James M. Redwine

Oklahoma

One Game At A Time

by Leave a Comment

Gentle Reader, should you have read last week’s Gavel Gamut you may recall that another reader, Dr. Michael Jordan of Osage County, Oklahoma, sent a letter to the editor asking that I address the topic of immigration. No, I do not know why, but after a couple of minutes of reflection I thought, “Why not?” So here goes. Our current immigration mess should not be any more challenging than Winston Churchill’s view of the old Soviet Union that he called, “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. A few quick paragraphs ought to suffice. Let’s start back in the 1960’s when our national immigration policy began to gradually change from one based on admitting immigrants based on entrepreneurial or economic qualifications, that is, what does the immigrant have to offer, versus admitting family members to reunite with previous family immigrants already in America.

According to George Mason law professor F.H. Buckley:

“U.S. immigration policies were radically changed in 1965, when national origins quotas were replaced with preferences for family reunification. People from countries that had recently supplied immigrants were given a leg up, while those from countries that had supplied immigrants centuries before found it much harder to get in.

In the 1950’s two-thirds of legal immigrants came from Europe or Canada, by the 1990’s that figure had fallen to 16%. During that same period, the percentage of legal immigrants from Latin America and Asia rose from 31% to 81%.”

See The American Illness, Essays on the Rule of Law

By F.H. Buckley at p.51.

Buckley has written extensively about immigration to America. Ironically, Buckley is himself an immigrant from Canada. That aside, in his above referenced book, Buckley posits that part of the immigration solution is for the United States to return to our pre-1965 immigration policies. Buckley avers that USA law used to determine admittance of immigrants on a general policy based on national origin quotas and economic benefits to America, but changed to a policy of family reunification being the main factor. This led to a change from the long-time admission of immigrants mainly from Europe and Canada to those mainly from Latin America and Asia. Buckley states:

“What is uncontroversial is that the United States could do a better job of competing for the highly qualified immigrants who are more likely to confer economic benefits on natives. America is exceptional in the way in which, more than any other first world OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operational and Development) country, it favors family based immigration and admits relatively few employment-based immigrants.

….

“A move to a more entrepreneurial immigration system would likely offer non-economic spillover benefits. Economic immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or to rely on the welfare system, and for countries that favor them, immigration is less contentious. The natives are more likely to welcome immigrants, who in turn are more likely to assimilate to the natives.”

Buckley: pp. 51-53

Buckley’s book was published in 2013, but it has an eerie prescience to today’s southern border crisis of children being dropped over walls and left alone in the desert in hopes of somehow uniting with their family members already in the United States.

Of course, this does not resolve the immediate situation. We must follow our Constitution and provide due process to those who are legitimately seeking asylum. We have the means to provide humanitarian relief as we abide by the laws and policies we established until we change them. Deserving immigrants should be welcomed without prejudice as to national origin, race, ethnicity and faith or lack thereof and without encouraging the breakup of families. A gradual, fair return to an entrepreneurial immigration policy should begin now. And before anyone projects a conclusion that Buckley or anyone else is saying Canadians and Europeans are superior to Latin Americans or Asians, let us be clear. It is not one’s race, ethnicity or national origin that should determine whether an individual is admitted into our country. The criteria should be mainly whether the aspiring immigrant can be a benefit to America.

Through the fog of one of my undergraduate psychology courses at Indiana University I loosely grasped the concept of projection. One aspect of Sigmund Freud’s theory of projection is that we humans subconsciously cast upon others our own failings as a self-defense mechanism. When it comes to America’s approaches to the problems of immigrations and debates that have raged since at least 1620 and Plymouth Rock, I submit Dr. Freud would diagnose many of us as projectionists. But before we address what Emma Lazarus called the Mother of Exiles, the Statue of Liberty, and the “…[H]uddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore”, let me suggest an analogy between immigration and environmentalism based on an old adage.

In the simplest of terms, the green debate is between those who want to build a house in the woods and those who already own a house in the woods. And with immigration, the competing positions are often those held by we whose ancestors immigrated here versus those who would like to become ancestors for those who may later immigrate here. And while we have certainly managed to maintain many raging controversies about whether certain classes of peoples, Irish, Catholics, Chinese, Muslims, Italians, even people indigenous to North America, and numerous other groups, have a right to exist in the United States, our current concentration involves our southern border.

