True Costs/Real Questions

We bitch when we pay more than two-fifty for a gallon of gas! Yeah, I know its way higher than that now, but like Gene McDaniel asked a long time ago: “Compared to what?”

We never ask that question, do we? And if we do I wonder if we really consider the wide range of answers open to us.

You been to Europe lately? It seems to me that they are paying the true costs of using a rapidly dwindling and environmentally damaging fossil fuel. But the message of what true costs are never gets down to us does it? We see the world a different way than others.

After all, we’re American and what there is, is what we say it is, right?

We complain that we’re losing way too many American lives in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan! Hey, don’t get me wrong here, this is not a political screed against George Bush-that’s another piece I‘m putting together. But when we talk about this issue I never hear about the tens of thousands of ‘others’ that have died in the last couple of years because of our attempts to rid their countries of Saddam Hussein or the Taliban.

Then ya gotta take a look closer to home, and I mean real close. When was the last time you took a look at your kid’s waist line? When was the last time you took the time to cook a good healthy meal? And no, checking into KFC or Mickey D’s and walking out with a couple of Happy Meals or buckets of chicken and cole slaw does not count.

When was the last time you looked at what you were putting into your mouth? I know, I know, who the hell has time to cook good food let alone shop for it, right? But I’ll betcha that somewhere on the KFC and Mc Donald’s payroll is somebody in a white coat and carrying a clip board telling us that their food is nutritionally sound and yummy good, right?

And we believe him ‘cause we’re American and what there is, is what we say it is, right?

Speaking of what we ingest when was the last time you saw a quality show on TV? General Hospital or CSI Miami do not count, neither does Fear Factor or the six o’clock news. If we judge the general intelligence of the public by the more popular shows on the tube (excuse me but I do not want to be a Hilton or work for ‘The Donald’) we're a nation of morons, but we’re American and what there is, is because we say it is, huh?

I am not a snob, I enjoy a good cold beer and I love to laze around in front of the tube watching a ball game just like Joe Six-pack. I can understand the need to save time by eating fast food and getting the world news pre-packaged by the spin machines out of Washington, DC, New York, and Los Angeles. What I can’t understand is how people in this age of the internet accept the crap shoved at them and believe that’s all there is to it. But then again, we’re American, right? And you know the drill, don’t you?

The oil business has us by the short hairs and is subsidizing our habit working hand in hand with the automotive industry aided and abetted by the US government. And please, don’t you dare try to tell me that it’s only the Republicans doing this shit. We’re American and if we don’t stand up and demand truth from our so-called leaders we’ll get what we deserve.

But then we only stand up for what is, right?

Cindy Sheehan stands up and whaddya know, some other folks have the gall to tell her that she’s undermining our troops in Iraq! Hey, they gotta right to do that don’t they? This is America after all and we all have a right to disagree, right?

So how come it feels like the people that want the war are the only ones allowed to say that they’re patriotic? People that want to return America to ‘traditional values’ are portrayed as true Americans (hmmm, traditional American values…genocide, slavery, repression of women…what values are they talking about anyway?).

Okay, I’m definitely off track here! But what are we really paying to have the life style we Americans enjoy? And, for that matter, who is really doing the paying?

I met someone over the last couple of days who tells me that there are better ways to look at wealth and health. She tells me of a philosophy and life style that, while I have absolutely no real details, intrigues me. We were in a retreat considering very weighty issues concerning our coaching work so we really didn’t have time to delve into these matters.

But it gave me comfort to know that there are people dealing with these issues. I have volunteered with Sheila’s church to provide food to the needy. I worked with Habitat for Humanity to give a home to a poor family in Pennsylvania with my cousin Lee. I’ve given over ten years of my professional career to helping disadvantaged people get access to education and training so that they can enter the workforce with more and better tools to succeed.

My work and volunteer efforts are drops in the bucket. A wise woman I once worked with said there are no easy answers when it comes to dealing with the suffering of the poor right here in America. I believe that a major paradigm shift needs to occur for us to even see the true problems facing us. My friend Jim Snow from the McLean Dialogue has been schooling me on Lakoff’s work on frames of reference.

When we can see how others see maybe then we can all ask real questions about the true costs of being the society we are.

Touching Clouds

“Hey dada, you can touch a cloud if you come out on the deck, c’mon out dad. You can write anytime, but when’s the last time you touched a cloud?”

There were many reasons to sit where I was when Robert shouted the cloud touching challenge to me. The main one was finishing the speech I was putting together for my retreat with Anne Gottlieb. I was determined to get it down because I still had to memorize it, put it on index cards and then make it sound as ‘natural’ as possible.

Natural...

How the hell can you beat cloud touching for something natural?

I got my ass up and walked over to the door. Looking out I could see why he was so excited and I was warmed that he is still young enough to be so enchanted at something like a cloud.

