On Your Wings

March 30, 2015

Greetings from the words of change,

In the nineteen thirties John Steinbeck emerged as significant American writer.  He became famous for telling the true story of the people he met along the back roads and back alleys and the cracks and crevices of our country.  I imagine most of you have read something from his lifetime of writing.

He wrote one short story you have never read.  It is called ‘With Your Wings’.

Seventy years ago Orson Welles broadcast a variety show on CBS radio.  It was aired across the country and around the world, lifting the spirits of families here and servicemen serving in harm’s way. 

On the last program of the weekly show Welles read a short story written for him by John Steinbeck.  This morning I listened to a recording of the broadcast, and I realized what a dramatic impact the story must have had.  The story disappeared after the show ended.  It was never published anywhere.

A few months ago it was finally reprinted in a quarterly magazine from here in Michigan.  I heard about it on the radio in an interview with the man who had researched the story and finally found the original text and arranged to have it published.  When I finally opened the magazine I felt a little pang of disappointment.  A quick glance showed it was barely two pages.  I read it twice before it dawned on me how important the story might have been.

In 1944 the United States was embroiled in a world war.  Millions of men and women served around the world, and through their dedication changed the course of humanity.

In the midst of these heroic sacrifices, the country struggled with another challenge.  All of the armed services were segregated, a reflection of the civilian attitudes that plagued the nation. Even after President Truman signed an executive order ending military segregation in 1948, it was generations before real progress was made.

John Steinbeck was in many ways an idealist, one who held out great hope for our country.  He also lived very close to the ground, and knew about the inequities, the challenges of the downtrodden.  He did not sugarcoat the dark side of the human experience, but in his writing there is always a sense of optimism.  He believed that we would eventually rise above our foibles and, one person at a time, become a better people. 

This was the man that Orson Welles called upon to write ‘With Your Wings’.  Steinbeck had just a few years before written ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ which depicted the story of struggle of the desperately poor in the dustbowls of the thirties, and ultimately the grit that brought them through that time, and the rebellion that was born in the labor camps.

I listened to the crackling, fuzzy recording of Orson Welles reading the story.  It was dramatic and passionate.  The story of a pilot getting his wings, the weight of responsibility, wrestling with fear, wanting to be home with family.  He told the story well, leading us on an emotional homecoming, family waiting, neighbors surrounding him to welcome a hero.  And then in the last few sentences, we realize he is talking about a Negro pilot.

Over a million African Americans served in during WWII, and of those only a tiny fraction became officers and pilots.  They were heroes in more than one sense of the word.  Mr. Welles and his friend John Steinbeck, in their own small way, offered a salute to these brave men. 

In the last seventy years much has changed.  And still not enough.  You don’t have to look far to see that there is still a world war going on.  In this country, and around the world, human beings still battle with prejudices born of ignorance. 

‘With Your Wings’ is a reminder of a time that seems impossible now and by contrast shows us how far we have yet to travel.  And in all of that is an encouraging message that says we will eventually become a better people, one person at a time.

 

Hope this finds you being that person,

David

Copyright © 2015 David Smith

Spring

March 23, 2015

Greetings from the scandal,

The Red Breasted Robin is the state bird of Michigan.  The robin migrates south during the winter months and generally its reappearance here in the Mitten State is taken as a sign that spring is not far off. 

Here is a little known fact that causes concern.  Back in the Carter administration, Congress authorized a large sum of money to bail out the faltering auto industry, and to prop up the weak tourism business in the Rust Belt.  Each year, several thousand cars are produced by domestic manufacturers, and driven to Florida by underemployed travel agents, former Bill Knapp’s employees, and discouraged Amway representatives. 

The cars are loaded with Vernor’s ginger ale and Koegel’s hot dogs.  Once in Florida, the contraband is sold in the parking lots of Stuckey’s restaurants to displaced Michiganians and a trustworthy network of polite Canadians who vacation there.

Once the inventory is cleared out, the drivers begin to collect robins.  The birds are attracted by the hot dog smell in each car and are fairly easy to lure into the back seat.  Every February, hundreds of thousands of robins are herded into the cars then driven back north to Michigan. 

