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"Huecos"
Chapter
9 of a novel by Claude Hall
One thing I will admit:
Winona Hodgins was pretty when
she got mad. Even prettier than normal. Her blonde
hair in the mid-day sun seemed to throw off sparks
like a golden fire. Her eyes, green as baby cucumbers
and the kind of eyes you liked to look at and you
liked to have looking at you, would have wilted the
gaze of a rattlesnake even if both of them were angry.
And they got even prettier, too.
On the other hand, I had a hunch that if she looked
that pretty mad, she'd probably look a whole lot
better happy. This was just a conjecture, of course.
I'd never seen her happy.
But I had other things to do than think about pretty
blondes at the moment. Anyway, that was her departing
dust being blown west by a prevailing prairie breeze
and even her dust was fast disappearing. And I had
work to do.
Actually, it wasn't work. It was something intensely
more horrible! I soon came to the decision that I
would rather dig postholes in hell than haul rock. It
was not difficult to understand why Blazing Rock had
run away from that mission on the Rio Grande. And why
he'd taken to working late with the cattle.
First, you have to find the particular rock you need,
in this case one with at least a more or less flat
side. Then you have to bend down and pick it up.
Even if you use mostly your knees, lifting rock soon
puts a serious cramp in your back. The cramp grows.
And the cramp doesn't go completely away at the end of
the day. About sunset every day, I would shuck my
boots and shirt and literally fall into the lower end
of the springs as soon as we quit work. And I would
sprawl there like a wounded duck, which was just about
how I felt. After a while, I'd crawl out of my Levis
and sling them over a nearby bush to dry while I
continued to lazy around. In the cool of the evening
just after the sun has dropped beyond the cliffs the
springs were about as close to paradise as you could
get. Some quail whirred through the palms. Now and
then a pigeon cooed. It was a very peaceful scene.
Still, the aches never completely washed away.
Second, you had to carry the rocks over to the wagon
and lay them down. You could only load about as high
as the sideboard because rocks are heavy. Then you
crawled upon the wagon seat and wheeled back to the
springs and backed the wagon up to the work site. Me
and Rock would place the rocks directly from the wagon
into our slowly growing verandah. With a lot of
effort, we found that some rocks fit here and there
better than there and here and the overall result was
that we didn't need a whole lot of concrete. Yeah, we
didn't make a whole lot of headway during an
afternoon's labor, but we kept at it and after several
days you could step back a few feet and maybe notice
that it was bigger than it used to be.
The verandah stretched along this side of a towering
boulder that leaned against the cliff, making a
natural passage way off back toward some trees. The
verandah followed the cliff north and then jutted into
some large rocks before tapering east along the rocks.
The springs leaped out of the rocks below the
verandah. We intended to put some steps down to the
springs once we got the verandah finished.
When Marshal Vernon Dalhart arrived for his visit, he
appeared like he always did. I was just admiring my
work on a section of the verandah and there he was,
standing in the shadows by the rock cliff.
"You here to arrest me for stealing cattle?" I asked
when I finally noticed him, but I didn't even bother
to look up.
"Nothing as trivial as a mere hanging offense,"
Dalhart replied. Which, of course, was kind of a
joke. You might get hung for stealing a man's horse,
but he knew as well as I did that steers were only
worth about as much as their hides unless you drove
them up the Shawnee Trail to some trail's end, i.e., a
stockyard at a railway stop where the cattle could
then be transported back east if you were lucky enough
to find a buyer. The big problem against that,
however, was the fear of Texas fever. Ticks didn't
seem to affect longhorns, but the ticks that longhorns
carried scared the devil out of Missouri farmers who
had livestock. One year, an epidemic of Texas fever,
sometimes called Mexican fever as well as a few other
uncomplimentary things, killed thousands of prime
stock in Missouri and other states. These days, a
militia sometimes met you at the state line and if you
didn't turn back they were perfectly comfortable in
shooting you and your cattle and didn't have to answer
any questions about it either.
"Well, that's some good news anyway," I said.
"I could have arrested you right easy, though, seeing
as how you're not wearing a gun," he mused. He took
off his Stetson and wiped the inside band with a
bandanna.
"It might be a serious mistake to think I'm not well
protected," I pointed out. I tapped the rock with the
end of a five-foot pole to make sure it settled in
properly. Then I knelt down and laid my head again
the surface of the verandah to see how level it was.
