There in the quiet, [I] could finally come to think about what I had seen and try to arrange some pattern…  Maybe understanding is only possible after.  Years ago when I used to work in the woods it was said of lumber men that they did their logging in the whorehouse and their sex in the woods.

                                                                                                                                            –  “Travels with Charley”

And so it seems to have been with my recent road trip.

As noted in Part I, I love John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley.  So I decided to model my recent two-week road trip after his.  (To make my travelog a microcosm of his.)  And I’m not alone:  See A “Travels With Charley” Timeline, which noted among other things that “’TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY’ MAKES A LOUSY MAP.”  (That criticism notwithstanding, it’s a pretty interesting read...)

One thing I remember is his saying lumberjacks did their whoring in the woods and their logging in the city – i.e., the bar and/or whorehouse.  Which is another way of saying that it’s only now that my trip is over that I can look back and relish the memories just lived through.

Like kayaking across the Delaware River just below Wilmington (at left), or seeing Atlantic City from the 32d-floor penthouse of a swanky hotel, or hiking 17 miles in a day and a half on New york City’s hard concrete sidewalks.But more about that later.

To bring you up to speed, I started off by leaving the Atlanta area shortly after noon on Friday, June 26.  (Actually, after lunching with Mi Dulce at the Olive Garden near Conyers GA.)

A note:  When I first formulated my plan, I assumed I’d need to get around the Atlanta Beltway – always a challenge – before the traffic got really bad.  Then I further assumed I could get to Columbia SC by the end of the day.  That original plan also envisioned me camping on the way up, but that was when the spring weather was nice and cool.

It was also before I started reading the fine print about camping these days.

Steinbeck’s method of camping may have been feasible in 1960, but not today.

Motor homes and recreational vehicles swarm the highways, and most localities now have stringent regulations about such vehicles camping overnight, as Steinbeck did.  (On the other hand, some high-volume businesses welcome such RVs in their parking lots overnight, figuring the occupants will spend some money there.)  But the key difference is the cost of staying overnight in a campground, even if it’s a state park.

I figured to save some money on the way up to  Atlantic City – where I was to meet my brother and sister-in-law on Sunday night, June 28 – by taking along a tent.  But again – as I found out – the days of camping a la Steinbeck are no more.

Then there was the weather to consider.  (Steinbeck took his road trip after Labor Day.  I took mine in mid-summer, when the hordes of touristy-types were in full force.)  Meaning by the end of June the weather was a little too hot.  All of which meant that for just a tee-toncey bit more than the price of sweating out a summer’s eve in South Carolina or Virginia, I could sleep in a nice air-conditioned motel room.

Be that as it may, that first night I made Florence – farther than Columbia – and stayed at a Thunderbird Inn.  On Saturday June 27 I made my first sight-seeing stop, the Airborne and Special Operations Museum in Fayetteville NC, home of Fort Bragg.  (Not to be confused with Fort Bragg, California.)

That ASO Museum brought back memories of my younger days, like  when I too jumped out of perfectly good airplanes…  And it was well worth the price of admission.  I could say the same thing about downtown Fayetteville.  It’s a charming little downtown area, and not at all what I’d been led to expect.

But the drive up I-95 from there turned out to be trouble.  For one thing, I had to battle a long line of rain and thunderstorms all afternoon.  For another thing, the interstate was packed with tourist-traffic, so I had to keep getting off, taking back roads and eventually coming back to I-95.

I’d planned to take the back road to the Jamestown Ferry to Williamsburg, but eventually it got too late in the day for me to take that scenic interlude.  I ended up not getting to the Motel 6 in Williamsburg – where I’d made an online reservation – until 8:00.  Driving in through town I noticed the businesses in the area had no lights.  My thought was, “What?  Do they roll up the sidewalks at 7:00 around here?”  Then I spotted the motel and pulled in.  A whole bunch of people started cheering like mad, and I thought, “Geez, they’re really friendly here!“

As it turned out, they’d had no power since 5:00, when the passing storms knocked it out.  So the power – and the lights – had just come back on as I pulled in.

