“We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided.”---Donald Trump, November 6. 2012
“Million Women March being planned for January 21, 2017 in D.C.”---New York Times
“We hear you, Donald! We’re just four years late is all.”---B.Killeen
Allies: When Friends Aren’t Enough
This Thanksgiving, we’re giving thanks for our readers, the Thursday crew which tunes in faithfully each week to receive the Sermon of the Day. And particularly that small band of forty or so apostles which somehow responds the instant the column is published. We like to think this savvy group is endowed with special computer equipment which goes into action as soon as The Flying Pie is airborne, beaming an instant alarm to Commissioner Gordon, who rushes to the top of the Segal Building in downtown Gainesville and turns on the Pie Signal, visible on the four corners of the Earth. If you think we jest about our expansive audience we’re here to tell you that last week’s column was read by 29 people in St. Petersburg, Russia, 18 in London and 16 more in Milan. Some of them will read it once and never return, a few others will stick for life, either theirs or ours. Some will even become Allies, supporters through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer. These days, when the skies have darkened, the wind howls and friends have abandoned the bunkers and run off to join the other side, all of us need Allies. Allies will help to stem the tide of rancor, to boost our spirits during seiges of doubt, to deliver us from Evil, amen.
When we were kids, we knew who our allies were. They were the kids on our street, the gang from the neighborhood, the crew from our school, the parishioners from our church. When November came, they voted the straight Catholic Democrat ticket, rooted for Lawrence High’s football team to beat Lowell on Thanksgiving morning and then came to dinner at our house. Most of the adults were blue collar workers who belonged to the Textile Workers of America, like my own grandmother, Celia, a weaver at the colossal Wood Mill just down the road. If a few of them were Protestants, well, nobody’s perfect.
For Little League Baseball purposes, South Lawrence was divided into two sections, East and West. At the end of the season, when All-Star teams were chosen to battle squads from neighboring cities, we always rooted for South Lawrence East, but if the West beat us we supported them against the rest of Lawrence and eventually backed the team carrying the city’s flag against the Rest of the World. Call us provincial. That’s the way it was. We knew who our Allies were and we knew we could count on them.
When we went off to college, things were not so simple and orderly. Except for fraternity or sorority pledges who dived into the pile willy-nilly, Allies were accumulated slowly, more thoughtfully. We met people who joined the same clubs, worked as we did for the student newspaper, played together with at intramural sports. We discovered new allies at parties and basketball games and (compulsory) ROTC, which was divided up between the avid lifers and the rest of us layabouts. There were, of course, boundaries which were not crossed at Oklahoma State University, as elsewhere. When I asked my Biological Science lab partner, Betty Jane Kendrick, out on a date she looked up at me in wonder. “Bill!” she exclaimed in disbelief, “…you’re a Yankee, aren’t you?”
At the University of Texas in Austin, my first Allies were the other magazine staffers at The Texas Ranger, then the musicians they consorted with and finally the creative types or would-be artists who congregated just outside the edge of proper society. It was a little late to call them beatniks but not incorrect to label them beatnik alumni. And so, in just the space of a few paltry years, I had graduated from respectable churchgoing outside-Bostonian to an unkempt danger to society. I still felt the same but other people did not feel the same about me. Old friends might look at me and wonder. Some of them might turn and run. But who cared—I had Allies. Allies are there for the duration.
Facebook Friends
These days, many of our Allies are called Facebook Friends. Unlike in days of yore, when we knew all our friends intimately and saw them on a regular basis, Facebook Friends live in the endless fields of the Internet where many of them roam faceless—or with countenances from 50 years ago—popping up often but rarely seen in person, not unlike your mysterious Aunt Millie of youthful days, who rarely appeared but never forgot to send a dollar on your birthday. While hundreds of people read The Flying Pie each week, less than fifty of them are Facebook Friends, but those are the ones who can be counted on most for communication and support, for an interesting take on a particular column or a poignant remembrance of their own with regard to the Subject of the Day. Unless they were regular friends first, Facebook Friends cannot be expected to show up to help you paint the living room, sharpen the mowing blades on your tractor or load the moving van for your relocation across town. No, but they will be there to give you a boost when you have been struck down by threats to your health and wellbeing, to reversals of fortune or to unfortunate visits from the Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. The only friends remaining these days for some of us ravaged by health problems, psychological deficits or financial ruin are Facebook Friends, the bulk of whom are endlessly empathetic and not the slightest bit snooty.
