Professionals

Went to a public hearing last evening. For a change, I wasn’t involved, just there for informational purposes. I have no personal interest in the city where it happened. I’m doing some work for them and thought it might prove useful to attend.

The important thing was the man who made the presentation. His name is James Walden and he grew up in Benton, Arkansas. I’ve known him for, maybe, 10 years. He wondered into my office one day, back when I was working full-time. He was coming to Little Rock to attend graduate school and sought part-time work.

Wouldn’t you know it? He was soon working with me full-time and soaking in our profession like a huge sponge. After I sold the company to him, he ran it for a while and then went to one of the largest engineering firms in the South. Now, he’s the planning director for one of the major cities in our state. He had prepared a comprehensive plan for the City of Sherwood, Arkansas while he was still with the engineering firm and came back to present it.

Well. Now I know how if feels to have someone grow past you like William Faulkner did Sherwood Anderson. I feel good about it, if a little humiliated.

Oh well. Maybe if I work hard, I can catch up with him.

Guilt

Sometimes I think I may have been a troublesome child. Then I see what has happened to other people’s children and I think I wasn’t too bad. It’s just that I always got caught doing things other kids and people were doing.

I could be the middle driver in a long lane of speeding vehicles. An officer will invariably pull alongside me, stop me, and let the others pass by laughing.

That’s why I’ve learned to be extra careful. I’m like the person who gets slapped in a sports contest. Should that person slap back, guess who the referee sees and upon whom shall the foul be called?

My younger brother understood this process to “the T.” He was a master at taunting me until Sainted Mother looked our way as I responded. He could play the injured party like a puppy spanked for chewing on your britches leg.

Of course, I never was one to respond to taunting unless there was an audience.

For educational purpose only, one of the best tactics in getting away with a transgression is to project that transgression upon your victim when you are caught. It’s easy, just place blame on the victim for doing what it was that you were doing.

“He was stealing my toys.”

“He called you an old fat cow.”

“He came up and tried to spray me with a water pistol. I was just watering your plants with mine.”

Evidently, according to the daily news, this is a tactic that remains with some of us throughout our lives.

Another tested and true tactic is what I call, “Going after your opponent’s strength.”

“He is so much bigger and stronger than me. Do you think I would start something?”

“You always said he was smart. Can’t you see how he talks me into doing something wrong?”

“So he gained a Purple Heart and a Silver Star, that means he had to cheat to get them.”

Oops. Got carried away. That’s enough for today.

Forgiveness

It gets harder, this Sermon on the Mount. We have to remember that the Galilean wasn’t speaking to his “Base” out there in Judea. These were strangers. Most were there, probably, because they had heard of the miracles. They may have shown up for personal reasons. Then this dude springs the following on them.

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Matthew 5:43-44 (KJV)

If you wonder how Franklin Graham can stand to look at himself in the mirror each morning, join the crowd.

I’m not sure what he, the Galilean, not Franklin, would have done if a bunch of bandits had attacked just then. Maybe he was talking just about the normal kind of enemies, say the kind that run against you for political office. Such an “enemy” is not really out to do us either physical or lasting harm. They are, shall we say, “competitors” more than enemies. When did we begin to think of them as enemies and treat them as such?

If we want better to understand the current plight of our country, we don’t have to listen to an endless parade of pundits. Just consider Ruby Bridges. Whether one remembers or not, Ruby was a six-year old child who was the first black student to attend a previously segregated white school in New Orleans in 1960. It is at once a terrifying, cringe-worthy, and uplifting story about a young girl who marched among federal marshals and before a sweating crowd of people screaming obscenities and curses each morning and afternoon. On some days, they even carried a child’s coffin with an African-American doll in it.

Some so-called “mothers” led the crowd. They soon gained the nickname, “The Cheerleaders” and John Steinbeck, who made a special detour to watch them, reported that some of the crowd came just to watch the women in action. Their hatred had created a national following. Norman Rockwell even captured the time in a painting.

Throughout it all, little Ruby just marched by to her schooling. At first, she was the only child in the class, the white students refusing to attend. People saw her praying as she walked by. This, a grown Ruby now attests to. What was she praying for, or whom? The narrator in this video says that she told him she was praying for her tormentors. It may sound a bit convenient to our cynical ears, but if it is true, The Galilean has at least one victor in America’s recent history.

Again, if one wants to know what’s wrong with America now, watch a film of Ruby walking by the crowd. Those kids hanging with their parents in the mob are in their sixties now, or beyond. They have had a lifetime to teach their children who are now teaching their children.

What, exactly, are they teaching? Well you can bet your sweet buttooty it ain’t always The Sermon on The Mount.

