Raccoons and Conflict Management: A Case Study

It was Two A.M. on a dark morning in suburban Denver. I had been in conflict with a family of five raccoons. In formal conflict management terminology, what we had was a conflict of needs. They needed my plums. I needed them to be gone. I tried reasoning with them: “When you eat my plums, I feel put upon, because they are my plums and you steal them”.

This had not worked. So, on this dark morning, I heard them chirping away with that happy, full-bellied chirp for which they are notorious.

I live next to a large piece of open space, thriving with foxes, coyotes, owls, geese, hawks, exotic water birds passing through, AND RACCOONS. The law is clear. Humans may not kill these residents. We may harass them, however, if they invade our tax-paid pieces of property and irritate us. 

The point needs to be made: I like raccoons. They are intelligent, playful (mostly), industrious, family-values kinds of animals. They are also not aggressive, unless rabid or cornered. I thought.

They also taste good, if cooked by Danny “Stick” and/or Tanya Thomason. Stick has passed away and Tanya lives in Kentucky, so even if I broke the law it would be a waste.

But on this morning I had had enough. I jumped out of bed and crept down the stairs, careful not to wake my cat—he’s a grumpy SOB when awakened—and grabbed my weapon of choice. What I figured was that the sight of me sans pants, shirt, or toupee, holding my trusty Daisy-Red-Ryder-BB gun-with-the-compass-on-the-stock would cause this family sufficient harassment as to cause them to go elsewhere.

With gun and flashlight in hand, I crept onto the deck. Neighbors were all asleep, or light-less anyway. I saw a big raccoon in the tree and shot three shots. At least two offended him enough that he scampered down. Noise of others following suit caused me pause, but I just kept cocking and shooting at large objects in the tree, and bright eyes lit by my flashlight, then at large objects and eyes on the deck.

Then the large objects disappeared. The raccoons were now under the deck.

OK, now what? I had visions of little hand-like claws reaching up through the deck cracks to get at my toes, but brave Kentucky hunter that I am, I stood my ground, quietly, with toes upturned.

Then, at the end of my flashlight’s beam I saw five raccoons. A little chill went up my spine. My deck sets close to the ground. The raccoons were standing on this ground, so what I really saw was five pairs of eyes and five pairs of front paws gripping the edge of the deck. The five had spread out down the short side of the deck, and around the corner onto the long side. Yes, these non-aggressive family-values animals were trying to surround me. They seemed pissed, and poised to take care of this plum-eating-interruptus-fool.

I quickly cocked and shot as fast as I could, expecting the worst, and escaped through the sliding doors back into the safety of my suburban middle class home.

I wonder if my daddy, Stick, Tanya, and my Kentucky hunting friends, and their hounds, are laughing. I know I heard what sounded like laughter from my deck, through the plate glass, as I reached for a shot of bourbon to calm my nerves.

In conflict management theory, conflicts of needs may be resolved when one party’s needs are shown to be more important than the other’s. It was clear to me in this instance who’s needs were greatest.

I don’t like conflict.

50th High School Reunion

In the Spring of 1962, 40 of my friends and I set out from Providence High School to make a place for ourselves in the world. In the Summer of 2012, some of us will gather, as we have gathered every five years since 1962, to celebrate one another, catch up, tell stories, and remember the half a Century that has passed since we left P.H.S. 

I do wonder why people go to their high school reunions. I have friends who have never been to one and vow never to go to one.

I know why I go. It’s a life marker for me. I really don’t think about Billy Wilson, for example, as I go through my normal everyday life, year after year. However, every five years, he, and Dorris Burton, and several other people who I really liked in high school, seldom saw after high school, and who I will never see again because they have passed away, come barreling into my consciousness, full-blown, in 3-D and color, as they were in the Spring of 1962.

Over the years I have watched the folks who did come the reunions grow and develop, and become successful in that world into which we were thrown in 1962. I’ve also watched them suffer the pains of divorce, death of loved ones, and debilitating diseases. Every five years, this group of people gets a snapshot of our friends living their lives.

We knew each other when most of us had outhouses, and we remember those cold, cold winter mornings that taught us about bladder control if nothing else. We remember coal: having to get the clinkers out of the stove in the mornings, take the ashes outside and bring in new buckets.  Many of us had coal miners as fathers. At least one of us had a coal mining mother. Several of us made careers related to coal.

We now share memories of people. All of us remember Mrs. Hooks, and Mr. Lane, and Mrs. Crowe, and Mrs. Rayburn, and Mrs. Dorris. We remember the old gym into which we were packed to watch old black and white movies, hear recitals, attend pep rallies. We remember football, basketball, baseball, and track, at which several members of the class of 1962 excelled.

We remember band teacher Joe Allen, who came to town and became a real-life Music Man, transforming the school and the town, generating excitement and parental involvement on a grand scale.