Facebook Friends come in handy during these Days of Dreadful Contemplation thrust upon us by the dawn of the new Trump Empire. At a time when many of us feel abandoned by America as a whole and a number of regular friends in particular, Facebook Friends rush in to fill the breach, to offer support, to advise that tomorrow is another day and hope is just around the corner, even if they don’t believe it themselves. When some of our previous friends call out for civility, healing and unity, a regathering in one big tent of the disaffiliated, our Facebook Friends are here to remind us that Trumpland was carved from a large block of enmity, aggression and divisiveness and so, no, there will be no singing and dancing, thank you very much
Even in the peppermint tree-lined streets of Facebook Land, however, adversity occasionally rears its ugly head. One day, a perfectly normal day in other respects, a Facebook Friend will wake up to find some hateful screed defiling his or her Timeline, an ugly message from an unwelcome misanthrope heretofore masquerading as a Facebook Friend but now unmasked as no Ally. In the real world, dispatching friends who have sinned against us is a sketchy process, full of angst and regret and angry words. In Facebook Land, it is all much simpler if equally regrettable. Once a friend has gone beyond the pale, has thoughtlessly abdicated all responsibility, has opened the door for the monster and laughed about it, there is only one thing to do. The recipient of the bilious commentary rises up, strolls over to his medicine cabinet, selects a scalpel and removes the cancer. In Facebook Land, the scalpel is called the Delete Button and it is being smashed on often these days. In self-defense, really. You’ve got to keep the rabble out of the neighborhood. Is there no room for disagreement? Sure. But not for blind ignorance, not for despicable bigotry, not for the enshrinement of devils.
In the real world, as in Facebook Land, the Allies are down, but not out. The Alliance is disappointed, battered and weary, but make no mistake, the Alliance is strong and long-lived. If Now Is The Time For All Good Men To Come To The Aid Of Their Country, the Allies will be there with bells on. And maybe whistles and kazoos.
The Million Hippie March
Hey, the women are doing it. On January 21, the day following the installation of Der Fuhrer, Carolyn Holmes and 999,999 other women are marching on Washington. It’s like Woodstock all over again, only angrier. Let’s face it, there’s nothing so irritable as a woman who has been forced to sleep for days in a tent. All the hotel rooms have been gobbled up by Neanderthal interests so the streets and parks are all that’s left. The Republicans are sending out signals that such sleeping arrangements will be unacceptable but how would you like to be the cop who walks up to a madwoman’s tent at five in the morning to demur? That’s why they have frying pans. And garlic-flavored mace. We think the District Police are smarter than that and will give these girls a wide berth. I mean, there are a million of them, right? Guess how many cops will be stemming this wild-woman tide, or circulating around it? That’s right, 3900. Well, the cops have weapons, you say. Don’t make me laugh. The women have rolling pins! Did your grandmother ever bop you with one of those? You won’t forget it in a hurry. It feels like a box of rocks fell on you from the third floor.
Another thing. There will be old ladies involved. For GOD’S SAKE men, don’t ever, ever, EVER let yourselves get into a conflict with old ladies! It’s the worst kind of suicide. They will slap you silly with their gigantic hats, they will gas you to death with their vast array of pungent perfumes, they will tear you to pieces with their sharp umbrella handles and send you fleeing, screaming into the dank, cold Washington night. Godzilla has nothin’ on a batch of angry old ladies. It terrifies a body just to think of it.
Since the women are marching again, what about all the old hippies, currently disguised as stockbrokers, insurance peddlers and manufacturers of high-end ice creams? Isn’t it time for a rebirth of hippiedom? What better time than 2017, the 50th anniversary of the San Francisco Summer of Love? This one could be the Summer of Animosity or the Summer of Confrontation or even the Summer of Pie-Flinging. Wavy Gravy could be brought out of retirement to procure thousands of pies and each attendant hippie would be armed with one, the objective being to properly smack in the puss the senator, congressman or cabinet officer of one’s choice. There will have to be a comparing of notes to make sure that Mitch McConnell, the little weasel, doesn’t get hit with ALL the pies. Although, as Seinfeld likes to say, not that there’s anything wrong with that. The hippies could form a group of lively Truth Squads to follow around Donald Trump and his minions, shouting out Truth to Power. CNN, as is its wont, would have to provide representation to the Hippie Legions on all political discussions, thus giving Chuck LeMasters and Jeannie Uffelman another chance at Fame.
We’re painting the bus and looking around for the love beads. Does anyone still have one of those see-through angel dresses? How do I get all this tar out of my hookah? When does the bellbottom store open? Does anyone have a list of marijuana discount shops on the lower East Coast? Anybody got a phone number for Bob Dylan? There are things to do, people to see, accommodations to be made if the Summer of Accountability is to manifest. Can the Allies do it? Is there still time to Save the World? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind, the answer is blowin’ in the wind.
That’s all, folks….com