The next morning – Sunday – I woke up early, at 5:30.  I got a McDonald’s senior coffee and walked through the touristy areas of Williamsburg while it was still quiet.  (I used to like Williamsburg a lot more.  Now it’s too much like Disney World, where you buy a too-expensive all-inclusive ticket, then try to figure out how to maximize your cost-benefits.  I guess a part of me is as grumpy as Steinbeck was, sometimes…)

From there I drove across the bridge from Hampton Roads to Norfolk, then down to Virginia Beach and up to where I supposed the First Landing State Park was.  (Noted below.)  I now know that I passed very close by it, but never did actually see it.  (The phone-map-app isn’t infallible after all, especially when you’re trying to drive while viewing it.)

Eventually I took the Chesapeake Bay Bridge – seen at right – and up to the Cape May Ferry.   In this way I planned an “end run” around the twin monsters of traffic around Baltimore and Washington D.C., not to mention the endless tolls on I-95.  That plan mirrored Steinbeck’s own end run through  Ontario, thus “bypassing not only Erie [PA] but Cleveland and Toledo.*”

His trick play ended in harassment and humiliation by U.S. Customs Officials.  Because of that he stayed that night in the most expensive auto court he could find, “a pleasure dome of ivory and apes and peacocks.”  There he ordered room service with all the trimmings:

I overtipped mercilessly.  Before I went to sleep I went over all the things I wished I had said to that immigration man, and some of them were incredibly clever and cutting.

My end run was marred only by my missing the 4:15 ferry by a hair.  Because of that I had to order a beer and sit around the Lewes, Delaware terminal, waiting for the 5:15 boat.

The point is I guess in some ways I am very much like Steinbeck.  (Notwithstanding my devotion to aerobic exercise on the road, as noted in Part I.)  I may take interstates to make good time, when necessary.  I despise “5:00 traffic,” and especially when it lasts from 7:00 to 10:00 in the morning and 3:00 to 7:00 in the evening, as it tends to do these days.

So anyway, my goal that fine Sunday was to reach Atlantic City and it’s famous Boardwalk.

To be continued…

 

The upper photo is courtesy of Walden – Wikipedia, on the “reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings” made famous by transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. The caption:  “Walden Pond discussed extensively in chapter, The Ponds.”

Re: Steinbeck’s book.  The quote about lumberjacks and whores is on page 109 of my 1980 Penguin Books edition.  The part about his proposed “end run” into Ontario runs from page 84 to 88.  And for a site with a number of TWC quotes see Travels With Charley – Route 99.

Re: The Atlanta Beltway, better known to locals as “the Perimeter” and/or the Bypass.  It has the honor of being “one of the most heavily traveled roadways in the United States, and portions of the highway slow, sometimes to a crawl, during rush hour.”  See Interstate 285 – Wikipedia.

The “airborne” photo is courtesy of Facebook: Airborne & Special Operations Museum Foundation.

Re: Chesapeake Bay Bridge image.  The caption: “view of the Virginia Beach entrance to the bridge.”

Re: “missing the 4:15 ferry by a hair.”  I would have made it, but got behind some knucklehead at the red light at the Highway 9 turn-off to the Lewes terminal.  This particular knucklehead didn’t know the rule about right on red, so he let six or seven cars turn left into the terminal, coming from the other direction.  I missed getting loaded on to the 4:15 ferry by two cars…

The lower image is courtesy of A Look Back at Atlantic City Boardwalk [VINTAGE PHOTOS].

*   *   *   *

Re: “camping a la Steinbeck.”  The notes below are another advantage of writing that Steinbeck didn’t have.  As noted, “I figured to save some money on the way up … by taking along a tent.”

The first night out I planned to pitch a tent at the Sesquicentennial State Park southeast of Columbia.  The price would have been from $19 to $27 for a night, with water and electricity.   Then the second night I figured I could reach First Landing State Park, between Norfolk and Virginia Beach.  I’d never been there, and prices were said to range from $24 to $32, “plus tax.”  According to the camping link at Park Fees – Virginia Department of Conservation, the “standard” fee for one night is $24, while a site with water and electric cost $35.

At first that $24 didn’t seem too bad.  At least when I did my original planning, back when the weather was still cool.  (At least half the cost of a Motel 6.)  But then I started reading the fine print.  The rate for First Landing was for Virginia residents.  For non-residents the cost was $28 for “standard,” and $41 for a site with water and electric.  Which brought to mind the days of my youth – circa 1965 – when my mother took at least three of us boys around the United States – twice.  She could only do it by tent-camping, because that was far less expensive.