By the time the drivers are past the Mason-Dixon Line, the birds have become restless.  Before long they are fluttering around inside the car in a panic.  This tends to put some stress on the people behind the wheel.  The drivers race north, weaving in and out of traffic, rarely using their turn indicators, rocketing through construction zones, cutting people off in merge lanes, braking for no apparent reason.  (This is how Michigan motorists got their reputation for bad driving, studies have shown.)

The drivers are equipped with prerecorded music to play in attempt to keep the birds somewhat docile.  ‘Blackbird’, by the Beatles, ‘Hummingbird’ by Seals and Crofts, ‘Fly Like an Eagle’ by the Steve Miller Band, and of course ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ by Gordon Lightfoot, which has proven to put any living thing in a coma state.  (Referring to the physiological unconsciousness, not what Michigan is known as.  We are the Great Lakes State.)

When the cars get back to Michigan, they scatter from Battle Creek to Cheboygan and release the birds into the environment.  The birds are somewhat disoriented, and occasionally will fly into the windows of surrounding homes for no apparent reason. 

The drivers, in spite of being generously compensated, almost never sign up for a second season.

The cars’ interiors, obviously, have been ruined by the birds and are not fit to sell.  They are put on container boats and shipped to Cuba where they eventually become taxi cabs or makeshift rafts which, ironically, are floated to Florida.  A few cars make their way back onto U.S. roads, sold to less discriminating drivers.  You can usually spot these by the bumper sticker “I brake for garage sales’ or ‘My other car is a Yugo’ or ‘Ask me about my podiatry appointment’)

This artificial migration concept, first suggested by President Jerry Ford, was to get the robins back to Michigan early, to try to extend the tourist season.  Of course, the car makers and drivers get a piece of the action too, not to mention the Koegel/Vernors empire, which all trickles down to our local economy.  It’s how we have survived here for nearly forty years.

All paid for by your tax dollars.  Thanks Obama.

So, the robin’s appearance is an encouraging portent of spring, but one must look askance at the first few we see in March, especially those who have hot dog breath.  Generally we have to rely on a few other supporting indicators that winter is gone for good. 

In Michigan we repair our potholes in the roads by packing them with snow.  When spring arrives our road repairs melt, so the reappearance of divots in the pavement is a sure sign that warmer weather is coming. We also look for the first white legs at the grocery store, the reappearance of dog droppings formerly covered by snow, the first mole mounds to ruin the lawn, and the sound of the sump pump running. 

Spring will arrive when it arrives, no matter what astronomy says or poets wish or the calendar indicates.  I am going to try to be patient.  I know too much to be lured into false hope by the sounds of robins crashing into my windows. 

Hope this finds you bob bob bobbing along,

David

Copyright © 2015 David Smith

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21 Years

March 16, 2015

Greetings from the unforgiving minute,

The clock on my desk is stopped:  3:41.  It has been that way for a long time, but for some reason I haven’t done anything about it.  In fact, part of me has grown accustomed to it.  It is an interesting thought, having time suspended here in this little space where I write.

I know that time never stands still, and like anyone I am not in a hurry for life to pass.  But more and more I treasure the moments when time is irrelevant. 

It is a slippery thing.  Aside from what our watches tell us, we measure time from our own perspective.  Minutes drag when we are trapped in mundane activity, and the days rush by when we are swept up in celebration.  It is a conundrum; many of us want to savor time, to hold it in place, but the most fulfilling way to live is in a state where time passes at the greatest velocity. 

That is how I woke this morning, thinking of the last twenty one years.  I am so happy to say they flew by. 

When they were born, time was measured in hours.  When they would be fed next or changed or when they would sleep.  The hours filled up and spilled into buckets of days, each a measure of success, each one that they were safe, alive, was a victory. Then there were enough days to count to matter, so then they could be grouped in weeks.  And they were such-and-such weeks old.  Until one day there were enough to describe it in months and really mean it.

Then somehow there were enough months to add up to years. And blocks of years, seasons of growing, eras.  And now, I pause as I write this and glance at my stopped clock; they are twenty one. 

In a blink that will really be true.  Tomorrow is my sons’ birthday.  Harrison Hume Smith.  Carson Buchanan Smith.  Sawyer Thomas Smith.  In a momentous occasion such as this, it seems fitting that you should know their formal names.  Milestones like this are where we mark a place in the whirling maelstrom of time.   A moment to consider what has come before, and to look at the broad future unspooling in the moments to come.