These are people with whom I spent significant time from about 1950 through 1962. Hell, that’s longer than some marriages last.

I find that I don’t have much in common with most of my classmates anymore. What we do have in common, however, I believe is important: memories of a time shared during those formative years of our lives. I use the reunions to review my current life in light of those memories. It's sort of a present-day reality check using a shared rear view mirror. 

This time we will be reviewing memory snapshots in a rear view mirror that spans half a Century. 

When all is said and done, I go to high school reunions because I like these people. I like who they were and who they have become, and spending a day or so with them every five years makes me feel good.

That is why, in the Summer of 2012, I will drive back to Kentucky, and back in time to 1962 and the twelve years before that, to share stories and memories with people who were there with me “in the olden days”.

Kentucky Poetry: Portrait Exercises

My Eyes 2012

Look into my eyes.

Do not look at the wrinkled skin,

The sagging muscles,

The stained teeth.

Look into my eyes.

Remove the layered curtains.

Can you see the young man in there,

The idealist,

The true believer.

Can you see that glow

That comes from the belief

That time is on his side?

I look into my eyes

From the inside.

I turn thin time layers

One by one, like plastic overlays

On some old biology textbook

I  fan my life out behind me.

Saturday Afternoon, Kentucky 1949

Gooseberries, green with curious veins.

Sweet and tart.

Like childhood scenes.

My grandfather swinging his cane.

Mad with dementia.

He chasing old man demons,

And me.

Me running, unafraid of demons or him,

But aware of the cane.

An old lady sits on a porch, 

Churning butter.

Behind her sets an icebox.

Big chunks of melting ice smelling cold and fresh.

With a hint of cigarette smoke.

Church Sunday Morning, Kentucky 1950

Orange flowers filling ditches.

Sunny and bright,

The weather and me.

Gravel crunches beneath my new shoes.

In my Sunday go to meetin' clothes

I am beautifully alone

For a mile or so.

Fellowship begins in the basement

In the small brick church.

Coffee and cigarettes

Not for me, yet.

Upstairs, organ music gently blends with

The rustle of cloth as people settle.

A Conversation

I vividly remember a night, sometime in the late 1950s, sitting in a school bus, by the window, gazing out at the stars. I had just read some damn thing or other about space and time travel and was trying to project myself—trying to be myself at some distant point in time looking back at myself sitting in the school bus. Trying to imagine that self looking back at myself at that point. Of course I told no one what I was doing. They still had mental asylums back then, you know.

And here I am, sitting at my desk in my middle-class home in my middle-class suburb in Colorado over 50 years later, connecting with that me in that bus on that two-lane highway running from Murray State University to Providence, Kentucky, on that winter’s night.

We are talking about the future and the past. I’m telling him about the things that happened to him after that night, about the things he saw, the things he did, the people he loved, the worlds in which he lived. He’s appreciative of what I have to say.

Then he asks me questions that I don’t want to hear. “So, did I do what I intended to do?”, he asks. “Was I honest?” “Was I caring and loving?” “Who did I become?” He doesn’t know what authentic means yet, but that’s the question he’s asking.

When I think of authenticity, I used to think of  a commitment to something larger than themselves. Not in a subservient way, as the case with most organized religious folk, but in an “egoless” way, more akin to a Zen notion. As I talk to myself through time, it is that ambition I hear from that teenager-that-was-me. At that time I fantasized about living authentically, focused, clear, and uncluttered, looking at the world through larger-than-life and beyond-life-as-I-know-it eyes.  

Compromise is a dirty word these days, yet we humans, in real life, face compromises every day. The only way around it is to literally “get off the grid” emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, and physically. Some people do that. Those of us who choose not to do so are faced with dilemmas and compromise.

As a kid, I did not think in terms of dilemmas. As an old man, my life is a dilemma. To me as an old man,  living authentically means making decisions in the face of dilemmas, acting on them, and taking responsibility for those decisions and actions. And compromise.

I wonder how many people experience this phenomenon of trying to live up to expectations set in our youth. I wonder how many of us forgive ourselves for not having met those lofty goals. 

I am not the person that kid-that-was-me envisioned. I have made a lot of compromises, many of which I regret. I have faced dilemmas and done the wrong things.

But I’m asking that kid in that bus that night to cut me some slack. He is a forgiving kid.

I think. I'm still waiting for an answer.

Money, Politics, and My Self-Esteem

Sometime in the mid-1950s, I rode around on the trunk lid of Wanda Whitfield’s car in Webster County Kentucky, with my Sousaphone wrapped around my middle, heading for pep rallies for Happy Chandler. In my memory, Chandler, who was Governor of Kentucky and later became Commissioner of Baseball, was the quintessential Kentucky politician, a charismatic, “glad handing”, baby kissing, sort of pudgy, “go to” guy. These pep rallies, plus pep rally organizers like Wanda Whitfield, and probably some smoky backroom deal making, comprised the campaign strategy for politicians, as far as I could tell. Campaign messages were mostly delivered in stump speeches, “town square” debates, and by word of mouth.