And it was not perfect, mind you, but pretty clean for
a job done by a couple of amateurs.
The marshal quickly donned his Stetson.
"You've got a hideout on you?" he asked in that
casual, but quite serious manner that he had.
"No," I said. "I'd never do that sort of thing. Just
a bit too sneaky for my way of thinking. A gun in a
holster is a symbol that you don't want trouble, but
you're ready for it if and when it happens. A hideout
is something only a coward would wear."
"Then why in blazes do you think you're protected?"
"One of my close friends has you covered with his bow
and arrow," I said.
The marshal eased back a step and looked quickly
around. Then he noticed Small Wind with a bow made
from a branch of a weeping willow tree.
"Hi, uncle marshal," shouted Small Wind. He waved.
This required him to unnotch his arrow.
"Training him early, huh?"
"Him? Nope," I said. "He's the one giving me bow and
arrow lessons. I'm getting pretty good, too. I shot
an arrow maybe a dozen yards yesterday and almost hit
the target."
With a shout of glee, Small Wind dropped his makeshift
bow and arrow and ran forward to grab the marshal's
hand.
For a moment, I could see that the marshal was taken
aback. Probably, he'd never been any too friendly
with anyone and that included kids. But the smile of
Small Wind was demanding. And while the marshal was
uncomfortable about the situation, because it was his
gun hand that Small Wind had wrapped up with both of
his hands, he was reluctant to shake the kid loose and
just stood there in indecision.
"Well, if I were you," the marshal said to me, "I'd
start wearing your sixgun. Might be a bit more
appropriate."
"Now don't tell me that Miss Hodgins is going to shoot
me herself for cattle rustling."
"Don't think so," he said. "She might want to, but I
don't expect her to get around to something like that
for a few days yet. Anyway, it appears as if she
might have to stand in line."
I stopped admiring my work on the verandah.
"That's interesting," I said.
Finally, the marshal, in an awkward movement because
it was so uncharacteristic of his nature, reached down
and picked up Small Wind and placed him on his
shoulders.
"It's not uncle marshal, youngster," he told Small
Wind. "It's uncle Dalhart."
Song came out of the house.
"Is he bothering you?" she asked.
"Not at all," said Dalhart.
She nodded and vanished inside. At the moment, the
long room where she and Rock lived didn't have a real
door, just a buffalo hide hanging down to provide
privacy and a small amount of protection from the
elements.
The marshal slowly examined our handy work. The rock
verandah backed up against the cliffs and now extended
from in front of the house where Rock and Song lived
to beyond the fireplace off to the right where we
planned to eventually build a huge living room.
"What I'm talking about," Dalhart said, "is comanchero
trouble. Bad comanchero trouble by the name of Zhito
Garcia."
"Do I know this particular Garcia?"
"He limps," said the marshal.
For a moment, I couldn't figure out what he was
talking about. Several weeks had passed. I had
become so engrossed with the ranch that everything
else had been dislodged from my mind. Then I
remembered the comanchero I'd shot in the foot a few
weeks ago.
"Guess it had to come sooner or later," I said.
"Must be more than a dozen with him," the Dalhart
said. "Awful lot of guns just to get revenge on one
medium-sized cowpoke."
I stared at him for a moment before deciding it was
time to tell him the full story.
"A very rich cowpoke with a couple of bags of gold
coins," I said.
Carefully, he reached up and unfastened Small Wind
from around his shoulders and lowered him to the
verandah. This was okay with Small Wind because we'd
already become boring and he wanted to go look at the
fish in the stream below the springs.
Dalhart looked at me for a while, then lit up his
pipe. But he had no intention of hiding behind his
pipe this time.
"Guess we'd better talk," he said.
"If you'll step over to the kitchen, we can fortify
the conversation with some coffee," I told him.
I called Song to come out and sit with us. As I told
Dalhart, she was in charge of the gold. Because my
personal ownership of the gold hadn't lasted all that
long. After all, Chief Sitting Bull had sort of given
it to her two boys rather than to me and her and
Blazing Rock.
It took a while to tell Marshal Vernon Dalhart the
entire story, but I had known that I would have to do
it eventually. He listened patiently without
interrupting. All this time, he watched the water
bubbling above the surface of the springs down below
the verandah. Finally, after I finished, he downed
the rest of his cup of coffee and faced me.
