Moshulu: once sailed the ocean blue

There was a time when this great ship, with soaring masts and sails, braved raging seas and circled the world.
Today it sits anchored, moored, tethered, docked, in Philadelphia.
There are tides where it floats but the ship is stagnant.
I know how it feels. It serves as a lesson.

Its example while on its face tragic and stifled, is not all that bad.
There are perks to actually reaching a destination.

A life of adventure offers scenery and change, but usually the accomodations are quite sparse. Spartan even.
It is not till a traveler arrives that abundance can be enjoyed. I mean, why go anywhere if you don’t want to be where you end up?
The Moshulu once capsized off the coast of Norway. I think it is doing much better today.

If you are going to sit still you should do it in a nice place.
The Moshulu has agreat view of the Ben Franklin bridge and the city lights that reflect in the water after sunset. Not too shabby.
I’ve eaten there. The dessert is worth whatever they charge-

but the price of dinner far outpaces the food.
Sometimes I wonder if the ship ever wishes for the days when Eric Newby was a young deck hand, or are white table cloths better?

Bad Guys With Guns

None of us think we are, or ever will be, the bad guy. Now sure there are some who set out to be such, but we normally know who they are before middle school and track them accordingly (this sentence was typed while firmly holding down my computer’s sarcasm key. It is right next to the snark key which is often pressed by mistake). But really, we watch bad guys on TV, the news, CSI, our laptops, and we contemplate ways to protect ourselves from them. We argue that protection comes from either confiscating, or buying more, guns. We call for more policing, or less, depending on whether we feel the cops are on our side or not. We argue a lot about how to best protect ourselves from bad guys, spend loads of money on locks and security systems, but in every case we are all convinced, that the bad guy is somebody else.

Have we ever stopped to think that maybe the bad guys weren’t bad until they actually did whatever horrible thing it is they did that got our attention?

And if that bad guy wasn’t bad until he did something bad, doesn’t that make every one of us a potential bad guy?

This thought was made crystal clear in my mind the day I looked over at the car stopped next to me at the intersection. The driver was holding a pistol. He wasn’t necessarily aiming it at anyone; he was just driving while holding it, and consequentially pointed the gun at whoever was to his right or left depending on where the steering wheel was turning.

It freaked me out. Made me nervous. I’m assuming the driver was carrying the gun because driving down this particular street freaked him out. Made him nervous. I had heard of people doing such a thing to protect themselves while driving through the bad part of town. It is a sort of public display of preemptive protection. Maybe he felt safe but driving next to him, I did not. On top of that, I had never considered this a bad neighborhood. In fact, this was my neighborhood. Wait. Does he think I’m the bad guy? As I was contemplating this I realized that my confused face looks a lot like my angry face and I was staring in confusion at a guy with a gun who doesn’t know me. When the light turned green I paused long enough for the car behind me to honk. I wanted to put some space between me and the guy who was protecting himself from me. It was my best means of protection.

As I thought about how I knew nothing of this guy, and he knew nothing of me, and neither of us knew anything about who was or was not dangerous, I realized I knew very little about my own potential. Of course I don’t think I am capable of any horrible act, but who is? Who, while buying a gun for self-protection, considers themselves a public threat? Who, when they see the mug shot of a shooter on television thinks, “Wow, that could be me one day?”

Did the shooter think that when he saw the guy before him on last year’s newsflash?

I think about this every time the killer’s neighbors are interviewed and they say, “He was a quiet guy who kept to himself.  Wouldn’t hurt a fly. I just can’t believe it.” Everyone always seems so surprised. Especially the family. Those who know the bad guy best are usually the ones who deny guilt the loudest. We like to chalk it up to denial. They just can’t believe little Johnny is capable of such bad things. I can’t blame them. I don’t think I’m capable of such bad things either. But obviously somebody is.

So how do we stay safe?

I have listened as one side, the side with superior skills of logic, informs me that criminals do not follow gun laws so they all have guns and that the only way to protect you from them is to also have a gun. I may not be smart enough to understand the algebra that proves gun plus gun equals safety, but those who argue this side are as sure of its truth as one plus one equals two. It is simple math. I am sure none of those who buy guns for self-protection will ever become a bad guy themselves. Of course not; they are Republicans.

Then there is the other side. They rely on science, and logic, and state protection. They point to other nations where not even the police carry firearms and the murder rate is so much lower. Why can’t we be more like them? Why don’t we model ourselves on these counties with homogenous populations a fifth of our size? This side trusts that the state will act in the interest of the citizen, despite worldwide evidence of governments killing their own populations. They are convinced ours would never do such a thing because we are America. We don’t do that. Of course these are the same people who are least likely to trust the police with anything.

And then there is me.

How do I decide who is right? How do I know who the real bad guys are? Because the more I listen to both sides, Republican and Democrat, they are both convinced that the others are the bad guys. We should all protect ourselves from both of them.  From everything and everyone.

From me.

While contemplating the danger I present to everyone else, while I am still convinced I am in no way a bad guy, I thought that perhaps a lot of the bad guys used to be good guys. Maybe people aren’t always one or the other. Maybe we all possess potential for great goodness or horrible atrocity. Maybe the only way to protect myself from the bad guys, including my own potential to become one, is to figure out why people go bad and try to prevent that.

