The people we talked to were all in the boating business, but we got the impression the anger – and it really is anger - over this situation extends to most people in the community. It is one thing when tourism is hurt when charter groups coming to town for what was once great fishing cancel their plans, or boat captains are forced to go out eight miles into the ocean to have good fishing. Or when those who harvest oysters find the beds destroyed, and fish are killed for miles around. But it is something else when people are warned not to go into Stuart’s many waterways because of health concerns.
As Florida Sportsman editor Karl Wickstrom previously pointed out in this blog, the official excuse for this terrible situation is concern that the levee around the lake could break, repeating a disaster that occurred in 1928. But Wickstrom, whose magazine is based in Stuart, calls that a phony position. The main reason is to protect Big Sugar, the combination of sugar and citrus growers, whose political clout is used to protect their lands south of the lake.
Before Florida embarked on the program of draining wetlands for agriculture, water from the lake flowed south into the Everglades through marshes that naturally cleaned the water. But most of that land is now farming, and rather than interfere with that industry, the Corps releases the water into rivers and estuaries east and west, destroying businesses that need clean water.
You would think that tens of thousands of people on both coasts whose quality of life is hurt could outvote a relative handful of business interests - especially since communities such as Stuart have plenty of well-heeled residents, both seasonal and full time. But it doesn’t work that way. Big Sugar contributes millions to elected officials, both local and federal, especially those in key positions, where they can influence legislation and make appointments to boards that oversee environmental issues. It also spends huge amounts on lobbyists. Almost anyone in Stuart and nearby communities will tell you that historically those legislators protect Big Sugar at the expense of their own neighbors.
What is this if not corruption? This is not the same as donating a hundred bucks to a neighbor running for city commissioner. But it is much like the gun lobby’s enormous funding against anyone advocating gun sanity. Campaign contributions in such massive amounts amount to legal bribes. And when that money is so destructive to the environment of a state whose economy is based so heavily on environment, you would think law enforcement would consider it a crime. It is a crime that they don’t.
The subject is particularly apt right now, as the undefeated team of 1972-73 was honored by the president of the United States yesterday. All real Americans are concerned that in this season of August (through January) memories, the classic uniforms worn by these heroes have been changed. The changes are not glaring. Aqua has replaced orange in stripes. Not much else. The effect is to make somewhat effeminate colors even more so. Although don’t call No. 39, aka Larry Csonka, effeminate. The question, therefore, that real Americans ask, is why? Why change the look, even mildly, worn by a team of legend? It has been 40 years and no other team has gone undefeated, and we are willing to bet several martinis that the guys in the new Dolphins uniforms will not go undefeated. Proof of that bold statement is that they have already lost two games.
It has been a lifelong crusade of this writer to oppose stupid changes in classic uniforms. Our favorite, as with all real Americans, is the New York Yankees, who still look much the way they did in the time of Ruth and Gehrig. One could say the same for other franchises, including Detroit, St. Louis (the baseball team), the Dodgers, and Notre Dame (the football team). On the opposite side, we should mention the United States Army (not the football team), which has discarded the bile green that so many of us wore since 1957, for a return to the two-tone blue the Union wore in the Civil War, itself a throwback to the Continental Army’s colors in the war against the Brits.
Back on topic. Don Shula says it does not seem like 40 years since that season of glory, until he looks in the mirror. Gold Coast magazine was there, actually the year before, when we traveled with the soon-to-be legends to Boston, where our all-time favorite photo was taken. Gold Coast also covered the team a few years later, profiling both Joe Robbie, the owner, and Doug Swift, perhaps the most unusual of an unusual collection of jocks. He is now Dr. Doug Swift, an Amherst grad who got into professional football almost on a lark, and after a brief, wonderful career, went to medical school and, as an anesthesiologist, participated in the first heart transplant at Temple University Hospital. He got us into that hospital early one Monday morning to witness a triple bypass. He did not even ask the PR people for permission, and his fellow docs that day did not know the unknown figure behind the green mask was writing a piece for The Miami Herald. Such innovation is what made him a great linebacker on the No Name Defense.
Little note here of another uniform change. The Miami Marlins (the baseball team) made another uniform change, adopting a look abandoned by most junior high teams. Nobody cared.
