s and life was slow and predictable, particularly in the summer months. The station employed two full-time attendants plus me and a college student, the son of a multi-millionaire cotton farmer, a father who also saw work as curative. The college kid arrived at work each morning in a brand new Corvette Stingray that probably cost more than the annual salary of one of the regular workers. My sister dropped me off on her way to work at a bank in the family car, an old purple Pontiac my classmates dubbed “The Purple People-eater.” Life can be sorrowful for a high school kid with a color-blind father.

Social disparity aside, we were a happy crew. When we weren’t serving customers, we washed cars, the college kid and I. When there were no cars to wash, we greased vehicles that were hoisted on racks like kings on their thrones. When there were no cars to grease, we learned things that would, the older guys assured us, stand us in good stead in later life—like shooting craps, doing card tricks, and learning how to spot girls who lived “on the spicy side of life.” What, one might ask, could go wrong?

It had to do with the FBI.

Two Special Agents, both bachelors (I think maybe all the agents were then) roomed in a boarding house two blocks from the station. It was our privilege to maintain their vehicle, a powerful Ford, in peak condition from which to fight crime, ferret out the Communists lurking in Pine Bluff, and keep the region safe.

The agents left that car in one of our vehicle bays at night and that is where the trouble started.

During the day, the car sat on the street, ready for action in the event of a Communist uprising or a chase after known criminals. It came to pass that it was my lot one hot summer afternoon to move the vehicle from the daytime spot to the vehicle bay. Like a good scout, I drove the car into the bay, left the key in the ignition as I had been taught to do and, having been told not to forget to close the bay door, followed that instruction. Then I was careful to lock the bay from the inside.

By exhibiting such a high level of professionalism, I could already visualize being accepted as a Special Agent myself, with all the glory that such a life promised. Certainly I would achieve a grander post than a sleepy Southern town, maybe New York. Just wait.

What no one had told me was that, due to a lack of criminal activity and the sleepy nature of our city, the station owner had agreed that the vehicle bay door wouldn’t be locked at night, just closed. This presupposed that nobody would be stupid enough to prowl around where an FBI vehicle was parked.

Wouldn’t you know it? That night, the only bank robbery that I remember occurring during my entire time of growing up occurred. It was in a little farming town with a branch bank some thirty or so miles away.

I knew nothing about this until I slammed the door on “Old Purple” next morning, ending some argument with my sister, and walked into the station.

Somber can’t describe it. All three of my comrades were leaning against a counter looking at me as if I were carrying a violin case and a copy of Das Kapital. I nodded but not a single one of them nodded back. They just stared. Finally the one we called Boss spoke.

“Where were you last night?”

“Me? At home.”

“Can anyone prove that?”

I knitted my brow. What business was that of his? “Sure, the family. Why?”

“What time did they go to bed?”

He knew what time my parents went to bed. “With the chickens,” as they say down South.

“Your sister there?”

“No, she was on a date.”

“Hmm,” he said. “You better get your story straight.”

“My story?”

“Your story.”

“What,” I said, “on earth are you talking about?”

“Somebody robbed the bank at Sherrill last night, just as they were closing.”

“Really?”

“Really. Guess what else happened?”

“What?”

“Somebody locked the FBI car in the bay here and the FBI guys had to walk all the way back home and get the key or they might have gotten over there in time to catch the robbers.”

The weight of the world began to lower on me like one of our fully loaded vehicle hoists. I said nothing.

“Don’t leave,” Boss said.

“What do you mean, don’t leave?”

“The agents want to take you in for questioning when they get back.”

“Questioning? Why?”

He looked at me as if I had just asked where sunlight originated. “Because you are the one who locked the FBI car in the bay.”

I couldn’t speak. I tried but my vocal chords just made a little squeaking sound like a screen door being opened on a hot summer day.

“They are pretty sure,” Boss said, “that you were in on it.”

Robinson Crusoe, on first reaching shore, could not have felt more abandoned and alone than I did at that moment.

