IN DEFENSE OF THE COMMON MAN

 IN DEFENSE OF THE COMMON MAN

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© May 10, 2012

Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish existential philosopher, was considered socially aloof and politically conservative.  Writers to my missives have, on occasion, accused me of that stereotype.  True, my writing tends to be abstract, some might say vague, but none can ever accuse me of abandoning my common man roots. 

Kierkegaard was interested in the plight of the common man, especially during the early period of his writing when critics and adulators had not yet discovered him.  I have had the advantage of never being discovered in my long life.  Consequently, I’ve never been tempted to play to an audience or to escape this fundamental connection with my identity as to who I am, and what I am.  Indeed, I have taken pride in the fact that I’ve never left my working class roots.

Like Kierkegaard, I’ve written extensively about my relationship to my mother and father, my growing ambivalence about formal religion, especially my Irish Roman Catholicism, and about the influence of intellectuals (mainly dead authors) on my life. 

Kierkegaard came from a family engaged in the Protestant ministry, whereas I come from a family rooted in common labor.  The intellectual life was a luxury no one in my family could afford.  Words and ideas were suspect, as those who could take the bread out of our mouths usually spoke them. 

Somehow by dint of will and drive, and more than a little luck, I escaped this mad scrambling of basic existence, being allowed to take measure of what this world could offer a person if willing to make painful and hard choices early in life.   

With Kierkegaard, the role of Christian faith and its implications for social justice played an important part in the development of his philosophy.  I would say Irish Catholicism did in mine, often pitting me against the actual world observed, leading to a kind of cynicism that I share with the Danish philosopher. 

In a paradoxical way, it steeled me to an empathetic appreciation of things Jewish.  The best students I would encounter at university and in life, as well in books, would often prove members of that culture.  Were it not for Jewish authors I would have little to read.  Perhaps in a somewhat paranoid way, I could identify with a people who encountered exclusion as a matter of routine. 

What Kierkegaard taught me, and this is a take off on some of the things he said, was the importance of responsibility, a word that has lost its definitive meaning in our times.  Economic progress has more credence than either purpose or morality.  What is ethical and legal are treated as if synonyms.  Kierkegaard would scoff at this marriage of values. 

He made much of Christian identity, and that identity with common people.  The fact that identity is as porous as a sieve today defines our times as much as anything. 

We have become a society of cheaters masquerading as a society of achievers.  You cannot look at any fundamental institution of our society in which cheating has not been elevated to a distinctive virtue rather than the virus that it is.

The federal government expects people to cheat on their income tax.  Those most able to pay what they owe have the wherewithal to hire lawyers and accountants as professional cheaters to explore tax loopholes to their advantage.  No one raises a scintilla of protest. 

Some people don’t even bother to file their federal income tax returns, and when found out; only receive a slap on the wrists, when responsible citizens have been carrying them. 

Academics of our most celebrated institutions of higher learning know that academic grades are essentially meaningless, but are still a gauge to measure the prospective students readiness for college. 

Compounding this derisive situation, SAT and GRE prepared tests are part of the ritual of qualification for undergraduate and graduate school, when most students at our advanced high schools prep the prospective students their senior year for the test.  If this is not sufficient, there are review courses of likely questions to appear on the examinations.  Consequently, the whole affair is bizarre and measures nothing. 

It is no accident that largely enterprising young people disenchanted with formal education inventing a technology that is changing all of us have advanced this new age of information technology. 

Kierkegaard had no idea society would become so rootless as he witnessed the triumph of modern mass society in his abbreviated life (1813-1855).  But he did see the shenanigans surfacing of the movers and shakers cloaking themselves in religion, or religious ideals and principals, or abandoning them in agnosticism and atheism.  After his death, the right and left, and the middle claimed him as their prophet, when he belonged to none of them, as they had all abandoned the nuances of the common man.  They twisted his words, which were relevant only to his time, to have meaning for their causes and biases. 

*     *     *

Kierkegaard was resolute in his belief in the common man, who would be willing to endure ostracism, rejection, exclusion and anonymity, indeed, even persecution from institutional society.  He maintained the common man's fundamental identity and integrity and responsibility as a caring, concerned and involved citizen. 

The common man was a man of principles and beliefs that had nothing in common with fair weather friends. 

The titles of some of Kierkegaard’s writings gives a clue to his engaging personality and philosophy: On the Concept of Irony (dissertation), Fear and Trembling, Repetition, Stages of Life’s Way, The Concept of Anxiety, Philosophical Fragments, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Works of Love, Christian Discourses, and The Sickness Unto Death. 

The beauty of Kierkegaard, and I feel I share something in common with him here, is that it is impossible to classify his works.  He is Everyman.

ON INTERNAL SELF-DEFINITION

Kierkegaard could see even in his day that people attempted to define themselves in terms of others.  I have called this the problem of comparing and competing.  This imitation process results in one being a poor excuse for oneself.  For Kierkegaard, internal self-definition meant understanding oneself as an individual before relating to the many and to society, that is, we are all unique with unique gifts.  

It is impossible to connect the dots to the development of an inner world of the self if the focus is on how you stack up with others before you find out how you stake up with yourself. 

Kierkegaard saw this in his day in people fleeing from the requirements of reality, denying it, and then taking refuge in bad habits.  In our day, it is smoking and drinking and doing drugs, or becoming workaholics, anything to escape the reality of the inner life starving to be discovered. 

