Monday, December 25, 2017

WAITING TO BE ABDUCTED

                                     

The Cold War was raging when I was growing up in Alaska.  At school, each term we practiced survival from a Russian atomic bomb attack by getting under our desks on our hands and knees and tucking our heads between our knees. We feared that the Russians would a-bomb Fort Richardson and Elmendorf Air Force base on their way to obliterate Seattle and other west coast targets. 
My fertile imagination was triggered by such worries so I sought and found solace in fantasies. I had about a half mile walk from the school bus stop to our log home along a narrow, snow covered road that often shimmered with reflections of the aurora borealis. As I walked, the electric colors dancing all around me, I fantasized about bringing peace to the world. In my fantasy friendly aliens would beam me up to their flying saucer, abducting me, but for good purposes. They would tell me I had been chosen to bring peace to Earth.  In order for me to accomplish this formidable mission, the Aliens gave me a flying saucer of my very own, equipped with all sort of devices that would render weapons of all nations useless.  Of course, my fantasies never included details of how such weapon neutralizers worked, or how a flying saucer flew, or more importantly, why I was chosen.  But in these fantasies, chosen I was, and in these fantasies I did in fact bring peace to the world. And, I must admit, the fantasy included bringing fame and acclamation to myself.
Now, sixty five years later,  and I confess, with ego and fantasies of fame still intact, as I go outside to the hot tub before going to bed,  I tell Leila that if I do not come back in and she steps out to the deck and I am gone,  she must not worry.
“I will eventually return, honey, it’s just that finally the aliens will have abducted me.  I will be back once I have save the world from war, hunger, violence, disease and all things evil and destructive.”    We’ve had the hot tub for 16 years. I am in it two or three times a week.  I stare up at the stars, the moon, the flashing lights of jets coming and going from the Oakland and San Francisco airports and I wait and wait.
 “I’m ready, Aliens. I am ready.”
For most of my life I have waited and I am still waiting to be abducted.  I have not surrendered my desire to be abducted and to save the world; rather I have reluctantly accepted the cold hard fact that it just won’t happen.   Aliens are not going to save us.  Nor is God is about to save us.  As a Christian I believe in an afterlife in a place where love and peace abound and evil is absent, but I am convinced that in this life salvation is in our hands.  The peoples of the world have the resources, the intelligence, and the wherewithal to abduct ourselves from war, disease, poverty, violence and destruction.  But do we have the will? 
Violence rages in every corner of the world, including my little corner here in Oakland.  It took me approximately three hours to write and edit this blog post. In those three hours over 12,000 people starved to death. The world has put HIV-AIDS on the back burner, ignorant or not caring that millions of men, women and children are infected with AIDS every year and millions die from it and numerous opportunistic diseases.  Our government has put the needs of economically stressed and suffering citizens aside as it enacts legislation that further enriches the wealthy.
Here and throughout the world evil and terror flourish. If we are to be abducted from these evils, we will have to do it by ourselves.  I pray that we will find a way, but I ask again, do we have the will?
It is seven p.m. Christmas evening.  I am filled with the joy of this day and my faith. Yet, in a few hours I will again sit in the comfort of the hot tub and wait to be abducted.

Kerry Gough © 2017

Monday, October 16, 2017

Reconnecting with Clarence Hall, Glen Allan, Mississippi

Recently I returned to rural Mississippi to express a long overdue thank you to Clarence Hall, a Black Mississippi farmer and civil rights leader in Sharkey and Issaquena counties.  Unlike most of the Black farmers in the Delta counties, Clarence was one of the few Blacks who owned his own farm. The vast majority of Black farmers were sharecroppers on white owned plantations who risked eviction if they registered to vote or became active in the civil rights movement.  Most were so in debt to the plantation store that if they attempted to leave they would be arrested. Sharecroppers lived a life not unlike that of slaves in the old South.  As a land owner, Clarence could stick his neck out and fight for racial justice without risking all his income; he just risked his neck.

                                  Clarence Hall, Jr. and me, 9/30/17

During the summer of 1965 Clarence and his wife Millie hosted my wife Judy and me in their home next to the Mississippi river.  I was in Mississippi to work with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund on a school desegregation project. Judy conducted a freedom school in the Hall’s back yard, preparing children to enter the soon to be desegregated grades one through three of the white schools.  The Halls courageously welcomed two white “trouble-making commies,” as the FBI regarded us, to their home for the summer.  We lived with them while we encouraged Black parents to send their kids to the white schools pursuant to the freedom of choice court order. The Halls made us family, insisting that we have their children’s bedroom. Ann, age 6 and Clarence III, 8, voiced no objection to surrendering their room and sleeping in the living room. Rather it was an adventure to have a young white couple joining the family for the summer.