"So Sitting Bull actually dug up the bags of gold?"
"That's the truth," I said.
"And he gave the bags to you?"
"No. I noticed them on the travois when we left here
for the Broke Snake ranch. Blazing Rock used the bags
as sort of a pillow. But I think the chief actually
gave the gold to his grand children. The reason is
that I suspect the chief has yet to take a strong
liking to his son-in-law. It's one of those Sioux
versus Comanche things."
"How much gold was in the bags?"
"I don't know. At the Broke Snake, I gave the bags to
the boy, Small Wind, to bury somewhere. I actually
haven't seen the bags since and I didn't bother
counting anything before that. But the boy buried
them among the onions in the garden and...."
"Among the potatoes," corrected Song.
"And Song hid the gold again. We used some of the
coin a while back when we bought the buggy and
harness. I thought we also might purchase a Durham
bull one of these days and turn it loose among the
longhorns."
He frowned. "Is that wise? A longhorn bull has been
known to kill a bear without much trouble. Just think
what one of those devils might do against a fancy-bred
Durham from somewhere like Kentucky."
"Ackerman and I and Rock have talked about it a lot.
We figure that one of these days we've got to upgrade
the stock and put a fence of some kind around this
spread. Whether the old-time cowman likes it or not
we're going to have to put up fence one of these days.
They've already done it back east."
"Lord, but I hate the idea of fence," the marshal
said. "It just doesn't seem right to fence in what
God gave us."
"The big question is how much of this can we fence?"
"Guess I could check it out."
"I would consider that a favor," I told him.
"The Diamond must start over yonder about the horizon,
give or take forty or fifty miles and it used to run
all of the way to Langtry, but I don't know if that's
a proper legal situation. When you come to the Broke
Snake, I think that's government land if it belongs to
anyone. And this place probably is government land,
too."
"The big question," I said, "is which government."
"As far as I'm concerned, Texas."
"Yeah, but that's because you're a Texican."
"Always have been and always will be," Dalhart said.
I hesitated a while before bringing up the subject of
the prettiest blonde I'd ever seen. And, yeah, I know
that you're automatically thinking I haven't seen a
whole lot of them and to some extent you'd be
absolutely correct. On the other hand, it is true
that I've seen enough of them to know one from the
other.
"Speaking of the Broke Snake, how is Miss Hodgins
doing?"
"At the moment, she's living in town and has a Mexican
guy sort of babysitting the Broke Snake while she
hunts for a buyer."
"So she's definitely not going to stay out west?"
This, of course, was not any sudden news to me. She'd
said as much when she first drove up that day at the
Broke Snake. However, I'll admit that I felt a
sinking feeling in the gut.
"I would think that's a good surmise," Dalhart said.
"In fact, I expect her to head east just as soon as
she sells the Broke Snake and gets you hung for cattle
rustling and stealing her father's money."
"What money?"
"She thinks old man Hodgins had several hundred
dollars in cash. To the best of my knowledge,"
Dalhart said, "it wasn't much in gold coin if that
little bit of information sets your mind at rest."
"Well, it wasn't all Confederate either," I told him.
I shucked a couple of bills out my billfold to prove
it to him. "This was how he paid me."
"Federal money." He looked at the bills and then
handed them back to me.
"Yeah. He took the money from a metal box in a drawer
in his desk," I said. "And he counted it out very
carefully and very slowly. But he did have a few
Confederate bills. Once, he accidentally fed one of
them to one of the crew. They, of course, fed it back
because you can't spend them things anymore."
"Well, there wasn't any money, federal or Confederate,
in the box when I examined the place," Dalhart said.
"One of the other waddies must have taken the money."
"Or the son of a gun that killed him."
"That's a better possibility," he said.
Rock and Ackerman eventually came up. According to
Rock they'd branded maybe another fifty head of
cattle. And Ackerman thought there were another
hundred up a box canyon twenty miles south.
"You getting along okay?" Dalhart asked Rock.
"Except for hauling rock for the verandah," Rock said.
"I haven't recovered enough for that."
Dalhart almost grinned. "It don't pay to get too well
when there's hard work handy," he advised Rock. "As
for this place here," he said to me, "you might better
file some kind of claim to this land just to be safe."
"I wouldn't even know where to start," I said.