He believed, and I concur, the only way a person can discover his “real self” is to take charge of his inner life.  I have written that most of us fail to have an inner life, that we have lost our internal compass, and therefore our way.  In one of my books, I suggest, To have a friend you must be a friend starting with yourself.  We care far more how people see us than how we see ourselves, believing we can fool ourselves if we get enough people to buy into our inauthentic self.

Kierkegaard was adamant in that a human being exists totally in choice, that is, that speculation cannot discern anything. 

It is a choice (his either/or proposition) that we choose what is good and beneficial to us or we speculate that we can possibly have it both ways, when he claimed the evidence suggest otherwise.  We cannot be a binge drinker on the weekends and be dry all week and expect to avoid the pain of choice.  In the end, a person’s relationship with self is an unmitigated ethical choice. 

I write about freedom, and how free it is to be engaged in life but at the same time to be a quintessential outsider.  Kierkegaard was an outsider who believed freedom means accepting one’s concreteness by transforming constricting necessity into voluminous reality.  This freedom means taking responsibility for all that only the individual knows is ethical, true and good.  Only then, he advises, can the entire ethical and aesthetic content of life be realized. 

I will end this brief essay (several on Kierkegaard may follow) by his sage reminder: However different the gifts and talents of different individuals may be, all are equal in their freedom to manage and develop their gifts.

*     *     *

PYRAMID CLIMBING PRESIDENT -- COMMENT -- FRAGMENT OF "A GREEN ISLAND IN A BLACK SEA"

 

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© May 2, 2012

    

(The comments are from a high tech corporate executive with whom I have had the privilege to work.  A short segment of "A Green Island in a Black Sea" follows.  These are placed in juxtaposition of each other, as the uncertainty of the times is not unlike the protagonist's world of Seamus "Dirk" Devlin in South Africa in 1968, or forty-four years earlier.  The more things change they, indeed, stubbornly remain the same.)

A READER WRITES WITH REFERENCE TO PRESIDENT OBAMA AS A PYRAMID CLIMBER:

Hi Jim,

I always tried to be a productive worker, but now that I approach the end, I question that choice.  It reflects the blue-collar values of my upbringing, but it seems the rewards go more to the climbers. Since I now realize that morality is subjective, I really wonder about my choices.

On the current POTUS, my take:

1.      He’s the first black President.  I think that means more to him than anything else.

2.      He’s a Chicago pol, with everything that entails.  That’s where he learned the game, that’s what got him where he is today, without judging it good or bad, it would be silly I think to expect different.

3.      He’s a self-defined anti-hero with the same polarity.  That is very, very common in our society.  For Obama, that means he tends to embrace socialism.  Were we a socialist society, he’d be embracing capitalism.  From what I can see, the only difference between the two is the path to the top.  Under capitalism, it’s through financial prowess.  Under socialism, it’s through political prowess.  In both cases, the people are left to fend for themselves, often without success.

I’m glad you’re still writing.

Later bro,

e

DR. FISHER RESPONDS WITH YET ANOTHER SEGMENT FROM HIS NOVEL:

e,

It is so good to hear from you and to enjoy your acerbic wit.  I don't differ one iota from what you have said here.  My novel, which I have been working on for more than forty years, is reaching the uncertainty of some kind of fruition.  You always make me smile with your grasp of this concept with your refreshing candor.      

Be always well,

Jim

THE PHYSICS OF UNCERTAINTY (From "A Green Island in a Black Sea" © 2012)

The Devlins had reached the point of irreconcilable differences in their marriage.  Little energy was left for explanation or protest.  When Sarah and Rickie left with Marsha Williams and her daughters for the American hamburger joint on Downers Road, she knew she wouldn’t see her husband again until the sun rose on another day.  Both were disinclined to say anything as surprise had worn out its welcome. 

There was a time when Sarah resented Devlin’s routine of retiring into the sanctuary of his study after dinner to read, listen to classical music, ponder some mystery thriller on the BBC radio, or simply stare into the fireplace, watching the timbers smolder, drinking coffee until falling asleep with a book in his lap.  He insisted on having a fire in the fireplace no matter how warm the weather as he claimed a kinship with its disintegrating timbers.

*     *     *

Devlin arrived home early on Tuesday after returning to work from his short sabbatical.  Sarah hid her surprise, then registered hurt when he said, “I’m going out.”

“When will you be home?” she asked evenly.

“Later,” he replied.

“Then later it is,” she said as if in surrender.  “We won’t wait dinner for you.”  Her unconscious letting go would prove a brilliant stroke of control of their conjugal chaos in the end. 

It was amazing how civil people can be when the antipathy is so thick between them that you could cut it with a knife.  Ultimately, when all passion is spent, even hate takes a holiday as world-weariness takes residence.

*     *     *

As Devlin drove to Nina’s just past five o’clock, he thought of Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.  The theory states the more precisely the position of a particle is determined, the less precisely the other can be known in the instant, and visa versa. 

In the dicey mathematics of quantum mechanics, the act of measuring one magnitude of a particle, be it its mass, its velocity, or its position, causes the other magnitudes to blur.  The uncertainty relation describes the “blur” between measurable quantities of a particle in mathematical terms.  The blur is not due to imprecise measurements.  The blurring of these magnitudes is a fundamental property of nature.

Heisenberg promoted the notion that the observer is part of the system observed with the observer no longer external and neutral.  Through the act of measurement, the observer becomes part of the observed reality.  This marked the end of the neutrality of the experimenter. 

