He Remembers

On the telephone a few days after #Ferguson, my twin brother, Jim told me a personal story I never knew.

“We were driving from Nashville, Tennessee to Hot Springs, Arkansas, Barbara and me.  We had left the three children in Nashville to visit with their grandparents while we went on, fulfilling a promise to my In-laws.  That week, I would plaster a home of theirs in Hot Springs.  The five of us had taken one of our many road trips from our home in St. Louis, Missouri down to Nashville. 

It was night.  About half way to Hot Springs, say about fifty miles out, we stopped for gas.  Plus we were getting hungry, wanted something to eat.

I pulled in; the attendant came out and proceeded to fill the tank. Barbara stayed in the car.  I went inside for snacks and to pay for the gas.  I walked over to the window, checking on Barbara and watching the guy put gas in the car when I saw the reflection of a policeman behind me in the restaurant sitting on a stool at the counter, his hat on the counter.  In that nighttime reflection through the window, essentially a mirror, he was intently watching me.   

When I paid at the register, the officer acted as if I didn't exist.  In fact, once I turned from the window,  he never even glanced in my direction.  For a moment, this total disregard, after experiencing his intense surveillance, made me uneasy - not a pleasant reminder I was in the South.  I didn’t worry my wife with it as we went on our way.

About 15 -20 minutes later, driving in a desolate farmland area, very dark, pitch black, farms miles apart, proceeding around a curve, out of no where,  flashing lights from a police car, practically up on my bumper, pulled me over to virtually no place to park.  We were on a narrow two-lane highway; one lane for oncoming traffic and another taking us toward Hot Springs; deep ditches on both sides of the highway. With, at best, only a berm for parking, I managed.  But if Barbara's door had opened she would have tumbled down the embankment. “ 

Jim continues his story.  “Behind the wheel, through the rear view mirror, I watched the officer approach. It was the same one who sat at the counter where we had stopped.  Totally unknown to me, that policeman had been following us since we pulled away!  

Drivers license produced as he requested, he proceeded to shine his light into my face, the car, back seat, front, and on Barbara, for a long time, p_ _ _ _ _ g me off.  I know he was trying to make me belligerent. “

Jim said it was about 2 am and Barbara was frightened, upset.  My brother asked the officer what was wrong. The officer told him all was okay but asked “where you folks heading? Do you mind if I look in your trunk?”

He rifled through the trunk crammed with so much, took stuff out, even messed with things stored on top of the car.  Finally he came back to Jim and sweetly said, “ Everything’s okay, you all can be on your way. Drive careful and have a nice day.”

Mr. Policeman got in his cruiser, quickly pulled around and drove off leaving them alone in the darkest dark night, reeling from the harrowing experience. 

My brother said he got out of the car to check the trunk, make certain it was closed.  He found their things strewn over the ground, down in the ditch even on the highway.  To this day, Jim thinks the policeman’s last objective was for them to trustingly drive off and leave their things behind.  “Drive careful. Have a nice day.”

Jim says he remembers it just like it happened yesterday, although thirty-five years or more may have gone by. He was so angry he was shaking all over, almost too much to drive.  He remembers Barbara’s comforting touch on his leg as he fought to regain his composure – both of them scared, really scared. 

My easygoing, caring twin brother remembers consciously wishing that officer all the bad luck that could possibly come his way.  

Hopefully, we shall all overcome – someday.

     

I Cannot Hear The Other Side "I Cannot Hear You"

What is the other side?  What am I talking about?  It’s what makes me crazy.  I’m talkin’ about words of justification for police apprehending by shooting to kill an unarmed black person, any person.  The only words that would soothe my soul when this happened to Michael Brown, Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri were, “A horrible thing happened here on Saturday afternoon. (August 9, 2014)  We are tremendously sorry for your loss.  We are investigating everything.”

I can give no credence to the hateful talk about the protestors, rioters, and the demonstrators - whatever they are called.  Talk implying it’s disrespectful to Mike Brown’s family for causing disruption.   

A kid is dead.  Was left shot dead in the streets for HOURS.  That is the ultimate disrespect. There was video showing it.  I couldn’t pull away from many minutes of cell phone video started well after authorities wrapped yellow tape around a wide area, crowd lines were established, police vehicles in place, lights reverberating and the child, lifeless, uncovered, body naked except for the clothes he put on that morning, lay in the middle of the street in the middle of a modern well-kept neighborhood of brick homes.  Sun shining, breeze blowing and a black child lay there, shot to death by a policeman, lay there for the entire planet to see what the local authorities thought of him and thought of all who cared about him – who loved him, LOVE him.  That’s disrespectful.  I cannot forget it.  The video stopped as a person with a white covering of some sort, stood over his body as if they were going to finally give him some privacy.  I wanted to see that happen.  I needed to see that happen.  I didn’t.  The video stopped.  Why?

My Mind Told Me, If This Was a Neighborhood of White Individuals and White families none of this would have happened to ruin anyone’s sense of self;  sense of worth for self and blood line.

My twin dourly told me “It’s tradition.”  

Immediately thought of the song from Fiddler on The Roof came to mind.  (Not so with Jim, I’m sure.) Fiddler’s “Tradition” was a rousing, yet solemn, thoughtful, and celebratory anthem for the Jewish people, for people from all walks of life.  Look how Fiddler productions continue to encourage confidence and happiness for ones’ self, for a well-defined heritage of Jewish people, and somehow for all people.

My twin’s cryptic overview of our experience stunned me.   Yes, the oppression, resultant suffering and personal turmoil, that’s tradition for us – not as individuals (if we’re lucky) but surely as ‘a people’ when it happens to one of us.