Clarence encouraged me daily in the difficult task of persuading black parents to enroll their precious little children in the white schools. They expressed fear for the safety of their children in the hostile environment of the white schools.  Even if the children were not emotionally or physically harmed, the parents feared for their own welfare.  They knew they would suffer certain retaliation, dismissal from their jobs or awakening in the middle of the night to the screech of the tires of a fleeing pickup and the dancing glare of a cross burning in the yard. Clarence had already lost his job because of his civil rights activity, the Ku Klux Klan burned his church while we were living with him and after school registration, the Klan burned crosses in the yards of parents who had enrolled their children in the white school.

Over the summer, the Goughs and the Halls became family. On Sundays Millie slaughtered a chicken and the six of us sat around the table enjoying the best fried chicken I have ever had and discussing the progress, or lack thereof, in persuading parents to send their first, second and third graders into the unwelcoming environment of the white schools.   Within the walls of the Halls’ home, however, race was never an issue. It was amazing how quickly I became both physically and emotionally integrated with the Halls and the black community.  The Halls opened their hearts and home, impoverished sharecropper blacks invited me into their dark and sweltering plantation shanties and pastors opened their churches for community meetings to explain the court desegregation order. By the grace of God, Clarence’s guidance and the warmth that greeted me as I met black moms and dads throughout the Delta, my consciousness of being white faded away. Race did not matter. I often returned after meetings with parents discouraged and frustrated. I had explained all the advantages of the white schools over the dilapidated, ill equipped and under funded black schools, but I could not promise safety for the children or the parents.  Clarence patiently educated me about the reality of life for Blacks in rural Mississippi and encouraged me to persist, notwithstanding the lack of significant progress. I persisted and by the end of summer progress had been made.

As a result of my summer in Glen Allan and Clarence's friendship my life was changed. Just four years later my heart and mind were open to the adoption of Sheila and Jeffrey, six year old black fraternal twins.  But for that summer and my love for Clarence and Millie and their children and their love for Judy and me, the enriching adventure of the adoption never would have happened.  Not having adopted Sheila and Jeff would have been a terrible loss. I am forever indebted to the Halls for adopting me as family that summer, an act of love and grace that led to adding Sheila and Jeff to our family.

In 2015, the 50th anniversary of that life-changing summer, my conscience began to nag me. “It is time to go back, time to go back, time to return and reconnect before it is too late.” I pretty much quashed those thoughts, thinking, “It’s been so long, Mississippi is so far away; Clarence is in his mid-nineties now; our stay there probably is ancient and forgotten history.”  However, I could not suppress the realization that Clarence was in his nineties. That knowledge hammered me with the truth that indeed time was running out. Some months earlier I had telephoned Clarence and learned that his wife Millie and his son, Clarence Hall III had died   I had just turned 80. Who knew how much time remained for me?  I could wait no longer.  It was time to thank Clarence for enriching my life.

The opportunity to reconnect and give thanks arose in early October when Leila and I were going to New Orleans for a business conference. I suggested to Leila that we go early, fly to Jackson, Mississippi, rent a car and drive to Glen Allan to visit Clarence before going to New Orleans.   Leila enthusiastically agreed. She was eager to see firsthand a part of my history that over the years I had written and talked about.

I expected that in the 52 years since I had been in Glen Allan things would have changed tremendously. Much had not.  Just as in 1965, the paved roads along white-owned fields ended and became rutted, chuck- holed narrow and dusty lanes where the black-owned fields began. Our tires kicked up a cloud of dust that could be seen for miles.  Clarence and his daughter Ann, who was six when I had last seen her and now is a grandmother, saw the dust cloud and knew it must be us—car traffic on these rutted roads was scant.  The dusty road ended at a cattle guard across which was a narrow dirt path leading to the top of the Mississippi River levee.  Siri’s GPS told us to cross a cattle guard and proceed up the levee.  I did not trust Siri and called Ann to redirect us. Ann was much better than Siri and soon we reached Clarence’s small white house near the levee.  It turned out that the levee route would have worked, at least if we’d had a four wheel drive SUV, but we were in a rented Prius, not designed for levee excursions.