Devlin saw his life and work as part of his laboratory, a subjective world, to be sure, but a world with an objective reality not unlike that of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.  Objective truth can be viewed from different perspectives as was the case with Erwin Shchorodinger’s wave mechanics, that Heisenberg saw as “crap,” only to find his matrix mechanics and Shchrodinger’s wave mechanics proved the same theory. 

In Devlin’s laboratory there was the duplicitous position of apartheid, the ambivalent momentum of the church, the duplicitous energy of his corporate universe, and implausible time line of the merger. What could be more uncertain?

The church blackmailed him with the threat of deportation.  His Bantu gardener was murdered and his death deemed trivial.  Police blocked his inquiry meant to ease his mind.  What could he do?  Absurdly, nothing! 

Clearly, Asabi had affection for Josiah.  She spoke his language, and Devlin was sure he was the kind of man she dreamed of marrying one day.  She didn’t understand he valued freedom more than physical pleasure.

Devlin and Josiah had a warm relationship that he chose to call friendship.  They were in quantum mechanic terms canonically conjugated variables with the momentum of one with the energy and time of the other.  Murder most certain eclipsed the variables in space and time. 

Surely, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle applied equally to life, perhaps even to the idea of free will.

Could the blur between Nina and him be intelligible in terms of lust and love, or was it simply a manifestation of nature, which simply, is?  That was his uncertainty, which was far more complex than the laboratory of his work as observer and the observed when it came to apartheid, the church and his company.  Neither people nor particles can be punished with arbitrary authority to behave as desired.  Nature has its own agenda and it has no moral equivalencies.  . 

Could the uncertainty principle be merely pointing out the obvious?  That he had been dropped into this universe with no choice at all.

Josiah was caught in this web, and now he was in Devlin’s dreams.  Does that mean that even death is uncertain, that the ultimate momentum to justice will one day be precise when everything balances out quantum mechanically?  If order and chaos are relative, why was he so obsessed with control?

In the uncertainty of his nightmares, where he was often lost, thoughts ricocheted off his unconscious between being deported and murdered by his wife.  He had become a pervasive irritant to everyone including Nina.  Collectively, they had little appetite for his uncertainty. 

Sarah was exceedingly unhappy.  Was he responsible?  The church, his company and the government were obsessed with him.  Had he created this?  Was he a toxic variable in a world that denied inescapable uncertainty?  It was only a matter of time before that toxicity infected his work and Nina, if it hadn’t already.  What was he to do?

Heisenberg was on to something.  Luckily, he fell short with his atomic bomb, or Germany might have won the Second World War with the uncertain but projected possibility that there would be no Seamus Devlin in South Africa today.  Chance ruled. 

As he stumbled forward, thinking of Heisenberg and the horrific possibility of Germany launching an atomic holocaust, he marveled at how uncertainty had fueled his tasks in South Africa. Could God be the ultimate uncertainty principle?

*     *     *

IS PRESIDENT BARAK OBAMA A PYRAMID CLIMBER?

IS PRESIDENT BARAK OBAMA A PYRAMID CLIMBER?

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© April 20, 2012

On Charlie Rose (PBS television) yesterday, Speaker of the House John Boehner was interviewed.  The full interview is to appear on CBS television “60 Minutes” Sunday (April 22, 2012).  The most astounding comment of the interview was Speaker Boehner’s offhanded comment that the president has been in campaign mode for reelection for the past six months, and has had little time much less inclination to govern, in other words, to lead the nation. 

We are a technocratic society and the president is the quintessential technocrat. 

I have written about technocrats in a number of books, even worked for a few as director of human resources planning and development for Honeywell Europe, Ltd. 

My fascination with the type has now descended into a character in my novel John Cavendish, managing director of BAF, the British affiliate that is to be part of the merger with an American and South African subsidiary into a new company. 

Devlin, the main protagonist of the story, is the young American executive charged with facilitating this merger in A GREEN ISLAND IN A BLACK SEA.  The title of the book comes from the idea that South Africa is a paradise or green island in a sea of beautiful Bantu (black) peoples subjugated to apartheid by their technocratic masters.  The book takes place in 1968.

What follows is a conversation in the book between Devlin, the young American executive of Polychem International, Ltd. with Martin Matthews the managing director of Polychem’s subsidiary, ADM in South Africa.

“Come in,” said Martin, tipping his cigarette against a gold plated ashtray, the air redolent with the aroma of tobacco, “want your opinion on some folks, one in particular that you’ll be working with. 

“You met him, tall chap, not as tall as you with his black hair slicked straight back from his forehead without a part.  He has a beard going to gray, ridiculous smile, the dashing and debonair type, trim, good dresser like you, though a little older.  Women probably see him as handsome, charmer all the way, has penetrating eyes, come to think of it like yours, seems to see through you, remember meeting him?”

Devlin shrugged noncommittally.

“Well, he’s the managing director of BAF.” He paused when he didn’t answer.  “You went to lunch with him.”

“Along with about forty other people if you will recall.  It was our initial get together.”

“True, but I saw you talking to him.  Didn’t he introduce himself to you?”

“I’m sure he did.”

“Well, first impressions, old son, is he one of us or not?  Name’s John Cavendish.”

Of course, he remembered Cavendish, how could he not?  He kept running into people talking about him.  The man made him uncomfortable.  Was he jealous?  He didn’t think so.  Incongruities set off alarm bells.  The man claimed to be diabetic while downing one martini after another. What did that mean?  For openers, he was a risk taker.  Yes, he remembered his penetrating eyes, eyes that seemed to weigh and react to his every word.  The man lusted for power but that was par for the course, no surprise there.  The man was intense and distant trying to give off the opposite impression. 

