SUMMER 2012
Letter from DWJ
For twenty-five years, I ran a marine terminal on Lake Erie, working for the Norfolk Southern railroad. After I took an early retirement in 2003, I taught freshmen English for two years, first at Kent State, then American History at Bowling Green's regional campus at Huron. I thought I'd be doing this happily for the rest of my years, right up until the moment I dropped dead at the lectern doing what I’d always imagined I loved best, playing the role of the esteemed professor.
As much as I love literature and history, I found teaching excruciating. As we all know, and as I should have remembered, everybody hates college-level required courses. So, my life’s timeline reads like this: work my real job until age 56; start my new career; realize that the business of teaching hormonal freshmen American History is a waste of time; bail out; move back to my birthplace, Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy; and devote the rest of my life to reading, cooking, watching birds, baking bread, fly fishing, playing a little blues guitar; and maybe, from time to time, putting the handcuffs on the wife in an attempt to reenact our wild honeymoon.
[After four decades, via email I had just reestablished contact with Dave and, after a long-winded detailed exchange of our work and relationship histories, knowing that Dave had campaigned for anti-war presidential candidate George McGovern in 1972, I tossed him one of my political rants…]
“Republicans are anguished and angry when they shout, “Take back America!” In the 2010 midterm elections, the Republicans and the Tea Party took over the House of Representatives. The coming presidential election in November of 2012 is absolutely not about jobs. It is about race…”
Dave responded…
As a man who is good in the kitchen, usually I like to allow the deep flavors of political issues to simmer for a while, but for now I will offer this.
As a son of the South, I comprehend the aggravating reality of racism in our culture and in our politics.
The Republican Party is seriously compromised by the fringe loonies within, a political element that is metastasizing at an alarming rate.
Obama is a deeply flawed president.
It is his good fortune that he is running against an empty suit like Mitt Romney.
Our political system is troubled and an embarrassment, but I do not think that it is quite the ugly swamp that you describe.
At some point, I’d be interested in discussing politics with you.
I think you’ll find me less disenchanted and cynical than yourself.
I’d describe myself as circumspect and cautious.
Despite everything, I still think the United States is a miracle of a country.
Mostly, I hate ideologues, the impractical idealist and the blind partisan of whatever party, whatever persuasion.
Nowadays, the characters on the right are totally bonkers.
While I consider myself a just-left-of-center sort of chump, I find the spokespeople and the pundits who espouse the left-wing agenda to be insufferable snots.
I voted for Obama and, like you, I will do so again, but I do not think he has been a strong leader.
His funkiness is starting to feel mannered.
He’s getting on my nerves and under my skin.
It's a warm night in Richmond. I have to admit I love it here. My ancestors were famous Rebs in this city. The conflicting emotions about being a descendant of Confederate soldiers is an intense bubbling stew inside me. I can only hope that my Civil War-era kin were able to heal after the war. But I doubt it. My great great granddad George Davidge was riding around these parts with the 1st Maryland Infantry Regiment. After Appomattox, Davidge landed in Patrick County, Virginia, and that's where my grand pap was born. Davidge's bride was born in Cincinnati, went west to California, then she somehow made it back to Virginia to marry the old man. I wish I had a picture of that rascal.
Thursday, the wife and I are driving to northern Ohio to visit our youngest son, watch the warblers at Magee Marsh on Lake Erie, buy the Italian sweet pepper plants I’ve grown for years and stay for a few days with our friends in Norwalk. We will take the fishing gear and will return to Richmond in a wide sweep so that we might fish the Smith River in southwest Virginia. Life is all okay, but honestly, like the German poet Heinrich Heine, I often find life “agonizingly half-joyful.” Surprisingly, I don’t find that to be such a bad thing.
Safe travels.