On Being American

7/28/2019 On Being American

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On Being American

In a place called a city (Philadelphia), in another place called a state(Pennsylvania), in yet another place called a nation (America) the unsayablecomes to life as me. Upon arrival I know no one; not even myself. Where Icome from there is nothing to know. There has been a visceral experience ofmy mother, from being in her, of her, for a time. That womb world is all thereis.

A 1954 cesarean section, removed only after mom had been in labor for a dayand a half, a nurse bundles me away from my mother, puts me in a "preemie,"which is how they call an incubator in which premature babies are kept. Firstsensory details outside her womb are likely that microwave oven-like place, afleshless mechanical isolation with oxygen plentiful. Where was mama? Itwas a no-mama, no-womb, small glass metal room. Although not premature,that is apparently what they did then with cesarean births.

My head is pointed, I'm told, from being squeezed in mother ʼs birth tunnel.She hears later that dad, seeing my conical head, thinks I am deformed andgoes home in tears.

If there were no way to do a C-section delivery, would I be in a tiny grave rightnow? Would mom have survived?

Mom tells me she was not conscious during delivery. They injected her withsomething that put her under. When she wakes up she is in stitches. I am outand away. She has no chance to hold me first.

Being removed from what gives us birth, from a mother or an earth, is what, itseems to me right now, it is to be expatriate. "Exmatriate"? Alienation.Isolation. That's what it is for me from my beginning. Born into it. Born to it.

Dissociated. It is true that I shy away and do not plunge into child's play oradult social interaction. Someone has to invite me, coax me, suggest that I

join. Otherwise there I am sitting on a curb along a street in front of a housewe just moved into watching boys across the street play basketball in abackyard.

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It is a relief when someone comes over to invite me to play. As a newcomerIʼm nervous. Acting corny makes a bad impression. Comfortable, entered intothe play there are good times. Sometimes not good.

*****

Beginning with my mother and father, some years back (2003) in their livingroom in Florida where they live their lives retired from formal work, there isdiscussion--as there often is on my return visits from Japan--about matters inAmerica. Mostly it is my father's views that are aired and at times my mother'sviews are in line with his opinion, though her thoughts are usually softlyexpressed. At times my father and I argue about political things. He likes that;it's a kind of bonding for him I think. My father's views are what I call roughneck tough talk. I remember in my early teens there is something on T.V.

news about anti-(Vietnam)-war protests at Columbia University. Dad says“They oughta take 'em out and shoot 'em! We oughta send 'em over toRussia! That's what they'd do to 'em over in Russia, [if] anybody protestsagainst their government!" It is hard for me, 13 or14, to understand what dadmeans. Does he mean that America should be more like the Soviet Union?

At home the environment growing up is, looked at from our present stage ofhuman experience, and looking at it through a particular dimension within thisparticular stage, what might be called by some a male-centered household.My grandmother, who lives with us through much of my childhood, and mymother, who works through much of my childhood, prepare dishes my father

likes, or that I like, and the way to prepare whatever it is we have to eat is theway “the men” like it. As opposed to what my grandmother or mother like.They cook for the men of the household as do many other women in oursocial class.

Sometimes though the scene is "take what you get, like it or not." It becomesmore difficult to write about even so simple a matter as our dining dynamicssince what we eat depends too on what my mother or grandmother can makeand what kitchen technology is available to us. Besides that our financialcircumstances determine what we can buy. At the time, our consumer societyis increasingly presenting us with readymade foods such a frozen T.V.

dinners. Our location determines what is available to us at local small town/ suburban markets or supermarkets. The list of variables can go on. So muchgoes into making mashed potatoes. In that sense, to say that what we eat isdetermined by household males is to focus on only one aspect of a complexscene.

At any rate cooking is part of what is thought of as serving each other. Myfather, too, besides providing for us all, takes my mother "out," which means

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at times to some event he has no real interest in. To a museum, for example,or to a movie, a concert, or a play. He'd rather be watching a ball game, butas a service to my mother he takes her to those events.

*****

After the gulf war [I purposely did not capitalize a war's name] my father says“we," meaning America, "should've gone in there and taken that sonuvabitchHussein by the balls and put a rope around his neck and dragged him throughthe streets." "Oh my goodness," elderly women visiting from up north wouldrespond.