Cavendish does his homework, asked about Sarah and the kids, how they were settling in, all on automatic pilot.  It’s part of the pyramid climber’s mantra. 

He asked what his role would be in the new company as if anyone had a clue; wanted to know Devlin’s impression of ADM’s managing director, which again set off alarm bells.  Devlin pissed him off with his silence.  Obviously, he’s on the make, wants the managing director’s job in the new company. 

He asked Devlin if he minded him smoking, when the cocktail lounge was cloying with smoke.  Give the man credit.  He has perfected insincerity. 

Devlin sensed the man was conflicting to the extreme, at worse, a potential enemy, at best a calculating colleague.  He reeked of stealth masquerading as charisma, gave Devlin the impression of danger, but to whom?  Step lightly, big fellow, he told himself, he is far cleverer than you are. 

“Pardon?  I hated it when you drift off like that.”

Huge smile, “Admit it, Martin, you’re no clothes horse, and you think I am.  It’s my armor.  It may be his as well.”  Devlin looked to see how this was playing.  Martin looked at him suspiciously through a smoky haze.  “Come on now, Martin, you hate wearing a suit much less a shirt and tie.  You’d rather be in safari garb tending to your solarium.”

“Well, there is some truth to that, but that doesn’t help.  The man, what do you think of the man?”

Devlin was cautious.  “You’ve known him in business for what, a year or more, or since this thing has been in the works.  Give me a sense of your impression.  I’ll feed off of that.  I take it you don’t like him.”

“Liking him or not has nothing to do with it.  I don’t trust him.  Now, are you going to give me your impression or play psychoanalyst?  Your jacket reads like you have some kind of power to read people.  Is that true or not?”

Devlin ignored the question.  “I would say he’s determined to make a good impression.  It surprises me that he was not subtle with you.  I’m sure he thought he was.  It speaks to your powers of observation or perhaps paranoia.”

“Paranoia?  You see me as paranoid?”

“Of course not,” Devlin lied, “So it must reflect your powers of observation.”

“I like you Devlin,” he said cheerfully, “Do you know why?”

Silence.

“You’re an honest broker.  You’re not older than I am but somehow you seem ancient.  Does that make sense?”

Silence.

“Bloody hell, are you going to say something?  I hate those pauses.”

“First, Martin, you are in charge.  This is your show and his job is to help you make that show work.  He knows that.  His future is tied to the success of this operation.  Is he ambitious?  I would hope so.  Can he be trusted?  The jury is out on that as it should be.”  Devlin was hoping Martin would make the connection with Cavendish going through his papers.  “Meanwhile, it is in your best interest to give him the benefit of the doubt.  In any case, your description of him fits the corporate America boilerplate for the executive who is always on the make, except for the beard, of course.”

“Boilerplate?”

“Yes, the Cavendish type is the factory product of MBA programs in our American universities.  Boilerplate is an expression for the corporate technocrat, the ideal type of marching soldier.  It is no accident that American business now rules the world.  We put a pinch of ambition leavened with a promise of riches in a cauldron of company loyalty and display an empty suit with physical charm, striking appearance, usually tall with a true believer mindset to produce the corporate line without deviation.”

“You think this describes our Mr. Cavendish?”  The managing director knew this described him to a tee, but wondered why it brought out Devlin’s anger.  Could it be because it described him as well?

“It appears to be so, but we will have to find out for ourselves.”

“Meaning you must.”

“If you like.”

“It doesn’t describe you.”  Martin said disingenuously.

“You know it does.  Unfortunately, I haven’t convinced my superiors of the fact.”  If he only knew how hard he resisted and yet failed to unshackle corporate influence.

“Cavendish is a seducer, pure and simple,” Martin insisted.

“Which is consistent with boilerplate.”

“What are you going to do about it for me?”

“Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Who knows, he may be recruited to join Polychem in Chicago.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Corporate America is in love with type.  The proliferation of type means they have succeeded, and here on foreign soil, remarkable!  He is, if all my sources are correct, the embodiment of the ultimate technocrat, the pyramid climber.”

“Pyramid climber?  You have all these puzzling expressions.  They’re a bit overwhelming.”

“Pyramid climbers are technocrats who are always campaigning for the next job, never finding time to do the job they are paid to do.  They fill the right boxes, go to the right universities, hang out with the right people, live in the right neighborhoods, join the right clubs, go to the right churches, choose the right mentors, all of which improves their chances mightily in the climb. 

“They use flattery, subterfuge, innuendo and rumor, anything that gives them a leg up on everyone else.  Pyramid climbers create fail-safe positions along the way so that if their function folds, the influence of their sponsors decline, or the company goes off the rails, they have a backup plan to move on before the house of cards collapses.  It may be new in South Africa, but Americans have made it an art form.”

“It sounds quite cynical.  Are you cynical, Devlin?”

“Is the pope Catholic?  Of course I am.  I graduated from the college of paranoid cynicism.”

“I don’t follow.  You’re trying to confuse me now.”

“No I’m not.  When I see someone who appears very much engaged in the job, but disinclined to produce any meaningful work, while producing numbers that indicate otherwise, I see a pyramid climber, not a productive worker.  Pyramid climbing is a full time job.  My job is to uncover and neutralize the type if I can.”