"Down at Austin, I guess. Must be a place in Austin."
We spent a while discussing that and then the
conversation drifted onto the topic of the weather,
which is how conversations generally start and end in
this part of the country.
Dalhart sort of invited himself to dinner. But that's
common practice in the west. Matter of fact, you
didn't even bother to ask. It was just the way things
were.
Song prepared some potatoes in the fireplace while
Ackerman basted some huge steaks with a kind of hot
sauce he'd invented. The steaks turned out slightly
hotter than a branding iron and I'm not talking about
heat just because they were forked from the grill
right onto your plate. But I don't think there's
anything better than cool spring water, a good rare
steak, and baked potatoes on a pleasant evening.
Ackerman and Dalhart got to swapping old stories about
cattle stampedes and Rock and I and Small Wind sat
around listening to them talk in the moonlight,
watching the flicker of the moon and the stars on the
water of the spring below, while Song sat and rocked
the baby.
That night, Dalhart brought up his saddle and flung it
down by the fireplace and rolled up in a blanket with
the saddle for a pillow. When I crawled out of the
teepee in the morning, the saddle and the blanket and
the marshal were nowhere in sight. This didn't
surprise me; I'd already grown used to his quiet
appearances and his sudden goings. He was like a
prairie wind, here for a while and soon gone.
But he wasn't completely gone yet. He stood down
below the spring watering his horse in that half-light
glow that precedes dawn. The horse was already
saddled.
"Appears as if you've got plumb lazy," he said, "now
that you're a genuine rancher instead of just a mere
cowhand. It's almost sunup."
"It's just a mild case of complete disinterest in
work," I replied. "Carrying rock after a full day in
the saddle will sometimes do that sort of thing to
you. You want some coffee before you head out?"
"Already had coffee," the marshal said. "Song and I
sat and talked a while this morning. Pretty smart
woman. Good at doctoring, too. Fixed up a scratch
that had become infected. Some kind of paste made
from cactus, she said."
"You figure it all out about the gold?"
"Ain't my gold anyway. And that comanchero back in
town certainly hasn't registered a complaint about
somebody stealing his gold. He did stare a few
moments at this horse. But then he walked away
without saying anything."
"Can marshals be arrested for horse theft?"
"Not this particular marshal," Dalhart said. "If he
says anything, I might be obligated to give him the
horse back, though. Just to be polite."
"And you reckon these comancheros and this Garcia will
be dropping by on sort of a social call?"
"Maybe. I told them that as far as I knew you'd gone
north, which is true to a certain distance. But he
will probably end up checking things out for himself."
"I surmise he will," I said.
Dalhart sort of flowed up into his saddle. But I
could tell that his movement was slowed down by
thinking.
"As far as I'm concerned," he said, "the gold was
given to Small Wind by Chief Sitting Bull. And I'm
not the kind of person dumb enough to argue with an
Indian chief, especially when that chief is named
Sitting Bull. I suppose, however, that this Garcia
and his girlfriend El Tigre might have an entirely
different idea about the situation."
"Probably," I said.
"Probably," he echoed. "Well, I've got to run over to
El Paso for a day or two. Business. You watch
yourself." He pulled the reins on his horse to point
him down the trail.
But I'd been doing a pile of quick thinking and I
raised my hand to hold him back a moment. It took me
a while, too, to get my thoughts in order so I could
tell him what they were.
"Tell this Garcia, if you see him," I said, "that I'll
be dropping by town tomorrow or the next day. Tell
him that I'd be more than happy to chat with him in
the street about sundown."
"Why would you want to do a fool thing like that?"
"I don't want a bunch of renegades scaring Song and
the kid," I said. "Best to meet him somewhere else
than here."
"That makes sense to me," Dalhart said. "And why
sundown?"
"Gives me a chance to do a full day's work," I said.
"When you're a genuine rancher, you can't afford to
waste a day. I was thinking about coming into town
anyway to see if I could hire a couple of Mexicans for
a few days."
"You know, you might want to take Ackerman and the
Rock with you."
"What for?"
"Did it ever occur to you," Dalhart asked, "that you
might get killed at sundown?"
"Me? I'm not planning on a shootout...I'm merely
planning on conversation."
"What if this Garcia fellow doesn't like to talk?"
"Well, then I guess that's his problem, not mine."