The four of us stood out on the deck overlooking a long ski run here at Wintergreen Resort. The elevation is three thousand feet up. Driving down from Charlottesville we were enthralled by seeing mountain tops wreathed by clouds. Robert kept talking about how his buddy Andrew touched a cloud. Andrew’s dad is from Guatemala and his uncle’s house is high in the mountains there. Once on a visit there Andrew said he touched a cloud.

“I can’t touch it, why can’t I touch it? I’m not big enough!” Esther was watching us as we stood in the enveloping cloud that had rolled over the ski lift, obscuring what we had clearly seen less than thirty minutes before as we checked the condo out after dropping our bags in the doorway. The three of us were definitely touching the cloud. She walked around us, mystified by our happiness.

“Why can’t I touch it, dada? Almost crying now, frustrated as each of us were dancing around in the mist. The deck was vibrating from our stamping feet and the trees near us were becoming lost in the fog-like apparition descending over us.

“Here Polly, I’ll lift you up into the cloud and you can touch it. Hold your arms out. Do you feel the little wet kisses on them?

Esther reached her arms out, tilted her head back and closed her eyes. Sheila and Robert quietly walked over to her and watched, waiting for her reaction. She opened her eyes.

“Yea, daddy, the cloud’s kissing me all on my arms and face. I feel it touching me.” She smiled, happy to be a part of what was going on, happy to be touching the cloud. I suspect this will be the moment she remembers more than being at Monticello, more than seeing the many valleys on the drive along the ridge of the mountains. She may remember the pool at the hotel in Charlottesville; both children seem to fixate on hotel pools and can recite them when we talk about the places we’ve visited.

There’s not a lot about being away from ‘home’ that I really like. I guess the adventure of going to Copenhagen and my trips to San Francisco are exceptions. Until I bought a lap top and discovered the greatest invention of the internet age-WiFi-traveling was like being cut off from my life-line. I love the connections I have with people all over the world. I can move around the globe without leaving my room.

But I doubt I could ever touch a cloud there. I couldn’t even imagine it there. And I sure couldn’t see the look on Esther’s face when she felt the cloud kissing her. Maybe enchantment is contagious, I hope it is.

When we left Annandale the other day all of us were in a wicked mood, by the time we reached Charlottesville we were better as the rain that had been with us for the first hour of the trip had stopped and we could see the mountains running along the highway. We found the Children’s Discovery Museum in Charlottesville, explored it and part of Charlottesville, checked into our hotel, went to dinner ( I had a huge fillet at this place, screw the cholesterol concerns!), and hit the pool when we got back to the hotel.

Smiles were on our faces.

We met some interesting people in line for the tour of Monticello; saw some interesting things in the house. Our guide was pleased that I could answer her harder questions about Jefferson, his neighbor Madison, and John Adams.

I was pleased that the foundation that runs the place has finally acknowledged Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemmings and the fact that there was issue from that relationship. I love seeing the cracks in white folk’s hypocrisy.

Sheila thanked me for going on the tour with them. She has a strong sense of my feelings about the passing the buck the Founding Fathers pulled off by not dealing with the un-godly institution of slavery. Jefferson later wrote of how he trembled at the thought of a just God when he considered the issue of slavery…

Tomorrow we’ll find more interesting places to visit, more mountains to climb. We’ll meet people from around the country and many from right here in the hills of western Virginia. I remind myself that most of these locals are descended from people that didn’t own slaves. At the same time I’m appalled that their ancestors proudly fought for Virginia’s slave holding class.

America, forged by noble words written by landowning white men who extolled freedom for themselves but not women, blacks, or poor people, to say nothing of their lack of consideration for indigenous people, yet managed to put together a governing document that is open to growth. Ol’ Red probably has smiles on his face watching us today. He’d probably remind us that the Constitution only provides us a form for the freedoms accorded us. His Declaration of Independence outlines things inalienable to us. As a boy he probably touched clouds when he was growing up at the foot of Monticello and climbing it with his friends.

Back Home

After a trip, especially one where you find yourself in a very different environment, you can have a very eye opening experience when you come back home. In many ways it’s like going to the same spot on a river bank that you’ve visited many times and realizing that it isn’t the same river that you visited the last time you were there.

Well it’s been a week and I haven’t really slowed down to get to the journal to tell about what I saw in Denmark and what I’ve been dealing with back home. But I got some inspiration from readers and writers I know so I’m movin’ ahead.

Copenhagen was a real surprise. I thought living in DC gave me an understanding as to what ‘cosmopolitan’ meant. Well, that’s going up on the shelf somewhere. In Copenhagen I met a Chinese dude who spoke, well, Chinese (Mandarin), a little Cantonese, Vietnamese, French, Danish, English, Swedish, and German; he’s lived in Copenhagen since he was five.