Somewhat placated, the managing director smiled.  “Devlin, you’ve described Mr. Cavendish. He’s charming to everyone here with a reassuring line.  When he listens to you, you think he’s taking in your every word.” Then Martin added, “You think he suspects we have our eye on him?”

“A pyramid climber suspects everyone and everything.  He is subtle, but pragmatic.  Whether he suspects something or not, isn’t important.  What is important for the pyramid climber is not to make a false step.”  Devlin stroked his chin feeling the stubble, thinking Cavendish must suspect something.  Yes, he was dangerous.  But to the director he said, “I wouldn’t be alarmed.  He’s feeling his way.  He’s ambitious but not an empty suit.”  No, not at all.

*     *     *

It occurred to me, one who is neither a doctrinaire Democrat or a Republican, nor especially conservative or liberal, but who is concerned about the economy and the national debt both of which the president, as the quintessential technocrat, and who operates very much like the pyramid climber motivated by the mantra, “four more years,” has avoided talking about the economy or the national debt, but instead, again like the pyramid climbers, uses misdirection and guile to promote his ambition.

*     *     *

PERSPECTIVE ON THINGS AS THEY ARE THAT SEEM FOREIGN TO US

 PERSPECTIVE ON THINGS AS THEY ARE THAT SEEM FOREIGN TO US

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© April 15, 2012

My novel A GREEN ISLAND IN A BLACK SEA takes place in South Africa in 1968, what I considered the end of the American Century.

Seamus “Dirk” Devlin, the protagonist of the story, grew up in the Midwest in a small industrial town on the Mississippi River called Crescent City.  He is a man nearly thirty who comes from a working class family, but has had a meteoric rise in industry.

We find him in South Africa's apartheid culture where his incredible rise but inability to assimilate this cultural malaise throws him off stride, and leads to the incongruity of being intellectually on top of things while emotionally falling apart 

Since I am a message writer, it is hoped the reader will contrast the story in the light of today.  To see the story only in the context of 1968 would, from this writer's perspective, be a failure on his part. 

 *     *     *

For the past several months I have read and, yes, watched the histrionics regarding the insane Republican Presidential Campaign, and the even greater insanity of the media to cover this cultural breakdown.  People are going crazy about $4.00 and possibly $5.00 per gallon gasoline.

Someone reading my manuscript notes that Devlin makes $62,000 in 1968, seeing that as not such a significant income given the dramatic nature of the novel.  Incidentally, this income was earned abroad, and therefore there were no United States Federal Income Tax.  That said numbers must always be interpreted in the light of the times, or they are meaningless.

So, I googled and typed in “the dollar value over time.  What came up was a selection including INFLATION CALCULATION – FIND THE DOLLAR VALUE.

For the reader’s information that $62,000 in 1968 was the equivalent in 2012 dollars of $408,686 with an annual rate of inflation of the exchange of 559.2 percent.

*     *     *

Recently, President Barak Obama stated, and the “truth meter” of the Pew Institute confirmed that 98 percent of Americans in 2012 make less than $250,000.

What was the equivalent value of $250,000 in 1968? 

It was $37,926.34. Or –84.8% in the rate of exchange. . 

In other words, for all intent and purposes, if we can compare apples to apples, most Americans made less than $40,000 a year in 1968, or stated otherwise, only 2 percent of American made over $40,000.  Actually, the median family income in 1968 was $10,000.

Now, we come to all the histrionics over $4.00 - $5.00 per gallon of gasoline and how the President will lose the reelection if that cannot be resolved.  I don’t think so. 

What is the equivalent price of gasoline at $4.00 per gallon for 1968?  It is 61 cents per gallon, and 76 cents for $5.00 per gallon, again at the –84.8% inflation rate.

BB tells me I make too much about Devlin’s income in my novel when it is the crux of the problem.  Devlin has never bought into the idea that he has left the working class although he left it once he became a college student and excelled there. 

The scars of early childhood are deep, and Devlin runs on insecurity and fear and outdistances most of his competitors except in his psyche.  He couldn’t have been put into a worse situation than to find himself in colonial splendor with a household of servants while 80 percent of that population was in servitude and had no power because they were black or Bantu. 

Early in the novel, Sarah his wife, spends 100 Rand ($140) for outfits for the children and herself to impress an American couple for dinner that they had met the previous day. 

*     *     *

No one likes to put on the dog more than Sarah, so he was not surprised when she said, “I had the concierge (of the hotel) suggest a fine dress shop nearby.  The children and I picked out new outfits.  We won’t let you see us until we’re ready for dinner, will we children?”

Ruthie and Rosie looked up from their coloring books, and said nothing.  Rickie cuddled his teddy bear, while Robbie said, “Yes, mother,” returning to his comic book.

“How much?”

“See children! The first thing out of your father’s mouth is to rain on our parade.”

“How much, Sarah?”

“Not that much.”

“Sarah?”

“Only 50 Rand.”

“For everything?”

“Well, 100 Rand for all including four outfits for the children.  We got everything on sale, didn’t we children?”  Devlin was used to the drill, the children said nothing.

“Do you know how much that is in dollars?”

“What, I suspect less, $35?”

“Sarah, what did I tell you about the rate of exchange?”

“God, Devlin, you make everything so complicated.  We wanted to please you, to feel good about ourselves.  Being here has been hard on us all.  I bought a dress, all right, and outfits for the children.  So, I spent a couple of dollars or Rand, or whatever.  It isn’t going to break us.  I can’t help it if you so tight.”

