A fair fight ...

Back in the summer of 1961, I, along with some other undergraduate students at Wheaton College, went to New York City to work with some of the street gangs.  Specifically, the street gangs were in East Harlem, an area with one of the highest rates of juvenile crime in the country.  I, along with another fellow, was assigned to work with the Turbans whose territory included the area around Lexington Avenue and 110th Street.  Most of us were housed at the Biblical Seminary of New York in very, very spartan rooms and given $3.00 a day to pay for food.  Needless-to-say, we did not earn any money to take back for fall semester.  In fact, two of the other guys and I took jobs with the Burns Detective Agency to supplement our meager earnings.  Most of our assignments involved crowd control at concerts held at the Forrest Hills Stadium out in Queens.   Although I did “guard” the beer at Piels brewery in Brooklyn one Sunday night!

At Wheaton we had a chapel service every Monday through Friday morning and attendance was mandatory.  One of the chapel speakers during the spring semester, was Jim Vaus, the founder of Youth Development, Inc. (YDI).  He had a very compelling story based on his life of organized crime on the west coast.  He worked directly for Mickey Cohen, the Al Capone of the west.  Vaus, the son of a Methodist preacher, was a self-taught electronic genius for that time.  His involvement with organized crime was to intercept the results of horse races by two minutes.  During the two-minute interval other criminals would go to a bookie parlor and place bets.  They were, indeed, making a killing.  Vaus along with his wife, were on their way to the airport for a flight to St. Louis.  He was going to set up the same devices in that city to intercept all races east of the Mississippi River.  The haul for organized crime would have been staggering.  They had time to kill, so she convinced him to stop at one of Billy Graham’s tent revival meetings.  Well, to make an extremely long story a bit shorter, Vaus “walked the sawdust trail”, did not catch the plane, and the next day informed Cohen that he was quitting—something you do not do, voluntarily.  He then began giving speeches in a variety of venues, including prisons.  At a prison in Pennsylvania, an inmate came to him and said, “why come here, you need to help us before we get here”.  This put Vaus on course to find the area in the country in the late 1950’s that had the highest rate of juvenile crime.  That area was East Harlem in New York City.  He left his family in Oregon, moved to the back of the first floor of a tenement building and built a workshop in the front portion of the flat.  He would give electronic demonstration in the workshop, but also at schools and began to establish a measure of confidence with teenagers in the area. He also hired Piri Thomas, an indigenous Puerto Rican who had served eight years at the infamous Sing Sing prison.  for killing a cop.  Being a convicted felon who had done “prison time” gave him a measure of respect with the members of the gangs.  To this day, I still do not understand what led to his release.

When it became known that two rival gangs were about to “go down” Piri would get the leaders of each gang and one other person for each gang, take them out to an island in the East River and have them have a “fair fight” No weapons were aloud, just fists, but more times than not it brought the potential of a deadly “rumble” to a halt.  The rules to be followed were the same for each side in the conflict. 

Now, let us extrapolate to the present stated and self-serving nature of the GOP.  Their leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, seems to be hell bent on constantly changing the rules.  As we all have witnessed. None more blatant than his position on Trump’s role in the January 6th Insurrection.  On the one hand denouncing the president’s role in the Insurrection and on the other voting not to impeach.  Holding up the process until after Trump was no longer president and then stating that impeachment cannot apply to a person who is no longer the president.  Further, state after state continue to introduce and pass legislation to change the rules for voting.  What is the GOP afraid of?  Why can they not engage in a “fair fight” and see who wins.  Changing the rules is unbelievably unfair, unethical, immoral and simply, wrong.  Additionally, the Supreme Court seems to be laser-focused on dismantling the Voting Rights Act, piece by piece.  Witness the latest decision regarding the Arizona modifications.  Associate Justice Alito stated that discrimination alone is not a reason to declare the law unconstitutional.  Guess he never read or understands the premise upon which the Voting Rights Act became law in the first place. 

I know there has been a great deal of hysteria on both sides of this issue, but all that I am proposing is to make the fight a fair one.  To make the rules and stand by them.  To give all people the opportunity to exercise their right to vote. To refrain from being a pawn in the hands of the ex-president.  To stop behaving like a group of children who did not get their way, so they pick up their bat and ball and go home.  Come now, let us reason together—is that too much to ask?

Deception and lies...

