ARE WE THERE YET?

ARE WE THERE YET?

Back in 1978 I was working as a paralegal for Legal Services. Mobile was a
disconnected place. The second largest city, it was still a place many
considered faraway, strange, snooty or primal. It was like Alabama's kneecap or
the belly button of the American body. It had many subparts that bore little
notice, save that the inhabitants - as it is human nature to do - had festooned
it with eccentric notions of their personal identity. There was, here in the
bosom of this Baptist heartland, a large Catholic community in Mobile proper, an
isolated little barrier island and a quaint little fishing town with characters
right out of a WPA coffee table picture book. It both suffered and enjoyed it's
introversion.

If Mobile County was what passed for urban, Baldwin, her sister county, was rural
but with, also, it's flair; a Greek Orthodox Church and plantation in a little
out-of-the-way outpost called Malbis, an intentional community of radicals,
progressives, artists and other assorted free-thinkers in nearby Fairhope.

But, generally, it was mostly a lot of other little locales you don't really
notice and worth no appreciable mention. The area wasn't really
connected to the rest of the world physically either. There wasn't internet, the
phone service between the two adjoining counties was long distance, although you
could still dial the last four for local calls. There were two television
channels, three or four if you could get reception from Pensacola or Biloxi.

I found myself one late afternoon coming home from our home office in
Montgomery past this little Baldwin County community called Crossroad. I was
just trying to make some time, centered on getting home and beating my boss out
of the half hour that I figured I saved from my breakneck speeding. But the rain
was slowing me down. It's the rare defroster that can quell Alabama humidity,
especially when its been officially cut loose in the form of rain. I was in the
midst of one of those time-it-by-your-wristwatch white knuckle, bucket-load Fall
Southern afternoon rains. The Tensaw River runs nearby but it isn't really
visible from the bluffs and the only reason you are probably even passing
Crossroad is as a shortcut up 225.

Even back then, no one really went there after the Interstate passed it by.
If it ever really was a crossroad to anywhere, that was long ago forgotten
and that was probably when people traveled by canoe and went through there
on the way to the river. There isn't even a bridge or anything there. It was
one of those throwaway places set back in the scrub pines far from anything,
connector for nowhere. Up there where the ghost fleet hid and the blue and gray
fought, the road wound along these bluffs, through the backwoods and the fish
camps, and the trailers, convenience stores and railroad crossings. You wouldn't
think that there would be this many cars on this little two-lane stretch but
this used to be the shortcut from Montgomery and Mobile, before they connected
the two interstates, before the Dolly Parton Bridge. Then, it was how Bay Minette
connected to the rest of Baldwin County. Everyone HAD to go through here.

As I round a curve, all hell breaks loose. I am immersed in a metaphor of life
itself. Cruising along blissfully on the highway of life, then BOOM. I am no
longer alone and in my personal ozone but in a ballet of metallic chaos. Cars
are on the side of the road, in the middle, having gone anywhere to keep from
hitting each other, instantaneously afraid of what was before them and what may
have been behind. We screech, we swerve, and - finally - stop. In the middle of
the road is the "T" of a power line, broken off perfectly and resting squarely
in the middle of the road, making those sparks you see in a Grade B movie.
Godzilla, where are you? The rain immediately lessens. That's the way it works
here, you know. On. Off. Now, it's just a drizzly and cold Alabama disaster of a
day. Gingerly, this instant community of bystanders and passersby awakens,
alights, assesses the situation. Folks come out of their homes. We gawk. Except
for the impasse of the power line, everyone seems okay.

But, no. There is a car out in the field and the remainder of the pole has
smashed it. I wonder how anyone could be so unlucky as to have parked a car way
out there and have that happen to it. "A perfect example of why you shouldn't be
near poles during electrical storm," I think to myself. But others run to the
car, which is surprising, given the sparks that are coming off of the power line
and the fact that the road is soaked and that they're having to crawl under this
singing electrical rattlesnake.

No, I realize, there are two people in the car and it wasn't parked there. I
have to convince myself that It has, indeed, landed there. It seems an
impossibility. The driver, apparently went airborne from the road and hit this
pole that is easily fifty feet away. Still questioning the physics of this, I
run there along with the others. The car has severed the top of the utility pole
off so that it landed in the highway, putting an awful finish to the rest of the
day. We are all now immediate members of a volunteer army, bivouacked in the
boonies, navigating under the power lines and trying to get this guy out of the
car.

