James M. Redwine

Events

To The Members Of The First Line

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In a Cajun funeral one’s family and close friends form the First Line and send him/her off with a procession dancing to “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Homilies are recited, personal remembrances are told, and a sad time becomes a good time. Although neither Cajun nor Creole, I was honored with a rousing send off from my close friends and even closer family on Saturday, August 16, 2014. We had my funeral at JPeg Ranch and I immensely enjoyed it. It was also nice to hear what was said and sung.

One of my friends, Randy Pease who is a fine guitar player and song writer, wrote and performed “The Ballad of Jim Redwine”. Another friend, D. Neil Harris who is a judge in Mississippi and a professional trombone player, sent a video of himself playing a fine rendition of “Saints” while he whirled a Hula-Hoop.

The entire First Line of about 130 family and friends marched around our barn singing and swaying. Limericks, poems, testimonials and stories of past glories (or not) were shared as I, the Dearly Not Departed, listened carefully.

This greatly satisfying event came to mind yesterday as my sister, two sisters-in-law, two brothers and, of course, Peg, met with the Reverend Mr. Ken Woodham who wisely leads and carefully guides the combined congregations of the Pawhuska, Oklahoma First Presbyterian and Disciples of Christ churches.

Ken and the Church Board have the unenviable task of overseeing the inevitable “funeral” of the marvelous old and declining building that housed the First Christian (Disciples of Christ) congregation for almost 100 years. Countless important events such as weddings, funerals and baptisms took place in those hallowed halls. My own baptism occurred there September 9, 1951, and my siblings and I saw off our beloved parents there. Our lives and that building have progressed happily together.

Much as my own funeral, what Peg calls my Fun-er-al, was a celebration of many lives, the Church Board has wisely determined the “funeral” for the brick and mortar part of our church will be a celebration. All members, past and present, are invited to preserve mementos such as stained-glass windows, pews and tables. No charge will be made and no contributions are required. Of course, my memory of the fine people who have served this house of love and respect leads me to suspect voluntary offerings will be forthcoming. As to the real church, i.e., the people who have graced this structure that now deserves a respectful goodbye, they will live on in both memory and current service.

You might wonder about my physical well-being or perhaps my mental health. My self-diagnosis is both were good in 2014 and remain so. Of course, other opinions may live on. If you should think me and Peg just a little left of plumb for holding my life celebration a little early or if you question the Church Board’s send off of the old building with love instead of a garage sale, I respectfully suggest life’s best work and best times occur when we are just a little crazy.

The Coliseum Revisited

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Peg & Jim Redwine at the Coliseum

 

If CNN, MSNBC and FOX News were covering the entertainments in the Roman Coliseum in the First Century they would have been exhorting the lions. Of course, the reason for this is the ratings would suffer if they sided with the humans. The public demands spectacle, not fairness.

Or as Mark Twain opined: “One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives”. Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter VII.

In William Shakespeare’s Othello, Act 3, scene 3, Iago complains: “Who steals my purse steals trash …[But] who filches from me my good name robs me of that which (does not) enrich him [but] makes me poor indeed”.

Our current spectacle steals from both accused and accuser equally. When it comes time to clear the floor of the Congressional Coliseum no one will remain unscathed and we will all be poorer. Rome today is a decaying tourist amusement. The days of roads, aqueducts, legal systems and Pax Romana declined with the declining investment of the citizenry in self-government. Today we would have to include the national media in this equation.

It is not that we do not know how to reasonably go about choosing our leaders such as presidents, legislators and supreme court justices, it is that it is a lot more fun to watch others being ripped apart than to engage in rational debate. Bring on the lions, we are bored with this democracy thing!

It Sounds So Simple

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The Babylonians of Mesopotamia formed a written code of laws designed to resolve all human needs and control all human behavior. That was over 3,500 years ago. It did not guarantee Freedom of Speech.

Fear not, after the Babylonians the Hebrews took a shot at it and adopted, after first rejecting, the Ten Commandments that were supplanted by first Greek then Roman laws. None of these directly recognized the essential right to publicly disagree.

Then along came history’s greatest conquerors, the British, who promulgated a system of law that encompassed much of prior legal systems. What each Code contained was a written desire to account for all human behavior. But the right to peaceably assemble and tell the rulers they were either great or full of bug dust was not specifically included.

In 1787-89 a small group of white, Anglo-Saxon men made up largely of lawyers put forth the U.S. Constitution that was amended ten times before it was even adopted. The first of these amendments attempted to provide for free speech and assembly, an ideal that has helped preserve our democracy for over 200 years. Perhaps those prior legal systems should have included it.

I was musing about these attempts to avoid conflict by applying written words when I watched and read the accounts of President Trump’s campaign stop in Evansville, Indiana on August 30, 2018. And I was transported back to when I took our son out of school to see President Ford when he led a motorcade down Main Street in Evansville on Friday, April 23, 1976.