"Probably," said Dalhart. "But I'm not exactly
heading that direction so you'll have to tell him
yourself and, just in case, also notify the undertaker
that he may have business. If I were you, Ghost, I'd
dillydally a couple of days until I get back."
He touched the brim of his Stetson, then said the word
"git" and the horse got.
(continued next week)
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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August 15, 2005
Commentary
by
Claude Hall
Tom Noonan,
tenoonan8@aol.com: "Re
the photo of Shelia
Chlanda and the late LARRY DOUGLAS, you are right, he
was a West Coast promotion rep for EPIC Records--and
truly great guy and a great promotion man to boot.
Shelia, of course, was my right arm, both at Billboard
and at Columbia Records--and continued to be a very
key person in Columbia promotion under Ron Alexenburg,
Stan Monteiro, Steve Popovich, Ed Hynes, and many
other heads of promotion there--she spent something
like 30 years at CBS/Columbia and was always a key
person for all field promotion personnel--worked all
of the trades and did so many other things. She is
retired now, living on Long Island, NY, and a member
of the Columbia/Epic Alumni Assoc. and I am in
constant touch with her. One more thing--you are
again correct in stating that other trades, both
Cashbox and Record World printed press releases while
Billboard reporters and editors dug up stories--per
example, it was our Chicago office that first broke
the major story re coin machine business (a true
national story that a weekly broke before all the
daily newspapers), and you can add that early on Gerry
Wexler and Joel Friedman were both great reporters as
well as Bob Rolontz, Joe Martin, and, of course, Paul
Ackerman. Billboard also had a major beat when Elvis
Presley died--why? Because Pat Kelleher was with Col.
Tom Parker in New England where they were waiting for
Elvis to come in for a concert when they got the word
of his death. Pat Kelleher was a very close buddy of
mine from our old neighborhood in the Bronx, and he
called me in L.A. and gave me 'confidential' details
surrounding Elvis' death that we printed and were the
only publication to have such information--but could
never quote the source--but it was the late Pat
Kelleher who worked for RCA Records for years. Those
were some good days. Those were some great days."
Tom Noonan was recently in the hospital. He's
recovering nicely. A good man to have around when it
comes to music business lore. In many ways, he was
Mister Billboard. Knew just about everyone and just
about everything in the music business. Plus a long
tenure with the magazine. But, lord, his jokes were
lousy. I would stand there and flinch. I still
remember the one about how they stopped air pollution
in Italy. Now, finally, after more than 40 years I
can say "boo!"
Jack G. Thayer, president
of NBC Radio; Chuck Blore, a legendary radio
programmer and commercial production genius; Ernie Farrell,
record
promotion person and once head of promotion for Reprise Records
under
Frank Sinatra; later a vice president at MGM Records under Mike
Curb.
Chuck was responsible for several outstanding radio promotions
that
later became against the law (they were that good!), including
"The
Amoeba." Ernie was instrumental in the success of recording
artists
ranging from Sammy Davis Jr. to the Osmonds. The late Jack G.
Thayer,
once a rock 'n' roll disc jockey, was, without question, one of
radio's
most popular people.
Tracie Ireland,
tracieireland@bellsouth.net: "I would
like to thank you very much for keeping the memory of
my Dad, Jack G. Thayer, alive. It is hard to believe
that it has been 10 years since his passing and I
still miss him every day. I have moved to Harriman,
Tennessee, with my husband, Jerry, our son Jason and
my Mother, Donna. We just had to get out of
California, too crowded, too much cement! My Mom is
in Cleveland as we speak, seeing some old friends.
There was a disagreement about whether or not Dad had
gone back to Cleveland after he left California. I
didn't remember his being at WGAR. I only remembered
his being in Columbus with Nationwide Communications.
By using my computer and a Google search, I found you
and found out that my Dad had indeed gone back to
Cleveland before moving on. Thank you again for
speaking so fondly of my Dad. He was a great man and
a very important one in the radio biz."
I emailed Tracie that hearing from her was extremely
important to me. Her father, Jack G. Thayer, was
without question a legendary radio man. One of the
nicest guys in the business. I remember a record
promotion man mentioning to me that once, when he was
down and out Jack Thayer sent him $1,000. It was not
a loan. It wasn't asked for; just freely given to
someone in a bit of a slump. Jack was like that with
everyone. No, he was not perfect. I don't know
anyone perfect and that includes me. But he was a
damned fine human being and there are countless
friends of his who will remember him as long as we
live. I knew Jack from the 60s. I believe I can say
with complete assurance that he's upstairs and still
"on your side." Meaning: We all have at least one
angel watching over us.