I never know and probably never will know whether he is serious, or if he is just trying to get a reaction from people, to stir things up. Because he likes todo that, it seems, likes conflict. From what my mother tells me, he was raisedin conflict: his mother and father argued at the dinner table every night, and it

may be that he grew attached to it, thought it was “normal.” Or it may be justan act, to get attention. Either way, to my knowledge he has never taken anypersonal initiative to act on his rowdy opinions.

There are some who enact their thinking, like those who go to Iraq taking foodor medicine to those who were sick or starving due to economic sanctions. Tomy knowledge dad has never travelled on his own to Iraq and tried to captureor castrate Saddam Hussein. He just stays home and spouts off. Not thatthere's anything wrong with that. Many do just that. Even me at times. It maybe part of our cultural heritage from Scotland or wherever to have these harshopinions at home which we never act on. Or it may be a social rite of

passage: when we reach a certain age we gain a right to complain about ourcountry or about the world.

Too, given how it is we're sort of captives of our own civilizations, boxed in byciv., it might be said that we have nothing better to do and that our culturesoften are geared to producing frustrations and are not supportive of or set upto foster more tranquil ways of being. though now with meds maybe.

It's not that there is nothing in our societies teaching us what to do with thisentity we call mind. There is much that is conditioning us. The problem is thatmost of that conditioning is not the kind that might lead us to live more

peacefully. From childhood, in homes and at schools, we seldom connect withour internal flow, with non-resisting ways of being. Usually the scene is amatter of will: a parent's will against a child's, child's against parent's,teacher's against child's, child's against teacher's. Corporate will againstpublic will. Conflict becomes the way of relating. Living becomes a battle ofwills. Opinionated, argumentative people spread over the land. There is muchunpleasantry within which I don't know how anyone can be "happy."

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*****

Beginning with something my mother says. We are talking about America. I

ask her what do people mean when they say America? Are they talking aboutAmerican society at present? Are they talking about American government,the country's present administration? Are they talking about principles setdown by founding fathers? Are they talking about geopolitical area, somethingdrawn on maps? Do they mean a political-economic system, free-marketdemocracy, American style capitalism? Are they referring to culture, to WASPmono-cultural America that is rooted in settlers who came from Englandsupposedly fleeing intolerance and persecution, or to multicultural America, orto America's people, peoples, or what? Or do they mean a set of sharedassumptions or beliefs about ourselves within which we all move and live? Ordo they mean institutions? Or do different people mean different things or

does America mean different things to different people and is there anyconsensual definition we can work with so that we can assume, when we talkabout "our" country, that we mean a certain something, that we are all on thesame page?

Such things I ask.

Being American becomes a dimension of life I am more conscious of livingoutside America, in Japan, where people might ask me "What do youAmericans think of" such and such or "As an American how do you feelabout" this or that. Some lump us all together: "Americans are frank,"

"Americans are aggressive," "selfish," “powerful.” My being designatedAmerican and the whole idea of nationality are things that are simmering,then, on back burners, for these many years of expatriate living.

Just what is it America people mean when they use this word? This is what Iask, and my mother, so asked, gestures with her hands as she often does,making in air with her forefingers a larger or smaller circle or square as if toillustrate something. This time she makes an all-inclusive circle as she tellsme that what people mean is everything.

A sum of all its parts type thing is what I take her to mean. An integration of

various things, various traditions, religions, classes into a single entity. Yetthat is what nationalism supposedly is in other countries as well. Is it just thatin America the ingredients are different?

What IS that, that single entity? What image or idea or thing is there to grasp?Does all of that synthesize into something tangible? Nation. What is a nation?Is there anything but mishmash, this that and the other all in orbit around thisone word, this one bit of modulated breath, this quatrasyllabic sound--

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America--or seven letters together on paper or screen? This assignation ofbreath: is it empty of meaning as sky is empty of meaning? Yet sky is sky anddoesn't need to mean anything. What is America?

Isn't it, though, so alive with possibilities, this word? Mysterious. So open to

interpretation, so impervious to any absolute intellectual or emotionaldetermination? Such an impossible word.

Is America just an idea, then?

So many people who consider themselves American, so many broughttogether not by blood-tribal, dynastic loyalties, or genetic ties, but connectedonly by written words expressing ideas that are initially thoughts in humanheads. Inventions.