The news over the weekend that a federal sting had nailed two Dade County mayors and a pair of lobbyists on the same day is unusual, but a long way from a record for government corruption investigations. Some people call it entrapment, for the public officials involved did not go looking to do something illegal. The alleged bribers sought them out, but such cases usually start with a pretty good hunch that the targets have been on the take, and only needed a little baiting to prove it.
This case is small potatoes compared to some federal stings in the past. One of the biggest was in the late 1970s when a con man posing as an Arab sheik, doing much of his work in South Florida, brought down 19 people, including a U.S. senator and state senator from New Jersey, six congressmen (one from Florida), several Philadelphia city councilman and related parties.
The sting was code named Abscam and the master con-man behind the scenes, Mel Weinberg, lived in the Jensen Beach area. He agreed to work for the government in order to stay out of jail, and being paid a fee of $150,000. Nice money for doing what you love. Weinberg was an entertaining storyteller; his involvement was entertainment in itself – a Jewish guy from the Bronx pretending to represent an Arab trying to get highly placed help in various illegal activities, including political asylum and money laundering. He was profiled in Gold Coast magazine by our late colleague, Gaeton Fonzi. Much of the sting occurred in South Florida. Weinberg nicknamed a West Palm Beach hotel where many meetings took place the “Gotcha Hotel.” He described one incident where a number of marks were invited about the sheik’s yacht in Delray Beach where just about everybody else aboard, posing as guests and crew, were FBI.
The only problem was the FBI had no budget for such a lavish function. It could barely pay for the limousine to escort a phony Arab to the party. An FBI man jokingly suggested that Weinberg try to con one of the political targets – the mayor of Camden, N.J. – into paying for the event.
Recalled Weinberg in the 1981 article: “So that night I call the mayor and tell, 'We’re gonna throw this party in your honor but we’re gonna do it the Arab way. The Arab way is that you have to pay for it.' He says, 'What do you mean, I have to pay?' So I explained to him the Arab way and how we don’t want to insult the Emir Yassir Habib by making him pay for the party. The mayor says, 'Well, hey, Mel, no problem.' Then he conned a Mafiso figure who has a produce business, supplies all the restaurants, the mayor cons him out of the food and the mayor himself buys the booze.”
The night was a stunning success, highlighted by the presentation of a knife bought by Weinberg for $2.75 at a flea market. They cleaned it up, put some chrome on it, and presented it to the mayor by Emir Yassir Habib (an FBI guy) as an Arab symbol of everlasting friendship.
Unlike the recent Miami event, the political types were not snared all at once. The FBI only ended its work when news media began to pick up the story. Weinberg, whose contempt for public servants was manifest, told Fonzi that given enough time he could have done better. Weinberg explained: “I think we would have gotten one-third of Congress. I once said Congress was a bunch of perverts, crooks and drunks. You may laugh at that, but it’s true.”
Although probably not part of his contract, Weinberg found himself tutoring the FBI agents in the art of the con.
“The FBI had never done anything like this before,” Weinberg told Fonzi. “The only one who was used to setting things up like that was me. They went along but they had second thoughts a lot of times. They used to fight me. I mean they still believe in wearing Sears & Roebuck suits. Their way of thinking and doing business is not the way a con man does it. Every time you suggested something - like using a limousine, for instance – you had to argue like mad to get them to go along. I used to get aggravated sometimes so much that they were gonna blow it.”
The FBI men involved in the recent sting likely benefited from the Abscam experience. Probably they dressed a little better, possibly in Jos. A. Bank suits. Buy one, get one free.
There was a magazine convention at Disney World last week. It brought memories of the original Disneyland in California. They aren’t much alike these days. Disneyland is a postage stamp compared to its sprawling Florida descendant. One obvious constant is the attention to detail, to order. It seems every other employee is cleaning or painting something. Walt Disney liked it that way.