Some of us might project our own fears, prejudices and greed onto one side or the other of the issues. However, as with every extremely complex problem it may require much more time, effort, and goodwill than most of us care to invest. It is easier for us to simply say those who disagree with us are motivated by hate or ignorance. Hard work is never as appealing as harsh rhetoric. Facts are the enemy of bombast. A knowledge of the facts on immigration is vital to constructively addressing the problem. Just as catcher Crash Davis advised in the movie Bull Durham, we need to concentrate on the here and now and take things one “game” at a time.

Dear Mr. Scorsese

by Leave a Comment

Osage Hills State Park Falls

As Martin Scorsese ramps up production for his movie of David Grann’s book, Killers of the Flower Moon, concerning the tragic murders of members of the Osage tribe in and around my home town of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, I thought Mr. Scorsese might appreciate a little movie making advice. Here is some information he may find helpful.

Ten years before Pawhuska’s favorite son, Ben (Son) Johnson, Jr., won an Academy Award for his role as pool hall/movie theatre owner Sam the Lion in The Last Picture Show I sold him a Stetson hat. Son, I called him Mr. Johnson, was home for a visit in Pawhuska, Oklahoma in 1960 and I was working Saturdays at Hub Clothiers Men’s Store on Kihekah Avenue. Son had just that year had a gun fight with Marlon Brando in One-Eyed Jacks.  I am not suggesting I deserve any credit for Son’s later success but I am pretty sure the hat he wore in The Last Picture Show was the one I sold him; it looked about right for wear and tear.

In addition to that association with stardom I would like to point out that one summer during Vacation Bible School my Sunday School teacher at the First Christian Church, Violet Willis, had our class film a re-enactment of the Christmas story. It was in July and we threw up a manger of blankets and black jack posts on the banks of Sand Creek near the falls in Osage Hills State Park. I played a shepherd. Now I know there aren’t too many sheep in Osage County but I thought my portrayal was still pretty authentic. And it may be of note to Mr. Scorsese as he directs his new movie about Osage County that Violet both lived and worked at the Osage Agency and was herself Osage.

My memory is that Violet used an 8-millimeter hand-held Bell & Howell camera and that she cast my friend and classmate, Glenda Van Dyke, as Mary. Glenda was blond haired, blue eyed and ten years old but she pulled off the young Hebrew mother role quite well I thought. I wish Glenda was available for a casting by Mr. Scorsese now.

Another person who might merit consideration is my big sister, Janie. Much as Lana Turner was discovered at the soda fountain of the Top Hat Café on Sunset Boulevard in Burbank, California, Janie used to work at the soda fountain of Mom and Pop Curry’s snack shop next to the Kihekah (now the Constantine) Theatre in Pawhuska. Janie might be of more utility behind the camera as she is good at giving directions.

And although I do not wish to accentuate my own resumé, I think in fairness to Mr. Scorsese I should mention that I did have a role in my high school’s junior play. Further, I am generally available except when Peg has me doing some chore around JPeg Osage Ranch.

 

The Unpardonable Sin

by Leave a Comment

Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College for over thirty years. Campbell is probably best known as George Lucas’ source for the mythology permeating the Star Wars anthology. Good versus evil, light versus darkness, hope versus despair and, throughout human existence, alertness to being alive versus remaining unaware of our experiences. To Campbell, the unpardonable sin is to be unaware, that is, to not be truly alive as we meander through our lives unaffected by what is happening around us. For me, Black History Month evokes an introspection of my callow youth and its blissful ignorance of the difference between my white world and that of my, as we called them then, Colored friends.

I scarcely knew Blacks and whites lived separate lives during the 1940’s, 50’s and the first half of the 60’s. I was happy and assumed others were too. Things were as they ought to be or at least they were okay with me as they were. It did not seem strange when before 1956 my father would take us across Bird Creek to Colored Town and Booker T. Washington School to watch Colored boys play basketball. Then after 1956 it felt fine to see Blacks and whites mix on the court, but not in the churches and not at our homes or businesses.

