James M. Redwine

Peg

Unpaid Staff

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I have a friend who quite frequently volunteers to help others. He refers to himself and other such generous souls as unpaid staff. Fortunately for those of us who are blessed to live in or visit Osage County, Oklahoma there is a hard-working unpaid staff that helps preserve and promote the historic Constantine Theater. My family benefitted greatly from those efforts a couple of weekends ago when we held our two-day family reunion, jam session, art show and new book launching at the Constantine. We had a great time.

In addition to the volunteers who serve on the Board, there are a few competent and gracious paid staff such as Jennifer Adair and Shannon Martin who do the scheduling and make sure the lights come on. Jennifer’s mother, Linda Hubbard, as well as Jennifer’s daughters, Katie and Grace, also pitched in and helped make the weekend special. One of the unpaid staff, Board Member Cameron Chesbro, not only saw to the myriad technical needs of our diverse musical group he also displayed his own fine musical talents by sitting in as our unpaid drummer. Neither Gene Krupa nor Buddy Rich could have been a better fit.

It was wonderful to see friends, old and new, who took the time to drop in and cheer on our family jam session that included the world premiere of an original song The Redwine Waltz written and performed by C.E. Redwine and Roger Coble. We have a family that includes a few truly exceptional professional musicians, not including Peg and me, and several enthusiastic non-professionals, that is Peg and me. However, everyone dove right in and even some audience members got up and danced in the aisles of the grand ’ole Osage County Opry. Thanks for joining in the fun.

As one who grew up in Pawhuska and attended the Kihekah (Constantine) Theater on a regular basis for numerous community events it felt good to see the old girl sparkle once more. Osage County has many talented and creative people who need a stage to display their gifts to our community. The Constantine has a fine lighting and sound system thanks to the generous support of the contributors and volunteers. The Constantine has even served as a regular venue for feeding the extremely courteous and friendly crew and extras of the Killers of the Flower Moon movie.

Plays, movies, ballets, musical performances, lectures, dancing and numerous other public uses are being made of this one-hundred-year-old, ornate edifice. On mine and the whole Redwine Family’s behalf, several of whom have called Pawhuska their home, thank you to all the staff, paid and unpaid, who helped make our reunion so memorable and so much fun.

By the way, the Constantine is available for use by calling 918-900-6161 or just stop by and speak to the friendly people who are proud to be able to show off the grand old dame.

Abandon All Hope

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People may come in various varieties but I suggest there are only two types: (1) those who think up projects; and, (2) those who have to do the work. In marriages the lines are clear. Someone cooks the meals; someone helps eat the meals. Someone dirties the clothes; someone washes the clothes. Someone decides flower or shrubs or vegetables must be planted and someone digs the holes. We could go on but I am confident you agree with my general concept.

I am aware there are those readers who would get deeper into the weeds of this ancient dynamic. For example, I can hear Peg offering the following division of labors: someone cleans the house while someone watches football or someone goes fishing while someone deals with AT&T, Amazon, the bank, the various levels of government from the local precinct to the president, and responds to requests from kids and grandkids. My position has always been I am simply staying out of her way. But starting next week we are going to find out if my theory is reality or merely bug dust. Peg goes for hip replacement Tuesday. There may not be enough time for me to learn how to be a wife.

It is not as if we haven’t known this time was coming. About every week since April Peg has served up cautionary instructions with our morning coffee. The days normally begin with this dreaded announcement, “Jim, we need to talk”. Each such session includes some lesson akin to grade school. “Now you know we need groceries; here’s how I order them online and how I pick them up. The sweeper is in the living room closet; you have to plug it in. When the sink is too full to hold any more dirty dishes you must rinse them and put them in the dishwasher [Tell me again why we must wash the dishes before we wash them]. Let me show you which button to push to start the dishwasher. Of course, you need to use dishwasher soap and it is under the kitchen sink. When the dishwasher stops you need to make sure the dryer has dried the dishes then put them away. Now let’s move to the laundry. I have written out the procedure to load, wash and dry. All you need to do is put the clean sheets on the bed and fold everything from socks to shorts; remember, use thirds and don’t just stuff everything in a drawer. That’s enough for this week. After all, I’ve got to get this week’s Gavel Gamut typed, sent in to the papers, put it on your website and post it on Facebook and Twitter.”

Well, Gentle Reader, I suggest next week will begin my rowing across the River Styx to Hades where the dog Cerberus guards Hell and according to Dante’s Inferno the sign on the gate says “Abandon all hope, ye who enter herein.” Maybe I’ll see you on the other side after Peg recovers. Wish her to get well soon, I know I certainly do.

Another China Virus?

