Story: Alison’s Father

***

1

David’s letter left him rather bewildered. He didn’t know precisely what he’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t anything like what he’d gotten. For one thing he had written to the address in Paris that David had sent him on a postcard the preceding fall, and David’s letter had come from England. Of course, he hadn’t said anything about Alice and wouldn’t have wanted David to. He winced now, thinking that. But the crowd of emotions jumbling and dancing around the edges of the page as he had written his weak little note two weeks before seemed to Jon to call for something more than David had written back. It seemed so impersonal in a way, or at least not about the two of them as persons.

Jon didn’t even know who this Alison was, let alone her father. Maybe David thought he had written about her before. It was something to get a letter, though. And it was interesting in a curious way.

Jon looked the letter over again. It was remarkable that David could write so small and evidently so quickly, on both sides of that thin airmail paper too, and yet you could read every word. David even seemed to reveal something of a flair for writing now and then, even if most of it was simple description.

That was what was most curious to Jon. Here David seemed to be describing that scene in the London restaurant or pub or whatever it was - totally unrelated to Jon and only distantly touching David himself as it seemed at first. And yet, he really seemed to be writing about himself after all. That’s not impersonal, is it? It seemed important to David to understand the scene and the man who starred in it. That was it, Jon thought; David wasn’t writing about himself, but he was writing for himself.

That was what disappointed Jon. He wanted David to write something for him.

“Jon--” the letter began simply. “So glad to get your note. Congratulations! a B. A. in three years is a pretty good score. What are your plans now? I wish I even knew what my major was going to be when I get back in school next fall. My senior year too!”

See there? Jon thought to himself. He starts out thinking about me all right (as a letter-writer should think about the one he was writing to, isn’t that so?), but then he goes right on about himself. Jon couldn’t help getting interested, though, and that puzzled him. He enjoyed reading the letter somehow anyway. In fact, he was almost sure now about his own plans for study in Paris next fall, even if his friend Paul didn’t want to go too. Yes.

But David didn’t bother to mention why he was in London, or who Susan was. “Susan and I are booked on the same boat for New York in August. We plan to spend a good deal of the intervening time together. I don’t know if we’ll get to Scotland, but we’re going off to Wales and Ireland already this afternoon.” That was the way he ended the letter, after mentioning this person Susan only once before to say that she had been there at the pub that night in London too. But Jon didn’t really care about that after all, since he was beginning to think kind of angrily and weakly that it wasn’t unusual for everyone else to have a girl even if he didn’t himself and never would. What he did find himself wondering about was this Alison person herself.

That was odd, because David didn’t describe her at all in his letter. They must have, though, to her father since he evidently had only a small passport photo from some time ago. And yet Jon was more interested in her than all of them were. David, for example, seemed more concerned about her father.

“None of us knew why we’d been invited,” the letter read in one place. “We didn’t recognize the name on the invitations left for us all at American Express, because Alison had always used her mother’s maiden name. Her father had gone away so completely and finally after Alison had been born that he didn’t know until this year that her mother had died while Alison was still a small child. He was a fairly plain man, especially suited as he said to deal with simple, practical matters. He couldn’t explain how he felt about things, or even how he had felt about Alison’s mother those many years before. Maybe her family’s wealth had helped to complicate everything. Maybe it made her more fascinating and distant, and then less possible after their marriage. He never said how he had made his own fortune by now. We didn’t want to ask.

“But he did say it wasn’t that he felt guilty. And I don’t think it was. He had just suddenly realized one day that he had been thinking for a long time about his daughter, his little Alison. He didn’t know why. He had left her almost twenty years before feeling frustrated and weak and angry. But he didn’t feel that way anymore, and he was curious about Alison. Even more than he had been about his wife. He explained it all very simply and without many details. But something in his manner convinced all of us, I think, that he was sincere.

“At first, he would have been satisfied merely to hear the bare outlines of her history. Her schooling and so on. But the more he had learned, the more he had become enchanted with Alison. And now that her family had momentarily lost track of her and her boyfriend Tom, he had decided to look for her himself. No one was worried for her. But he didn’t want her to disappear suddenly like that, even for a while. He had lived for so long depending somewhere in his mind on the thought that his wife and child were going along normally in their own lives and in their own world that learning about the early death of Alison’s mother left him a little, oddly, shaken. And he didn’t want the same to happen with Alison herself.

“None of us could help much, I’m afraid," David wrote.

“Let me say some of this in detail, Jon.” (There, he had managed at least to mention Jon’s name. But the details of the restaurant surely couldn’t matter. Not to Alison. The balcony around the edges was perhaps important since the other people there had evidently become interested in the scene below them, on centerstage as it were, the middle-aging man and his table of American traveling students… But not the rest of it that David told. It was only vaguely interesting to Jon how they all had seemed to draw together as the evening went on, and how they had grown cheerful and talkative with the beer and wine the rich gentleman served them.)

“He listened intently and patiently,” David had written to Jon, “to each of our stories about Alison. Maybe Susan’s was the best. But none of them could really help.” (Why didn’t he say more than that? Jon thought. What were the stories like? What was she like?)

“The whole thing did seem very strange,” David said in another place. “No one thought Alison was lost or anything. She has often forgotten to write to anyone for longer than it has been now. He wasn’t really looking for her, then. Or at least not yet. He was looking for a kind of understanding of her instead. Something about it all did bother him. Fascinated him, he said.”

Oh get on with it, Jon wanted to say.

“He was never able to describe the way he feels. But once, after he had already had more than enough to drink, he tried to make a comparison. He said that sometimes now when he didn’t sleep or when he had been drinking, he had a sudden vision of a picture. It was Alison, a little like she looks in the passport photo, except that this picture was made of tiny, odd-shaped pieces of colored glass. It was beautiful. The light seemed to dance off the blue and green glass. But he just couldn’t make out Alison’s real face in it. Or behind it, as he said himself."

Jon paused at this passage. He hadn’t thought Alison’s appearance itself mattered very much to the others, but now he wasn't sure. David didn’t seem sufficiently interested, in any case.

“By then, I think,” he had written in another place, “we all cared. It was no longer just a free and liberal meal with good friends and plenty to drink. That was why we tried to say some things about Alison herself, even though we knew we couldn’t really describe her anymore than he could see her face in his wierd dream. It was all very strange. Like the round of drinks someone at the table upstairs bought for us, and saluted us after we raised our glasses to them in thanks. They were total strangers too. But the oddest thing of all was the mixture of our own feelings.

“The more I think of it now, the sadder the old man seems.” Jon didn’t think he cared about that but found himself angry that David hadn’t seemed to think it true before. Of course, it was sad. That was why it was interesting at all. If it weren’t, it would be awful. It would be laughable, in fact.

“But it wasn’t that way last night.” Jon wasn’t skipping now. “At the other end of the table, some of our people were often laughing and joking as they always had in Paris. And it wasn’t at all embarrassing, if you can imagine that. It did have the feeling of a festive outing after all.” Jon didn’t understand anything about that. “Only one of our group did not seem to feel that way. One of Alison’s roommates when she had still been in Paris, named Lucy. But even she stayed with us all the evening long… which was not really like her.”

Now he was off again on something else. Jon admitted that the reactions to the man’s story were strange. But the story itself was more interesting than that. David didn’t manage a conclusion either, leaving it all as quickly as he had begun it. Jon didn’t understand the whole business in the slighest.

Pooh, he thought. It’s no good anyway, no matter how often I look at the letter again. He tossed it aside on his desk and moved across the room to his bed. Maybe David would get back home before he and Paul would leave and they could talk about it all some more. But then again, what did it matter? Especially to him. Maybe he could nap again, until his mother came up to call him to supper.

2

“It was just a day, you know?" Susan had said during that odd dinner with Alison's father. "And just two things that happened quite by accident so close to each other that I remember them as a pair. I’m sorry I don’t tell things better because I may not be able to make it clear how or why I’ve remembered them and why I think they’re important to Alison. I know I won’t be able to explain that. It may even make her look foolish or weak, or even callous. She’s not that way at all, as I’m sure you know by now. She wouldn’t interest all of you so much if she were, you know.

“Anyway.

“Lucy wasn’t in Paris at this time because she was traveling in Germany. Alison had gone with her, in fact, part of the time but had grown homesick for Paris. A good many of us who were at school together saw each other a lot even during vacations, so Alison never had to feel lonely here. On this day I’m thinking of, I hadn’t gone out at all. Reading or just being lazy. Alison went late in the morning to be with some of our friends for lunch at the student restaurant. I didn’t know she had come back, in fact, even pretty late that afternoon when I somehow became aware that she had already been in her room across the hall for a long time. Maybe her door was usually open, but I realized that it had been closed for a while.

“That just wouldn’t be like her, you know, to sit in a closed room alone. It would be so unlike her that I felt vaguely there might be something wrong. Unless she wasn’t there after all.

“She doesn't make noise, you see. And she doesn’t come to you either, or not often. And doesn’t call at least to her girlfriends to come to her. But you always seem to know Alison’s there. She attracts your attention. I think that’s why some of the girls don’t like her. Not because they’re jealous either. They don’t see that she offers that much. Not really.

“There. I’m off the track already.

“So, she was in her room that day. And not sleeping or reading or doing anything as far as you could tell. When I opened the door a little and peeked through, she was sitting very still but not stiff on the edge of the hard chair that went with her desk. But she was facing the center of the room. She hadn’t turned on any of the lamps, and the outside light that reached the tiny window at the opposite end from the door was just strong enough to put the whole scene in twilight. It was even a little chilly. Alison usually was the first to get cold. She liked wearing soft, thick winter clothes or pulling a puffy blanket around her.