Before the Pioneer Woman’s Mercantile brought expanded options for estrogenous pilgrims to my hometown of Pawhuska, Oklahoma the cultural center for testosterone types were my small town’s three pool halls. Now, we of the male persuasion can drink good coffee as we wait for breakfast, dinner or supper as our wives accumulate treasures. But in days of segregation gone by the white businessmen of Pawhuska frequented the Smoke House on Kihekah Avenue where they played Dominoes, those white men interested in beer with their games usually went to Curry’s on Main Street and we younger males congregated at Palace Billiards that was also on Kihekah. Henry Roberts owned and operated the Palace that we boys always called Henry’s. It had a tile floor, four wooden game tables with slate tops and scattered wooden armchairs where the cowhands would drink Dr. Pepper while chewing tobacco and spitting into the brass cuspidors on the floor or back into their bottles. Henry’s double front doors had plate-glass windows that allowed for the only sunlight to shine into the business. The front of the pool hall faced Kihekah and there was a single solid back door that opened out to the rear access and the latrine. Colored boys were allowed to enter through the rear door to play pool on either of the two pool tables that were right next to the back door. Coloreds did not come up front to the two snooker tables nor to the game tables. The entire pool hall was contained in one narrow, open, window-less rectangular room about fifteen feet wide and fifty feet long.

The favorite table game was 4 Point Pitch played with dominoes, we called them rocks, that had cards on their faces, not domino dots. The players would shuffle the rocks by sliding them around on the table then, depending upon the number of players, up to a maximum of eight, deal out 6 rocks per player. Points were won for the highest card of trump played, the lowest card of the trump suit played, one for the jack-of-trump and one for “game”. The point for “game” was calculated by adding four for any ace, three for any king, two for any queen, one for any jack and ten for any ten. The maximum number of points that anyone could accumulate in any one round of play was four. That was also the maximum allowable bid and the bidder got to name the trump suit. The first person to score a total of eleven won the pot. If more than one person happened to go over eleven at the end of a hand, whoever had won the bid for that hand won the pot, that is, as long as that player made his bid. If you bid and went set you got a “hicky” and it cost you the same as a game, usually one dollar. So, you might win one dollar from up to seven other players and, if any had failed to make a bid, an additional dollar. Frequently games had fewer than eight players, often as few as two and it was quite cutthroat as everyone played to set the bidder.

Colored boys never played Pitch or snooker. The racks for the snooker and pool cues were also separate. Whites could have played pool but none of us did. I do not ever remember wondering about that or why Coloreds came in the back door. Nor do I remember myself or anyone else ever speaking to any of the Blacks who eased quietly in from the back, and placed their coins to pay for pool on the table to be picked up by Henry. Now as I look back, I think we all were committing Campbell’s unpardonable sin and handling our experiences as suggested by psychologist and poet Bonaro Wilkinson Overstreet (1902-1985) when she cited the following poem in her Introduction to Philosophy:

“Young spruces stood bolt upright, every twig.

Stiff with refusal to be bent by snow.

Young hemlocks sloped their boughs beneath the load.

Letting it softly go.

Each solved no doubt, to its own satisfaction.

The problem posed by uninvited weight.

I’d not take sides with either.

I have tried both ways of handling fate.”

Unfortunately, it was not until much later that I tried the “bolt upright” approach to segregation and I do not know if my more “alert” response has been of any more efficacy. Next week we might delve into these issues with folks who probably were more aware than I was because they were living life from another perspective.

 

A Goat Roping

by Leave a Comment

Last Thursday morning at 8:00 a.m. Peg and I joined supplicants from numerous Oklahoma communities at the Grant County Health Department in Medford, Oklahoma, population one thousand. Medford is 105 miles from our home in Barnsdall, Oklahoma but there were pilgrims there from even further away. The convocation had the feel of a Hadj with the tiny health department being the Ka’bah and Medford being Mecca. Instead of seeking a later reward we were all beseeching the higher authority, our government, for salvation here and now from COVID-19.

The congregation consisted of a continuous stream of persons all of whom had the same color hair, were of similar size and shape and shuffled along as if in fear of falling. Because Medford’s Health Department is staffed with small-town Oklahomans who were born in the 20th century they were unfailingly friendly and efficient. Peg and I arrived early, of course, as did many others and were welcomed in out of the forty mile per hour cold wind gusts into the 10’ x 20’ reception area. We were there about 45 minutes, most of that time being required to see if either of us had a bad reaction to the shots; we did not. However, since these supplicants were mainly friendly refugees from an Oklahoma of the 1940’s and 50’s, in that time we learned more about them and they about us than any government census worker ever would.

