Story: Destiny or Just Dumb Luck?

***

1

The day after Richard Nixon was elected President, I started looking for a job abroad.  I was committed through the next summer, 1969, but I thought it was time to go as soon as I could.  I told myself it was likely to be a permanent emigration.

Sure enough, in early September, there I was in New York City, climbing aboard a somewhat worn Atlantic cruiser, headed for my new job in south-central France.  There was no one to see me off, so I was lost in a quiet reverie as I walked up the gangplank.  It was about noon.  I hadn't thought about lunch.

"Welcome aboard, sir," the Purser said as I reached the top of the gangplank.  I showed him my passport, and he told me my cabin number and showed me on a little diagram how to find it.  It turned out to be on E deck (down under water, the least expensive way to travel).  He added that the first seating for "luncheon" was scheduled for directly after we steamed past the Statue of Liberty.  That was my "seating."

I dumped my hand baggage - a little grip or valise - in the cabin.  There was no one else around at the time, but there were three other empty berths.  I went right back up to the part of the ship the Purser had recommended for the best view of the Statue of Liberty.  One couldn't miss that, could he?  The deck wasn't too crowded, so I was able to move right up to the rail.  The view at that time was of the pier and the busyness of freeing up the big ship to take off... not to mention the skyline of the lower half of Manhattan.  This was all pretty heady stuff, even for a grizzled 28-year-old like me.  Was I an adult yet?

After twenty minutes or so, as we sailed by that iconic monument, I was still lost in my own thoughts.  I was thinking I was probably the only one on that deck who was saying to myself how ironic it was for us to be admiring this mighty symbol of all the best about America - about the United States - at a time when the country itself was going to the dogs.

So I looked around at the others.  Standing next to me at the rail was a smart-looking young woman in a neat, khaki trench coat.  She seemed absorbed in her own thoughts too, and our eyes did not meet.  But when I went down to the dining room a half-hour later, it turned out that all the single young people on board had been seated together... and she ended up next to me.  Her name was Teri.

2

Two weeks later, I was sitting in an out-of-the-way staircase in the basement of American Express in Paris.  I was hot, tired, hungry, and most of all frustrated.  What I should do next? I wondered.

After arriving early that morning at the Gare de Lyon, Paris's station for trains from the south, I had taken the Metro to the modest little street in the student district, la Rue de Rennes, where I'd told Teri I remembered from my JYA in Paris a whole row of decent but moderately priced hotels.  Since I hadn't heard from Teri in the week I'd spent in my new home city, I just started looking for her at the first hotel on the left side of the street, coming from the Metro.

At each of the eight little hotels, I explained I was looking a friend.  Everyone was most cooperative, but no one had seen Teri.  Most did have rooms available. 

It was a warm mid-September day.  My little grip felt heavier every time I left each hotel.  When Teri was nowhere to be found... "I know she said the 20th," I said to myself, "That's today."  

"Something must have happened."

It dawned on me that, wherever she was staying, maybe Teri might have read in her little guidebook that the American Express office over near the Opera across town had a message service where you could find or leave messages.  I got back on the subway and headed over there.

The basement was crowded and stuffy.  As I waited in the particular line for the names in the alphabet that included my own, I jotted a note on a little scrap of paper I ripped from a tiny notebook in my shirt pocket.  "Where are you staying?" I wrote.  "It's almost 1 p.m. now, on Thursday.  I'll check back here to see if you have left me a message at 4 today and at 10 tomorrow morning.  Ron."

There was no message.  Teri's last name started with a different letter from mine the line for which was down the counter a station or two.  But the young woman who waited on me was nice enough to take my little note down to her colleague at the right spot.  I thanked her and looked around for a place where I could observe the crowd for a while, and rest my legs, and cool off, and figure out my next step.  Along the wall behind us, there was a little staircase going to an office door. 

I flopped down there, nearly out of hope, wondering again if I could have screwed up somehow...  when Teri walked in!

3

"Well, I never thought you would actually come!" Teri said a little later while we had a sandwich at the grand Cafe de la Paix next door.  "I know how it is."

"So, on the ship when we talked about getting back together in Paris... You didn't think I meant it?"  I found that hard to believe, but I laughed gaily.

"Oh, you meant it at the time," she said, laughing in her turn.  We were both happy to be together again, after all.  "But you get to a new place, start getting settled..."  She shrugged.  "I didn't think much about it."

I'd been thinking of little else, myself, but why mention that?  I was telling myself she'd been thinking it was too good to be true... so she just went on with her vacation.  When I'd had to get off in Le Havre while she went on to England, that was it, for her.  The five days on the ship had been fun... but life goes on.

When she arrived at the Paris train station last night, right there in front of her she saw a tourist office with signs - in English and other languages - saying they could find a hotel for her.  That seemed too great to pass up.  They had respected her expense limits, the hotel was nice, that was that.

She'd been to Versailles on a tour that morning, and on returning, the bus made a stop at American Express.  On a whim she got off.

And there I was!

4

Teri's original plan was to spend three days in Paris and then move on to Geneva for three days, before ending her four-week vacation in Italy.  I toyed with the idea of going to Geneva too, but I wasn't exactly sure when I was expected at my new job.  We ended up staying four days in Paris, when Teri headed off to Geneva for only two days, and I went back to the one-room apartment I'd rented in my new home city.

We'd exchanged addresses, of course.  I fretted over how long I should wait to send my first letter so that it would just get to Wisconsin in time to meet her coming back from Europe.  It was after all a good thing I'd checked in at work, since my French employers had been a little anxious I might not show up, but the work itself did not actually begin right away, so I could concentrate on finding a grocery store, a self-serve laundry, the nearest Post Office, and start a local bank account.  That all took about a day...

I took long walks down by the beautiful, wide river that flowed right through the center of town.  Like Teri's and my time in Paris, it was sunny and warm.  But I was busy wondering where in Italy Teri would be each day and what I should say in that important first letter.  I had the lightweight blue, special "air letter" paper unfolded on my little desk under my only window, but I didn't want to write until the day I would send the letter off.

5

When I hadn't heard anything from Teri two full weeks after she would have returned to Wisconsin, I was getting impatient.  I sent her a cheery airmail post card:  "How was your return trip?  How's everything going?  I've started on the new job.  A few surprises.  Nothing bad!  Please let me know you're okay... OK?  Ron."

First-class mail to the U. S. was supposed to take about three days, maybe four, so I thought a reply could come in ten days, two weeks...

When a full month had passed, with no mail from Teri, I was sure I must have had the wrong address.  But there it was, in her own hand-writing, on the page I'd torn from my little notebook ...  What could I make of that? 

To be honest, it never occurred to me that maybe Teri had just been stringing me along.  Maybe it was good to have a companion going from one tourist attraction to another - the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame cathedral... - but a long-term friendship may have been another thing altogether?  No, I didn't think of that, frankly.  Maybe she was sick?  It was more than impatience I was feeling by then (but less than self-doubt, I guess).

6

"The gentleman would wish to send a cable to the United States?" the postal manager asked me politely.

"Yes, if you please, sir,"  I replied, equally politely and correctly.  This was the second person I had spoken to in the nearest Post Office to my apartment.  I realized that my upset must have been obvious to them from my manner, the strain in my voice, and the expression on my face.  But I could tell it myself mainly in my uncharacteristically bad French accent.  I was thinking of what I would say to Teri so much that it seemed to be hard to switch to French.  To myself I sounded like an American trying to speak good French, rather than - my usual pose - a European raised in France speaking his native tongue.

I was upset because another two weeks had passed with no word from Wisconsin.  When the morning mail that day - about 9 a.m. - had brought nothing from Teri, I walked straight from the mailboxes near the front door of the building, outside and to the left across the square, and down the two blocks to the Poste.

A pleasant young woman seemed concerned that I - evidently - was feeling an emergency, when she responded to my inquiry about sending a cable, "Yes, sir.  One moment, if you please."

Then she had returned with the man, who I presumed was her supervisor.  "You know the precise postal address in the U. S.?" he asked as he sorted through papers behind the counter.

