“Is it true?”

“Is it true about George Wallace being a great man?”

“Excuse me?” I replied. Actually I had not heard the name clearly or I might have asked, “The Las Vegas comedian?”

“Is it true that George Wallace put Alabama together? My father voted for him.”
Now, I got it. His wife had asked me where I was from. I had said, “Montgomery, er, Auburn, Alabama.” I occasionally make the mistake of saying “Montgomery” as I lived there 40 odd years before I moved to Auburn and then to Opelika, a nearby city. Most people would just say “Where?” if I said I was from Opelika, so I finally decided the correct answer to the question about where I was from would be Auburn. Most people have heard the name because there is a great interest in sports in America. Nothing much distinguishes Opelika except the interesting fact that the movie Norma Rae, one of Sally Field’s finest performances was shot on location there. No one actually knows that but it is the only distinguishing thing I can remember about Opelika.

Auburn, Alabama is a different story. Auburn University Football is fairly well known. There really is some kind of comment there about the wonderful movie about a millworker;s triumph, a work of art, being eclipsed by something as artless as sports, but I could get in trouble for such nonsense. At any rate, most people who recognize the city name say “War Eagle!” as either a heartfelt emotion or a goodwill gesture. “War Eagle!” is the battle cry of the Auburn Tigers football team and pretty much the cry for any Auburn sports team or athlete. Of course, there are fans of the rival state team, Alabama Crimson Tide who in politer moments might just say “Oh.”

I think I have blogged about this nagging problem before. I work for the City of Auburn, I live (or used to live) in Auburn. I’m proud of my city. I received the Employee of the Month award last year and it was for my service to the city, the citizens and not the War Eagle. It is one of my proudest accomplishments outside of managing to graduate from college under the circumstances at the time. I’m proud of my son for reasons he knows very well, and I’m proud of my daughter for reasons she may not know, but I hold securely in my heart. But as for my own accomplishments in life, Employee of the Month was a biggie. A gesture of appreciation went a long way for me. 

I love my city actually more than the place I grew up. Anyone who knows my personal history knows the problems I had in my job in Montgomery. Even now the terror of that experience keeps me from relating it in public writing in any detail. Terror is terror and it belongs in the past but the fact is, my health problems resulted from that hour of my life. Now that the problems seem to be finally and entirely diagnosed, I have no ill will against people or institutions, just no love for locality.  The love of my birthplace is long gone as is the apartment complex I grew up in, and the hospital building on Maxwell Airforce base near Montgomery where I was born, and the replacement hospital facility where my mother died. I believe that too is gone. I hope I have that correct, I really do hope it is gone.

George Wallace,  now there is a person also long gone. George Wallace was governor of Alabama for quite some time. I was not politically minded during his reign but our paths crossed just a bit. First, there was the lady who ran a convenience store near my home. We called her “Swansy” which was her last name. She was a thin elderly lady and we bought our cigarettes from her. I worked at that store as my first job for 75 cents a day, free Icee drinks, and all the “hoop cheese” you could beg for or sneak. The cigarette thing came later. I started smoking about age 14 as my “peers” began smoking. Swansy would always ask whether the cigarettes were for our parents. They weren’t and she knew it.

For some reason, once, Swansy was mad enough at me to call my mother and tell her that I bought cigarettes and smoked them myself. My Mom, always with unshakeable presence of mind replied, “Of course he smokes. Anything else?”  When I got home she asked me if I smoked. I did my usual dancing around the subject and she told me about Swansy. I said, “Yes I smoke some.” She asked why I had never smoked in front of her and I told her I did not want her to know, of course. From that day I was allowed to smoke in the living room. I think I was about 16. It took a while to actually smoke in front of my parents but once I did, it felt comfortable knowing that my Mother supported me in all things, at all times. It is not an unreasonable suggestion to say that my Mother was a saint. She was to me.

I’ll leave her sainthood for another more important day, but let me get back to George Wallace. Swansy had us young kids handing out Wallace bumper stickers on the busy corner in front of the “Handy Andy” convenience store. Cars would stop at the Court Street and Delano intersection and we would hand them out for hours on end.

[A hamburger from room service, I’m unbelievably blessed.]

Now the upshot of all this work was that Swansy wanted to show off  to us by taking us to some Wallace for Governor type event that was held at some hotel ballroom or conference room. I want to say it was in the old Diplomat Inn, but that does seem like the wrong side of the “bypass” in my memory map of Montgomery. At any rate, after some amount of argument with some officials about how hard we had all worked for the campaign, Swansy, true to her word, got us in to see George Wallace. He was seated at a table behind a white table cloth. I remember especially being impressed by the white table cloth which a decade later would represent pomp and cheesiness. But at the time, it worked on me. I was in awe of meeting the man whose name was on the stickers I had handed out in the hundreds if not thousands.