“Maybe that’s why I remember all of this. That little picture through the doorway. She didn’t seem frightened, and she didn’t even seem sad. But there was something almost alien there. I have it! She seemed alone. That’s what it was and it’s not like Alison. And, even though her room Lord knows was small enough, that day in that kind of light it seemed to spread out around her like a vast amphitheater or something, she looked so small inside it.

“My thought then was that perhaps I should leave her undisturbed. She seemed quite unapproachable. But it made me too curious, I guess. I called to her from the doorway to see if anything was wrong. She wasn’t startled, but I don’t think she really expected anyone to come be with her that time. She was sad then, as I found out, but I don’t think she was frightened. That was the difference.

“But anyway. She was willing to talk about it after all, and I went in leaving the door open because it wasn’t so cold in the rest of the house. There’s no reason to tell it all here even if I could remember it. It was just a beggar that she had seen in the park. You know, there are a good many of them all over town, and even Alison was repelled by most of them after a time. So it was a little strange that it was only a beggar that had bothered her.

“He hadn’t even approached her, I don’t think. She just saw him by himself a while and then talking to a few others. What made her so sad evidently was that he was quite a young man. She said that several times.

“She tried very hard to convey to me the poignancy of the scene itself. But really it was inside her that the whole scene had happened, and since she was describing only things that she had seen outside herself, it didn’t really come across. He must have done something a little unusual at any rate, or looked like someone, or something else, or she wouldn’t have noticed. But I never knew what it was. I did make sure, though, that he was not hurt or crippled or anything. Not even sick necessarily. That all made it worse for Alison, that he was young and physically sound. That made it all the more sad.

“All right. That’s one thing that happened. And it’s trivial enough by itself. But there was another sad event that same day too. One of the members of our school was called back to the States that day. Nobody knew anything about it even at the school or among the group of us here who always saw so much of each other, until pretty late in the afternoon. Longer after Alison had started back home after lunch and had seen her beggar in the park. So the first thing we heard about it was at the dinner table that night. She and I had got to talking about one thing or another in Alison’s room after I interrupted her that way, trying to cheer her up a little, and so didn’t see any of the other girls until we sat down to eat.

“To an outsider there wouldn’t have been anything that seemed unusual in what happened there. The girl who had to go back was a lot of fun and was even very intelligent and so got along with everyone, male and female, wonderfully well when we were together for meals at the student restaurant or in class. But she lived all the way on the other side of Paris and so far had been more interested in getting to know French people than in pursuing our friendship. So she was not an especially close friend. She had been notified to come back to the U. S. because her father was dying of cancer. Mouth or throat, I think. There had been no warning before the telegram came.

“That’s right, you wince now yourself not even knowing this girl. Sure, it’s that much of a thing that you can’t just not notice. And since we all knew this girl, it was a little more than that. When they told us about it, then, we must have said a few things about it. Must have asked for more details, for example, about when she was leaving and if we could help. Her roommate was going to send most of her things over later, but she herself had probably already gone, seeing no one but the roommate across town since the telegram had come. And so on. Even the French boarders around the dinner table expressed their sympathy, and perhaps someone told of a similar happening to one of their own friends.

“But after a while, naturally, the meal went on pretty much as usual, and we talked about other things. About a play that was supposed to be pretty good, for example, or a party someone had been invited to. Alison hadn’t said anything at all really while we had been talking about the friend who was going to have to go home. Or she might have said that it was too bad she would have to miss the rest of her year in Europe on top of everything else. But she didn’t avoid speaking. She was often quiet like that in larger groups.

"But when the conversation changed, Alison just about took it over. As the meal went on, she became more and more eager to chatter about one thing or another. She’s quite pleasant when she does that, you know, because she certainly never forcibly dominates anyone. It’s just that after a while most of the comments anyone would make seemed to get directed toward her. And she would laugh lightly and reply with something that didn’t matter at all but that was pleasant enough just from the way she said it. The two younger Frencg bachelors at our boarding house always found Alison charming and that night were pleased to talk primarily with her. They would ask her something, and when she answered, they would smile and look around at the rest of us as if they were showing her off.

“Then after a while, before we were served our cheese or fruit for desert, Alison excused herself and went to make a telephone call. Some of us sat around the table after dinner talking, and when I did go back down the hall to my room later to get a coat for a walk some of us were going to take, I saw that Alison had gotten all dressed up and was excited and still ready to chatter gaily about things, as she was going off to the theater with our David here.

“It was only after she had left that it struck me that there was something a little out of shape in that. At first, it was just pleasant for her to be happy. But then she seemed - looking back - a little nervous rather than just content. For a while I thought I must have imagined it. The next morning and from then on, she didn’t say anything at all again about the beggar she had seen or about the girl who was going home. She seemed to have forgotten, and when Lucy got back it was me who told her about our friend’s leaving, even though she was Alison’s roommate at that time, not mine, and she had been back for several days.”

3

When he awoke the next morning, he felt awful. Not only was his head in sad shape and his stomach very queasy, but even before he was fully conscious why he was that way, where he was, and how he’d gotten back to the hotel the night before, he knew also that he was wretchedly embarrassed. He must have been too far gone as they helped him to bed - he did not like to think of that - even to take the pills he usually took to prevent the next-day headache.

He tried to move very slowly and smoothly out from under the sheet, off the bed, and across the room to the bathroom. It is more difficult to do that in an unfamiliar room than at home, but he managed it pretty well. He was trying to concentrate intently and solely on the facts of the present moment. How did his head feel? Could he sleep some more? If he didn’t, if he dressed and tried to read or even eat something with his coffee, would he be sick? He decided by the time he was noticing in the mirror above the sink that, to his surprise, he didn’t look a bit different from the way he looked every morning, though it felt as if his head was larger than normal and that the skin was pulled too tight and too thin around it.

The water didn’t look very inviting even though the warmth of it felt good on his face. His mouth was parched, but he would wait until he could have coffee. (Why had it happened anyway?) So that he left the water running and went across the room, feeling a little steadier in the head at least, to call for some coffee to be brought up. He told them he would be in the shower, and they said there was a note for him.

It was still pretty early, he thought.

But when he first stuck his head under the hot shower faucet, it was as if not only the steamy water was rushing over him and making his eyes looking down feel puffy and full. His consciousness of the night before, and the strength of his humiliation, washed over him too. He had been their host, and they were only kids besides. He was not an emotional man, he thought, and besides he had not been saddened or even excited by what they had told him. Perhaps, he thought, he had simply relaxed himself with them, had become something of a child himself who needed someone else, someone outside, to suggest he should drink less or more slowly. That was his deepest humiliation. He was not like that. All his life had indeed been contrary to that kind of childish weakness.

He found himself staring stupidly at his feet as the hot water flooded over his ears and down his back. He shook himself.

But those kids, friends of his daughter too, would never know that. They had enjoyed themselves certainly, and were sympathetic enough to be grateful for that. But they must have been embarrassed for him too. He did not know why it was important to him for them to care about what he was doing, but - as he dried himself and felt still better - he felt certain now that they wouldn’t, even if they were able to understand what he was doing. He hadn’t quite realized before, that that was why he had looked up all of the ones he could find in London at that time… Not really to learn from them, but to enlist their support. Yes, he had wanted them behind him. No one he knew at home understood at all.

The coffee they had left him helped even more, and he thought he might go downstairs soon for soft-boiled eggs.

And even though everything had gone so well at first he had lost them anyway. What a ridiculous old buffoon he must have seemed! He felt frustrated by it. But there was nothing to be done anymore. That part was over, forfeited. He accepted his humiliation, knowing that he would never have to face any of them again. At least there was that. But he hated it. And most of all, he hated the loss it meant for him from now on.

He went back to the bathroom and felt that even his stomach was beginning to return to normal. If he waited a while to see if it really was all right, he could have lunch downstairs instead. He wanted some lean, rare beef to put himself right again. He sat on the bed. He still felt very tired.

In what seemed only a few seconds, he awoke once more. He felt a little strained lying backwards on the bed with his feet still dangling off toward the floor, but as a whole, he felt better. His stomach was all right now, he thought, only hungry. As he stood up to toss his robe away and dress, he realized that he must have slept for more than it seemed, and crossed the room again to the bathroom.

But they had said, hadn’t they? he remembered there, that someone had left a message for him. From his office, he thought, and that would be all right. He wanted to leave the other thing behind him for a while. That was too bad - he was slipping on some clean shorts and tearing the laundry band off a shirt - too bad that he couldn’t go on and think of it now. Just because he had been so stupid and childish... No. It was unfortunate since they had said a lot about his daughter and some of it might help him to know what to do when he finally saw her for himself. Was that what it was after all? Was that what he was trying to do?

The note was in a hotel envelope and was not sealed. He had thought it might even be a letter. He would have liked that. But it was written on a small piece of lined paper as if from a pocket notebook or an address-book.

“Thank you,” it said in pencil, “for a wonderful evening. All of us appreciated it so much, and we were happy to get to know you too.” It looked very strange somehow, and he found it hard to associate it with the young man who had sat next to him the night before. “All of our plans are different, of course, but Susan and I are off tomorrow morning” (which would mean today, he thought) “to Wales and Ireland. And then all of us will be going home soon. Perhaps some of us might see you again there sometime.” That, he thought reading it, must be a mere convention. He liked it, but didn’t think - even so, even though he might have been wrong before about how they felt - that he’d really want to see them again.