An impossibly full twenty one years. 

These young men, who I know as well as they can be known, still astound me.  They have already begun adventures, off in their own orbit.  They already have their own experiences, opinions, wisdom.  The world out beyond my stopped clock is already intersecting with them as grown men. 

And the world is a better place.  However you fill your hours, however you feel the passage of time, trust me, it would be even richer should you spend time with my sons. 

They are unique individuals, bound by the same starting time twenty one years ago, but each already carving their own paths through their own futures.  They have their own gifts and strengths, and I am proud of how they developed those.  Wherever they go you will sense a positive difference in the people they meet.

You will find they are intelligent and thoughtful and interested in other people.  They would show you compassion; they would share what they have with you, including time.  My sons make good friends, people you can count on.  They are honest, diligent, resourceful, and each in their own way, passionate.  And they know how to laugh.

I have had a full life these last two decades in part because they filled it.   My children, my three boys, and this astounding woman who is their sister, have funneled the days to me in a way that has deepened me.  Time with them is a clock with no hands.

They have given me every reason to cherish each day, to relish each waking moment, and at the same time, I am so pleased the time has roared by, filled with laughter and adventure walks and ice cream and bike rides and love and heartbreak and friendship and chocolate and grass stains and every color and smell and taste with which we have filled the hours.

And there is this; I know what it is about the stopped clock that resonates with me.  It is a thread from another morning when time stood still.  My boys have a brother for whom seconds did not start.  Alexander, who was filled with the same promise and the same potential as his brothers, who twenty one years ago joined them into this world but was never to spend time.  His mark, his place with us, is only the dream of what he might have been.  Alexander Forrest Smith.  His time with us, the difference he makes in our hours, is in the echoes of his brothers’ lives.

And we celebrate it all. 

Inherent in any celebration is an element of gratitude.  Thankful for the reason, whether it is a great run, a song you love, or a birthday, we find a way to celebrate, acknowledge and honor the moment.  This morning, like all mornings, I am grateful for my sons and for the lives they are creating.  I can’t wait to celebrate this birthday, and every day, each hour and minute, each irresistible tick of the clock.  I am better for it and if you join us, so will you be.

Hope this finds you spinning the second hand,

David

Copyright © 2015 David Smith

Meeting James Broomhead

March 9, 2015

Greetings from the door ajar,

When I asked my parents if it would be all right if I walked around the lake I had anticipated they would say yes.  In fact, when they said no, it did not register right away.  My mental momentum was already carrying me down the meandering roads of my walkabout.

I was a young boy, not yet old enough to call my own shots, but just old enough to feel the tug of adventure.  I had already tasted a little freedom, already had my share of exploring.  And now the spirit called me to conquer this lake. 

 

I decided that next morning, in spite of my parent’s casual refusal, that I would go anyway. 

I had looked at maps, and determined, wrongly, it turns out, that I could be around the lake by the end of the day.  I thought, wrongly again, it was possible no one would miss me in the chaos of the campground activities.  I packed a sandwich and a few essentials in a small backpack, and set off.  The day unspooled in front of me, filled with promise, adventure, and the glory of circumnavigating Higgins Lake.

That’s the day that I met my Grandpa. 

Not to say that I wasn’t already aware of my mother’s father; he was a fixture in our lives. On this day I had nearly a decade of memories pixelated around him. Christmases, birthdays, playing at his house on the lake where he lived with Grandma.   But I had not met him in the way the rest of world may have.  And on this day, that would change.

His name was James Broomhead, a memorable name for a remarkable man.  I only know a portion of his escapades, and that is enough to form a pretty exciting image.  He had braved the ravages of the First World War, tramped the length of Canada in an era when every place was remote.  He waded through the Great Depression.  He was a hard man, borne of hard times.

But to me, he was just my Grandpa.  The man who helped me fish off the dock, or who pushed my sister on the swing. 