A black person may be quietly livid about what shocks us whether we are in the neighborhood or miles away…. or continents away.  It’s acceptable if we intellectually share the grief the dastardly opportunity to feel hopeless – which we refuse to be.   It’s acceptable to express understanding of the ‘wrong’ done by the victim.  It’s acceptable to help put salve over the wound by understanding the error of the victim that caused the tragedy.  No way!  I will not accept murder by authority without the perpetrator being held accountable for his/her unfortunate failing.  Thus I will suffer because accountability drifts away every time.

From reading Facebook posts, for sure happy is out there while the tragedy unfolds and ferments.  The key to that nirvana for me is to ignore the news, the TV talking heads. 

BUT, I fail me.  I check in on the latest whether via Twitter posts or hard to dismiss headlines.  And there’s the difficult to avoid intensive conversation detailing faults of the unarmed young man, his family, his neighborhood.  It seems there is relatively nothing debated about the basic impropriety of being shot multiple times to death by a civic employee, a policeman in America.  It's a big wide wonderful world we live in.  NOT!

Finally, I will not believe killing an unarmed person is condoned in any police recruit training program.  Am I wrong?

Here and now, I volunteer for a Police Recruit Training Materials Review Board.

                       

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The original writing of this piece was done on August 18, 2014 at 10:19 am, nine days after Michael Brown, Jr. was shot to death.  The conversation instigated by this weeks #stoptheparade effort directed at NYC's annual Thanksgiving Day Parade prompted it becoming a timely blog post.  (Thanks to artist, Jai Haley, for the permission to use her artwork.)   

May we all help God Bless America. 

Age Relevant

Watching TV, the weather station is teaching appropriate action to take in the midst of disaster.

What to do if an alligator comes for you?

What to do if an ice wave is moving toward your home?

What to do if you’re stuck in an elevator?

And many more solutions we might find useful one day.

I’m thinking, being the Senior Citizen I am, what to do if you realize you’re lost, and you’re driving by yourself a long way from home?

It happened to me.

I was in Greenville, Pa. on my way to Route 80 and at least a 370 mile drive eastbound into New Jersey – a travel destination of mine many times over the past forty years.  Coming past Thiel College heading to a main street in Greenville, I was like a homing pigeon. I would make a right turn at the light, proceed to the next light and make a left turn and drive straight maybe ten miles to the entrance onto Route 80. 

Then I was lost.   And I felt confused, almost panicked.  Then I smiled, shaking my head.  Not for long.  It was unbelievable. I realized it could be an issue of age.  Not funny.  I knew too many instances of folk my age, even some years or so younger, losing their way driving, who were eventually retrieved and returned to loved ones by the authorities.  Loss of drivers license came soon after.

“Well, no one will know my dilemma, I thought.  I won’t even call my brother, just 25 miles away, back in Ohio where I had been visiting.  He could easily come straighten this out.  No, the experience would be my wake-up call. ”   I could find my way to Mercer, Pa. and the entrance to Route 80.

Turning around, backtracking to the major intersection, I made a left turn, and then at the next stoplight, made another left turn and calmly proceeded.  A few retail stores looked familiar, a church seemed to be where it should be on my way to Mercer.  There was hope.  Finally a sign told me 17 miles to Mercer.  Whew!  I was heading in the right direction.  Softly, though, I admitted, if, I had been on the path I took every other time I made that trip, I would be closer than 17 miles to Mercer.  It was clear to me, I was not where I preferred to be but decided to take the punishment and keep on toward where I should be, no matter this obviously longer route I had stumbled onto.  Another 20/25 minutes, up ahead of me was a road construction crew working at a 4-way traffic-light managed thoroughfare.  Traffic stopped for a red light, which provided excellent opportunity for me to yell to the helmeted workman, “which way to Route 80 East?”  “I don’t know,” he calmly answered.  I gave him an unemotional “thank you”, realizing he and many road crew members come from places far from where they are working…. they’re not local people.  Oh well, directly across the intersection was a Seven Eleven!   Stopping there I confirmed I was going in the right direction, only a few miles from the entrance to Route 80.  Always reaching that highway entrance ramp seems the equivalent of heading into the driveway of home, albeit more than a 300-mile driveway.  Route 80 would be under my wheels until six hours later, when my vehicle exited onto well-known streets only a few city blocks from home.  What a relief.  Mentally, I vowed no more long distance road trips without a co-pilot beside me.

How did I lose my way?  Driving by Thiel College, I let my mind wander.  Started thinking about my father; how for a long time I thought he was buried in the near-by cemetery on the hillside with a view of the campus; thinking how significant that was for my dad, such an earnest champion of higher education.  One day I casually mentioned to mother how good I felt that daddy was laid to rest close to a college campus even though we now had plots in Williamsfield Ohio’s cemetery.  Matter-of-factly, mother said, “He’s not buried there.  He’s in Jamestown’s cemetery.“ I was shocked.   Each time I think about learning that truth, I’m emotionally mesmerized. That’s how I lost my way, these many years later, driving back to New Jersey from Ohio.  Distracted thinking.

Now whenever I get behind the wheel, I consciously keep my mind fixed on where I’m going and how I’m getting there.   Well most of the time.  

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Today we celebrated my 77th birthday.  This picture of me was taken at dinner this evening.  I feel good; I am blessed.

The wake-up call driving experience I've written about here happened three months ago.  Lately I've been thinking about making that trip, one more time.

Maybe not.  What do you think?