The Song – by one of my favorites –  The Who

Arming Bears

I hear my “Second Amendment” friends demanding that we can’t register guns, and we can’t check backgrounds.  Why, I ask; is it any different than a car or a house?  We regulate, register, tax and control all of those purchases – why are guns so very different?  Their answer is always simple:  The Second Amendment.  As  Justice Scalia wrote in the majority opinion of the Heller Supreme Court decision (wrongly ruled in my judgment):  the two clauses of the Second Amendment are independent of each other.  So “…A well-regulated militia being necessary for the security of the free state” clause, has no bearing or modification of the “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” clause.

They claim an absolute right to “keep and bear arms”.  Any regulation has to be weighed completely against that right.  Anything governmental action that “infringes” on it:  registration, background check, licensing; cuts into it.  

Now I don’t agree with the original premise of the Heller decision, that the two clauses are independent of each other.  In fact, I’m surprised that a Constitutional originalist like Scalia made that argument.  Madison wrote carefully and precisely.  It’s unlikely he wanted to leave room for interpretation here, when in so many other instances he was crystal clear in his meaning.  And to claim that the “well-regulated militia clause” is extraneous seems unlikely to me.  But that’s what Scalia said, and a majority of the Court agreed with him.

Fundamentals of the Constitution

But this essay isn’t about the Second Amendment.  It’s about an even more fundamental issue of the Constitution, a foundational determination:  the right to vote.  And oddly enough many of the same people who demand that governmental regulation of weapons is unconstitutional are perfectly willing to make “other” folks jump through paperwork hoops to vote.

The right to vote is even more soundly grounded in the Constitution than the right to bear arms.  At the very beginning:  Article 1, Section II; where the document outlines the qualification to vote for Members of the House of Representatives: “…electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature”.

Electors are voters – and who gets the right to vote is outlined in a series of Amendments:  the 15^th, the 19^th, the 23^rdand the 26^th.   And how that right is applied is determined by the fateful language of the 14^th Amendment:  

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

It seems clear that the right of a citizen to bear arms, and the right of a citizen to vote have, at the least, equal weight in the Constitution.  

Down at the Polls

When Americans began voting, there was little regulation of the voting process.  Citizens voted in precincts, close to their home.  Their “poll workers” were their friends and neighbors.  Essentially everyone knew everyone, paper identification wasn’t required.  And everybody knew who was “eligible” and who was not.  So there was no need for advanced identification mechanisms. 

Even up into the last half of the twentieth century, voting was mostly a neighborhood deal.  Here in Pataskala, the poll workers were the retired people in town.  They either knew you already, or they knew you after the first time.  But just in case, they asked you to sign your name, then matched it to the “big book” of signatures.  

When you registered to vote with the Board of Elections, they got a signature for comparison purposes.  Then when you voted, they matched you current signature to that original.  All of the voter qualification requirements:  citizenship, residency, age and questions of legal status were determined upon registration.  After that – it was just about going and casting a ballot, with your signature as your “bond”.  If there was a question about the signature, or about you, there was (and is) a process for challenging that.  And it’s worked for over a century.

The Big Lie

In the past twenty years, there has been an outbreak of voter fraud.  Millions of voters cast their ballots illegally, and while Court action has been brought and hundreds of thousands of cases, it’s been incredibly difficult to stem the rising tide of false votes.  And, amazingly, almost all of the false votes have been for Democratic candidates, so much so, that Republican legislatures all across the nation have instituted more restrictive identification processes.  It’s all necessary to protect the “sacred” right to vote.

Except for one thing.  None of the above paragraph is true.  The Brennan Center at the New York University Law School has done a comprehensive study of voter fraud in the United States over the past twenty years.  Here’s what they found:  in studies of US elections, the voter fraud rate is less than .0025%.   So what does that number mean?  Out of a million votes cast, there is at most an average of 2.5 inaccurate votes, perhaps voter fraud.  As the Study states:  a voter has a better chance of being struck by lightning, than committing voter fraud (Brennan).

In Search of a Solution

In spite of the lack of a problem, Republican legislatures demanded higher levels of identification for voting.  And for many suburban white Americans, the solutions don’t seem to be “a big deal”.  Asking voters to show their driver’s license to vote just isn’t “onerous”.  And for them, it isn’t.  But in Texas and in Georgia is several other states, demanding driver’s license or other official state ID is actually a means of restricting minority voting.  Here’s how.

Many states “cut costs” by shutting down local “BMV’s” (Bureaus of Motor Vehicles) where driver’s licenses and other forms of state ID’s are issued.  This was done as a cost saving measure, and particularly impacts small, isolated, rural towns.  The functions of the local BMV’s are consolidated in larger, more efficient regional offices.

Onerous

But the problem is those regional offices are in bigger towns, forty, fifty, or in Texas’s case one hundred miles away.  For folks who are unable to afford personal vehicles, that means they have to find some kind of public transportation to get to the “big town”, get an ID, and get home.  It’s a big trip, a full day trip really, a day where they will not be earning wages.  If they have to get someone else to drive, they have to pay for gas.  If they take public transportation, they have to pay the ticket.  And for some of the ID’s they have to pay a fee for that as well.

So what seems like no big deal here in Pataskala, where the BMV office is located in the center of town; in other states becomes a time consuming and expensive effort to get an ID.  If you have to “pay” to get the paperwork to vote, it’s a form of poll tax.  And that, my friends, is unconstitutional, violating the Twenty-Fourth Amendment:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

Who Can’t Vote

And since in many of those states many of those poor rural voters are minorities, the voter ID laws keep them from voting.  By the way, it’s the same way with cost-saving consolidation of polls.  Here in Pataskala, what used to be the local polling place in the center of town has been moved.  The “new” polling place consolidates several different old polling places in one building.  It’s one “efficient” voting process:  but for the elderly or “car-less” who used to walk to the poll in town, it places a burden on them.

If you look at the lines to vote in Atlanta – you get the point.  The polls have been consolidated.  Not only do folks have to pay for transportation, buses most likely, to get to the polls, but then they have to wait hours in line to vote.  In those hours, they aren’t working, and they aren’t taking care of their kids.  Someone else is.  And now, thanks to the “good” folks in the Georgia State Legislature, they can’t  be handed a cookie or a bottle of water as they wait in line.  It’s illegal.

So what for the suburban citizens in Pataskala, or even outside of Atlanta, doesn’t seem like a big deal, is just one more step to make sure it’s hard for poor, minority voters to cast their ballots.  

Mail It In

With COVID, voting by mail became a more important option.  States made it easy to cast your ballot from the kitchen, instead of getting to the poll and waiting in line.  The ballot was sent to the residence of the voter, assuring that the voter lived there.  The ballot was returned with a signature (sometimes several) allowing for the signature “check”. 

 But now several states are requiring greater ID requirements.  Copies of driver’s licenses (here we go again) are required.  But that requires access to copiers, or scanners.  Again, no big deal to the middle class suburban voter.  Not so easy to those who don’t have the electronic equipment we all take for granted.

And, of course, it’s not about keeping Democrats from voting – it’s about “ballot security”.

As the Parkland kids would say:  I call BS.

ACA

It was a true highlight of the early “Resistance” to the Trump Administration.  Trump’s goal was to dismantle almost anything that Barack Obama achieved.  And President Obama’s greatest achievement:  The Affordable Care Act (ACA), bringing health insurance to millions of Americans.  

It was already undercut by the Republican controlled Congress.  The ACA was a “carrot and stick” approach to insurance.  If you didn’t already have private insurance through your employer and refused to purchase it on the “marketplace”, you faced the “stick”.  You were charged a tax “penalty”. 

The Republicans lowered the “penalty” to zero and took away the “stick”.  So those who wished to “go bare” and have no insurance at all, didn’t face consequences.  That is, of course, until they got injured or sick.  And from the ACA side, it allowed a lot of very healthy people to not contribute to the insurance pool.  Their dollars were used to supplement the costs of sicker people.

GOP Control

Mr. Trump controlled the Presidency, the House under Speaker Paul Ryan, and the Senate under Mitch McConnell.  Democrats rallied Americans to protect the ACA.  There were marches on the Capitol, sit-ins in the hallways, and media pressure campaigns all over the nation.  But in the end, the numbers favored the Republicans.  

The House voted to repeal the Act, and it moved to the Senate.  The Republicans had a 54 to 46 vote majority. They were clearly in charge but not the “super” majority of 60 required to end a Democratic filibuster.   So the repeal was brought as a “budget reconciliation bill”. That allowed a simple majority of 51 to take away Obama’s crowning achievement.  

There were a few Republican Senators wavering.  They faced tough re-election campaigns in marginally Republican states, and the ACA was popular among the electorate.  And some recognized that their Party had still offered no alternative to the ACA. Should Congress repeal the law, there would be no protections for those with pre-existing conditions, and no ability to carry young adults on their parent’s insurance.  Both were extremely popular changes made by the ACA.

Maverick

And some felt that the process itself, using “budget reconciliation” to take a clearly non-budget vote, was just wrong. There were no hearings, no committees discussing the health care needs of America, no debate on the relative values of the Affordable Care Act. That led some to question the entire process.  One of those was the Senior Senator from Arizona, John McCain. 

McCain lived up to his nickname “Maverick” during the early years of Trump.  He saw Trump as a charlatan and he called “ it like he saw it”.  So McCain’s vote to repeal the ACA was hardly “in the bag”.  Vice President Mike Pence was the point man for the Administration in the negotiations, and McCain wavered as the ultimate pressure was on to support his Party.

Thumb Down

But McCain was dying of a brain tumor.  The normal political pressures of funding or lack of support didn’t have much impact on a man who would only live a few more months.

We all remember that final act.  It was early in the morning, as the Senate was taking the vote.  Those still up watching saw McCain huddle with Pence and McConnell. He then walk out of the Chamber as the votes were taken.  Then he came in, and with an awkward motion of his tortured arm, stood in the front of the Clerk of the Senate and gestured – thumb down.  The ACA survived.

It was about “regular order”.  McCain, like the current President Biden, was a man of the Senate. The Senate was acting as a partisan arm of Donald Trump, not as the deliberative body where McCain “grew up” politically in his thirty years there.  And while the “Resistance” took his vote on the ACA as a great victory – to McCain it was more about the role of the Senate than the law itself.

Get Things Done

After four years of Democrats watching Trump outrages, there is a tremendous pressure to get things done.  The Voting Rights Act(s), Immigration and Citizenship Reform, upgrading the infrastructure, LGBTQIA rights, climate change, gun reform; all are on the list.  And there is the direct impact of the Trump Presidency.  How can we be assured that the almost dictatorial leadership will never be repeated?

Senate Democrats are asking themselves what price they might pay by changing the rules.  They have a slim majority of one, based on Vice President Harris’s role as tie breaker.  To pass any legislation by “regular order”, they must find ten Republican Senators to join in.  And while there seems to be a “middle caucus” of ten less obstructionist Republicans, they don’t seem close to joining the Majority on anything so far.  

By their tie breaking vote, Democrats could make the Senate a simple majority body.  Or, like what has already been done with Judicial and Executive nominations, they can carve out more exceptions to the sixty-vote rule.  They can change the “regular order” to get the agenda through.

Party Line

That is of course, if fifty Democrats stay in step with the “Party line”.  As we saw in the COVID Relief Package, Democrats MAY negotiate with the Republicans, but they MUST negotiate with the more conservative members of their own Party, with Joe Manchin as the “poster boy”.  And Joe Manchin, like John McCain, is a man of “regular order”.  

For Democratic leadership, it’s difficult to put political pressure on a Democrat elected from West Virginia, a state that in 2020 voted almost 69% in favor of Donald Trump.  

One final point.  When Democrats “kill” or modify the Filibuster, the sixty vote rule, when Republicans regain the majority, they will follow the precedent and do the same.  But McConnell could do that anyway, so that threat doesn’t go away no matter what the Democrats do now.

Change the Order

There are many things that Democrats can do – but the one “wrong” answer is impotence.  A minority of Republican Senators cannot stop the flood of legislation that the House, and the vast majority of Democrats, want to get done.  Should the Senate leadership somehow hide behind the veil of Republican filibusters, then the 2022 electorate will walk away from them.  

It’s time for Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to make the deal:  not with Republicans, but with Joe Manchin, Krysten Sinema, and the other “blue dog” Democrats.  Whether it’s a total end to the filibuster, or some modification, the only acceptable outcome is to find a way to get things done.  The Voting Rights Acts (HR 1 and HR 4) need to be at the top of that list. 

It’s Sunday, and it’s back to the “Sunday Story” series. Here’s four stories about coaching at the State Cross Country Meet.

Forty Years

I was a social studies teacher and a Dean of Students during my thirty-six years of teaching.  

But I coached for forty years.  My “primary” coaching was in Track and Field, but I was also the Cross Country Coach for thirty years. And I was an assistant Wrestling coach for a while, and started the middle school Wrestling and Cross Country teams.  So while I was teaching and even after, I was always, always coaching.

We took our sports seriously.  We all put a tremendous amount of effort in it, whether it was on the track, in the woods, or on the mat.  And when we competed, we did everything we could to win.  It was part of the “lessons” of athletics in school; work hard, strive to win, and then accept the outcome with “grace”.  I wanted my teams to be honorable, in defeat and victory.  Some of the best lessons were at the losing end of a hard-fought competition, though they certainly didn’t feel like a “good” lesson at the time.

And sometimes things just went sideways.  Today’s stories are from forty years of kids who did everything they could to be successful.  But that wasn’t always the story.  Here’s four from the State Cross Country Meet.

State Cross Country

From the beginning, getting to the State meet in Cross Country was the ultimate goal.  Out of two hundred plus teams in our division, only sixteen made it to the starting line at State.  And even fewer “individuals” qualified, usually about sixteen or twenty.  Getting there was the game.