I was thinking about that experience as I listened to newscasts the past few weeks telling me that another new fund-raising record will be reached this election year, which made me wonder about money and politics.

Specifically, what I wonder is, who do politicians think I am that they think they it takes that much money to buy me off?

It seems to have become a given fact that those who raise the most money win. Now I know the contest is not about amassing piles of money, then measuring the piles, and the person with the largest pile, or greatest piles, wins. That would make for interesting races though, and would allow us to use metrics and rubrics in assessing the worth of candidates, always a good business school model, and God knows what’s good for business schools is good for America.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, the current formula is to raise as much money as possible in order to buy as many television advertisements, Internet banners, and robocallers as possible. The messages come from two sources, the candidate, and the candidates’ political action committees. The messages embedded in those media are made to be as nasty as possible, without regard for facts or truth—in fact the “big lie”, the more dramatic with the most loaded and scary language, is preferred. These messages are aired as often as funding makes possible to as many people as possible twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. The more money you have, the more you can air. The candidate with the most air time wins.

The theory is that if you bombard your audience with your message, from a variety of media sources, your audience will believe you, no matter what you say. Consequently, the candidate with the most messages bombarded wins, because people will believe the group that they hear from the most, or the most recently.

I wonder who these messages are created for. I get them, so they were created implicitly for me, right? If so, I wonder whether I should be depressed or angry. The picture created of me, the voter, is just about as demeaning as it possibly could be. I, as a voter, am seen as an ignorant follow-the-crowd “mark”, who will believe whatever I’m told if I hear it often enough from my phone, my computer, and my television.

I wonder if that is not a variation of the notion that my vote can be bought. From analysis of elections the past few years, the answer is yes, votes are being bought, with a potential billion dollars in bribes being raised and spent this year.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but miss the days of Happy Chandler pep rallies and stump speeches, where votes were sometimes bought, but were bought the old fashioned Kentucky way, one half-pint at a time, with hand shakes and eye contact made. Much more honest and much less demeaning to all concerned.

Wisdom and Vanity

When I was in high school, Rice Sutherland, my Methodist Youth Fellowship guru (no they did not have words like that in Providence, Kentucky at that time, but she was my angel, and I thank her), gave me a Revised Standard Version of the Bible with my name embossed on the cover. Her instructions were, when I was troubled or down (we also did not have words like “stressed” or “depressed” back then), I should open the book to random pages, and look for passages that spoke to me. When I found them I should circle them and write a date.

I still have that Bible. I’ve had to have it re-covered (kept my name on it), but I still have it.  There are a lot of circled passages and dates written, all from the early 60s. As I analyze (that’s what old professors do, you know), I find two themes to wonder about. 

First there is “wisdom”. I circled and dated  a lot of passages over several years that dealt with the importance of seeking wisdom. I can remember meditating (sort of) on the notion of wisdom as opposed to knowledge as I wallowed in ennui and angst in the basement of my house on Normal Drive (loved that address) in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The questions—what is wisdom and how do I get some—still rattle around in my consciousness as I wonder about my place in the universe.

The other theme is “vanity”. Ah, vanity, thy name is (what was that, again?). All is vanity. I still believe this is important. I can criticize the Catholic Church for taking Jesus’ teachings and turning them on their head to create a super structure that would make the Pharisees  of Jesus’ time blush. But to do so is vanity. I can criticize a man who got caught with his pants down and created a church in which it is valuable to have multiple wives, in the U.S. , in the 19^th Century.  But to do so is vanity. I can poke fun at all manner of frivolity and foolishness, but when it all boils down, to do so is to feed my vanity.

I write blogs. Vanity, thy name is me.

I criticize the Catholic Church, yet am smitten by the Latin Mass, and the ne’er do well Jesuits. I criticize Baptists and Methodists, yet understand the good that they do to people in need (and love the fried chicken dinners them Methodists cook). I criticize the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Hindus, yet know that I’ve been in this world before in some form or other and will be here again in some form or other after I’ve left Lakewood, Colorado and am cremated and rolled into joints and smoked by my closest friends.

The ultimate in vanity is for a human being like me to believe that I can know the nature of my creator. The ultimate in vanity (times infinity) is for a human being like me to try to persuade a human being like you to believe that I am right and you are wrong and my god’s greater than your god, and therefore it is right for me to make fun of you and yours.

But as I study those old circled passages, I wonder if the ultimate in vanity, period, would be for me to decry Sharia Law while taking up arms to enforce my particular version of Christian Law.