“Again,” the other side of the tiny page went on, “Again, let me thank you for our dinner and conversation. When you see Alison, please” and he had marked out the word give, “please tell her we often think of her. Goodbye now, David and Susan.”

Well, they were polite… But did they care?


***

Dealing with Fanatics (essay)

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Don't believe all you think!

1

Our Founding Fathers do not seem to have had to work or struggle with fanatics. They themselves were not motivated by dogma, bias, certitude, superstition, anger or fear, and – apparently – neither were those they had to work with and against, not even the British. Thus, the Founders were able to operate on the basis of observation and experience, reason, knowledge, wide reading (even outside their own culture), practicality, and what they would have called “enlightened self-interest” – a reasonable and predictable interest in providing sufficiently for themselves and their families - and they seem to have been confident of the likelihood that others would operate the same way...at least more often than not.

Another defining trait of the Founders was their optimistic expectation that individuals and also societies could be expected to improve or make progress.

As the decades passed, our forebears spread all the way across the continent, reaching their geographical limits, and the nation apparently became less confident in the future and more vulnerable to intermittent waves of fanaticism. But unlike most others of the basic realities we still face today, this does not seem one for which the Founders of the United States can provide us much guidance.

Americans' vulnerability to fanaticism has made it even more difficult than it would have been otherwise to maintain the republican democracy that is the most precious gift we have received from those who created our nation.

2

Just about all of us pride ourselves on our heritage of democracy and the republican forms of government that facilitate democracy. The fanatics among us claim to do so as well, but as true fanatics, they do not in fact believe in liberty (or justice) for all but only for those whom they perceive as like themselves.

Despite pious claims to the contrary, they do not seek to emulate the Founding Fathers; and, unlike Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and the others, they are not motivated by knowledge and wide learning, observation, reason, and practicality but instead by emotion, belief, dogma, bias, superstition, force, and their own superiority to their compatriots.

For democracies to work, most citizens must be confident in the basic decency, the common sense, and the good will of most other citizens. Not believing that the majority have these qualities would be to question the wisdom of democratic rule itself. Those of us who prefer not to think or behave like fanatics do not want to undermine rule by “we the people.”

3

The fanatics who threaten our essential institutions and conventions look back to forerunners who believed (or claimed) to find truth not by looking around them and by learning from the observations and experiences of others, but instead by looking within. Like all religious men and women, they were more interested in eternal truths than with the everyday facts that surrounded them and surround all the rest of us. Those capable of finding within themselves the higher truths, then as now, may be educated or not, predictable or not, public-spirited or not, disingenuous or not.

They are convinced and passionately believe that they know the one and eternal truth and that the rest of us do not. This is the basis of their elitism; in matters of debate, their position is right, and differing opinions are wrong.

We can tolerate this snobbish, anti-intellectual stance in a democratic republic and have in fact done so for generations. When a majority of Americans have agreed with the view espoused by the fanatics, we have passed laws and have taken other actions along the lines they believed were right. When the majority of Americans have not agreed with the fanatics’ opinion, however, we together have done something different. Then and now, what they do in their own lives is their business, not ours; but as a society, the majority are surely going to adopt policies and allow personal behaviors that the fanatics deem wrong, contrary to their "higher truths." We have muddled along well enough in this fashion for 150-200 years.

In our time, however, we are facing several circumstances that underline the threat to democratic rule posed by fanatics.

4

Fanatics gain true and certain knowledge from looking within. They proceed by starting with the truth they have discovered in this fashion and then look for facts or knowledge gained through observation or by experience of others which supports or confirms the truth with which they began. An old joke seems to fit them: they use information as a drunk uses a lamppost - for support, not for illumination. Once they have found an observation or a fact that can be interpreted to support the a priori truth with which they began, they sometimes use the techniques of reasoning – or at least rhetoric – in order to convince others.

Since they begin from the premise that they have superior knowledge, of moral truths as well as others, fanatics think it is their duty to convince others. This usually takes the form of exhortation or their kind of argumentation, appeal to emotions, and warnings of dire consequences for those who do not come to believe as they do.

But none of this is new to American culture. For generations, fanatics have tried to convince others of the truth of their positions and values by “reason,” inspiration, and attempts to instill fear (or what could be called intimidation). What appears to be a growing threat now is that more and more fanatics are seeking to impose their views on others by force.

5

Fanatics are ruled by emotion, not reason; in our time it is fear that seems to rule them most often. Since the others in the world are not in touch with fanatics' eternal truths, they cannot be trusted. In fact, they should be seen as a threat and every expression of opinion contrary to the fanatics' way of thinking should not only be rejected but stamped out, destroyed, since it is viewed as an attack.

The high degree to which the fanatics among us today think and act this way is new. Not only is it in direct contrast to our Founding Fathers, who respected others' opinion even when they disagreed; it also inhibits the discourse that must be allowed to fluorish if our republican democracy is to thrive.

And the emotion that typically follows fear is anger. If you are significantly different from me, I despise you; I hate you. If you try to say something blatantly contrary to my eternal truth, my canon, I will angrily shout you down. I will call you ugly names. Secretly or publically I will condone violence exacted upon you or your sort, and I will take every opportunity to promote such violence in the future. If you oppose my personal values, you are my enemy; I not only fear you; you and your allies make me furious!

6

Since our time's fanatics are so susceptible to fear and so easily moved to anger, they are particularly vulnerable to intimidation and manipulation. To win their support and gain power over them, a cynical would-be leader need only express passionate adherence to one of their cherished tenets or behaviors, using their vocabulary when it already exists and, when it does not, creating emotive and simple phrases designed to capture their passionate conviction.

Such phrases need simply to identify the particular threat to their tenet in question and identify it - or those who support it - as the enemy to be feared and reviled. The fanatics' emotions may then be enlisted in support of a policy or an action that the would-be leader wants, even if he or she wants it for an undisclosed reason, perhaps merely for personal gain. In this fashion, the fanatics' proclivity to fear and anger is rather easily manipulated in support of actions and policies of which they are unaware.

Since their form of "reasoning" starts with emotion, no evidence challenging their conviction or their leader can threaten their allegiance to the leader's cause. Only observations or facts that can be used to defeat the odious enemy are credible since they alone are in tune with the emotional commitment the fanatic has already made.


7

Fanatics are essentially spontaneous, moved by passions, but those who have the power to exploit them - by hypocrisy, intimidation (appealing to their built-in fear), and manipulation (appealing to their anger) - are free to operate by a long-range plan designed explicitly to prolong their own control.

Many fanatics themselves are not particularly self-interested – to an astonishing extent – but cynical big businesses and the media that big businesses now control are essentially greedy, for both money and power. This is a critical source of the prudent concern that today our repulican democracy, pursuing "liberty and justice for all," is in peril.

Since so many, loud, media voices today espouse the views fanatics are known to hold and to identify as enemies to be hated and attacked opponents of these views - though fanatics remain in the minority - they are mobilized by self-interested big media to "defend the faith."  They can thus be unwittingly used to support the policies and actions that their leaders secretly pursue for personal gain and extension of their own power. And since they are convinced it is their duty to impose their views on others, fanatics are willing to use force and violence when necessary to do so, extending their leaders' control or at least influence over others.

Through intimidation and manipulation, fanatics can be led to espouse a cause that more reflective individuals - like the humane and rational Founding Fathers whom we all profess to venerate - would probably see as distinct from the fanatics' own cherished beliefs, seeking to force not only their adherents but all of us to follow their narrow dictates and in so doing to bring us under the control of leaders whose goals they do not accurately perceive.

***

Reminiscence: What I Regret NOT Doing

***

1

If I remember correctly, the Hiking merit badge was all that stood in the way of my achieving the lofty ranks of the Eagle Scout in the summer before junior high school. (This of course preceded the national organization’s having taken its anti-gay stand.)  Not that the Hiking badge was required of everyone. I believe I had selected it from several alternatives. Hiking in this case meant walking, not climbing. I would probably not have chosen Climbing.

To be accepted into my troop two years before, like the other boys I had to promise to work my way up to the Eagle rank, and the troop did have the best record in our Council for the number of Eagle Scouts each year. My troop leader was named Kidd, and among ourselves we called him “Captain.” He was relentless reminding us how far we had to go in order to fulfill our promise.

All I had to do for the Hiking merit badge was to complete a certain number of walks of varying lengths. The first was probably a half-mile, and the last – as I remember more clearly – was ten miles. Mother would take me to a largely deserted spot just outside of town, and we would measure on the odometer the requisite distances. Then she would take me back to the spot where we had begun and let me out. On the shorter trips, of course, she would just wait for me – usually parked under a shady tree – until I arrived.

We fussed about my shoes and socks. As a precaution, she put Band-Aids on my heels and outside toes, to help prevent blisters. I carried my Scout canteen filled to the brim with that good-tasting tap water we had in my city.

I think Mother timed my walk for the first one-mile trek, so that she could estimate when I would likely arrive at the end of the remaining walks and go about her business in the meantime. I wore my school watch with the muted yellow-green cloth wristband, so I could know when to expect her to return for me.

At this gap of time, I don’t even remember the shorter so-called hikes; they were probably just around our neighborhood. In those days, I seemed to walk constantly from one friend’s house to another’s anyway – trying to set up a football or baseball game among several of us – so the first walks must have seemed pretty normal.