And we did – first as individuals, then with a series of teams from 1988 through 1999.  During that time the State Meet was held at Scioto Downs, a harness racing track (now a Racino – horses and slot machines).  The course there started in the infield in front of the grandstand, with maybe 12,000 spectators cheering their teams on.  The first half mile was straight across the field, then a 180 degree turn around that (damn) orange barrel to come back in front of the grandstand again.  Another loop around the field – then out in the grounds around the stables.

The start was crazy.  The pressure of all those fans was something that wasn’t a part of “normal” Cross Country.  We were used to a few vocal parents (“Push Johnny – PUSH”) and coaches (“ARRRMMMS!”) but not thousands in the stands.  Not that there wasn’t enough pressure already at the culminating effort of six months of work.  So when the 1989 team got to the line on that cold November afternoon – we were more than “psyched”.  

Mike’s Tights

Our team captain Mike, had been sick all week.  He was our leader, and not having him compete wasn’t really an option.  The school administrators were more than generous – school attendance rules that week were “flexed” for Mike.  So he was out there, not near his best, but leading our first boys’ team at the State Meet.  

Track and Cross Country have some “peculiar” rules.  The problem is that there is no “minor” penalty; no going to the foul line, or five-yard setback.  If you violate the rules, you are disqualified from the event.  You know that college football rule where a player can get thrown out for an “illegal” hit?  Well it’s like that, except it can be for something like stepping across the wrong line, or wearing the wrong pair of running tights.

So there we were, five minutes before the gun, and the boys start taking off their sweats.  Mike looks a little feverish, but the energy on the line pulsed through him just like everyone else.  But when he pulled off his sweat pants – there it was.  He put on the wrong pair of running tights. His had red trim.

That’s a rule violation – at the time all “visible undergarments” had to be a single solid color.  And here was Mike in front of virtually every official in the state, with black tights (like everyone else on our team) except for the red trim near the top.  If they spotted him – he was disqualified, and so was the rest of the team.

Decision on the Line

As Coach, I had a couple of options.  Make a circle, and have Mike strip the tights off?  But it was below freezing, and he was already sick as a dog.  Find another pair of tights?  But there was no time left, the Starter was already blowing the whistle for the “meeting” before the gun.  So I went with a desperate plan:  hope that all of those old-aged officials (I’m one of them now) would miss the red trim peeking out from below his running shorts.

The gun went off, and the “race to the barrel” at the other end of the infield was on.  I spent the next fifteen minutes dashing from one end of the course to the other, cheering and encouraging, trying to get my guys up into the competition.  But in the back of my mind was the thought: I was going to be “that coach” – the guy who couldn’t get his team dressed right and got disqualified.

Mike ran OK, considering his condition.  And we finished Sixth in the State, pretty respectable, though we wanted better.   I raced to the finish line area, and found a friend who was working there.  I explained – my kid was sick, he needed to get his sweats on right away.   Would he get them to him?  I didn’t mention red trim.  I was hoping that Mike, now completely wiped out by the race, would have enough presence of mind to get the sweats on before an official could notice a no-longer-moving target. 

Mike, with the help of his teammates, managed to get dressed.  There was no fateful call:  “Would the Watkins Coach report to the Head Referee” on the PA System.  The team was disappointed in our finish, but proud of our efforts.  Mike spent a couple of weeks really sick – but he wouldn’t have missed that race for the world.  I wouldn’t have pulled him either.  And we “got away” with it.  But, from then on, I ALWAYS checked uniforms before we put sweats on at the state – and I ALWAYS had a spare one with me – just in case there was ever red trim again.

If You Had to Choose

Carmen was an outstanding runner for her four years at Watkins.  In her freshmen year we had a five-girl team – the minimum amount to score in Cross Country.  Carmen was often the first across the finish line.  Our fifth girl worked hard, but was often the last across the line.  So we were the “beginning” and “the end” of each race.

But we had a strong middle school girls team coming, and we promised Carmen that we would build a great team around her.  And we did – by her junior year of high school we had the chance to make it to the State meet.  But it took some “finagling”.   To get to the state we had to place high enough in the Regional Meet to qualify.  At the Lancaster Regional, our boys had their best chance to make it out, with the top four teams going to state.  But for the girls, four of the toughest teams in the State were running at Lancaster.

We also had the choice of going to the Troy Regional.  Only two teams qualified from there,but the girls were good enough to be in the top two.  The problem, it wouldn’t work out well for the boys. So the coaches had to make a decision:  either we all go to one place and one team wouldn’t qualify, or we split our squad.  And while that was a tactical nightmare – we were one team, used to all being together, all the time. But we had to do what’s right for all of our kids.  We split up.

So Jan took the boys down to Lancaster, along with our fellow track coach Jeff, and Dean and I took the girls to Troy.  For a brief moment, I tried to rent a helicopter to pick me up in Troy and drop me off at Lancaster in time for the boy’s race. It was only $1000, and think of the psych as the Coach buzzes the course and lands nearby.  But the schedule was too tight – it wouldn’t work –   too bad.  

It was early in the days of cell phones – and communication between Jan and I was scattered.  The girls ran an awesome race across the goose-poop covered fields along the Great Miami River in Troy, and came in second to a strong Olentangy team.  We were going to State and we were pumped!!  So I called Jan, let her know, and waited for her return call from the boys in Lancaster.

The girls were running their warm down when I got the garbled call from Jan. All I heard was screaming and yelling – but I figured it out.  Two teams were going to State.  It would be a “learning experience”, we were last in both races at Scioto Downs – but we were ready to go back in make more noise the next year!

Pecking Order

We fulfilled our promise to Carmen.  And she more than fulfilled her commitment to us – leading our team through a remarkable junior season.  And the next year, we were even better prepared, even stronger.  But the week of State, Carmen started feeling bad.  It happens, and it’s not just “pressure” from the meet.  The Championship part of the season requires maximum effort, over and over again.  There’s a real cause of season ending sickness and injury.  The Championships push kids to the limits of their abilities, and makes them vulnerable to illness.  It happened to Mike, and it was happening to Carmen too.  

The week into the state meet we did everything we could to rest her.  But it wasn’t any good, she was sick and getting sicker.  But, along with her parents, we weren’t going to pull her from her Senior State.  She more than earned the right to be there, and we could hope adrenalin might take over when everything else failed.

I remember the look in her eyes on the starting line – sad, frustrated, willing to try, but already knowing it wasn’t there.  She was worried that she’d “let the team down”, but I told her that by being there she made our team better.  The gun went off, and within three-fourths of a mile, we knew Carmen’s race wasn’t to be. 

Then we saw the unanticipated problem.  Our girls’ team, like ducks in a row, were all lined up behind Carmen.  No one ever passed Carmen before in a race, and no matter what she said to them (and she was doing some talking) they didn’t want to go by.  Jan yelled, I yelled, and finally, about the mile mark, they started to pass.  Carmen was in tears, and so were the girls as they went by her, one by one.

We were a family, sometimes dysfunctional, sometimes bickering, but a family.  That’s what our Cross Country teams were always about.  We were all in tears.   It wasn’t the ending any of us wanted, but it proved a more important point.  We loved each other.

Gotta Go

A few years later, we were back at Scioto Downs with the boys.  This team was a little different, with a lot more “edge” to it.  We were there with a plan, looking to come home with hardware.  Our team ritual was to arrive at the meet site, set up our team “camp”, then go and run the course.  If you think about it, race days were long days: a three-mile run to warmup, strides and sprints before the race, a three-mile all-out race effort, then a few miles of warm down run after.  But these were well conditioned kids, and eight or nine miles in a day wasn’t unusual. 

So we arrived at Scioto Downs, and set up our tent.  The kids ran out to buy T-Shirts (we came early to take care of that issue) then met back at the tent to start our warmup loops of the course.  It was a bit of a hassle to get inside the stadium at Scioto Downs, so we started our run outside of the track area, through the quiet areas away from the crowd.

There is an axiom of racing.  Before the race, you will always have to pee.  It doesn’t matter if it’s the 100-meter dash or a 5000-meter cross country race, the energy of “fight-flight” will make you want to go.  So while we were at the far south end of the course, my guys headed into the “high weeds” to take care of the issue.  I didn’t really think much of it, it was Cross Country and this was standard practice.  At our home meet, the Watkins Invitational, there was as farm field right beside the starting line (it’s a housing development now).  Things went a lot smoother when the field was planted in corn.  Troops of boys would wander into the field, and return more relaxed.  When there was soybeans, the lines at the Port-a-Pots were much longer.

Please Report

So we got that issue resolved, and continued our warmup into the stadium.  It was our first pass in front of the grandstand, and we were all commenting about the crowd.  Then I heard the PA Announcement:  “Would the Watkins Coach please report to the announcer to speak to the Sheriff’s Deputy in Charge”.  

I mean, really?  We were going to get nailed for peeing in the high weeds?   That was going to make a great headline in the Pataskala Standard:

“STATE QUALIFYING TEAM PISSES AWAY THEIR CHANCE.” 

 I could hear my School Superintendent now…

So I left the team with my Assistant Coach John to finish their warmup, and headed into the Grandstand to find the announcer.  I was marshalling all of my best “legal” arguments – how could I talk my way out of this one?  I finally found the announcer, and he directed me to a small Sheriff’s office.  Another five minutes of searching the “bowels” of Scioto Downs.  Then I found it, gathered my courage, and knocked on the door.  

“COACH DAHLMAN!!!  I saw your team warming up, and wanted to say HI and GOOD LUCK!!”  It was Eddie.  Eddie had been my number one runner back in 1983 – and now was a Franklin County Deputy.  It was good to see him – and I was tremendously relieved.  We caught up for a bit, then I excused myself to get back to the team.  I stopped at the restroom along the way.

We were fifth in the State that year – a great finish, and a great disappointment.  But I was so proud of our kids – they bought into a dream, and gave everything they had to achieve it.  We fell a little short of our goal – but like any good Cross Country race, the story was more about the entire journey, not just crossing the finish line.  And we had a great journey.

But there was one more lesson learned on that cool day in November of 1999.  I guess you probably know what that one was.

The Sunday Story Series

Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21

Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21

A Track Story – 2/7/21

Ritual – 2/14/21

Voyageur – 2/19/21

A Dog Story – 2/25/21

A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21

Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21

Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21

History

It must have been a lot like this, the years after Appomattox.  The Civil War was over, Lincoln was dead.  Union troops occupied the former Confederate states and the re-United States were faced with the aftermath of Civil War.  How to reorganize the Nation, now with nearly five million newly freed citizens.  How to prevent the Southern re-establishment, the leadership of the Rebellion from regaining power.  And how to do all of this after four years of the worst blood-letting in American history. 

The Northern troops wanted to go home, back to their families and farms.  But they stayed, in South Carolina and Texas, Alabama and Florida and the rest of the South; and attempted to enforce the will of the Congress.  That was expressed first in the 13^th Amendment barring slavery, then later the 14^th Amendment guaranteeing equal protection under the law, and finally the 15^th Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote.  

What We Learned

Looking back at my own “history lessons” in my education, I now know that my teachers were influenced by “revisionism”.  In my classes (and unfortunately later in my teaching), the Reconstruction Era was slanted towards the “poor, abused Rebels in the South”.  Our textbook emphasized the terms “scalawag”, a white southerner who cooperated with the Union troops, and “carpetbagger” a northerner who came to the South to make money.  They were more important than Night Riders or lynching or the Ku Klux Klan.  Former Confederate General James Longstreet, who favored moving with reunion rather than resisting, was castigated for “giving up” the cause.  Former General Nathan Bedford Forrest, seen as somewhat heroic in establishing the Klan.

But the world of the Freedmen, the newly Black citizens of the Nation, was not emphasized.  We didn’t teach it, because we didn’t learn it.  The successes of those nascent Black communities, later snuffed out by the Black Codes and Jim Crow and the Klan, were ignored. And because that was how we were taught, it was what we taught as well, at least, at the beginning of my career.  I learned more, and better, as my career progressed – hopefully my students did as well.  But I am sorry for my early contributions to a continuing false narrative.

Today

It must have been like that, living in the North, hearing about the what was going on in the South. Reading about the excitement of the new Black voters, then knowing that their hopes were crushed by the old White establishment. And finally, with 1877 and the Hayes/Tilden deal, Southern Democrats gave up the Presidency to a Republican in return for an end to Reconstruction. The US Government gave up on trying to protect those new citizens.

Because it’s happening today in the state of Georgia, where two newly elected Democratic Senators, one Black, one Jewish, shocked the state and nation.  Democrats may have won the Presidential election there as well, but Republicans control the state government.  And they are fighting back, restricting the vote.  Yesterday they made it illegal to even pass out water and snacks in the notoriously long voting lines.  Illegal to pass out water.  

And those lines won’t be in suburban or white rural Georgia.  They are in the majority Black precincts:  surprise.  And the State Legislature passed and the Republican Governor signed a whole raft of other restrictive provisions, making sure it is harder to vote.  The target of the new law is obvious – all of those new Black voters who dared to exercise their right to vote and change the outcome of 2020.

Politics of Race

Sure this is really the first “shot” of Governor Brian Kemp’s bid to win reelection over Democratic challenger Stacy Abrams.  But it’s not just “politics as usual”.  At least, not usual unless you are talking about the axe handle segregationist rhetoric of Georgia’s Governor Lester Maddox in the early 1970’s.  Yes, Maddox was a Democrat, but so was his successor, Jimmy Carter, who repudiated Maddox and started to move Georgia away from the dark ages of racism.

Now it’s back, under the veneer of election security.  But we all know what’s really being secured:  the “right” of the White Republicans of Georgia to maintain control.   And as we sit here in the “North” we aren’t helpless.  There is action being taken, now, in Congress, to protect voting rights in Georgia and all of America.  