"Yes, sir."

"Please write the name and address here and your message here," he said, pointing.

"In English?" I asked.

"But yes, monsieur," he replied in a reassuring tone.  "No one will know what you write."  And he smiled and nodded.

I wrote:  "Teri:  I have written you twice but had no reply.  Please cable if you are well.  Ron."  I had edited the message down - saying "twice" instead of "a couple of times," for instance - in order to reduce the number of words.   I didn't know how much this was going to cost.

It seemed like a bargain, after all, when I paid.

7

Then, it seemed like in no time (since everything really is relative), a letter from Teri came.  It was not effusive, but friendly. 

"I had been meaning to write sooner.  There was no reason for you to worry.

"Things have been busy here.  I am moving to a new apartment with my friend Joanie.  I must have mentioned her.  It is much nearer my work in Milwaukee.  Joanie is a teacher.

"Have you made many friends?  I'll bet you have been busy too.  I hope the job really is going well.  What were the surprises anyway?"

That was the tone, more or less like our conversations on the ship and in Paris.  I was still puzzled about the long delay, but I relaxed... and enjoyed the long-range conversation.

I wrote back that day, and in a couple of weeks there was another letter from her.  And a pleasant sort of rhythm set in.  I never found out if she replied to my letters on the very day when they arrived.  Probably not, but they came pretty soon.  Once in a while, we got out of sync and letters crossed in the air mail.

After a while, she actually sent me something I had never seen before, a little camera that you could only use one time before sending it all in to be developed.  "Use it to take some pictures of your apartment," Teri had written.  "I want to see what it's like.  Take a lot.  There's no reason to waste any."

Before I had my friends at the Poste send it back, with customs stamps and everything, I photographed about every square inch of the apartment.  I stopped short of snapping the primitive toilet and the cramped shower down the hall.

8

In February, Teri had another vacation coming.  She and another high school friend had found out that the cheapest way to travel was to sign up for a ski trip.  The first stop was on the French side of the Alps, not far from where I lived.   She came to see me before joining the group with her friend Kate.  Then we both went to Chamonix and then on to Grindelwald, Switzerland.

This time she wasn't surprised when I met her at the train station.

When I finished work that summer, I went to Wisconsin.  We got married.  We did return to France, where I had another one-year job. 

But then, we came home... just about 40 years ago.

***

Corporations Are Not People, Are They? (essay)

***


Do you find it difficult to distinguish business corporations from human beings?  It seems hard to believe, but apparently some do.  Let us think about this...


The American Declaration of Independence says,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

1

The first truth self-evident to our forefathers was "that all men are created equal."  Today, we would expect them to say something like "all people" instead of "all men."  Did these men mean to exclude people of color (like slaves) - as sub-human - and women - as insignificant in public affairs?  Did even Thomas Jefferson mean to do that?  Probably, they did. Yes.

To be sure, slave-owners could feel affection, even love, for some of their slaves, but that kind of affection was to them more like their sympathy for their trusted animals than like their feeling toward other human beings.  Yes, our forefathers - like John Adams - could "remember" and respect "the ladies," but  they surely thought that public affairs (especially war, which they were at that time promoting) was a realm for men only.

The Fourteenth Amendment of the supreme law of our land, the U. S. Constitution, puts to right one part of this central sentence in the Declaration by stating:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

American slaves had already been emancipated when this amendment was ratified, so when it was, ex-slaves and other men of color were hereby ordered to be treated like everyone else.

Later, the Nineteenth Amendment set straight the second part of the Declaration's central sentence by saying:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Women may not be prevented from voting, because they are citizens.  Women, like men of color, will be treated like everyone else.  So, whatever our forefathers may have intended by saying, "All men are created equal," we have known since 1920 that both all men and all women are equal under U. S. law.

Thus, today we would read the Declaration's central sentence as though it said, "All human individuals ( or 'All people') are created equal, [and] ...they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights..."  And, of course, other rights - many of them addressed in the first eight amendments to the Constitution - are not innate but are granted to all citizens, not by the Creator but by the laws adopted by legislatures.

2

Business corporations are not "human individuals"; they are not "people."  That truth must be as "evident" as those truths referred to in the Declaration. So, whatever "rights" corporations may have, they are not endowed in them by a divine Creator. Corporations' rights are granted by law (if indeed corporations may be properly said to "have rights" at all).

Nor are corporations, of course, citizens. No one has ever suggested that corporations should be allowed to vote, for instance.


Now, as we know, the first amendments of the Constitution, or the "Bill of Rights," confer fundamental rights on U. S. citizens.  These include:

the right to follow any religion of one's choice

the right to speak one's mind without danger of legal punishment

the right of the press to do the same

the people's right to meet

the right to petition the government for redress of a grievance

the right to own firearms (reference is made to the need for militias)

the right to say No to an order to house soldiers in your home

     and

in amendments 6, 7, and 8, a significant number of rights related to allegations of crime: such as the right to be tried by a jury of one's peers, the right not to have your privacy invaded by government officers unless ordered to do so by a court, protection against cruel and unusual punishment, the right to a speedy trial, and so on.

These rights are granted to citizens by the U. S. Constitution.  Additional rights may be granted by federal laws, such as patent laws or laws relating to interstate commerce, or so long as they do not conflict with federal law, by specific states' laws, such as the right to marry or to operate a school.

3

Corporations come into existence for a wide variety of reasons, but they would not exist if they did not have some legal rights, implied if not expressly stated.  All corporations may enter into contracts, for instance, such as renting or owning a building, and they are legally bound to fulfill the obligations they take on through contracts.  A corporation may own property, of course, and it would be against the law for anyone - even government officials - to take their property without paying just compensation.  Corporations may incur debt, in  fact would often not exist without this privilege, and they are held responsible for their debts.  Corporations are liable to be be taxed, and they may be sued (for illegal discrimination against employees or customers, for example).  Finally, like people corporations can be punished for breaking the law, such as by committing fraud, breaking a contract, or even manslaughter.


These corporate privileges and responsibilities are all necessary if corporations are to exist at all, and all of these particular privileges are also rights and responsibilities of human individuals.


Perhaps because these fundamental "rights" adhere both to people and to corporations, corporations are sometimes and in some ways considered "legal persons," even though they are not human beings, as the first Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court famously wrote of corporations:


“A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law.  Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it.”

Corporate charters are granted by states.  Whether explicitly stated or not, some of the essential corporate rights - such as the provisions pertaining to contracts and to property, corporations' being subject to criminal law and to taxation, and their being guaranteed due process of law - are also guaranteed to citizens, that is to human individuals, by the Constitution.

On the other hand, of course, as one might assume, the Constitution also grants rights to human citizens - such as the right to vote - which are not granted to corporations.

4


So, not all of the rights granted to citizens are granted to corporations.  The Constitution says that "the people" elect representatives to serve in the government; it does not say "legal persons" elect representatives, nor of course does it say that corporations should do so.  Some rights granted to citizens, in other words, are explicitly granted to human individuals exclusively, such as the right to keep and bear arms:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.  [emphasis added]


Keeping arms is "the right of the people" (not of legal persons).  "Thank goodness," we might say: imagine entering a corporate headquarters - a high rise, say, on Sixth Avenue in New York - and seeing everyone carrying a sidearm and finding the word "Armory" over a large steel door in the back, flanked by men with AK-47s!


Other provisions of rights in the Constitution, on the other hand, are stated in the passive voice, leaving it unclear whether these rights are granted exclusively to human individuals or also to "legal persons." 


This is the case with what we call the right of free speech:


Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech... .

Although it may seen clear to many of us that only human individuals can literally speak, this section of the first amendment does not say explicitly whose speech may not be "abridged," as the following phrase later in the same amendment does:


Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.  [emphasis added]


State legislatures or the President and  the houses of the federal government are not prohibited by the Constitution (or anything else) from passing laws saying explicitly that certain "legal persons" do not have this right.


So, unless we want to grant corporations the right to vote - by using their resources to guarantee the election of only those who will do their bidding - then, we should push our representatives to pass a federal law saying that the Constitution's guarantee of freedom of speech applies not to "legal persons" but only to human individuals.  Or is common sense no longer useful to the common good?