He was not a large man but he was stocky, and had strong capable hands, sinewy corded arms.  One hand was bent from an injury, but he used it without favor.   He wore long sleeves to protect his skin from the sun, and usually a small brimmed hat.  Even when he mowed the lawn or painted the rose trellis, he wore pleated dress pants.  I can see him as clear as fifty years ago.

I trudged along the two lane road, my sneakers making small puffs of dust in the shoulder of the road, already reveling in the victory of walking around the lake.  The morning sun was warming the summer day. 

A car drew past me and stopped.  The door opened and I realized it was my Grandpa.  I stopped and for just a fraction of a second I was glad to see him.  He stood next to the car for a moment, small fedora on his head, Lucky Strike wedged smoking in the corner of his mouth.  He hitched his pants and walked toward me.

He was in front of me before it really dawned on me that I was in trouble for disobeying my parents.  And then that was the least of my worries.  My grandfather leaned over until his eyes were level with mine.

I knew Grandpa could be a rough man.  I had stood in the cellar with him when he was repairing the outboard motor, a Stroh’s on the workbench, cigarette in his mouth, a cloud of blue around him as he worked.  I knew about cussing.  I knew about yelling.  But none of that had been focused at me.  I had been in a golden bubble, the observer. Now it was different.

“You know…David…” he said, his voice a growl, smoke drifting between us.  He held up one hand in front of me.  “I could snap your neck.  With one hand.”

I could feel the sweat on my back suddenly go chilled, and something in my stomach tried to pull all of my other organs in with it.  There were only a few moments of silence, but somehow they spun on for hours.   The birds had stopped chirping, and the world’s color had gone sepia toned.

I had watched my grandfather shave, his shirt off, tapping the safety razor on the sink. I had seen the dimples where the bullets had gone into him.  The scars where he had been patched up.  Other places the skin was shiny where he had been burned and grafted.  I knew the stories because my Grandpa answered my endless questions with candor.  He had let me put my small fingers in the divots in his flesh.

I knew there was a time when my Grandpa disarmed a man with a knife, and the man got the worse end of that exchange.  Before, these were just abstract stories, told in the crowded kitchen where my Grandma baked us cookies.  But now they came back and framed a picture of a dangerous man.  And in that moment, I was afraid. 

I stared at the stubble on his chin, trying not to look at his eyes.  There was a palpable danger, an ominous energy that radiated from the man in front of me.  I swallowed loudly, vainly pushing the fear down.  When he spoke again, the same menacing rasp in his voice, tears burned my eyes.

“Son…I love you.  But lots of people, look just like me, don’t care about you at all.  They would hurt you.  Just. Like. That.”  And he snapped his finger under my chin. 

My legs were jelly. The day’s adventure had vanished.  The world had shrunk down to a tiny rectangle on the side of an obscure road in the middle of nowhere.  I snorted a little, still trying not to cry, already too late as that momentum carried me away.

My Grandpa stood straight and looked down at me.  He slowly put his hand on my shoulder and guided me toward the car. 

This was not the last time I got into trouble, and certainly not the most serious offense in my checkered past.  But when I think of that day I don’t remember the punishment or the wrath of my parents or the lesson I learned from disobeying.  I think of that day as when I met James Broomhead. 

I was not really afraid of my Grandpa, but something had changed.  I was aware that he had this other side, another edge we didn’t usually see when he puttered around the yard or helped push off the pontoon boat, or sat watching boxing matches on TV with the sound off.  He was not a stranger, or dangerous, he was Grandpa, snoring in the chair, or laughing at the picnic table.  But he was James Broomhead long before he was Grandpa.  Once that door was open it would not close fully again.

And this made me aware of other people too.  Not everyone was to be feared, or suspected, though I know why my grandfather wanted me to be cautious as a young boy.   But I realized people were more than just the roles they seemed to play in our lives.  Our teachers, our priest, the neighbor, the mailman, they were all people with lives and histories and depth beyond what we could see as we passed through their day.  I wanted to know more about their stories.

The day I met my Grandpa was significant, and for a short time, frightening.  But one thing you should know is that it did not make me afraid.  In fact it made me more curious.  In the years beyond that day I set off on countless adventures, some foolish, some dangerous, a few for good reasons with clearly stated objectives, and many just for fun.