But those days are no more.  The explanation may well be that our politicians may still be saying, “Read my lips: no new taxes.”  They may still be saying that, but instead of “taxing,” they’re nickel-and-diming us right and left.  One result is that tent-camping is no loner a feasible way to save some money on a road trip like mine.  It now costs almost as much as a motel…

 

The One World Observatory, a highlight of my recent road trip …

 

Assiduous readers will notice that I hadn’t done a blog-post since last June 20.  The reason:  I took a two-week-long road trip, to points north including Atlantic City and New York City.  (Also known as the Big Apple.)   As always, such a pilgrimage can be both instructive and enlightening – not to mention just plain fun.  There’s more on that below, but:

In the meantime:

One of my favorite books is John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley.  It’s about pilgrimages in general and driving pilgrimages especially.  (See also 12 miles offshore.)  So the theme of this post is to treat my recent road trip as a kind of Reader’s Digest condensed version – slash microcosm – of Steinbeck’s book and/or his travels.

In doing so I’ll note some drastic differences between highway travel in 1960 and 2015.

For one thing, for the price you pay to camp these days – as Steinbeck did – you can get a nice Motel 6 with AC.  (And that’s tent camping.  For what you pay for an RV or travel trailer, you can stay at a lot of Motel 6’s.)

For another thing, I didn’t pack hunting or fishing gear for my travels, as Steinbeck did.

I did pack – in my spandy-new 2015 Ford Escape – an 8-foot kayak, along with a stair-stepping stand and a 22-pound weight vest.  (To earn my aerobic points along the way.)  In that kayak – for one – I paddled across the Delaware River just below Wilmington.  (As seen at right, from the New Jersey side.)

I also paddled (some) up the Shenandoah River in Virginia, and through some backwater “meadows” southwest of Atlantic City.  Last but not least, I paddled for two hours on a little hideaway, Carvins Cove Reservoir.  (In Virginia, just outside Roanoke.)

A third difference:  I didn’t get lost as much or as easily as Steinbeck.  (Or as he said he did.)  Thanks mostly to my figuring out how to use the “map app” on my cell phone.

And I didn’t have to stop at a payphone. (Remember those?)  Steinbeck had to stop at a phone booth every third or fourth day, to have a three or four-minute conversation and re-establish contact with the family “back home.”  I had no need of that.  The three branches of the family meeting at the Swedesboro (NJ) cemetery on July 2 – the main reason for the get-together in the first place – could maintain constant contact via cell phone, including “instant texting.”

I did need to stop at local libraries, to use their computers. But only if I needed a secure connection, to check my bank accounts or – with the Ford being new – to make the first payment a few days into the trip.  (At the Hoboken Library.  Hoboken – across the Hudson – was the family base for visiting Manhattan, seen at left.)

And I wonder what John would have thought of cruise control?  (In either sense of the term…)

So , to set the stage:  Earlier this year my Utah brother sent an email saying he and his wife were visiting the Northeast in July, and would I like to join them?  Naturally I said yes, especially when another reason was added:  Laying our father’s ashes to rest in the family plot in Swedesboro, alongside those of his first wife – our mother – and our maternal grandmother and grandfather.  (And other of their offspring.)

The ashes had been left in the care of Dad’s second wife.  She in turn had died just last November 2014.  So in the months leading up to the road trip, discussion was had via email about the interment, along with getting headstones honoring their service in World War II.  (He was a navigator in the Army Air Corps.  She was an Army nurse in Memphis, where they met.)  And the memorial lent a certain gravitas to the whole “joint venture.”

Which makes this a good place to end the first installment.  Except to note that one place I wanted to visit – on the way home – was Reading PA, known in literary circles as “Brewer.”  This fictional Brewer is the setting of John Updike’s five books about “Rabbit” Angstrom, constituting an homage to each decade from 1960 to 2000.  See On RABBIT – and “60 is the new 30″ – (Part I).

Thus my trip emulated Steinbeck’s visit to Sauk Centre, Minnesota, “metaphoric setting of [Sinclair] Lewis’ satirical novel, Main Street.” (See On Oscar Wilde and “gross indecencies”.)

And one of Reading-Brewer’s notable landmarks is “the Pagoda,” seen below.  There’ll be more on that visit and others in the next installment.  (Like hiking 17 miles on the hard concrete sidewalks of lower Manhattan in our first day-and-a-half there.)