Clarence and Ann greeted us with huge smiles and hugs. My heart was filled with joy.  This handsome man at ninety three stands as tall and solid as he did 52 years ago.  His mind is as keen and his passion for justice as strong as during the height of the Movement in the sixties. Once inside his home, my home the summer of 1965, I explored. The house had not changed, except that now there was running water, a dishwasher and indoor bathroom and a shelf in the living room on which sat a dozen or more plaques and awards honoring Clarence for his work founding a credit union for Delta citizens. The dining room table was the same. A flood of memories of Sunday evening suppers swept over me. It was such a pleasure to reminisce with Clarence about our time together that long ago summer, although I must confess that our conversation was often marked by mutual interjections of, “I didn’t quite catch that, what was it you just said?” for we both suffer hearing loss.   Our conversation amused Ann and Leila, each of whom could not restrain herself from helping out with, “Kerry, he said…” or “Dad, Kerry said…”

We only had a few hours with Clarence and Ann. We spent some of that time driving to the nearest decent restaurant, about 30 miles away in Greenville. Ten of those miles were dusty, deep rutted routes through the cotton fields where cotton trucks had worn ruts so deep that I had to drive on the shoulder to avoid high centering the Prius. When we entered the packed restaurant a cheerful hostess greeted us. We were the only black and white diners. Clarence and Ann were the only blacks in the restaurant.  My apprehension quickly dissolved. The service was polite and efficient and no one paid any attention to us, blacks and whites dining together, an impossibility in 1965.

After dinner, we returned to the Hall’s place on the Mississippi. It was a pitch black, moonless night. Once at their home, I expressed some doubt about finding our way back to the highway. Clarence and Ann insisted on guiding us, sharing my fear, rightfully so, that Siri would leave us stranded somewhere in a cotton field.  We followed Clarence and Ann to the paved highway, headlights reflecting off the thick dust thrown up by Clarence’s pickup. He knew the road well and I, trusting his familiarity and driving recklessly fast to keep up with him, swerved and veered where he swerved and veered and somehow successfully avoided potholes and high-centering.  We safely reached the highway that would take us to our hotel in Vicksburg. Clarence pulled over, I pulled aside his pickup, our Prius and his pickup blocking both lanes of the road. I rolled down our window, Clarence rolled down his and Leila and I thanked Clarence and Ann for being our Moses and guiding us out of the cotton field wilderness.

I added, raising my voice hopefully loud enough that he could hear, “And thank you, Clarence, thank you for everything.”  Then a truck pulled up behind us, blocked from proceeding by our vehicles, stopping right on my bumper, obviously impatient to proceed. Leila and I shouted our goodbyes through the open window, waved and departed.

Unfortunately I hadn’t said everything I wanted to say. I should have said it at their house or in the restaurant, but the right moment never seemed to arise. My last chance was when we were parked side by side. But then the impatient truck arrived.  What I planned and failed to say was, “Thank you for that summer making me family, for giving me direction to my life and for reconnecting.”  I know, however, that if we had not been interrupted by the truck and had remained side by side for a few more moments on that gravel road in the dark of night, Clarence would have replied,

“Reconnect? Why Kerry, we never did disconnect.”

Clarence Hall, a dear friend and mentor in 1965, still a dear friend and mentor.

 ©  Kerry Gough 2017 

You can learn more about my civil rights work from Monterey to Mississippi by reading my book, Dear Jeff.  Available at Amazon. See also www.dearjeffbook,com )
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Tuesday, August 22, 2017

LIVING ON BORROWED TIME


Today a friend approached me, sadness in his eyes, as I was having my morning coffee and croissant at Cole’s Coffee. He sat down next to me, put his arm around my shoulder and patted me on the back as if to comfort me.  I was surprised for I needed no comfort.  Perhaps, I thought, I have misinterpreted his look.  Maybe his look was due to a suppressed belch, a swallow of bitter and cold coffee; or perhaps he needed comfort.   

Then he spoke.

“Well, Kerry, in a week you’ll be living on borrowed time.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, expecting a humorous punch line.  But no humor followed. He was deadly serious.

“Well,” he said, “in one week you will turn 80.  The average life expectancy of a Caucasian male is 79. You are about to exceed that.  You are borrowing time from guys who didn’t spend all their allotted years.”

I have no idea whether his statistics are correct, and rather than ask Google.com Ph.D., what is my life expectancy, I decided to explore the guts of his statement that I was living on “borrowed time.”  Am I somehow indebted to those males who did not fulfill their life expectancy?  The life insurance tables tell me that when I was born in 1937 my life expectancy was 58 years.  My goodness, I have already, according to the reasoning of my friend, borrowed 22 years!  Current tables tell me that at 80 I have a life expectancy of 8 years, but a baby boy born on my birthday this year will have a life expectancy of only 77 years. 

So from whom am I borrowing?