“Don’t worry,” the college kid said. “We won’t get to listen to them.”

I finally found my voice. “Listen to them what?” I said, a half tone below “High-C.”

“Interrogate you,” he said in a grave voice honed by years of hazing fraternity pledges. “They are going to take you to the Police Station. That way they can just go ahead and lock you up if they decide to.”

“Lock me up for what?”

Boss said, “Aiding in a bank job is a pretty serious offense.” He told me that he had assured the agents that all his employees knew not to lock the bay at night. Mine was clearly a renegade action. With that, they all found something to do that didn’t include me. I moseyed around, bumping into things, until I finally found a quiet place to sit and await my doom.

Maybe prison wasn’t so bad, I thought. Maybe I could learn to sing there. Elvis did in some movie. Or maybe I could escape. As the minutes evaporated, so did my options, until only dark despair remained. Then I heard the sound.

It was the dark rumble of the FBI car’s powerful engine. The car came into view, lumbered alongside a gas pump, and stopped. It didn’t occur to me to attend it until I looked around and saw nobody else in sight. I was alone. The agent driving honked and it evoked the sound of a large creaking door closing on my life. I wandered out.

The driver rolled down the window and smiled. “Hey sport,” he said. “We drove this old gal a piece today so fill her up.”

“Fill her up?”

“Fill her up, and check the oil.”

“Yes sir,” I said. “Anything else?” I would get this thing over with, once and for all.

“Windshield’s dusty,” he said. “Oh…” Here it came. I froze. “They forgot to tell you but you don’t lock that bay door at night. Saves us some time and trouble.” With that, he turned to the other agent and began to compare notes. I moved to the gas pump.

As the pump hummed to life, my life hummed afresh. I even whistled. Then I saw three heads peer from the back of the station, laughing like they might never have another chance. I squeezed the pump handle like it was the hand of a lover, took in the smell of gasoline as if were the scent of roses, smiled at the three guys, and nodded. That was a good one, all right.

Sunday Break

Another short story, this one as close to reality as an aged mind could manage.

A Bag of Marshmallows

By Jimmie von Tungeln

            This is hardly a southern morality tale. It has no nubile farmer’s daughter. It has no beloved dog. It has no eccentric relative. It doesn’t mention a snake. Even once. But it circles around the seven deadly sins, all of them: envy, gluttony, pride, lust, greed, sloth, and even anger, like atoms around an electron. Or in this case, a marshmallow.

            Yes. I once loved marshmallow like the Savior loves a sinner. Because of them, I

-        Silently cursed those kids who could afford a ten-cent bag while I was stuck with nickel one,

-        Ate more than my share at any opportunity,

-        Boasted that I could eat more of them than any kid at Lakeside Elementary,

-        Dreamed of immersing myself in a soft, yielding, embracing pile of them,

-        Stole one or more of them at ever opportunity, and

-        Once pushed my little brother to the ground because he wouldn’t give me one of his after I had devoured all of mine.

This gave rise to my great plot and subsequent adventure. I was eight years old, a fact that placed me at school all day without the attendant good sense to control my impulses. These were more innocent and peaceful times, so when a kid reached the third grade and was sentenced to schooling for an entire day, the taking of lunch presented a veritable plethora of choices.

            One could bring lunch in a brown paper bag and enjoy it with others in a designated lunchroom, a choice generally reserved for the poor and the untrustworthy. One could take a quarter and walk four blocks north to the Pine Bluff High School campus and dine there at the cafeteria. One could walk the same distance due west on 15^th Street until one reached a diner called “The Little Chef” and have a hamburger or chili dog with drink for the same amount. One could walk one block farther and dine at a corner drug store lunch bar, expensive but classy.

            The rich kids, most of whom lived within walking distance, dined at home. They included some of the prettiest girls in town.