Bob Gowa, bobgowa@aol.com:
"I just found your web
site and spent the past two hours enveloped in
wonderful, long-forgotten memories. Back in the '70s
I was at KWST, KROQ and KMET, and worked with Shadoe
Stevens on the American Airchexx audio trade magazine.
I was assigned to interview you for American Airchexx,
and remember the session vividly. I was quite jittery
entering your office (imagine, me interviewing YOU!),
but you immediately put me at ease, and we had a great
talk. Some of the people and places you bring up in
your weekly column are treasures to me; even the name
of Dick LaPalm! Dick was one of my favorite people
when he was with the Village Recorder in Westwood, and
one of the most gracious people I've known...and one
of the funniest...his 'Shit List' was written on an
long scroll of poster paper in Dick's office and
included more names every time (some well-known, some
known only to Dick)...no shit! Thank you for being
there, Claude...then and now."
I remember that interview, Bob. Talk about being
flattered! Didn't think I warranted something like
that then and still feel I didn't deserve it. On the
other hand, I was a big ham and got a kick out of it.
Seems as if I was also interviewed on a thing done by
Buddy Blake. LP thing. I'd probably be embarrassed
if I heard those interviews these days. People have a
tendency to personally remember just their "correct"
ideas and tend to forget the dumb things that we
stated somewhere along the way. However, I suppose
that I've said my share of dumb things.
Jac Holzman,
center, founder of Elektra Records. Manhattan. 60s. Do
not know the guys with whom he's talking. Holzman was deeply
involved
in the folk music that evolved into "message rock" and
progressive rock
in Greenwich Village. However, probably the biggest moneymaker
of the
company was Nonsuch Records...classical music picked up in
Europe.
Superb orchestras. Reasonable prices. I suspect that the sales
were
tremendous. But I constantly saw Jac here and there in the live
music
scene. I think, like the most of us, he was a big fan of the
music.
One day in Los Angeles, he phoned and said he had someone I
should
meet. I drove over to the Elektra studios and he introduced me
to
Harry Chapin. They'd just finished up his first LP. Jac played
it for
me and Harry picked up his guitar and sang me a couple of songs.
I
was, of course, an instant Harry Chapin fan. Sill am. Great,
great
musical talent. The "costume" above was pretty much Jac's image.
One
night at a formal event in Manhattan, he told me, "Claude, this
is as
formal as I get." After he divorced his wife and moved to
Hawaii, I
doubt if he even got that formal. Always liked Jac. Nice guy.
Very,
very bright.
OTHER MATTERS
Buchenwald, without question, ought to be horsewhipped
for attacking another nation without cause. Without
even the permission of the congress or the American
people. Regardless, the idea that you can stop
terrorism or even daunt it by invading a nation at
random that you believe guided by "evil ones" is
idiotic. And I never believed all of that BS about
"mass graves" and "weapons of mass destruction" from
the first lie.
Just FYI, the White House propagandists are beginning
to voice the word that we are winning the war in Iraq.
Hogwash! We have lost. Not completely, but
completely enough. If we'd lost completely, they
would soon be charging Buchenwald with crimes against
humanity. Trial! History will yet judge Buchenwald.
Not the Iraqis. And, of course, God will also have
his say. Regardless, you can't kill an idea with a
bullet. An idea is like a contagious fever; it
spreads rapidly. If Buchenwald killed all but one,
the idea would persist. And maybe even after that.
You're going to hear, however, more and more about our
"victory." Believe it if you wish. The truth is that
a lot of people have died without reason. Our
soldiers, their civilians, some so-called "insurgents"
of which there were, in reality, an endless supply and
which still exist and which will haunt America for
many, many years to come. Here in America, perhaps in
days to come. But most definitely in cities ranging
from Paris to Athens, London to Madrid. And there are
many parts of the world now where you tread at your
own risk.places we can no longer go with any
reasonable safety. Because a great number of people
in foreign countries now hate us and those that don't
hate us don't trust us.may even fear us. We are now,
because of Buchenwald, the rattlesnake in the den that
the wise person eliminates in order to live in safety
and in peace.