Over the past several weeks and even months, I have gone through periods of contemplation about what to include in the next blog.  Needless-to-say, there have been any number of subjects and events that have occurred during this period that would warrant some discussion.  One arena that continues to receive a great deal of attention focuses on the divisions that are so prominent throughout the country.  A recent article in The New York Times, discussed the way in which the country has become so divided, both politically and geographically.  The prevalence of division can also be based on religious differences, socio-economic differences, cultural differences, sexual differences, and the list goes on and on.  Certainly, there is something to be cherished in the differences amongst people—we all do not need to think alike, look alike, believe alike.  Healthy discord makes us all stronger, but strident discord makes us all distrustful and alienated.  Do we insulate ourselves from those who are different?  Perhaps we do and this insulation tends to breed a myopic view of life and what makes up the various nuances of existence. 

 As I have reflected on the tenor of the times, I have been drawn back to November 18, 1978.  Many might recall this is the infamous day that over 900 souls left this earth at the direction of the Reverend Jim Jones, the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple.  On this fateful night, Jones had come to the decision that he would test the loyalty of his followers to lay down their lives for the cause and for him.  The cause as he described it was to create some type of socialistic utopia amid a jungle in Guyana, a small country in South America.   The settlement became known as Jonestown and it was in this enclave that babies and children were given a poisonous concoction that led to death within about a five-minute time period.  Jones believed that if the babies and children went first, then families would have no reason to continue living and would voluntarily take their own life by drinking the cyanide-laced punch.  Some did escape and they have become the source of the information that has been forthcoming about what took place in the far-removed jungle enclave.  In her book, A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception and Suicide at Jonestown, Julia Scheeres wrote that he wanted the world to think this was some uniform decision that his followers made to willingly killed themselves, but that can certainly be contested.  There was a line of guards with crossbows and another line of guards behind them with guns to make certain that the suicides and murders happened.  Does raise the question of how voluntary the decision to die was among the members of the cult.  In the conclusion of his Rolling Stones article, “13 Things you should know about the cult massacre”, David Chiu stated that much of what was promised to the followers of Jim Jones were a myriad of lies and misinformation. The phrase, “drinking the Kool Aid has been popularized following what took place at Jonestown.  While this term has been characterized as offensive, it does lend some measure of credence to people blindly following a person, a belief, a conspiracy or something that is odious and unfounded.

Bringing this into the current climate in our country, it seems as if there are a significant number of individuals who are believing the lies and misinformation that has been son obvious over the past several years.  During the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, The Washington Post identified 30,573 false or misleading statements made by him.  Perhaps the most onerous lie, deals with the results of the most recent election won by Joe Biden.  Trump has repeatedly made claims that the election was stolen from him due to fraudulent state voting practices. Following the election at least 86 lawsuits were filed by Trump and others contesting the results in several states and none were found to have merit.  Some of these lawsuits were filed in courts where judges nominated by Trump presided, yet they found no reason to support the claims that were being made.  Regardless, this has not stopped the claims from being repeated over and over by Trump and his followers.  The “Big Lie” has become a rallying point for the Trump faithful and the adoration shown to him by bright and thoughtful individuals has been nothing short of amazing.  It is believed that confronted in a private context, many of those who publicly support the “Big Lie” would agree that it is unfounded.

To combat the loss of the presidency, the House and the Senate, several states controlled by Republican legislatures and governors have enacted laws that are geared to suppress the voting by certain groups of people.  The states of Georgia, Florida, Texas and others on the horizon have attempted to curtail the opportunities for people to vote.  Voting is one of the most sacred components of a free and open democracy and to do anything to diminish that right is unconscionable.

The relationship between what took place at Jonestown and what is taking place today is ever so apparent, yet perplexing.  How did so many adults die by following a dictum propagated by their leader and how can so many believe what a leader says when he has lied or misinformed over 30,000 times in four years? 

Some who read what I have written will not agree and might take offense to the connection I have attempted to identify.  That is OK, but I would ask that each of us stop and reflect on where we are and where do we want to be in the future.  Are some “drinking the Kool-Aid” rather than stepping back and looking at what is being said and what is being expected. 

Life's early journey...

It seems as I have gotten a bit on the downward side of life’s hill, I find myself thinking about things, events, people, etc. that were a part of my life as a kid, adolescent, young adult, middle-aged adult and a mature adult.  Guess some would question the loose use of the “adult” reference given some of my childish behavior even as I was legally being defined as an adult, but nevertheless, let’s move on.