            Being an adventurous sort, and when I wasn’t on probation and sentenced to the lunchroom with a bologna sandwich, I opted for the western sites. I think it was because I silently dreamed that someday, when I had been particularly mistreated, I would just continue walking until I reached California where I would become a rich movie star. More likely it was because if I skipped a drink with a meal, I could purchase a five-cent bag of marshmallows at the drug store.

            Neither drugs for the dope fiend or solitude for the poet had a greater pull on one than the thought of a bag of marshmallows for desert.

            Therein sprang the plot.

            You see, they didn’t just sell nickel bags at the drug store. They sold ten-cent bags and these were tempting. But the piece de resistance, the Treasure of South Cherry Street, the Holy of Holies, was a 25-cent bag of marshmallows the size of a small pillow. They hung from clips on tall display stand like talisman on a totem pole. By the time I began concocting my plan, the image of those bags had invaded my mind until I thought of little else but the day I would buy one and devour its entire contents.

            But how? I only received a quarter a day for lunch, tightly tied with a knot in a lady’s handkerchief and placed in my left pocket each morning by my mother, one who knew too well that to advance a boy of my age funds for more than a day’s food was to telegraph an open invitation to Satan to make room for another soul.

            No, I would have to operate within the perimeters set for me. I had to skip the normal meal. It was that simple. Besides, a meal of marshmallows had to be at least as healthy, probably more so, than a chili dog. Tastier too. Yeah, that was it: a good plan made more sound by the reasoning.

            So one late autumn day found me walking west along 15^th Street with a jaunty air as if the world existed solely for my pleasure. My left hand clutched a quarter. (I always untied it while I was walking to lunch to avoid teasing.) As I passed the diner, I could feel the eyes upon me for I hardly ever opted for the drug store. I whistled and concentrated on a repair shop across the street. I turned casually south on Cherry and slid into the drug store sideways. Phase One was successful.

Once inside, I relaxed. Assuming a practiced nonchalance, I eased to the candy area and took what seemed like an hour, but could only have been a few seconds, to peruse the candy offerings as if I had the prerogatives of a Rockefeller.

Quite without warning, synapses tuned by billions of years of evolution registered a danger warning. An adult appeared, staring down upon me as if I were the least of creatures crawling upon the earth. “May I help you?” it said.

“Just want some marshmallows,” I said. “I have money.” I retrieved the largest prize on the totem pole. I stood without moving, feeling its weight against my chest, and waiting for the apparition to disappear.

“Having a party at school?” it said.

Now I was in a jam. Lying, my mother had warned me more than once, was a terrible sin, one of the worst. She petrified me telling about its deadly consequences and those of similar vile habits. A liar who allowed the allurements of sin to rule his actions was destined for a cruel fate, even blindness, or a partial state thereof. I pondered. I felt sweat forming on my brow. The potential consequences of my actions swirled about me like debris around a funnel cloud. My heart began to pump furiously at the thought of continuing this sinful escapade: regrets, nightmares, pimples, full or partial blindness…

The spectacles upon the bridge of my nose bear mute testimony to my next act.

“Yessir,” I said. “I’m supposed to bring the marshmallows.”

Surprised that I could still see, I stood patiently while it patted my head and moved to help another customer. I paid my quarter like a gambler paying his debt, executed an “about face” and left the drug store, Phase Two completed.

            I felt that a young dandy walking down Cherry Street snacking on a knee-high bag of marshmallows must have been a remarkable sight, even in a city as large as Pine Bluff. I assumed a swagger as I slowly tasted the first fat victim from the bag. I allowed the flavor to roam my mouth like a frightened pony circling a corral. The process took an entire block.

            On the next block, I crammed pair after pair into my mouth at once, just for the fun of it. As I chewed, I turned back to the east, deciding to flaunt my wealth by returning through one of the richest neighborhoods in town.

            Four more victims, now I was the Cyclops tasting the crew of Ulysses. I let out a soft roar and devoured another pair. I continued east, passing the homes of any number of pretty girls who must have been watching from their lunch with amazement. When I finished the crew, I slowly devoured the captain, grinning all the while.