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Log Futon Before Assembly

When I have nothing to do that’s what I do. When my wife Peg has nothing to do Amazon’s stock rises. I do not recall a promise to love, honor and spend countless hours schlepping around Peg’s mail-order treasures but she assures me it was in the fine print. And when Peg shops I get blessed with packages that must be unpacked and inscrutable assembly instructions. I do not know if China deserves any blame for ’Ole 19 but it seems everything that UPS or FedEx or Amazon, etc., etc., etc., ships to us comes with the warning “made in China” and “easy” guides that are “Greek” to me. Let me ask you, did ancient Greece once fill the current China role of world-wide shipping of products accompanied by Tower of Babble type assembly manuals?

Peg’s most recent “essential” on-line purchase was a log futon; it came in three large cardboard containers. But even though it was plainly labeled with Peg’s name and our address it was dumped by some overworked FedEx driver at an address four miles from our home. Julie and Wayne Brown, the nice people who found our packages propped against their front door, contacted us and we picked them up. Actually Wayne Brown, an innocent victim, helped me load the heavy and cumbersome articles into our SUV then Peg and I had to unload them at JPeg Osage Ranch. I had just a glint of uncharitable satisfaction when Peg could barely lift her end.

Once we removed the cardboard and located the sixteen-page assembly booklet we understood why the furniture company did not offer, at any price, the option of fully put together delivery. On the face of the assembly manual was a large red STOP sign that notified us we could not return the items to the store that sold them but, we had to deal with the manufacturer. Then we were directed to a website for a “video tutorial”. My heart sank as I realized my Labor Day weekend was over and the “holiday” was aptly named.

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Peg is the daughter of an engineer and is amazingly adept at technical stuff. I am better at more sanguine pursuits such as watching football and writing newspaper columns. However, I am highly experienced in the realm of lifting heavy objects and following Peg’s orders. Therefore, together we are usually able to navigate the choppy waters of arcane mail-order living during these unusual days of social distancing; however, not so fast on this Gordian Knot puzzle dumped on the neighbors and then us. It is a testament to our pure stubbornness, the potential waste of hundreds of dollars and our total lack of options that we did not simply add these finished wood parts to our burn pile. If I were not acutely aware of “the Law’s Delay” and the almost always unhappy experience with lawsuits, we would have just thrown up our hands and sought out a lawyer. Surely the sadists who came up with both the futon and its accompanying assembly manual(s) ought to be held liable for our two (2), that’s right, days of frustration before our “Mission Accomplished” was.

One good thing that happened was Peg was so ticked off at Kodiak Furniture and FedEx she may not order anything else for a week or so.

Log Futon After Assembly

Yea! Football Is Back!

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“The crisp autumn air. The dry brown grass. Sweaty pads and the exhilaration of combat without weapons. The kind of battle where one can experience the thrill of having been shot at and missed without even being shot at. Football. Ersatz war. Clashes of pride, power and cunning.”

Echoes Of Our Ancestors: The Secret Game, p. vii

James M. Redwine

Baseball may be America’s Pastime but football is America’s Passion. The only thing more endemic to the American psyche than football is politics and I am sick of politics. If, “politics ain’t bean bag”, it ought to be. Any sporting event from ballet to boxing is healthier for our country than political conventions and cable news. Heck, even a good old-fashioned fist fight often results in life-long friendship versus contemporary political campaigns in which social media is used much as small pox was allegedly used against Native Americans by the British colonial soldiers in 1763.

The difference between sporting contests of all types and modern national politics is glaring. When I think back to those times my erstwhile adversaries became my current friends via a skirmish over some forgotten controversy, I long for those days. My friends and I spent no time accusing one another of being a liar or a murderer or even a traitor to our country. We would just drop our baseball gloves or kick our opponent’s marbles out of the way and start the shoving process. Every now and then we would even throw a punch. I will not name those who bloodied my nose or tore off my T shirts but we buried our hypothetical hatchets immediately after each fray. Our politicians and news anchors could learn something.

Another thing we learn from sports versus politics is that the pain of physical injuries almost always goes away whereas the sickness of false comments can grow fatal to our body politic. There is something liberating from a sweaty fight or a sweaty game. But often permanent harm results from accusations of venality and planted stories of misdeeds.

Anyway, I am glad football and other games are coming back and I hope we will soon be able to engage in them and/or enjoy watching them in good health. I leave it up to each community and every individual to decide whether they feel comfortable participating in or watching in person any sporting event. Peg and I certainly want the right and ability to decide such highly personal matters for ourselves and we will afford the same right to others. However, the lessons from sports are easily learned and, unlike high school Algebra, one will always remember them. In fact, as I think of the fist fights and sporting contests I engaged in it now seems to me I never lost and I have gotten a lot faster, stronger and more talented as the years have transpired.

A True Depression

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If a recession is when your neighbors lose their jobs but it is a depression when you lose yours, what is the analogy for our society’s losses due to ’Ole 19? Let me suggest that for Peg it was when she finally submitted herself to asking me to cut her hair. Yep, it’s complete capitulation; 19 can claim total victory. I should be able to show you photographic proof but it turns out that a wife’s hirsute humiliation is in the same category of bad husbanding as failing to separate the whites and colors for the laundry. No pictures of my artistry were allowed. In fact, Peg has found a new use for the flowered bandana she uses as a face mask; it now covers the top of her head too. And my attempts to assure her that within a few months her hair will grow back just seem to exacerbate the situation. Please allow me to digress.