Jim and I were crushed by the crowd of about 20,000; however, we managed to not only see President Ford but to even get to shake his hand. I thought such an opportunity was of more educational value than one day of sixth grade class. The school disagreed and still marked his absence “unexcused”.

Regardless, while Peg and I did not take the opportunity to praise or protest President Trump, it was not due to politics or philosophy but simply an inability to be two places at once; we were previously committed and our absence from the conflicting event would most assuredly have been “unexcused”. Had President Clinton, Hillary that is, been the campaigner we would have wanted to see her too. In other words, that First Amendment was and still is quite a good idea.

I am appending my column on President Ford’s visit that was first published the week of January 8, 2007. I hope you find it worthwhile if you are seeing it for the first time and not excessively boring if this is a repeat for you. There were many Americans pro and con then too.

Pardon Me, President Ford

(Originally Published Week of January 8, 2007)

President Gerald Ford died December 26, 2006.  In a life filled with public service, he will always be best known for his pardon of President Nixon in 1974.

President Nixon personally chose Gerald Ford to replace the disgraced Vice-President Spiro Agnew who resigned in 1973 amid disclosures of bribery while Agnew was Governor of Maryland.

Vice-President Ford served under President Nixon until Nixon resigned in August of 1974.  One month after President Nixon resigned, President Ford issued him a full pardon for any crimes he may have committed while president.

At the time, I and most Americans were calling for a complete investigation of the Watergate debacle and especially Nixon’s involvement in it.  It was a time of a media feeding frenzy and blood in the water.

President Ford took the unprecedented step of going personally before Congress and flatly stating that President Nixon and then Vice-President Ford had no deal to pardon Nixon if he would resign.

I recall how dubious I was when President Ford stated that he issued the pardon only to help our country to start healing from the loss of confidence caused by Watergate.

Yet, after a few months I began to have second thoughts about my initial reaction to the pardon.  I began to see how much courage it took for President Ford to go straight into the anti-Nixon firestorm sweeping the United States.

As a country, we were almost paralyzed by the partisan fighting at home and the War in Vietnam.  We needed a new direction and a renewed spirit.

Surely President Ford with his twenty-two (22) years in Congress knew he was committing political suicide by not giving us our pound of flesh.  Still, he put his country first.  Of course, the country rewarded his sacrifice by booting him from office and electing President Jimmy Carter to replace him.

But during the campaign of 1976, when President Ford came to Evansville on April the 23rd, I took my son, Jim, out of school and we went to the Downtown Walkway to cheer the man who put country above self.

For while William Shakespeare may almost always get his character analysis right, when it came to President Ford, “The good he did lived after him.”   Julius Caesar, Act III, sc. ii.

Even President Carter, one of America’s most courageous and best former presidents said of President Ford:

“President Ford was one of the most admirable
public servants I have ever known.”

And when it came to the pardon of President Nixon, Senator Ted Kennedy, while admitting that he had severely criticized the pardon in 1974, said that he had come to realize that:

“The pardon was an extraordinary act of courage
that historians recognize was truly in the national
interest.”

So, President Ford, since even your political opponents came to appreciate your courage and goodness, I am confident that you have long ago “pardoned” all of us who doubted you back when we needed your leadership.

Ah, I Remember It Well

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August 25th. Ah, I now remember it well, thanks to Peg who sweetly asked me over our first cup of coffee, “Jim, isn’t this just a beautiful morning?” I looked up from the trial transcript I was proofreading and grunted, “Yeah”. Things went downhill from there.

As Peg had interrupted my work I assumed she would be pleased to get me some more coffee; so I held up my cup and said as politely as Oliver Twist, “More”.

Her response threw me off: “It’s in the coffee pot. Why don’t you see if you can pour your own while I concentrate on making the bed, emptying the dishwasher, feeding the cat, sweeping the floor and pulling the weeds in the garden? By the way, Happy Anniversary!”

I went into crisis-recovery mode. “Are you sure, I thought it was the 25th.”

“Today IS the 25th and you should already know that since I made a point of telling you yesterday on August 24th that I was planning your favorite dinner for today. Of course, you had your head stuck in that transcript then and merely mumbled something like ‘Okay’”.

Thinking at warp speed I said, “Oh what a grand wedding it was on such a gorgeous day.”

 “We got married in a thunderstorm! You kept telling me ‘It never rains on August 25th so we can have the wedding outside’. But our family and guests had to dodge lightning bolts and huge raindrops!”

 “Well, at least our D.J. stayed dry.”

  “Our D.J. was Rodney Fetcher and he had to set up in the tool shed so he wouldn’t get electrocuted!”