Those founding fathers are cerebral gents, much taken by intellectual

discourse. Argument. There's not much gushing feeling that comes throughour original documents, nothing to be sung. Is it all ratiocination, our nation?

Our nationʼs texts are legalistic documents illuminated, so to speak, withelegant writing. Such were the times before functionalism took its toll. Thoughwritten in a style that may have its appeal in those days, we dropped thatdimension as our society moved in different ways. What became a tradition isnot elegant writing but a weakness. Our forefathers set down a predispositionfor not seeing a true state of things. Some of the fathers who feather pen theirnames to these documents hold others in bondage. As officials they allpreside over the American Indian pogrom.

They think the people to be called Americans are those more akin tothemselves and with these documents they pen themselves away from thosepeoples perceived as different. They lay the foundation for not wanting tolook, for thinking the ones we cause to suffer are not us, for thinkingourselves different. They set a precedent.

Words on paper. Parchment. Words that are not even, usually, anymore,spoken words, not even a lived living language. Because the way we writeand speak changes. Mainly their words are put to use for politico-commercialpurposes: T.V. ads and election campaigns. Postings on Facebook. Nation

indoctrination, hearts and minds. Junk language, advertisement. Who everhears anyone talking about America as America outside of some specialinterest, to get votes or support for one or other plan or project or cause? As ifthese partial takes were the whole of what America is to us. Always thefragmented usage. What, then, is there--beyond any particular purpose--thatAmerica is or is about that anyone and everyone can speak of?

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A political-commercial-emotional unity entity under god formed to betterconduct affairs of state business/business state with other such entities?

Many of us, it seems, are Americans willy-nilly. Passive recipients, despite allparticipatory going through motion devotion. There we are born and there we

grow up and there we are schooled--indoctrinated--in the glories of Americandemocracy and how wonderful American society is and we sing the songs,the secular hymns; we are taught to salute, pledge, stand up, say solemnwords of allegiance to multicolored cloth, which, yes, is better than grovelingbefore some in the flesh authority.

If exposed to anything else will we each choose to be American?

If, for example, we the people are presented with places and ways of life toselect from as with menus at restaurants, if we could go and live and try outsome different scene would we then choose to live where we, how we, do?

What would be criteria: How much money there is to be made? The degree towhich we can participate in government? What rights are granted us by law?Safety of streets amount of crime taxes air quality and water or what? Scenicbeauty? Unspoiled nature? Whether there is public health insurance? Accessto education or even free education? Are there drug problems? Are theresatellites armed with nuclear weapons patrolling outer space protecting us?Do people live in security-patrolled gated communities in fear that their BMWmight be stolen? Do citizens feel they need to keep arms close by? Are theyafraid? What gap there may be between rich and poor? Are there rich andpoor? Religious freedom? Is there hunger? Are children starving in slums?Are there slums? Social classes? Weather? Is there racism, sexism,

homophobia?

Have inflation-adjusted wages declined so that two members of a family mustnow work in order for their material dreams to materialize? Are sophisticatedmass marketing techniques directed at small children in a free marketeconomy? Is obesity widespread? Are there prisons and what percentage ofthe population is behind bars?

A quality of life index?

Generation after generation, and now with Geroge W. Bush the leader the

prospect of continual war, do Americans ever tire of having their young peoplegoing off to do battle here and there for one reason or another playing theworld's police officer protecting American interests? Are Americans, with somany homeless in their own cities, truly so very deeply concerned with whatgoes on in far away places? Does playing worldʼs police entail police stateUSA? It looks as if a lot of donuts are eaten. From what I see in the mediathere, America is a prison for many hearts and minds.

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Is this even in an American's life quality index? Do Americans really want tobe citizens in a country that is so often at war, where violence is preferred assolution even among members of the same nation? In the U.S. more peopleare killed as a result of violence between persons than are killed at war.

The strongest man is the last to take up violence. So sayeth a Shaolin priest.If that is the case then is America a land where feeble are guiding politicalaction?

