Charleston, SC, USA- The time to polish armor and victual our haversacks is upon us. I must declare the things for which I fight. For me, it lies in words once heard and the sound of America being played by the people I love.
In 1999, I ran the Children’s activities for the Mellenium celebration at Memminger Elementary School in downtown Charleston. We had a wonderful, if imperfectly organized afternoon of activities. As night fell, we moved into the streets bearing the giant puppets the school kids had made. Over 8 thousand people walked into that mild, clear night.
Light of the Alabaster City not yet is, Millennium Lighthouses and Burning Flags.
When we reached Marion Square our 24 foot working replica of the Morris Island Lighthouse stood amount the thousands, dark. When the moment came in the ceremony to activate the Milleniaum Lighthouse, only darkness answered the switch. The man who had wired it couldn’t be found, but a fifth grader from James Island middle school raced through the crowd, reached into the base, grasped the massive alligator clips which were supposed to connect the wiring to the big, secone hand twelve volt battery weighing down the base and power surged up the wiring to the beach above our head. Light poured out from a jury rigged fire truck light, through a cut down five gallon water cooler bottle and into the darkness. A shout went up from the crowd and it’s might beach cut through the night, rotating above our heads. The drums began thundering. Canons fired. We sang.
Yesterday my friends, some of the not yet born that night, gathered and protested on that square and marched down that street. Last night some people, who probably don't actually care about social justice broke windows and committed acts of vandalism there. The light from the fires of the burning flags was not so bright as that of the millennium lighthouse.
I believed 1999
And, I must confess, I believed. My natural disposition to pessimism was blasted away for a moment and I, with my wife Julia and son Jackson, were all, together, a family, happy. Later that evening Julia and I renewed our wedding vows with the guidance of Mayor Riley, with hundreds of other families, many with their children grasping their legs, the fulfillment of wedding days years or decades earlier. Through the night of performances we met friends, celebrated, forgot to eat and finally saw the lighted pineapple ascend into and explosion of fireworks. After we had a real hopping john meal with Greg Foreman and went home to discover that Y2K wouldn’t be the disaster we feared.
That night, I looked forward to the future. I honestly believed, for that moment, that the way forward would be just, decent and bright with hope. My family was united in this. In the next 10 months we would build a new home in Mt. Pleasant, help found the then hopeful I’On Community and enjoy the sense of possibility that so many believed was a continuation and expansion of the peace and prosperity we were enjoying. I had a popular, well read weekly column in the Moultrie News, Porches to Sidewalks. We held a housewarming at our new home that October and our home and garage were packed with our friends, younger, healthier, happier and far more numerous than they are today.
In November, the election misfired. I had the opportunity to do voter protection in Florida as an attorney, but it didn’t seem important. We lost the future by less than 600 supressed votes. Less than a year after that, 9-11 hit due to the incompetence of the Bush administration. Then came two wars, since won but unending. The first big economic contraction started in 2007. Julia had health problems because the Bush administration allowed employers to misclassifiy her as a manager, allowing her employer to overwork her without paying overtime. This turned her place of work into a snake pit of people pushing work at each other while the so called management just sent out emails advising people to manage their time. Then the economy crashed in 2008 and for the first time, we bought stockpiled food.
It looked like a lot in October 2008 sitting on the floor of our utility room, but it was a snack compared to what now stands in what we call the “Prepper pantry” in there now. Shelving helps. We could feed ourselves through July 4 without a problem and it would be labor day before we starve. That is middle class privilege, in cans.
Our Fight Begins with Karen
Everything I love, and I am entitled to things I love, is slipping away. It’s maddening to be wedged between an epidemic and a depression on one side and people claiming that being a 60 year old white lawyer indicates I have no legitimate pain on the other. I’m legally blind. I’ve never been able to drive. Yesterday I watched two young people with bags full of Pendarvis literature headed to the demonstration have their dignity crushed by the Uber driving Karen who cancelled their trip to downtown when she saw how black they were. I pleaded with her that these two young people were trusted campaign workers of Marvin Pendarvis, a sitting member of the state legislature, and myself, a respected and obviously very white Attorney.
Karen, I’ll get to you and Uber on Tuesday, June 2. Don’t worry about it. I assure you that you will remember the day far into the future after it happens. No need to put it on your calendar now. You have no problem picking up third party passengers like my son in Mt. Pleasant. I’m willing to perpetuate your capacity to cancel trips based on the need of your passengers for sun block and which continent their ancestors were imported from. We’ll talk with Uber, Karen, I assure you.
There is little point in being an Attorney and running the field operation for a sitting member of the SC Legislature if you can’t protect the kids on your staff. I like my white, attorney privilege. I resent being unable to drive in a world made for drivers. Marvin likes being in the legislature. He might like white privilege, but they don’t let him have any. I sometimes trade him some of mine for his black cred. It is complicated.