Mother was in charge of filling out a little form for each hike, with the date, distance, time of departure and time of arrival. We would both sign each form. The idea was, as it had been the summer before, that when the troop started meeting again in the fall, the paperwork would be turned in to Capt. Kidd and he would summon us to various little hearings with two or three volunteer dads to be quizzed on what we had done, in order to limit any attempted shortcuts. It always seemed a huge triumph when the dads’ committee declared that Mother and I had told the truth and deserved the badge I had worked for.

But I do remember the last two walks. They both ended at the same spot on the southern outskirts of the city, close to a rather new elementary school and a little strip mall.

Both days it was hot as Hades, and I had more or less emptied my canteen by the time Mother came for me. I was proud of the fact that I had arrived early, showing I had gotten stronger as the earlier hikes were completed.

What did I think about, I wonder, as I plodded (or rather, strode) along? All I remember is that on the longest trek, when Mother had taken me ten miles from the finish line, I had passed a little high school whose name I had heard but I was surprised to see it was in the middle of nowhere. What a bummer it would be to have to go there!

When Mother and I got home that day, I bathed right away both because of the accumulated sweat and in order to cool down. Mother was a little concerned about me and had finished filling out the form already when I came down. I signed it.

And that was the last thing I did.

When the fall started and I began attending classes at the neighborhood junior high, the first Monday night came when our troop met in a Methodist church near the university, but I had no interest whatsoever in going. And I never did go back, never turned in the forms, or sat for the final hearing.

There was even one man in our church from another troop who used to badger me about taking care of that last merit badge. He could not understand why I didn’t want to finish up, and he didn’t even know that all I had to do was turn in the paperwork and demonstrate that I had indeed completed all the requirements for the hiking badge.

I didn’t and don’t understand either why I didn't finish up, but I never did.

2

In high school I was a conscientious student, but not an obsessive one. I enjoyed learning new things even when I did not so much enjoy particular classes. I willingly did my homework on time, even some assignments that I knew some, or many, of my classmates considered tedious (like our nightly Latin translation work). I can remember one time when my mother and father had to go to a meeting at the school, at the time when I was just finishing up something extra-curricular, and I sat in one of the bathrooms on the floor while trying to figure out what the heck one of Vergil’s figures of speech could possibly mean (or something like that).

But I didn’t go above and beyond what seemed the minimum assignments, didn’t seek out the teachers outside of class or do any extra-credit work. My grades seemed okay but not spectacular. My older sister had done better.

As the junior and senior years zipped along, we had quite a few opportunities to take big national exams. Among them were the Merit Scholarship Exams, a kind of practice run at the College Boards (later formalized as the PSAT, which didn’t exist in my day), and then in the fall of my senior year the SATs for real. Finally, it turned out that the second stage of the Merit Scholarship Exams was… another occasion to take the SATs. As usual my results seemed pretty good (and secretly I liked taking this type of exam), but not spectacular.

So it was a little perturbing to discover that the state university in the Midwest that I had decided to attend, after they offered me a $50 scholarship for the first year, did not accept the SATs, requiring for everyone the ACTs which were not offered in my whole state. “Not to worry,” the university said, “we accept you on the basis of your high school record, and you can take the required exams the day before Registration.”

Yes, I went away to college not having actually passed the entrance exam. No one seemed worried.

I arrived on a Friday afternoon, on Saturday took the exams – along with quite a few others – and was given an appointment with an academic advisor the next afternoon, and then on Sunday morning a line had formed in the parking lot outside the designated building to wait for our results. Again, no one seemed worried or anxious.

When it was my turn in line, someone handed me my letter and said, “Congratulations” just as she had to everyone I had observed ahead of me. Yes, I was officially in. Not only that, a stamp at the top said “Honor Student” whatever that meant and my advisor appointment had been changed to late that afternoon with an Honors Advisor.

My percentile ranks were indeed higher than they had been on the SATs or the Merit Exams, and – here was the shocker – although my university did not give advanced credit, I had been exempted from the usual requirement to take a year of college math!

This seemed at the time particularly good news because in junior high and high school I had convinced myself that I was a verbal guy; I just did not like math. One way I was distinguished from the other good or pretty good students in my class was that I had opted to take the minimum requirement, through second-year algebra, rather than taking on Algebra and Trig that “everyone else” had chosen for the senior year.

So I didn’t have to take any math in college. I don’t recall my advisor pressing me to do so either, asking basically, “Well, what do you want to take?”

As it turned out, I struggled a little with the math challenges in the Physics course I chose to take in my freshman year. Maybe that only ratified my opting for the minimum...

But I regret that now. The fact is, I always did well in my math classes and scored higher on the mathematical parts of exams than on the verbal. The reason I struggled in Physics was that I had not taken A & T. And all through my professional career on the rather frequent occasions when some level of mathematical thinking was required, I prided myself on still remembering and being able to apply what I had learned, minimal or not.

And dozens and dozens of times, I have regretted not having taken Statistics in college.

3

The last act of omission I will mention was amusing as it happened, but I do regret not taking a different route.

It was in my freshman year at college. My father had told me to expect that work that had received an A in high school usually received a B in College, B work got a C, and so on. So I was expecting a B or B- average. I actually did better than that in my first semester, but averaged between an A and a B.

But it was still enough that some people noticed. It led, for instance, to a couple of fraternities – who had to raise their corporate average – to ask me to be a pledge. Not my thing. But, surprise, it also led to my being invited to join a national freshman honor society. That was exciting. I may even have mentioned it to my folks.

But the thing was, in order to join you had to pay what seemed a large sum to me (maybe $5.00) for the initiation luncheon and a membership fee too. I wrote back a nice note but saying I wouldn’t be at the luncheon and would not become a member.

I didn’t think about it again.

The university I attended published a daily newspaper. On the morning when I was excitedly up early to polish my shoes and brass and to brush off and iron my ROTC uniform (my freshman year ROTC was required of all men) because that was Governor’s Day, when the governor of the state was coming out to REVIEW THE TROOPS at noon.

We had been practicing all year lining up, standing straight, and marching in proper formation. I probably arrived at the parade grounds early, all polished up. Most of the guys I knew complained about all this stuff, but I actually liked at least the marching part. So this was going to be an interesting day.

Also on the front page was a story about the freshman honor society luncheon, which turned out to be that very day. Unfortunately, listed along with quite a few others in the small print was my name. I may have been surprised at the mistake but thought nothing of it really.

And sure enough, it was an impressive military occasion: a big field with a pavilion set up in the center. All the platoons, etc., lined up at their assigned stations. After we had “fallen in,” the senior student leading our platoon called us to attention and called the role. Incredibly, all were present. Then we waited there, at ease, as vehicles began to drive up to the pavilion.

I couldn’t pay much attention to the big-wigs, though, because the Sergeant – a professional serviceman – strode officiously up to our little group and bellowed, “Cadet Derrick, front and center!”

This was disturbing, but I marched up to the Sergeant. He said still loudly, “Derrick!”

I said, “Yes sir!” perhaps squeaking a little. But it began to dawn on me that he was actually looking me over admiringly.

“Derrick,” he resumed. “Get your sweet tail over to that honors luncheon!” (He was evidently amused I hadn’t realized that the academic honor was considered more important than Governor’s Day and admired my loyalty to the corps.)

“Sir!” I was so bold to say. “I refused to join that society!” A brief pause followed.

“Derrick?”

“Yes?”

“Fall in!”

I marched back to my place, noticing some smiles among my comrades.

That’s all I remember about Governor’s Day. We did march, to the same Sousa music we had practiced to all year. But that was more or less it.

And I have nothing to show for it. It wasn’t right to charge me to get an honor I had earned, especially a relatively large amount. But I should have asked my parents for the money. Though financially stretched with both their children now in college, they would have been happy to oblige.

NOTE: I reserve the right to add to this list of regrettable acts of omission on a later occasion.

***

Story: The Illusionary Stage

***

1

It's easy to romanticize. Especially about the past. And easiest of all to romanticize about your own. Most people don't realize how early it begins. It's not when you're getting close to middle-age. You begin working on your high school days, for example, as soon as you've been a year or so in college. Maybe even before. And it keeps happening. It gets to be a sort of tradition.

But every now and again, in my own case at least, something in my life now will recall to me the way things really were in those days. It wasn't such a different world.

I haven't seen Don Arcott for more than two years, since before I went to Europe. We don't write each other very often anymore. He doesn't answer letters promptly, as he did for a short time. Even though we were not especially close in high school, Don and I did always seem to get along pretty well. And after his troubles with Alice were finally over, we wrote each other fairly often for a couple of years. I was in Europe when it happened. He began to write that summer, saying he might be over there too for a while. When he did, and I was back in the U.S., we still exchanged letters now and then. But our letters became less and less frequent as that year went on.

Alice was a year younger than we were, and in some ways she seemed even younger than us than that. Even to Don. We were juniors, then, when Alice first joined us, and Don was already becoming a fairly important member of The Players. He had never before been an especially good-looking boy, and, in his nervous energy and theatrical personality, he always seemed to stand just a little apart from the rest of us. But he was well-liked. He was funny after all, and I think that was why we liked him then. He seemed to like to make us laugh. But after the performance was over, whatever it was, it was hard to talk with him about just ordinary things. I think even in those days one of the reasons we liked him was that he seemed just a little younger than we did. Age gets mixed up that way. It's not like a calendar or a clock. It's more like an amateur photograph with several images confusedly superimposed one on the other. It won't make a pattern, and the various images may even seem unrelated. Maybe one will come into focus for a minute and maybe then another. Or maybe it will all just seem confused and blurred.