Sheila and I had a cab driver from Palestine who lived there since 1969, one from Pakistan who moved there in ’75, and we walked around the city with a Swede who has made Copenhagen his home for eighteen years. While most of the people certainly look, well, Scandinavian, there are whole lots of different looking, and sounding, folks calling it home!

It is an amazing hang out city. On our way to a tour bus we passed a bar, at 10:45 AM Sunday morning that was jamming! I mean really jamming like it was 10:45 Saturday night.

Everybody we talked to was friendly. The only complaint I have was that when there was a line up for something, like getting into a place, it was like all of a sudden NYC and don’t even think of slowing down for fear of being stampeded. And the beer was great. There are so many breweries there, and many micro-breweries. In some places in the city neighborhoods take their identities from the beer made in them.

Oh yeah, the tour. We saw authentic Viking ships, lovingly restored through a twenty-five year process after they had been discovered. We visited a burial mound (Sheila went in, I climbed on top of it…way too claustrophobic to go in!), and dinned at an inn built in the 1600’s. The old part of the city has a charm that can only be found, I’m told, in Europe.

There is a year long celebration of Hans Christian Andersen’s 200th birthday and there many places that had white shoe prints outlining places where he was known to have walked. I passed on seeing the Little Mermaid as I found out that actually seeing it is a real let-down (its small and always crowded). Andersen’s “The Ugly Duckling” helped me get through a very rough childhood. While I wouldn’t necessarily call him my favorite storyteller, he ranks way close to the top!

But…home is still the best place. Look, I love meeting new people, fitting my energy into the wide open spaces of undiscovered territories. But coming home was soul stirringly great too. And I’m not just talking about seeing the children here. I’m just talking about being in your own nest, with your own stuff. Being in the place where you’ve chosen to roost. Being, hell, just being in a place where you are comfortable…

I’ve been noticing little things and how much I take them for granted. Like deodorant and full seized cars, three dollar a gallon gas being cheap compared to what they pay in Europe, how some Americans actually have an appreciation for line etiquette (“I think that guy’s been here longer than me, you should take his order first!”), the many different versions of English spoken within a five or six mile radius of my house, food I’m boringly familiar with, and, did I mention deodorant?

Vacations spent in far away places remind me of how differently time can flow. Days in Copenhagen were almost endless, back home here they fly by in a blur at times. (Like I’m some kinda travel expert here! This was the first time I ever had a passport kiddies!)

Next up: a family excursion to the Piedmont of Virginia…Charlottesville and Wintergreen. And I’ll be ever grateful to get back Monday night.

Back home where I come to spaces where I think I’m in a familiar place and like a river they’ve changed.

Go with the flow…

Dispatch from 37,000

This is going to be a very short introduction as my laptop is practically in my chest and the screen is at a very awkward angle. I’m on an Airbus A-330-300 with one of those 2-4-2 seating setups with me and Sheila and me in a 2 on the port side of the plane. The seats are blue and gray, really narrow across the shoulders, at least for me, and kinda close together front to back too. As we passed through business class I noted the spaciousness and comfort of the section. I told Sheila that I knew she loved me as she was passing up being there to take me with her.

Sheila and I are on the way to a conference in Denmark…I should say she is on her way to a conference, I’m on my way to my first hop across the Atlantic to hang with the Danes. Soren, Hans, Hamlet…well, the first two anyway. I’m told Copenhagen is a good hangout city. My plan is to do as much walking around as possible, and we’ll see about the hanging.

The Danes I’m meeting on the flight are friendly enough. In a xenophobic sortta way I can’t help but notice that all of them seem to switch effortlessly between Danish and English. I’m still gonna brave the native tongue…while I can’t spell it I can say ‘bon mel’, which means breakfast. Listening to it, Danish sounds like a cross between German and French, or perhaps some other Romance language.

The coffee on the plane is great, so’s the food. As always I’ve been uncovered by one member of the flight crew as the passenger-you-can-mess-with-‘cause-he’s-got-a-sense-of-humor.

This gets posted when I get to the hotel and some sleep. I can’t sleep a bit on the plane. Seven hours, huh? Lights just went out, guess I’ll listen to some iTunes and watch some movies…

Ah, What a Lovely Fragrance

Everybody dies. And as William Wallace said, not everyone truly lives. From what I can gather Maxine R. Baker truly, wonderfully, and graciously lived. She has created ripples that move outward even now, touching others in ways that proponents of chaos theory would support. You know, like the butterfly whose wings end up creating the wind storm thousands of miles away. I attended her memorial service last week. Her daughter, ‘Little’ Maxine, is a dear friend of many decades. Her mom was an extraordinary presence on this planet for ninety years.

I met her the first time over thirty years ago. I was a young musician, recently dropped out of law school and substitute teaching to pay the rent and feed myself. I lived for my art, for sound, being connected to universal rhythm through my drum circles and band. Teaching was something easy to do, get the kids quiet through some ‘song and dance act’ and ‘beat’ some information into their heads.