American Choice

We Americans are faced with a new “Hayes/Tilden” deal.  This time it’s in the form of an old segregationist tool, the Filibuster in the Senate.  The Filibuster prevents a majority of the Senate from exercising their will, if, they don’t include an extra ten votes.  And a solid “Red” wall of Republican recalcitrance blocks every effort at reform or protection.  But there is a slim Democratic majority in the Senate – if they only have the will to act.

Americans in 1877 acquiesced to the end of Reconstruction and the reign of Jim Crow Laws in the South.  Americans in 2021 are faced with a similar choice.  We know what happened to the Black voters of the South. It’s taken over a century for them to regain their rights under the 15^th Amendment.  The old saying goes:  “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it”. America knows the real history now.  We need to work to make sure that the failures of 1877 aren’t repeated today. We need to end the Filibuster and pass the Voting Rights Act.

Pandemic

It’s the stuff of a 1980’s science fiction movie.  A virus appears, sickening millions and killing many.  There is no easy solution, and the consequences of disease are so great that the economy closes down.  Americans are subdued; furtive in masks, afraid of contact with each other, unable to even hug their families.  But within months our modern science comes through with a vaccine, a way to prevent the virus from destroying our society.  

It took longer than it did in the movies, but ultimately that “plot line” is exactly what happened here in the United States.  And now we are within months, even weeks, of “getting past” COVID-19.  It won’t be over, not for a long time if ever, but it will be controlled.  We can get on with our lives.  Those little league baseball games, my track meets, maybe even going to the theatre or a concert, are not too far in the future.

We as a society, solved the problem.  It certainly wasn’t pretty – we allowed partisan politics to become a part of scientific common sense.  Some turned to their own “experts”, clad in white jackets and endowed with medical degrees, to “prove” that the preventive measures were somehow just a political ploy.  And a few, one even the son of revered hero, still speak out against the vaccines that will allow for our future. 

But we got it done.

Epidemic

In the past two weeks we have been reminded of a problem we haven’t solved.  Eight died last week from gunfire in Atlanta, at the hands of a deranged young white man.  Ten died this week in Boulder, again a young white man.  Last year, during the pandemic, it seemed like the epidemic of young white men going on blood rampages subsided.  But even in the quiet of the lockdown year, 20,000 Americans lost their lives to gun violence.  Another 24,000 used guns to take their own lives (WAPO).

There is a lengthy list of young white men who in the past years have taken this course (NYT).  They have two things in common.  The first is a mental illness, a derangement that makes them think it’s their “destiny” to kill.  Just in Colorado alone their actions resonate with the names of their cities:  Aurora, Columbine, and now Boulder.  

The second is easy access to weapons capable of rapid fire.  We all know the terms:  AR-like weapons (ARmalite, not Assault Rifle), high-capacity magazines, ballistic-style body armor.  If they had to shoot with a six-shot pistol, they couldn’t kill as many as quickly.  That they can use a semi-automatic rifle (a “long gun” in police parlance) with greater fire power, quicker action, and easier aim means only one thing.  The body count goes up.

And this is a problem we cannot solve.  Or maybe the statement should be:  we will not solve.  

A Choice

It only took a month or so for the pandemic to get wrapped with the tentacles of politics.  There are decades of political obfuscation encircling the issue of guns in America.  Much of the rest of the world look at us in dismay.  Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand:  all faced the “mass shooter” situation, and all took serious affirmative action to control access to guns.  They recognize that allowing this kind of violence is a choice, not an unavoidable “price of freedom”.  

But in the United States, we continue to make it easier to access advanced weapons.  Here’s just two examples.  In Ohio the Governor just signed a “stand your ground” law, ultimately encouraging folks to use deadly force rather than avoid it.  It’s the kind of law that gave legal cover to the killer of Treyvon Martin.  And, if a background check takes too long, the gun purchaser is given “the benefit of the doubt” and allowed to have their weapon.  We wouldn’t want to keep it out of their hands for more than the allotted time, would we?  That’s the “loophole” the put a weapon in the hands of the man who killed nine in a Charleston, South Carolina church.

Our Solution

The “winning” argument in the United States right now is that the Constitutional right to own a weapon is more than just for hunting, sport, or personal protection.  The argument now is that “we” need weapons to protect us from the government itself.  And in order to try to “match” the government, we need the most advanced weaponry available, with only limited restrictions.   It is surprising that there weren’t more in sight at the Insurrection of January 6^th.

And so many have guns.  And they carry them.  There are places where the United States is a parody of the “Old West”, with folks carrying sidearms in the grocery store and Wal-Mart.  They are “ready” to respond.  The old National Rifle Association trope:  “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” has become the “American Way” in dozens of states.  But somehow it hasn’t stopped the blood epidemic of young white men losing their minds, and taking lives along the way.

It’s a problem we have determined NOT to solve.

Rookie Teacher 

As a young school teacher, working in my first (and ultimately only) school district, I had to make an early decision.  Should I live in the District or live outside the District?  That decision was much more important than I  first realized.  Teachers who live out of the District can draw distinct “lines” in their lives.  They have their “work”, and they have their “personal” life.  When they go out to dinner, or to the store, or to get gas, they are just “another person”. 

But if you live in the District, you are “on duty”, all the time.  I won’t  forget that parent who perused my shopping cart at the Cardinals Market (the only place in town) and thought I was too heavy on Oreos and too light on vegetables.  Or later, when Kroger’s took over the community food supply; the number of parent conferences I had in the aisle between the beans and the soup.  When I wanted to buy beer, I drove out of town. (It’s only fair to say that for the first decade I was in Pataskala, it was a dry town anyway.  You couldn’t buy beer or any other alcohol.  Later all of that became accessible, but it still took almost twenty years before I bought beer, wine, or booze at the local Kroger).   

So living in the District placed my entire “life” in the community.  For a while I wrote a running column and all of the cross country and boys track articles in the local paper.  And there was no hiding where I lived, whether I was being kidnapped as a young teacher, or getting toilet papered when I bought “the” house (only one so far). 

By the way, I don’t think there’s a wrong or right decision to be made here.  Just that new teachers ought to realize that they are making a choice – not just a career, but about life.

Knock on the Door

I taught high school and middle school, and there were few secrets in our town.  This meant that when a kid got in trouble at home, got kicked out and didn’t think they were welcome, or when the family situation got so bad they had to leave – they’d often knock on my door.

There are always legal implications when you take a kid in, more now than in the “old days”.  The law says you are an adult, and you have the obligation to let the child’s guardian know where they are.  So when the kid came through the door, after some time to tell their story and let them decompress – the phone call home had to be made.  It wasn’t a choice.

But as an adult, sometimes I could intervene to make the situation better.  And sometimes intervention was – hang here.  There’s a guest bedroom.  There’s breakfast – and a ride to school in the morning.  And there’s time – time to decompress, time to get away from whatever the issue was at home.

The easier choice would have been to turn them away.  It would be the safer choice too; no charges of attempting to “kidnap” a child or worse, no threats to get you fired (the great Administrators I worked for stood for me each time – one-hundred percent.  They had my back).  Turning them away would put it on the kid, and his parents or guardians – not me.  But the answer to that is simple:  it wouldn’t be right.  I made a choice, to teach in, and live in, this community. That choice determined what my role would be.  And sometimes that meant taking care of a kid who had nowhere to go.

What’s Right for Pataskala

So why all of this reminiscing about life in Pataskala?  Because what’s the difference between what I did in Pataskala, and what we, the United States of America, are doing on the Southern border?  There are unaccompanied minors, pre-teen and teenagers; journeying a thousand miles to get there.  They are running from gangs, murder, rape, and blackmail.  And during the journey, who knows what “advantages” were taken.  Then they are “coyoted” across the border, and sent into the hands of the US Border Patrol.

In the past couple of years, those kids were loaded on buses and sent back, some to the border towns in Mexico, and some back to the homes they were trying to escape.  They came on a journey to find protection in the United States.  Instead, we turned our backs on them and sent them back to the Hell they were escaping.  It would be like me slamming the door in the face of the kid whose family was dissolving around them.  It was wrong.

What’s Right for America

So now we are taking those kids in, taking “custody” of them at the border, and moving to secure and protect them.  It isn’t easy, and it isn’t cheap.  It’s especially messy at the border itself, when the sheer number of “unaccompanied minors”, kids, are overwhelming the process.  But we are taking them in, not rejecting them back to the risks they took to get here, or worse.

And we aren’t just “housing” them.  Many have contacts here in the US, family members, some legal and some not.  We are finding ways to move those kids out of “US Custody” and into the protection of their own relatives.   And for the ones with no relatives, we are working to find ways take care of them, and then move them into foster situations.

Just like here in Pataskala, there’s a right and a wrong thing to do.  It would be easier if the US simply denied all the “unaccompanied minors”, and sent them away like the Trump Administration.   But easier isn’t right.  And taking care of these kids is more important than doing what’s easy.

It’s doing what’s right.

It’s been a little while – but this is the next in the “Outside My Window” series -about life during COVID.

New Mission

Sunday was the third day of spring.  Jenn and I spent the day working in the back yard; pulling all of the old plants, cutting down the ornamental grasses, cleaning up leftover leaves.  It got hot, for the first time since October, shorts and t-shirts and that first cast of sun burn and tan.  We cleared off our “sun deck”, got the furniture arranged and all of the “stuff” that got stored there over the winter put away.  And of course, when we were done, it was a couple of cold ones on the “sun deck” in celebration of this first intimation of summer.

We have a new mission.   One day a week we spend driving all over the state delivering and picking up “lost dog” equipment:  cameras and live-traps, and also things to help animal rescues.  We took five dog houses to Waverly last week to help improve the conditions for some “outdoor” dogs.  You know it’s spring:  somehow the pickup truck veers towards every high school track as we pass through the small towns of Ohio.  The driver, me, just “wants to see” a track practice – just for a moment. 

Filling in the Hole 

I’ll see plenty of high school track soon enough – with a white shirt, a flag, and a starting pistol.   April will be full of officiating meets, from middle school dual meets to big invitationals.  Memory is a strange thing – it seems like I did that last year too.  Of course, I didn’t.  There wasn’t a high school track season last year.  All of “last year’s” memories are really from 2019.  The “hole” of 2020 just gets filled in.

This is my fourth year out of coaching.  There aren’t any kids I coached still on the high school tracks.  Even the young coaches don’t know me other than as an old official.  But I’ve still got a “hand in”.  I’ve “Covid Coached” a few kids – using text messages and IPhone videos.  I think we’ve done some good, and it’s been good for me to analyze, discuss and defend my technical positions.

Zoom

It was a year ago this week that I took an “online” substitute teaching job, scrambling along with the regular teachers to figure out how to keep “school” going in the shutdown.  I don’t know that we found a lot of great answers for keeping kids involved in school.  But it wasn’t for lack of effort:  every teacher I know went far and beyond the “call of duty” to reach out and keep kids involved.  When the world turns upside down, a Zoom class might be the only echo of normalcy in that child’s life.  Looking back, how strange to have your teacher literally “in your bedroom” every day.  No wonder so many kids set Zoom to audio only.

I’ll be happy to never Zoom again.  And now, with vaccines and lessening infections, we are all looking to get back to normal.  Normal doesn’t just mean going to a restaurant (last week I sat down in one for the first time in a year), it also means not being “addicted” to 24/7 television “news”.  Washington doesn’t demand the need for our attention every day, though there’s still plenty going on.  For the first time in several years, we can look away for a moment and focus on our more local life.  That’s a good thing.

Change at the End

But there are things unalterably changed by our shared year in pandemic hiding.   Jenn and I picked up a third and a fourth dog.  When the yen to go camping hit, we realized that four dogs in our “efficiency camper” wasn’t going to work.  Want to buy a 2017 Rockwood Mini-Lite? There’s one for sale in the driveway.  It was a lot of fun – spent a winter in Florida and plenty of time in the fall leaves of Ohio.  But now it’s got to go.  After it’s sold, we’ll look for a Class A, a bus, where there’s actual rooms and a place for the dogs to get comfortable while we drive. 

So here’s a most unusual essay from me.  It’s about spring, about track, about camping, and about hope.  It’s about the light at the end of the tunnel.  If you’ve never experienced that phrase in real life – you need to head over to Blackhand Gorge just east of Newark, Ohio.  On the North side of the river, there’s a path through on old railroad tunnel – a relic of the “Interurban”.  That was a train that used to take you from Columbus to Pataskala, Hebron, Buckeye Lake, Newark, and Zanesville.  The tracks are gone, but the carved tunnel through the stone hill remains.  Take a walk – and there in the center, you will fully understand what “a light at the end of the tunnel” means.  

You can’t really see what’s beyond “the light” – you don’t know what the next step you take will reveal.  All you can see is the brightness.  But there’s one thing for sure. Out of the damp darkness of a century old tunnel, you know that there’s something better at the end.  

The Outside My Window Series

Out My Front Window – Part One (4/21/20)

Outside My Window – Part Two (4/23/20)

Outside My Window – Part Three (4/26/20)

Outside My Window – Part Four (5/13/20)

Outside My Window – Part Five (6/3/20)

Outside My Window – Part Six (7/3/20)

Outside My Window – Part Seven (7/31/20)

Outside My Window – Inshallah (8/13/20)

Outside My Window – Part Eight (9/15/20)

Outside My Window – Part Nine (9/25/20)

Outside My Window – Part Ten (10/9/20)

Outside My Window – Part 11 (11/29/20)

Outside My Window – Post-Truth World (12/16/20)

Waiting for the Shot (3/11/21)

Outside My Window – At the End of the Tunnel (3/22/21)

FEAR

Sorry – no “Sunday Story” today.  This is about a shared danger in  America – Fear.