*****

There is a place nearby my hometown. We live across the Delaware Riverfrom Philadelphia in a small town called Riverton. In New Jersey. The place is

a market. It is called The Pennsauken Mart. It advertises itself to be theworld's largest mart under one roof, which I assume is not true. That billboardis probably older than I am. Compared to some super malls that appear thesedays, such as in Ft. Lauderdale or The Mall of America in Minnesota, ThePennsauken Mart is small and ramshackle. Compared to nearby Cherry HillMall, which is in Cherry Hill, a township named after a mall and which is oneof the earlier malls in our nation--and so in the world--the Pennsauken Martexudes underclass. When I go there I come out feeling slimed. Some areobese, dumpy-looking people that smell like a blend of body odor and pizza.They are our local counterpart to the dirty unwashed Mexicans Hollywoodshows us in movies. Some shoppers are eating pizza as they waddle along.

A slice in one hand, a pint-sized paper cup of soft drink in another. One's hairybelly button blubbers out from a red bowling shirt that comes to its end abovehis navel.

Who knows what kind of people they are: good folk, simple folk, morallylamentable folk? Are they inbreeding? Has daughter, fourteen, already givenbirth? Is her own father her baby's father? Is father beating mother havingbedtime with daughter, is mother doing it with sonny or milkman or next doorneighbor or her own father who knows?

Or are they god-fearing, church-going, bible-reading folk who believe in virgin

birth--and why not?--who bake pies or make casseroles to take to neighborswhen those others are sick, who take in children abandoned by others andwho work two jobs for what little they have? There is no way for me to know.Maybe they are all a combination of positive and negative traits and beyondthat maybe they were all still quite a mystery even to themselves.

I do not look down upon them. Nor do I romanticize them as submergedpeoples, as some genetically challenged creative unit, as Volk. They look like

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peasants. It is like going back in time to another century. Saturday go-to-market day and peasants come in from the countryside--only The Mart isopen every day. Once I fancy it as a bazaar in Istanbul only there are noexotic spices and scents, no fine cloth--just cheap stuff like sneakers made inSalvadoran sweat shops.

The Pennsauken Mart. Then came K-Mart, then came Walmart.

Mostly an unattractive people they are. Where do they come from? The city?The country? Do they work in factories and live in constant employmentinsecurity? Will their plant close down or downsize or move overseas seekingcheaper labor or will they have to accept lower wages where prices aresteadily rising--look at tuitions!--where inner city low income neighborhoodsare being bought by developers planning inner city malls and squeaky cleanurban residence for snappy professionals?

They may think they do not live under tyranny, but living under money--is itmuch better?

Some have bodies that are deformed. Skeleton thin fellow, limps, one leg rod-like the other "normal." One fellow whose hand is tucked under his wrist. Aclaw. Some look mentally retarded, or challenged or exceptional or the term ithappens to be when you read this. They need to be led by hand.

One big fat kid is picking his nose as he walks along. His companion asks fora sip of his drink:

"Gimme a sip!"

Nosepicker comes back with a deluge of obscenities.

What is America to these people? A place to live, to work, to raise children?Our ancestors, from what we're told, most often came to America looking forbetter life. Land of Opportunity.

*****

Someone tries once to make a song of America. It needs song, real song--not just patriotic poop--to go with the writing in our nation's original documents,which, though possibly eloquent, do not bring tears, do not move my hand tobeat my chest.

Walt Whitman tried in the way of some European philosophers to envision aspiritually creative potential in these people I see in The Mart. These and all

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the rest of us. His poem embraces us in that, as that, potential; it is "goodvibrations," good reverberations that he sends out that, hopefully, willtransform our thinking as well as our behavior. Whitman is indeed America'sbard.

Will nosepicker and his chum move us if they are presented as a long linedVedantic chant or operatic gush on perfect mothers? Perfect women andperfect men. Perfect young nosepicker. Whitman did not show us nosepicking or foul mouth. He adds the young men to one of his long lists ofAmericans acting out a cosmic destiny while going to market, sawing wood,bathing, getting married, having sex, bearing and raising children . . . whichmay be as true as nose picking and profanity.

George Evans [in A Working Boyʼs Whitman] and others (back in my collegedays I hear Roy Harvey Pearce talk on Whitman's incapacity to look evil in theeye) have pointed out that the good gray bard, though a maker of a new kind

of poetry, is in other ways a man of his nation. Like founding fathers beforehim and like many in the white community of his time and after, male andfemale, Whitman, because he is said to have "overlooked the darkest aspectsof their [the common people] lives in his poetry" (Evans), must havebrainwashed himself about America.