It is a seventies model Ford as big as one of those armistice era olive drab
tanks. Its airlock doors, normally the thickness of the Oxford Dictionary are
now wrapped around the pole and are as flat as Reynolds Wrap. The top of the
behemoth is crushed in on the driver's head and this frail little redneck
character is making a gurgling sound which I will to this day remember. God rest
his soul. The interior of the car is littered. There is a fifth of Jack Daniels,
pills, marijuana, beer cans, potato chip bags and other road trip detritus.
There are clothes strewn around and it is hard to tell if they are passing
through or living in their car and I don't think to look at the tag as all of
these thoughts are passing through my head in a process not unlike the very
collision before us. "Center." I tell myself. "Get these people
some help."

We are all caught up in the drama of this horrible scene. The inert female
passenger is young, gaunt, blonde-haired and pretty. Dressed in jeans, she still
nonetheless looks like one of those pictures of a West Virginia miner's wife or
one of those children in an Edward R. Murrow expose who have to live in those
awful migrant camps. But we are immediately centered on the driver as he is
obviously critically injured. Someone gets a jack out of their car to see if we
can pry the top up. We work feverishly. We bang about for about ten or twenty
minutes and finally enter the car. We apply compresses and reach an impasse, the
point where there are just too many of us. There are twenty to thirty people
working to retrieve him. I go to help the girl. I run around to the other side
of the car, the door is locked. We bang on the window but she is inert. We
scream but she is unconscious. The people from the driver's side push her but
there is no response. I finish breaking out her shattered window. She stirs. She
is alive! I speak to her and try to make eye contact. She looks at me and says
"Are we there yet?"

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ON TOWING THE PARTY LINE

ON TOWING THE PARTY LINE

Party fealty. I get it. I really do. I was raised in Jersey City, a city whose history ranks right up there with Tammany Hall and other cities known for machine politics. What was instilled in me from an early age was that I was naturally a Democrat. Voting Republican was a far-fetched notion, a mortal failing; it meant that you were some sort of fat cat, rank class collaborationist, or nimrod that voted against your interests.

But, the entirety of my voting life has been here. I left the North to join the service and stayed here afterwards and during that time I’ve witnessed what we’ve all lived through, the conversion of the Solid South. And, in my own way, I’ve been partially responsible for some of that bittersweet change and I can’t say I’m sorry.

During my Jersey City days the story behind men like James Pendergast, William Tweed, and Frank Hague meant little to me. But college and the Sixties taught me a lot about history, politics, corruption and morality. I’ve helped fight the good fight here and it has usually been against an entrenched party.

I take voting as a serious part of my civic commitment. I miss few elections. In 1968 I traveled from Alabama to Panama City, Florida to cast my vote for Eugene McCarthy, knowing that to be a pyrrhic gesture but caring enough to make my voice heard.

When, in 1972, the local Democratic party bosses decided they could take no more of the national trends, they abandoned the party. We stepped into that breach. With Don Siegelmann, Al LaPierre and others, we were now the party and we rode the sinking ship of the McGovern campaign. It was my first and last campaign. And, while I generally support rump candidates, my tendency is, still, to vote Democrat.

Until very recently I could boast to only having cast my lot for three Republicans in my entire last half century of voting. Apart from one local contender, my two "other" votes were for Jack Edwards and Ann Bedsole, politicians who put their constituents first and served their communities with dignity and honor.

I’ve relaxed my bias in the last decade; party monopoly has meant that the real choices are intraparty and good citizenship should not be mindless. I started facing that about a decade ago when in one particular race for district judge it was obvious who the better candidate was. I voted for him. But that was a purely private epiphany.

Then, next term I got a call from a sitting judge asking for my endorsement. I politely deferred, telling him that as a Yellow Dog, I could not endorse a Republican. But after that call, I assessed the job that he had been doing. I could find no fault with it. In fact, it was stellar. What could I have against him?