While wisdom hides in the corner.

 

Memorial Day and Memory Books

I wonder if funeral homes still have those Memory Books at the door for people to sign. I know Jackie Einstein had a couple of books—one for names and addresses, the other for messages anyone wanted to leave to her and the rest of Walter’s family. I also know that there are virtual books for people at a distance to sign and leave messages. I’ve come to appreciate the importance of these artifacts.

Holidays prompt me to think about the old days, which prompts me to rummage around in my boxes of pictures and keepsakes. This rummaging caused me to find a Memory Book from Tapp Funeral Home in Providence, Kentucky, dated 1954.

My oldest sister, Retha Dare, was born in 1927 and passed away in September, 1954. She died in childbirth, delivering her fifth child. I was ten years old at the time and remember the occasion vividly. She was so young. After her fourth child she was told she should not have any more children; to do so would almost certainly endanger her own life and the life of the child. I remember being at her house frequently over the years. I was a nosy boy; still am. I remember seeing a sort of workbook filled with pictures and charts; she was trying to calculate her menstrual cycles. I now feel inextricable pain at what she must have gone through. It was 1954. We knew almost nothing about birth control. She got pregnant. She died. Fortunately her child lived. But five children, the oldest being 10 (10 days older than I), were left without a mother. They scattered to the wind.

As wrenching and anger provoking as this is,  given recent arguments about birth control and women’s choice, that’s not what I’m wondering about right now. It’s the Memory Book that has captured my imagination. And of course, given my mother’s penchant for taking pictures of folks, tucked away in the back of the book I found a picture negative of my sister in the casket. Blew my mind.

I’m looking at the names and remembering the people filing in, viewing my sister, sitting quietly for awhile, going out back to smoke, talking quietly, paying their respects to my family. Their names, faces, and voices pop out at me like old black and white movies: Nellie Rinehammer, Amanthus Lloyd, Mason Guess, Sidney Webb, Lindy Cullen, Strauther Harvey, Doy Lovan, Pearl Lovan, Grady Lovan (my grandmother) Virginia Clevenger, Don Ferguson, Les Gobin,  Teenie Stevens, Curtis Yarbrough, and on and on and on.

These faded signatures offer a testament to the fact that these people existed in that place at that time to mark the passing of my sister.

As an old man, I’ve come to love small towns, especially that small town of Providence, Kentucky, and especially as it exists, fixed in my memory, as jogged by such things as 60-year-old Memory Books.

Kentucky Poems: Coal

Mining Was

My father was a powder man.

Big John cold-cocked a bank mule

With his fist, so the story goes.

Mythological.

My father, six foot two and smiling at age thirty.

Five foot ten and in pain at age sixty.

Shrunk from the giant he once was.

Demeaning.

My father, proud and strong in youth.

Tired and coughing with age.

Bent into an old man.

Killing.

My father, smile bright in youth.

Smile died as mines shut.

Old love lost to time and age.

His life.

Coal Smoke

Westerfield Drive, coming from 41A,

Past the arch, cresting the hill.

Early winter morning in small town Kentucky.

Above, gun metal steel, gray and threatening.

Below, morning charcoal spreading over the valley.

Coal smoke, thick and unyielding.

Driving into the coal smoke.

Metallic taste.

Exhaling smoke through lungs and pores.

Pores extending to extrude the clinkers.

Jesus will save you,

But white shirts are beyond redemption.

Stark cold slicing through coats,

Settling into bones.

Numbing the spirit and clouding judgment.

Film noir through the windshield,

Cold black and gray trees, shadows, pavement.

Shivering don’t help.

Ice in the air, black shine covering the road.

Tires straining to find traction,

Down Main Street, up town hill,

Left, then right, then left again,

Up iceplant hill, and home.

Coal stove glows a welcoming orange.

The Prize

My father, home from the mines,

Hands, face, overalls, and hair caked with coal dust.

My mother, heating water on the stove

To be poured into a number three washtub.

My father, a giant with a smile on his tired face,

Stripping off clothes,

Folding his big body, pallid except for the mining parts,

Into the little tub.

Tub water becoming slaggish,

Gritty to the touch, scum floating on top.

My mother washing his back.

Water sloshing onto tired linoleum.

In the top of the dinner bucket, in a pan

Over the water that fills the bottom, my prize awaits.

Fried egg and half-cooked bacon

On soggy white Holsum Bread.

The coal stove warms the house.

The bathing ritual continues.

I, content in the moment, eat what is left

Of my father’s dinner.

Two KY poems

Wondering about the power of poetry to convey wonderment. Here are two very-rough-draft poems I'm working on:

Kentucky Woman

Her life,

A single-wide trailer.

New in 58 and neglected.