Oh, and a brave parent of a white child eventually brought his son to join Ruby, then another, and another. Someone had heard of The Sermon. The crowd finally lost the battle, but judging from current headlines, not the war. But we press on, despite being called names ourselves. I like “Libtard” the best. Some of my friends prefer “Snowflake.” We keep on, though. With the image of Ruby Bridges in our minds, and the words from that Judean hill, it should be a litter easier. The Galilean would have it no other way.

Who was this man who broke the pattern? A Catholic? A Baptist? A Pentecostal? A Church of Christer?

No. He was a Methodist minister.

Courage

If you want to see how low we’ve allowed social media to take us, don’t look at Facebook. That’s what it’s there for: to bring out the worst in us. Twitter? I don’t know since I avoid it. It sure seems not only to lower the standards of its users, but to monopolize the press in doing so. It may end up being the single most telling artifact that the aliens find among the rusted ruins of our civilization.

No, if you want to see the epitome of lowlife, the pire que tout of the proof of our social and intellectual downfall, go to YouTube. Once there, find a wondrous Mozart piano sonata. I’m fond of the 21^st, but choose your favorite. Find a good, but not legendary performer. Young ones seem to bring out the worst in us. It is quite possible that, if you start down the comment string, you find an untoward comment. It may have to do with the music. More likely it will address the type of instrument, the performer’s sexual appeal, the conductor, or even the lighting.

The next comment will be directed at the previous commenter. From there it may descend into the type of verbal exchange that, if made face-to-face in my hometown, would have caused a “shootin’ scrape.”

This for a Mozart sonata. Here’s an actual exchange from a Schumann concerto featuring a female in somewhat modern attire.

First comment: “Who else wants to put their hand down the back of that dress?”

Second comment: “The woman can wear whatever she god damn [sic] want to.”

This all makes me recall that a writer or interviewee will on occasion, make a statement that I envy immensely. (My favorite described Oliver North when he ran for the Senate. A national journalist observed, “I have nothing against Mr. North. It’s just that there is a faint smell of sulfur about him.”) But, back to our point here, someone on NPR once commented about a tirade by someone that, “It had all the sophistication of a YouTube comment thread.”

They say that anonymity and/or distance are the keys. Social media allows us to say things we would never say either in polite society or a small-town saloon.

What is odd to me is the transition that I see in old and dear friends. I attribute it to a combination of social media and political organizations that operate beyond the “pale” of human decency. I see posts by people, some who claim to be, and some I know to be, ministers of some Christian group or another. I knew them once as kind, generous, loving people, literally brimming with the “milk of human kindness.” Now there’s no Russian-made meme viciously attacking an innocent person or family that they won’t post for, literally, the world to see.

That world includes old friends, grandmothers, associates, colleagues, parishioners, and young, impressionable minds. It sure confuses me. Myself? I stop with “grandmother.” Even though she attained only a third-grade education before her father, a Civil War veteran died, I just wouldn’t want her to read some things. That being said, she was a bit of a character, so I feel empowered to push the boundaries at times.

That’s why I don’t mind sharing my third-favorite journalist quip. I thought of it last night when a supporter claimed something awful that the president of the United States of America said was intended as just a joke. The quip was by the late William F. Buckley, Jr. He responded to some argument by an adversary with, “That’s a bit like getting a charge of sodomy changed to following too closely.”

Feel free to share your favorite, but remember Grand-mamma Rodgers may be watching.

The Coming

The Second Coming

By Jimmie von Tungeln

Part Three: Inspired by a true story

Previously we’ve watched the adventures of two boys in the Depression-Era Arkansas Delta. Something in night sky has them concerned now.

Clifton materialized in a second and, after assuring himself that I hadn't been shot, pointed to the sky. "What in the hell is that?"

            What we were looking was described by a lot of people in a lot of different ways, but I can tell you what it looked like to me, and, if Clifton were here, he would probably tell you the same thing. It was a great ball of fire off to the east and it was moving in mysterious loops looking to the whole world like a fiery host descending toward us ever so deliberately.

            There are those who say it wrote out various messages but don’t believe that. It was just moving back and forth across the sky like it was trying to decide exactly where it wanted to land. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you it was a frightening spectacle.

            "Let's get the hell out from here," said Clifton. I couldn't have been more in agreement.

            We didn't have to take the route back through the woods.  We could hear the whole Ratliff family already heading out to the road, all of them yelling for Gehaw.  Clifton and I just skirted the edge of the field until we hit the road and then we started down it like we had been there all along.

            "Dammit, I thought you was shot," said Clifton. 