The Pagoda, on top of Mount Penn, with Reading PA (aka “Brewer”) in the background…

Notes:

*  Not to be confused with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the comedy by William Shakespeare.  Written between 1590 and 1597, it’s one of Shakespeare’s most popular works, “widely performed across the world.” See Wikipedia, and also Travelogue | Definition … by Merriam-Webster.

The upper image is courtesy of  One World Observatory: Curbed NY.  It’s part of the article,  It’s Official: One World Observatory Will Open May 29.  On July 13, 2015, that was five articles down from Don’t Eat at One World Trade Center’s Sky-High Restaurants.  And it was true that the place was crowded, prices were high and seating was at a minimum.

Re:  Earning aerobic points along the way.  The term “aerobics” – along with the need for cardio-vascular exercise in general – didn’t enter into popular use until 1968, some eight years after Steinbeck’s road trip.  That was with the publication of Cooper’s ground-breaking Aerobics.  See also Kenneth H. Cooper – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Delaware Bridge image is courtesy of https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware_Memorial_Bridge, which is apparently the German-language edition.

The view-of-lower-Manhattan-and-Observatory is courtesy of oneworldobservatory.com/experience.

The bottom image is courtesy of Pagoda (Reading, Pennsylvania) – Wikipedia.  See also The Pagoda Reading, PA Home.

The last issue of the Saturday Evening Post, published on February 8, 1969…

 

Welcome back to the “Georgia Wasp…”

We were remembering the last decades of the 20 century, as memorialized by and through John Updike’s series of five “Rabbit” novels.  (Or four novels and a novella…)

I’d noted that Janice Angstrom – by now Harry’s widow – ended up married to Ronnie Harrison in Rabbit Remembered, the last of the series.  (Thelma Harrison – Ronnie’s wife – had also died, and was one of the women with whom Harry had “an affair.”)  And not to put too fine a point on it, Harry and Ronnie had known – and hated – each other since high school, when they were teammates on the basketball squad.  (They also “shared” Ruth Byers, at different times.)

So now that your up to speed – he wrote sarcastically – let’s get back to the Rabbit is Rich time frame.  In mid-winter 1979 the Angstroms jet off to Jamaica, where they end up in an initial wife swap with two other couples.  (That’s when Harry first learns that Ronnie’s wife Thelma has the hots for him.)  But then they have to go back home before the second swap, where Harry would have “known” the wife he really wanted (Cindy Murkett).   Son Nelson is causing no end of problems at the dealership, including smashing up two trade-in convertibles.

The next sequel, Rabbit at Rest, starts with Harry and Janice spending the winter of 1988-89 at their condo in Florida.  They leave Nelson in charge of the dealership, which turns out to be a mistake.  (He’s hooked on cocaine, which leads Toyota to “pull out,” Freudian slip intended.)

Other incidents include Harry having a heart attack – based on his crappy diet – and having a one-night stand with Nelson’s wife Pru while he recuperates.  (Not to mention brief appearances by Annabelle, Harry’s daughter, who’s become a nurse’s aide.)

“Janice’s anger over this betrayal prompts Harry to escape to Florida.” (Wikipedia.)  Which leads to one inescapable conclusion:  Harry was a bit of a sleazeball, albeit loveable to some.

And finally came Rabbit Remembered, set in late 1999.  (On the eve of the New Millennium noted above. )  Harry has died – of another heart attack – while living alone in the Florida condo he “ran” to at the end of Rabbit at Rest.  Nelson is still living with his mother, and her new husband Ronnie Harrison, Harry’s old nemesis ever since high school.  Nelson’s wife Pru has taken their two children Judy and Roy back to Akron Ohio.  Then Annabelle shows up at Janice’s door; her mother Ruth has just died as well.

Aside from Ronnie calling Annabelle “the bastard child of a whore and a bum” at Thanksgiving, the saga includes a tale of childhood sexual abuse, and one of Nelson’s clients committing suicide.  (After his bout with cocaine, Nelson became a certified mental-health counselor, thanks in part to a course of study at the “Hubert F. Farnsworth Community College.”  Farnsworth was the surname of the same “Skeeter” who’d lived with Harry, Nelson and Jill in the summer of 1969.  Skeeter later died in shootout with Philadelphia police.)

To cut to the chase, the final book ends with an uncharacteristic – for Updike – note of hope.