Her mood,

Beer air, stale and close,

Cigarette burns on worn linoleum.

Her hair,

A rusty yellow Firebird,

Not quite legal, but clean.

Her eyes,

Third-shift piece work,

Hard and demanding.

Her spirit,

Red eyes, with hints of green

Search for a way out.

Stickman

Stickman died young.

Cigarettes and beer,

And a dash of Viet Nam.

Lived life a day at a time.

Not the 12 step program,

He two-stepped through life.

Stories are told about the man

With spread-eagled horse in the Eagle’s Club.

Horse, not Stick, was banned forever.

Alcohol drips at the hospital.

Jim, he said to me, while hooked to the tube,

Best invention ever.

Ambition, Stepping Up, and the Olympics

My great grand niece is 13 years old, is already an accomplished swimmer,  and is ranked very highly in competitive standings. She is focused. She is poised. She is intelligent. And she has a major life goal to compete in the 2016 Olympics. This is not a “wouldn’t it be great if” goal, this is an honest-to-God goal toward which she expends a lot of physical energy in the pool and mental energy researching other swimmers’ progress.

I’m wondering how such folks get to this point at such a young age. There are a lot of very good swimmers out there. There are even some excellent swimmers. But how many have the vision and focus to exploit that excellence into larger-than-life (for most of us) goals that we are willing and able to act on?

Is the answer somehow rooted in the environment in which one grows up? Maybe so. I grew up in small town Kentucky, the son of working class poor folks who did not graduate from high school. In this environment it was difficult to surmount the obstacles, to see beyond the moment, and to take a goal and a talent and develop them despite all odds. On the other hand there are people in this small town who did.

But I wasn’t one of them. In the first place, I’m not sure I had any real talent, but if I did, it was really easy for me to not recognize it, to diminish it, to doubt it, and not to act on it. I also had no “goals”, larger-than-life, or otherwise, upon which to wrap my talents. I was insecure, shy, and believed that modesty, a sort of notion that one should not stand out too far—it wouldn’t look right—was a value. That last trait might be a product of this small town Kentucky value system. It was unseemly to aspire too high.

I remember one person in town talking about me, after I finished my Ph.D. (accidently, not as a result of an overwhelming goal), to a friend of mine about me, as reported to me later by this friend: “Damn, who does he think he is? What do you have to talk to him about? Ain’t he kind of uppity now? When’s the last time he had an actual job?”

In my elementary school back in the day, rooms were organized with the teacher’s desk in front, and a blackboard behind the desk. Students sat in connected desks, arranged in rows, bolted to the floor. In a lot of cases, seating was assigned in such a way as to encourage motivation (or so the theory must have gone). The student sitting in the first desk, on the right side of the teacher facing the classroom, was the “star”, having become so by successfully competing in academic contests, resulting in her moving to this “star” position. Of course that meant that the student sitting in the last desk at the end of the row on the teacher’s left was the dumb one. He (usually) was called dumb, and if pressed, would admit to being pretty dumb.

My “seating philosophy” called for me to avoid that dumb desk—teachers’ tended to pick on you in that seat. Some even threw things at you. However, I also wanted not to do so well as to find myself in that star seat—it might be unseemly—and students tended to pick on you. A nice safe desk was what I wanted. As I look back on it, I do believe this philosophy was held by most of my classmates.

The Valedictorian of my class had no problem with that star seat and was willing to put up with whatever fallout ensued. I think this was because he was a bright student with math talent who had a long-term and clear goal that went beyond the immediate seating situation. I remember his telling me several times, from elementary school on, that he was going to become a chemist and make lots of money. Now, this was not a “I’m going to compete in the Olympics” goal, but it was a strong goal for someone to achieve.

He did.

I graduated in the second slot. Safe seat.

In college, I was .2 percent points short of graduating with honors. Nice, safe seat.

Reflecting on my continued seating philosophy, I find my lack of motivation to sit in the front seat most instructive, believe I was not alone in that motivation, and believe that says a lot about where, when, and how I grew up. 

Despite the environment in which we grew up,  I believe we have all made important decisions, whether or not we knew it at the time, that have shaped who and what we have become. I’m not arguing the merits of positive thinking, goal setting, wishing upon stars, bootstrapping, or any particular self help program.

But, I’m wondering:

·       How a person grows up in an environment where having big, “stretch” goals is not encouraged and yet manages to achieve the extraordinary

·       How to define extraordinary achievement

·       If not having those extraordinary goals is a negative thing

And, I’m wondering:

·       What causes some people, like me, to play it safe, while others take large risks in their lives to achieve dreams and goals?

·       What’s wrong with playing it safe?

Let’s say you lack a clear-cut “calling” to things spectacular, buy into the notion that sitting in the middle of the classroom is better than at the front, and don’t rock the boat. What’s wrong with that?