The Greensward Speech
Long ago, when I was the founding Moderator of the Athenian Literary and Debating Society at the University of SC where we thought green screen IBM PCs were cool, Shaun used to stand up, later in our debates and defend his position with what we called the greensward speech. It began with arguments relevant to the issue in dispute like gun control, the nuclear freeze of the value of humanities education. Gradually, with the smoothness he was honing with each debate he would end by saying, “But you may disagree! However I say these things because if we believe and act upon them, an afternoon will come when the band will plan on a warm Sunday afternoon. The picnic cloths will be spread across the grass. Daisies will wave in the sunlight. There will be greetings among neighbors, hugs between friends and embraces of lovers. Glasses of inexpensive wine will clink in the air. Smiles will be seen on every countenance. Shouts of joy will come roll in from the lawn. Children will dance upon the greensward.”
The last time I heard those words was 1985. At least three of my friends who heard those words have already passed away.
I thought we were going there. That distant in the future, I would unite my old Athenian friends on the horseshoe at the University of South Carolina with our then imaginary children and perhaps their children. Tony Snell would greet everyone, his transition from Republican to significant gay activist now joyously complete. I would reach into a cooler or whatever fantastical cooling device might exist in the 21st. Century and draw out a bottle of modestly priced Champaign. I would loosen the wire and twist out the cork. As the cork shot out of the bottle, there would be the pop of celebration. I would fill Shaun’s glass and those of my friends. I would smile and Shaun, then a grandfather (for women loved him and were eager to bear him children then) would recite the greensward speech.
I now know I shall never drink that wine. I buried my brother in February, killed by Covid-19. My friends are scattered to the corners of the Earth. Many are now expatriates who have vowed never to return to backward SC. I don’t know if Keven Leslie every found the women who bear him six children he was looking for. H would ask them in bars. How they would reach me through the riots, quarantine and shut downs to plant the bare feet of Kevin’s grandchildren on the grass of the horse shoe, I may never know.
I can’t even go to Best Buy on the bus to purchase an inexpensive tablet to run MiniVAN electronic canvassing on because the store isn’t open without an appointment. The trip still took four hours. I dint’ want to drag Julia, my long suffering wife (could I have any other kind) through the hateful traffic.
My homeowner’s association is now making threats about the miserable state of my yard, forgetting that once 15 years ago we presented the neighborhood with an orchestra, Chamber music and festivals around the Lake. in 2005, the I’Onissimo Orchestra and neighborhood Chorus performed a symphonic version of America to hundreds of people. Champaign bottles popped. Neighbors smiled. Children danced upon the grass of the Mt. Pleasant Amphitheater at the start of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, on the Sunday of memorial weekend.
My son Jackson, who was kicked off the Daily Kos for some sort of technical dispute that I don't fully understand, was dancing on that grass that day and now his his own blog, The Autistic Resistance. He’ll probably deconstruct this blog post there.
I was at the empty amphitheater last weekend, on that very spot, on the same day, at the same time. giving an interview to WCBD TV about the obscenity of the Trump Boat parade upon the harbor. Noone else was there but a couple and their dog. There was no music. No corks popped. Noo ne sung of the “alabaster city undimmed by human tears” which would await us in America. Two miles away 600 boat loads of morons traded all we had for Trump flags, stupidity, racism and other forms of repellant noise. The children who danced upon the grass then, have disappeared into adulthood. I did not invite my Athenian friends of long before because they were busy and far away. It seemed early and I thought we would have more time. I thought the music would continue to play.
Liberating Strife
The traitors to decency who advance upon us should know that with each loss, the burden of what I must protect lightens. The remaining strength I possess passes to the cause of “liberating Strife.” Death threats no longer chill me. We have lost so much to the point where the future I’m left to see is becoming irrelevant.
I would trade everything I have left to hear my wife play in that 2005 orchestra again. I would happily discard all my tomorrows to watch my son Jackson dance upon that grass 15 years ago. I would exchange those yesterdays which have not yet been for the millennium night and lighthouse.
I would go back instead to hear Mayor Riley read the words on the Lincoln portrait to me and the thousands two weeks after Hurricane Hugo on the indestructible steps of the customs house. I would walk away from what lies ahead to attend a football game with my old Athenian friends in 1984 (not as bad as the book) and watch them squander my precious fifth of Bombay Sapphire gin on artless cocktails. I would stand their with Ann Alexander adulterating that pail blue spirit to hear, in the Autumn post game darkness, Shaun recite the greensward speech.
As Ready as God Wills
I understand powerful forces work relentlessly on the fuel of money with the massive forges of capitalism to force a lesser hope upon me. I shall never drink that wine with my friends.
So be it. I will see them in the future. I shall be as ready as God wills. I still hear the music and the greensward speech in my head. You will not exterminate it. You will fight me instead. Perhaps, in the life beyond the music will be playing and we righteous all, forever young will dance upon the grass.