He liked it that way in the summer of 1957, when we went to ROTC camp at Fort Sill, Okla. Four of us drove together. None had been west of West Philadelphia, much less the Mississippi River, and after our six weeks in Oklahoma we decided to move on to California, where we could stay in a trailer at the home of one of the guys' relatives. We planned a brief visit, but Disneyland changed that. The park had been opened for just two years, and it was a natural place to check out. Checking it out, we met some girls who told us that the summer workers from California were heading back to school, and we might get jobs. We did not have to back at college until mid-September.
The fellow who hired us was Ron Dominguez, who went on to a big job with Disney. He said if we would stay until Sept. 15, we had jobs. This was early August. We said we would, and we did. One guy had a speaking job on the Mark Twain boat. Two of us were hired as cowboys. It was an amazing month, and it did not take long to appreciate Walt Disney’s hands-on management style. We did not know what he looked like – not at first – but he roamed the park at all hours, making sure everything was the way he wanted it. And the word came down that Disney wanted the kid taking tickets for the stage coach and mule train to tear those tickets in half before dumping them in the trash basket.
The month passed quickly. We never tired of roaming the park after hours, or wearied of the nightly Mickey Mouse parade. We also saw a bit of history. The mule train riders were mostly kids, but a lot of older people rode the stage. It was late on a September afternoon when we heard an ominous sound. Horses galloping. Normally they moved at a gentle trot. The ponies rounded the fake mountain from the Painted Desert, dragging the rig without the coach, and piled up in the loading area with much shreking and dust. Sensing something unusual, we raced up the trail.
It was a scene out of a western, but this was not make-believe. Something had spooked the ponies, who bolted and could not make a curve in the trail. The coach was on its side, wheels spinning, and people were staggering around, covered with dirt. It turned out there were no serious injuries, but you couldn’t tell that from the scene. We helped one elderly woman to her feet. Elderly in those days was older than 60.
“Young man,” she gasped through a mouthful of dirt. “Does this happen often?”
“No ma’am,” we replied. “First time all day.” Actually, we didn’t say that. Walt Disney would not have approved, but the line has played well over the years. We had little work the next few days. The live rides were shut down, not to reopen – at least not in the same form. Our commitment was up and the Philadelphia cowboys went home, hitting Vegas on the way.
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| Karl Wickstrom |
What happens is that the lake water, which is polluted by run-off from agriculture, filled with fertilizer that helps grow crops but hurts anything to do with water ecology, flows into the estuaries and kills them. Or rather it kills creatures, such as oysters and fish, and drives other fish away, and the combination kills businesses that depend on clean water. People who come to Stuart for its famous fishing find the fishing lousy and don’t stay. For an area made so beautiful by its abundant waterways, this is a recurring setback.
The affected communities complain, they get some press (such as a front-page piece in Monday’s Sun-Sentinel), they arouse public interest and sometimes that of elected officials, and not much happens. A few years pass, and without heavy rains the pollution gradually disappears and wildlife begins to recover. There are even times when the lake level gets dangerously low, affecting water supplies in South Florida. But then it happens all over. And it is happening right now.
Our credible source on this matter is Karl Wickstrom, founder and long-time editor of Florida Sportsman magazine. He will go down in the Florida Ecological Hall of Fame, if we ever get such an honor. He is also one of the best publishers we have known in 40 years in Florida. Karl started out in Miami, with the Herald, but now is based in Stuart and sees up close what the lake discharges do. When fresh (although polluted) water mixes with salt water from the St. Lucie River, it is a punch to the ecological gut. We trust his information more than that from any political type. He says, as he has written often:
“Actually, when they discharge from the lake, more water goes west than east, but the west is better able to deal with it. But it’s a terrible thing for both coasts. There are thousands of species that need the mix of fresh and salt water. By flooding the area they destroy sea grasses which are host for a lot of animals. Agriculture is not conducive to good ecology.”
But Wickstrom is not condemning all agriculture. And he makes sure when we announce the principal culprit, “Big Sugar,” we say that is not just the powerful sugar growers, but also citrus and other interests. But as a group they can outvote, because they outspend, everybody else. Which comes to the heart of the matter.
The public thinks the discharges, if they know about them at all, are to protect the dike holding back Lake Okeechobee. Nada, says Wickstrom.
“When the Corps of Engineers says that, it is not really to protect that dike. That is secondary. The first reason is to the protection of Big Sugar. They have spent hundreds of millions in influence.”