Not Our Problem

Let’s talk about problems our Nation does NOT have.  We don’t have a problem with election fraud in our voting systems.  We don’t have a problem with kids not being able to pray in school.  There’s not a problem with transsexuals attacking women in bathrooms, or taking over women’s sports.  And we don’t have a problem with folks dropping over because “they can’t breathe” through their COVID masks.

Election Fraud

But last week, you’d think these were all national crises.  In Georgia alone, there are fifty bills in the State Legislature to reduce and restrict voting access.  They are all supposedly because folks have “lost confidence” in their voting process.  But that’s the same voting process that the Republican Secretary of State, the Republican Governor, and the Republican deputy elections director all verified as correct.  There were three full recounts, one completely by hand, that verified their accuracy.

Why have the good “white” citizens of Georgia lost confidence?  Because politicians told them to.  And why have those Georgia politicians promulgated the “Big Lie” of nonexistent election fraud? Because the Republican Party of Georgia doesn’t think they can win without restricting voting.  To put it bluntly, they don’t want Black people to vote, and they’re doing everything they can to keep them from the polls.  There’s even one proposal to make it against the law to pass out food and drinks as people wait in line to cast their ballot.  Sounds really American, doesn’t it?

But Georgia isn’t alone.  There are more than two hundred and fifty-three bills in forty-three different states to reduce voting access.  It’s a simple extension of the “Red Map” plan that the GOP started thirteen years ago.  Gerrymander the legislative districts so that Republicans can control the State Legislatures, then rig the voting process so that folks more likely to vote Democratic — can’t.   

Religion in School

And we see the Facebook meme over and over again:  “Put Prayer Back in School”.  That’s the “solution” to solve “all” of America’s problems.  We should go back to the “old days”. In 1962, when I was in second grade, Ms. Meyers started the day with the Lord’s Prayer and told all of us Bible stories.  Many think that’s the way it should be now.  

But the problem isn’t “prayer in schools”.  Students have always been able to pray in school.  In fact, the Facebook meme I like is the one that says, “As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools”.  It’s not that the kids can’t pray, it’s that the teachers can’t tell them how or what or when to pray.  And that’s important – Americans are “fine” with prayer in school, until the Muslim or Jewish or Hindu teacher begins to lead prayers with the students.  Then – it’s not so much prayer in school. 

Because the movement for “prayer in schools” isn’t about all religions – it’s about a particular version of Christianity.  Some want all children in school to be “indoctrinated” into their version of religion.  And that’s exactly what public schools should NOT be doing – in fact, it’s exactly what the First Amendment prohibits – a state religion.

Transgendered Kids

Twenty different states are writing laws that will restrict transgendered youth from participating in school sports.  Or more specifically, transgendered females from participating in women’s sports.  They aren’t so worried about transgendered men in men’s sports, but many of those cover that issue as well.  

So to be clear, there’s not thousands of young men planning to declare themselves transgendered women so they can win a state softball championship.  In fact, one of the best examples online is that of a transgendered boy who, by Texas rules, was forced to wrestle women instead of men.  Because he was transgendered, and receiving medical treatments to masculinize him, the girl wrestlers in Texas said it wasn’t fair that they had to wrestle him.  He thought so too, but the rules wouldn’t allow him to wrestle boys.

Science knows that gender identity is so much more complicated than simple “equipment”.  And we also know that a transitioning child is at much higher risk of depression, drug use and suicide.  But instead of looking at ways to help those kids socialize, like sports in school, these states are erecting more barriers against them.  And they are doing it to protect “our girls” from the “un-understandable ‘them’”.   In the same way some states are forcing transgendered girls to use men’s restrooms.  As a retired educator, I can’t think of a more dangerous place in a school for a transgendered girl to be than in a boys’ restroom — except maybe a boys’ locker room.

Masks

And finally, last week Senator/Doctor Rand Paul thought he had a “gotcha moment” for Doctor Fauci.  It was a replay of the old Facebook meme – “if you wear a mask why do I need to, and if I wear one why do you need to”.  Paul demanded why Fauci was wearing a mask after receiving the vaccine.  Paul said, it was all just “theatre”. 

Fauci does not “suffer fools gladly”, and immediately began to explain to the Senator from Kentucky that while vaccination does provide immunity, science hasn’t demonstrated that the immunity is against ALL strains of COVID 19. Fauci went on to describe that while the original virus infecting the United States is covered by the vaccines, there hasn’t been conclusive evidence to show that the other variants, from the UK and South Africa and other places, are so completely protected.

By Dr. Paul didn’t want to hear that.  He had “evidence” that showed that immunization by the vaccination was “complete”, it least for the original virus.  So he fell back on his talking point:  that Fauci’s wearing a mask was just “theatre”.  And even more Paul not wearing a mask was just fine – he’s already been infected by the original virus.

But just like gender, or multiple religions, it’s not possible to simplify the “virus” to just one study or strain.  The virus is changing, and those changes represent an ongoing threat.  And here’s the “simple” answer:  until the virus stops replicating at a high rate, the possibility of dangerous mutation is still high.  IF folks will get vaccinated (eighty percent), then we can slow the replication.  But until then, whether the eye surgeon from Kentucky likes it or not, the only other tools we have to slow mutation are distance — and the masks.

Fear

But it’s all about creating fear:  of phantom voting fraud, of “Godless” and “different” children, and of the government’s ability to protect us from diseases.  Somehow that “fear” generates political “points” in the game of controlling America.  It is the ultimate “wedge” issue to drive us apart – if one political side can make its adherents scared, they are more likely to show up and vote.  

And that’s a problem.  Because it’s impossible to solve the complexities of our current life, from pandemics to growing social awareness, by driving people apart.  The solutions for all of these issues require common purpose to improve our world.  Wedges don’t create commonality.  President Franklin Roosevelt said it best:  

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.”

We are in a “dark hour” – but we can also see light on the horizon.  Is it a new dawn, an “essential victory”, or a final sunset on the American experiment?  That’s all up to us. 

Let’s not let “unreasoning, unjustified” fear stand in the way.

History Lesson

The World War II victors partitioned the Korean Peninsula after the defeat of Japan. The Western Powers created South Korea, and the Soviet Union backed North Korea.  In 1949, Mao Zedong and the Communist Party took over mainland China. They also became a strong backer of North Korea.  The leader of the North was Kim Il-Sung, the grandfather of current dictator Kim Jong-un. From the beginning of the partition in 1945, Kim supported a Communist insurgency in South Korea.  

With the takeover of Communists in China, Kim felt emboldened to launch a full attack against the South. In June of 1950, North Korean forces crossed the demilitarized zone and made quick advances against South Korea and their allied US Forces.  These allies were driven to the far southern end of the peninsula, and established a defensive perimeter around Pusan.

US forces under General Douglas MacArthur launched an “end around” sea invasion behind the North Korean lines at Incheon.  North troops were cut off from their supplies, and forced to fall back.  MacArthur pursued them, all the way to near the Yalu River at the Soviet border.  This triggered a Chinese response. Millions of Chinese Communist forces streamed over the bridges and to the attack against the US and their allies.  The war would drag on for the next three years. US and Chinese forces battled in the mountains of North Korea, and ultimately reached a stalemate at the current line of demarcation, the Demilitarized Zone.

Racist Shorthand

US Forces in the Korean War developed insulting terms for the Chinese troops.  Besides the more “traditional” racist tropes, they were also called “Chi-Coms” for Chinese Communists.  Like the “Japs and Krauts” of World War II, it was a short hand way of insulting the enemy and “uniting” American GI’s against a racial foe.

I’d hoped we left those type of terms behind.  We don’t call people from Japan, or Germany, or Vietnam, or folks from the Middle East by insulting terms, and certainly not in public places.  But yesterday Congressman Chip Roy of Texas echoed all of those racist sentiments. He used Korean War era shorthand to speak of the “Chi-Coms”, the “bad guys” in China.  What made his statement even worse, is that he prefaced it with a statement about “Texas Justice”.  He spoke of justice as a tall tree and a rope – lynching.  And  he made all of these statements in a Congressional hearing that was supposed to examine the growing number of violent attacks against Americans of Asian ancestry.  He said it just days after six of those Asian Americans were murdered in Atlanta at three different massage spas.

Roy’s defenders argue that it not “pejorative”.  It’s just the same as calling the North Vietnamese, Viet Cong, or VC for short.  But here’s the problem.  In a hearing about the growing abuse against Americans of Asian descent, stoked by the Republican rhetoric about the “China Virus” or the “Kung Flu” or worse, Congressman Roy conflated the two.  He put together many Americans now at risk for attack and abuse, with the Chinese Communists our fathers and grandfathers fought.  And he did it while stating that he supported the First Amendment, as if they gave him some “right” to encourage violence.

Intelligence and Politics

It’s all wrapped up in Trumpian politics.  A National Intelligence report just released states that the Russians interfered in the US election in favor of Donald Trump, again.  Trump supporters responded by saying that it was really the Chinese who interfered to support Biden.  The US Intelligence Community says that simply is not true.  But because it fits into the “Big Lie” about the 2020 election, Republican Trump stalwarts “have” to be for Russia, and against China.

So by conflating Asian-Americans with “Chi-Coms”, Congressman Roy is trying to regain support from the Trump base.  I suppose that’s because he voted to certify the election for Joe Biden, in a break with many of his fellow Texas Republicans.  So maybe this is his way to “make up” with them.

This isn’t about “cancel culture”.  It’s not trying to prevent the Congressman, or other Americans, from expressing racist views.  They can say what they want.  But, like the apocryphal man crying “fire” in a crowded theatre, Congressman Roy should not be held harmless for his statements.  The “Chi-Coms” have nothing to do with those folks working in Atlanta. Nor the elderly beaten because some fool determined that they are somehow at fault for COVID.  

But Congressman Roy hopes to make political “hay” on their misery.  Not to conflate myself, but he was Chief of Staff for Ted Cruz.  

That says it all.

Founding Fathers

There is a traditional story of a conversation between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.  It went like this:

“Why,” asked Washington, “did you just now pour that coffee into your saucer, before drinking?” “To cool it,” answered Jefferson, “my throat is not made of brass.” “Even so,” rejoined Washington, “we pour our legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it.”

True or not, the conversation aptly describes the Founding Father’s view of the “upper” branch of the legislature.  The House of Representatives is directly elected by the people every two years. Here is where the “hot passions” of the masses would be heard.  But the Senate, originally appointed by the state legislatures, not elected directly by the people, would slow those passions.  It would allow the deliberate “cooling” in creating the laws.

From the beginning the Senate was “privileged”.  The Senators did not have to “run” for office.  Each state had two, there was no difference between Delaware and Virginia (or Rhode Island and California).  And they served for six years, three times longer than their House brethren.  So the pace and attitude of the Senate was bound to be different.  The Senate chamber became a place for debate and discussion, for parsing the issues, rather than just voting.  

Hold the Floor

A filibuster is when a Senator takes the floor to speak, and refuses to give the floor up.  When this happens, the Senate can no longer do any other business. The Senator “on the floor” can hold it as long as he or she is able to physically do so.  However, that Senator can “yield” to another Senator, who can then “yield back” to the original.  So if several Senators want to hold the floor and prevent any other Senate business for going on, they can.

This gives a minority of Senators the ability to prevent any legislation they don’t want.  It pits them against the majority, a “confrontational move” in that “privileged body”.  And for the majority, the only original recourse they originally had was to wait them out, or agree to move onto a different topic.

But there wasn’t a “filibuster” rule in the original Senate.  In fact, the House and the Senate both had rules to end debate (cloture) by a simple majority vote.  The concept of the filibuster came from an inadvertent change in the rules by Vice President Aaron Burr (Burr again?). In 1805 he removed the rule to end debate in order to “clean the rules up”.  Even after that though, the Senate “operated” by a majority rule to end debate.  It wasn’t until 1837 that the first “filibuster” actually occurred.

Tyranny of the Majority

John C Calhoun, a leading defender of slavery and Senator from South Carolina, put forward great theories about the “rights” of the minority.  Calhoun saw the future, when the slave owning states would be in the minority in the nation, and in the Senate.  He wanted to make sure that the “tyranny of the majority” was not enforced on his South.  More exactly, he wanted to maintain slavery and the lifestyle it allowed, regardless of how many “votes” he had.  

The filibuster was one tool Calhoun used to prevent the so-called tyranny of democracy – majority rule.

After the Civil War, the filibuster in the Senate became the primary tool to “protect” the “rights” of Southern whites to discriminate against the newly freed slaves.  It wasn’t until 1917, four years after the 17^th Amendment requiring Senators be elected directly by the people of their state, that a “cloture motion” was even created that could end a filibuster.  But it required two-thirds of the Senate to agree, a steep hill to climb.

The filibuster continued to be a powerful tool against civil rights through the 1960’s.  The famous 1964 Civil Rights Act endured a fifty-four-day filibuster.  It took that long for proponents of the legislation to get more than two-thirds of the Senators to vote for it. 

It’s Just a Rule

A majority of the Senate agrees to the Senate rules every two years.  That simple majority can change the rules, including the filibuster, in their organizing resolution.  In 1975 they reduced the “cloture” number to sixty.  They also created exceptions to the filibuster, including budget reconciliation bills with the House.  Since then they have added Cabinet appointees, Federal judge nominees, and Supreme Court nominees.  All those require a simple fifty-one vote majority end debate and pass. 

And in order to “speed up “ the Senate, Senators can now simply say “I will filibuster”.  They don’t have to “take the floor” anymore, as long as they have at least thirty-nine other Senators that agree with them (that prevents cloture).  So today, Senators can “phone in” a filibuster, rather than actually going through with it.

So why wouldn’t the Democratic Senators, in control by the tie-breaking vote of the Vice President, simply rule that it only takes fifty-one votes to end debate? Then they could proceed to pass the whole range of President Biden’s backed legislation, from voting rights to LGBTQIA rights and climate change to infrastructure. The simple answer is this: 2022. Should the Senate slip back into Republican control in two years, the Democrats want the same “tool” to protect their minority that John C Calhoun used in in the 1840’s.