It may be, as George Evans calls it, wishful thinking on Whitman's part. Or itmay be a willed projection of positive thoughts into our culture. Positivethoughts, which, were they to catch on, Whitman (like a swami yogi) hopeswill soften the negative behaviors that make America such a violatedexperience for many. (There may be many who don't even know they've been

and are being violated; it begins when we are so young and innocent. Wecome to accept it as natural.)

The founding fathers' idea for a nation is supposed to be all-inclusive, all-embracing, but in reality it is not. Liberty, for them, is an exclusive idea. Whileproclaiming it for one group the fathers deny it to others. Their decision todeny it makes skin color one ground for exclusion.

(This racism those fathers set forth upon this earth grows into a home grownfield of scientific study, a basis of knowledge itself, into a eugenics and racialhygiene movement. It grows into the influential writings of men such as

Lothrop Stoddard and Madison Grant. Grantʼs book, THE PASSING OF THEGREAT RACE (1916), was in 1925 translated into German by order of theNazi's. Hitler is said to have written to Grant “The book is my Bible." Then theU.S. fights a war against Germany, but it wasn't really a war against Naziracism, is it?)

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If liberty is not fully realized in our nation's beginning, is it in the centuriessince? Liberty is greedily manipulated by practically everyone. Liberty isequated with access to power, and power, as we say, corrupts.

Whitman, due probably to his transformative spiritual and physical

experience, imagines his Self to be universal and imagines a universality tohis poem, but his poem, if read as an attempt to sing about they way thingsreally are, has its share of blind spots. Perhaps that is why Whitman isGeorge W. Bush's favorite poet.

A human being is enigmatic. If Whitman is a hypocrite he is typically Americanand in that sense is the voice of the people.

Does this mean that we Americans are perpetually afflicted with incurabledenial? Or is it just plain ignorance, layer upon layer? A friend tells me oncethat the puritan fathers reached a stage when they could no longer see their

penises. This is not because they are too fat; it is because a penis was ahorror to them, an abomination, an obscenity. The body, the flesh, the one-eyed monster. Through psychological twisting--called repression byFreudians--they become unable to see this dangling flesh that plagues them.Their own sex organs are inadmissible evidence. They develop blind spots ontheir own bodies. Certain dimensions of the world around them disappear.

They brainwash themselves into believing they are in a garden--their bibletells them so. Like Adam himself, they are ignorant of--and through fear andrepression are blind to--what is outside their garden, outside their fortress ofbelief, their "city upon a hill." They know not what they do? Or are they just

plain humans manifesting what is ill-natured in them? The negative thoughtsthey project onto those not in their community of chosen ones leads to illtreatment of those others.

Riverton, New Jersey. My hometown. A tri-borough area is what it is called bythe local media. Palmyra, Riverton, and Cinnaminson. There is an elderlygentleman who is a respected member of our Riverton community. He isactive in local events, he has a good job, a nice house, and he is a historianof the area. The history he writes of where we live is called TALES OFTHREE TOWNS. He distributes copies freely. It is a labor of love in his laterlife. Our family receives one and a few years back I read it. It is interesting in

many ways since there are many things in it that are unknown to me eventhough I grow up there. Our family hasn't been there generation aftergeneration. He does a thorough job, it seems to me at first. He's been torecords offices, he's seen the archives, etc. It would be a fine piece ifeveryone in our community were white.

How I would feel as an American with dark skin reading this local history,because they, but for one part of sentence about high school athletics, are

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totally ignored. The Black citizens, maybe one-tenth of Palmyraʼs population,live mainly in a section of Palmyra locally known as "The West End." Of howthey come to settle there, their experiences and activities living there, of howthey contribute to the community, of their entire existence--nothing ismentioned. A blind spot? A delusion? This history book is a sample of the

society as a whole, they way it used to be, and, as is obvious with this historybook (published in 1981), still is.

*****

These persons at the Pennsauken Mart, though, no matter how squalid theirminds, their lives, might, do--I imagine--have hopes, have dreams, are divinitywithin, which is what Whitman sees and what he is singing of. Even throughthe detrimental environment they grow to be part of and express their lives as.

Divinity. Even though their native spirit might be often governed by someenvironmentally induced affliction, something goes on within and they arecapable of love, kindness, endurance, courage, creativity and invention.