Alice didn't seem so very special to anyone else. Don and Paul, his good friend in high school (who went with him to Europe), were already joining the ones who ran The Players when that year began. Miss Lutz let the officers of the group make a lot of their own decisions. She chose the plays we would do, and cast and directed them, of course. But the officers and the rest of us who voted each week at our business meetings, we decided about publicity and parties and how to raise money. Don and Paul liked audiences and talked a lot in the meetings. We didn't mind.

They were very popular with our plays' audiences too. They seemed to alternate from one play to the next, taking the silly "comic relief" roles and making them somehow the best parts to have. Both of them really wanted to play serious roles, though. Especially the romantic lead. They looked all right for it, especially Paul. But Miss Lutz didn't ever cast them that way.

It was hard to get many girls, who could talk, on the stage. A whole lot of them wanted to work, pasting flats together and painting, and washing the stage. They especially liked to take tickets and hand out programs on show nights. Alice, though, came with one other girl from the junior high across town where Miss Lutz had been drama coach one year before. She did know pretty well how to "project," as we used to say, and how to move on stage. It wasn't very long, then, before Alice was beginning to get some of the better small roles in our plays. And it was sometimes the comic relief's sentimental girl-friend.

She was able to convey from the stage a kind of charm that seemed at the same time special to herself and common to all our collective fantasies. I mean that she was delicate and graceful, with dark hair but a fair complexion and fine, pretty features. She had a kind of sparkle about her, especially from the stage. I guess I've colored the picture a lot now trying to remember it. Still, I think we used to do that in those days, too. But Alice didn't seem to captivate anyone else the way she did Don. I for one can't remember ever even considering her for myself; but maybe that shouldn't count. She did get enough invitations to dances and things, but only from the musically-oriented kind of fellows who would ask anybody. Don interested her more. Of course, he was a year ahead. In high school that counts for a lot.

I never knew Alice well myself, but she seemed to be all right. Somebody said to me once that you were always just a little worried when Don got interested in a girl. Afraid that he would be hurt as had happened so often. I did know myself that there had never been anything lasting between Don and a girl. Still, with Alice you wouldn't have been afraid exactly. Her own parents had just been divorced the summer before she came to our high school. Evidently it had been coming for a long time. And then, her mother had married again, someone else, only a few months later. I don't know where I learned this unless Don told me himself after it was all over.

Looking back now, though, I think maybe that you saw in Alice's face, even through her "little girl" look. You had a feeling she knew a little bit about what was going on. As I say often now, that's the best way to avoid pain, or causing it to someone else - to expect it. It helps you anticipate the way people open themselves up for getting hurt or for hurting themselves. You even find yourself that way sometimes.

I don't guess I'll be able to go on with this in a straight and simple way. All these new things keep occurring to me. I don't want to think about them much. That's the way you distort things, and I don't want to do that. I want to just tell the story of Alice and Don, just a factual account. But then, the reasons why things happen - that's part of the story too, isn't it? Maybe that's why I wanted to write all this down in the first place. I want to be able to understand the why of these things, now that my own life looks as though it will change in a permanent way. . .

It's especially hard, I guess, for a guy to think of another guy as "glamorous" in any way. But that must have been how Don was for Alice in the early days. Just about the time they started dating besides, he began to grow better-looking. Maybe he always stayed just that little way distant even from Alice too, and maybe that was an especial reason why she was held to him for so long - in a kind of fascination.

It always took Don a long time to get rolling in a courtship. I always thought I was shy because, until I went to France really, it never occurred to me to ask a girl out unless I was prompted by someone else. Don, though, wanted to, on his own, from the first. He would want to first in a general way, and then there would be a particular girl he would decide to ask. But he couldn't ever just come out and do it. He would manage to be around her a lot and talk to her, and be funny and clever. Maybe he would even plan to ask her to a dance or a movie next time he saw her, but would then decide to telephone. Then when he was home with that ugly old telephone the Arcott's had in their awkward, cramped entrance hall, he would decide it would be more than pleasant to ask her the next time he saw her.

He had to go to a lot of trouble to get Alice's number because she was living with her mother even though she had not changed her name. Besides that, she and her mother and stepfather had just moved in the beginning of the year. But Don found out. I wouldn't even be surprised if he followed her home one time after rehearsal and then sneaked back late at night to read her mother's new name off the mailbox. That's much too spectacular a picture, I guess. Anyway, he had the telephone number, but didn't use it for a long time.

That's one of the things about all this that is so funny. Don was like that. He had trouble asking a girl out. I guess it wasn't too bad when they were just talking during breaks in rehearsal and times like that. But even then, you could tell he wasn't comfortable. All that nervous activity. And being funny.

But Alice wasn't that way at all. She had a lot of vitality all right, but it wasn't exactly nervous energy or covered-up timidity. Or at least not on the surface. On the contrary. She seemed to have real social skill even pretty much in the early days. You could imagine her, for example, having big parties and introducing people, Don didn't have that kind of poise.

Maybe all of what happened was just the result of bad luck - a lot of sad coincidences - chance. Alice hadn't really matured, of course, when they first started things going, so maybe it wasn't obvious that she would develop this kind of social grace. Maybe Don only saw the "little girl" look or the sparkle Alice created on the stage, and didn't see how it was just a nonchalant and knowing front Alice was developing to be pleasant for the world. But now it occurs to me that, if it was just a front - only a more complete and more successful one than Don's clowning pose - maybe Don eventually got to something none of the rest of us ever knew, underneath. . .

I'm afraid I'm getting it all confused.

I never did know exactly when they started dating. We all got used to seeing them talking and laughing together. They were with Miss Lutz a lot. She was a pretty close friend of Alice's - and later Don's too. But Alice and Don weren't actually dating for a long time.

Then, late in Alice's first year with us, we had one of our big events. We always did a one-act play in the spring in a competition with other schools. It was a big thing, and everyone in the state took it seriously. A University in the northern part of the state invited us several weeks before the competition to come put on our little piece for them as part of a big conference. The University drama students and professors would then criticize and give us advice. Miss Lutz thought it would be good experience. And besides, she was afraid the people in the play were getting "stale" without an audience. Alice had the biggest part in the play, and Don had the most difficult. It was a peculiar little fantasy-play. Alice actually played a little boy. Don was a kind of strolling performer. Miss Lutz thought it was a comic part, and Don played it that way. But the rest of us never thought it was funny. The whole little play had that kind of odd feeling to it.

I came as close to knowing Miss Lutz on that trip as I ever did. All of us drove up the day before our show, except for Paul and Don, who for some reason couldn't come until that night on the bus. She seemed pretty young, Miss Lutz did. She just threw herself into her work with us with a zest and dedication that seemed like schoolgirl eagerness to those of us who knew the calm, sort of professional attitude of the older lady who had been our director just before Miss Lutz had come. But we knew, of course, that Miss Lutz was not just out of the University, because she had been teaching at a junior high across town. I remember that some time or another too, after this first year I'm talking about now, someone showed me a picture in an old yearbook of our high school. They used to print pictures of all the teachers as well as the students. It was pretty hard to tell at first because of the strange hairstyles they used to wear in those days, but it was Miss Lutz in the picture. She had been teaching English then, and her name was Mrs. Davis.

Sometimes Miss Lutz would look suddenly tired. It wasn't necessarily a time when things in the show were going badly either. Something would just happen in her mind all of a sudden, and the firm smile she usually wore above her great, energetic motions would drop away, leaving her cheeks a little heavy and her eyes a little droopy.

We had two flat tires on the way up north in Miss Lutz's car. She seemed angry about having gotten poor quality tires, but I think she was pretty embarrassed about it. It was already very hot on the highway even though it was only March. But the three of us boys had the tires changed in just a few minutes. When we stopped in a gas station each time to have the spare repaired or replaced, they worked fast too, and were very courteous to us. Still, the last part of the trip was not comfortable, and it was altogether about a six-hour drive. We were pretty tired that night and went to bed as soon as we could.

But that was nothing compared to what happened to Paul and Don.

The show was scheduled to go on something like nine o'clock the next morning. We got the props and the lights set up the night before. Don and Paul were supposed to get in a little after midnight, but the bus they were going to ride on broke down. They had to take another bus through a couple of other cities and even had to convince the driver to make a nonscheduled stop in the city where we were, just to get in by 5:30 a.m. We all got up at seven.

Despite all that, the show went better than we would have thought possible. They especially liked Don as he pranced around and grimaced and laughed. He hadn't even had time to look where the furniture was before the curtains opened, but everything was all right anyway.

I'm only telling this because Don's behavior was odd all that day. He was usually somewhat frail, needing a lot of sleep and quiet and regular hours. Paul was the one who can get along on next to nothing. But somehow they switched places that particular day. Maybe doing so well in the show just set Don up to it.

Anyway, after the show Miss Lutz stayed to watch some of the other plays, but the rest of us went straight back to the hotel. Paul didn't even have a very large part, but he was so tired he was almost sick. But Don was feeling great. Paul took a shower and went back to bed, and the rest of us scattered. There wasn't much to see downtown - a lot of banks, closed. We didn't feel like a movie and it was still pretty hot. So mostly we just roamed around in two's or three's or four's, talking excitedly and having ice cream or a Coke. We must have toured every store there was downtown. Some of the girls bought little things for souvenirs.