            "No, I think he just got scared and pulled the trigger."

            "I don't blame him," said Clifton as he watched the light in the sky. "I don't like the looks of this at all."

            "Neither do I," I said. "Do you really think it's the end of the world?"

            "Could be," he said. "Got to happen some time. Let's head down to the Church."

            "That ‘age of accountability thing,’" I asked, "Are you sure about that?"

            "Oh yeah," he said. "Besides, we never done nothin'. Don't reckon they can get you for just plannin' to do something can they?"

            "Heck, I don't know," I said. “They can tell what you’re thinking can’t...”

            "Dang, look at the people!"  Clifton interrupted. Sure enough, with a full moon out now you could see pretty clearly. There was a file of people ahead, and every time we passed a house, another family would emerge from the front door and join the throng. They seemed to be in a trance of some kind. They walked stiff legged, like they were walking in their sleep maybe. Nobody said much and everyone just looked straight ahead except for the kids, who were taking everything in.

I began to recognize so many shapes on the road up in front of us that I guessed the whole county was turning out, white and black alike. They were all in the same group. Nobody said anything. They still just looked straight ahead.

            We stayed behind the line so we could see. We eventually got to the Centerville crossroads. At this point, the black families peeled off to the right towards their church. As they reformed, I could hear them beginning to sing. Then I could hear a shout or two. It seemed to me at the time that they almost sounded happy. Clifton and I stopped to allow the stragglers to get ahead of us. I glanced around, sort of hoping it had gone.

It was still there – if anything it was even closer.

            "Maybe it is the end of the world," I said.

            "Look at Grandma and Grandaddy!" said Clifton, pointing at Uncle T. J. and Aunt Hallie who were in a crowd about twenty feet in front of us and visible now in the.  "They still got their nightclothes on!"

            And sure enough both were dressed like they were ready to step right into bed. We surmised that they, like everyone else had been surprised by the spectacle in the sky and, assuming the worst, had rushed out without bothering to change. As we began to recognize more of out friends and relatives, we marked a variety of dress as if the end of the world had truly caught everyone unprepared.

            "Let's hang back, I got to figure this out," said Clifton. We sat down under a tree. Then he looked at me like there was some the answer to some long-hidden problem surfacing in his mind. "By the way, who was that man come to meet Gehaw?"

            "You wouldn't believe it if I told you," I said.

            "God almighty, look a yonder!"  Clifton said, pointing to the shy where the light had appeared again, this time making a beeline for the crowd of travelers who filled the road. There was a mixed chorus of screams, halleluiah’s, prayers and singing as some dove for the ditches on either side, some grabbed one another, and some just fell to their knees to wait for the worst.

            Clifton and I just stood back behind the rest, taking in the scene.  I guess we felt a little secure because of our age. Or maybe we relaxed in the knowledge that the most important sin of our lives to this point had been curtailed before it really got under way. But I also think maybe there was a slight flash of understanding, something hinting of familiarity in the movement of the light that the others, occupied as they were with the prospect of such an imminent and lasting judgment, missed. We each guessed it at the same time.

Clifton grinned. Nobody else seemed to have noticed.

"This is going to be good," he said. "Let's get to the Church and get a good seat for it."

            "You bet," I said, and we set out across the open cotton fields.

            When we got there, we didn't go inside. Instead, we went to the dark side of the building and found a good strong limb in an oak tree. From there we could see almost the whole inside. The windows were open, so we wouldn't miss a word. This was going to be some show all right.

By the time we got settled, the Church was half full and people were still streaming in. Preacher Hargraves was already in the pulpit, his face flushed red like it did when he got filled with the Spirit. His wife, Preacher's Gracie, was pounding the piano like it was the devil itself. She was one of the fattest women in the county and watching her bouncing around on that piano seat sent Clifton into a spell of laughing that I just knew was going to get us caught.

“Shut up,” I said. He just laughed harder.

            "Fall down and repent!" Preacher was saying, and several people took him right at his word. They fell right down in front of the pulpit. A couple of them began to shake and jerk uncontrollably.

This seemed to satisfy the preacher, so he continued.

"I have seen the light of salvation in the eastern sky." 

            "Gloree!" someone shouted from the pews.

            "Praise his name brother!" Preacher said.

            "Oh Lord, have mercy," said another, "I been a bad sinner and I ain't ready."

            "He hears you Brother.” Preacher was getting warmed up now.

“Who's next?"

            "Been a liar," said another.

            "Oh Lord I've stole from my neighbor."

            "Pray to Him brother"

            "Lord I'm a drunkard."

            I recognized that voice. Before I could get a good look, I heard another just as familiar.