Nothing, but “at the end of the day” (as you reach my age) you will wonder about the choices you made, and what you might have missed.

Let’s say you have a desire to be a rock and roll star,  aspire to that front seat, and don’t mind rocking the boat (pun intended). And you wind up playing good music in a sleazy bar barely making ends meet. What’s wrong with that?

Nothing, but “at the end of the day” (as you reach my age) you will wonder what might have happened if you had more sharply focused your talents and energies.

But let’s say you want to be an Olympic swimming champion, don’t care what people say about that ambition, aspire to that front seat, and don’t care about rocking boats. And you wind up competing at the Olympics. What’s wrong with that?

Nothing, and when you are my age you will look back with pride (which I’m saying is a good thing in this case, not one of the deadly sins).

My niece has a huge goal, huge talent, doesn’t abide by the seating charts that others create, and she probably will rock some boats. She plans to be an Olympic swimming champion competing in Rio. I think she has the right idea, and admire her for it.

I plan to be in Rio in 2016. Vicarious pleasures on my part.

Why Does Rush Limbaugh Call My Momma Names

My momma worked in the shipyards in Evansville, Indiana, right before I was born, building ships to fight the Nazis. She rolled up her sleeves and worked hard, side by side with other women, and men. She continued to work after the war; she ran a laundry and worked in factories in my home town.

From about age seven on, I was a latch key kid. Both parents worked hard trying to make a living, and I was responsible in the mornings for cleaning out the clinkers from the stove that sat in the middle of their bedroom, recovering the fire that had been banked overnight, taking out the ashes, and bringing in more coal. In the afternoon I came home from school by myself, cleaned out the clinkers, took out the ashes, brought in more coal, did my homework, played outside, and waited for my parents to come home.

It was not Ozzie and Harriett, folks.

My mother was not a good cook. My mother was not a good housekeeper—our house was always a mess. I almost never saw my momma wear makeup. Or a dress. She grew up on a farm as a tomboy. She was a chain smoker. She drank mass quantities of iced tea. She could cuss when the spirit moved her. She would take a drink when it pleased her. She did not shave her legs except when she wanted to.

She was a very strong “union man”, often saying to me, “There’s only two kinds of people in the world, Democrats and scabs.” She, in the heat of the moment, once hit her boss as he tried to cross a picket line.

She did not believe she was inferior to men.

Her friends who worked with her in the plastics factory seemed to be very much like her. I worked with them as well for a couple of summers. They, too, were working to support families. Some had husbands, some did not. They, too, were very strong, opinionated women who did not neatly fit into pre-established boxes.

My sister did not fit the box either. She worked most of her life while raising two kids, mostly on her own. As she divorced her third husband, she famously said, “I don’t need me no more damned men. Hell, I’ll be better off with a good cucumber.”

My mother taught me to cook—I needed to feed myself at dinner time and supper time when she worked second or third shift. She taught me to clean house: My logic was “she’s not really interested in housework, and she’s working her butt off at the factory, so if the house ain’t clean enough for me, it’s my problem, not hers.” I did not clean very often, truth be told, but I did learn how to do it. She taught me to wash my own clothes, iron, and take care of myself. She did not sit me down and say, “Now son, these are skills you need to have.” On the other hand, neither she nor my daddy said to me, “Hey, that’s wimmens’ work.”

My mother, cigarette in one hand, coffee in the other, died while having just told a dirty joke on the phone.

My sister taught me how to write “I love you” on a valentine to that one girl in my first-grade class. My sister taught me how to die well—strong to the end.

I watched my momma live her life. I watched my sister live her life. From a distance, I watched Reba, Castela, Dean, Nora Belle, Kathryn, Govenenna, and a whole host of other women in my home town live their lives.

These women were feminists. They did not call themselves that. I’m calling them that.

From my momma and my sister and those women in my home town, I learned to become a feminist, and proudly, as a 67+ year old Southern boy, so label myself.

I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh quite often. As an amateur student of propaganda, I found his radio show instructive. He developed himself into a propaganda artist, with a lot of intelligent followers. As the years went by my interests moved on to other topics and artists, and now I only listen to him when I’m driving through Kansas, bored, and tired of satellite radio.

As I listen, I continue to wonder why he calls women like my momma and sister “femi-Nazis”.  My momma was a feminist-behaving woman who did more than her share of work to defeat the Nazis.  Why would he find this worthy of condemnation and misguided attempts at humor. What is objectionable about people who believe in and fight for the rights of women in a world that has continually sold women short?

I guess I do sort of understand why he does it, strictly from a propaganda perspective—if he can get people to equate feminists (women who don’t kowtow to men) with Nazis (right-wing conservatives who tried to take over the world), he can evoke fear, especially from us bald-headed old men who are scared of women to start with. Calling women who don’t kowtow to men right-wing conservatives doesn’t quite make sense, but the word Nazi does evoke fear (except in extreme right wing conservatives of course).