***

Childhood Treats, etc.

***

1

It is clear to me now, looking back, that I was an odd child... and I liked it that way! 

If just about everybody I knew preferred one thing, I said (having first convinced myself) that I preferred something else. This peculiar effort to seem "special" extended to almost everything.  When just about all the boys I knew, for instance, were especially looking forward to the next Hopalong Cassidy comic, I focused all my attention on waiting for the next Red Ryder.  On Sundays, a bunch of us used to take the half-hour or so between Sunday School and Church to make a quick trip to a drug store two blocks away for a "cold drink" (as we called a soda); when the fad was for everyone to order a cherry coke at the soda fountain, I had a vanilla coke instead.  And later, when everyone was using ballpoint pens, I always used the equally-new ink cartridge fountain pens.

But, as for candy: when we went to the movies - which cost at that time 7 cents for each child - of course a few of us would get a box of popcorn, but as I recall it now, most seemed to prefer candy.  Milk Duds were the most popular, as I think back, with Junior Mints as a back-up.  Some would get Dots, and everyone who did gave their licorice Dots to me (since no one else would eat licorice).  I think it was later when M & Ms showed up, to great acclaim...

But as for me, I always bought... Bit-O-Honey. 

I know I did that because no one else I knew would eat Bit-O-Honey at all.  It wasn't just that I wanted it all to myself either; I sincerely tried to convince the others they should share in my delight.  No, the real reason was I had to be different, didn't I?

At a candy counter, if someone bought a Baby-Ruth, I pointed out that I preferred Oh Henry but they were harder to find where we lived in the depths of Texas.  Get the point?

2

But my fondest memories of all those thoughts of childhood candy are focused on the one summer before junior high when almost everyday, I went with one friend of mine - a guy nick-named by his parents Dos in order to avoid calling him "Junior" - to the best swimming pool in town, one of the few that opened at 9 a.m. seven days a week even though many days we were the only ones there at that time besides the lifeguards.  Our Moms took turns driving us out to the pool around 10 and then picking us up at 11:30 or so in order for us to be home in time for lunch.

Ordinarily, especially in a public venue, both Dos and I were rather inhibited.  But something in that cold spring water seemed to liberate us, and every day we did cannonballs off the diving board, or tried flips (and sometimes flops) and other silly plunges and splashes, howling and cheering all the way.  What must have those cool, handsome, tanned and well-muscled, 16-year-old lifeguards have thought of us two lunatics?

Anyway, this went on - believe it or not - for over an hour, every day.  Ten or fifteen minutes before the designated mother was to pick us up, we would drag our shivering and exhausted selves up the beautiful green hill from the pool to the street level... and stop by the candy-vending machine.  Dos introduced me to a special treat: the white chocolate covered Zero bar.

Now, that was perfect!  No one I knew (other than Dos, of course) had even noticed the Zero bar before.  I had one most days, although I would sometimes vary the series with another unusual choice, which I introduced to Dos (who was unimpressed): the Payday bar, covered with peanuts without chocolate. 

What's that?  No chocolate coating?  How could anyone want that? I imagined my friends asking, as I crunched my Payday, waiting for one of our mothers.

3

Some kids liked the straightforward milk chocolate Hershey Bar; I didn't particularly.  Others wanted Snickers or either Almond Joy or Mounds; I liked the flat, semi-sweet chocolate Mars bar.  Some liked Milky Way; I preferred Three Musketeers.

I mentioned earlier that when someone expressed a preference for Baby Ruths, I claimed to prefer the Oh Henry bar.  That one I confess I knew was not true, but the contrarian habit on these delectable matters was too strong to break, apparently. 

I had an interesting experience with Oh Henry many years later in France.

I had met an eminent French university professor, who for some reason seemed to have taken a liking to me.  M. W----- was a well-known French scholar of modern American literature, and maybe he enjoyed hearing Americans talk as part of his cultural education.

Well, one day M. W----- called and asked me to drop by his office at the university.  It seemed to suit his imposing position that he sat on his side of the wide dark wood desk in a big cushioned arm chair while his visitor was left to perch uncomfortably on the edge of a little light-colored straight chair.  On this occasion, he gestured that I should lean forward so he could show me the papers he was working on.

It turns out that M. W----- was working on a translation of Cane, which I learned was a novel written in the 1920's by a Harlem Renaissance figure named Jean Toomer.  M. W----- asked me to read a particular paragraph, which was about a kid walking along a littered railroad track, apparently in an urban area.  Describing the trash stirring around in the breeze, Toomer mentioned an old Oh Henry wrapper.

M. W-----, naturally, knew O. Henry as a popular writer of short stories, like "The Gift of the Magi" and "The Furnished Room."  What an O. Henry wrapper could be, he just couldn't figure out.  I believe he was embarrassed to ask me, but of course he couldn't translate what he did not understand.

It actually took me a minute or two before I had figured out the somewhat elliptical syntax.  Then I explained to M. W----- what an Oh Henry candy bar was.  (No, he didn't say he preferred Baby Ruth!)  Once he got it, by the way, he quickly changed the subject, and speaking in English, he asked:  "And what in the world is 'near beer'?"  Even though M. W----- was a known connoisseur of wine, not beer like those Germans, he was still offended to think that Prohibition had made Americans reduce the natural alcohol content in any drink.

5

When folks visited Mother or Dad at home when I was young, they would be welcomed into the living-room and offered a "cold drink."  At a soda counter, that meant what we now call a soda.  But in a private home, it might mean iced tea (which we called "ice tea" as though it were frozen) or even iced water.  In the home refrigerator when I was growing up, there was usually a six-bottle carton of Dr. Pepper or now and then RC Cola, and sometimes when I was being pampered there would be my own choice, Orange Crush.

It was always hot enough to make us thirsty two or three times during the day.  At most once a day, maybe after supper, we could have a cola or an Orange Crush.  But most of the time, we just grabbed for the flat-sided bottle Mother always kept full of iced water.  Sometimes there was also a pitcher of ice tea, but we had to ask before swilling any of it down; it took a long time to brew up some tea and then cool it down to the right sipping  or gulping temperature.  We often had milk at meals, and iced water was always available.

Once in a great while, Dad would be a little later than usual arriving for lunch.  That would be because he had stopped at a stand along his usual route to and from work to pick up some hamburgers for us.  It was a local chain that he preferred (as all of us did).  There must have been five or six scattered around the town.  There just weren't any national chain restaurants in my hometown, especially not for just hamburgers.  And these places weren't really restaurants either.  You went up to a little window and told the man or woman what you wanted, and after a few minutes, a brown paper bag would come out the window, and you paid and went away.  There was no indoor seating, only - sometimes - one or two wooden picnic tables jammed up against the outside wall of the stand.  The best one, where Dad stopped on the way home, was called Somewhere, serving Someburgers.

A hamburger anywhere in my hometown included lettuce, tomato, pickles, mustard and mayonnaise, and - unless you said otherwise - a big slice of onion.  The Someburger was a little bigger than the average and had more pepper on it than most.  Boy, would I like one now.

Were these fast-food stands? Well, you didn't have to wait very long, I guess.  But the kind of stand that served real cheap little patties on buns with ketchup, mustard, and pickle (onions? I guess so, chopped up real fine) did not appear at home until I was about ready to graduate from high school, and that place too was entirely local and was called 2-K's after the husband wife owners.

My family did not go out to eat very often, except after church on Sundays.  Then, we would usually go to this particular coffee-shop like, sit-down restaurant that was famous for its home-cooked fried chicken.  They always served biscuits and clover honey from Waxahachie, Texas, 100 miles or more to the north.

There was no pretending I preferred anything besides these family favorites, but on really hot nights when Dad would take us to that special (local) place where you could get an ice cream cone right in your car, when everybody else had chocolate or strawberry, or maybe peach, I would always get lime sherbet.

6

And then, what about the over-the-counter medicines we always seemed to have around?