            Then I released my inner gymnast and began pitching the soft white balls into the air and catching them in my mouth. Another block passed in this manner. I missed the fifth and it rolled into the gutter by the sidewalk. I didn’t bother to pick it up, for I had plenty. Besides, I was beginning to feel a little odd.

            Lest what follows strike the reader only as burlesque, allow me to produce empirical statistics that should be recorded in some vast reservoir of knowledge somewhere on the planet to serve as an object lesson to the logic-challenged.

            Statistic One: The difference between wanting another marshmallow and beginning to think you have had all you want is approximately four marshmallows.

            Statistic Two: The difference between thinking you have had all the marshmallows you want and not really wishing to eat anymore is approximately three marshmallows.

            Statistic Three: The difference between not really wishing to eat any more marshmallows and vomiting a white stream of projectile foam into a fence in an alley behind a house is two marshmallows.

            Statistic Four: The length of time an eight-year old boy must sit with his head in his hand lurching with drive heaves from eating too many marshmallows is somewhere between ten and 15 minutes.

            No cars came through the alley as I suffered alone. The only thing that passed in front of me was my life, and my regrets. I hadn’t apologized to my sister for reading her diary. I hadn’t looked after my little brother properly. (There was this matter of the “dirt sandwich.”) I hadn’t asked Nell Phillips to be my girlfriend. Hell, I hadn’t even made out a will.

            When I had quit retching, I folded top of the bag of marshmallows—it still appeared, somehow, to be full—and slowly gained my feet. I used alleys to escape the prying eyes of the fancy homes and found my way at last back to 15^th street where I placed the remainder of the bag of marshmallows in the hollow of a tree, although I knew I wouldn’t return for them. Back at school, I avoided classmates as I eased into the classroom and began the worst afternoon of my life.

            This was more than 65 years ago and I have never willingly eaten a marshmallow since. In fact, I become nauseated to this day at the very thought of one. While contemplating this account of the incident, I happened to be in my hometown and with my business in the city completed, I drove the route from the old elementary school, now closed and boarded after yielding to one of those mega-campuses wherein they incarcerate students for eight hours a day to prevent episodes such as mine. I also passed the corner where the drug store stood.

            The neighborhood is no longer affluent. Nell Phillip’s home has disappeared, all that remains is a slab that looks too small for a real house. Cheap “For Rent” signs struck the cadence as I drove along. Parked cars had destroyed all the lawns. I slowed when I came to the corner where stood the tree in which I had stored the remnants of my unholy adventure. All that remained was a withered stump, the remainder having fallen, as have so many of our dreams, to age and reality.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 31

As my marriage date of August 17, 1972 approached, I concentrated on work as best I could. I was learning a lot more about urban planning than I was about women, but what the heck? Our firm had gotten an engineering contract for a street project in Pine Bluff. What seemed simple was to get complicated.

The engineer and his staff, in close communication with the city engineer in Pine Bluff, began laying out plans to construct the street according to the standards outlined in the existing master street plan of the city. It had been adopted years earlier and, of course, our firm had nothing to do with the standards it proposed. To ignore or violate those standards would have invited censure.

The editor of the local newspaper, Paul Greenberg saw a chance to make print, using an out-of-town firm as an invading army, hovering over the city and drooling with monstrous intent. Instead of a needed project, he constructed it, journalistically, as the intrusion of a white power structure into a minority community that was simply minding its own business. He phrased it as a classic case of pleasing the rich at the expense of the poor.

Day after day, he pounded upon the unjustness of improving a street serving this peaceful neighborhood. He found an audience with a local business owner who would have profited from the improvements but who had political hopes that outweighed advantages to his business. The contrived controversy eventually placed him on the city council.

The city agreed to reduce the scope of improvements. Then the project became one designed to destroy the existing neighborhood by encouraging suburban sprawl. It got real ugly.