 Being born at a time when the country was moving out of the deep depression of the 1930’s and before the bombing at Pearl Harbor that threw us into World War II, I can recall the rationing that was mandated by the government.  I remember, as a little kid, my father saving coupons and bargaining for more so we would have the requisite amount to buy gas for our annual trip to Kentucky to visit his mother and sister.  It was about the only “vacation” we ever took, no doubt influenced by the financial plight of the country.  My mother did take my brother and me to Washington, DC because we could travel on the train with a free pass.  As a family, we were lucky that my father was employed throughout the depression.  He was the Station Master for the railroad that ran through the area where we lived outside the Chicago city limits.  During the height of the depression one out of every four people were unemployed, thus we were, indeed, fortunate.  I do remember that once we got into the war, there would be “black-out” drills where all the lights had to be turned off at night for designated periods of time.  The purpose of the exercise was to preclude enemy bombers from bombing our neighborhoods.  In school, I also recall having drills where we would go into the hallway, get down on our knees, place our hands over our heads, bend down and stay in this position until the teachers sent us back to the classroom.  The purpose of the drill was to protect ourselves in the event we were bombed.

 The first six years of school I attended Walsh School and I had two first-grade teachers, Miss Hay and Miss Wright.  Miss Hay taught us in the morning and Miss Wright in the afternoon.  Miss Hay was a pioneer in the development of reading phonically.  I was one of the “chosen few” who she would take around to other schools and PTA meetings for us to demonstrate how we could read and spell using the phonic technique.  I felt special when assigned to go with Miss Hay and five or six other students.  Miss Hay along with the school superintendent, Charles E. Wingo, wrote a book, Reading with Phonics, that described this new technique.  Reading and spelling phonically was a new approach and has been a helpful tool for me ever since the first grade.  Going into the second grade, I had Miss Foran as my teacher, and she did not like me.  The reason for this was that my father and her brother, Frank M. Foran, were bitter opponents for a seat on the local Board of Education.  An event that is indelibly etched in my memory was being one of two second graders who Miss Foran did not choose to participate in the musical program put on by the high school each year.  The other boy was a poor kid who lived on the canal bank in our town—an extremely poor, rundown area.    Obviously, I have never forgotten this petty slight by an adult toward a child.

Miss Piancimeno was my third-grade teacher and Miss Petropoulos taught the fourth grade.  In the fifth grade I had Miss Callahan.  She often asked me to go down the block to the store to buy items that were needed for the teachers’ daily lunch.  Being selected was viewed as an honor and I recall relishing the attention, even though I had to put up with some of the other kids calling me the “teacher’s pet”.   In the sixth grade, Miss Spellman was my teacher, and she was also the school principal.  It was during the Christmas break of the sixth grade that my father died.   As an eleven-year-old kid, being told that you no longer had a father was hard to understand and hard to deal with.  I remember more than once during the night hearing my mother sobbing behind the closed door in her bedroom after my dad died.  I also remember that we had a little dog, that was really my dad’s dog.  When my dad did not come back home, that little dog left, and we never saw him again. Guess he knew his buddy was not coming back. 

When I was ten, I was hit by a car on Archer Avenue, the busiest street in our neighborhood.  I remember waking up in my bed with a sore wrist and a headache.  I had been unconscious for eight hours, but never was taken to the hospital.  I was taken to the family doctor, Dr. Rush, and he told my mother I had a concussion and sprained wrist.   She took me home and put me to bed.  Indeed, some of this I was told about because I do not remember seeing Dr. Rush.  The man that hit me was a devout catholic and said prayers and lit a candle for me every day for several days.  He did come by to see me and said that I just rode my bike right out in front of him and he could not stop.  He told me that I flew up into the air and landed back down in front of his car.  We found a triangular piece of his headlight in my shirt pocket.  I crossed Archer Avenue many, many times—had to cross it to go to school and why I rode out in front of him, I do not know.  I was hit right in front of the Foran Funeral Home, the business of my dad’s archrival.  Not sure what the message is, but it is sort of interesting.  A couple of weeks before my accident, I was playing with the Vugrin twins in their garage.  A large garage door was learning up against the wall and for some reason, it fell on me and hit me in the head.  I ended up with a heck of a “goose egg” on my forehead and maybe that influenced my behavior on the day I got hit.

Other things that I remember happening during the first eleven years of my life, included having my mouth washed out with soap by my mother because my brother tattled on me.  He told her I was cussing while playing ball with some other kids.  When my dad was still alive, our discipline involved a razor strap on a bare buttock.  I will not forget the day he found out that I had gone to the city dump, something we were forbidden to do.  When he got home from work and was told what I had done, he marched me into the bathroom, had me take off all my clothes, stood me up in the sink, and “applied” the razor strap to my butt.  I did not go back to the city dump. During a visit with my parents to a farm somewhere south of Chicago, my brother and I were playing with a corn elevator.  It is used to carry corn from the ground on a conveyer belt up to a silo.  The height of the elevator can be altered by turning a crank.  I turned the crank but did not know that you had to back the crank up so it would lock.  I let go and the handle with all the weight of the elevator behind it came flying back, hitting me in the head.  Every time I took a breath, blood squirted out of the top of my head.  Had a scar there for the rest of my days.  It is all but faded due to the other wrinkles around that area of my head.  During the winter we skated on the frozen Illinois-Michigan Canal and played our made-up brand of hockey.  Flipping cars when the roads were covered with snow by holding on to the bumper of the car was another winter activity.  It was a game to us to see if we could flip the car without being caught by the driver.