Swansy may have only used us to meet Wallace but the fact was, we met him in rather informal circumstances that I honestly can remember very little of except a pat on my head, with a little twist to muss up my hair a bit. The next time I met George Wallace was at a campaign rally a few years later. We kids had snuck behind the stage at the Coliseum  and watched Wallace speak from the back. After his speech everyone crowded around him to shake his hand. We just snuck in there and I found myself unable to get back out. The crowd had surrounded Wallace and he must have shaken my hand at least 3 times before I could extract myself. Then I wondered, as I have in many moments in my life “Is that all there is?” I stood on the stage for quite a while watching people shake Wallace’s hand.

I happened to go to school at Bellingrath Junior High which was right on the same corner as the church where George Wallace’s wife Lurleen was eulogized after she died of cancer. I believe she was governor at the time. [Still no Internet, but I do have a few fries left from the room service tray.] I watched the television cameras and event with supreme awe. I saw Wallace but did not meet him that day. The next time actually I met him was in an elevator in the Liberal Arts building at Auburn University in Montgomery where I went to college. I believe I was coming out of my sociology class but anyway, there he was in his wheelchair, a result since the assassination attempt on his life when he ran for president. It was the third time I had shaken the man’s hand, well, 5th if you count the three stage handshakes separately. By that time I was clear on his politics and knew the racism he represented. But he was in a wheelchair and looked so pitiful. Also he had asked the person who was pushing his wheelchair to let me into the elevator [for Steven, that is “lift” should you be reading, and earlier Mom = Mum :) ] even though I was declining entrance due to the obvious space problem. “Come in, let him in,” he said. Again, less for respect and more for pity, I asked “Mr. Wallace, are you teaching a class?” He answered affirmatively and made small talk that I should remember but don’t. The lift eventually made it to the bottom floor and he was off. I remember feeling that same “Is this all there is?” feeling.

My final encounter with George Wallace was not in meeting him personally but picking out books for him to read. Many times an ordinary looking man would come into the library, I only remember his white shirt now and it seems like he stooped some. Eventually, I came to know that this man was delivering books to George Wallace. They were mainly biographies and political things, but there was a lot of variety. Only a few times had I been called to pull a particular book, and that one was always a biography. Again, George Wallace was pitiable. Eventually I asked a question of the man who took care of him and he said “constant pain, continuous pain” which was not publically known or known by me at the time. I envisioned this poor man who had such an ordinary caretaker.

This man emphasized the pain Mr. Wallace was in quite a few times afterward and once it appeared that George Wallace was about to die. He told us it was coming and sure enough, CNN and the rest showed up to cover what turned out to be a false call. Soon after that he did die.

The man on the cruise ship who asked me tonight about George Wallace really didn’t know why I paused so long before answering after I figured out the what the heck he meant. His wife had just given me a pitch to join the Disney Vacation Club probably to get some kind of referral. They were looking for someone named “Pat’s” cabin and this lady’s husband had done almost no speaking before he heard “Alabama.” I think there was some kind of learning disability involved in this roughly 50 year old man because the question had been asked in such a strange reflexive way. Finally, it clicked in my head that his father had voted for Wallace not in my bumper sticker days, but in the year Wallace had run for president and had been shot. Wallace’s racism was known to me by that time and coded as an “anti-bussing stance” in those days.

“It’s true that he was a very successful politician.”

After all, I’m on a cruise and have a new attitude about politics. I didn’t relate that this same hand that had shook George Wallace’s hand a number of times, also shook Barack Obama’s hand with tears in it’s owner’s eyes over the new world being witnessed step by step. I looked at my wife next to me, both of us were in tears. Nor did I tell him that one of the greatest moments in all of my life was the moment that CNN stated they had some news we were all waiting for on that wondrous election night that followed months afterward.

Good-bye Montgomery, really, good-bye.

The Long Way Forward

Sitting in an alcove of the Cove Café shuffling papers between stacks, folders and and a briefcase of sorts, she seemed to be completely oblivious to her surroundings. She sat on the floor using a coffee table as a desk for her computer. I sat down on a nautically decorated purple and gold sofa that shared her work area. It was also a coffee table after all. As I looked closer I could not make up my mind what the exact theme of the sofa was as I stared at an identical one across from mine. Surely these were the points of the compass in gold, but absent my being on a cruise ship, I’m not sure what theme I would have chosen for it. At night I suppose the compasses could remind one of stars. If traveling in Mexico the larger circles might seem more like ornate suns.