            "Lord I just got done lyin' to you that my husband was sick when he was dead drunk instead,"

I could see the two of them, Mamma and Papa kneeling near the back with Uncle T.J. and Aunt Hallie who had just come in. I couldn't hear the rest of what they said on account of Clifton was laughing so hard.

            "Stop it," I said.  "They're going to come out here and get us."

            "I can't help it," said Clifton who had tears streaming down both cheeks and snot starting out of his nose he was laughing so hard. I wouldn't look at him now for every time I did he busted out all over again. Then I would get the giggles.  Inside they were heating up so that we could just hear snatches.

            "Stole a hog!"

            "Adultery!"

            "I ain't been to Church....."

            I can’t quite describe it. Clifton was limp by now. He laid back against the limb and just watched, sort of like he was daydreaming. The noises and the music reminded me of a carnival. Maybe like when you stand beside a carousel and watch the people glide by to the music. It all began to flow together.

            Then we heard another voice we recognized, this one clear and strong above the rest to the point where the other voices stopped and even Clifton sat up. 

            "I thank I kilt my daughter tonight."

            It got real quiet. There was no sound but for the insects.

            But Preacher didn’t seem to want things to calm down. He took over again before things got too quiet and addressed old man Ratliff from the pulpit.

"Ain't nobody gonna die ever again, brother." He added quickly, "Help me pray for this man!"

            Then the din started up again and we couldn't hear any single voice, just the crying, singing, praying and shouting of a hundred voices seeking salvation in that delta night. It was if the earth had opened and the sins of the earth were being poured out of that little country church.

Clifton and I just sat back in amazement, knowing that we would never see anything like this again. 

            "Is he in there?" Clifton whispered over to me.

            I didn’t say anything. I guess I didn’t have to. I guess it was just the way I was watching him and laughing.

            "You're lyin," he said, but when he looked and saw I wasn't I could tell that he was as shocked as I had been although being older than I was and all, he didn't shock as easily.

            "I'll be damned," he said.

That seemed to end it for him.  "You reckon we ought to stop them?"

            "Guess somebody ought to so's they can go home,"

We slid off our perch and walked around to the door of the Church. Actually, they had begun to wear down a little themselves, having gone at it for nearly an hour. They heard us open the door and, all at one time, looked around at us. Here stood two young boys instead of the heavenly hosts that they had expected so earnestly. You could see surprise as if it had been painted on their faces.

The noise had died away like a summer storm does when it moves off into the east.  Even Preacher's Gracie quit playing the piano. She just leaned over against it and you could hear her breathing real heavy above everything else.

The preacher was the only one who seemed to want to keep it going after we walked in.

            "You boys better get in here and pray," he said. "Ain't you seen the Lord on his way here?"

            "Where?" said Clifton from the back of the room.

            "In the sky, boy. Ain't you seed it?"

            "I seen a buzzard with a fire tied to its leg," said Clifton.  "That's all I saw."

            "A what?" said a voice in the crowd.

            "A buzzard," said Clifton. He looked toward the pulpit.

"If you can't tell the difference between a buzzard and the Lord coming, you ain't much of a preacher."

            "Oh lord.  Hush Clifton," said Aunt Hallie.

            There was this funny sound like everyone in the room drew a quick breath at once. They stared at us. I expected them to start up again with us at the center of things.

            Then I think the truth must have pierced that room for I heard Uncle T.J. "You hush woman. By God I thank the boy's right."

            The room got quiet again.

            "I thought there was something funny about it myself," said a voice I didn't recognize."

            "Are ya'll goin to listen to a couple of sneakin' kids over a man of God?" Preacher was pleading now but he knew it was over, too. Then I heard Papa.

            "I wanna go home and go to bed, Mamma."

            “Sure you do,” she said quietly. “Let’s git on back to the house.

            We moved away from the door as she and Papa walked out. She didn’t say anything to me but gave me a look that said plenty. One of the things it said was to never mention this again. I watched them disappear into the night. She had her arm around Papa and was leading him home like he was her son instead of her husband.

            Then it all began to break up.  It was pretty plain that no one wanted to talk to anyone else, didn't want to see anyone else really, just wanted to get out of there and without once raising their eyes to meet anyone else's. Preacher eased toward the back door with his Gracie behind him. Clifton and I faded back into the darkness and waited in the hope that something else of a lively nature might occur. But it was all over.

            Everyone has realized by now that it wasn't the second coming that they saw in the southern sky that night but just a coal-oil soaked rag set fire and tied to a buzzard's leg by, as it turned out, Fish Johnson who thought it was wondrously funny until they almost sent him to the penitentiary over it. We all walked home a little thoughtful, though, having been forced by the events to confront our own personal sins, or - in the case of Clifton and me - our intended sins.