My parents seemed to get what they called "sinus headaches" often.  They always had aspirin around, particularly Bayer in the little tins or St. Joseph in the same-sized cardboard containers.  But the pain-reliever of choice in the Derrick household became, and stayed, Anacin.  For years the ads for Anacin stressed that Anacin had two, not one but two active ingredients.  I don't think we figured it out that taking a regular aspirin and drinking a cup of coffee would have the same result, since the special ingredient was caffeine.  (It worked too.)

My Mother always liked to have diet control handy.  I don't think I ever chewed on an Ayds, as advertised by Arthur Godfrey (between Lipton tea ads), but that became another standard in our house.  Vaseline, of course, was always on hand.  For those skinned knees and other little scrapes, Mercurachrome was always around, since we didn't know at that time that mercury posed a health threat.  I also remember once in a while Dad's applying a bright purple fluid to splits in the skin between his toes (a typical problem in hot, humid climates).

We must have had cough drops around too, but I don't remember the favorites.  I did have a memorable experience in high school, though.  I had gone all the way through junior high with this one big guy.  He was a starting lineman on the football team, which by our junior year in high school (in Texas) was a big deal.  He was generally considered a nice person, but I didn't know him well and was a little intimidated by him.

Well, we had one class together, probably the required Texas History.  R--- sat right in front of me, so that the size of that huge frame was obvious to me all the time.  One day during class I had one of those nagging coughs.  I just couldn't get it under control.  After 15 or 20 minutes, when our teacher turned around to the chalkboard, R--- turned around to me and said, "These things really work" as he handed over a little box of something I'd never seen before: Throat Disks.

I didn't hesitate to pop one of these flat, little brown disks into my mouth, but immediately wondered if I'd made a mistake.  Could Mr. Nice-Guy R--- be playing a little trick on me?  The Throat Disk had a sharp odor and taste that moved right up my nose.  (I knew years later that one of the active ingredients was chloroform!)  The taste itself was kind of good, but utterly new.  Was I going to be the laughing stock of school by the end of that hour?

Before I got through wondering if I had been tricked, though, the cough was gone.  And it didn't come back.  R--- started moving to the door after class, but I got to him, thanked him, and noted that the Throat Disks had stopped my cough once and for all.  He just treated this whole thing as just normal, it would seem.

7

Unguentine, remember that?  In our house we usually had some around in case of little burns... What caused burns?  I don't remember, but we had some; I remember that.  I also don't remember why we sometimes had Absorbine Junior on hand.  Campho-Phenique was always in the medicine cabinet, primarily to treat my many fever blisters.  Benedryl was the typical prescription medicine to address my perpetual allergy problems.

And... oh, I hate to remember it.   Mother kept in the refrigerator a little bottle of Cod Liver Oil; what was that for anyway?  We kids did hate to take that stuff.

It's surprising to discover now that looking back on all of those things - the smelly or foul-tasting medicines right along with the burgers, soft drinks, and candy - is all equally pleasant.

And oh, by the way, when there was the big argument among my friends about which was better, Spearmint or Doublemint?  My own choice of chewing gum ... was Clove.

***

Liberal, Libertarian, Libertine: and Freedom (essay)

***

1.  Liberal

In many political and historical discussions, one finds talk of Liberalism. The word liberal, referring to a thing (like a "liberal policy" or a "liberal opinion") or to a person,  comes from the Latin word meaning free, just as the word "liberty" comes from the Latin for "freedom." Thus, a liberal policy is a policy growing from an emphasis on freedom, and a liberal person is one who values liberty or freedom.

Since the suffix -ism means a belief in what comes before the -ism, Liberalism means a belief in the high value of freedom. To use the term liberal without understanding this fact is to demonstrate one's ignorance (which of course, we don't like to do).

For more than 400 years, the cultures of the world have been in the process of becoming more and more liberal. Countries have become independent (or "free") of colonial rule by other countries. Individuals have tended to become less imprisoned in the social status of their parents (or "freer" from the strictures of inherited social class).  Economies have generally moved in the direction of less government control (shaped more by the "free" market than by the nobility or by tyrants).

When the United States won its independence from Great Britain in 1781, it achieved all three liberal goals at once.  The United States became a free country.  Compared to people in most parts of the world, individuals in the 18th-century United States were free to rise in socio-economic status if they had the ability, luck, and drive to do so.  And the United States economy had already become more controlled by free market forces than the economies of the rest of the world. 

For the United States, from the beginning, was a liberal country, committed to "liberty...for all," as Francis Bellamy later wrote.  From what our politicians say, it would appear that we are still committed to "liberty for all" and thus remain a liberal country.

2.  Libertarian

A more modern term, a libertarian is a person so committed to freedom of the individual that he or she may advocate no social restraint whatsoever on the individual's behavior.  As a result, libertarian principles from the 19th century have been compared with those of anarchism, a belief in the value of a state in which no one is ruled by any group or by any other individual.  No one, it would seem, could oppose tyranny or a ruling class more than a libertarian. 

Libertarianism is, therefore,  an extreme form of liberalism.  In other words, a libertarian is a liberal who prefers complete freedom from any form or degree at all  of social order.

3.  Libertine

A libertine, which is usually a term of contempt, feels "free" of moral restraints.  A libertine pursues a life of gratification of every whim, free of conscience when his or her actions cause others pain or when they exceed normal social or moral standards.  A libertine feels free of tradition, free of social considerations, free of moral or ethical standards, free of consideration of others or of future consequences of her or his present behaviors.  (Historically, by the way, libertines have usually been aristocrats, "free" also of the need to work for their living.)

A libertine has no interest outside the field of his or her immediate pleasures, and so, unlike Liberalism or Libertarianism, "Libertinism" - if there were such a term - does not have any political relevance.

Yet, for the libertine as for the liberal or the libertarian, freedom is highly prized.

4.  Liberal vs. Conservative

a. 

In public discourse today, conservatism is said to contrast and oppose liberalism to an extreme degree.  One would think that a conservative sees little or no value in what a liberal considers of the highest value and vice versa.  To what extent is that true?

The term conservative may be used either as an adjective (as in "a conservative tendency") or as a noun (referring to a person with "conservative" values).  Like "liberal" (and so many other English words), "conservative" comes from the Latin, meaning to keep intact or to guard.

A conservative person, as one would therefore think, wants to keep social order, to maintain or restore traditions, and to protect established customs and practices.

b.

In any society there is indeed a tension between the individual and his or her surrounding social institutions. Sometimes and in some ways, the importance of individual freedom within the society is emphasized, and at other times or in other ways, the importance of social order is emphasized.  Most of us, of course, consider social order and individual freedom both as good things.  Since they are in tension within our culture, as individual citizens as well as a body politic we struggle to find the right balance between the value of the individual's freedom and the value of the social order.

As we have seen, liberals tend to value individual freedom more than conservatives, and conservatives tend to place a higher value than liberals do on maintaining traditional standards and social order. 

c.
However, both liberals and conservatives - like most of us - recognize the need for laws and enforcement officers when public safety is endangered or private property is damaged or stolen.  In this way, both agree that in certain instances the good of society should be emphasized over the freedom of the individual.  (A libertine, as we have seen, would not agree.)   On the other hand, both conservatives and liberals also agree that individuals have civil rights, protected by the supreme law of the land, the U. S. Constitution.  Where is the proper balance between the needs of the social order and the rights of the individual?  A conservative would generally place the balance point closer to the side of tradition and social order, while the liberal would tend to place the balance point closer to the side of the individual and free choice.


When a conservative, for example, feels a particular type of individual act is immoral, he or she often wants to prohibit all the individuals in our country - even those with opposite views about the morality of the act - from taking that action. 

When a liberal, on the other hand, learns of an effort to limit the freedom of an individual to determine her or his own actions, perhaps in order to safeguard moral or political or social interests, the liberal often resists.

Conservatives and liberals, therefore,  agree (or profess to do so) on some basic principles about opposing "good's," the individual or society.  A conservative perspective, then, is indeed distinguishable from a liberal perspective,  but except for extremists both groups seek what seems to them to be the right balance between the two positive goods for  the issue at hand and for the time.