He means that water moving elsewhere, toward agricultural land surrounding the lake, especially to to the south where it was directed by nature into what was once a much wider Everglades, before so much land was drained for agricultural purposes, would affect the growers. They have deep pockets and use them to control the politics of pollution. Wickstrom further points out that developers are required to build retention ponds that hold water in times of heavy rain.
“That is required everywhere but with Big Sugar. They have a free ride to pollute the coasts and wipe out all kinds of life,” he says. “They give the impression that the public doesn’t get hurt, and that is so infuriating because they hurt one of the most biologically diverse estuaries in the country. When you ask politicians, they think plans are underway to correct this, but it’s not true. There is nothing being done to stop over drainage.”
In fairness to the Army Corps of Engineers, Wickstrom says the feds have a solution to the problem, which is to take 15 to 20 percent of Big Sugar land and convert it back into sawgrass, a natural filter for the pollutants agriculture causes. It is called Plan 6. What keeps it from happening is called the politics of Big Sugar. It can be a complicated read, especially for most of the public that doesn’t give a damn, but Wickstrom urges people to visit riverscoalition.org.
A few years back we did a historical piece celebrating Fort Lauderdale’s 100th anniversary. Part of it dealt with first families and their descendants. Most of those mentioned had done pretty well, working their way up from the tough pioneer days to become, in later generations, leaders in commerce and the professions.
First among the first was the man who came to town to build a path for others. Philemon Bryan was Henry Flagler’s man in charge of building the section of the Florida East Coast Railway that reached Fort Lauderdale. We knew his family was still important in the area, and while it had little to do with his pioneering activity, the original Bryan’s background was a story of its own. He was a Civil War veteran, who went to war as a teenage drummer in a North Florida regiment. He survived a number of big battles, including Gettysburg, and was there when Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox.
An interesting detail was the makeup of Bryan’s outfit, the Jasper Blues. None of the men owned slaves, and some of them, including Bryan, actually admired Abraham Lincoln. So why, then, did they fight for the Confederacy? It’s a question that bears on the larger question, being discussed now as that war is 150 years old, of what the Civil War was about. Some people object to the notion that states’ rights had anything to do with a fight whose economic cause was slavery.
An interesting detail was the makeup of Bryan’s outfit, the Jasper Blues. None of the men owned slaves, and some of them, including Bryan, actually admired Abraham Lincoln. So why, then, did they fight for the Confederacy? It’s a question that bears on the larger question, being discussed now as that war is 150 years old, of what the Civil War was about. Some people object to the notion that states’ rights had anything to do with a fight whose economic cause was slavery.
It is true that without slavery, there would have been no war, but it does not follow that the men who fought in it were for slavery in the South or necessarily against it in the North. Men like Bryan and his fellow combatants went to war for their neighborhoods, and the larger neighborhood was their state. There were some strange applications of such loyalty, as in case of Wesley Culp who grew up in Gettysburg and moved to Virginia as a young man just a few years before the war. But when the war came he fought for his new neighborhood, Virginia, and, in the rarest of ironies, was killed at Gettysburg at Culp’s Hill, land owned by his uncle where he played as a boy.
Those who condemn objects of the war, as the Confederate flag, as racist symbols, often forget that until the war settled the issue, the states considered themselves the foremost instruments of government. While the northern states fought to preserve the union, the southern states felt less sense of union. They did not want to be told what to do. When some in Texas talk of secession today, it is taken as a joke. But it was no joke in 1861.
As the anniversaries of the great battles are noted over the next two years, the debate over why the war was fought will continue. Those who say it was simply about slavery are right, but that does not make those who argue that men fought for states rights wrong.
As the anniversaries of the great battles are noted over the next two years, the debate over why the war was fought will continue. Those who say it was simply about slavery are right, but that does not make those who argue that men fought for states rights wrong.