Tonight as I ponder, Ohio mothers and wives and
children are crying. Marines dead. Insurgents are
being blamed. I blame Buchenwald. A coward who
dodged combat. A man who on an aircraft carrier
announced on television for the world that the war had
been won. What war? We invaded. It was never a war.
It was an ill-planned attack on a nation that was
largely incapable of defending itself against our
might. Yet, Iraqi patriots arose, organized, fought
as best they could. They simply refused to be
stomped. And now kill from the dark of alleys,
homemade bombs. You never know when the next bomb
will be, but it will be. Over? It will likely never
be over now. Instead, I have a premonition that it
will fester like some deadly flower, spread. Grow.
Become increasingly violent, increasingly bloody. The
train in Madrid, the tubes in London.practice. And
their ability to fight is improving. The makeshift
bombs are getting better. They come to the United
States, they could just toss these damned things into
the trash can outside that waits for Silver State each
Wednesday and Saturday mornings. Drive off. Who
could catch them? Worse, who could escape them?
You want to hear something even far worse? There are
many methodologies for disruption. Bombs are not
necessary. I'm sitting here wondering if I should
mention these dirty tricks and, quite frankly, I'm
reluctant to do so. But the other day, there were
programs on television about how to make a bomb. The
funny thing is the guy doing the demonstration had a
fancy timing device. Hah! A wristwatch will do it.
My brother was once blown up as he tried to disarm a
makeshift bomb for the CIA and that bomb was triggered
by a cheap $5 wristwatch. Anyway, a dozen people
could reap havoc in the United States so easily.
Without bombs. Cubes of sugar dropped in the dark of
night in a car's gasoline tank. You talk about a
mess! Stand behind a wall and potshot tires of cars
stopped at traffic lights with an air rifle.
Stilettos plunged into car tires in a parking garage.
Debris on train tracks way off out in the countryside.
The dirty tricks are, of course, endless.
I'm I preaching doom? Perhaps. Several months ago, I
asked a guy who lived a few townhouses down not to
park in my spot. One of his three cars had been there
for weeks, gathering dust. He said something about
"stomping" me. I told him that if he tried something
like that, he'd better bring a weapon because he'd
have to kill me. And I meant it. I'm too old to take
a simply beating. I didn't bother to tell him that I
fight dirty. As a kid, nearsighted, I got whipped a
few times. Learned that there's really no such thing
as a fair fight. There are just winners and losers.
Fortunately the confrontation never developed; he
moved. At age 72, I'm not unhappy about that. I
might not be able to fight as dirty as I would like.
A long time before he became Dr. Raul Cardenas, Raul
accused me of starting a fight in a Mexican nightclub,
a fairly raunchy place at the time. I don't remember
starting anything.just watching everyone else fight.
I thought of myself then and now as more of a
non-participant observer and reporter, but also
someone who eagerly protests wrongs of any kind
against anybody. However, there are, I suppose, many
people like me in foreign lands who will refuse to
stay still and take a beating. No Masada, thank you!
They will participate and even if Buchenwald killed
them all, the idea of fighting against the enemy would
persist. Others would pick up the banners of protest.
Recently, I heard a "military expert" being
interviewed on television and he voiced the complaint
that Iraqi insurgents were not fighting fair. What
did he expect? Americans with tanks and gunships and
body armor invaded and destroyed cities, killed women
and children. You expect them to say thanks? They
are fighting not only for their lives, but for their
own way of life. However, some Iraqis attacked six
U.S. snipers the other day and now have not only some
excellent weapons, but body armor. Indian trick, of
course. How do you think they acquired those rifles
they used against John Wayne in "She Wore a Yellow
Ribbon." (Yes, I'm aware that John Wayne won the
West.) But I've heard it said that in Korea, there
would be thousands charging an American emplacement.
Most without weapons. Bare hands. As the soldier in
front got killed, the one behind would take up his
weapon and continue the charge. Korea refused to get
stomped. John Wayne couldn't even win that one.
You want to hear a piece of irony? Because we have a
reported 130,000 troops in Iraq, the United States is
highly vulnerable. The cream of men and women, the
best of the equipment, is in Iraq. Someone could
invade us and we would be hard put to answer. And,
just FYI, I never was that good with an M-1.qualified
for overseas shipment with an M-1 pencil. How many
Americans are really capable today of engaging in
hand-to-hand combat if it became necessary? Hey, my
beautiful wife of 40-plus years can't even operate the
DVD player. She knows how to scream at protest
rallies; she does not know how to fight. Clean or
dirty.