Every time we wandered back up to our floor in the hotel, we saw Don and Alice. The floors were shaped like a horseshoe with the elevator in the center of the top part. In front of the elevator on our floor, there was a big mirror and a shiny table with dried ferns and flowers in a vase on it. Next to it was a divan. The boys' room was all the way out at the end of the horseshoe, and the girls' was at the end of the other arm. I guess they did that on purpose. Miss Lutz's room was not even on the same floor.

Anyway, no matter where we went on our floor in the hotel, we had to pass that little divan in front of the elevators. Every time you went down to tour another store or get a coke or a magazine, of course you had to wait there. Usually two or three of us would meet in the lobby or at the newsstand, and go back up together. It was just a little surprising for the door to open right in front of Don and Alice sitting there. It shouldn't have been embarrassing since they were obviously having such a good time. They called out to us, and we talked to them later when several of us together were waiting for the elevator to go down again. We also traipsed back and forth a lot between our two rooms and so had to pass by there a lot.

We all thought they must be having a much better time then we were. We just couldn't sit still like that because we were so keyed up from the trip and the play that morning. We brought them Cokes or ice cream once and sat down for a while, but then we'd begin to fidget and would have to move on. Later, after they had been dating for a while, someone else saw them sitting like that as they used to do before class in the speech room every morning, and said they "looked like sunshine." For the first time they actually seemed to be having fun. Not just trying to, scared of each other.

I don't know how it happened, but finally, late in the afternoon, one of the girls said that we could go up to Miss Lutz's room. She wasn't back yet, but would meet us for dinner later. Don and Alice joined us there after a while trying to look as though nothing had happened between them. But it had, and we all knew it. We were really just sitting around talking and joking. Alice and Don kept finding little excuses to touch each other on the arm or shoulder and to look each other in the eye. Don would tell a quick story, laughing and genuinely smiling a little more than he usually did, and at the important moments would lean forward just a little and tap lightly on Alice's forearm.

There was one old romance among members of our group. They had been "serious" about each other for a long time already by then. But it wasn't the same.

The fact is, rest of us were enjoying it too. It made us feel a little older, and protective.

So, I've always thought that that was how it got started. Really started, and not just playing at it, even though we didn't hear of them actually dating until a while later. Maybe the hardest thing for me to realize is why Alice hung around so long waiting for Don to get it going. After he did, I guess I can see how it kept on.

Of course I can see that, even if he was a little stiff or shy when it came to kissing her and that sort of thing. And then, maybe he wasn't like that. But if it wasn't going to work out at the last… That's what I can't understand. If it wasn't going to last them all their lives or whatever, why did it last as long as it did?

No, that's not the real question. The real question is, Why did it start at all if it wasn't… No, I mean why did it seem so right, even to those of us just watching… What is it that I don't know?

What is it? I can't go on with this. I should not have started.

2

Donald T. Arcott met Alice Emily Laurel while they were both attending high school. Their friendship grew as they, together with the drama teacher at their school, a certain Miss Lutz, led the school dramatic club to state prominence. Arcott was president of "The Players" when they won the state one-act play competition. Though he took no role in the winning production, he served on the crew along with the quiet, veteran member named David Grosman. Alice was awarded an "honorable mention" in the best actress competition at the finals of the state contest, and the best actor award went to another member of the winning play's cast, Paul Mann. Arcott and Mann had been close friends for several years.

That year was the pinnacle of "The Players" success. The year before they had barely reached the regional competition and so did not compete in the state finals. Judges said privately that Miss Lutz's production that year was superb, but her choice in plays was in some degree responsible for her group's failure to reach the finals. The piece presented that year was a peculiar fantasy play without a strong story line and yet without a comic interest. Arcott, who performed in an important supporting role, was awarded an "honorable mention" in the best actor judging both at the district and the regional meets.

The year after winning the state meet, "The Players" continued to be successful in their home theatre at the high school. Alice Laurel became very popular with her fellow students and especially the parents and University students who attended "The Players" productions. Most observers agree that her most memorable appearance was in a popular play about the Old South; her death scene was considered deeply moving.

At that time, Alice was being coached outside of "The Players" organization by Arcott himself, of course, and by Miss Lutz, who though she had retired from active participation in the productions of the group, continued to be a close personal friend of Alice and Arcott. Arcott was no longer active in dramatic work, but he became friends with several of the drama students at the University where he was studying in a basic liberal arts program. They also became interested in Alice, both as a friend and as an actress, and continued to encourage and advise her during the year. No one was especially disappointed when "The Players" new coach - who had just graduated from the University the preceding year - decided to present another full-length production for the home audiences in the spring rather than enter the traditional one-act play competition. The play presented was such a popular success that the usual four-day run was extended to a full week including two weekends with a break Sunday and Monday evenings.

Alice and Arcott grew more and more close during the year. Arcott even began to talk of the day in the distant future when they could be married. That would not be, of course, until after Arcott had completed his University studies, and so they did not yet consider themselves actually engaged. Some of their friends in the high school, however, may have.

Immediately after graduating from high school, Arcott took a part-time job washing bottles and test tubes in a biochemistry lab at the University. He had always been quite interested in science and had decided not to major in biology or chemistry only because he thought such a course would commit to too many years in school. He wanted to have his B.S. after three years of study. He worked in the lab for two hours every weekday afternoon. The University summer school session began one week after Arcott's high school graduation. He had always been a good student though never near the top of his class. He did, however, pass one "advanced standing" examination at the university, and was exempted from the freshman English requirement. In the summer and the following fall, he completed most of the major courses required for freshmen and sophomores in Liberal Arts. He was not yet certain what his major field would be, but he was assured that any broad background would prepare him adequately for a career in business something like his father's in real estate sales and management. Miss Lutz, whom Alice and Arcott visited now and then during the summer, did not long continue her attempt to persuade Arcott to study for a career in drama. There would be no security in such a career, and not enough money - especially at first - for marriage and a family. A background in fine arts, also, would not prepare him for a business position. On weekends in the fall, Arcott took a job writing headlines for the Sunday and Monday editions of the local newspaper.

Arcott did not find his studies as difficult as he had always expected college would be. His grades, in fact, were better then they had been in high school. He seemed to find a new kind of energy which allowed him to improve his concentration on his studies, to work longer hours at his two jobs, and yet to be more relaxed and cheerful in social situations than he had ever been before. He usually picked Alice up at high school rehearsals after he had finished his work at the lab. If the weather was nice they would drive around a while or stop at some especially lovely part of the city to enjoy the sunset together. Each of them was surprised that they could feel so comfortable together, and Arcott felt that they shared everything.

It was almost always Alice who pointed out when it was time to be going home. Except on weekends, they didn't often have supper together because Alice would have to do her homework. Arcott's family liked Alice very much, and Mrs. Arcott would often invite her over for supper on Saturday evening. Even though they saw each other for a little while almost every day during this period, Arcott and Alice often talked on the telephone too. Alice would sometimes call to ask for help on some of her homework.

This continued even after Alice had entered the University, even though she saw somewhat less of Arcott then, since most of the University drama group's rehearsals were at night. She worked on several "crews," as they were called, for each production, and attended all rehearsals even when she did not have one of the small roles she was sometimes given. Arcott was able to change his work schedule at the lab that year to the evenings and often gave Alice a ride to rehearsal. She usually asked one of the members of the drama group to give her a ride home afterwards.

One evening in the spring of Alice's first year at the University, Arcott and she stopped for a few minutes on their way to school to look at the sunset from a little park on top of a hill overlooking the town lake. They usually found a few minutes together like that to talk of one thing or another. Alice had been particularly willing to stop a few minutes that day because she had been wondering for some time if perhaps she shouldn't begin to tell Don that she didn't quite feel the same about him as she had at first. He did not seem quite as exciting to her as he had at first and had continued to be even all during her senior year at high school. She still liked to be seen with him, and he was very popular among her friends in the University drama society. She was beginning to think, however, that it was important that she could not quite understand why they liked him so much. He didn't very often tell stories and joke the way he had done in high school.

She tried to study his face when he opened the door for her to get out of the car. He smiled at her, and again she liked him very much. She could not go through with it. He seemed so confident now. He seemed to trust her. That was what made her uncomfortable, she thought as they walked up the flat stone steps toward the top of the hill; his trusting her that way made her feel a little ashamed that she was annoyed with him sometimes. And there was nothing really bad about him. No, she would have to try to make him understand just a little anyway, or she could never feel right going out again for a Coke with Tom after rehearsal. Tom Palmert was a senior; he had the lead in the next play the dramatic society was going to present, and the summer before, he had brought down the house as Launce in The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Arcott himself was enjoying the warmth of the spring evening and the natural beauty around him. Trees and rude stones, the lake waters below and, far beyond, the pink and orange clouds strung out over the western horizon - that was just fine. It was warm and the breezes that rustled Alice's dark hair and the billowy sleeve of her white blouse were soft and caressing. He smiled again at Alice as she came up to his shoulder by the old wall that ran around the rim at the steepest part. "It's always quiet up here," he said. "I never understand why more people aren't always here."

Arcott put his arm around her shoulder. "I'm glad too," he added. She felt a little stiff to him, but she turned up her face so that he could kiss her lightly on the mouth.

She gently pushed him a little away after a minute and smiled at him for just a second. "Don?" she said.

He smiled down at her again. Yes, she could depend on him to understand. She could trust him now just as she had always done. Alice had often asked Arcott's advice about how she could behave with her parents. And she felt that Arcott always understood. Yes, she would only have to hint at it and he would understand everything.