The driver was frustrated. He (or she, but probably he) was trying to get onto Broward Boulevard from one of the side streets near U.S. 1. Traffic was backed up, even at a nearby light. Thoughtless drivers, probably on cell phones, blocked the intersection, flat in the middle of a red light, preventing other drivers from being able to move even though they had the green. Horns of protest were heard. You see it every day on Fort Lauderdale’s increasingly congested main roads. And the driver trying to get onto Broward had seen enough. He backed up and made a U-turn, very tricky when backing up, and did not quite pull it off, hitting a curb, then retracing in the opposite direction, not terribly pleased with his present station in life.
We might as well get used to it. This is not even the season, and yet day by day it seems that the renewal of downtown Fort Lauderdale is becoming a self-defeating reality.
Thoughts go back to the 1970s when Bill Farkas came to down as the Downtown Development director. He found that the person he replaced had put the town in a legal pickle, having razed buildings the city did not own. There were several blocks of empty dirt, surrounded by tired structures, and until legal issues were resolved, nothing new could go up. The solution was to put in some nicely landscaped tennis courts, just to give the impression that something was happening. And when something actually did happen, some people complained that the city had taken away their nice tennis courts.
Bill Farkas did a good job (some might say brilliant) and did another good job later when he supervised the building of the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. But when he took over, things were depressing. In a broad sense, Fort Lauderdale and environs were booming. The Galt Ocean Mile had been transformed from an open beach where teenagers used to park to a row of new condominiums. Nearby Coral Ridge was being built and the western suburbs were replacing farmland.
The downtown, however, instead of advancing, was in retrograde. The only major store was Burdines, and it decided to leave for the newly built Galleria Mall. It is now Macy’s. Farkas had not even been told of the move in advance. But he managed to save the building as the Broward County Government Center, and slowly the vision of a modern downtown was realized. Farkas, who now lives in Dade County, could hardly imagine that, some 30 years later, people would be worried about out-of-control downtown development.
But they are – or should be. As we write, there are five cranes jabbing the skyline within a few blocks along U.S. 1. Nearby are blocks of recently built apartments, which have replaced 1920s-era cottages, most of them already converted to small offices. There is more high-density building going on near the New River, and other sites awaiting approval. All this building is great for the construction trades, but does anyone worry about the traffic sure to come from thousands of new residences, crowded around a downtown that is hard to navigate as it is?
One of the unusual features of Fort Lauderdale is the desirable neighborhoods surrounding the downtown, convenient to shopping, entertainment and even the airport. They include Victoria Park, Las Olas Isles, Rio Vista, Colee Hammock, Tarpon Bend and Sailboat Bend. Although homes there vary greatly in value, they all share a quality of life not found in many Florida cities. And all have benefited from investment in restoring and improving, and in many cases replacing older dwellings. But for the most part, the changes have not brought dramatic increases in density. And the city, beginning more than 20 years ago, has tried to protect those neighborhoods by blocking cut-through traffic, trying to channel onto the main thoroughfares.
But that is not the case with all the new construction underway at the heart of the roundel of established neighborhoods. Rampant building is going on with little, or no thought to solving already vexing traffic problems. The new life will surely degrade the quality of the old.
Better practice U-turns backing up.
Like many great discoveries, it came almost by accident. Since the dawn of time, scientists have been trying to figure out the difference between men and women. And right here at an alumni luncheon we were discussing a celebrity, one well-known in the broadcast news business, who happens to be the daughter of one of the couples at the luncheon.
Unfortunately, this discussion did not take place until after everybody had split. We asked if the other half had met the parents of the famous daughter.“Were they there? I wanted to meet them and tell them how good their daughter is.”
“I thought you met ‘em. I would have introduced you. It was hard enough figuring out who the guys were, and I’ve seen most of them over the years. People change after 60 years. At one time you were standing next to her. You were talking to the guy you mixed up with his brother. I thought you met them. You probably did and didn’t even know it.”
And this is exactly where the great scientific breakthrough came: “What was she wearing?” the other half asked.
“What was she wearing? How the hell do I know? She was wearing clothes, I guess. I probably would have noticed otherwise.”
"I mean what color dress? Or was she wearing a flowered pant suit? Was she the one in that little vest?”
"How do I know? Who would even notice, with 50 people milling around, all trying to figure out who the hell was who. I don’t even know what you were wearing, and you’re still wearing it.”