In the rush to make the Y2K celebration, Nelson drives recklessly through an intersection – the stoplights have all gone out – and faces death in the form of a “cocky brat in a baseball cap.”  The cocky brat drives an SUV and goes out of turn at a four-way stop.  Nelson – with decades of “wrongs, hurts, unjust deaths press[ing] behind his eyes” – faces death and comes out unscathed. (As Winston Churchill – seen at right – said, “There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at with no result.“)  This act of bravery magically rekindles Pru’s love; “Oh honey, that was great…”  Then too, riding in the back seat are Annabelle and Nelson’s childhood friend – and part-time nemesis – Billy Fosnacht.  In the end these lost souls start “seeing each other.”

As noted, this happy ending was uncharacteristic of Updike, but aside from that the last novella was enjoyable.  And as was characteristic of Updike’s writing, the detail is so thick that I found myself skipping much of it to get to the action.  As Charles Portis might say, Updike’s writing lulls you into a sense of woolgathering, and then he socks it to you with an unexpected twist.  The result was that I went through Rabbit Remembered the first time quickly, from a sense of impatience more than anything.   But now I’ve gone back and started re-reading it, to get the full flavor of the aforementioned Updike attention to detail.

More than that, I pulled out my worn and battered copy of Rabbit Redux, now some 40 years old itself.   (I bought the 1971 “Alfred A. Knopf” edition four or five years after it was first published.)  And re-reading Rabbit Redux brought back some points I’d forgotten.

For example, on page 9 there’s a bit of foreshadowing, one of Updike’s lesser-known fortes.

It’s the summer of 1969.  Harry and his father Earl have gotten off work “from the little printing plant at four sharp.”  They have a drink at a neighborhood bar, before taking separate buses home, in opposite directions.  Earl asks his son to visit “some evening before the weekend.”  (Mary Angstrom “has had Parkinson’s Disease for years now.”)  Harry responds:

“I don’t like to leave the kid alone in the house.  In fact I better be getting back there now just in case.”  In case it’s burned down.  In case a madman has moved in.

Which is of course just what happens later in the book.  A madman – in the form of “Skeeter,” later identified by the Brewer Vat as Hubert Farnsworth – does in fact move in with Harry.  He does so at the invitation of Jill, a runaway from Connecticut.  She in turn dies in the fire set by neighbors repelled by the “goings on” in the house, after Janice had moved in with Charlie…

 A good argument for “60 is the new 30…”

 

The upper image is courtesy of blog.modernmechanix.com/issue/?pubname=SaturdayEveningPost.

The Churchill image is courtesy of Winston Churchill – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Armstrong-on-the-moon photo is courtesy of 1969 – Wikipedia.

The lower image is courtesy of People magazine, www.people.com/people/article/0,,20780764,00.html.

*   *   *   *

 “Great politicians sell hope.”

June 12, 2015 – I heard that quote a few days ago, listening to a “book on CD” by Chris Matthews.  And when I first heard it I thought, “What rock have you  been living under?“

But then Chris went on to cite examples from American history, in his book, Life’s a Campaign.

He wrote that looking back, our best presidents – including JFK and Ronald Reagan – were able to “sell themselves.”  They were able to sell themselves by giving Americans a sense of hope for the future.  That led to a thought:  “Maybe that’s what this blog should be about…“

But then I had another thought:  “He could be right, but what happened?“

What happened to those politicos selling hope?

But let’s get back to how I happened to be listening to Chris Matthews’ book-on-CD in the first place.

It all started back in December 2014, when I attended a funeral back home in Florida.  The funeral was for my step-mother, who’d married my father back in January 1986.  (After my mother died the year before; it was the second time around for both of them.)

At the reception after the service – inside the parish hall  – I saw a table of used books for sale.  I found one that piqued my interest, The Presidents Club:  Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity.  I’ve been meaning to review it ever since I started this blog.  (In March 2015.)

But one thing I’ve learned during these busy days of retirement:  It’s a whole lot easier to listen to a book on CD – driving around town – than it is to actually read it.  And that’s why I found it far easier to review Life’s a Campaign than The Presidents Club.

Again, that book-on-CD was Chris Matthew’s Life’s a Campaign “What Politics Has Taught Me about Friendship, Rivalry, Reputation, and Success.”  (The quote on “great politicians” is from Disc 2, Track 6.)  And while by now I’ve listened to most of Life’s a Campaign, I’ve only managed to read portions of The Presidents Club.