The fact that I was very young, had an Afro-to-die-for and wore jeans to class helped me be popular with the kids. The fact that I actually knew some stuff about a variety of subjects and knew how to present it got me connected to a school near my house. The vice-principal told me after my first day that I had a permanent substitute position a twenty minute walk from my house. Couldn’t beat that with a stick, right? I planned on charming my way through the days, occasionally dropping some knowledge on classrooms full of junior high kids.

The third day I was there this fiery but very well mannered woman cornered me on a stairway and dressed me down for my comportment, my lack of professionalism. She demanded that I act responsibility and actually teach.

“I see you young man, acting all cool and being the children’s friend. You are not here to be popular, you are here to teach, to hand down knowledge, and, more importantly, to give the children an example. So, act your age and behave like you have some sense in that fine head of yours. You are smart, intelligent, and gifted. Show them the way like I’m sure others have shown you.”

She was scolding me like I was gonna be taken to the woodshed if I didn’t follow her instructions to the letter. I lowered my head and said, “Yes, ‘mam.”

In a sense I have been saying ‘yes ‘mam’ in some way to her ever since we crossed paths. Her service was memorable, emotional, joyous, a testament to a life well lived. I believe we only take that aspect of ourselves people call ‘integrity’ to our graves. The memories stay with those we leave behind. The impact of our lives can be, like the minister mentioned in Maxine’s eulogy, “like the scent of someone’s perfume, still in the room after that person has left the room!”

Like fine perfume, Big Max’s fragrance lingers, carried in the memories and actions of all who were lucky enough to have been influenced by her. She was, and always will be, an inspiration to always do your best. You never know who is following in your footsteps.

Looking Up

A few months ago my friend Jamillah urged me to take a broader perspective in my musings. She said I needed to look up. I’ve been attempting to do that but was overwhelmed by the images from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Looking up was painful and harsh. It caused a lot of anguish the past couple of weeks.

I have written and disposed of words that spelled out both my sadness and my anger at the appalling rescue effort and the abysmal political mealy-mouthing of our so-called leaders. I ranted about the hypocrisy of compassionate conservatism and the real ‘Jesus’ of our born-again president and his minions…tax cuts for the rich.

But I had only to look up to what was going on with my son to find what it was I needed to write about. He asked us many questions about each and every aspect of the disaster and its aftermath. Honestly speaking, I found my ability to answer stretched thin.

Answering Robert’s questions about both the hurricane and why there were so many people still in danger was difficult. I almost always ended up with an answer that sounded like, “It’s the will of God.”

Speaking with a Catholic priest I revealed my ‘faith’ when I shared an answer I had given Robert about why God allows such sadness and suffering in the world.

I said that questions like that were important to us while we lived but that the answers weren’t always available to us. Robert asked me about a couple of my good friends that have died and whether or not they knew the answers and would I get a chance to hear from them when I died.

I thought before I answered and said, “When we die and get to heaven we will either have the answers to those questions or they wouldn’t be of any concern to us at that point.”

My priest friend said that my answer was a good example of faith. Faith, for those of us professing to have it, must surely be tested right now. All of us must surely be wondering about things, whether we have an allegiance to any recognized religion or not. But something came to me today that tests my faith even more.

I got an email that informed her friends and family that Jamillah has brain cancer, or, more precisely, she has a mass on her occipital lobe located above the back of her neck. She has endured more cancers over the last two or three years than I care to enumerate here and she consistently exhibits a strong faith in the Creator and a boundless resolve to live to the fullest in spite of her trials.

Jamillah is an exemplar of Islam, a person standing strongly against the stereotyped images of Muslims a lot of us carry. She has been my touchstone and sounding board for many issues, social, political, and cultural, ever since we ended our coaching relationship about four years ago. Since then I am honored to call her friend.

After reading the email, I told Sheila the news and immediately went into a funk and sadness that lasted a few hours. I wondered how this could be happening to someone so gentle, so loving, and warm, giving, honorable, spiritual, etc.

“Insha-Allah” I hear her say, by the will of God. It works its way into my consciousness until I find that my questions about her condition matter little to me in the long run. What does matter is being connected to such a human being and sharing with her.

So…looking up I see that I have a wonderful life. A great mate and growing, full-of-life children, challenging work and a quest to be more of the artist I know I am are the prime elements of that life. Learning more and giving more are my goals. In the ancient Chinese text, Tao Te Ching, I found these words recently:

Knowing others is intelligence;
Knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
Mastering yourself is true power.

When I got my act together enough to call her Jamillah sounded more at peace and stronger than I would imagine myself to have been in were the situation reversed. She seemed more concerned with me at the time, and very much centered, grounded, and calm. She recounted from her email the efforts she had already planned to uncover, and fight, this new challenge. I listened with awe and reverence to this bright, strong spirit as she spoke with confidence, courage, and faith. I marveled at her strength.