            As I said at first, nobody ever mentioned it much. I never talked about it at all as long as Mama and Papa were alive. He, by the way, never touched whiskey again. Preacher disappeared the next day. He left Gracie and she taught piano lessons for a while and then disappeared herself. The harrow handle that Gehaw ran into when the shotgun went off was, we found out later, bent over even with the ground and people used to walk by the house just to look at it. She wasn't dead at all but was all right after a few days and back with the mules.

Of course, we never did see her take a bath, or even want to, really, after that night. We never mentioned it again. I never even told Clifton what her real name was, not that he would have had any interest.

            Clifton and I had more escapades but I never saw him with as much spirit. In fact, I think he sort of lowered his sights after that. It was as if he knew he had been part of something big - maybe even bigger than Hog Eye Bend itself for that matter—and it might be dangerous to try to top it.

            I've thought about Clifton a thousand times, I guess, particularly as he looked that night going home, his hands stuck in the pockets of his overalls and his feet shuffling along and the dust of the delta rising in the full moon's light behind him to form a diamond-like mist that seemed to want to hang there so it, too, could glory in the moment.  It was a grand one for him and I'm glad he had it before the Japs got him.    

Dreams

My father was colorblind, or so my Sainted Mother always said. He had another trait. He didn’t much give a rat’s ass about what other people thought of him. Oh yes, and finally, he regarded an automobile as a tool, that’s all. It was just something to get you back and forth. Like a real cowboy (not the movie ones) and his horse, a car was just a car. It wasn’t a best friend. It wasn’t a status symbol. It wasn’t something you talked to. It was useful only as long as it got you places.

Considering all the above, it didn’t come as a great surprise when he came home one day, when I was in about the 11^th grade or so, driving a purple-on-purple Pontiac sedan. He said, (no surprise) that he had gotten a “real good” deal on it.

We may have found ourselves embarrassed, but not surprised. But, there was a popular song out about that time called One Eyed One HornedFlying Purple People Eater. (Yes, children, mark the spot so you can respond the next time some old fart like me tells you that our music was better than yours.) It became quite a hit at our high school.

I don’t have to tell you what the kids named our car. At first, we were temped, Sis and I, to have someone drop us off a couple of blocks from where we were going. Then she started driving. I won’t say that she had Daddy’s same sense of indifference, but she was one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever known, so she just sailed past any embarrassment. Soon, the old “Purple People Eater” sort of became a celebrity, or at least I thought so. My pals thought it was neat as long as I would take them where they wanted to go in it. I graduated more from the attendant shame that I couldn’t be a football star or play the guitar like Duane Eddy than the fact I had driven the school’s oddest car.

Daddy had it painted green and white after I left home. I think Sainted Mother made him do it. They never talked about it. As for me, I never thought about it until years later, after college, after the war, after sea duty, and after I found out that military life might have been better than business life, and before I met Brenda, a funny thing happened.

I was walking home from work one day (I’ve reported before how my colleagues at the office couldn’t imagine someone walking to and from work) and met a girl I had adored from afar in high school and had thought of many times during lonely military watches. She was as beautiful as ever. I stopped her and reminded her who I was. After a long stare, it finally registered. She smiled, and my hopes soared like an eagle topping a snowy peak.

“Oh yes,” she said. “The thing I remember about you was that you drove a purple car.”

Such are the ways by which ephemeral thoughts crash headlong from mighty heights.

Facts and Fools

It's funny how we learn things. I posted something about the late Dale Bumper's this morning, mentioning that he was  was Governor of our state and then our senior U.S. Senator for years. He wrote a book titled, The Best Lawyer in a One-lawyer Town, He was an attorney. And a statesman. And a source of pride for our state. Now the funny part: I had originally added, "That's a rare combination, one that's not likely to be matched in a while."

Then I remembered a lesson I learned from an unusual source. A friend and I were having lunch in Little Rock's Riverfront area one day. The friend taught Law and a friend of his, whom I didn't know, joined us. The stranger was a successful trial lawyer. We talked of many things, specifically of a trial taking place in Washington, D.C. at the time. A piece of the trial transcript had caught my attention. "Why," I asked, "Didn't the government's attorneys point this or that out?"

The answer, from a complete stranger, amazed and enlightened me. "You never want to state the obvious. You have to assume that the judge is no fool."

I can't tell you how many times I've used that advice in writing. Accordingly, I amended my post to take out the final sentence. Any reader at an eighth grade level or above will get the point about giants and pygmies.