But the really strange things is – suffice it to say – that both books have given me an inkling of a sense of hope for the future.  (For example, one thing The Presidents Club pointed out was that a funeral – and especially the funeral of former president – really puts things in perspective.)

Put another way, The Presidents Club gave me a sense that – generally speaking – the men who occupied the White House have been – overall – decent, honorable and capable.  Then too, Life’s a Campaign gave me a sense that maybe the same applies to politicians in general.  (Gasp!)

But then came a third thought:  Maybe today’s politicians seem especially nasty because many voters they’re trying to woo are just that way.  Maybe today’s politicians are simply a reflection of the nastiness that seems to have taken hold of a large part of our population.

On that note, see the Wikipedia article on dichotomy.  That article included this paragraph, about two-thirds of the way down under “Usage and examples:”

C. P. Snow believes that Western society has become an argument culture (The Two Cultures).  In The Argument Culture (1998), Deborah Tannen suggests that the dialogue of Western culture is characterized by a warlike atmosphere in which the winning side has truth (like a trophy).  Such a dialogue virtually ignores the middle alternatives.

(Emphasis added.)  In turn, if that is true, then we swing voters need to figure out what a politician really stands for, beyond those nasty things he has to say to get elected.

Take George Wallace…  Please!  Though he’s widely known as one of the most race-baiting politicians in American history, his “final term as Governor (1983–1987) saw a record number of black Alabamians appointed to government positions.”  See Did George Wallace repent his racism? | Yahoo Answers, and The Redemption of George Wallace.

The gist of the Wallace story is that he changed his tune after his attempted assassination in 1972.  But there are other examples of politicians using shady tactics during an election campaign, then going on to serve honorably.  Think “George Bush the Elder” and his Willie Horton campaign in the 1988 election. (Though in hindsight Bush I comes to us now as a &^%$ genius!)

Then there’s the other side of the story.  Take Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan.  (Reviewing another Chris Matthews book.)  Or for that matter Ronald Reagan and Ted Kennedy.

Even though the two men were politic arch-enemies, Kennedy admired the fact that Reagan “knew how to manipulate symbols for his causes yet could sup with his enemies:”

He’s absolutely professional.  When the sun goes down, the battles of the day are really gone.  He gave the Robert Kennedy Medal, which President Carter refused to do…   He’s very sure of himself, and I think that people sense that he’s comfortable with himself…   He had a philosophy and he’s fought for it.  There’s a consistency and continuity at a time when many others are flopping back and forth.  And that’s an important and instructive lesson for politicians, that people admire that.

(Bronner, 104)  Which brings us back to Harry Golden and his Carolina Israelite.  See also Great but Forgotten:  “If Golden were writing today, The Carolina Israelite would be done as a blog.”

Golden – who inspired this blog – wrote from 1942 to 1968.  Those years included McCarthyism,  Vietnam War protests, and the Civil Rights Movement.  Those years featured violence and political rhetoric of a harshness equal to or greater than that of today.  Yet throughout it all, Golden kept a sense of hope and a sense of humor.  (As in his satirical “Vertical Negro Plan,” which involved “removing the chairs from any to-be-integrated building, since Southern Whites didn’t mind standing with Blacks, only sitting with them.”)

Even the title of his best-selling Only in America conveyed a sense of hope and wonder:

The most outstanding ingredients of [Golden’s] personality are a built-in independent way of thinking, an infallible nose for sham and prejudice on any level (which he immediately exposes, lightly but decisively), a special Golden brand of wit and whimsy, and a love of people and learning…   “It could happen only in America,” is his most apt comment.

Carl Sandburg wrote in his introduction to the 1959 edition that “whatever is human interests Harry Golden.  Honest men, crooks, knuckleheads…”  He added that Golden was the perfect antidote for “too much of conformity and complacency, particularly among the young.” (OIA, xv-xvi.   Also on that note see Seinfeld takes on political correctness on college campuses.)

Sandurg further noted that it must have been someone like Golden who was “in the mind of the Yankee, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote:  ‘Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.'”

Golden himself said he drew “heavily on history, literature, philosophy,” in addition to “stories of the Lower East Side of New York where I was born.”  And he didn’t present a simplistic Pollyanna view of history, either his own or as it happened before his eyes.  Aside from those turbulent times he lived in, Golden went through five years in prison on an “embezzlement rap” – wire fraud.  Yet through it all he maintained a sense of hope and humor:  “As I continue to write of the passing parade, I am as happy as a mouse in a cookie jar.” (OIA, xx.)