Gentle Reader, you may have noticed it is hot in July and August near the latitude along the Mason-Dixon Line. Well Peg, who was born in upstate New York, had not quite acclimated to the previous weeks of 100-degree temperatures. Her Joan of Arc length hair tended to stick to her forehead and the back of her neck whenever she lugged water to her flowers and her vegetable garden. The martyr-type comparison will make sense by the time you finish the column. I was understanding and sympathetic, but my advice that Mother Nature would eventually provide rain was not received gladly. She stubbornly persisted and even suggested I could get involved if the TV re-runs of old golf matches didn’t interfere. Surely, we need not revisit that painful discussion.

The real problem is not me but ’Ole 19. Peg used to go to the beauty shop to get her hair cut. Or, when we still lived in Indiana, our daughter, Heather, who is a beautician would take care of it. However, now, as we do not wish to contribute to 19’s macabre statistics, we have socially isolated since our last foray out to eat which was March the 5th. We wear masks, we wash our hands, we ignore our friends and family, we shop online, we eat lots of tuna. But we both knew the Corona Virus had achieved complete domination when Peg said last week, “Jim, I just can’t stand this heat and having my hair string down my face and neck. Nobody but you is ever going to see me again anyway (I thought that a little overly dramatic) so you are going to have to cut it. Come watch these YouTube videos and try to pay attention.”

Well, it didn’t look that hard to me. I remember when I got my hair cut in Pawhuska, Oklahoma by Clyde Ensley or Bob Butts or in Mt. Vernon, Indiana by Steve Burris. Heck, it appeared about like cleaning a squirrel or a chicken. Just slice here, snip there, shear off the sides. No problem. After watching for ten minutes or so I was pretty sure I could give Vidal Sassoon a run. “Peg, get a towel and I’ll grab a pair of scissors and the electric clippers you used to use on our dearly departed dog and meet you on the front porch.”

It probably would have turned out better if Peg had not sat as if she were an unfortunate customer of an electric chair and if she hadn’t jumped and squirmed each time the clippers whirred and the scissors snipped. Regardless, in my unbiased opinion I did a fine job. If the bowl I used had fit better it would have helped. I can only guess at Peg’s opinion as she hardly has spoken to me for three days and when she does it is difficult to make out what she is saying amid the shrieks, sobs and expletives as she tries to pull her hair back to its former length.

Hair on the porch floor

Our Two Great Tasks

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No Blindfold Lady Justice Virginia City, Nev.

Peg claims I can only concentrate on one thing at a time, and usually it is a televised sporting event. My response is, as a wife and mother she has a biased perspective. Many women appear to easily balance a career, housework, child care and husband care or, at least, that part of husband care that involves spotting innumerable tasks that must be done right now. And COVID-19 has not assuaged the situation. In fact, social isolation has converted our intermittent contact with its mutually welcomed respites into an opportunity for constant oversight and conflict.

At the National Memorial for Peace & Justice

And while the roots of our Original Sin may go back to 1619, its most recent manifestation, the tragic death of George Floyd while in police custody, occurred during the throes of the pandemic. This has forced us to face two volatile and virulent national crises at the same time. Something we are not well equipped to do.

As with most problems we can seek guidance from the wisdom of those upon whose shoulders we stand. When many Americans were totally disheartened by the Great Depression President Franklin Roosevelt told us on March 04, 1933: “Our greatest task is to put people to work … and accomplish greatly needed projects.”

State of Oklahoma Seal

The State of Oklahoma enshrined the state seal with the motto: Labor omnia vincit (work conquers all). When confusion and despair threaten us, our collective wisdom directs us to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

I would like to point out to Peg that I see two major tasks to be done: (1) recover economically from COVID-19; and (2) use the protest demonstrations to positive good. My suggested answer to both is to co-opt FDR’s approach and meld it with the trillions of dollars and work hours our governments at all levels are making available to individuals and businesses.

Every locality has needs that are best identified by the people who actually live in each area. Individuals and families need jobs, businesses need workers and the public needs projects completed, such as educating and training children and adults and construction of public assets: dams; roads; medical facilities; and utilities, etc.. People who have lost their jobs need to be re-trained as welders, nurses, farm hands and technicians.

Instead of providing short-term financial help we can set up mobile employment offices where civil rights demonstrations are already taking place and offer job skills training and immediate employment. It is better to teach fishing than dole out a few fish for a few months. We can invest in ourselves as Wall Street does, for the long haul. Capitalism is a system that works. We can use it to address our economic problem and by creating hope and incentive we can get those who have been left behind on the road to social justice.

So there, Peg. Now leave me alone and let me watch a replay of the Tiger Woods/Payton Manning golf match against Phil Michelson and Tom Brady.