But, he says he is an entertainer, and it is on that level that I don’t understand it.

I wonder how does Rush Limbaugh get pleasure from and enhance his entertainment value by calling my dead momma a femi-Nazi?

Booze and a Boy from Kentucky

This is in tribute to one of my favorite authors, Walker Percy.  Here’s an excerpt from his essay, “Bourbon”, written in 1975 and included in his book, Signposts in a Strange Land: 

Not only should connoisseurs of Bourbon not read this article, neither should persons preoccupied with the perils of alcoholism, cirrhosis, esophageal hemorrhage, cancer of the palate, and so forth—all real enough dangers. I, too, deplore these afflictions. But, as between these evils and the aesthetic of Bourbon drinking, that is, the use of Bourbon to warm the heart, to reduce the anomie of the late twentieth century, to cut the cold phlegm of Wednesday afternoons, I choose the aesthetic. (page 103)

Part One: Wondering About the Rules

Since I was a little boy, I have wondered about booze, a fairly natural thing I think, given that I grew up in Kentucky.

This is how I was introduced to social drinking. When Uncle Clay and Aunt Ethyl came to “sit a spell” and talk on a Sunday afternoon, my father would sometimes go to the kitchen. I would hear a metal cabinet open and know that he was slipping a half pint from the shelf, unscrewing the cap, and taking a big swig. We only had three rooms in this house, so it was pretty hard to hide what was going on. He did not acknowledge his action. He did not offer a drink to anyone else. Unless Aunt Ethyl (who back in the day was known to drink quite a bit, and also had an extreme stutter when drunk, which, behind her back was cause for lots of stories from my mother, but who was now an extreme, evangelical teetotaler) was outside the house away from the action; then, my daddy might offer Uncle Clay a swig, and pass the half pint bottle. Then put it back in the cabinet.

My parents were Primitive Baptists. My home town was filled with Baptists and evangelicals, none of whom had positive feelings about alcohol consumption. Shortly before I was baptized into the Methodist Church (at about age 7), members were required to sign oaths not to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. Although the rules had changed by the time I became a member, I was never present at any church function at which alcohol in any form was served to the adult members of the church. There was lots of cigarette smoking, but it was Kentucky and that’s another story.

The Kentucky county in which I grew up was “local option”, meaning that periodically the issue of alcohol sales came up for a vote of county residents. That did not mean there were no alcohol sales in the county, however. I don’t remember much moonshine being made and sold, although I’m sure it was there. “Bootleg” (booze bought in “wet” counties, brought into my county illegally, and sold for a premium price) was much more common.

“Baptists, bootleggers, and the police are all in it together to keep this county dry,” my daddy would opine.

On election days in this dry county, the local taxi would transport people to and from the polls. It was not uncommon for there to be a half pint included in the free ride.

I remember going with my daddy or with my daddy and uncle to bootleggers’ homes, usually on Saturday or Sunday mornings, to buy bootleg beer and whiskey. I would wait in the car, sometimes for a long time.

Wondering time for me. I still wonder:

·       Why is it that we in the South particularly were/are so preoccupied with drinking?

·       Why did my people view drinking as sinful and against the wishes of God, when my Bible contains positive stories about Jesus and wine?

·       Why did my people sneak a snort rather than engage in cocktail parties?

·       Why did wine become grape juice in the practice of communion in my church?

There is probably a vast body of literature in theological schools devoted to this topic that should join the literature we all know and love.

I hope.

Part Two: Wondering over Drinks

I did not take a drink until my 21^st birthday. I had no moral issues with alcohol. I just did not find it appealing. Plus I was a “good boy” who did not want to break laws. Plus I had plans—there was a big old world out there that I wanted to see and did not want anything to interfere with those plans.

On my 21^st birthday, the beginning of my senior year in college, I drank my first beer, sitting in the Country Club in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It tasted awful. The second one tasted better, especially when combined with a hamburger.

When I graduated from college, I moved to Athens, Georgia. At that time, the only place where one could buy “hard” liquor was in black night clubs after midnight. Beer and wine were sold in restaurants, “spirits” were not.

This was 1966 and I, as a young white man, was still tolerated in black establishments (not the case the next year when black folks started to develop a black consciousness), so I found myself drinking white liquid from unlabeled bottles many nights after midnight. I liked it.

As I have aged, I wonder about the notion, particularly in the South, that alcohol consumption is somehow immoral, frowned upon by God, and evil.  At the same time, moonshine makers have become legendary folk heroes. And, also at the same time, countless novels, plays, and short stories, involving hot toddies, mint julips, and other forms of alcohol, usually Bourbon based, have been placed in the highest ranks of artistic literature.