She would probably have told me that she gets her strength from her belief in Allah and His will.


I sense her power coming from her mastery of herself. She would say this mastery comes from submitting to the will of Allah; here lies a small circle of words in my poor attempt to not only praise a friend but to also expose my own attempts to have faith. Regardless, I am learning that in looking up there are many stories to tell, many lives to be touched.

Alhumdulilah…Thank God.

Dispatch from Cape Cod

It’s the end of August, officially not of any real significance except to note that summer’s close to being over. The local weather guy on TV seems to make a point of saying that, meteorologically, fall starts the first of September. All of this to say that summers speed by much too quickly. I try to slow the process by focusing on how my children see it but, there too, the pace has picked up from how I remember my idle/idyll time of summers past.

They have camps, activities, places to go, people to look after them, everything seems so damn scripted and each moment filled. Sheila and I have talked about this every once in a while. They should have ‘down time’ we say, they should be able to invent things for themselves, use their imaginations and make up things. They should just do whatever they feel like doing.

Back in East Falls, my old neighborhood in Philly, and in Beckley, West Virginia, and Millsboro, Delaware I used to play with friends, real and imaginary, for hours with no adult supervision. Somehow I managed to survive summers wandering the West Virginia woods, the streets of Philadelphia, Fairmont Park, the flat country-side of southern Delaware without encountering any of the evils we imagine lurking about our children should they be unguarded today.

People have come up with multiple income streams by creating a multitude of services for children during the summer. There are as many camps as there are specific sports. And then there are camps for general activities and cup scouts, girl scouts, fun camps, arts camps, etc. We busy adults are all too happy to provide an ‘enriched’ experience for our kids. We’re happy to ensure that they are safe and protected during those months away from school.

When do my children have a chance to sit down and gaze upon the sky and see the shapes of the clouds? When do they drift off into the streams of imagination that sweep like currents through their minds, souls, and hearts? When do they encounter the majesty of nature in a way that is not restricted, not bounded by artificial or commercial concerns?


Today we spent four or five hours on the water off Cape Cod watching our nieces in sailing races. The children were fascinated by the whole scene and Robert said he wanted to spend time up here next summer sailing. While we certainly will see that he does find a way to do that I immediately saw it as a wonderful way for him to get to that sense of summer that I used to have.

We shared an observer’s boat during the races and spent a good deal of time just coasting on the current making sure race participants followed the rules and, if they needed it, being ready to give them help. I couldn’t help but notice that while on the boat the proportions of land, sky, and water were drastically changed. The land was but a ribbon stretched between vast reaches of sky and water.

The houses we could see were tiny, humans outside our boat and the sail boats almost non-existent. What was important, especially to those sailing, was the wind. Watching the children racing, the youngest were eight, we could see some of them being masterful with their rigging, tacking and plotting their moves over the course. Some were struggling, one actually flipped his boat. He stayed calm and eventually got it up righted and continued fighting his way up wind on the first leg.

Eight or nine year old boy against the wind and the sea…it was amazing to watch!

What could be better for these children than learning the lessons of wind and water? There probably are plenty of answers to that question but at the heart of parenting isn’t the core of our purpose to prepare our offspring to make their way in the world?

After learning to appreciate the wonder of nature, or maybe coincidental to that, is learning to partner with others as you learn to make your way through life. Watching all of this made Robert wistfully ask Sheila and me if he could come up here next summer to sail. We found out there is a three week ‘camp’ for beginners and, yup, both of us said yes.

I hoped quietly that I too could find a spot in that camp…

More from Chatham and Yarmouth next week!

Finding Haney

HANEY, ROBERT J., Aug. 8, 2005, suddenly. Retired Philadelphia Police Officer. Beloved husband of Clarita (nee McKeever); dear son of Alice Lowry; brother of Kathleen McNellis and Mary Riccobono-Martin; also survived by several nieces and nephews. Relatives and friends are invited to greet the family at THE McILVAINE FUNERAL HOME, 3711 Midvale Ave., East Falls, from 5 to 7 P.M. Friday eve Aug. 12th. Funeral Service 7 P.M. at the Funeral Home. Int. private. For those desiring, donations may be given in Bob's memory to: St. Bridget Memorial Fund, 3667 Midvale Ave., Phila. PA 19129; or PAL, 900 W. Hunting Park Ave., Philadelphia. PA 19132. Published in the Philadelphia Inquirer/Philadelphia Daily News on 8/10/2005.