At the end of our street there was a family that had a truck farm, and they grew a variety of vegetables.  After my brother got too old, I inherited the job of selling vegetables door-to-door throughout the neighborhood, thus was the beginning of my entrepreneurial inclination.  In our neighborhood there was very little in the way of organized activities, so we made up our own games.  Often, we played after supper and stayed out until my mother whistled us home.  That’s how she called us.  She could whistle and we could hear her for a couple of blocks.  There was also another accident where I went flying over the handlebars of my bike, landed on my head, and ended up with my second concussion.  As I reflect on these first eleven years, it is apparent that most of my “accidents” involved injuries to my head.  Perhaps, this realization renders some understanding why I behave as I do.  Do you think?

Oh well, this begins my journey.  As with all of us, there is the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Many twists, turns, curves, hills and valleys.  Some we have a measure of control over, others we do not.  Regardless, all that happens does have some type of ramification.  As Popeye would say, “I yam what I yam, and that’s what I yam”.

The bed

While lying in the hospital bed, day and night for over week during my recent sojourn at the local Regional Medical Center, I remember concluding that I was ensnared by the bed, especially during the long nighttime hours. Trying to locate the damn buttons to lower-raise-move the position of the bed bread nothing but frustration and resignation.  As you lie there, you are aware that the staff will be back to check vital signs, take blood, give you meds or just check on you so the hours of loneliness and entrapment are broken up from time-to-time.  I recall one night.  I was all scrunched up in the bed and was flaying about from side-to-side, trying to position myself so I could reach at least one side of the bed that contained the control panels.  Being short of stature—just being a “little fella” - my arms are limited in how far they will extend from my body and this proved to be just one more containment component of the nightly experience.  The remote that included the call button for the nurse had fallen and I had no idea were the hell it was, nor was I able to position myself to find where it was located.  Throughout, you feel so freaking helpless.  An additional challenge was that I had a catheter inserted in the area between my neck and upper chest and when I moved the wrong way a sharp pain followed, so I was just a tad bit apprehensive about moving about too much.  The catheter was inserted so that I could be put on dialysis when it was needed.

 The beds that are used to ensnare our bodies are engineering masterpieces that are not made for the human body to lie in with any degree of comfort.  As I have mentioned, I am not a large person, yet I was continuing to slide down in the bed and if I pulled my self back up to the top of the bed once, I am sure I did so 100 times during the days I was confined.  Guess one could argue that the ongoing attempts to locate some degree of comfort provided a diversion from watching the second had slowly move around the clock that is position on the wall directly in front of the bed. During one of my experiences with the bed, the nurse informed us that the beds had only been in use for a couple of weeks—whew, weren’t we lucky.   A feature of these modern-day wonders is that they have a switch that can be set and if you leave the prone position it sets off a piercing alarm.  One night I decided to sit on the side of the bed and the alarm goes off and now I’m wondering what the hell did I do.  Oh well, the night worn on!

 Reflecting on the “bed” and its many “attributes”, I think of trying to eat while lying in bed.  If you push one button it raises you head, but also raises your feet so you can never get into an upright position.  I dropped jello down my fashionable gown, a piece of ham somewhere in the bed and took a shower when I tried to drink water from a large plastic cup that should not have been tipped.  Much easier to just ask for some crackers.

 Oh, while in this confined state, the ability to find some position that might be conducive to sleep does not exist.  Over the time that I was an occupant of room 427, I tallied nary but a few minutes of sleep on any given night or day.  Constantly changing positions did not offer any respite to the sleeplessness and you become resigned to watching the ever so slowly moving minute and hour hands of the clock on the wall.

 Indeed, it can always be worse, but thankfully I am back home in a normal bed and I do not have to try to eat while lying down.  While having the time to myself in the hospital, I was able to think of the many family and friends who expressed their concern and support, and I will always be grateful and thankful for each and everyone of these amazing caring people. 

The function of lines...