 I went into each of those days armed with wisdom given to me by a hard-bitten man in a stained pork-pie fedora.  A man who cared so much about me that he risked showing me a side of him not meant for grandchildren.  He meant to make me safe, and he did, but he whether it was his intention or not, he also added to the ingredients in me that became the courage and the will to explore the world and the people in it.

Hope this finds you curious,

David

Copyright © 2015 David Smith

Tooth

March 2, 2015

Greetings from the pact,

Five men stand around the hole, some holding sledges or shovels, one with a pick over his shoulder.  They are wearing hardhats, all of them in various shades of denim, brown and blue, but one uniform coating of grime on all of them. They are sweating around a hole in the concrete. Each in turn steps into the maw, swings a tool or pulls up a rock or shovelful of dirt.

There is a Cat excavator pawing at the soil beneath the pavement, gouging the earth free, pulling it up in enormous bucketsful, ripping roots as it clears the surface, swinging deftly around the men and dropping the load in an idling dump truck nearby.  Then pirouetting back to the hole, stabbing back into the dirt, a little deeper this time.  The stack behind the cab bellows black smoke as the engine guns, driving the bucket into the dirt, making the hole where there once was no hole.  Steel grinding into stone and dirt, violent and determined, shredding the earth and concrete.

At least that was the image I had while my dentist was working on me.

I might have been going through an out of body experience; I had been trying to suspend myself from the activity as my dentist went about his business.  It was a natural self-defense mechanism.

There were several hands in my mouth along with equipment of various sorts, ranging in size from a delicate interrogation tool, designed by the CIA I believe before the whole waterboarding thing got popular, all the way up to a 22 pound hooked crowbar whose original purpose was to dismantle deep sea oil derricks.  So you can see why I let my imagination run away with me.

All of this to remove a tooth I had grown very attached to. 

Before I wander too far away, I must state here that I love my dentist.  Not romantic love, more like Stockholm syndrome kind of infatuation.  He is a nice guy, very good at what he does, has good intentions.  Huge hands, though.

I already know that in the scheme of things this is a pretty minor event. It’s not major surgery; I didn’t lose something valuable that alters my quality of life in a meaningful way.  Except for the drama in I fabricated you could say it was hardly worth mentioning.

You should also know that the extraction took place in a one of the most modern dental facilities you can imagine.  All the latest equipment, administered by compassionate, competent professionals.  I was reclining in a very comfortable, Shiatsu Massage chair, watching a flat screen TV on the ceiling.  So there’s not a lot to complain about.

Unless you count the hole someone dug in my head. 

There was a golden age when I believed in the Tooth Fairy.  Teeth fell out of their own accord, perhaps with a little coaxing from my curious wiggling finger, and were wrapped with due respect and stored in a place of honor where the Tooth Fairy would exchange it for a nickel.  Ah, the innocent memories of childhood.

I dare say there will not be a time in my future where I look back with nostalgia on this exchange, where I sat in a very comfortable chair while a dozen people tortured me until I gave up a tooth, at which time I paid them thousands of dollars.

I am aware of the inevitable truth that my body is decaying.  Slowly eroding, breaking down, wearing out, flaking off.  In spite of my cheery disposition, rust never sleeps. 

It does illustrate to me that I pretty much take my body for granted.  I respect it, I feed it, take good care of my health, try to make choices that will give me the longest most active life.  But with all of that I assume that my body will cooperate.  That if properly maintained it will run forever.  That is not in the pact. 

A silly event such as losing a tooth, or having one taken, reminds me that the deal we have is renewed daily.  Every day we invest in our health, in our well-being, and in turn we get to enjoy the benefits of living in the body we have.  Tomorrow the pact is renegotiated with age, with slightly different terms, and it is up to up to us to choose to agree to it and reinvest.

I will not go quietly into that good night, but neither will I rail against the inequity of the pact.  It is part of life to defend ourselves against the ravages of the world, and of the passing days.  We wake up each morning with this new version of us, sometimes a little worse for wear, sometimes missing a tooth or a quick twitch we once had.  But we also gain insight, wisdom, the ability to adapt to what we are given.  Whatever the pact includes, it is worth celebrating, worth starting over with and paying into another day.  But chewing very carefully.

Hope this finds you grinding the rust,

David

Copyright © 2015 David Smith