Of course, that assumes that a 2023 Republican Mitch McConnell-run Senate wouldn’t simply change the rules again, and make all votes a simple majority.  It’s all just a “gentleman’s agreement”in the Senate, that the party in charge won’t use the “nuclear option” and drop the filibuster.  

Each Senate makes their own deal, and takes their own chances. 

“Even though those thousands of people that were marching to the Capitol were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote, I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, and so I wasn’t concerned.”

“Now, had the tables been turned — Joe, this could get me in trouble — had the tables been turned, and President [Donald] Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned.” (Ron Johnson – 3/13/21 – People)

Gaslighting

The Headline should have been shouted in the streets by newsboys like the 1920’s.   “EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT – SENATOR DOESN’T BELIEVE HIS OWN LYING EYES!”

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson wasn’t concerned on January 6, 2021, as the Insurrectionists erected gallows outside of the Capitol building.  He wasn’t concerned when they took over the Senate chamber, or grabbed the Speaker’s dais and walked out the door.  And Senator Johnson wasn’t concerned that Capitol Police Officers were being attacked, beaten, sprayed with chemicals. To use my favorite quote from the MSD kids – “I call BS!”

“Gaslighting” is a term used to describe: “a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality”(Psychology Today).  Our reality – the REAL reality – is what we watched in horror on January 6^th. We saw thousands march on the Capitol, smash through the barricades, attack the police, and break into the building.  We watched as they defiled that building, the House and Senate Chambers. And we saw them search for the Vice President, Speaker of the House and others.  America saw the “…people that love this country, (and) would never do anything to break the law”.   We all saw this with our own eyes:  no lying.

And they weren’t Black Lives Matters protestors, nor Antifa.  So to what purpose is Senator Johnson try to convince us that it didn’t happen. Why does he think that the Insurrectionists weren’t “of concern”, when we all know different?  

Play to the Base

So here’s a couple of possible reasons for Johnson’s behavior, statements that he has “doubled-down” on in subsequent days.  First, there are a significant number of Americans, perhaps twenty percent, who are so “gaslighted” by right-wing media that they really believe that there was no Insurrection.  They accept all of  Johnson’s (and others) alternative explanations.  That it was just a few “crazies”. That ANTIFA somehow infiltrated the legitimate protestors (there was that one guy from Utah), and that the “mainstream media” simply made it all up.  Johnson’s statement certainly plays directly into those beliefs.

But why would Johnson feed into that?  If he’s running for re-election in 2022, he’s already anchored himself with the Trumpian wing of the Republican Party.  He has been a Trump stalwart. Ever since that weekend in October of 2019, when as an eyewitness to Trump’s illicit pressuring of Ukrainian President Zelenskiy, Johnson recanted earlier statements and pivoted to attack NBC’s Chuck Todd and the national media (Business Insider).  

To put it more bluntly, why is he trying “to get what he’s already got”? 

US Intelligence 

US Intelligence issued an unclassified report on foreign interference in the 2020 election yesterday.  They noted that there wasn’t any direct interference in actual voting. But that there was an “influence campaign” by Russia for Trump and against Biden.  The report specifically noted actions by Rudy Giuliani, spreading Russian generated propaganda that Biden was somehow corrupt in his dealings with Ukraine (and Biden’s son Hunter).  Johnson, among other Republican Senators, amplified that propaganda.  

One of Russia’s goals:  to get Americans to lose confidence in the professionals in the US Intelligence services, particularly the CIA and the FBI.  Certainly Trump’s actions towards those agencies followed the Russian game plan. Even today, some Republican Senators and Congressmen still spit-out the names of Comey, McCabe and Strzok like curse words in Congressional hearings.

Rubles or Kompromat?

Johnson is one of several Republican Senators who made amazing reversal in statement and action in the past several years.  Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who on January 6^th was “done with Trump” soon reversed his position and fell in line with the Trump narrative.  John Kennedy of Louisiana, early a more “moderated” voice in the Republican Party, became a hardcore Trump defender.  And Mike Lee, always a reasoned though strict conservative voice from Utah, has become more strident and extreme as the Trump Administration continued.

It’s easy to say that they simply “saw the writing on the wall”; that Trump dominated the Republican Primary voters and they had to be on “his side” to keep their seats.  But these Senators already have their Trump bona-fides, and like Johnson, continue to defend even the Trumpian extremes.

Several Senators, Johnson and Kennedy among them, went to Moscow for the Fourth of July in 2018.  Others, like Rand Paul of Kentucky, have had multiple contacts with Russian legislators.  It is nothing but circumstantial evidence:  but why do those Senators who are the most vehement Trump defenders also those with links to Russia?  Why are they the ones who amplify the Russian propaganda?  

And why are they gaslighting the rest of us?  The answer might be written in Russian.

Deja Vu

It seems like some kind of flashback:  “unaccompanied minors” stacking up at Border Patrol stations along the Mexican border.  “Soft sided” shelters are up – we call them “tents”.  And lines of mostly teenaged boys are being processed.  This isn’t the Trump Administration, but it certainly looks like it.

We need to be clear about what caused the Trump issue with children, and what’s happening now.   Throughout our history, folks who came across the border “illegally” were treated as those who committed a “civil” crime – like getting a traffic ticket.  Yes, it was “against” the law, and yes, they were brought in front of a court for the action; but it wasn’t a jailable offense.  Fines or “time served” was the usual result.  Then the “civil” process of determining their immigration status – in short – whether they could stay or were deported – proceeded.

But the Trump Administration determined that crossing the border was now a “crime” requiring the “criminal” to be held in custody, jailed, until trial.  Since families came across the border, and the Courts said that children could not be held in “jail”, then all of the children of those families became “unaccompanied minors” and were taken from their parents.  Some, no make that many, were “lost” in the “system”. There are still over one hundred who have not been returned to their parents – some for more than two years.

All Over Again

And what happened  to the “actual” unaccompanied minors who crossed the border?  What about the thirteen or fifteen-year-old who came across without a family, without parents?  In the Trump Administration, those kids were immediately deported, sent back.  That solved “our” problem, but it put those kids in even greater danger.  The most dangerous part of their journey was getting to and across the border.  The US policy was to send them back,  sometimes into the hands of the “coyotes”.  They were often the ones that took advantage of them, financially and worse, as they took them over the “line”.

But most of those kids went “away”, so the Trump Administration didn’t have to deal with them.  So what’s changed?  Three things have.

Biden’s Plan

First, the Biden Administration is done with the “criminalization” of border crossing.  So families coming across are processed, then released to return for trial later.  That worked fine before Trump, and it’s working well now.  Many who come across have family here, ready to support them.  There are also agencies willing to help them out.  So since the adults aren’t “criminalized”, then the children can stay with them. Ultimately a Court determines their status, and they are allowed to stay or are deported.

Second, The Biden Administration has determined that it in inhumane to send unaccompanied minors, mostly teenagers and mostly boys, back into the dangers of the border zones of Mexico.  Those same kids have been stacked over there, some for months or more, at risk.  So when they come across the border, they are taken into custody.  They are safer, but they are a problem.

Third, the little detail that has upset our entire world:  COVID.  In the middle of an economic crisis in Central America, there’s a world pandemic.  It certainly didn’t make anything better in El Salvador or Honduras.  If anything, COVID has made things so much worse, that more people are willing to risk the journey to find somewhere better in America.  And the idea of crowding anyone, kids, families, adults, into some custodial setting now has a new name: super spreader.

Problems Haven’t Changed

And since gangs are the greatest threat in those nations, it is the young men who are at greatest risks.  Parents are faced with choices:  either their boys join the gang, or they are killed.  So they are sending many of their kids on the dangerous journey North to someplace where they might have a better chance.

Most of those “unaccompanied minors” have some connection in the US, relatives – some here legally, some not.  Unlike the Trump era, there’s a plan for getting them to relatives – folks that can sponsor them while the Courts determine their status.  International law and treaties signed by the United States require that immigrants get the chance to make a case for asylum.  Fleeing gang violence is a valid reason. The Trump Administration ignored that legal issue.

But meanwhile there’s a time element.  They’ve been “dammed up” across the border, and now there is release. So many arriving – they have to be processed, and the government has to determine that they are being released to a safe environment here in the US.  There are plenty willing to exploit those kids here too, from forced labor to sexual exploitation.

Solutions Have

Yes, the tent cities are back.  The Department of Health and Human Services is strapped to cover the current overwhelming demand, as well as maintain COVID protocols.  And there are even more problems than just the teenagers.   There are more families crossing the border, and those families are “stacking up” in processing.  FEMA is sending emergency teams to the border to help.  But it’s happening for the “right” reason.  

 That doesn’t make everything “better”, but it does give hope that, ultimately, the “right” thing will get done.  Yes, more people are crossing the border, and staying in the United States.  And certainly the word is out in Central America that the rules have changed once again.  But the United States is “back” – in the words of Emma Lazarus:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Track Coach

I was a track coach for forty years.  I guess “was” may be the wrong tense, I still “consult”, helping coaches and athletes with my hard-gained “wisdom”.  And I’m now officiating the sport again, so I keep my hand in.  Over that forty years I gained experience in every track and field event contested in high schools, and even some that are not.  It’s easier to list what I don’t know much about:  the weight and hammer throws, and race walking.  I have some understanding of javelin, a lot more about triple jump and steeplechase, and tons on the other “regular” track events we contest.

But the one area of “expertise” that I worked on the most was in the pole vault.  It’s exciting: the athlete races towards a big foam mat, holding a long fiberglass pole.  He places the pole in a metal “box” in the ground, and then launches up over a crossbar:  the higher the better.  When all goes right, the athlete clears the crossbar without knocking it off, and lands in the soft mat.  When it doesn’t bad things can occur.  As a coach, my first job was to make sure those bad things didn’t happen.

Vitaly Petrov

Like any technical event, there are several ways to “skin the cat”.  I am an adherent of the “Petrov Method”, developed in Russia in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.  They dominated the world for more than two decades, and the physics behind their technique makes the most sense. 

In the 90’s I was a “strict interpreter” of Petrov.  What he did worked, and anything else was, I thought, just wrong.  For the athletes I worked with every day that wasn’t a problem.  They learned everything from me, so they only knew my techniques.  But when I coached other athletes and coaches, I struggled with those that used different methodologies.  In my mind at the time I was doing them a disservice by not changing them to “Petrov”, and anything less wasn’t acceptable.  My technical “purity” sometimes made it difficult to help others.

But later I found two factors that changed my mind, even though I still am convinced that Petrov really had the right answers.  First, every athlete is physically different, and they will find a way that works for their body.  Some are faster, or slower, taller or quicker, patient or in a hurry.  It’s difficult to ignore those differences and fit their “square peg” into “round holes”.  And second, there is proof that other methods work as well, or at least the “modifications” those athletes (and coaches) made on my “Petrov” model were successful.  The World and American men’s record holders are not what I’d call “Petrov” vaulters.  Hard to argue with “the best”.  

Vaulting and Life

So, I expect there are very few readers who want to learn any more about pole vault today (though I’d be happy to teach you!!).  But the point is that technical purity, like ideological purity, does not stand up to the test of use “in the field”.  That sometimes we have to compromise to achieve success, and to work with others who have different views than ourselves.  Technical or ideologic purity sounds great:  but it isn’t how “the sausage is made”.   Sometimes you need to allow some flexibility in order to get something done.

Of course, that all depends on what you want to achieve.  For many in our politics today, ideologic purity is far more important than achievement.  And for some, it’s really not about ideas, but personality.  If you’re for a particular former President, then you are against anything and everything that the current President wants to do.  That’s about success, not ideas.  They don’t want Mr. Biden to have any success, regardless of what’s “good” for America.  Maybe that’s not fair – perhaps they don’t believe that anything Mr. Biden would do for America is “good”.  

Ain’t That America

It reminds me of a problem I had as a coach back in the 1980’s.  Track and Field, and pole vault in particular, is an event that crosses “team” boundaries.  Kids who want to vault learn from others – and a lot of schools don’t have the expertise on staff.  So I would help kids from all over the County and even beyond.  There was talk (mostly behind my back) that I was “hurting” my kids by helping others.  

Our vault “squad” had conversations about that.  I told my kids that they had me twenty-four/seven.  If the few hours I might spend helping someone else who didn’t have a pole vault coach get better meant they lost in competition – that was on us, not on the kid that got better.  We OUGHT to be better – we did it full time.  If we made some competitor a thirteen-footer, then we better go fourteen.  And most of the time, we did go higher.  We made the entire event better – for everyone.

“Ain’t that America”?  Instead of being a zero-sum, we win – you lose game, shouldn’t we be trying to make everyone better?  Whether it’s raising the minimum wage, providing cash to taxpayers to help with COVID losses, or helping small businesses survive the shutdown, their success doesn’t cause our failure.  

“They” don’t have to lose so “we” can win.  We can all do better.

So let’s get started.

A Year

It’s March 11^th, 2021.  It was a year ago that we began to understand that our world was closing.  On March 11^th of 2020, I was preparing for Ohio’s role in the Democratic Primary.  I was going to meetings to get ready to officiate in the 2020 track season.  And I was writing a “Viral News” essay on the coronavirus epidemic.  

We went to vote a few days later at the Board of Elections on March 15^th, then went out to lunch.  We ate in a near-empty restaurant, the St. Patrick’s Day decorations looking lonely, and March Madness Basketball already cancelled.  We talked with our server for a while – what she would do, how long before staff was laid off, was she at risk.   That was our last “in-restaurant” meal we had until last week.