All of which brings us back to the old saying noted in the Peanuts cartoon above, that in “bad times or hopelessness, it is more worthwhile to do some good, however small, in response than to complain about the situation.”  See also Better to light a single candle.  And that great bloggers – like great politicians – should work harder on “selling hope.”

That’s what this blog will try to do.  Harry Golden, “The torch has passed…”

*   *   *   *

*   *   *   *

The “stupid darkness” cartoon is courtesy of You Stupid Darkness! | Kurtis Scaletta’s Site, which in turn links to comics.com/peanuts, “one of the most amazing but little-known Internet resources.”  See also lightasinglecandle.wordpress.com, and The 5 Greatest (newspaper) Comic Strips Of All Time.

The Matthews image is courtesy of Chris Matthews – Wikipedia.  For more on the audio version of his book, see Chris Matthews Audio & Video – LearnOutLoud.com, and/or Life’s a Campaign.

Re: Funerals and “perspective.”  See Reminders death provides about what’s really important in life.

Re: “argument culture.”  The full title of Deborah Tannen‘s book is The Argument Culture: Stopping America’s War of Words.  Tannen wrote an earlier book, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation (1990).  According to Amazon, in that earlier book “Tannen showed why talking to someone of the opposite sex can be like talking to someone from another world.”

The George Wallace picture is courtesy What George Wallace Taught Me About Forgiveness | HuffPost. Written by “Trudy Bourgeois, Contributor,” the black lady standing over Wallace’s left shoulder in the picture. The gist of her article was about the need to forgive in order to move forward. As to the claim that Wallace “recanted his racist views and asked forgiveness from African-Americans,” Bourgeois said she believed he was sincere. “If you can forgive, then you will be able to avoid creating a worldview that is rooted in stereotypes.” See also The American Experience | George Wallace, a story about Wallace’s change of heart (and on “Wallace and his circle”):

In March, 1965, a violent confrontation between Alabama state troopers and peaceful civil rights marchers horrified the nation. The troops that beat and tear-gassed the demonstrators were under orders from Governor George Wallace…   Thirty years later, George Wallace would sit next to the podium at a ceremony commemorating the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march, holding the hand of the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Re:  “Take George Wallace…  Please!”  This refers to a classic Henny Youngman joke.  Youngman (1906-1998) was known for his one-liners, and his best-known was ‘Take my wife… please.’”   Henny Youngman – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  For more on the technique illustrated, see below.

Re: Willie Horton.  See Willie Horton – Top 10 Campaign Ads – TIME and The legacy of the Willie Horton ad lives on, 25 years later. As to the legacy of that ad, the latter article noted a comment by activist Al Sharpton, “The bad news for our politics has been that the tactics of our Willie Horton ad live on.”

Re:  Ted Kennedy on Ronald Reagan.  See Battle for Justice: How the [Robert] Bork Nomination Shook America, by Ethan Bronner, Anchor Book edition (1989), at page 104.  The Reagan-Kennedy image is courtesy of www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/08/senator_ted_kennedy.

Re: “the torch has passed.”  See The elements of styling a great inaugural address: , noting that in 1961, President Kennedy gave “what is considered to be one of the greatest inaugural addresses.”

The lower image is courtesy of  www.notable-quotes.com/h/hope_quotes_ii.

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Re: More on the Henny Youngman joke.  The joke relied on the principle of dislocation, used in comedy as well as magic and the martial arts. See, Shinogi – Budotheory.ca, which noted three types of dislocation: positional, temporal, and functional.  And a magician is also known as an illusionist.  See the Wikipedia article, Magic (illusion) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and also Alex Davies – Dislocation.  Finally, see The Internet Classics Archive | The Art of War by Sun Tzu, which noted the saying of Sun Tzu (q.v.), the ancient Chinese philosopher who said, “The fundamental principle of the Art of War is deception,” or in other words, dislocating your opponent.

So anyway, in the classic one-liner – told literally “a century ago” – the audience was led to expect Youngman to say “for example” when he began; as in, “Take my wife… for example.”  But instead of saying “for example,” Youngman dislocated his audience by saying, “Take my wife…  Please!”

See also On praying in public.