The odd thing was that the city had received money for street improvements that could have been used for any number of projects in any number of neighborhoods. The mayor and council had chosen this street specifically because it would have benefited a minority community, at least the elected officials saw it that way.

It didn’t concern me much, this affair. The engineering staff suffered by not being paid for all the redesign and receiving much personal vilification. I used it as a learning experience, to wit:

No good deed ever goes unpunished.

Keep an eye on journalists. I found, over the years, that most were decent folks. They weren’t your friend, simply fellow professionals out to do their job. You didn’t lie to them and you didn’t try to use them for your own purposes. They live on information, whether it benefits you or not. Learn to live with it. Failure to do so will make you look silly and guilty. Finally, most journalists are ethical. Greenberg was an exception.

Projects must be vetted through the neighborhood in which the project is to exist. Many neighborhoods in our country have suffered and died, and will continue to do so, because of projects designed not for the people who live there but for people who are just passing through.

Plans aren’t always perfect and life is not always fair.

And, as the Vietnamese say, a bad strategy and good tactics means defeat. It just may take longer than will a combination of bad strategy and bad tactics.

I tried telling my bride-to-be about these things and more. She feigned interest, but I could tell her mind was in August.

"That which does not kill us makes
 us stronger." - Friedrich Nietzsche 

My Redacted Life: Chapter Eight (Cont._3)

1971 wore on and I continued my work at the consulting firm, preparing a park plan for my hometown. Trouble was brewing. Boy, was it.

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.

Redacted Life: Chapter Eight (Cont._2)

Here I was, a young planner in 1971, on my first solo assignment and about to incur the wrath of a Pulitzer Prize winning editorial writer. Further, it was an assignment in my own hometown. I think the conflict to come drew its strength from enmity between Paul Greenberg, the journalist, and the Mayor, a man named Offie Lites.

As the African proverb goes, “When the elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”

The assignment, as I have mentioned, was to prepare a stand-alone park plan for the city. The city council had previously adopted, as part of its planning, a so-called “Greenbelt Ordinance” designed to perpetuate a band of natural area between the existing urban area and any expansion of the city in coming years.

This concept fell in line with the so-called “garden city movement” a method initiated in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom. Garden cities were intended to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by "greenbelts", containing proportionate areas of residences, industry and agriculture.

It was a sound theory, and the undevelopable nature of the Bayou Bartholomew floodplain lent itself well to the idea. The ordinance that the city council had passed was well-intentioned and supported by precedent.

There was one major flaw in its design, one that would cause me many sleepless nights, and a lifetime of resentment. The limits of the greenbelt weren’t based on elevations, distances from the bayou, or floodplain contours. This would have reserved basically undevelopable land for the greenbelt, placing only minimal restrictions on the use of private property.

That wasn’t the way the ordinance was drawn, though. Instead of reserving land below a certain elevation, the ordinance drew up the greenbelt boundary according to property lines. If a person’s property touched the bayou, the entire property fell within the greenbelt and its use restrictions.

Why was this a problem? Two reasons bear pointing out. First, the use restrictions on land within the greenbelt were severe. The land could only be used for … a greenbelt. That is to say the land couldn’t be used at all, only maintained in its natural state, to be enjoyed by the general public at no expense to themselves.

The second problem created more contention. Why would anyone want to develop a densely vegetated, snake and varmint invested, floodway in the first place? As it turned out, some of the property that bordered the bayou continued past the floodway, then beyond the floodplain boundary, rose up a hill created by eons of erosion, crossed an area of flat, developable land, and terminated at the boundary of the Pine Bluff Country Club golf course.

What might have been the choicest property in the city, property that was in some places far beyond any reasonable outline of a greenbelt, could now only be left in a natural state.

Needless so say, some property owners were pissed. It is needless also to add that some of those property owners were people of means.

After some deliberation, we expressed the opinion that the ordinance intended a sound planning principle, was flawed in design, and would present few problems in a redesign that would maintain the integrity of the greenbelt concept and provide relief to the property owner.