There was another woman privy to this exchange. And she said: “Women notice that kind of thing.”
"What kind of thing?”
“What people are wearing. Especially other women.”
Eureka, or other such expressions. For the first time in history it was revealed that the big difference between men and women is that women notice what other women wear, and men can’t tell the difference from one old lady to the next, unless one of them is in a thong.
“What color was her hair? Do you remember how she was wearing it?”
“Was or is,” we said. “About 50 years ago it might have been sandy, streaked with silver. Now it’s the same color as all the others. Blonde or charcoal or Columbia blue – anything but what is really is. And I’m pretty sure she wore her hair on her head.”
“That’s more than half the men there could say.”
“Don’t get personal. I guess you want to know what color eyes. They all have the same color – pale moon embroidered with rubies.”
“Interesting. When we go to cocktail parties, you seem to notice what those sexy bartenders are wearing.”
“You mean not wearing.”
And so it went on, declining in historic value, all the way down the Shenandoah Valley. But that did not change the thrill of discovery of the difference between men and women. There may be other differences, yet uncovered by the hand of man. We will let you know if they surface.
Unfortunately, this discussion did not take place until after everybody had split. We asked if the other half had met the parents of the famous daughter.“Were they there? I wanted to meet them and tell them how good their daughter is.”
“I thought you met ‘em. I would have introduced you. It was hard enough figuring out who the guys were, and I’ve seen most of them over the years. People change after 60 years. At one time you were standing next to her. You were talking to the guy you mixed up with his brother. I thought you met them. You probably did and didn’t even know it.”
And this is exactly where the great scientific breakthrough came: “What was she wearing?” the other half asked.
“What was she wearing? How the hell do I know? She was wearing clothes, I guess. I probably would have noticed otherwise.”
"I mean what color dress? Or was she wearing a flowered pant suit? Was she the one in that little vest?”
"How do I know? Who would even notice, with 50 people milling around, all trying to figure out who the hell was who. I don’t even know what you were wearing, and you’re still wearing it.”
There was another woman privy to this exchange. And she said: “Women notice that kind of thing.”
"What kind of thing?”
“What people are wearing. Especially other women.”
Eureka, or other such expressions. For the first time in history it was revealed that the big difference between men and women is that women notice what other women wear, and men can’t tell the difference from one old lady to the next, unless one of them is in a thong.
“What color was her hair? Do you remember how she was wearing it?”
“Was or is,” we said. “About 50 years ago it might have been sandy, streaked with silver. Now it’s the same color as all the others. Blonde or charcoal or Columbia blue – anything but what is really is. And I’m pretty sure she wore her hair on her head.”
“That’s more than half the men there could say.”
“Don’t get personal. I guess you want to know what color eyes. They all have the same color – pale moon embroidered with rubies.”
“Interesting. When we go to cocktail parties, you seem to notice what those sexy bartenders are wearing.”
“You mean not wearing.”
And so it went on, declining in historic value, all the way down the Shenandoah Valley. But that did not change the thrill of discovery of the difference between men and women. There may be other differences, yet uncovered by the hand of man. We will let you know if they surface.
One notes the case of a Broward city commissioner who has been subject to a recall movement. She is easy to recall, for who could forget the dumb defense that worked when she was on trial for allegedly taking stuff in return for her vote. Her dumb defense, in effect, was that she was too dumb to do anything crooked. Her lawyer argued that she was admittedly not a bright bulb, but surely not venal. She simply did not realize anything was wrong. A jury accepted that explanation and found her innocent by virtue of stupidity.
Now she wants her job back, and is fighting the recall on the grounds that this is all personal. She may not be smart enough to realize it, but she may be in the process of establishing a new campaign mode for South Florida. We can see the day when the key to political success will be to appear dumber than anybody running against you.
We had a chance to interview a prospect for a political office.
“Your principal qualification is stupidity, right?”
“Yes, sir. There’s nobody out there who can touch me when it comes to being one brick short of a load.”
“And that qualifies you for public office.”
“Sure, I’m too dumb to cause any harm. I won’t understand the laws. I’ll vote for anything anybody wants, as long as my net worth increases annually.”
“Your opponents don’t seem that bright," we said. "How do you know you outdumb them?”