This was how I found out my best friend from high school died. A friend some of you have seen me write about before, Mouse, my buddy from the projects in East Falls, and still a close friend, sent this to me. Both Tommie and I (oh, Thomas is the Mouse's real name) had been searching for Bob for a number of years. Some time ago I found his phone number and left a voice message with all of my information. More importantly, I said that no matter what had happened, no matter what he had been through as a police officer I wanted to talk with him, meet with him. After all, he and I had some incredible experiences together and we became best friends in spite of the fact that initially, he had been one of those Irish kids that tormented me daily in Saint Bridget's school.

Seventh grade, first day, and our teacher was handing out seating assignments. There was little distance between our desks, maybe two or three inches. We were twelve and both very tall and large for our age. He was stocky, shorter by about four inches. I was taller and wiry; about ten pounds less in weight. He lived in the Abbottsford Homes projects. I lived in the notorious housing projects known as ‘Sin City’. He was Irish, as white and as angry as a kid could be. I was the outsider, the nigger kid. And there he was, forced to sit next to me for the year.

Each and every time the nun, Sister Frances, turned her back to us to write on the board or get something, he’d punch me as hard as he could. Seventh grade was hell for the longest time. It was a continuation of what elementary school at Saint Bridget’s school had been all along, only now I had to sit close to one of my tormentors, one who quietly tried to beat me to a pulp every opportunity he got.

By that time children had stopped calling me names during recess because it was taking five and six of them to call me nigger. One kid would do it and by the time he got to the second ‘g’ my fist was in his face. Then, of course, his friends would feel obligated to pull me off him and they too would fall prey to my outsized fury.

Like I said, Bob Haney and I were large kids. At twelve I was almost six feet and weighed about one-seventy. Haney, on the other hand, was about 5’ 8” but about 180 or so. He was a bruiser. And, like I said, he was angry all the time it seemed. Especially when he woke up one day and found out he had to sit next to me.

“Damn, nigger germs, I’m gonna be covered with nigger germs every day,” he hissed under his breath as he moved into his chair. I ignored this but the next thing I knew, as Sister Frances was involved with another seating placement, he hauled off and landed one right in my side, knocking the air out of me.

“Fuck you, nigger,” he hissed again. “Get used that as long as you sit there, nigger!” I resolved right there and then he was going to pay for that, no matter how long it took, regardless of how many punches I’d have to take.

“Fuck you right back, you ugly white motherfucker,” I said with my normal voice, not caring who heard me. I tried to sit up straight but the pain in my side still made me crumple over, listing to my right.

“Charles, there will be no talking while the seating chart is carried out. Just for that, you will start this semester with several demerits.” Sister Frances, prim, proper, and always martinet in her manner, was lecturing me while I sat there in physical and emotional agony. Like I gave a flying fuck what this woman said, like what any of the penguins said meant a damn thing after what happened to me in fifth grade. Fifth grade taught me all I needed to know about how duplicitous adult white people were…nuns and priests even…when it came to dealing with their children’s treatment of the ‘nigger kid’ in their school.

John Cashman snuck up behind me when our fifth grade nun left the room for a moment. He punched me in the side of my face while saying ‘nigger’ something to me. Of course the black cloaked avenger came back into the room catching me swinging back at him. She stood me up against the blackboard, placed her left hand firmly against my right cheek and swung her right hand from way behind her into my face.

I saw stars.

She never asked John Cashman why he was standing beside my desk during the incident.

And to make matters worse, one of the girls in the class room stood up and respectfully informed the Nazi Nun what had happened and she still never reprimanded Cashman. Yeah, we were all children of God alright.

So, seventh grade had one angry Creole nigger boy in it at Saint Bridget’s Elementary School that year. And poor angry Irish boy Robert J. Haney was gonna pay.

About a month into the semester I had learned to block his punches, another couple of weeks later I was hitting that pug faced son-of-a-bitch when Sister Frances turned around. And I kept on hitting him until I got tired of the game. Eighth grade he left me alone entirely and I got into a somewhat normal routine with my friend Tommie Hart, AKA the Mouse and our salt and pepper gang from Saint Bridget’s and our projects.

The two of us were tight since third grade and we had a nice little circle of friends and we had lots of fun. We played hooky from school and watched my hero Roberto Clemente and the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Yankees in the World Series. By then the rest of the Italian and Irish kids had figured out that they had better not ever let me catch them calling me anything. They could make all the ugly faces they wanted, and they did. But the name calling had stopped. I wasn’t universally accepted, but my school life had reached a state of truce.

Then something very strange happened freshman year in high school. Haney started hanging around with us and acting like he wanted to be my friend. He was always over to my place, always asking me to come by his house. And, stranger still, I found myself liking him. He was still gruff and grumpy to other people. He was still angry in his manner. But with me he was open, honest, and, scary now that I write this over forty years later, he was poetic.