“You spent $140. That’s more than the average American makes in a week, as much as these people running around serving us, smiling until their faces hurt in four months.”

She started to cry.  “Do you see children what your mother has to put up with?  Do you understand what it is like to be constantly criticized when you’re only trying to do your best?  I hate it here.  So there, I said it.  I didn’t want to come.  I don’t like being around all these foreigners, all these black people.  They scare me.  I’m an American, and proud of it.  I get a chance to meet one American family, and you have to make me feel guilty.  Shame on you, Dirk, and in front of the children.  I’d take the dress and the children’s things back this very minute but the shop is closed.

The girls erupted into tears.  Sarah wrapped her arms around them.  The boys distanced themselves from the whole affair having seen it too many times.  Even three-year-old Rickie cowered in the corner with his teddy bear away from the shouting.

Devlin took a book out of his attaché case, and went into the sitting room, defeated.  Five against one, once again it was not a fair fight

*     *     *

Was Devlin unreasonable?  Readers might think so not appreciating his mindset or the fact that $140 American dollars in 1968 is the equivalent of $922.84 today at the annual rate of inflation again of 559.2 percent in 2012 dollars.  In the final analysis, everything is relative.

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ANOTHER SAMPLE from "A Green Island in a Black Sea"

 

ANOTHER SAMPLE from "A Green Island in a Black Sea"

 

CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR

 

THE DEVLIN CHILDREN

While commotion grew in the Devlin household with the tension between their parents breaking into periodic outbursts, then the murder of the gardener, then the ambulance coming to pick up their mother, Robbie, Ruthie and Rosie remained in the midst of the school year confounded by each episode but clueless as to what was going on.

They were doing an extra school term with their American spring leading to South Africa’s fall and winter, which didn’t increase their happiness.  Rickie, being too young for school, enjoyed listening to his siblings complain about school.

Ruthie and Rosie were enrolled in St. Theresa’s Catholic Convent and Academy.  They wore uniforms of heavy coarse material with vertical black and gray striped jackets with the school’s crest over the left jacket pocket, along with a white shirt and black tie, black sweater, and skirt that touched the knees, and calf length black socks and black patent leather shoes. 

St. Theresa’s was a series of tall gray somber buildings in the style of European gothic architecture, with the church and convent of the same baroque style.  Missionary Dominican nuns from Ireland were the girls’ teachers.

Robbie was enrolled at the King Edward VII School in Houghton, which was a community just outside Rosebank.  Robbie wore a similar uniform to his sisters only with shorts to his middle thighs.  The public school in the British tradition was known for its academics and athletics.  Several South African Springbok rugby players had graduated from King Edward’s.

Ruthie, who was tall for her age, was promoted to the next grade, as she represented an embarrassment to children her own age.  Only seven, she was nearly as tall as the nuns.  It was clear school officials didn’t think her passport accurate until they met her tall parents.  Ruthie displayed the Nordic chiseled features of her father with a precocious independent streak that seem to mimic his manner.  She was chosen for the gypsy chorus in the Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale of “The Wild Swans,” although she despised the play's director, Sister Mary Teresita, for reason.

Robbie was nine, but small for his age.  He was given the lead in the American play,  “Oklahoma.”  Devlin never saw the play because he was on the road.  In fact, he never attended any school functions after the initial orientation, as his work took him across the country or to meetings during scheduled school affairs. 

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Rosie, in particular, could not get used to dressing and sitting down to a formal dinner cooked by Gabriel, and served by him and Asabi with white-gloved hands.  Nor did she like the fact that mommy sat at the far end of the long dining table with her father at the other end with her and her sister on one side and her little and big brother on the other, making everyone seem worlds apart.  But that was not her major complaint.

“Why does Gabriel serve us those little potatoes every meal?” she asked her mother.

“Because they’re good for you.”

“Is that why he has to put them in our lunch, too?”

“In your lunch?” her mother looked at her husband.  “Do you know anything about this?”

Devlin shrugged his shoulders.  “Honey, what is wrong with the potatoes?”

“Daddy, he makes them into chips, but when it comes time to eat them at school they’re soggy.”

“I like them,” said Ruthie, “I’m too hungry at lunchtime to worry about them being soggy.”

“But is Rosie right?  Are they soggy?”

Ruthie touched her little sister’s arm.  “Yes, they are soggy and Rosie ends up giving them to me.”

“Sarah, I think you should have a word with Gabriel about that,” Devlin said, “or better yet, show him how to make shoestring potatoes.”

Not happy, she replied, “Yes sire.  Leave it to mother to solve the problem, sire.”

Devlin waited for a smile, but none creased her face.

The children weren’t very nice to Josiah.  It was mainly because they didn’t know him, and weren’t used to being around dark colored people.  They called him “Shadrack,” and often made fun of him as he worked in the garden.  It was unfortunate because Josiah could see they loved his garden, especially the roses, and would have shown them what he did to make them grow if they had been of a mind to learn. 

Devlin mentioned this to Sarah but she cringed at the suggestion.  “I don’t want my children to get too familiar with black people.  Why would I want them to fraternize with a Negro?”

The children heard rumors from classmates that Bantu were aborigines.  They didn’t know what that meant but thought it must be bad.  They were also told that Bantu ate food with their hands.  Ruthie didn’t see where this was bad.  “We eat hamburgers with our hands, slide food under our forks, and we see other white people in restaurants eating fish and chips with their hands.  Are we all aborigines, too?”  Ruthie never took anything at face value because someone said it was so.