Our experience with the fine folks of Medford, most of whom were unpaid volunteers, was difficult to reconcile with America’s over all response to COVID-19. Whereas our federal government should receive praise for developing vaccines in record time, we have fallen way, way short in delivering the vaccine. Every day the battle we are in with the constantly mutating virus becomes more dangerous and ’Ole 19 has already killed over 450,000 of us.

Toni Morrison (1931-2019) has her main character, Milkman, in her novel Song of Soloman thinking, “Perhaps all human relationships boil down to: Would you save my life? or would you take it?” Morrison clearly understood Franz Kafka’s (1883-1924) anguished frustration with the legal system in his novel The Trial. Kafka’s main character, Joseph K, cannot even get the legal system to explain what he is charged with or why. William Shakespeare’s (1564-1616) Macbethsums it up: “Life is a tale told by an idiot”. Apparently Morrison, Kafka and Shakespeare were trying to get their governments to provide something as essential as a COVID-19 vaccination or whatever basic public service they needed then.

Whereas most of us are amazed that our government ramped up vaccines in about one year, the euphoria over discovery appears to have interfered with actually inoculating us. It is as if we have been so proud of finding a potential prevention of the plague that we have failed to develop a plan to employ the prevention. At the rate we are inoculating ourselves ’Ole 19 will mutate us out of existence. Supposedly millions of doses of vaccines will soon be shipped to CVS, Walgreens and Walmart. That is great but if our government has to use the existing Internet portal system, the virus will outpace us. We must be able to sign up “at the door” of the pharmacies or have the vaccine delivered and applied at our doors. We have already appropriated trillions of dollars to respond to COVID-19. We have spent enough taxpayer vaccination money to send a trained UPS, FedEx, Amazon worker or National Guard soldier to every one of our 330 million citizens with a needle and a vile of vaccine and the knowledge, training and emergency supplies to check for and respond to any bad reactions. Although in the millions of shots already given there have been virtually no deaths reported. We are allowing an extremely unlikely deadly reaction to the vaccination to interfere with the delivery of the vaccine and the almost guaranteed possibility the virus will continue to kill us in huge numbers if we do not quickly vaccinate a large percentage of our population. Another possibility would be to have the vaccines delivered directly to us and then allow us to contact medical providers of our choice to inject them. After all, millions of us receive billions of doses of medication by mail already.

We inoculated the whole country for polio without so much as a ripple. We all have had shots for smallpox, measles, TB, etc., etc. without this bottleneck. As Jonathan Reiner, Professor of Medicine at George Washington University, said back in January 2021, “The bottleneck is actually the logistics of vaccinating people (not the supply of the vaccine)”. And former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb stated in The Wall Street Journal, “New variants of the virus that appear more contagious increase the urgency to deploy the vaccine as fast as possible”.

The craziness of signing up on Internet portals, waiting in lines of vehicles or waiting in lines outside in the weather adds another level to Dante Alighieri’s (1265-1321) Inferno. Americans can order everything from food to computers over the Internet and get them sent overnight right to our doors with simple instructions on how to use them. A packaged, pre-loaded syringe packed in dry ice is not a space shot problem. A looped YouTube video and public TV demonstration would get to 99% of our cell phones and homes for those who wish to DIY.

If our government does not think we, their bosses, are competent to give ourselves or our families shots then why not use each state’s National Guard or our 2 ½ million regular military personnel. When I joined the United States Air Force fifty-eight years ago, they gave us enough inoculations in one day to save the world from all known diseases and some not even thought of. Surely we can adapt from that system.

By the way, in a week or two after we get the promised email notices from the Oklahoma Board of Health, Peg will have to get back on the online portal to schedule appointments for our second shots at a location somewhere around the state. Hopefully it won’t take a month of checking daily/hourly to schedule the second dose as it did with the first. And, of course, we each have to get a separate appointment within the three to four week allotted period before the next dose is due. All this must take place while the virus continues to out fox us.

Football vs. Politics

by Leave a Comment

Democracy is messy but usually bloodless. Football is sweaty and sometimes painful. Football teams choose representative colors such as black and orange or cream and crimson. American politics are red versus blue. Football teams are led by coaches and financed by taxpayers or fat cats. Political parties are led by politicians and financed by drips and drabs via the internet or fat cats. Football teams have a few stars supported by several Sherpas. I was happy to be one of the Sherpas on the Pawhuska, Oklahoma high school Huskies football team a while ago and enjoyed every minute of it, except for wind sprints of course. I am still enjoying supporting the Huskies team which is undefeated and on their way to what I hope will be Pawhuska’s first state championship in football.