5.  Freedom and Poverty-Ignorance-Discrimination

A current governor was recently heard boasting about all the benefits of living in his state rather than in another state in the same region.  In his state, he claimed, citizens enjoy low taxes, limited government, a large number of religious institutions, no estate tax ("None!  Zero!" he said), and - despite the global recession - a strong economy with low unemployment.

The governor's interviewer cited a recent article listing less positive features of this state, including the highest rate in the nation of school drop-outs, the largest proportion of the population lacking health insurance, relatively polluted air and water, an above-average crime rate, and a large percentage of the population living below "the poverty line."

"Sure, we have our challenges," the governor acknowledged, "but we have our freedom!"

Liberals and conservatives should be able to agree that an uneducated, poor,  ill and unsafe individual  whose mother and father were also poor and who now  lives in a crime infested environment - whatever else he or she might be - is not free.  It would appear that in this particular governor's state, the preferred "balance" between the value of individual freedom and the good of the social order has reached an extreme position on the society side of the spectrum.

The uneducated, unskilled, perhaps illiterate individual is not free to take a decent-paying or long-term job, even if he or she can find employment of some kind.  A poor individual is not free to live in a safe and pleasant neighborhood, and may not have a home of any sort.  A sick person without insurance is not free to take good care of herself or himself.  Such an individual's freedom is, at the very least, severely limited.  A state or a nation with a significant proportion of poorly educated, poverty-stricken, and insecure citizens would not seem to value freedom, except of the wealthy few.

Seeking limited government and low taxes may support the "freedom" of the lucky, the rich, and the powerful, but it also contributes to the virtual imprisonment of the majority.

6.  The Greater Good

It is a curious thing that the libertarian and the conservative today seem allied against the liberal.  Libertarians, as this label implies, claim to value freedom just as the governor of the state discussed above seems to do.  How can those who wish to imprison in ignorance and poverty many, perhaps the majority of their fellow citizens, how can they claim to value "liberty"?

All rulers, whether monarchs or other kinds of tyrant (like those today in North Korea and Myanmar), must have felt they were free to do whatever they decided to do.  Using the "royal we," such a ruler might even have said, "Though we have some challenges, we have our freedom!"  However, our perception today is that everyone else in those regimes was far from free: they had no "liberty" whatsoever, even though the social order may have been robustly fixed and protected. 

The question, then, about conservatives who claim they are champions of freedom is, "Whom do they want to be free?"  Libertines value only their own personal freedom to do as they please.  Libertarians certainly value their own freedom, but also seem to think it would be good for everyone else to be free too, although how that could come about is unclear.  Everyone with enough money, as produced by the current social order, which is dominated by rich global corporations, are those who conservatives seem to want to be free.  Liberals, unlike libertines or libertarians, or even some conservatives, claim to be working to bring a significant degree of freedom to everyone (except perhaps to criminals who threaten both individuals and society). 

The socially difficult issue of where the right balance is between the good of the individual and the good of society is exacerbated today by the morally difficult question as to whom a significant degree of freedom should be extended. 

***

Reminiscence: Off to Grad School

***

1

When I entered a large Midwestern university in 1960, I was convinced I wouldn’t go on to Graduate School. My father had an advanced degree and I respected him very much, but I wasn’t going down that path. I was going to be a writer, an ambition I didn’t really give up until much later.

I said to myself – and probably to a few close friends – that after college, I was going to live and work in New York City. That was the place for me, and if I had to work as a dishwasher in order to follow my dream, well, that’s what I would do. (Even at 18 it never occurred to me that I would ever find myself unable to get a job, and I never really believed my job would be unskilled labor… but I was ready, if it came to that.)

2

I did well in college. I liked learning all that stuff. Studying for Final Exams was actually one of my favorite parts! But even as I moved along in my senior year, I remained convinced that graduate school was not in my future. I was going to find a simple job – maybe in NYC, maybe not – and do my real work, writing, on the side… if I had to.

But as the Honors Seminar in my major moved into the Spring semester – okay, it was English – as all my Honor colleagues talked about their graduate school ambitions, it began to dawn on me that if I could get paid for it, doing graduate work would be less demanding than many other jobs, and I could still do my writing on the side. (This incidentally later turned out to be true.)

There were two good options for earning a living in graduate school (working full-time and going to grad school on the side, of course, which was not a good option since I would have no time to write). I could support myself and write on the side if I could get a fellowship that provided tuition, room, and board, or, less attractively, I could make it work if I could be hired as a graduate teaching assistant.

Everyone seemed to think I could basically write my own ticket, the really hard part being choosing where to apply. After all, I was going to graduate with honors, Phi Beta Kappa, with a Certificate of Merit, and Summa Cum Laude… Why worry?

So I applied for full fellowships at Harvard and Yale in English, at UCLA and USC in Cinematography (since I had been a film buff for years and wanted a creative career after all), at my own university for a full fellowship in Comparative Literature (since I had completed my junior year in Paris), and – in case all else failed – as an English teaching assistant at the Texas university where my Dad had taught (not English) for many years. Dad had said that the English Department hired a slew of TAs since the required two freshman composition courses were taught entirely by graduate students.

If my faculty advisors – I had gathered three or four by this time – expressed any interest in what I was hoping to do, none of them questioned my approach at all. I sent in all the required application materials, on time, and waited to see which among my offers would be the most attractive.

3

The grad school application deadline passed, and the results began to come in. I wasn’t even accepted into graduate school at Yale or Harvard. They apparently already had enough students from the Midwest. UCLA said it was doubtful they would have a fellowship available that year, and – as a new and relatively small department - they did not hire graduate assistants. USC actually offered me a fellowship worth a lot of money, but it only covered tuition. A big surprise was that my Dad’s university was suffering significant financial difficulties, and the English Department would be fortunate if they could keep employed the TAs they already had on the payroll who were only part-way through their graduate programs.

All my friends in the Honors Seminar, not knowing I had applied for the Comparative Literature fellowship, were dumbfounded to learn that a young woman whom we all regarded as fourth or fifth out of the twelve of us – in knowledge, insight, self-confidence, and creativity – had applied for and received the Comp Lit award.

When I asked one of my advisors if he knew why she had been selected instead of… well, I don’t know… me, he said, “Well, everyone knows that you’re going to California to study cinematography.”

4

Now that I had begun thinking that grad school was a better option for me than washing dishes in New York City, it was looking like dish-washing was my only possible career path!

When I sought advice from another faculty member, he said I should write all the big state universities I could think of, explain the situation, and see if they would offer me a TAship despite its being past the application deadlne. At my own university, they had awarded all the TAships they expected to have but my name would go on their back-up list in case...

I spent days and nights typing letters and resumes on my little Royal portable. I eventually sent out over thirty late applications. The Department Chair at the University of Illinois actually called to express his sympathy for the pickle I was in and to say they too had awarded all the positions they could afford in April, so long before they knew the size of the entering freshman class. But he went on to say that every year, they added a few TAs after freshman registration, so he was confident something would come along for me even though he couldn’t absolutely guarantee it. I really appreciated the straight talk, and I know now that it’s a near sure-thing that I could have gone ahead as though I had actually been hired.

One by one, these big universities wrote more or less the same thing: they couldn’t hire me yet but almost always had open positions at the last minute. Could they enroll me as a grad student now, hoping for the best?

5

As I mulled over my uncertain options, one of my Honor Seminar colleagues came into class one day and said he had a dilemma and wondered what the rest of us would advise him to do. F----- explained that he had been offered a graduate teaching assistantship at a fairly large private university in the Northeast, and he had also been offered a full fellowship in Humanities at the University of Chicago. He was actually undecided which offer to accept, perhaps because he was originally from the Northeast. Anyway, seeing how unanimous and animated our advice to him had been, he announced at the end of that day’s class that he was going to accept the Chicago offer.

Here was my chance! I asked F----- not to respond to the private university in the Northeast for three days, and I went right home and wrote to the Department Chair saying, “My friend F---- is going to turn down your generous offer of an assistantship… Why don’t you hire me instead?"