The children would wander beyond the gate of the estate to watch Bantu women passing by carrying laundry on their heads.  Even little Rickie found this fascinating.  “Look, mommy, look at the ladies!”

When Devlin came back from one trip to Cape Town, Rosie tried to demonstrate to her father how women carried laundry on their heads, and forgot there was glass in the basket she tried to balance with shards of glass splintering across the floor as it toppled off her head.  Fortunately, she wasn’t cut.

Asabi was a favorite of both girls.  They thought she was terribly pretty, and loved her for reading Dr. Seuss books to them.

One day Ruthie came home with her face so red that Robbie asked her what had happened.  “Kids at school bully Rosie because she is pudgy and wears glasses.  She was playing marbles with other girls and won.  Then this red headed fat girl stole Rosie’s marbles, pulled her by her braids against the soda machine.  She also stole Rosie’s lunch money.  When Rosie told me this, I went looking for this girl, found her and beat the crap out of her.  I told her if she ever touched my sister again I’d sit on her head until she puked.

“The red head went to Sister Superior and told her what I had done, not what she had done. That was the first time I got my hands slapped with a ruler in front of my class.  After that Rosie and I walked together holding hands to let everyone know we were sisters.”

Ruthie was not only tall for her age, but reflected maturity far beyond her years.  Every Friday all the girls in each class went to confession in the church.  For two weeks, Ruthie hid between buildings while everyone went to confession, and then broke into the line when they were returning to class. 

She didn’t like entering a little box called a confessional, and looking at a man with bad breath through a web-like window, where he proceeded to talk in some gibberish that she was told was Latin, and wait for her to confess her sins. 

The priest would probe her with embarrassing questions, questions no one else had ever asked her, such as did she touch herself, did she touch others in their private parts, did she lie, cheat, steal or swear.  She would say, no, and the priest would say, “no Father,” and so she said “no Father” to every one of his questions, only to have the priest ask her if she thought she was a saint. 

She had no idea what he meant, but decided to say “no Father” to that as well, which got her off the hook with three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys for her penance.  But after that, she avoided the whole ordeal, that is, until a nun from another class saw her come out from between the two buildings.  She was punished with the ruler for that as well.

Ruthie told Rosie about what she had done and about being discovered, but no one else.  Whatever Ruthie told Rosie was safe because she adored her older sister.  Bad as these acts were, Ruthie thought it would get to her parents when she cheated on a health test. 

She didn’t know the answers, and girls were circulating a cheat sheet in the girls’ bathroom.  The girls put answers under their felt hats.  Ruthie’s hat fell off when she bent down to pull up her stockings with the answers falling right at the feet of her teacher, Sister Mary Teresita. 

Her knuckles were beaten blue with a ruler for that.  It stung so much that Ruthie peed her pants right in front of the entire class, while she held back her tears.  Nothing had ever happened to her before that was more humiliating than to feel pee running down her legs with snickering across the classroom like braying springbok. 

If that was not enough, she was the only left-handed person in the class with all the inkwells of each desk on the left side of the desk for right-handed students.  How did the nuns handle the problem?  They attempted to force Ruthie to become right-handed.  When she would try to sneak writing left handed, Sister Mary Teresita would slap her left hand with a ruler. 

One day Ruthie took the ruler from the nun and hit the nun across the back of the nun’s knuckles in front of the whole class.  The nun took the ruler from her and slapped her in the face, neck and shoulders with it.

Such actions were kept from her parents, as no disciplinary procedures were directed against children of high-ranking foreign executives.  International corporations carried the mother lode of expenses of parochial schools. 

Sarah and Dirk Devlin had no knowledge of this brutal treatment, not even from their own children.

Robbie’s school was in the tradition of Great Britain’s private schools.  He had a tough time being accepted because he was small but aggressive, egging on bigger boys, which made trouble for him.  He received similar treatment to that of Rosie without a big brother to defend him.  Again, this never reached beyond the siblings themselves. 

With their mother in a melancholy state a good bit of the time, and their father practically never home, the three siblings gravitated to a form of deviancy bordering on juvenile delinquency.

They set Josiah’s tool shed on fire, and then laughed from the sanctuary of the house as they watch the gardener frantically attempt to put out the fire and save his tools, plants, chemicals and fertilizers, not realizing that the tool shed could have exploded into a massive fire bomb, possibly killing the gardener and spreading the explosion to the main buildings on the estate.

When they were bored with nothing to do, they would make mud balls, and launch them over the seven-foot wall of the estate.  Rosie would act as look out for when the natives were coming down the walk outside the wall. 

Robbie and a friend from school climbed up on a ladder and put firecrackers down the chimney when construction workers were working inside Josiah’s house.  Fortunately, they failed to go off. 

Delinquency wasn’t natural to Robbie.  He got good grades in school and followed the rules.  Although physically small, he had a sense that he was the eldest sibling and took care of his brother and sisters, listening to them, keeping their secrets, and suggesting what they should and shouldn’t do, including not telling mom and dad. 

One day little Rickie saw Josiah put on a plastic suit and a net over his head with a canister over his shoulder and walk to a tree and spray something into the tree.  Later Rickie walked over and saw hundreds of dead bees on the ground.  He scooped them up and put them in a bucket and set the bucket on fire, believing he was making honey until his mother caught him and spanked his bottom for playing with matches.

Being in a strange society with no real friends, they bonded as siblings and learned to watch each other’s back. 