"Maybe," she said shyly, "maybe we ought not be so close when we're together." That was a good way to do it, she thought. Arcott only seemed a little puzzled and not hurt. He had always let her decide how intense their love-making could become, and would be able to adjust. "After all," she went on, "it'll be a long time still before. . . before we could even think of getting married, for example." She was becoming a little flustered.

Arcott noticed that she was blushing and smiled again. She almost seemed to stamp her little foot as she looked suddenly out over the wall.

"Do you see what I mean, at least?" she asked rather shrilly.

Now, Arcott felt, I must answer something. Then he realized that he did not really see what she meant. "Do you mean," he asked, "that because it's at least another year. . ."

"Yes," she said and looked back at him. She wasn't as frightened now. He would understand. "We wouldn't want to get too excited now."

"Has it been-- Well, has it been uncomfortable for you so far?" he asked, frowning slightly.

"No, no!" she said quickly and laid her head on his shoulder. "No," she whispered, "it's been wonderful. You know that." Now she was certain that he understood everything. He was so good, and they could go on being as close as they were at that moment.

He had put his arm around her shoulder again. "It's a little hard?" he asked, "a little uncomfortable, to have to leave off. . .?" He didn't want to talk anymore. He had so often gone home with a paralyzing ache at the base of his stomach wishing for her, wishing for the time to pass. It made him feel strong with her there now to know that she too felt that way. "We can be together," he said, "without being together, can't we?"

"Oh yes, Don," Alice said. She looked up at him and then pressed lightly again her head on his chest.

Arcott knew then that he could not have gone on that other way alone; but now that they were sharing the awful agony of waiting, they could live it through together.

When Alice was sitting in Tom Palmer's car that evening at the hamburger stand where they usually stopped for a coke, she remembered again how well things had gone with Arcott before rehearsal. She was ashamed now for having been afraid he would be hurt.

Arcott and Alice continued to date often and to see each other or talk to each other on the telephone almost everyday. Arcott saved the money he made from his two jobs, and in the spring of his third year in college, several months before his graduation as an English major, he used part of them to begin payments on a car for himself and Alice. The wedding had been planned for some time in June. Two weeks before Arcott's graduation, the plans were canceled. After a month, Arcott took his savings away with him to spend a year in Europe, following his high school friend David Grosmann to France, and then to study at graduate school in the East; at the end of the summer when he went away, Alice was married to an older member of the dramatic society of which she was a member.

3

So she's not home.

She knew it was late but they so often were together on Saturdays that she hadn't thought it would matter much that she had forgotten to call before. That happened sometimes; you just got used to expecting something or wanting it that you thought everyone else would know too, automatically. It was nice having Alice over on Saturdays. Mrs. Arcott didn't even get nervous anymore because they could just have hot dogs and potato salad which didn't take anytime at all. She could telephone again in a few minutes. She could have Don call. She didn't like Alice's mother very much, and she hadn't told her who she was that was calling please. She would just call back later.

But Mrs. Arcott thought that the wedding would be very nice anyway. When were they going to start planning the details? Even if it was just going to be family. She didn't want to mention that herself. Maybe she was afraid Alice's mother would? That was Don's and Alice's right to mention it first. But Alice and her mother hadn't made any sign yet.

Now that she hadn't found Alice at home she didn't know quite what to do. That's right, a mother's job is never through, she thought. But she couldn't start the hot dogs since it was still early. Don's dad, her husband, would be coming in soon. She had already changed clothes. But she started setting places at the kitchen table. It was all right to do that even if Alice came. She hummed a little tune as she moved around the kitchen - oh, it was so pretty out on late spring afternoons - and wiped a water spot out of a spoon (that old plastic table cloth looks all right today). It was amazing to her how everything just seemed to have a tiny, quiet glow about them these days.

Oh there it is ringing, and she hadn't called Alice back yet. No, Don was going to.

Surely, Alice dear. Now there was just something in her voice on the phone that made her not what to say anything herself. It could just be a cold or maybe she's not talking on the home phone. That one step, just there and nowhere else the carpet was wearing thin. Why did stairs do that way? Don was studying, but he wouldn't mind, of course. She would knock first because he was older now. That handle still needs fixing.

Yes, it was Alice and would Don ask her to come for supper tonight? He's gotten very tall by now and especially thin. They would fatten him up now, she thought and almost laughed, she and Alice together.

She heard his voice at the phone because the stairs didn't make noise if you went down slowly. The phone wasn't pretty and was awkward there at the front door, but she sees him coming up the front walk. Don doesn't say hello to his father because he is so interested in the telephone. Hello, dear, she said to her husband. Did many come out to see the house today?

No, they were not talking about supper tonight so she had no right to listen. But it was hard not to, since the kitchen door just swung a little back and forth and didn't touch around the sides. He will like that beer before supper.

Yes, plenty of time. He would be able to shower first.

Alice is coming, I think, too. Isn't it nice that it's so warm again? He liked a beer in the evenings now that it was warmer. The clear tall bottle of scotch now would stay half filled up in the kitchen cabinet probably until next winter or fall. They got along all right, the two of them. That didn't mean anything that there was so much trouble and divorce now today. She could just step outside a minute to see how warm it was and see better than just through the window.

But ah, Don hung up now; and she could ask him if she were coming before he went upstairs again. Did he hang up? She didn't hear a sound. Well, yes, there was the shower from the upstairs bath. No, that stopped now.

It was very quiet, which she did not understand.

Don shouldn't slump over like that; it made him look ill.

After she stood there for a minute without saying anything because her son seemed to be thinking about something and looking down at his hands, he looked up at her.

"Alice is not coming to supper," he said and stood up

It's the way that people have to slide their feet on the front edge of the steps that makes them wear thin.

Don? She didn't know if he were ill or what.

"I'm not feeling well, Mother," he said without looking back as he trudged up the stairs. "Please, I want to lie down."

He must be very tired. Or maybe he's coming down with something. She could always make him soup. He was right to tell Alice not to come if he was sick.

Now, what was that sound?

She was hurrying up the stairs but her husband had reached Don's room before she did and - his back was still damp from the shower, in his shorts - he was helping Don up onto his bed. It was just a couch now with the cover still on.

"What's the matter, son?" he was saying.

Don didn't seem to be quite able to speak. He wasn't excited or hot. No temperature, she was sure of that.

"All right," he said. "Please, let me alone." He said that very clearly but without seeming to make an effort.

It's all right, dear. Yes, that's right to dry off better and get dressed.

Don didn't seem to mind her being there. But she felt helpless. He lay there heavily in front of her. His eyes were open and looking right at her, but there was no expression in them. His hands were at his sides, and they shook. Only his hands. She took a blanket from the top shelf in his closet and covered him with it.

He didn't say anything. He didn't move, just looking emptily toward her. She started to stroke his forehead brushing his hair back. But he moved slightly away. "No. All right," he said again. "Please."

She was sure he wasn't sick then. It wasn't right to leave him alone. He should have someone to talk to him and brush his hair back and sit next to him. He wouldn't have to say anything until he wanted to.

At the door, she looked back toward him.

"It's silly," he said. "I can't control it."

All right, dear. Do you want anything? But he hasn't heard anything we've said to him. She didn't like to leave him alone, but there wasn't anything else to do.

That handle still needs fixing. One of these days, it's going to stick.

Reminiscence: A Summer Job

***
1

My first summer job came when I was thirteen years old, between the seventh and eighth grades. I did yard work for several different families, my parents driving me back and forth from home. Miss Mattie, Miss Edilene, Miss Louisa and her husband Rev. H----. These were all members of our church; I don’t know if it was my mother or my father, the well known Dr. Derrick, who lined them up. I also kept the yard for a neighborhood family during their month-long vacation. Their daughter Jeri was a school acquaintance, and I had probably told her what I was going to do for the others.

My most memorable summer job was between eleventh and twelfth grades, when I worked as a bell-boy in a historic guest lodge in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. It was the grown-up son of a church member who hired me, which by this time seemed normal. How else would a kid get a summer job except through church contacts, set up by his dad?

So it was Mom and Dad, mostly Dad, who arranged for my many summer occupations… Or at least that was true until the summer after my high school graduation.

Boy, did I feel like a grown-up! Not only was I preparing to go 1,100 miles away to college in three months, but also my job that summer had come along entirely because of my own efforts. All my life I had been my parents’ son. I wanted to be “Byron Derrick,” not “Dr. Derrick’s son,” and the time for that was coming soon. What a good feeling.

2

At the beginning of my junior year, my seventh grade English teacher, who had also been advisor to the junior high newspaper, replaced the retiring high school journalism teacher and advisor to that schools’ newspaper. To be frank, we hadn’t gotten along very well in English class. Most of us had found Mrs. M----- boring if not incompetent.

Looking back I realize that the state curriculum had seventh graders read quite unsuitable literature for youngsters. Maybe Longfellow’s Evangeline might have held some interest, at least for the girls, but the curriculum emphasized the fact that this was POETRY, to which reverence was due. We concentrated on learning what a dactyl was and counting feet. It seemed an interminable time we spent on this magnus opus. But even less suitable for kids our age (and high energy level) was the novel we were assigned: George Eliot’s Silas Marner, which is about a very old man and a very young child. None of us could relate to that, even those of us who were dedicated readers.

(I think this was just at the end of the period when Mother would take me to the children’s room of the downtown public library once a week, and I always checked out six books - the maximum number allowed. I preferred Kazan the Wolf dog and White Fang over Silas Marner, and I read biographies of great Americans more than any other one thing.)