Political parties have a few stars supported by, usually, faceless minions. Football teams have one mission, to win, whoever the opponent is. Political parties believe their mission is to provide better government than competing political parties would provide. I will leave it up to you, Gentle Reader, if you believe any political party manages to achieve this goal.

Both football teams and political parties are governed by rules of procedure and conduct. With football teams a conference sets the standards and with political parties governments from the local level on up to the top have a hand in determining policy and ultimate victory. Football games are controlled by officials on the field who can enforce the rules. Their rulings are immediate and not subject to appeal but some can be reviewed. Albeit the final ruling, in effect, is made by the same people who made the initial one. Political races are governed by laws and can be subject to recount, review, repeal and reversal. Football fans sometimes must just grimace and bear a referee’s egregious error, such as giving one team an extra down as in the 1990 Colorado v. Missouri game. Of course, the problem with any attempted remedy in football is it would be impossible to completely and fairly recreate the original game circumstance. On the other hand there is the benefit that, other than endless conversations over beer, the calls at football games are final. But political races such as Bush v. Gore in 2000 may end up in the U.S. Supreme Court and may never be universally accepted as final.

As for me, I am currently marveling how my alma mater, Indiana University, can be undefeated in football after many years of wandering in the football wilderness. This column was written before Michigan v. I.U. upcoming on November 7, 2020, so I am hopeful it remains valid when you read this. And I am chagrined that Oklahoma State University where I started college could have lost to Texas last Saturday. I want a recount! I know I personally saw several blown calls that might have changed the score of the Cowboy game.

Regardless, what I have decided after suffering through the entire 2020 political season and cheering (or moaning) my way along the football season is that the temporary pains that I experienced playing football pale in the excruciation caused by the clanging brass of competing political parties and noxious news anchors. I am thankful for football and am past caring about the motes in the eyes of those who do not see eye to eye with me on politics.

 

The Joys of August

by Leave a Comment

1960-61 Pawhuska, Oklahoma High School Football Team

I got up at 5 a.m. this morning and smiled at that teenager who had to threaten himself to get out of bed for a 6:00 a.m. two-a-day football practice a few years ago. Ah, the joy of putting on cold, smelly, sweaty pads from the previous day’s 6:00 p.m. practice and stumbling over to the field to be greeted by Draculas disguised as coaches. “Hurry up! Git with it! We’re burning daylight here and it is already nearing 90 degrees.” This was the refrain from the Knute Rockne wannabes who had a vision of our high school team being immortalized in the pantheon of pigskin glory.

Actually, my senior year at Pawhuska Oklahoma High School our coaches devised three August weeks of three-a-day practices: full contact pads from 6:00-8:00 a.m. then skull practice from 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m. followed by limited contact and play drills from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Out of an overdose of humanity they only required wind sprints at the end of the evening session.

These pleasant memories arose early this morning after I heard that numerous colleges and several major conferences such as the Big Ten and Pac-12 had cancelled their 2020 football seasons due to ’Ole 19. My first selfish thought was why hadn’t that happened before my fellow galley slaves and I had to crawl out of bed before the sun got up. My next selfish thought was I sure hope the whole country’s football season is not lost. Peg and I are rabid fans of high school and college football, not so much pro. We have spent hundreds of enjoyable hours in front of a big screen TV sipping beverages and eating guacamole as we watch young men risk their bodies and psyches for our entertainment. And the best part for me is, no wind sprints. Getting out of bed at 5:00 a.m. does not cause the angst it did when I was sixteen but I am fairly sure my attempt at running forty yards now would not be pretty.

Our son and two of our grandsons played high school football but they have matriculated onto other pursuits. Still, we enjoy watching and cheering on other young athletes who have shown the character to endure the month of August and drill sergeants passing for coaches. Of course, each school and each parent and each athlete must have the right to decide these issues for themselves. And if Peg and I have to forego a season of football we completely understand and support whatever decisions others make. After all, for us it’s entertainment. For others it could be something else.

Regardless, at least now when 5:00 a.m. rolls around and I am lying there wide awake I know all that awaits me is a cup of coffee. And instead of putting up with coaches who make Captain Ahab look saintly all I have to put up with are the prattling heads of cable news.