My Redacted Life: Another Break

A few more words on Don Zimmerman and then I’ll quit. So many tributes will flow this week about his contributions to cities. An act, though, that stands out in my mind was one involving simple humanity toward another person.

On October 18, 1991, one of our country’s most venerable assets, the Arkansas Gazette newspaper ceased to exist, bought out by a rival. The beat reporter for North Little Rock was an old friend and neighbor of mine (we ran the 1980 Arkansas Marathon together, believe it or not), John Woodruff.

For reasons known only to the owners, John fell prey to the axe and wasn’t retained by the new publication, the Arkansas-Democrat Gazette. This must have been a blow to the man who told me once about the “old days” when he would arrive late from a City Council meeting, file his piece, and sit around the old Gazette building to feel it tremble as the presses began to roll. John was a true journalist of the old school, and one who loved his profession.

In addition, he was a rare talent and one hell of a fine person. Don Zimmerman saw this and hired John to head up communications for the Arkansas Municipal League. That proved to be one of the great marriages in the League’s history.

Not long after, I found myself reporting to my old friend who was now editor of the League’s monthly magazine, City and Town.

I’ll never forget my first submittal. John called me over to the League’s office and handed me a proof. It looked as if someone had dipped a handful of worms in red ink and let them crawl over the sheet.

Part of it was due to bad writing. Part of it was John letting me know who was boss, despite our long friendship. The magazine was no "office rag." but a serious work of journalism. Thereafter, he gave me a lot of latitude, a gift that has continued to this day. I still cherish the long talks we had in his old office on the ground floor. John, like Don, was someone who could make you better by just talking to you.

John later contracted what would be a life-ending cancer. Through his ordeal and ultimate end, Don Zimmerman stuck by John’s side more like a parent than an employer. His short speech at John’s memorial service was eloquent, fitting, and moving.

We will never know how much of Don’s decision to hire John was based on careful analysis of needs and talents, and how much was based on the simple human act of helping rescue another human from the depths of rejection.

Let’s just say it all worked out for the best. Now, each year, an Arkansan who has contributed much to Arkansas cities receives the John Woodruff award, initiated in grateful respect by Don Zimmerman.

Don loved the slogan, Great Cities Make a Great State. I’m sure he would love a companion slogan: Great People make a Great Organization.

At least I think so. Don Zimmerman and John Woodruff proved it. In fact, the entire staff of the Arkansas Municipal League stands as a living witness.

Morning Thoughts: April 5, 2018

Ahh. Ever remember hearing something and trying to verify it later? Just did. You know what a fool I am for verisimilitude, when it suits me.

This one involved something I heard on an NPR segment years ago while driving. It spoke to the percentage of colonists who actually took part in the so-called “American Revolution.” Point was that the percentage taking an active part was smaller than one might be led to believe. I remembered it was 20 percent or so but had been able to find a source to cite. Well, I found one.

Reading A People's History of the United States  by Howard Zinn late last evening, I ran across this passage quoting John Shy, (author of A People Numerous and Strong) and John Adams (second president of the U.S., but hell, you ought to know that).

“Shy estimates that perhaps a fifth of the population was actively treasonous. John Adams had estimated a third opposed, a third in support, a third neutral.”

At the time, I applied this to the gains made in civil rights in the 1960s. The efforts then, of a few, were bolstered by a significant segment offering tacit support, that segment being appalled by the likes of George Wallace, Ross Barnett, and others. The sight of Bull Conner turning dogs and fire hoses on children certainly grew support throughout the nation for the rights of minorities. Good Americans felt disgusted at the tactic of using violence and venom against children as a political tool, particularly when those children were only seeking basic human rights.

In short, the forces of good gained support with each evening broadcast of television news.

Here we had, though, in the 1700s, perhaps 20 to 33 percent of active participants, backed by another 33 percent of the population as non-participants, defeating perhaps the most powerful army in the world.

That is why it troubles me so to see people who, in my opinion, are on the right side of history acting in ways that offend and diminish that vital segment of the center. Blocked freeways, riots, blind allegiance to third-party candidates, self-denigration, single-issue voting, and harsh vitriol do not build support among the non-participants.

Just an opinion troubling my thoughts this morning.

Scenes like this build support
in the struggle against injustice.

 

It is ironic that I was visiting some of the finest people on the planet when I heard about the obscene words uttered about countries less fortunate than ours. I was, in fact, with leaders of our state’s cities. They serve those from a great diversity of areas. All are doing monumental jobs of facing increasingly complex problems, jobs aggravated by members of society who no longer view racial harmony and love of humankind as a way to address those problems.

As with our cities, the founders of the countries of our planet were not all motivated by a desire to seek a new life and a willingness to oust native cultures that stood in their way. Some are peopled now by descendants of humans transported to their countries in chains, their bodies shackled together head to foot in spaces barely 18 inches high. Those lucky enough to survive the sea journey faced a life of misery and spirit-killing slave labor.

We express wonder that some of their descendants don’t see hard work and enthusiasm as keys to happiness.

The volunteer immigrants sought land rich in resources and relatively free from Nature’s resistance. The flourished as much from natural conditions as they did from personal initiative.

We acknowledge their hard work.

At the same time, we should always bear in mind that “the rain falls on the just and the unjust.”

As with our sister countries, the cities of our state have faced a great variety of historical and natural forces. Some cities, once located in pockets of poverty, despair, and backwardness, have found the changes of times generous and bountiful. They flourish, not so much from the actions of former residents, but from the almost accidental turns of fortune.

Other cites watched as the socio-economic dynamics of the world rolled over them like a hurricane of destruction and ill-will. Again, because of nothing their former populations did or did not do, they struggle like “boats against the current,” most often being “borne back into the past.”

I thought about this all the way as I was driving home yesterday.

I thought about times I have been in the luckier parts of our state and have heard otherwise good and decent people describe, to my face, the area of our state from which I come. They use the same terms that the president, of this great and fortunate country of ours, uses to describe those countries occupied by the less-blessed of our brothers and sisters.

I thought of the summer nights I have spent sweating in the Arkansas Delta, meeting in a rural church, windows open and mosquitoes so thick we could scarcely see one another. I remembered how, many times, I was the only white face in a room full of folks in desperate need of potable drinking water for their families, or some other basic need of life.

I thought of cities in our state that once provided goods and services for a population thriving on an agricultural or manufacturing economy, but are now deserted wastelands since those employers mechanized or moved to enjoy near-slave labor in those countries we now call “shit holes.”

I thought of a friend from El Salvador, who fled a country of devastated by natural disasters as well as from gang warfare that results, in part, from the desires of people in our country to purchase illegal drugs. He performs a job once done by three people and is a model of what our country needs to face the future. He has never written a piece, or spoken to a crowd, urging Americans to hate or distrust one another. This, in my book, makes him a better citizen than Franklin Graham, the commentators on Fox “news,” or politicians who use hate and distrust as election vehicles.

The Galilean urged us to love one another and respect other cultures, even the Samaritans of his day. We could use people who would live by his counsel to run our country.

I thought about the young child on the porch of a shack in our state’s forgotten rural areas, a child siting cold and hungry waiting for his mother to finish “earning” enough for a hit of crystal meth. Yeah. He’s living in a “shit hole.” But he’s our son. What will we say, or think, when he's old enough to get his first gun?

I remembered a piece I had read earlier in the day. An opinion writer said our president simply said aloud what many Americans were inwardly thinking. I hoped it wasn’t true, but I started to tear up. For a moment, I felt the Galilean join me.