All the while she kept shuffling papers. She would type for a while and move on to the next document. I resisted the temptation to look closely at her  papers to clarify what she was doing. As closely as I examined the sofa I was completely successful in ignoring everything about her while concentrating on my eBook reader, or more accurately stated, my book. The sofa opposite me faded into a background and I began reading about the subject of perception.


Alan Watts wrote a book that was quite an influence on my life.  It was a little pretentiously entitled The Book and was designed to be the book that would give the reader a way of understanding the strange secrets of life, like a marriage manual given to newlyweds, only for less prurient reasons. I had actually intended to do exactly what the typing lady was doing, well assuming she was not a very highly paid medical transcriptionist or something equally dull. I wanted to write on this cruise but no subject occurred to me except the cruise ship, a cop out I did not want to indulge in. She looked like she was fairly intellectual, her face pale white with the look of someone who did not get out in the sunshine much. Her eyes and somehow her reddish nose indicated a bookish inner life. It was all in the perceiving, much like the design on the sofa. I merely perceived a portrait of her life from these observations of her obvious work ethic and physical appearance. After all, who would sit on the carpeted floor typing on a computer in a public café?

I found it hard to concentrate on The Book as the atmosphere of the café became a bit distracting. The weather had begun to chill on the trans Atlantic crossing and the café, where the coffee isn’t free, was warm and popular. I recalled a day I had been in Disney World when a very unseasonal cold spell forced me in my t-shirt to investigate a lot of shops one spring day. I remember learning a lot about Disney retailing watching people shop, browse, and strike up small talk. As I get older I find it harder to make the most out of adverse circumstances but in those days I went more with the flow of life. Finally, I went with stream of life and purchased a Disney sweatshirt which I had not budgeted for.

The Book was really about coping with this natural flow of life. An essential element of Watt’s way of thinking is the philosophy of Tao. Life is a flowing river, it follows the Tao, or way. We find ourselves in a canoe-like boat guiding ourselves down this all important river with very little chance to actually affect our overall fate. We can paddle hard to get to a particular place we may spot in the stream ahead but the stream carries us ever onward on a general course we cannot influence. Sometimes with minimal effort we can make course changes as if with slight movements of our paddle while at other times we are fighting the unchanging current to very little avail. Such is our choice and lot in life. The practical wisdom Taoism gives is in how to cope with the flow. This I could have learned from an experienced surfer if only I had the right perception to guide my philosophical understanding. And while this deterministic world seems a little on the depressing side, that too is mere perception, and rejoicing in the beauty surrounding our journey is an equally valid way of experiencing things.

This was precisely why I started writing today absent any other topic except my surroundings. It was this way of perception that I seemed to forget somewhere along the great path. And, oddly, I focus a lot on perception at my job. I focused on it when I took psychology. I studied it in management courses when I changed to a business major. The point is that I studied about how other people perceive reality. I, of course, believed I possessed the only accurate perception of life. It is only time, thought, and various religious moments that brought enough wisdom to rid myself of a portion of this illusion.

I usually appear absent minded to others. Frankly, I am absent minded. I don’t seem to be concentrating when in fact I am, just not on anything anyone else might think important at the time.  I can see that taken to an extreme one would appear crazy following this particular course of the stream. Who would fill the insane asylums of the world if it were not with those like me who regarded a great deal of what everyone else thought as unimportant in detail?

Who was this lady typing and shuffling papers?  Unless she was a famous writer, why would she be on a cruise ship in the middle of the Atlantic obstinately ignoring everyone around her to accomplish her tasks? And I, too, the next day, am sitting here doing my writing in the chair whose lower part had yesterday been used as her backrest, my feet now planted where she had been sitting. So I, too, am out of place with my typing and non-cruise-like tasks; although I am at least using the chair in a more traditional way as I type, with my laptop on my actual lap.

Events have changed dramatically in the past week as 5 nights in a row the instructions have been to move the clock forward an hour for each time zone we crossed. I am now 6 hours from my usual time zone. My dinner time started out as a late dinner and now is a late lunch.. The Pope apparently has uplinked to astronauts on the space shuttle for some reason I cannot divine without sound on the café television. (I think they have wireless headphones for the sound or something which I am definitely now recommending for every restaurant trying to lead a double life as a sports bar.)  Apparently, there are demonstrations ahead of election day in Spain, a cruise destination in a few days. My perception of the world has changed as I am insulated from this news. It nags at the back of my mind that demonstrations might be a rarity before rather than after an election. But I will trust in the solitude of unknowing for another week. Hopefully my safety will once again be the result of the stream’s mighty flow.