Better yet, maybe we should figure out what makes people good and help them become, or stay, the good guy. Myself included.

You think I’m a Pollyanna.

Not really. I just don’t see the bottom of the rabbit holes that both sides of this debate have dived into and I have no desire to follow suit. I won’t feel safer driving down my block knowing everyone I see has a gun, nor do I think the cartel will play nice once the cops only carry sticks. We have all gone too far.

Which is what makes me think I have the capacity to one day go too far as well. I want to prevent that. I think the only way for me and mine to be safe is if we all do the same.

It isn’t about good guys and bad guys… just guys.

Tune in next week when I tackle misogynistic rhetorical devices like the use of the word “guy”.

Stagville Plantation: prints of history

History is not names and dates, it is the lives of people. Humans. Mothers, fathers, daughters and sons. Neighbors, allies, friends and enemies. People.

The hope in visiting historical sites is that these stories, these names and dates, can be more vividly turned into people. Through the things left behind or in the places where events occurred we hope the lives gone by become more tangible. Real. Not imaginary.

Outside Durham North Carolina stands a house built by Richard Bennehan back in 1787. Neither Raleigh nor Durham had been founded yet. Richard bought the property, 1,213 acres, in 1776 and through hard work, determination, and business sense, Mr. Bennehan became one of the wealthiest men in North Carolina. The property, known as Stagville, would stay in the Bennehan family for more than 200 years.

The home, many of the furnishings, and the surrounding buildings are all still there. You can go see them. Walk around in the barn, stroll paths that Mr. Bennehan followed on his way to fulfill his duties as an original member of the board of trustees at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and stand in the dining room where he took his meals. It is all still there. You can touch it. It is real.

But Bennehan’s house isn’t the only one still standing. Not far from his home is a row, almost a neighborhood, of two story homes, one of which looks recently renovated. This is where the people lived that Richard likely saw every day when he walked out onto his front porch. In fact, these were the people who really built Richard’s house.

Back in Bennehan’s day these people would have been considered property, but really, they were people. We all know, in our heads, that these black slaves were people, but the thing that makes Stagville remarkable, is that there, you can feel that they were people. Like really feel it, with your fingers.

The bricks used to make the chimneys were made by hand right there on the property. We know they were made by hand because the people who made them, the black people, left their fingerprints in the wet clay before it hardened. As you stand there you can see the distinctively human grooves of a well formed fingerprint, four scalloped grooves where someone once gripped the masonry, and even a footprint. These are not the marks of property. As you run your hands along the chimney and place your hand over the prints of theirs it is obvious that these were real people.

There is more.

While renovating the slave quarters, the homes of the black people, historians found a divining rod (a stick shaped a bit like a wish-bone) plastered inside one of the walls. They found another plastered inside a wall of the house next door. The people who built the slave quarters, their homes, followed an African tradition of placing such an object in the home as a sort of good luck charm. A way to wish, or pray, good will on those who lived there. You can see those two sticks in Stagville’s visitor’s center and read about them on the official website.

But again there is more.

In the Visitor’s Center, but NOT on the official website, is the stick found in Bennehan’s house. This stick, also found inside a wall, was not forked like a wish-bone, but rather straight and carved as if a serpent were wrapped around it. The people who built Bennihan’s house, Master’s house, followed another African tradition where such an object is left behind not for good luck, but as a curse.

At Stagville there is no mistake that both the Bennehans and the black people were real. They lived real lives. They knew each other. They are not just stories but people.

Humans. Mothers, fathers, daughters and sons. Neighbors, allies, friends and enemies. People.

 

 

 

*** Special thanks to Jeremiah Degennaro, a very open and informed educator/tour guide.

How to Start a Fight Online: In-N-Out

When in Rome dine as the Romans.

A foundational part of growing up in Utah is listening to newly arrived Californian’s complain about the lack of In-N-Out Burgers. It was exhibit #1 that Utah was a backwater and anyone moving there from the glamorous land of Fresno, or maybe San Bernardino, was indeed suffering some sort of cruel banishment.
I have till recently remained above the fray. Intentionally ignorant.
Like I said, till recently.

The menu looked simple enough. I assumed this was the sort of place that only did a few things but did them very well. Free market specialization at its finest. Double double, fries, and chocolate shake for me, burgers for the kids. Done. Easy.

Shortly after we ate, I posted the above picture on Facebook along with the question,” If this wasn’t my favorite thing in the world do they kick me out of California?”

And then the Archduke Ferdinand dropped dead.

The Maginot line was crossed, France fell, and trenches were dug on both sides.
This online dustup was a digital version of some shirtless kid slapping a “Locals Only” sticker on my windshield ala 1987. It was much like my first weeks in Philly when my wife and I strolled into this pizza place, Tacinelli’s, that everyone said was the best. No one told us you have to call and order a day in advance and as a result we were treated poorly and given a burnt pie.
We never gave it a second try.

I’m a team player who learns from mistakes. I’m not one to place crippling sanctions on a defeated Germany giving rise to a moustached maniac. So in that spirit I pass along the unwritten rules, the insiders only, the key to the cool club; its called “animal style”.

I have still yet to publish an actual opinion. But definitive statements have never been needed in online wars.