Mayor Lites agreed that the repair job was in order and nodded for us to proceed as we worked on the park plan. The parks director agreed as well.

Paul Greenberg decided that this presented an opportunity to create a crisis from nothing in order to harass the mayor, and perhaps to irritate those associated with the Pine Bluff Country Club, an institution historically closed to members of his faith. He therefore re-invented the Pine Bluff Greenbelt Ordinance, in its original form, as the greatest example of urban planning since Pierre Charles L'Enfant had presented the layout for Washington, D.C.

He immediately established it as a document only slightly less sacred than the nation’s Declaration of Independence.

That set the stage for a confrontation, a confrontation that would, on occasion, make me long for the relative peace of a war zone.

Greenbelts: Nice if you have
the money to pay for them.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Eight

It started with good news. It would end months later with my having learned a great deal about human nature, newspapers, and urban planning. I would learn that there are vicious people in the world who would hate me just for expressing an opinion contrary to theirs. I would learn not to charge up any hill protected by institutions that publish whatever they choose daily, buy ink by the barrel, and paper by the ton.

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.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 7 (Cont. _3)

There wasn’t much for me to do with the assignments due in April, 1971, except help with final assembly. I actually spent time in planning work while in the office. I continued to hitch rides to planning commission meetings with the two bosses.

Once a month, we made the longest one, Tom Hodges and I. That would be to Blytheville, Arkansas, only a few miles south of the Missouri border and a mile or two west of the epicenter of where the next New Madrid earthquake is predicted to occur.

Our trips were calm, though, and we generally returned a little after midnight. I learned much about both planning as a career and Tom as a person. I would always make it a point to be the first at work the next day. I was young then, and hungry.

I was beginning to see some humor in the field. One had to look hard, but it was there. One morning, Jim Vines and I called on the parks director in Pine Bluff to discuss working on an updated park plan for the city. His office was in a complex once used as a maintenance facility for the state highway department. The office building was spacious and had rooms available for public activities.

We entered and met the director, Vaughn Black, a gracious man with remarkable red hair. I found out later that my cousin, Troy Harden, had nicknamed him “Booger Red.” This was a compliment, for it referred to one of Pine Bluff’s most iconic characters, flying-ace Edward “Booger Red” Vencill. He was honored as a hero for helping save the county courthouse from washing away during the flooding of 1927.

Among his daring exploits was the claim that he had flown his plane under the span of the “Free Bridge” (while it was lowered), some expanding the exploit in later years to include having done it upside down.

That day, we found the director to be a bit flummoxed. A fit and muscular man was leaving the building as we arrived and we found that he accounted for half of a problem vexing our new acquaintance.

“He teaches ju-jitsu, the director said. Has fairly large class that meets each Thursday. He wants to reserve our best meeting room for that day.”

We nodded and said nothing. “There’s another fellow that teaches karate,” the director continued. The two groups hate one another. The karate teacher wants the room on Thursday evenings too. I don’t have any idea how to solve the problem if neither will change to another night.

Jim and I looked at one another

“I know what you’re thinking,” the director said, “but I don’t think the Mayor would approve of me putting the two in a room and letting them work it out.”

“No” Jim said. “I don’t suppose he would.”

"Besides," he said, "That's not my biggest problem right now."

“Oh?” We both listened.

“My biggest problem involves a bunch of rich folks and a cantankerous newspaper editor.”

“Oh” I leaned forward, not knowing that what came next would later affect both my subsequent career and the rest of my life in a most profound way.

It had to do with a muddy old bayou, reportedly the longest in the world, seeping from Pine Bluff to Monroe, Louisiana and impressing few people along the way. The section in question lay less than a mile from where I grew up and was a nasty dormant body that that received more than its share of human refuse and poisoned agricultural runoff. I can still recall the smell from a hot summer’s evening.

To some folks, though, the Blue Danube was never so cloaked in beauty as this simple stream bordering a simple town.