Another so-called expert was in favor of racial
profiling as a methodology of stopping terrorism. A
few years ago, I met a college student from Pakistan.
Acted like he was from Pakistan. A couple of years
later, he acted like he was from Las Vegas. Don't
think he would fit any profile except, perhaps, his
name. But what's in a name? Back in New York City
years ago, I grew a beard so that I could hangout in
the recording studios. It worked. For example, I was
there when the Cream cut one of their rock
masterpieces. On the other hand, the cops stopped me
a few times. Me in a VW Beetle with two kids then, a
wife, and a dog named Popsie. Cop told me when I
asked that I matched a profile. On the other hand,
young people would ask me for directions even if a cop
was standing nearby. Racial profiling is a farce.
Like when the University of Texas asked me, a veteran,
to sign a form stating that I had never belonged to a
list of organizations. I didn't even read the damned
thing. Just refused. To hell with anyone putting me
in a compartment! Profiling is stupid. It is also
wrong. The truth is that America is many kinds of
people. And all of us fit some kind of profile. But
what about the little old lady using a walker? Or the
pretty young thing with a baby stroller? Or the kid
with the briefcase? Or the man in the business suit
who seems to be sporting a beer belly?
When I was getting, quote, my act together in order to
teach public relations, I meandered through a vast
compendium of research about the genre. At one point,
I think I knew about as much about public relations as
anyone in the world, although, of course, egotism
might have played a role in this personal assessment.
Nevertheless, a considerable body of knowledge was a
reality. Among the various methodologies for dealing
with people: Force, purchase, trick, persuade.
Historically, force has little staying power and is
oft detrimental to humanity in some form.
Theoretically, purchase fails in that anyone with the
right price or perhaps a better price, whatever the
payment may be, takes control but this control is
often subject to the price paid. Trickery's shortfall
is that, once discovered, the target is free,
resentful and further use is oft limited. Persuasion,
too, has its pitfalls. But in a free and educated
society, it usually is the best methodology in that it
is less damaging to the various aspects that make us
what we are. Mankind has habitually, however,
selected the lesser methods than persuasion for
dealing with people. Buchenwald thought he could play
god. A pity. Now, some woman who wants to know why
her son was killed in Iraq camps out in a tent in a
ditch (they won't let her use the road or the pasture)
near Buchenwald's ranch. Her visitors grow. Other
parents with children killed in Iraq come by.
Buchenwald, with the guts of a mouse, sent his go-fer
to talk to her and she said, no, only Buchenwald can
answer her questions. Of course, he actually can't
answer her question. Why is almost an impossible
question to someone of his mentality. Some people
who's children haven't yet been killed scream at the
protesters. But the protesters against Buchenwald
continue to grow.
Last week in Commentary I mentioned about someone
using the term "our great country." The man obviously
had not looked out the window lately and seen the
homeless.an ignored nation roaming America.
Uncounted. Unknown. Then, there are the sick, the
uncared-for aged. The ridiculous gasoline prices.
The real war is not in Iraq. It's here in America.
Now. And soon more so.
However, there may be some good come of this mess,
this farcical horror that Buchenwald has perpetrated
on the world. It could lead to the diminishing
position of the presidency of the United States. What
was once, without question, the most powerful man of
the most powerful nation on earth must be controlled.
It never was the man himself. It was the image of the
position. Buchenwald, however, has abused powers he
only assumed he had personally. Violently misused
them! It's time to force the president to ask
permission from the American public before he acts.
Put it to a vote on the Internet. On everything he
attempts to do except to go to the bathroom. The job
is certainly much too big for a weak man, a person who
lacks wisdom, a person who tends to go off
half-cocked. Thus, the absolute necessity for an
established control mechanism.
An alternative would be to have a triumvirate, i.e.,
three people selected to be presidents, all equal.
One selected by religious organizations rotated term
by term with someone from the business world, one from
the world of academics, one political animal.
Regardless, Buchenwald has assumed virtually
dictatorship aspects. This cannot be allowed. For
your safety and for mine and for the well-being of all
generations to come.
(to be continued)
V. Suppression of evil
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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