Of course all this is rather frivolous and unscientific.  One’s life expectancy changes each year as he or she ages.  Having outlived my original life expectancy, and temporarily being in the position of exceeding the life expectancy of this month’s baby boys, I have to accept my friend’s conclusion that I am somehow indebted to someone or something for my good fortune to have lived so long, to be able to commence my ninth decade, or as I prefer to say, early old age.

In pondering a bit about this, I thought of a few of the things to which I am indebted:
  •  To the accident of fate that I was born in the U.S.A. to a loving middle class mom and dad. 
  • To my father who in 1937 at the moment of my birth somehow knew how to administer mouth to mouth resuscitation. In those days women often received ether during the birthing process. My mother received so much ether that it knocked me out in utero. When I emerged the M.D. could not get me to breathe.  Looking into the delivery room and realizing something was terribly amiss, Dad burst through the doors, grabbed me from the doctor and puffed gentle breaths into my lungs until I breathed on my own. 
  •  To the physicians who started my heart after my scalp split open by the falling bed of a dump truck on which I was riding on the running board during a construction job. My heart stopped during emergency treatment and the physician was able to restart it with a shot of adrenaline.
  • To the accident of fate that after being drafted in 1961 I was not sent to Viet Nam along with many of my fellow basic training draftees who fought and died there. I was sent to  Monterey, posted to the very safe and cushy position of Military Representative to the Monterey Peninsula Visitors' Bureau.

I could go on and on enumerating my debts.  But in my remaining years (8.1 per the official tables) it is more important for me to make some repayment. To do so, I will contribute in whatever ways I can to the improvement of the lives and well-being of my fellow human beings-- family, friends and strangers, old and young, men and women, whatever their race, sex, sexual identity, religion, social status or ethnicity may be. 

The slate won't be wiped clean, but the erasure marks will demonstrate that I tried.     


Wednesday, February 22, 2017

WHO IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE

The press is enemy of the people??? Well, let's look at the facts:
1. The press does not advocate taking health care away from 20 million people.
2. The press does not advocate castration of the EPA
3. The press does not advocate sweeping up whole families of immigrants and deporting them with minimal legal protection.
4. The press does not hate Muslims
5. The press does not advocate shutting down immigration by refugees.
6. The press did not support appointment of Mnuchin, who profited in the 100's of millions by fraudulent foreclosures of mortgages held by struggling homeowners
That above just includes a small portion of the harmful acts taken by the administration against the people of the U.S.
WHO THEN, IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE? You got it, it's our so-called president, Donald Trump, EOTP.

Thursday, February 16, 2017

HOW DO I LIE TO THEE

HOW DO I LIE TO THEE
(By Donald Trump with Apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
How do I lie to thee? I’ll count the ways.
I lie to thee to the depth, breadth and height
My ego can reach, texting in the night
Stretching truth and seeking praise
I lie to the level of every day’s
Political needs, by twitter’s light.
I lie to thee freely, damning the media’s slight,
Lying endlessly, desperate for your praise.
I lie to thee with the passion put to use
In my lusty groping in my piggish ways.
I lie to thee with campaign skills I used
Even though the popular vote I did lose.
I lie to thee with cheating, smirks,
Corruption and I'll still tweet lies vehement
Even after my rigged impeachment.

Monday, January 23, 2017

MY NAME IS EVERYMAN


In these dark, divisive and foreboding times, we must turn to the light of love and strive for unity.  Therefore, in the spirit of love, unity and inclusiveness,
I declare:

That my name is Everyman;

That my name is Everywoman;

That I am black, brown, yellow, red, white and the hue of all fellow human beings;

That I am male and female, heterosexual and homosexual, bisexual and asexual, transsexual and transvestite, and all sexual identifications that are freely chosen or inherent, and not harmful to others;

That I will fight against demagoguery, hate, xenophobia, egoism, misogyny, sexism and all other isms, creeds, beliefs and practices that demean, denigrate or destroy the well-being of my fellow humans;

That I will denounce and oppose by my actions and words the acts and positions of politicians, legislatures, courts and law enforcement personnel that infringe upon the rights and dignity of my fellow humans;

That I will denounce and oppose by my actions and words the degradation and destruction of the environment by those who would exploit the earth for personal enrichment;

That I love my neighbors, however they worship, be they Christians, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus or of other religious persuasions that practice peace and love;

That I make this pledge fully knowing that my actions may adversely affect my comfort, personal freedom and well-being, but also fully knowing that my failure to so act would demean me before my God, my family and friends, myself and the world.

I so pledge.
Kerry Gough