We did manage to have an election – in spite of COVID.  Americans voted by mail, and we voted absentee, and more Americans voted than ever before.  Republicans in multiple states are trying to keep that from happening again – when more Americans vote, the Republicans think they lose.  They were right about the Presidency, but did pretty well on the “down-ticket” races.

We didn’t have a track season last year, though they managed to have fall and winter sports thereafter.  I didn’t officiate track, but more importantly for track and for kids, there’s a “hole” in those programs: a year is lost.  There’s a whole class of kids who haven’t been exposed or interested in track.  And for the seniors, there is no recovering it.

Ends and Beginnings

The world “butcher’s bill” of COVID is over 2.6 million lost.  Here in the United States we have almost twenty percent of those deaths, with 560,000 lost in the past year.   We didn’t do it well:  we allowed simple COVID precautions to turn into political issues.  Maybe half of those deaths could have been avoided – but they weren’t.   But, we have performed a scientific miracle.  Vaccines have developed at record pace – Warp Speed  as former President Trump would say.  Today we have three in the United States:  Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson and Johnson.  In the rest of the world there’s even more, Astra-Zeneca, he Russian “Sputnik” vaccine, the shadowy China vaccine, and even more to come.  

As folks get the vaccine, they begin to feel a freedom to “live” again.  Vaccines won’t make them “bulletproof” to COVID, but they do almost guarantee that the ultimate nightmare won’t happen:  dying unconscious from lack of oxygen on a ventilator in the hospital.  The vaccine opens up the world again, a world lost a year ago.  Folks can see each other, hug each other, and watch each other smile.  And they can do it without the risk of killing the ones they love.

I got my first shot three weeks ago.  A shadow of worry disappeared.  I got my second shot yesterday afternoon.  I’m planning on being sick today, and if so, it’s worth every bit.  But sick or not – Jenn gets her first shot this afternoon, and with that a much greater shadow will disappear for me.  So we won’t be missing that.

Life Alterations

We are making some big changes in our life.  After we both retired, we purchased a camper that we enjoyed.  We even “snow-birded” for a year in 2018, spending the winter in Florida.  But during our COVID self-exile, two more dogs were added to the pack, now totaling four.  Two dogs in the camper was tight, and we never even got the chance to try three.  But four is not possible, not even to transport much less camp or sleep.  So the camper is going on sale.  If we get back to camping, it’s going to be in a “bus” that all six of us can enjoy.

It’s been a long year.  We, and probably most Americans, have lost folks we know to COVID.  If they weren’t very close, we might not even have felt the loss.  Since we were in “COVID exile”, we didn’t have reason to “feel” their absence.  One of the “bad” parts of re-opening life is the holes that are left behind.  As we re-join life we will see those holes and feel the emptiness:  the missing person, the empty chair.

The World Goes On

As a history teacher, I always wondered how people dealt with national loss.  Whether it was settlers facing diphtheria, or Native Americans smallpox, or earlier groups facing bubonic plague.  How did the weight of tragedy not crush their spirit, and their willingness to move on?  In a small way, I guess we know now.  We know that the weight of suffering, of isolation, and the constant shadow of concern, impacts everyone.  And as that weight is lifted, most feel the lightness.  It makes us want to live life again, despite the loss and the suffering. 

It makes us want the world to go on.  And for many, it makes them want to be a part of it.

This is the next in the “Sunday Story” series.  There’s no political or moral “lesson” here, just stories about one of my favorite places – Gettysburg.

Playing Army

When I was a kid, we played “Army” a lot.  Usually, it was World War II “Army”.  Those were the stories we heard from our parents, all World War II veterans.  We set up ambushes on the sides of the road, waiting for “enemy” cars to come up the street.  One time, a driver stopped and lectured us. He wasn’t concerned about shooting him with our toy rifles, but about the strategic errors in our ambush technique.  He said we were “shooting” into each other, and he gave us a lesson on how to effectively ambush someone on the road.  I suspect he was speaking from real-life experience.

But the best war game was creeping up on the house on the corner of our street.  The old man who lived there didn’t like kids, and would come out with a real shotgun to “drive” us away.  It was, what we’d call today, a “live-fire” exercise, with actual enemy fire overhead.  Looking back I suspect it was rock salt, and probably carefully fired far over our short heads and butts. But it provided realism to our “war games”.  His swearing added even more spice and supplemented our vocabularies as well!

Civil War

Sometimes we’d play Civil War.  I was always the kid with the Confederate cap on.  Somehow, back in the early 1960’s, the Confederate side seemed more “romantic”, and living in Cincinnati just across the river from Kentucky, Confederate apparel was more available.  While that didn’t confuse me back then, later it dawned on me.  Kentucky remained in the Union, and while they had troops fighting for both sides of the War, Kentucky itself was “Blue”.  

As I grew older, we found out about the Underground Railroad history of Cincinnati.  A house just a few blocks away was a station on the Railroad, built high on a hill overlooking the Mill Creek Valley.  The “sign” of protection was the Union shield carved in wood on the portico over the front door.  We explored the woods around the home, looking for secret tunnels leading into the basement (we didn’t find them).  

So the Civil War was always a part of my growing up.  But when I became a history teacher, my “strong-points” were Constitutional history and our modern era.  I could go on about “Mutual Assured Destruction” and the importance of NATO in balancing the Soviet threat.  The Civil War didn’t have fascination for me, until I started teaching it to eighth graders.  

Brothers

For several years I showed my classes The Blue and the Gray, a made for TV mini-series covering much of the Civil War. After seven periods a day, year in and out, I can still remember many of the scenes. One was outside the battlements at Vicksburg, where the Union troops were entrenched surrounding the Confederates. During a cease-fire, a Union soldier climbed up and met with a Confederate in the “No Man’s Land” in between. When asked, a Union sergeant gave a one-word explanation: “brothers”.

That was my discovery of the real pathos of the American Civil War:  the tragedy of a people once united driven to fight each other.  It was not only brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor.  Even the strangers had a common history, a common foundation.  That drove me to study the war more closely, and like many history teachers, I became fascinated.

Then I read Killer Angels by Michael Sharra – and I was hooked.

Road Trip

My first expedition to Gettysburg was a summer “road trip”.  I tried to drive avoiding the interstate highways, taking the “National Road”, US 40 through the small towns of Pennsylvania.  US 40 eventually merges onto I-68 in West Virginia, and I drove that into Maryland.  Then I followed the “real” back roads, not highways but county roads, from Hagerstown northeast towards Gettysburg.  I took the time to stop and read the Historic Markers, and found myself on the path of Lee’s Army as it made its way through the Pennsylvania countryside to its fate at the crossroads.

It was the fitting way to enter Gettysburg.  Why did this idyllic college town below South Mountain in Pennsylvania become the site of the worst battle in American history?  You’ll hear about a shoe factory, or just “dumb luck” of two huge forces stumbling around in the countryside.  But Gettysburg is central – six roads converge on the small town.  Any army travelling through Southeastern Pennsylvania would end up there.  From Hagerstown to Carlisle, Baltimore to Chambersburg, Frederick to Harrisburg; all roads led to Gettysburg.

Gettysburg Traditions

That first trip was spent “taking the tour”. I got a cassette tape and stopped at each point along the battlefield, listening to the story of the conflict.  It’s still the best way to introduce yourself to what happened there, though it’s an “App” now.  I established two traditions on that first trip, repeated each time I visit (except when I took an entire track team).  The first was to lift a pint of ale in the Spring House of the Dobbins House Tavern.  The home was built in 1776. It served as a stop on the underground railroad before the war and as a field hospital during the battle.  You can feel the history in the beams of the building and the unevenness of the flooring, as if veterans of the battle were joining in your toast.  They are still there.

The second tradition is on the last evening on the battlefield, as the sun sets over Seminary Ridge across the broad field of Pickett’s Charge.  I go to the Confederate attack objective, the “Copse of Trees”  in the middle of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge, and watch the sun set over the sad statue of Robert E. Lee, the Confederate commander, a mile away on Seminary Ridge.  As the sun goes down, I think of the setting of his Confederate dreams, though it would be almost two more years of war and death before the end at Appomattox.  

Wool in the Hot Sun

That trip was in hot July.  I waited until the “right time”, mid-afternoon to walk Pickett’s Charge myself, across the mile of open field from Lee’s statue to just below the Copse.  It was hot, and I thought of the wool uniforms that the soldiers on both sides were wearing, and the artillery shells arching overhead.  I climbed over the spilt-rail fencing still on both sides of the Emmitsburg Road, realizing the target that made for rifle fire, then up the gentle incline into the mouths of cannon firing canister shot (think of a shotgun shell the size of a coffee can filled with metal balls).  Whatever you may think of the “Cause” of the Confederacy, there can be no question of the courage of those soldiers who marched up that Ridge, nor that of the men in blue who defended it.

Then I walked back, the mile to where Lee rode out to console and consolidate his decimated forces.  “General Pickett”, Lee said, “Prepare your division for defense.” Pickett replied, “General Lee — I have no division now.”

Alone on Little Round Top

I spent several years returning to Gettysburg, sometimes with family or friends, often on my own. I became a Gettysburg “geek”, no longer “taking the tour” but arriving at the field looking for information about a particular aspect of the battle. What gained my specific fascination was on the second day of the three-day action. Pickett’s dramatic charge on the third day was desperate and unlikely to succeed, but the battles on the second day were very near decisions.

One evening I was alone just beneath Little Round Top, the critical southern segment of the Union line that barely held against relentless Confederate attack.  The last regiment in line, the 20^th Maine under Colonel Joshua Chamberlain was “in the air”.  There were no Union forces to their left, if the Confederates could get past them, they could ravage the interior of the Union forces.  It is heavily wooded; the Confederates were forced to charge up a steep hill against the fortified Union line.  But after six  Rebel charges the 20^th was almost out of ammunition. Chamberlain, well aware of the strategic importance of his position, ordered his men to fix bayonets and charge downhill into the Confederate ranks.  The attack so surprised them, that the Texans were pushed off of Little Round Top, up the hill of Big Round Top, and down the other side.

As I stood almost alone at the stone marker noting the 20^th’s position, a fully uniformed Union Sharpshooter emerged from the woods behind me.  He began talking of the action, of the position he took on the field.  He answered my questions about how the land had changed since the battle, what is now scrub woods was once a road to the mill.  It was eerie:  reenactors are often on the battlefield, but this one seemed almost – real – almost a ghost.  The woods were growing dark, and my soldier said he had to return to his fire.  Then he was gone, and I was alone on Little Round Top.

The End of the Line

Another trip I went with a former student/athlete and friend, Randy. I decided to focus on the north end of the line. The Union was poised in a “fishhook” position, with Culp’s Hill on one end, and Little Round Top at the other. It was three miles long, with the Confederate forces paralleling it with a five-mile line. If the Rebels couldn’t break around the Union forces at Little Round Top to the South, why couldn’t they skirt around Culp’s Hill to the North and split the “fishhook” in two?

There seemed to be nothing to stop a Confederate advance around Culp’s Hill, where the fighting was even uglier than Little Round Top.  So we crossed Rock Creek and began searching the woods for evidence – regimental markers or monuments.  We found nothing but woods and signs saying we were no longer in the Battlefield Park – trespassing on private land.  After wandering for a while, we returned to the Visitors Center and went to the Guide booth to ask them the question.

There is a “vetting” system at Gettysburg.  Ask a basic question, and you’re directed to a battle overview in the Visitor’s Center.  Ask a more specific question, and you may well get hooked up with a Battlefield Guide – perhaps the best way to see Gettysburg if you have the time and money.  They are true experts, full of facts, figures, and stories.  Many are former military themselves, retired, like General Eisenhower, to the ghosts of America’s most famous battle.

But this time the Guide there gave us very specific instructions.  Get in the car, and drive down the Pike until we crossed the Creek.  Then, turn left into the driveway of the first farmhouse, and knock on the door and explain our question to whoever appears.  If we were lucky, maybe we would get an answer.

Hidden Monuments

Randy and I followed directions, and knocked on the farmhouse door.  An older woman answered, and I explained who we were and that the Guide said someone here might answer my question.  She proceeded to give me a quiz on the battle, asking multiple questions about the events of July 1863.  I must have satisfied her, as she told me to wait a moment, and went and got her husband.

The older man came out, and after a little discussion, asked if Randy and I would like to take a walk.  He owned all the land on the east side of Rock Creek, not in the Battlefield Park. It had been in his family since before the Civil War.  So he took us to the “end of the line”, where Union forces were positioned to stop just the maneuver that I wondered about.  Out of the woods appeared stone monuments, not on any tourist map.  They were erected with most of the rest in the 1890’s by the surviving veterans, but since it was on private land, aren’t part of the “regular” Gettysburg experience.

We walked miles. He showed us the old road to the mill (see Little Round Top) and where the mill stood. And he explained: Confederates tried to “flank” around Culp’s Hill, but there weren’t enough of them, and too many Union forces, to get around that end. It wasn’t a “pitched” battle like the more well-known actions, but left out here, in the woods, unseen, was the strategic Union “end of the line”.

Track at Gettysburg

As a track coach, I loved to take my team on trips.  It gave them a chance to “bond” together, become a more dedicated team, and have fun.  Track became more than just workouts and competitions, it became experiences as well.  For years I looked for a way to take a team to Gettysburg.  And we finally found a meet, not at Gettysburg, but close enough at Cumberland Valley High School near Harrisburg.  So we set it up – a “Tour Bus”, accommodations at the Eisenhower Conference Center just south of the battlefield, dinner at General Pickett’s Buffet, and a guided tour of the Battlefield.