“Oh some of them may have a certain cachet, but not dumb as a stump like me. I’ll take a polygraph.”
“What was that word you used?”
“What word?" he said.
“Didn’t you say cachet? Now that’s not an everyday dumbster’s word. You even pronounced it right. A truly dumb person would rhyme it with hatchet, rather than the traditional French pronounciation, which rhymes with maché. People who are trying to become smarter tend to use such words, like paradigm and conundrum, and they fancy expressions such as ‘kick the can down the road,’ and ‘at the end of the day,’ and ‘you have my back.’ Nobody knows what they mean, but they sound smart. You could have a problem if voters perceive you are trying to become smart. And, by the way, by cachet did you mean an official seal of recognition or approval, or were you referencing a medicinal preparation for swallowing consisting of a case usually of rice-flour paste enclosing a medicine?”
“No, I didn’t mean nothing like that. I was thinking more of a design or inscription on an envelope to commemorate a postal or philatelic event. Also a girl who dresses good," he said.
“Friend, I think you have a problem. People will distrust you if they think you are smart enough to pretend to be stupid just to get their vote. You can’t use arcane words and be accepted by a dumb voter. For starters, you need to bury the cachet. And imagine if you got in front of a jury for misfeasance or malfeasance. You could never convince them they you are too dumb to be on the take. I think the reason the woman got off was that she may well have been truly, honest-to-God dumb, a bona fide boob, and the jury was smart enough to grasp that. Suppose in a trial somebody uses a word like ‘venal.’ What would you say?”
“I’d play dumb.”
“Friend, we wish you well. But we’ll put our money on the jury.”
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| Robert E. Lee |
It was a beautiful day on the battlefield. We were standing near the famous copse of trees that was the Confederate objective on Cemetery Ridge, the site of the legendary Pickett’s Charge. The grandsons asked if they were the same trees as in the battle. Interesting question. If so, they must be well leaded. A father from Scranton was with his boys and he said, “I have a million questions about this battle.”
“We could probably answer five-hundred-thousand of them,” an eavesdropper said.
“I know nothing about the battle,” the father said, looking over the expanse of flat, mostly uphill land a mile wide toward Seminary Ridge, “but I wonder why they ever made that charge across open fields.”
“People have been wondering that for 150 years,” he was told. It was just a coincidence that we visited Gettysburg just a few weeks before the 150th anniversary of the greatest killing field on American soil, but it was no coincidence that a man viewing the battlefield for the first time wondered why so great a general as Robert E. Lee sent 12,500 of his best troops on an attack that even his top lieutenant thought was doomed to fail.
Lee, largely silent on the subject, said only that he thought his men could do anything and added that, for reasons unknown, his plan of coordinated attacks from three different directions was not carried out. He also said he could have used Stonewall Jackson, who had been killed at Chancellorsville a month before.
The great general was hardly alone in attacking a formidable Civil War position. Union Gen. Ambrose Burnside at Fredericksburg sent the Irish Brigade to slaughter in a hopeless uphill attack. And Gen. John Bell Hood destroyed the better part of a Confederate army in similar fashion at the Battle of Franklin in Tennessee.
But it is Gettysburg that continues to fascinate and draw the crowds. For the big anniversary next week there will be almost as many people wandering around Gettysburg wearing Civil War uniforms as took part in the original fight. And some of them, like the fellow from Scranton, will ask some strange questions. Columnist George Will overheard people saying that it was interesting that so many of these great battles took place in national parks, and observing that the battle could not have been that bad – there are no bullet holes on the monuments.
Gettysburg has too many monuments; some of them look like churches. Compare it to Manassas (Bull Run) right outside Washington. The first big battlefield of the war has little statuary. Or Five Forks near Petersburg, Virginia, the last big engagement. Many of the 9,500 Confederates were captured, greatly weakening the already worn-down Southern army, and forcing Lee to abandon his position and begin the retreat that led to Appomattox. That battlefield has hardly changed over a century and a half, but it is barley recognizable as such. It was not even on the historic registry until 1960. Five country roads still intersect, but there is a lone cannon and a marker to remember the battle. You could pass it without notice.