So it was suprisising to discover how well Mrs. M----- and I got along in second-year journalism in high school. Toward the end of that year, in fact, I was named Co-Editor of the high school newspaper for the senior year. I was to write a regular column and whatever other stories I wanted. I was the reporter-editor; K------- was the copy-editor; all the staff had to sell ads.

I figured I must have done well when, in April of the senior year, Mrs. M------ told me about a local weekly paper that was starting up; she was the editor-in-chief. She showed me a copy of the first issue; it looked like a real newspaper. It was called The Women’s Press. I showed it to my father, who was always interested in local papers. He said it looked good.

Well, Mrs. M----- wanted to pay me for reporting for TWP, starting right away but working full-time in the summer. Mom and Dad said it was all right, so this was my first job that I had earned for myself.

3

It was a local election year, with the real action being in the Democratic Party since the Republicans ran someone only for Mayor (and never won). My job was to write stories about the candidates for City Council. There was an enormous number of candidates; the districts must have been large and the number of seats small in comparison. I plunged in, first reviewing all the candidates’ printed material, not ignoring what the daily papers were writing, of course. Then, dividing them up I focused several articles on the opponents for each seat. It seemed like a heck of a lot of work for a guy finishing his senior year, but I really liked it. All the candidates and all of their little staffs took my stories seriously and gave me what seem like a lot of time every time I called them up.

We were planning on much more in-depth reporting for the summer leading up to the primary. I was going to interview some of the top civil servants about the issues mentioned to me by the candidates, and eventually I was going to interview randomly-selected voters to see which ways they were leaning and why. It all seemed real authentic and was pretty impressive for an inexperienced high-school kid.

And then, very suddenly it was all over.

Mrs. M----- called me at home one afternoon a week or so before the end of the school year and asked me to come over to her place right away. It wasn’t far from my house and since there was no car to drive, I wrote a note for Mother and walked over. Mrs. M----- had apparently been crying and did not seem herself at all. Now that I think back, I wonder if she had had a couple of drinks. She told me flat out that we were both out of jobs. The business manager had disappeared with all the money, there was little hope of tracking him down, and the owner - who may have been Mrs. M----- herself - had decided to bag the whole enterprise.

4

Now, I was up a creek. All the usual church contacts were all played out that late in the year, and this time it was important since the family had all been counting on me to earn most of my spending money that summer for the college freshman year.

Dad got on the telephone right away and called an acquaintance at the local book publisher. They weren’t looking for anyone to read proofs or that kind of thing for just a summer, but he had Dad bring me in for an interview, which seemed pleasant enough but didn’t seem very hopeful.

So, there I was, thinking I was on my own, earning my way by my own devices, only to find that I wasn’t going to be earning anything at all! I think Dad was unhappy too, feeling he had let me down.

The week before high school graduation, however, Dad told me his friend had just called and there was an opening, not on the publisher’s editorial staff, but at their print factory. It would be hard work, but the pay would be good. I had nothing to lose, so the next day I drove myself out to the factory on the far edge of the city at exactly the right time, and opened the one door I saw off the big parking lot; the noise bursting out was overwhelming.

But a guy wearing a white, short-sleeve shirt and a tie met me just inside and led me by the huge four-color printing press to his little office in the back. Closing the door helped a lot. I had to fill out a few papers and sign a couple of others. He mentioned that I would be the only non-union employee, but for one summer that was no problem.

He said he would take me to my work station. The noise again. He cupped his hands over my ear and said that it was so humid in the factory because the air conditioning was set up to keep all the presses running. We went by another huge press, this one a web press with big spools of paper winding up and down from one end to the other.

After the noise and the related vibrations, the most noticeable feature of the factory was how dirty it was. It seemed dim too, with only the work stations scattered here and there being brightly lit. In-between the presses were stacks and stacks of paper on wooden pallets. As we made our way toward a back corner, I thought I may have seen a rat shuffling around among the paper.

Wow, I was thinking, isn’t this great! I’ll bet my dad never worked in a huge, noisy, dirty factory like this. This was me. I was doing this, making my own way.

We came at last to what seemed by comparison a tiny press, only about 10 feet wide by 20 feet long and 8 feet tall at the highest spot. That was where a white-haired, wiry little Hispanic man was transferring this black wax-like ink from a tray balanced on his arm to a big, long tray at the top of the press.

The man in the tie cupped his hands around my ear again and said he would introduce me and pulled on the other’s trouser leg. The little man looked me over as he came down from his ink-spattered step ladder.

This is real life, I was thinking. I’m on my own, and I’m going to make it!

Cupping his hands around Frank’s ear, the supervisor said something at which the dark, wiry old guy started, looked back at me, turned and bounced over.

Ink-spattered hands around my ear, he said in a bright, loud voice:

“Not Dr. Derrick’s son?!”


***

Freedom in America: Who Cares?

***

1

A political leader recently stated that his party was “based on freedom” (with emphasis), and his audience clapped and cheered. Virtually every political party in American history would no doubt say it too was devoted to freedom, but this speaker – and, alas, also his adoring audience – seemed to believe that this statement was both clear and deeply meaningful.

Statements are clear and meaningful, however, only if they answer clear and meaningful questions. Saying that one is committed to freedom, while it sometimes pleases a crowd, does not answer questions; the key questions are in fact raised by such a claim.

Every sane and responsible leader – including this speaker, I am sure – acknowledges that people are not and must not consider themselves free to do anything they want. Are you free to sock your boss when he takes credit for an achievement for which you alone are responsible? Are you free to take that laptop left on a table in a Wi-fi café while the owner is getting another cup of coffee? Are you free to incite violence? To drive through a stop sign? To make lewd advances to a child? To deny a woman the health care she wants and deserves by law? To walk around naked in public? To give poisoned candy to trick-or-treaters? To burn down a church preaching a doctrine you don’t like? To lie on your income tax return? Are you free to break a law because you do not think it should have been passed?

Perhaps no one would say that his political party is based on such preposterous “freedoms” as these. And no one even in the audience who wildly cheered thought this speaker was referring to limitless freedom, irresponsible and anti-social freedom harming or endangering others or others’ property. But what did they think was being referred to?

The key question they should have been thinking about – although at that moment they may not have been in a thoughtful frame of mind – is, Freedom from what?

2

The American leaders who have preceded us, regardless of party, have all maintained – in deed if not in words – that the freedoms  to which all of us are entitled include:

1. Freedom from fear


2. Freedom from want


3. Freedom from intolerance


4. Freedom from violence, force, and intimidation


5. Freedom from injustice

and

6. Freedom from the cruel bondage of unequal opportunity.

We do not have to fear that we will be arrested for no reason, separated from our families, and taken to work camps or death camps. We don’t have to fear that our property may be damaged or stolen without serious consequences to the vandal or the thief. We don’t have to fear that we will be abused because of the position we take on a public issue. As much as is allowed by life itself, with all its inherent uncertainties, we may live free from fear.

Our “unalienable rights” include “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Life is threatened by hunger, homelessness, lack of adequate clothing, or lack of necessary health care. None of us should have to fear extreme want – or poverty – to such an extent that our very lives are threatened. That is one of our basic rights in this country, promised by the Declaration of Independence, guaranteed by the Constitution, and bolstered by generations of law-makers and judges.

We are free to worship as we please, or not to worship at all; we do not have to fear religious intolerance. We are protected from discrimination against us based on race or gender. We will not be punished because we support the losing party in an election or a controversial point of view in a public debate. We will not be assaulted or spat upon because of the color of our skin, at least not with impunity. Our Constitution and our laws free us from intolerance – whether racial, political, or religious.

We will not be forced to work in somebody else’s fields for little or no pay. No one may use force to prevent us from doing anything, at least anything that is not against the law. We may legitimately expect to be protected from violence by those who disagree with our moral values, so long as our values do not put others at risk and are not contrary to law, or by those who want us to change our opinions on a matter of public debate, or by those who want us to vote for a candidate whom we do not support. We will be free of threats of harm if we do not conform, except to civil law, free from intimidation. We are free to think for ourselves.

We will not be imprisoned without a fair and public trial. Someone who owes us money will not be permitted to simply walk away from the debt. We will not do the work for which we are hired only to see our employers successfully avoid paying us our due wages. Laws will be applied equally to us and to those poorer than we and to those richer and more politically well-connected. All that would be unjust, and we in our country will live free from such injustice.

That final natural right cited in our Declaration of Independence, “the pursuit of happiness,” would be violated if we were denied the schooling needed to get a decent job because we are poor and powerless, or if we were denied the opportunity to compete on equal terms with others of different races or religions or gender. We would not have the right to pursue happiness if our socio-economic status prevented us from being able to compete fairly with others more fortunate than we, or if our own businesses were not able to compete with big corporations because anti-trust laws are not enforced, or because prices are fixed among our competitors, or because suppliers collude with the big businesses to deny us what we need in order to complete fairly. Our national values protect us from unequal opportunity, and in so doing make us free.

3

A political party based on these six freedoms – from fear, want, force and violence, injustice, and unequal opportunity – and that actively, proudly, and aggressively pursues them would be one we could enthusiastically support.

Yet, somehow, I am inclined to think that the actions of the party referred to in the recent speech are not in fact founded on principles of freedom as I understand it, or at least not on freedom for all.


*****

Wise Sayings 2

* * *


Plan
For the best

Have a
Back-up plan

Or
Two
………………………………Ron Lucius


* * *