The team was like most kids at Gettysburg.  Some were fascinated, others were mildly interested, and a few were flat bored.  But there is a “secret” of kids at Gettysburg – “the Devil’s Den”.  It’s a series of rock outcroppings where actual battle was fought.  But it’s also a natural playground – and when the “kids” are bored it’s a perfect place to let them go “play”.  Of course, they’ll be “breaking the rules”, jumping from rock to rock, but they’ll have fun.  And then you can sneak in the “sniper photograph” – a soldier aiming his rifle through the rocks at Little Round Top, and some stories of battle in the rocks.  Most are “hooked” before you get back on the bus.

We had fun, and were runners-up in the meet the next day.  As usual when we go on tour, we probably lost some points by running around so much the day before – but it was worth it.

My second experience with track at Gettysburg was coaching at a Pole Vault Camp at Gettysburg College.  It was unnerving:  teaching pole vault where I could tell the athletes exactly what happened during the battle, right there on the runway they were using.  We did the Gettysburg “ghost tour”, not so great, but after four days of full-time pole vault, the camp director Rob decided we should give the kids a little taste of the battle.  So we loaded everyone up, and went over to Little Round Top, to see the 20^th Maine and the Devil’s Den.  

And when camp was over and the kids gone:  it was a quick trip to the Spring House, and sunset over Seminary Ridge.  Then the long drive home.

Ghosts in the Mist

On another trip Richie and I went together. He coached track with me for several years, and after he heard that Randy went with me to Gettysburg, he was determined that we should go. We set up an ambitious plan, two days at Gettysburg, a day in Washington, and a day at Antietam (another battlefield nearby). But to make it work, we had to leave Pataskala in the evening, and drive all night to get to the Battlefield.

We arrived about 5:30 am, and parked in the dark on Cemetery Ridge. It’s kind of hard to get the “lay of the land” in the dark, but we walked out onto the ridge anyway. The mists came up from the ground as the sky started to lighten, and soon we were walking in a fog, alone among the monuments. The marble soldiers emerged from the mists, silently keeping guard on the “hallowed ground” where they struggled. We could feel the spirits of those that sacrificed, and those who survived to return and erect monuments to their comrades.

Battlefields are often spiritual places.  At Gettysburg, the ghosts are standing guard.

The Sunday Story Series

Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21

Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21

A Track Story – 2/7/21

Ritual – 2/14/21

Voyageur – 2/19/21

A Dog Story – 2/25/21

A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21

Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21

Where Have All the Flowers Gone – Peter, Paul and Mary

Reason

As I was writing Monday’s essay on the Democrats in the Senate (Don’t Blame Joe) I had an underlying question.  Why, if 79% of the US population are in favor of another COVID relief package (Pew), would any reasonable politician vote against it?  Even 65% of Republicans are in favor of relief.  So why would the Republicans in the House and Senate allow this to become a partisan issue, with them on the “wrong” side,  when almost everyone is in favor it? 

By the way, the Democrats did just the opposite last year, when it was Donald Trump’s COVID relief packages.  The December 2020 vote in the Senate, 92 for the package, 6 against.  The April 2020 vote – 96 to 0.   

COVID Relief

One answer is that Republicans believe they can somehow brand this Relief Package as a “Radical Democratic Spending Spree”.  If they get that done, they might cut into the 65% of Republicans who favor the “spree”.  But that also seems to be a stretch.  We can argue about how Republican “thought” is dominated by right-wing media.  We can talk about the influence that Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity have on what Republicans believe is true.  (That’s a lot by the way, Carlson is still pushing the “stolen election” baloney, and a whole lot of folks still believe it).

And there are some Republicans (and former Republicans) who legitimately believe that the $1.9 Trillion endangers the economy but putting “too much gas on the fire”.  The worry about inflation, and express concern about the impact of the debt on future generations.  And, as I see it, as long as they voiced the same concerns about the trillion-dollar tax cut, then I respect their view.  As I understand the economics, I think they are mistaken, but I respect it.  

But COVID relief isn’t some “policy” that doesn’t directly impact lives.  It’s money in the pocket, $1400 for many taxpaying Americans, with more for dependent kids.  A family of four earning less than $150,000 a year will get $5600.  That’s real money for almost everybody, whatever Carlson and Hannity say.  And that doesn’t include the support for state and local governments, saving jobs in schools, police departments (more funding not less) and firehouses.  And then there’s the “shot”:  no matter where you stand on COVID – most people are looking forward to FREEDOM – and freedom means the “shot”.  You don’t even have to turn “blue”, or lift your kilt (vague Braveheart reference).  

Issues Aren’t Important

So how does Republican stonewalling make political sense?  How does the stunt pulled by Senator Ron Johnson, making the poor Senate clerks read seven hundred pages of the bill into the record, work in his favor?  How can Senate Republicans in marginal states, like Marco Rubio and Ron Johnson himself, vote against what even 65% of their own supporters want?

It just doesn’t matter.  The voters aren’t voting on the issues, they are voting on the labels.  Think of it this way:  if Marco Rubio voted for the Relief Package, no Democrat is going to switch and vote for him.  And there are plenty of Republican voters who would see his vote as a “sell out”:  abandoning Trumpian support to give-in to the Democrats.  The fact that the package will benefit them isn’t the point.  It is a simple outcome of Trumpism, you’re either for or against.  The issue doesn’t matter.

Republicans Richard Shelby (AL), Roy Blount (MO), Richard Burr (NC), Rob Portman (OH), and Pat Toomey (PA) have already figured it out.  They’re retiring.  Chuck Grassley of Iowa may join them. He’s 87, and while he hasn’t announced yet, it might be his time.  But retirement hasn’t stopped them from “standing” with their Party, it just takes the pressure off of having to please their voters.

Both Sides

And in all honesty, Democrats aren’t very different either.  Look at the “heat” that Joe Manchin is taking for not toeing the Party line.  We are polarized to the point that right and wrong, good and bad, progressing the United States forward isn’t the issue.  It’s simply about partisanship, votes “on the barrel head”.  

Personally, I look at Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio as a classic example.  He is a Republican, and on most issues follows the Republican line.  But he has attempted to govern through the COVID crisis, making many of the unpopular calls to restrict businesses and life to control the virus.  But he’s also realistic.  The Democrats, like me, who praise his work on COVID, still aren’t likely to vote for him in the 2022 Gubernatorial race.  And his own Republicans are likely to put a COVID denier on the ballot in the primary against him, say, Congressman Jim Jordan.  And, looking at the Republican electorate in Ohio, Jordan might well win. 

Post-Issue Era

In the past four years we talked about the “post-truth era”.  Looking at politics today, we are in a “post-issue” era as well.  For all but the “wedge” issues like abortion and gun control and COVID controls, the topic really doesn’t matter.  It’s simply which side wins.

So when we look forward to the rest of the next Congressional two-year term until the 2022 elections, don’t expect reasonable discussion of issues and policies, at least in public.  Every issue will be contested on partisan rather than practical ones.  And the cost/benefit analysis of political reasons is clear.  Both sides voters are demanding absolute adherence to their party, or risk “primarying” from some more “dedicated to the cause” soul. 

There is little benefit in speaking reason, or taking the “middle ground”.  

Outrage

Many of my progressive friends are outraged.

“We won the Presidency, we won the House and WE WON THE SENATE WITH GEORGIA!   So we should get everything we want, from COVID relief to voting reform, immigration change to climate protection, policing reform to a higher minimum wage. We’ve won it all – and you know damn well the Republicans would do it to us: #%$& bipartisanship!!!”

And in my heart I absolutely agree with them. We need to move our agenda forward – it’s what we voted for.  As the saying  goes, elections have consequences – we heard that for four long years.  And we won.

Yep, we did:  but the margins were so slim.  We actually lost seats in the House. The Popular vote for Biden was decent, but the margins in the critical electoral vote states were only slightly greater than the 2016 Trump margins we complained about for four years. 

And then there’s the Senate – tied fifty votes a piece with Vice President Harris casting the decisive choice.  

Narrow Margins

So we won, but really only by the narrowest of margins.  And the critical point, the weak link, is the Senate of the United States.  There are really two problems in the Senate.  

The first is that the Senate has a tradition of the filibuster, unlimited debate.  In the old, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” days, a Senator would take the floor and talk for as long as they wanted.  A Senator dead-set on stopping a vote on a measure, could simply just keep talking, hours onto days.  And if it were a few Senators, they could go on ad-infinitum, stopping all Senate business.  That’s how the civil rights acts were stopped for so many years in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  There was a way to stop debate, but at that time it took two-thirds of the Senators to vote for “cloture” and limit the talk.

The Senate has made it easier, on both sides of the filibuster question.  For the talkers, they no longer have to do the actual talking.  They just have to “threaten” to do it, and the Senate would recognize that they were “talking”, and hold business.  On the other hand, it no longer required the sixty-seven votes to reach “cloture”, now they could do it with sixty.  And there are now exceptions:  Presidential appointees, and votes on budget items already passed by the House of Representatives called budget reconciliation.

So what all this means is that forty-one Senators can stop most pieces of legislation in the Senate.  Unless, of course, the Senate decides to end the filibuster rule, or at least modify it.  To do that it only requires a simple majority – or in this case, fifty votes plus the Vice President. 

We Are Democrats

The second is that the Democrats are Democrats, and that means that the Party represents a broad range of ideology.  It ranges from Bernie Sander’s Democratic Socialism, to Joe Manchin’s “blue dog” conservativism.  And while the “progressive” Democrats are willing to move forward to end the filibuster, and pass their (our) agenda by fifty votes, the more moderate Democrats, including Manchin, but also Krysten Sinema of Arizona, and perhaps even Joe Biden’s “voice” in the Senate, Chris Coons, aren’t so sure.  

And every vote in the Senate counts – one break from the “blue wall” and nothing can get done.  That means that every Democrat (including two “independents” who organize with the Democrats, Sanders and the more moderate Angus King of Maine) has to agree.   President Biden and Majority Leader Schumer have to find the balance between Bernie Sanders and Joe Manchin – either one can make the Democratic majority just a political organizing ploy, not able to legislate.

Don’t Blame Joe

So my progressive friends, don’t blame Joe Manchin.  He’s a Democrat, and he’s standing with the Democratic Party.  But he’s also a “blue dog” conservative from West Virginia, a state that went overwhelmingly for Donald Trump.  As he said Sunday on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, he is who he always was, and always will be.  

Don’t blame Joe – do something about it.  It’s not about getting rid of Manchin – that is, as my mother would say, cutting off your nose to spite your face.  In two years, there will be thirty-four seats up for election.  Realistically, Republicans will maintain a hold on fourteen of those.  Democrats will hold ten more.  That means there are ten competitive seats up for grabs.  Four are held by Democrats, six by Republicans. 

The battle for the Senate will be decided in those ten seats.  If Dems win all ten, then they will have a more comfortable fifty-six majority.  They can build a majority – even if one end or the other of the Party disagrees. But if Republicans can defend their seats and win just one of the four Democratic seats, then they regain control. Mitch McConnell becomes Majority Leader again.

Get to Work

In 2018 Democrats made huge strides, taking the House of Representatives and putting Nancy Pelosi back in the Speaker’s chair. In 2020, the expected “Blue Tsunami” turned out to be a trickle. The answer for each: Donald Trump. He wasn’t on the ticket in 2018, and he was in 2020. His presence brought “his” voters to the polls, and they voted down-ticket for other Republicans. He won’t be on the ticket in 2022.

Progress is being made.  Democrats will get some of progressive legislation through, though it’s likely to be “watered down”.  The $15 minimum wage is more likely to by $11, which still beats $7.25.  Go against the conventional wisdom (the President’s Party loses seats in the mid-terms) and bring the energy of anti-Trump 2018 and 2020 to 2022.  And by the way, the House is only Democratic by five seats – better be ready to fight for that as well.

Get to work.

Here’s the next installment in the “Sunday Story” series.  Don’t search for a great political point or moral lesson to learn.  It’s just a story – enjoy!!!

There are lots of things that we used to “get away with” that are no longer “appropriate”.  Admittedly, many of those needed to end.  But there are a few that while not “acceptable” in these modern days, were fun and nostalgic, and make for great stories.  And the statute of limitations has run out.  This one’s for the class of 1979, now proudly turning sixty – Wow – you guys are getting OLD!!!

A Farm School

When I first came to Watkins Memorial High School it was in 1978.   I was a twenty-one-year-old, first year teacher and Watkins (and the whole Pataskala area) was a different kind of place back then.  The community was just on the cusp of changing from agricultural to suburban.  Today’s acres and acres of housing developments were farm fields, and what was then called the High School, is now the “old” Middle School, soon to be leveled. 

Back then, the Future Farmers of America grew a couple of acres of corn behind the school, and one of the big events was “tractor day”.  Many kids still lived on farms, and drove their big green or red tractors to school to parade around the parking lot.   The Principal and his Assistant controlled the building with the business side of a paddle, with few kids suspended or expelled.  They took a beating instead.  And for many of those kids, it wasn’t the paddling that was the worst punishment.  “Just please, don’t tell my parents,” was often the plaintive cry.  “I’ll get twice as much at home”.  

Like many schools of the time, the senior class had a series of “pranks” to mark the end of their high school careers.  One year, they dumped dozens of live chickens into our school courtyard, each with a teacher’s name-tag hung around its neck.  The poultry wandered for a few days, as no one wanted the responsibility of gathering them up.  Another year a Volkswagen Beetle (minus the engine) was dragged over the roof and dropped into the same courtyard.  Luckily, Watkins had a healthy vocational education department back then.  The welding class made it a project to cut the Beetle into pieces and bring it out.  

The Deal

Most of the pranks were pretty harmless, though the Volkswagen did damage the roof on the way over.  And that’s because there was an unspoken agreement between the Senior Class and their government teacher.  As long as the class could “kidnap” that teacher, they really didn’t do much harm to the rest of the school district.