Poverty is artʼs source. Making do from nothing.

Because this young man smells of beer baloney, is sloppy, poor, uncultured,according to test results intellectually inadequate--in so many ways just not inone's beautyhood [sic] of person--it is easy to deny that we live with him. It iseasy to pretend that we do not live with him and do not feel with him. That isus, the great pretenders.

These are people who are dumped on generation after generation. Drunk inPodunk, hung over with destiny. Physical projections of dumpiness as we allmight be if we lived their lives. They can become so much more than whattheir surroundings offer. Some do, some donʼt. Some are resigned to whatthey are used to and do not want betterment.

What rational--or irrational for that matter--choice have these people made indetermining their own nationality? Or even their own destiny? Yes, I know,they can leave the country if they don't like it. But that choice usually does notpresent itself to five-year-olds, and by twenty-five it's too late. We are already

culturally, socially, and psychologically conditioned as “Americans,” and whatthat means is what I'm trying to find out. By then we have twenty-five yearstraining to call ourselves Americans. Do they give it much thought or are theysimply born somewhere along the Delaware and live there and die there? Dothey muse on what it is to be in America, to be an American, or are theypassive recipients of the constant media bombardment and results of thelatest polls? Do they get their opinions from Rush Limbaugh or from Michael

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To see clearly is something that America, in the fact of its meaning nothing,enables me to do. Thank you, America! Thank you, me. If America were toever have substance its meanings would be giving shape to my mind andshaping how I see things and I would no longer be able to see clearly. I would

see things only “as an American.” In such a case America would disable me.

History does shape us. More often than not we participate in our owndebilitation. Better off doing nothing, instead we make history. America, then,sad to see and say, has become for many an obstruction of vision, a meansof mind control and conditioning. That is the way illusion works. In Americamany are trained by othersʼ illusions instead of feeling (for) themselves. Notonly in America.

Seeing no meaning I'm free as a bird. It is freedom that comes from within meand is not given me by any government or piece of paper or any laws. Must I

fight for this freedom? Must I fight to keep free of illusions?

*****

Back to Pennsauken's Mart. In high school some of my playmates call it afreak show. Seeing these fellow Americans as so pathetically ignorant andugly makes them feel clean and beautiful. Superior. Something tells methough--intuition?--that ours is just a better groomed ignorance, ignorancewith a speech indicative of a different social status. Ours is human nature

wearing a more expensively tutored behavioral mask. We are exposed towhat are said to be finer things and there are others who are exposed to stillfiner things. Yet I never think of using these to snub someone.

Even though, yes, I feel slimed. Yet I feel a connection with people such asshop at The Mart; they are fellow humans, for better or worse.

It is a short ride, The Pennsauken Mart, maybe 10 minutes by car, from whereon Mickle Street in Camden Walt Whitman lived in his old age. He mentionsbathing in a creek that was somewhere “back of Camden,” writes ofimmersing in warm shallow waters and sunbathing naked on creek-bank.

The Delaware River, which is where his creek would lead eventually iffollowed, has been cleaned up some. Two years ago--back there for a visit--the river doesn't smell so metallic, doesnʼt smell so much like the industrialwaterway it does at times when Iʼm a kid, when the wind blows a certaindirection.

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When Whitman bathes he finds by that creek a secluded dell of bushes,trees, grass, and a group of willows. It is an abandoned marl pit which naturehas lovingly grown over. Efforts are made now to let some natural gracereturn to this South Jersey area. Here and there.

Whitman thinks it is healing to immerse in the scene--not only in water. Hebathes in its love.

Standing not far from his back of Camden creek are fine old Haddonfieldhomes, homes of the well-heeled. There still. Along nearby asphalt arteriesare crappy housing developments and industrial parks, companies withnames ending with “-co” or “-ron” or “-tron” or “-tech” or “-tel,” or that end orbegin with a “con-.”

Whitman's bathing place and other graceful South Jersey scenes, its wabi-sabi Pine Barrens, even if “protected,” swarm now with dozens of ordinances,

zoning laws, and other buzzings from our mental power box projected onto,into, earth.