It seemed like it was by return mail that Dr. E----- sent me a contract. In the Fall when I arrived and went by to thank him, he seemed glad to see me and mentioned that they had never received one of the several recommendations for me that they needed. When I said that without delay I would call the professor in question – could it be the one who told me I was going to California? – Dr. E----- - whom I had never met before - said: “Oh, don’t worry. I wrote you a recommendation myself!”

[to be continued]

***

Media Coverage and Elections

***

1

In a democracy, what is the responsibility of the public media in relation to elections?

During the run-up to the mid-term elections earlier this month, it would seem that the media all thought their responsibility was to tell us who was going to win. Partisan and biased media (the majority of our national media, unfortunately) emphasized the disadvantages of the other side and, occasionally, the advantages of their side. They quoted, edited and broadcast, and summarized – unfairly – what the candidates said.

Because they were biased, the media routinely claimed that what their candidates said was true, and what the other candidates said was untrue … was, in fact, often laughable. They also scoffed at the criticisms of their own candidates from the other side and from the other side’s biased media. Some or many of the most powerful partisan public affairs media are large and powerful corporations, a fact that was not acknowledged even when corporate power was identified as an issue in the election by one or more candidates.

On the other hand, explicitly or implicitly the apparently less partisan and less biased media nonetheless called attention to the potentially baseless claims of the partisans and usually attempted to inform the public accurately and truthfully, based on facts (such as polls and more or less fair summaries of candidates’ statements) about who was leading and who was falling behind, and by how much, and even tried to analyze why that was so.

The candidates were identified, as well as the election dates and the particular offices for which they were running (senator from Arizona, governor of Louisiana, etc.). That’s the Who and What of the story, the Where and the When, and even the Why. Good journalism, right from the textbook, right?

Well, no. That might have been true if the real story, the one that in a democracy matters, had been an answer to the question, Who is going to win the election?

But the fact of the matter is that the question the media has the responsibility to try to answer - truthfully, factually, and honestly - about any democratic election is not Who will win? The key question is What is at stake for the public?

2

To inform the public about what is at stake for them in an election, the media must strive to report accurately and without distortion what the candidates claim is at stake (as they would probably claim they did in this last election campaign). AND, critically, they must go on to state as completely and as impartially as possible – even when their corporate owners’ and sponsors’ interests are in play – how factual these candidates’ claims really are. And they must inform the public of the short-term and – especially – the long-term consequences that would result from implementing each candidate’s position on the facts and on relevant policies.

It may be worth the media’s mentioning secondarily who appears to be leading in each race, but that is FAR from the most significant story.

3

Why is it so important in a democracy for the media to inform the public not so much about who will win the election and the likely political consequences of that result, but primarily about what is at stake in the election?

Citizens who do not have a comprehensive understanding, based on facts rather than competing assertions, cannot vote responsibly. They will not be able to gauge what is at stake for themselves individually, short-term and long-term, or what is at stake for the country as a whole. They will be vulnerable to manipulation by others and to their own inherent prejudices.

Thus, the media’s concentration on “Who will win” rather than on “What’s at stake for the public” subverts the value of democracy itself.

4

Why do so-called news media today emphasize Who’s leading and trailing in elections rather than in what matters most, What is at stake for voters?

There are quite a few interrelated reasons, none of them compelling:

a.
The current media in America see their primary responsibility as serving their corporate owners, rather than serving the public.

Until recently, public media – like other businesses - used to be confident that serving the public was the surest way, in the long run, to serve corporate interests. If you in truth had a better product for sale or provided a better service, consumers would choose you over your competitors, thus making money for your owners (or stockholders). This was well known to be the surest way for your business to succeed, and keep on succeeding long-term.

Today, it seems, public media – like all businesses – are focused on making the biggest profits possible, right now, even if they do not in truth offer the best products or services possible but are only able to make people buy their goods and services with appeals to their vanity, their lust or greed, and their desire for instant gratification, rather than their long-term best interests in fact.

b.
It requires less time, effort, experience, and knowledge - not to mention courage – for public media to merely pass along claims of others about what’s at stake for our futures, rather than putting their own reputations on the line in an effort to inform us themselves about the significant facts and long-term consequences.

For a newspaper, blog, magazine, or broadcast to meet its obligations to the public in dealing with elections, reporting what the relevant facts are, it must stand behind what it reports. If such media discover that something they have passed along – either from their own staff or from others – is inaccurate, they have a responsibility to make a public correction. This takes both integrity and courage.

Trying to be a source not of competing viewpoints but of accurate information without which voters cannot make responsible decisions is a significant commitment, and a public media outlet must invest not only in skilled writers and reporters but also in researchers and investigators, rather than in merely popular public performers.

A big corporation – even a public media corporation – whose primary goal is to make its owners a fast profit is not likely to make that necessary investment.

c.
Contemporary American media is afraid of alienating those who are biased and seek only reinforcement of their already-fixed worldview.

Thus, the public media ignore their journalistic responsibility to challenge previously held convictions in order to correct misapprehensions and dispel false claims because, seeking immediate reward, they want to please the largest audience possible, every day.

d.
The main efforts of the public media today are designed to titillate, enflame, and/or to entertain their audience, rather than to inform the public.

For an entertainment program, such designs are of course appropriate and necessary. Corporate media managers invest heavily in achieving their goal of providing much sought-after emotional stimulation. It matters little if their results in their audiences are temporary and superficial rather than deep and long-lasting.

But for a news program, whose purpose is supposed to inform (no matter what emotions the facts reported may provoke), such designs are far less important.

e.
In order to make it easier to achieve their goal of providing entertainment, today's media in America has chosen to treat all events – even those with the potential to make history – as though they were athletic contests.

Sports programming stimulates the emotions desired: hope for victory, fear of defeat, suspense and surprise, camaderie, and general excitement. Sports as an industry is highly profitable for this reason.

If a news program’s goal in reporting about elections is primarily to provoke vivid emotions, then we should not be surprised to see that news programming today seems more and more like a sports report. One feature of a sporting event, however, is that the outcome of a sports contest does not matter for the general public in any meaningful sense. It is a game after all.

No matter what else it is, a public election is not merely a game, although it seems to be possible to make it seem that way.

and

f.
Informing the public not only about competing opinions of others but also about facts of long-term importance (as determined by the media outlet itself) is often seen today as contrary to large corporations’ best interests, including the interests of the big corporations that own most of the largest media outlets.

For example, if a candidate or many candidates’ party is determined – schooled by the “too big to fail” predicament – to limit the size of any one corporation (as Theodore Roosevelt once wanted), it would not be in a media corporation’s own self-interest to make those candidates or that party look attractive or to report on the basis there may be in actual fact supporting these would-be reformers’ position.

Or if a candidate wanted to make it clear by formal legal action that corporations are not individual people and therefore rights guaranteed to individuals – such as free speech – are not guaranteed to them (corporations), it would be in the best interests of a large media corporation to make that candidate less attractive than she or he might seem based on the relevant facts.

5

For all these reasons, it is difficult for large media outlets to focus their reports on what’s at stake in an election really, truly, and accurately, taking upon themselves responsibility for the facts they report.

***

Story: Tough Going

***

1

And she died. Their trusted employee, their neighbor, their friend, their mother… She was taken from them.

She was thirty-nine. She was buried after a short ceremony in a beautiful, large cemetery outside the city to the northwest. Now it is called “historic,” but then it was considered new. Her headstone said, "Sarah Decker Davis, 1879-1918." There'd been many burials about that time period, especially just before. So many died then…

Sarah (or Sallie) Williamson had been born in Charleston, South Carolina. Her father was a ship’s carpenter from Sweden, who died unexpectedly in 1896 when Sallie was seventeen. Sallie’s mother Betty Lee had married a man named John Newburg just after the Civil War. He had died ten years later, just after their son James was born.

A year or so after her first husband's death, Betty married again, and three years after that, Sallie was born. Altogether, Betty and Erik Williamson had three daughters. One of them died only five months after she was born, her death record in the Charleston cemetery not even listing a name for her.