I called him back. I told him what I thought about the job that he was doing and that I would be proud to have my name associated with his. Since then, I’ve actually voted against my party some more times. Each time with the same criteria, that voting for the better person was better than voting for the party.

I was struck recently by the quandary this election has put some of my conservative and/or religious Republican friends. I understand holding the party line. I really do. Hell, one of my friends calls me "Dommie the Commie." And that’s a perfect metaphor for the issue before the folks who are stuck with the choice they have before them. Do you engage in silly criteria, fake labels, false moral comparisons and political narratives about who is the better candidate or do you do belly up to the bar and act responsibly?

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FOR FATHERS, FAUX AND TRUE

FOR FATHERS, FAUX AND TRUE

A few years after we started the Azalea City News, we branched out by starting another newspaper in Pensacola. A friend ran it. He stayed at my house in Fairhope and I stayed at the office in Mobile. One night he called me. It was near midnight and I was asleep. It was one of those inane conversations; "Hi. How are you doing?" I was brusque and I said "John what do you want?"

He hemmed and dodged the topic. He said he needed to talk to me. "Can it wait till tomorrow?" He said “no” and so an hour later he came over. He was real hesitant about the real purpose of his visit but finally blurted out "Your dad's dead."

I asked him who had called and from what he told me I could tell it was my stepdad. I said “good, I hated that son of a bitch.” He was stunned. He's a middle-class kid and didn’t come from a dysfunctional family and, of course, he had just made an hour trip to come tell me this. I told him I appreciated his kindness but that the old man and I didn’t exactly have a Leave it to Beaver relationship.

Eight or nine years later, I was in my nearly-completed first semester of my first year of law school when they called me out to the office. Dad had died. That was a Friday. I was on my way back to Mobile and I remember crying all the back and being very upset; like my father had just died.

I had actually seen my father twice as a little boy. The first time I was probably five or six years old. My mom and I had been walking around in New York somewhere. My mother, who was given to hysterics anyway, jumped back as we passed in front of a barbershop. “Oh my gosh. There he is.” We skulked around and left hurriedly as she was deathly afraid of him.

The only other time I saw him as a young child was when he was in a courtroom. It had something to do with divorce, protection from abuse or child custody or something. I was too young in both instances to get anything out of those encounters. He was a missing link for most of my life.

I finally met him for real when I was 16 and living in Puerto Rico. I even moved in with him for a short period of time. It didn’t work out. I went into the service and never really reconnected with him. My stepfather had died in 1975, the same year my son Zack was born. That was the year I discovered true love. I have never loved anything more, except for my other son.

In those intervening eight to nine years between their deaths, I had managed to put a few wrinkles into my own life story; I got a divorce, my wife and Zack moved away and my karma, which wasn’t always the epitome of parental selflessness, came home to haunt me. I lay awake in my uncomfortable bed.

And it was this change in my life - knowing true love and understanding that even for the people you love most in life one can be a failure, the transition from complainant to petitioner - that helped me make peace with my fathers. It was when I was making excuses for myself that I realized that parents have their own set of problems and their own ways of dealing with things. Moments pass, situations change, and humans move on.

My father had moved on. He had changed his ways, had returned to Puerto Rico, embraced evangelical Christianity, raised a large family and had even tried to do right by me. (I did end up with a great relationship with my brothers and sisters and spent a wonderful year discovering the rural Puerto Rican culture.) I understand why I had been upset about my father dying. He had been my Holy Grail, a fantasy model for a different childhood, and then, he was gone.

My epiphany was when I happened on a peace with my stepfather and It was like stepping on a landmine. He had tried to make amends with me after I came back from the service. He told everybody how proud he was of me, his "son". He probably meant it. He tried, he really did. But I could never forgive him for all the pettiness and cruelty that he had shown me while I was growing up, something I try to keep in mind when I deal with children, whether they’re my own or just on my watch.

But, inexplicably, I came to appreciate how much he had done for me: How he would get up in the wee hours of the morning and trudge off to work, never missing a day because someone had to pay the bills for his uber large family; That I had shared all of the important moments in my life with him; That he had been there in my emergencies, for my Christmases, proms, etc. So, this Father’s Day I salute the ones who have donated something more important than consanguinity, the ones who have earned the sweat equity of respect.

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