When we were fifteen I confessed to him that I wrote poetry, I showed him my journal. He wrote some poetry and showed it to me. By the end of sophomore year we were so tight that his white friends and my black friends had come to peace with our ebony and ivory act. We spent that summer in summer school at West Catholic, right in the heart of West Philly. There were plenty of black boys not at all accepting of my friendship with Haney. One day I completely dissed one of them over it and that afternoon, as I walked down a hallway at the end of the day I heard a major commotion behind me. I turned around and found Bob on the floor with two black guys. I threw one of them off him and we bolted out the door and flew up the street to the El station, just ahead of a pack of blood thirsty friends of these two guys. He never would answer my questions as to why he had jumped these dudes.

The next day, the guy I originally dissed came up to me before my class started and remarked that I was a lucky person to have such a loyal bodyguard. Haney had saved my ass from a sneak attack by two members of his crew. He was letting me know that while they were going to back off us, they were still going to keep their eyes open for an opportunity to blast either one, or both, of us.

The guy had gone from bashing me to defending me.

We had an interesting couple of years together. My sister, when I called to tell her that Bob had suddenly died remarked that we were always together. You never saw one of us without the other. We had a great night together before I left for college and he came down to school several times, becoming tight with two of my college friends. In fact, the three of us initiated him into our "Tres Club", not as an honorary member but as a full fledged 'Tres Brother'. The picture above on the right is Cliff Green and Kwame Freeman on the way to our graduation ceremony with Bob. The one on the left is Bob and me in New Jersey after my sister's graduation from Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York.

Bob and I stayed tight until our mid twenties when he had slipped back into what I thought as very racist thinking probably because he was surrounded by racist police officers on the Philly force. He made comments to me when I came home to hang with him that I found profoundly offensive and we argued about them for the length of my visits. I never stopped wanting to see him or never wanted to not be his friend, but he gradually faded from my life.

I knew a woman he had been seeing; she was introduced to him by one of my former girlfriends that was friends with Bob. I was visiting her while on a business trip when she informed me that she had broken off her relationship with Bob because of his actions on the force and how being a police officer had changed him so completely.

I can’t imagine the man Bob became, but while he is somewhat frozen in my heart as he was in our friendship I know I can surmise several things about him. He was dedicated and fierce in his beliefs that what he was doing was the right thing. He was passionate and loved strongly. I can only hope that he still remembered me and how much I loved him, faults and all. I pray that his soul has found peace and love and that some day in the far future I will get to see him and tell him how much I missed him over the years that we were apart. The love he gave me was certainly worth all of the punches he threw at me. I hope he feels the love I have for him.

September 14, 2005

Since I've written this I've found out that over the last decade or so Bob has expressd to his wife that he wanted to get together with me. His sister Mary and I have been connected through email after one of Bob's neices sent her the note I had written in the guest book on the web attached to the notice that starts this journal entry. While it made me sad all over again for our lost friendship this news made me realize that connections are never really lost...misplaced maybe, but once someone moves into a space in your heart its hard to move them out, regardless of time or circumstance.

Mary wrote that when she thinks of me she sees her brother and me in their kitchen when we were fourteen and she was seven. She says very warm and wonderful things about how she felt about me then. She also shared that their mother is very ill these days but that when she read the note I wrote for Bob she was both happy and sad.

Finding Haney might have come too late in most ways for me. But several of his survivors have found their way back together again. Life goes on, life ends. Love finds us and we find love.

Lost and Found

(For my children, Robert and Esther)








I want my god back, my soul requires it.

I lost him somewhere between my Catholic grade school “let’s beat up the nigger” days and the high school guidance counselor telling me I’d make a good butler.

I lost god when my New Year’s Eve hangover was ushering in 1973 with the news that my hero, Roberto Clemente, had died in Puerto Rico trying to bring help to earthquake victims.

I lost god but I know where to find him.

I want my people back, my heart demands it.

I lost them somewhere between feeling odd and out of place my first day of registration at an all black college then later having a corporate customer marvel at my being so articulate.

I lost them when I heard my Achilles snap so loud like a car backfire on the basketball court and I couldn’t bang under the boards or glide to open space and rain jumpers anymore.

I lost my people but I know where to find them.

I want my history back, my family needs it.

I lost it when my fist crashed into my father’s face knocking him down and out of my life.

I lost it when the furious heart beating in my chest was so loud after my aunt called to say my mother had died that I couldn’t hear her words over the roar of the blood in the vessels in my ears.

I lost it when I passed, but unlike my uncles, aunts, and older cousins who did it to put bread on the table, I did it passively, sitting quite and still after someone entered a sales presentation, looked around and said, “Sure glad there aren’t any niggers here!”

I lost my history but I know where to find it.

Where will I find my god?

I find him when Robert takes my hand in front of his friends, when he kisses me and says, “I love you dada!”

Where will I find my people?

I find them bouncing on my bed in the morning, pleading with me to get up.