Life was tenuous and fragile, especially back then in the mid-to-late nineteenth century.

In 1900 Sallie herself married Wallace N. Decker, a ruler for one of the larger Charleston printing businesses. They lived with "Mama Betty" and Sallie’s younger sister Winnie. In 1902 their first son, Newton (“Newt” for short) was born, and Winnie moved to a rooming house near the millinery shop where she worked. A year later, Winnie too died, carried off by a sudden fever.

3

My dear Wallace,

We are all so sad. Mother cannot stop crying. Even little Newt seems to miss his dear auntie. It happened so fast. Mother was called to her bedside late in the afternoon Thursday, and by Friday evening little Winnie was gone.

She was always quiet and sweet, just as I’m sure you remember her. She would have made a good wife and mother -- I can’t bear to think she will never have that chance. And I will never again share a bed with her, or hold her dear little hand. I wish you were here to hold me close.

Mother says we have to “keep a-goin” is how she says it.

I miss you but I hope you find what you are looking for out there in Dallas. Thank you for writing now and then. I know it’s hard to find the time. Is it still very hot? Please, please take good care of yourself and don’t work too hard for Mr. Isaacs.

Your loving Wife,

Sallie

P.S. Do you still think you’ll come home for a while in the Fall? At least we have the trains now. SWD

*

Dear Sallie

I am very sorry about Winnie. I will always remember those days when we were first married. We didn’t have much room, did we, there in your mother’s house? But your Mama Betty and young Winnie accepted me into the family, which made it all right.

I hope Betty is getting along better by now. Having lost two husbands and now her beloved little girl – as she always called Winnie – is just too much.

And little Newt, is he well and happy? I know you like working in that shop, just like Minnie liked calling herself a milliner, but I wish you could have more time with him. Not that Mama Betty doesn’t love him about as much as you and me!

Anyway, yes, I will get a week off in November, unless there’s too much work for Mr. Isaacs to do without me at that time.

Hope you and Betty are as well as possible.

Love,

Your husband

*

“I don’t mind working,” he said to himself, mailing the letter at the downtown Post Office. “I like the print shop. But when the day’s over and on the weekends… well, a fellow should be able to have a little fun. You need some life, some excitement,” he was thinking as he headed down to the river bank to sit a while in the shade. Maybe there would be a little breeze. “Gosh, it’s hot in the sun,” he was thinking.

Sallie was a great partner, he had to admit, smart and a good talker, pretty too in her way. “But with her mother and her, it’s all work. When it’s not the job, it’s straightening up the house, doing the washing, discussing how much can we afford for food this week …and all that.”

He spotted a live oak on the slope near the water with a ring of shade underneath.

“Now, Molly’s mom and dad aren’t like that," he said to himself, thinking of his new Dallas friends, the Corcoran family. "Why didn’t we meet in Carolina? That new Victrola thing is really something, isn’t it? I’ll even know how to dance a little in a while. What would Sallie say to that?”

But he knew she would say they had to save their money. “It’s too bad about Winnie, though. I should have been there…”

4

A hundred years later, his grandson Byron, as an old man, tried to imagine what it had been like for his grandfather Wallace Decker in those days. Why had he left his wife and family in Charleston to look for work way out in Dallas anyway? Was he already restless? Looking for something new? Or were the opportunities in old Charleston really that limited? Or had he already been in some kind of trouble?

It didn’t seem right in the first place for him to have left his one-year-old son (odd-ball “Uncle Newt”) back in Charleston. Then before six months had passed, Wallace had started cheating on Sallie with a mere girl out in Dallas. No, not right.

Byron remembered sitting on the living room couch twenty years ago with his Dad, Evan Decker - Sallie’s last surviving child - when he first saw the old letters that showed how much Evan's father Wallace had failed to live up to the common decencies that Byron knew his Dad himself had always considered so important. Evan Decker rarely showed emotion, even to Byron his only son. At that moment, though, it was obvious how bad he felt.

5

Dearie

Last night was the best night of my life. I’ll never forget it. I wish you could come back tonight but we have to go to a supper at the church.

I hope you can think of another excuse for us to go off alone.

I love you!

Molly

*

My Dearest Husband Wallace

We are all looking forward to having you back with us again soon, at least for a little while. It’s mostly me of course who is eager to see you again. I wish we could meet you at the station but of course we can’t be sure when your train will arrive.

Mr. Wood the printer was going by this morning and looked in to say Hello. “How’s Wally?” he said. It sounded so funny, him calling you that. Did the other men at work call you that? Does Mr. Isaacs?

I guess I’d better help Mama get supper. I think about you all the time. I hope you make all your train connections all right, without too many delays.

Your Loving Sallie

6

By the time he reached Atlanta at the end of what was scheduled to be a three-day journey, he was running six hours late. But all that meant was that he had only an hour or so to spend in the station. He sought out the shoe shine stand. He knew Sallie would have preferred to do that for him, but he paid the 25 cents anyway. He wanted to look respectable… and to have people treat him like a somebody. Altogether, after all, he still had almost $11.00 to give to Sallie and her mother.

He had dinner with the Corcorans – and Molly, of course – once or twice a week now. They wouldn’t hear of his pitching in… so he'd been able to save up.

He realized he was looking forward to seeing Sallie and little Newt more and more as the time and the miles went by. It surprised him a little that he felt that way. And they would be coming out to join him in Texas before too long, wouldn’t they? Betty would be pressing him to find them somewhere to stay, Sallie would say somewhere near the shops where she could find work.

He paid the colored boy for the shine. “Yassir, sir. Yassir,” he said bouncing his head down each time.

“That’s all right, boy,” he nodded as he strode through the lobby. Maybe he’d pick up a little flower for his lapel when they pulled in at the Charleston station.

*

For her part, to be honest, Sallie didn’t seem to have time to think about anything. She found herself thinking about her baby all the while as she was working. And that naturally involved her mother Betty in her thoughts. But until the last couple of days, she didn’t find herself thinking much at all about Wallace out there in Texas. And now she couldn’t think of much else.She and her mother Betty were busy cleaning and straightening things up in the house. They had decided to move the baby’s crib into Mama Betty’s room the morning of the day Wallace would return. Gosh, if he didn’t get in that day after all, she didn’t know if she could stand it!

7

Later, in their little Dallas apartment, little Newt was beginning to talk pretty well even though he was barely two. Like Sallie, Betty remembered. “Gramma,” he said now pulling at her skirt as he stood there a little unsteadily. “Gramma, why Mommy cry?”

Sallie didn’t seem to be able to stop weeping the last couple of days. Even while she was nursing the new baby, as she was doing now, she couldn’t stop. Why had they named him 'Evan'? she wondered. Well, at least it wasn’t Wallace junior. They would have to go to a judge now, she thought, if they had, and change it.

“Gramma,” the toddler insisted.

“She’ll be fine,” Betty said leaning over to hug him and stroke the back of his head. “You’ll see.” She knew Sallie was strong-willed. She’d keep a-goin’ as she had said when Winnie died. That damned bastard had given that young tart a child a full month before he visited them in Charleston that one time. Little Evan was on the way when he left. That’s what hurt the most. They would never have had to leave her house in Charleston! Her anger rose up into her throat and her face felt hot, but she heard Sallie coming out of her bedroom and turned back to the stove.

“How is the little one getting on?” she asked.

8

The judge granting the divorce said it was customary for divorcees to be prohibited from remarrying for a year. Wallace knew Mr. Corcoran, Molly's dad, wouldn’t like that. He’d show the old man the divorce papers when he got them, rather than telling them now. After all, how could he remember details at a time like that?

He and Molly would get married all right, first thing they could. He’d start now taking care of the baby and Molly, since he was out of Sallie’s life altogether. It'd be wrong not to, wouldn't it? He wasn't that kind of a man, was he? Maybe she could go to Ft. Worth to have the baby. No one would have to know. He felt another thrust of regret, was it shame? Think about Molly, he told himself.

Could they name Molly's baby “Wallace junior”? he wondered.