As I travel the highways and streets throughout the country, I have been struck by the impact that lines have on each of us as we drive.  This might seem like a rather inconsequential direction to go at this time, given all that is going on in the country and the world, but I do believe that lines also impact how we live.  We are often confronted with lines that we must join in order to gain admission, be given a test, purchase some commodity, wait your turn to be called, lines are a part of everyday living.  As an example, let us say we are in line to get into the stadium to watch a football game (pre Covid-19).  As you wait, some individuals break into the line ahead of you and this pisses you off.  Similarly, driving on a two-lane highway you come upon a solid yellow line—no passing is what we are supposed to do, but some fool comes roaring past you and darts in front of you and this pisses you off.  There are rules of the road that we had to learn to pass the driver’s test and the solid yellow line is explained therein.  There are also rules of conduct about waiting your turn as you wait in a line.  These rules are handed down by parents, schoolteachers, clergy, and others.  They are the mores that have come to balance the interaction between and amongst humans.

Lines also control our behavior, whether driving or interacting with others.  On the road people, typically, stay in their line and vehicles proceed in some semblance of an orderly fashion.  In our daily interactions with one another there are also lines that we are not to cross, just like the solid yellow line.  We are not to cheat or defraud others in some type of transaction.  To do so is to cross the line.  We are not to malign or slander another without a factual basis to support such.  To do so is to cross the line.  We are not to physically or emotionally abuse another person, be that person a spouse or child.  To do so is to cross the line.  There are various behaviors that we are not to pursue in public and to do so crosses the line.  To engage in sexual activity in public would, generally, be crossing the line and should be done in private.   Handling bodily function should also be done in private and not in public.  To do so crosses the line. 

Having lines maintains a measure of decorum and acceptance in human interactions.  Often there is an historical and/or legal basis for the line.  It is my judgment that what we are experiencing in the days since the election on November 3rd, is a continuing disregard for the historical and/or legal lines that have been passed on from generation to generation.  Prior to the election we also witnessed the accepted lines of appropriate and legally sanction behavior being broken over and over.  Administrative officials continually breaking the directives of the Hatch Act which precludes engaging in political activity while engaged in governmental business.  The Secretary of State endorsing Trump while in Israel on government business is, but one, example.  Using the White House and surrounding grounds to hold the Republican National Convention is another example of crossing the line.  In the absence of accepted lines, we would have chaos and anarchy. Gun-toting vigilantes surrounding and intimidating duly elected state officials at their homes, certainly crosses the line.  Members of white supremacists’ groups plotting to kidnap and execute duly elected governors is really, really crossing the line.

Indeed, there are multiple examples of the impact that lines have on human interaction.  In a moment of heated passion between a man and a woman, and the man continues to have his way even though he has been told to stop, he has crossed the line.  A young girl becomes pregnant and the known father refuses to accept responsibility and pay child support, he has crossed the line.  A teacher telling an elementary school child that he/she is not capable of learning and becoming a doctor has crossed the line.   At a drive-in fast-food establishment, there are alternating lines to go from placing the order to paying and picking it up.  It is expected that each driver will respect the alternation and if they do not, they have crossed the line of fairness and respect.  As we watch a football game there is a line of scrimmage and it is clearly understood that you remain on your side of the line until the ball is snapped.  There are also lines drawn as to what is acceptable physical contact in a sporting event and what contact crosses the line. 

In an orderly society there are laws, rules, ordinances, and regulations that govern behavior.  Lines are created from these actions and decisions.  A legal decision sets a precedent which is to be adhered to and to ignore a precedent is to cross that line.  An ordinance may require a restaurant to reduce its capacity by 50 percent occupancy during a public health crisis.  Failure to adhere to the ordinance crosses the line.  A high school may have a rule about what is acceptable attire to wear to school and to flaunt the rule crosses the line.  There are emission regulations which spell out the amount of carbon dioxide can be emitted from a factory smokestack.  Not to follow the regulation, crosses the line.   

As we reflect on the impact that lines have in our lives, we can measure ourselves against what is right or wrong, true or false, acceptable or unacceptable, appropriate or inappropriate.  Most of the time, an individual is aware when he/she has crossed the line.  When the police officer stops you for speeding. You know you have crossed the line as defined by the speed limit sign.  When the professor writes a note on your research paper which questions whether it was your work, you know that you crossed the line.  The lines are there, we, individually, choose whether to abide by them and/or to, selectively, choose which ones we will abide by.  A person may situationally choose to cross the acceptable line.  Speeding to get someone to the hospital in an emergency is an example.  At times of intoxication a person may jump across several lines, only to regret his/her actions later when sober.  Well, I am getting close to crossing the line of your indulgence of this blog, so let me stop.  In closing, let me extend my best wishes to each of you for a safe holiday season and a very anticipative new year.