When I took a Government teaching job at Watkins, I really didn’t have any idea that was part of the deal.  I was a student teacher there the year before, but I left before Senior week, doing my own graduation rituals at Denison University when all of that was going on.  So I was a bit surprised when my mentor and fellow teacher, Gary Madden, let me know that a kidnapping was definitely in my future.

I was twenty-two by May, living in a small apartment on the north side of the village of Pataskala.  I had some idea when the seniors would be looking for me – it was traditionally the night before the Senior assembly.  In fact, the “high point” of the assembly would be to bring the “captured” faculty in for display.  But I determined that I could avoid this by simply locking myself inside of my apartment, and watching my 1962 portable black and white TV.  At least, that was the plan.

Knock – No Warrant

Around 7pm there was a “police-like” knocking on the front door of my second-floor apartment.  I glanced through the window, and saw our star shot putter, standing at the door.  Well, at least I saw part of him – he was north of 300 pounds, a state qualifier, and I  really just saw a wall of a man-boy standing blocking all exit from my home.  I wasn’t planning on going out, but if I wanted to, there was no exit.

So I just told him that I wasn’t opening the door – and assumed that was that.  What I hadn’t prepared for was our hurdler forcing open a window and coming out of the bedroom.  Before I could react, he had the front door open, and he, and the shot putter, and a multitude of other seniors were in my very small living room.

Now I was a track guy, but I had wrestled for several years.  So we had a good tussle in the living room.  But, out-muscled and out-manned, they soon pulled out a pair of handcuffs, cuffed me behind my back, and dragged me out of the door and down to the parking lot.  I remember my neighbors enjoying the show as I bounced down the wrought iron stairs – thanks a lot!!  The Seniors threw me into the back of a car, and off we went.  The driver then realized that he needed gas.  So they drove up the street to the Duke Station, and got a fill-up.  

As we were sitting there, a Pataskala Police cruiser pulled in.  I saw my chance, and yelled loudly, “Officer, there’s a felony kidnapping in progress, Help!”  The officer came over to the car, looked at me in the back, and then turned to the boys and said, “You know I’ll need my handcuffs back after you’re done”.  It was only then I realized the whole community was in on the plan.  Any chance of escape was up to me.

Picking Up Gary

Our next stop was at Gary Madden’s house in Summit Station.  The seniors just went up to the front door and demanded that Mr. Madden come outside.  I sat in the back seat as Gary, his wife and kids came to the front stoop.  Gary’s wife was laughing, but his kids weren’t so happy about all these folks who wanted to take their Daddy away.  And Gary wasn’t going easy either, a wrestling match soon broke out in the front yard.

I thought that was my chance.  It was 1979, and the car windows all worked with cranks.  So I cranked down the back window with my teeth, and as everyone focused on Gary in the front yard, I managed to worm my way out of the car. My first mistake – my hands were still cuffed behind me, so when I came out the window there was no where to land except on my face.  But out I went, got to my feet, and began to run into a field across the street.

I heard the shouts, and knew my captors discovered my break-out.  Now, I was a pretty fast runner still, only a couple of years from my college sprinting days.  But we never practiced sprinting through chest-high weeds with our hands behind our backs – it was awkward.  In the end though, it wasn’t that I got caught, at least by the kids. What I hadn’t counted on was barbed wire.  A fence brought me to a very dramatic halt. Then my pursuers unpinned me and dragged me back.

So now it was two of us against the Senior class of ’79.

Barn Wrestling

They only had the one set of handcuffs, and I don’t remember how they bound Gary up.  But we were taken back to one of the kids houses, right across from the school, and dragged into their barn.  By now it was dark, but the barn was lit, and the seniors laced the handcuff through the wheel of a tractor.  Gary was on the outside, I was on the inside.  The Seniors left, I suspect to enjoy some beverages (the legal age in Ohio was eighteen at the time, though I don’t think that really mattered).  And we were alone.

Our first plan was to roll the tractor down the hill to the road.  So we started to move the big Red Massey-Ferguson out of the barn door.  That didn’t last a quarter turn before I realized that, as the “inside man”, I was going under the wheel.  We managed to get it stopped before any crushing occurred.

Our second plan was only marginally more successful.  All our activity with the handcuffs made our wrists raw and bloody.  When the Seniors came back, Gary and I put on our best “whine” about how much they hurt.  The Seniors, truly concerned that we not be permanently injured, let us loose.  They’re mistake.

We both made a break.  I remember struggling with multiple kids before being pinned down.  A Senior wrestler that I sparred with muttered “stop fighting or I’ll break your arm”.  I responded “break it.”  He had more sense than I did at the time, and released me.  Meanwhile Gary had a garbage can lid and a length of chain, keeping the Seniors at bay like some medieval Warrior (instead of the Native American Watkins Warrior).  It was a long night of wrestling, laughing, swearing, and challenging the Seniors – and we didn’t manage to get away.

Senior Assembly

The next morning they dragged us across the street to the school, ready to handcuff us to the gymnastics balance beam in anticipation of the Senior Assembly.  But they turned their back to discuss how to attach us for just a moment – and we were gone.  We did have one advantage:  we knew the school even better than the Seniors, all of the back rooms and hiding places and interconnecting doors.

 We managed to make our way to the shop class, and found the tools to cut the handcuff chain.  The Seniors had some explaining to do to the Pataskala Police – they cried to us later, “Did you have to cut them?”.  And so as the Senior Assembly began, we marched in with the faculty – smelly and dirty from wrestling on a barn floor, but proudly free from captivity.  

Gary became the Assistant Principal the next year – and there were two more years of “Seniors” all by myself before I moved to the Middle School.  But that’s another story.

The Sunday Story Series

Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21

Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21

A Track Story – 2/7/21

Ritual – 2/14/21

Voyageur – 2/19/21

A Dog Story – 2/25/21

A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21

Vaccination

President Biden announced this week that there will be enough vaccinations for every adult in the United States by May.  Medical experts, some for the first time, are speaking with smiles on their faces.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel of COVID, and the light is getting brighter by the minute.  If we can “hang on” until summer, until the vast majority of Americans are vaccinated, the United States may actually reach a level of “herd immunity”.  So many folks will be immune that N-Covid-19 will become a nuisance instead of the pandemic we know that killed over half-a-million Americans.

But it’s March, not summer.  While the end of the tunnel is visible, “we ain’t there yet”.  So when Biden’s announcement was followed by the Governors of Texas and Mississippi declaring their states were “100%” open, with no COVID restrictions, the President called them out.  

“I hope everyone’s realized by now these masks make a difference,” Biden told reporters Wednesday. “The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime everything’s fine, take off your mask, forget it.  It still matters.”(Insider).

Defending Neanderthals

Senator Marsha Blackburn, Republican from Tennessee, immediately jumped to the defense of Neanderthals.  

“Neanderthals are hunter-gatherers. They’re protectors of their family. They are resilient. They’re resourceful. They tend to their own,” the GOP senator said. “So I think Joe Biden needs to rethink what he is saying.” (Insider)

So to be clear, Neanderthals were (not are) an archaic version of humans.  They “disappeared” between 35,000 and 25,000 years ago – though they may well have been “assimilated” into modern humans.  Neanderthals lived in Europe, using caves for shelter.  Those caves also preserved their art work, and their skeletons for modern study.  When modern society talks about “cave people” – there are generally referring to the Neanderthals.  (Brittanica)

So while it’s wonderful that Senator Blackburn and other Republicans jumped to the defense of the Neanderthals from the “unfair” aspersions cast by the President, there really isn’t anybody around for them to defend.  That is, other than the retired Geico advertising campaign – “even a caveman can do it”.  That was replaced by the Gecko.

Cartoon Characters

But it seems to be the kind of issue the Republicans can get behind.  Defending Neanderthals came right after defending the “manhood” of Mr. Potato Head (see an earlier essay  from this week – Potato Heads).  And right before defending the early works of Dr. Seuss. It seems the beloved author of “The Cat in the Hat”, “Green Eggs and Ham”, and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” had earlier works that contains racist images.  Doctor Seuss Enterprises, the business that preserves and controls his works, determined that they would no longer publish six books from his early collection.  They released the following statement:  “These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong” (USA Today).

Neanderthals, Potato Heads and the Cat in the Hat all seem to be more important issues to the Republicans than the very real concerns in front of them.  The COVID relief package is before the Senate, but Republicans are lockstep in their opposition to the legislation.  So opposed in fact, that Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin used his Senatorial “privilege” to require almost 700 pages of the bill read into the record – delaying Senate debate for over ten hours.  

Serious Debate

It’s certainly the “right” of the GOP to stand in opposition.  When they controlled the Senate, the Democrats often did the same.  But it does seem that their opposition has become “frivolous” instead of substantive.  The issues that seem “important” this week – Neanderthals, Potato Heads and the Cat in the Hat, all are designed to further polarize American politics.  It’s about “firing up the base” – “Democrats are against Dr Seuss!!!! Let’s storm the Capitol to defend the Cat in the Hat and the Grinch!!” (Maybe it’s “too soon” for “storming the Capitol” – but isn’t this kind of craziness how we got there in the first place?)

Serious issues are coming.  The House passed the Police Reform and Voting Reform Acts this week.  The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is right behind.  There are real issues of concern and debate in all of those proposed laws, real points of contention about who “counts” in America.  I hope we can hear serious discussion about those issues – not ten hours of reading from the embattled Senate clerks, and not defense of Neanderthals, potato heads, or cats with hats.

Pre-Dawn

The dogs were up early this morning – about 4:45 am.  I’m not sure why Louisiana decided that 4:45 was a good time.  He’s a “Southern Dog”; he doesn’t even eat breakfast until the sun is high and warm.  He might have heard the neighbor headed to work – but there’s nothing like a big Lou lick on the lips to get you going in the cold, early, pre-dawn!

Once Lou was up, the rest of the pack got rolling as well.  Unlike Lou, it was breakfast time for them, and snacks, and go out a couple of times.  By the time that was all over there was no going back to sleep.  So I read the “papers” (well, I read my phone with “All the News that’s Fit to Print” and “Democracy Dies in the Darkness”).  And today it struck me:  the dichotomy of our “new normal”.

The Old Days

The lead articles are about what we would have called the “old” normal.  It’s about negotiations for the COVID relief bill.  The House, not surprisingly, maxed out the relief package, including the $15 minimum wage (which I support).  The Senate, evenly divided with several Senators straddling the middle ground, is serving the purpose the Founding Fathers intended.  The “heated action” of the House is being “cooled in the saucer” of the Senate.  The $15 minimum wage is off, to be debated another time.  The direct relief, $1400 to each taxpayer, is now restricted to those making less that $80,000/year.  

President Biden is talking to Senators, both his own Democrats and even some Republicans.  More progressive members of the Senate are outraged, and more regressive Senators are making the staff read aloud over six hundred pages of the bill into the record.  As Aaron Burr’s character sang in Hamilton, this is “…the art of the trade, how the sausage is made”. COVID relief will be passed sometime this weekend.  The check is in the mail.  

Competence

And Biden is demonstrating the one thing most Americans hoped for:  competence.  Not only is economic COVID relief coming, but the vaccine is coming as well.  Instead of July or August, now we can look forward to every adult having access to “the shot” by May.  And while Texas, Mississippi, and I’m sure Florida soon, may pay a price of infection and death for jumping the gun, we really might be able to get to a life more like normal this summer.  I’m looking forward to the Fourth of July.

That’s what “old normal” should look like.  It’s a government that doesn’t require us to watch every move and action.  I can listen to Hamilton as I go about my day (or a lot of Steep Canyon Rangers recently), instead of locking into MSNBC to find out what tragedy or atrocity happens next.

The “New” Normal

But then there’s the “new normal”.  Just yesterday:  Elaine Chou was accused of direct conflicts of interest and may have committed crimes by favoring her family businesses.  She’s the former Secretary of Transportation and Mitch McConnell’s wife. But the Trump Justice Department gave her a “pass”, in spite of an Inspector General’s recommendation for charges.  Trump is being sued by Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss) for inciting the Insurrection of January 6^th. And he is under investigation five ways from Sunday in the State of New York.  

The House of Representatives stayed up most of last night to finish the Police Reform and the Voting Rights Act.  Why did they pull an “all-nighter” in the middle of the week?  Because today is March 4^th, the last day for the “fever dream” Insurrectionists to achieve their goal of overthrowing the duly elected government of the United States.  There is enough “intelligence” to raise concerns by Congressional leaders, particularly after January 6^th.  And while the Capitol is as highly fortified as it has been since the Civil War, the House leaders didn’t see a need to serve as “bait” for a possible attack.  They worked the late shift and went on home.

Rabbit Holes

Not to descend too far into the Insurrectionist “rabbit hole”, but March 4^th is the original inauguration date established in the Constitution, and changed in 1933 by the Twentieth Amendment.  Since insurrectionist “lore” claims that the United States hasn’t had a “valid” President since Ulysses S. Grant in 1875, they refuse to acknowledge the January 20^th inauguration.  The fact that Donald Trump would have been an “illegitimate” President under this theory as well doesn’t seem to bother them.  They just know that the 2020 election was “stolen”, and they want it back.  Today may be their last chance.

Add to that the disturbing testimony yesterday of District of Columbia National Guard Commanding General William Walker.  He said that on January 6^th, he had to wait three hours and nineteen minutes to get extra-ordinary permission from the Defense Department to send troops to defend the Capitol.  He had his forces sitting on buses at the DC Armory, ready to go.  But while vandals raged through the building, his troops were cooling their heels. They were waiting for “permission” from the Trump temporary appointees at the Pentagon.  We don’t know what those appointees were waiting for. But it doesn’t seem too crazy to think they may have been hoping to see how “effective” the insurrection was.

And that’s the new normal, the one we got “used to” in the Trump Administration.  Let’s hope we’re just tying up the loose ends of that era, and we can get on with “making sausage” and the business of government.  

But meanwhile, the TV will stay on MSNBC today.