9

Well, at least Wallace and that low-life girl had left Dallas by then, two years after the divorce. They had eloped to Ft. Worth, it said in the newspaper at the time, and now they had gone off somewhere North. Her mother and the boys were doing okay. She had a pretty good job in that big store downtown. She could even walk to work each morning.

She was on her way now, in fact, striding purposefully through the heat and damp air. They could start rebuilding their life together. She could count on Mama, couldn’t she? They had a decent, affordable apartment on Plum Street. The boys could help out in a few years… Lots of boys had part-time work by the time they were six. She'd talk with Marybeth next time she stopped in at the ladies’ garments. Marybeth worked at the Evening News. They had boys… Newt would be six next year.

Soon, she told herself, I won’t worry about running into that Wallace out here on the street. Thinking of his name made her burn...

10

Mama Betty knew everyone. When she told you that family who lived in the modest, well-kept house across Plum Street was a good family, and the father owned a good business, you could count on that. Somebody in the rooming house would know. Sometimes, when Sallie was walking by the house on her way to work, a young man would nod to her as he came out of the house. After a while he started saying,“Good morning.” She nodded, and later she smiled a little.

Eventually he introduced himself. Jack Davis was his name (as Betty had said before). His father Abe Davis ran a well-known tool and die shop down by the railroad line, four blocks away. Sallie wondered if that was where Jack was headed, even though she had to walk almost in the opposite direction and he accompanied her most of the way.

This was four years after that bum Wallace had walked out. She didn’t think of him much nowadays, and never wondered anymore if she might run into him on the streets. She started to wonder, though, if she might run into Jack Davis.

He liked children, he said. And in a year, Sallie became Mrs. Sallie (Sarah, actually) Decker Davis. At Sallie’s request, after the ceremony in Ft. Worth, he moved in with Betty and the boys, there on Plum Street across from his dad's house.

11

By the time Newt was eight and Evan almost five, a year after they had gotten a new Daddy, they were already becoming the best team of newsboys in downtown Dallas. Evan had the spot outside the door where his Mom Sallie worked, but he didn’t pay any attention. He liked calling out, “Paper. Get your paper here!” and exchanging a few words with the men in the suits who gave him a coin or two when he offered them a paper. He put the Evening News’s money in the canvas belt they'd issued to him, and he put his own tips in his pants pocket. Newt had always done it that way, so Evan did too.

The wagon brought the boys one edition of the paper at noon. Newt called it “the bulldog.” Then around four o'clock, the next edition was delivered. The boys spent the time in-between in the grand public library down the street. Newt, Evan marveled, could shout out the words in the big print, although sometimes he forgot and said the Bulldog words instead of the later-edition ones. Not often, Evan admitted to himself, but he could still tease his big brother, couldn’t he?

In the library Evan mainly spent his time looking at the pictures in the children’s section. He made up stories to fit the pictures. Sometimes, quietly over in a deserted corner, Newt would read one of those books to Evan. He didn’t know all the words but he did pretty well.

Newt got to go to school in the mornings. Evan stayed with Gramma until 11:30.

Mom would walk home with them around six-thirty, and after supper they would compare the money in their pants pockets. Newt always had a lot more.

12

I’m sorry, Gramma Betty said to herself as she swept up, but that man Jack's going downhill. It’s Sallie’s lookout but it affects us all. The boys see it, I know. They look so glum now when they come in for supper. They used to be teasing each other and laughing, so glad to be home. They would run over to their Gramma and give her a big hug.

Now, especially when their Mom was with them, so tired from being on her feet all day, everyone was quiet, not so affectionate anymore.

And that Davis man was the reason. Gramma Betty thought he might have started drinking.

Four years after the wedding, over there in Ft. Worth, it had really gotten bad. Jack Davis quarreled with the boys all the time, over things that didn’t matter, like where they left their jackets, or their books. Sallie tried to defend them. Betty herself pitched in. But he was getting worse, not better. Was he drinking while he was out?

It was good when he was away – they could be a real family again – but when he came back, he always seemed to be looking for a fight. It seemed as though Sallie was not getting the invitation to go across the street with her in-laws as often as before either. When Betty would ask about them, Davis didn’t seem interested.

Maybe the elder Davises were having trouble with him too, and they didn’t want to spend much time together. That was another bad sign.

The arguments with Sallie got worse. Everyone – Gramma Betty, both boys – everyone could hear them quarreling in their bedroom. Almost every night. How could anyone get relaxed enough for bed with that going on? It hurt the boys most of all.

Finally, he hit Sallie. She ordered him out and threw his jacket and hat down the stairs. Betty packed up his things the next morning and took them over to his mother. Old Mrs. Davis wasn’t angry. She didn’t look happy, of course. Who would?

The divorce papers – six years after the marriage – granted Sallie Decker Davis's petition, on the grounds of “cruel treatment.”

By the time Newt was fifteen and Evan thirteen, three years after that bad Daddy Jack Davis had moved back in with his parents, their beloved Gramma passed away. She hadn’t been herself in the last year or so, gradually losing her short-term memory. She'd remained the same tough and loving Mama and Gramma she’d always been. But by the end she could not recall the boys’ names, and she didn’t know exactly who Sallie was. A sister maybe…?

Afterwards, Sallie had bought a little house on Royal Circle in a different part of town, and she got work in a real fancy department store only five or six blocks away. The boys kept their afternoon newspaper sales territories. One of the ladies at the Evening Edition, Marybeth, kind of looked after them after school. And then, they’d added evening paper routes to all the houses and boarding houses along the way between the big boulevard and the streets there and the railroad tracks four blocks on the other side of their own neat little house on Royal Circle.

Their Mom’s new girlfriend, Billie Mae, who lived in the front bedroom, would usually be helping out in the kitchen when the boys got home for supper. They were like sisters in only a few months. Billie Mae worked downtown too, as a secretary. She was seeing someone she called "I. O."

Their mother was almost her old self again. They all missed Gramma, but Mom seemed happy and energetic again. With a little help from Billie Mae, she took good care of them herself now….

14

And then, she died. Sarah (Sallie) Williamson Decker Davis was gone.

The biggest outbreak of the 1918 Flu in Dallas and Ft. Worth had come in the spring, but Sallie wasn't hit till the end of December, ten months after her mother Betty had died. Sallie wasn't yet 40. It wasn’t any use sending her to a clinic or a hospital, as Billie Mae told the boys when she came in to take care of their mother as best she could. The hospitals were still over-crowded, with doctors and nurses having been taken off themselves. And so many folks were still dying.

Billie Mae was married now and lived across the street with her husband Mr. Forrester (she called him "I. O.").

The boys were scared. But when Sallie was not sleeping or having a bad episode of fever, she seemed sure she could survive. Look what she’d lived through up to now, she must have thought. Billie Mae told her not to worry about the boys or the house, but just work on getting well.

But then, on December 26, she was gone, like so many others. A doctor or somebody else they didn’t know came by. It fell to Newt – who was only sixteen – to sign the death certificate. It said the cause of death was pneumonia. Evan looked it over and wondered about… lots of things.

15

They boys didn't stop going to school and selling the newspapers. They fixed their own meals, after Billie Mae got them started. It turned out that Billie Mae’s husband Irv Oscar Forrester (or I. O.) had told a judge he would act as the boys’ guardian. Their Mom Sallie had bought some life insurance when she closed the deal on the Royal Circle house, which helped pay off the mortgage.

With I. O.’s help they fixed up the garage with one apartment for themselves upstairs and another downstairs to rent out. They rented the house to a family, so they were actually able to start saving for college. An old bachelor reporter at the Evening News took the downstairs apartment.

They never saw their father, Wallace Decker, never heard from him. The bank with their savings in it crashed in 1919, so they lost everything. Newt worked full-time at the Evening News as Evan finished his last two years of high school, and in 1921, they were able to sell the house and go off to Texas A & M together. To make ends meet, both of them had two, and sometimes three, part-time jobs while in school.

They realized they’d learned a lot from Gramma Betty and their Mom Sallie. They thought they could manage.

***