 “Yeah, he did a great job. Remember, we did our first dance to Here Comes the Sun by George Harrison.”

 “It wasToday by Randy Sparks of the New Christy Minstrels.”

 “Anyway, you looked great in that blue dress.”

“It was coral to match your tux. Which, by the way, you managed to spill our champagne toast on.”

I decided to take an old friend’s advice for situations such as this, “When in a hole the first thing is to stop digging.”

“Okay, what do you want to do to celebrate this happy occasion? Dinner at the Red Geranium? A quiet glass of wine out by the fire pit? Whatever sounds good to you will be fine with me.”

“I would have appreciated it if you had simply remembered that we did, in fact, get married.”

“I do remember and it was, I mean is, wonderful. It was just that it snuck up on me. Would a movie help?”

“No movie, no Red Geranium, no wine by the fire. How about just a card or at least some flowers?”

Oh, Gentle Reader, I don’t know about you but all I can hear going on in my head is the duet by Hermione Gingold and Maurice Chevalier from the musical Gigi. Perhaps Peg will allow me up from the canvas if I bring home a box of chocolates with the Lerner and Loewe lyrics taped to them:

“The dazzling moon,
There was none that night.
The month was June
It was [August};
That’s right …”

 

Well, you get the idea. I’m just glad we have only one anniversary per year because the chill in the air at JPeg Ranch is not conducive to my getting my work done and anything else is completely out of the question.

A Road Once Taken

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Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken poignantly emphasizes the dilemma of life’s choices. Frost must have spent a great deal of time on this subject as another of his most famous poems, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, talks about Frost coming upon a fork in the road of life and having to choose one.

None of us needs Frost or anyone else to point out to us the games the fates play with us but it is handy to find a short form for our thoughts. I hope over the years if you have read Gavel Gamut, which originated in 1990, every now and then you have found a similar lodestone to hang on to. In that regard I plan to from time to time re-run some of the almost 700 Gavel Gamuts. Maybe you’ll catch them the second time round. Taking Leave (January 09, 2006) is one of my favorites. I hope it means something to you too.

TAKING LEAVE

(Originally Published January 09, 2006)

In spite of my natural inclination, thanks to my high school teacher, Mr. Burton, I actually learned a few things in American History class such as: The Second Amendment; the assassination of President William McKinley; the sinking of the Titanic; and the execution of Nathan Hale.

One cold Friday, Mr. Burton stood in front of us in a short-sleeved shirt and offered extra credit to anyone who could tell him why he had the right to wear it.

Of course, our minds were on that night’s football game, so extra credit was not in the offing.

Mr. Burton finally gave up hope for our education, via the Socratic method, and gave us the answer:  The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, you know, The Right to Bear (Bare) Arms.

Unlike Paul Simon in his song, “Kodachrome”, my high school teachers did not interfere with my education.  The raw material may have been lacking, but the high school refinery did its best.

Mr. Burton, also, portrayed President McKinley and Nathan Hale in class, and sank the Titanic in a washtub while we portrayed the passengers such as John Jacob Astor.

What Mr. Burton burned into our memories was the grace of President McKinley when he was shot in 1901.

The President’s wife of thirty years, Ida, had never recovered from the loss of their only children at ages one and four. The President was ever mindful of Ida’s fragility.

McKinley’s first words upon being shot were:

“My wife, be careful how you tell her.  Oh, be careful.”

Considering that President McKinley had been a Civil War hero, a successful attorney, Governor of Ohio, the architect of the Open-Door Policy to China and the Commander in Chief during the Spanish American War, it was poignant that it was said of him:

“Nothing became his life so much as the manner in which he left it.”

I was reminded of the President’s selflessness when I heard news of the West Virginia miners’ last words, written while trapped in the coal mine this week.

At least one of the Sago Mine miners, Martin Toler, left a note to ease the pain of his wife, children, grandchildren and others.

Mr. Toler’s note was written with great effort just before he lost consciousness:

“Tell all I (will?) see them on the other side.  Just went to sleep. Wasn’t bad.  I love you.”

The President and the coal miner knew how to make an exit.

It is fortunate when there is opportunity for such character to be displayed. No self-pity, just thoughts to ease the pain of others.

Of the six billion or so of us who have already shuffled off this mortal coil, and the six billion or so of us who have yet to take our leave, most of us will not have any last words survive.

But wouldn’t it be comforting to believe we might show the courage and sacrifice of someone like John Jacob Astor who, in 1912, was one of the richest persons on earth and 48 years old when he gave up his seat on a Titanic lifeboat to a woman he didn’t know by saying:

“The ladies have to go first. 

Get in the lifeboat to please me (to the unknown woman). 

Goodbye, dearie (to his wife).  I’ll see you later.”