I do have an affection for Bourbon. My ability to drink Manhattans and Bourbon on the rocks has declined substantially, however, and I’m not sure I could drink the white stuff I once drank in the bars of Athens, Georgia. Reflux issues, among other afflictions brought on by age (and good sense, or is that my Methodist background talking?).

Thank you Walker Percy for your body of literature, including your treatise on Bourbon.

Anomie still exists in the 21^st Century. Hearts still need to be warmed. And there is still “cold phlegm” on Wednesday afternoons, needing to be cut. 

As I write this, Wednesday afternoon is at its mid-point.

Strong Women Mentors in My Life

I’ve been a professor since I was 23. My journey to these ivied halls of paradise was convoluted, with a wonderful band of conspirators serving mentor roles along the way. Somehow, in the first grade, I became involved with the Methodist Church in small-town Kentucky. The smells of Sunday school became intertwined with the smells of the first grade—crayons, new books, old musty books, and chalk intermingled with food and body odor—and these smells contributed to a sensual experience that continue to define my relationship with “things academic.”

The Methodist Church, as I experienced it in the 1950s and 1960s, was about personal exploration, not evangelism, or hell fire and brimstone. One of my first mentors, Rice Sutherland, through the Methodist Youth Fellowship, introduced me not only to the notion of foot washing, but also to the Passover Seder. Imagine an ignorant 13-year-old boy like me in a segregated southern town being exposed to a major Jewish tradition. This was part and parcel of a theme that began in the first grade and carried through my life—exploration of the world of ideas and beliefs for the sake of understanding.

Rice Sutherland also found money to support sending me to camp in the summers. At the time I was embarrassed about this and did not like the idea of being so poor as to need charity; it did not stop me from accepting it, however. The experiences at this camp were instructive and became part of another theme—getting out of my hometown and exploring the world.

If Mrs. Sutherland was instrumental in shaping the exploration of things spiritual and religious, Mrs. Rayburn, my school’s music teacher, offered me an opportunity that shaped my academic life. At 13 I was a big kid, fat really, but tall as well and not prone to things athletic. It caused a few fights. For some reason, when Mrs. Rayburn asked if I wanted to play the coronet in band, I really wanted to do it. My family had no money, but somehow my mother, another of my mentors, pushed the envelope, convincing my father (from whom I inherited my depression) that we should find the monthly rental fee needed for me to play this instrument. This was a turning point in my life.

In my early teens, I was very shy, preferring to spend time alone with a book to time with others. My father found this annoying and frequently yelled at me to “put the damn book down and go do something”.  With the acquisition of the coronet, I began to do things. My brother in law was a sergeant in the local Army reserve unit, and convinced his colleagues to let me play Taps on Memorial Day (Decoration Day it was called then) at the county court house. I was scared to death. In front of about 35 Army guys in the high school gym, I practiced one evening. It was awful; I missed every single note, and wanted to crawl into a hole, with my books, never to be seen again. No one laughed. No one yelled at me. One guy who had played trumpet and bugle before pulled me aside and taught me to use the valves on the coronet rather than rely exclusively on my armature. On Memorial Day, David Barnhill, an accomplished trumpet player, and I played Taps at the Webster County Court House in Dixon, Kentucky. Perfectly.

It was not the last time I was to dramatically fail in public, but the experience in the gym was the most dramatic failure I had had to that point, and the fact that I did not give up, took advice, and turned the experience around to a larger success, set me on a path. In high school, I forced myself to participate in debate and forensics, even though it scared me to death. Mrs. Hooks allowed me to travel with the team, and encouraged me even though I was not great. I owe her a lot.

I also competed in music even though both legs often shook so much I thought I’d fall down. Picture a fat kid with a Sousaphone strapped around his neck with violently shaking knees. In the eighth grade I was five feet seven inches tall and weighed 170 pounds. The Sousaphone player was graduating from high school. I was the guy most suited to carrying this very heavy old instrument. Mrs. Rayburn asked me to give up my coronet career in favor of the bass horn. I accepted, and in doing so set the stage for the rest of my life.

For reasons I have never determined, Mrs. Rayburn became more than my band teacher. When I was in junior high, she asked me to sing solos between the acts of high school plays. I accepted, and sang what I’m sure were painful to hear renditions of “Autumn Leaves” and such. Picture that same fat kid with knees shaking singing love songs. Usually, when I walked off the stage I had no memory of having sung—from the first look at the audience I “blacked out”. These were petrifying experiences, and ones that shaped me tremendously.

Thank you Mrs. Sutherland, Mrs. Rayburn, and Ms. Hooks and Mrs. Dorris. You taught me what strong women look like. I wonder where I'd be without you.