I continued to completely resist any attempt to notice exactly what the pale typing lady was doing.  Later I related the event to one of my dining companions, an exceedingly likeable Englishman. He suggested that he might not have had the same willpower to resist taking a peek. I’m not sure why I prided myself in the achievement of focusing on my book while ignoring the Pope, seemingly important information about a future port of call, and the strange typing lady. I guess I usually never get long uninterrupted times to read so I am making the best of it. As a child I remember having days and days to read during summer vacation. But at that time, I read little philosophy.

It’s not really the absence of time to focus on any particular thing that is missing from my life but the problem comes in with the number of competing things that seem so important. Admittedly, I do seem to have plenty of time to watch television, but that is a sharing experience with my wife. I hardly want to watch anything alone. We have begun reading at night after our television time before our sleep, she being quite a bit more successful at this latest reading pattern in our lives. I still find things I have to do or television shows I want to watch. It is sad really to think of the lack of focus in my life.

I have been on many cruises on Disney ships but none on any other cruise line. I know many of the things this lady is missing but I too am choosing to not be distracted by  activities available around me. Does this mean this lady is also a frequent cruiser or maybe just a bored new one? For an instant I flash to the possibility that she might actually be a member of the crew or important entertainer, but I think it unlikely.

It  is hard to explain what I find so alluring about Disney cruises. The first thing the non-Disney cruising public ask about is the kids. While I have no reference points from other cruise lines, the kids are the best thing about Disney. Their joy infuses the voyage with the exact way of perceiving things one should have on a vacation. The children influenced by the dreams of Walt Disney lead us.

Last night I watched children alternately gathering and throwing confetti up into the air. This cycle went on for over an hour after I began watching. Disney has great confetti, although my experiences with confetti are probably out of date. This modern confetti was thin and floated slowly. Disney has other types of confetti, the most beloved being the “pixie dust” silver Mickeys. These kids were having the best time they had ever had in their lives with thin pieces of paper. Dollar bills would not have held so much interest. The kids could have been anywhere but their perception was magnificently changed by the Disney characters that must have appeared during the original flight of the confetti that resulted in a great tide of confetti that covered the carpeted floor. If the magic felt by these kids doesn’t fill any adult with wonder then certainly they don’t belong on a Disney cruise.

I’m fairly certain one of my dining companions doesn’t belong here. He keeps switching dining rooms appearing to be bored like an epicurean in search of nirvana. His domination of the conversation when he is present is an adverse influence on my particular perception of an enjoyable dinner. I have had loud and sometimes dominating dinner companions but never to a degree that crossed the barrier into offensive. He reminds me a bit of Rapunzel's mother in the Disney movie Tangled at times. “Oh you are such a bore, just kidding, my princess.”  But isn’t any unique influence from outside our experience just a little jarring? We learn to enjoy something and inevitably the current of life changes and that thing is modified or taken away. We meander through life and ultimately our job is to learn to navigate the flow, or at least Alan Watts and I think so.

I do not have an objective viewpoint when it comes to Alan Watts and Taoism. I have read the book before and it influenced my life early on. I went on to study Zen Buddhism and Taoism. Now as the water current has changed in my life so The Book seems a little different now. The wisdom is there but I ask myself a question now. Once the wisdom is achieved then what is next? If I have a goal oriented life at all then there obviously seems to be a predictable tragedy that will sometime occur. People around me always seem to vigorously ignore this obvious inevitable discomforting outcome, at least in polite company. And I am decidedly in polite company, except for my annoying but thankfully infrequent dining companion in search of the ideal dining experience and just maybe this odd lady sitting on the floor doing hours of work in the midst of sounds of laughter, stains of conversation, tinkling glasses and a background of ethereal music befitting a good cruise ship café.

I once tried to live the ideas of Taoism and Zen. Even today I see that there is an underlying current that never fails to go it’s own way. It follows many rules that are as good to know as the rocks ahead on a whitewater rafting adventure. Recently I have felt some amount of understanding about the flow of life and it’s relationship to politics, economics, and war, among other things. Yet, I was powerless to help steer the collective boat. I could only watch from a distance with an ever increasing understanding of the peril ahead. Paddling furiously to no avail,  my efforts seemed more like mental illness than anything resembling any influence on the great ship of nation. I guess my question after a week of this extraction from my normal daily life is about what the heck was I thinking? I’m not one to ignore my responsibilities in life but, goodness sakes, how little influence I have. Perception is a strange thing.

Three noteworthy things I have learned in the past couple of hours. Coffee is good for writing, writing is hard work (whether it be good or bad) and given limitless time I could probably write an arcane book of immense proportions.