There was one other thing that made it through the teenage fog during American history class, the last words of the twenty-one year old, Continental Army First Lieutenant, Nathan Hale, just before he was hanged by the British in 1776:

“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

Hale’s final thoughts of country before self were recorded for Hale’s family and history by another soldier, Captain Montresor, one of the British officers who was assigned to the execution.

You know you have done it right when those who would take your life, record your courage and sacrifice in leaving.

What William McKinley, Martin Toler, John Astor and Nathan Hale had in common were selfless courage, the opportunity to know death was imminent, the means of preserving their last words and the grace to ease the pain of others.

For most of us, such a confluence of elements will not occur.  But, if the opportunity is given to us, it will be telling whether we choose to curse the darkness of our coal mine or to lighten the burden of those who are left to deal with the cave-in.

The Ultimate Sin

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NJC/Dred Scott Symposium

Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York. Campbell was America’s recognized guru in the area of myth and religion. He postulated that the ultimate/unpardonable sin was to be unaware.

When Peg and I visited the just opened Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum and Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama earlier this month then participated in the Dred Scott convocation in St. Louis, Missouri last week, I was constantly made aware of Campbell’s admonition. I thought back to when I lived in an apartheid society of which I was barely conscious. When I saw the representations of lynchings and Jim Crow laws in Montgomery the stark reality of a separate and unequal daily life assaulted me. But when in St. Louis I listened to personal accounts of Black people who were on the unequal side of the equation, my own lack of alertness came into focus.

While you can anticipate the content of the displays at the EJI, when you walk through the hundreds of metal coffins inscribed with thousands of names of murdered Black people including several from Posey County, Indiana, you will naturally contemplate the evil we are capable of doing to one another just because someone may be an “other”. But when you hear directly from living persons who are still experiencing a denial of equal justice you are forced to confront your own previous lack of awareness.

The Dred Scott case was decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1857 and led directly to the Civil War four years later. It is only one of many wrong decisions of the Supreme Court but is probably the worst. Chief Justice Roger Taney (1777-1864) who sat on the Supreme Court for almost thirty years authored the 7 to 2 opinion. It held that Negroes could not be citizens of the United States and had no rights that white men were legally bound to recognize, and that Dred Scott must remain a slave.

On Monday, July 16, 2018 at Logan University in St. Louis descendants of Dred Scott (c.1799-1858), Confederate President Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) and Roger Taney along with one hundred and fifty judges, attorneys and academic scholars were brought together by Judge Judith Draper and her husband Justice George Draper in conjunction with the National Judicial College to engage in “reconciliation”.

NJC President Benes Aldana, NJC technology specialist Joseph Sawyer, Michael Roosevelt education specialist for the State of California Courts and I as an NJC faculty member presented the afternoon sessions after the descendants and audience members held an interesting and extremely positive discussion during three hours in the morning.

The relatives of Taney and Davis did not attempt to excuse slavery. They did, however, clearly and poignantly point out their ancestors had done many good things along with their egregious errors in moral and legal judgments. As Peg and I listened to them I was reminded of Mark Antony’s funeral oration for Julius Caesar:

“The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft’ interred with their bones.”

William Shakespeare, Act III, sc ii.

What the EJI and Dred Scott experiences did for me was force me to remember and dissect my experiences under the system of legal apartheid in my hometown of Pawhuska, Oklahoma. I had never given more than a passing thought as to why “Colored” boys could not enter the front door of the pool hall or come to the front part of the building. And now my home town is New Harmony, Indiana where, according to the book by William E. Wilson On the Sunny Side of a One Way Street at page 91 he wrote that when he was a boy in New Harmony:

“By the twentieth century New Harmony had lost the egalitarian faith on which it was founded a hundred years before, and Aunt Minnie’s Lizzie (Wilson’s Aunt’s Black servant) was the only Negro permitted to live in the town. She had a room in the hotel (owned by Wilson’s Aunt and Uncle) and never went out on the street, day or night. Uncle Harry and Aunt Minnie did everything possible to make Lizzie feel like one of the family, not only because she was an excellent cook but also because they loved her. Even so, I have often wondered since how Lizzie endured her ostracism in the town.”

And Wilson also writes of his father’s loss of his Congressional seat in 1925 because he refused to join the Ku Klux Klan.

Well, I am more “aware” now than I was before the visit to the EJI Museum and Memorial, the Dred Scott convocation and Mr. Wilson’s book, but realize there’s more I need to do while, I hope, there’s still time to do it.

I wish to sincerely thank the friendly and expert staff of our fine Alexandrian Public Library in Mt. Vernon, Indiana for providing me with several excellent reference works on Dred Scott and William E. Wilson’s interesting book on New Harmony.

 

For video of Peg’s pictures of the Convocation please go to: https://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id=qqOf6KZ7ZBw&video_referrer=watch