Sometimes when I search for my history I sit in front of my computer, the page blank, cursor blinking. I feel Esther’s arms pressed against me like a heat pack on a damaged muscle and I feel my blood flow.

Dispatch from Hunlock Creek

Last week I wrote from The Air Conditioned City and the writers’ workshop sponsored by VONA (The Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation). I can report that this entity (Hunlock Creek) in no way resembles The City, nor am I surrounded by the intellectual and spiritual questing that occurred at the workshop. I am, however, surrounded by an abundance of testosterone of the young teen and pre-teen variety and loving parenting by my sister-in-law and her husband as well as from Sheila and myself.

Tomorrow, Friday, I’ll get up early and get over to the soccer camp where Robert has been all week and watch the morning drills. He, along with about one hundred or so other children from seven to fifteen have been at this all week and apparently have become as one in their approach to drills and other coach directed activities. All of this in the exurban splendor of eastern Pennsylvania in the shadow of the Pocono Mountain range.

Quite a contrast to the sophistication and cosmopolitan feel of San Francisco.

But I gotta tell ya (pardon me while I slip into the vernacular of the natives here) it feels comfortable to me, while I have yet to spot my first person of color I feel welcomed here. For instance the guy next to me in line for coffee at the convenience store/gas station effusively thanked me for pouring his coffee and proceeded to tell me of the back roads back to Washington when, noticing my Virginia license plates, he asked if I were going back during the expected heavy traffic over this holiday weekend. Then there was the clerk at the local supermarket who gave me my sister-in-law’s discount for the ice cream I bought for desert for the kids because she recognized my nephew. That saved me three dollars on an eleven dollar purchase! I dunno where you’re reading this but that buys a gallon of gas in my neck of the woods!

To be honest I’d rather be in San Francisco, but one doesn’t always get to choose where his in-laws live. One could be said to have limited choice of in-laws period but why quibble, you pick your spouse and the rest comes along for the ride regardless of your preferences. Unless you come from one of those families that refuses to acknowledge those parts of their families they find disagreeable. Wow, I wonder what that’s like. I haven’t seen much of Hunlock Creek and I’ll suspend this report until I do. The next five hundred words, or so, will fill you in on what I find tomorrow.

Friday: Still in Hunlock Creek. And for the most part still ambivalent about how this area strikes me. I suppose fifteen year olds the world over would have the same reaction as my nephew, he who saved me three dollars yesterday, had when he asked what I was reading today (answer, “A History of the Arab Peoples” by Albert Hourani). He looked truly perplexed and asked, “Why?” Even with the answer (so I can be better informed about people who are much in the news these days) he still looked perplexed. Some fifteen year olds in the DC metro area would have already finished the book when I picked it up. But DC offers many more opportunities for our children to actually meet an Arab, which is not to say that proximity precludes prejudice. It certainly helps dispel some myths.

Speaking of myths, I’d like to get rid of one about rural, or exurban, areas. They aren’t all rednecks, and if they are, all rednecks aren’t narrow minded bigots. I met a good number of them at the soccer camp today, both in the morning for drills and this afternoon for scrimmages, and they were more than pleasant enough. I will confess to wondering how they would have treated me had I been in a large group of ‘colored’ folks, either black or Latino. But that’s pure speculation. Still, it’s a curiosity of mine. Maybe next time instead of a Ponce (P.R.) baseball shirt I’ll wear a Malcolm X shirt with a replica of a gun and the “by any means necessary” quote. And yes, I have been accused of looking Puerto Rican…

I’ll be hitting Pennsylvania again in September with Robert for a road trip to Roaring Spring and to gather up Victor and his son Christopher to wander over to Pittsburgh for Roberto Clemente Day at the ball park. Victor and I might have become friends without the two of us having had Clemente as our boyhood hero, but it’s doubtful I would have given that much of a chance at the time we first met almost twenty years ago. Perhaps I’ve learned a lot of compassion and tolerance in the years since as then I might have been the one screwing up my face at someone reading a book about ‘others’, like Arabs, or, for that matter, Pennsylvania ‘rednecks’.

Life can teach us valuable lessons when we are open to them.

From the book I’m reading: “We should not be ashamed to acknowledge truth from whatever source it comes to us, even if it is brought to us by former generations and foreign peoples. For him who seeks the truth there is nothing of higher value than truth itself.” (al-Kindi, c.801-66)

Well anyway, today’s my birthday and I’ve had enough of being a good dad, an inquisitive reader, and an aspiring writer. Chicken wings, pizza, and beer are in the offering, hopefully some birthday cake too.

I’m going to pack the laptop, the Hourani book and live the life of a blissfully ignorant fifty-eight year old who somewhere deep inside still remembers what if feels like to be fifteen. I’m happy with the incredible love of good friends, an expanding circle of compassion, the support of my wonderful wife and children bolstering my way through life.

Damn, but life can be good.