Only nine, Robbie was already a gifted athlete even though frail and small.  There was music in his body, which is typical of athletes who hone their instincts to do what others cannot imagine doing. 

Devlin would come home and take Robbie to a tennis club nearby and volley with him for an hour or so.  Robbie wasn’t but four-five but he could handle a tennis racquet with skill and had already learned to use the power of his opponent’s speed against him.  Others in the tennis complex would stop what they were doing to watch this father and son play tennis with clear evidence that the son had superior skills to that of the father. 

The children had no experience with death.  When Josiah was murdered, they weren’t informed but saw Asabi crying, and Gabriel whispering to their mother.  What was most confusing was how broken their father seemed to be with the death.  They had never seen him with such a long face.  He was no longer interested in playing tennis with Robbie.  It seemed when he was home he wasn’t there, and when he was gone he no longer called to see how they were doing. 

This prompted Ruthie to ask, “Why are you so sad about Shadrack?  He was only our gardener.”  Devlin put her on his lap, looked into her beautiful blue eyes, and asked Rosie to crawl up on his lap, too.  Rosie brightened then leaped on top of Ruthie.  Once the two girls were settled, he asked Robbie and Rickie to come over.  They did. 

“I’m going to tell you a little story about life.  Let us call life the fulfillment of our greatest wish, a wish that only we know about, a secret we have never shared with anyone.  We carry this life, which is our greatest wish, wherever we go, and know that it is there although no one sees it.”

“Is this a true story?” asked Rosie.

“I’ll let you decide,” Devlin said.  “You could call it a ‘made up’ story, but made up stories can be true if we think they are true.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, daddy,” said Ruthie.  “How can something made up be true when it is made up like stories we read in school?”

“Okay, can we agree we can learn something from a made up story?”

Robbie said, “Yes, like Oklahoma is a made up musical but I think it is true about the people it describes, is that what you mean?”

“Yes, Robbie, that is what I mean.”  He looked at his children.  “Are we in agreement on this?”  They nodded.

“Now, let us say the fulfillment of a wish is to have a garden, and to have the freedom to attend that garden as you like without interference.”

“Like Shadrack’s garden, is that what you mean, daddy?” asked Ruthie.

“Yes, like Josiah’s garden.  I think we can say the garden was his life.”

“And when he died, daddy, that was taken away from him,” said Ruthie.

“Yes, life, the fulfillment of his greatest wish, was taken from him.”

Ruthie could see in her father’s eyes something was taken from him, too, but wasn’t certain what it was.  She was disappointed with the story, but was sure she wouldn’t forget it.

*     *     *

MURRAY STATE vs. MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY -- AWESOME!

 MURRAY STATE vs. MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT – AWESOME!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© March 18, 2012


I had the privilege of moving up to the varsity in basketball as a freshman at Clinton High School, Clinton, Iowa, and playing four years at that level.  CHS was a good high school basketball team and tradition. 

We had a great coach in Ed Rashke and wonderful teammates.  Not only that, at St. Patrick's elementary, I had the opportunity to be coached by Dean Burridge.  He was one of Clinton High’s all-time greats.  Bobby Witt and I played on the eighth grade first team at St. Pat’s from sixth graded, on. 

Like Dean Burridge before him, Bobby was a starter at Clinton High from his sophomore year on, and made first-team all –state his senior years, while being the leading scorer in the Mississippi Valley Conference his senior year.

Bobby and I loved basketball.  He would come over to my house three doors down from him IN THE SHADOW OF THE COURTHOUSE (2003), and we would play basketball with a tennis ball and a nailed to the wall two-pound coffee can.  We would clean the St. Patrick’s gym on Sunday after MASS, the church having had bingo there on the night before, and play sometimes when the gym was little above freezing temperatures with no heat. 

Years later, coach Ed Rashke, after we returned from South Africa in 1969, and I had retired the first time, would watch the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament with me in my home.  His wife's sister and brother-in-law, a retired dentist, were neighbors.  The Rashke's made annual visits to them during "March Madness,” which gave him an excuse to visit me and watch the games on television.

This is in way of introduction to the place basketball has had in my psyche. 

Yesterday, I watched Murray State and Marquette University play in a stunning basketball game, basketball as I envisioned it was meant to be played: full-court presses, fast breaks, good ball handling with every player on the floor a good shooter, rebounder, defensive player and scorer from any place on the floor. 

I've never seen ten players at one time on a high school or college basketball court who were so incredibly gifted as athletes.  Nor have I seen better teamwork on both sides of the basketball and better sportsmanship – a player knocked an opposing player off the court, and without rancor on either side, helped each other up, and resumed play as if nothing had happened.

I told BB that were I a boy today, given what African Americans have made of the game of basketball, as all the players were of that race, I couldn't have made even the third or fourth team, and I loved basketball.  I just never had such athleticism.

Anyone who has ever played basketball knows that it takes incredible endurance to play the game, and that it takes an equally incredible athleticism to keep the body under control much less be able to dribble, shoot and defend against equally gifted athletes running at breakneck speed.

Never have I seen such quickness, such deft ball handling, such quick hands, such arm extension and vertical jumping ability, ever, of virtually every athlete on the floor.  There were players as short as six-one who could dunk the ball with ease, block shots and steal the ball and cover the court in a matter of three or four massive dribbles.
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If you like athletics, and you enjoy watching how a great spectator sport has evolved, I hope you see some reruns of this game.  Awesome! 

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