*****

Going across Betsy Ross Bridge I get on 95 south to PhiladelphiaInternational Airport. On my way I pass sports stadiums. Lincoln FinancialField that is being built then and is now sporty with corporate-sponsoredgames. Vet Stadium which is new in my high school days. The Spectrum,

where I watch Wilt the Stilt Chamberlain dunk--the announcer shouts CHAM-ber-lain!!! each time and the speakers quake--and toss his underhanded freethrow. Are they still there?

Airport. I check in early, walk by shops displaying luxury duty free items topeople who--a majority of them--the airlines will cram like cattle into economyclass seating. Making my way towards the departure lobby, taking my time,looking at things, watching people. Some are elderly grey haired bigbusinessmen and some are younger future elderly big businessmen. Somebig businesswomen. With their brief cases and laptops and carryon luggagenicely toted on their own private little luggage carrier, these men and women

in corporate hairdos, these ones early middle aged, ready to board beforeeveryone else, ready to ride first or business class over land and sea. I watchthem enter and exit from the upper class VIP gold card red carpet excellentsuperb elite passengers' lounge. Denatured music emanates briefly beforepowerful sliding doors swish closed. Sneaking a peek inside, on the wallsthere is corporate sponsored art (corprart; “crap,” for short).

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Fresh with world news from twenty-seven televisions, primped with highpriority information from laptops and palm pilots and cellular phones, they exitand enter, many with anxiety on their faces. Most look as if they are underpressure.

In business suits of fine cloth these MBA merchant monks, so serious, cowledin weighty matters of a corporate hood, what do they see in America? Withtheir corporate sponsored education, educated far beyond that shabby bunchacross the river roaming Pennsauken Mart's flattened chewing gum plasticwrapper strewn floors, more able to make knowledgeable and informeddecisions--why do they live in the United States? Same reason The Martpeople do?

*****

As kids we are trained to hide under our desks at school. Elementary school.In fear of Soviet attack. The bomb. The big Bomb. The A bomb. Or the Hbomb. They would bomb us. We, the people, the strong the brave courageousand bold, are preparing for a possible attack by people we learn to callRussians or Soviets or commies or reds. We are never asked to distinguishbetween Russians meaning Russian people, just common people, andRussians in government or military some of whom, yes, may want to destroyor bomb us. We lump them into one big single purpose national all-embracingentity: The Russians! Maybe they all do want to bury all of us. At age 6 or 7who can know? Even at 50. Watching Bugs Bunny is more fun than thinking

about such matters.

But can we have Bugs Bunny if the Russians bury us? Some of us are readyto bury ourselves in underground shelters. Do Russian families constructbackyard lead lined atomic shelters? I wonder.

But, just think: our leaders have us practice taking cover under our desks aspreparation for A bomb attacks. Stand lined against school walls. Now theU.S. government recommends duct tape as preparation for bacteriologicalterrorist attacks. Duct tape your windows and doors, everyone.

We have never been lacking for things to fear about China. We are afraid ofour fellow Americans. We lock our doors and have household alarm systemsinstalled. We keep guns to defend ourselves against “our own people.” Thishelps us feel safe long before there is any terrorist threat. People havealarms and guns in their cars; mace in makeup kits. Lip stick stun gun all inone. Open a blouse, an electroshock taser gun from our nipples fires a millionvolts.

15



Our nation's birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence, parchmentcopy, is enclosed behind seven inch thick bulletproof glass in the NationalArchives and is under guard night and day. Duct-taped. As if some unhappygun-happy citizen might want to shoot it.

It is a document that may have special spiritual powers. A relic? Pursuit ofhappiness emanates from it, spreads all over the land. Other peoples for agesand ages have their own happiness magic. Gods, temples, shrines to pray tofor happiness. We Americans have a declaration stating our right to pursuehappiness.

Happiness is a big word in America. White man's happiness is heap bigmedicine. Are you happy? I'm happy. Are you? I'm basically happy. Happybirthday. Happy New Year. Happy 4th of July. Happy Halloween. Happilymarried. Happy Days. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy the Clown. Happy family.Happy camper. Happy anniversary. Happy holidays. Happy go lucky. Happy

Hanukkah. Happy Kwanzaa. Happy life. Die happy. Happy hour. Happy lifeafter death. Happy trails. Happy Meals. Happy ending. How can there be somuch happiness in a land of so much fear?

Protection of property is what they mean. They, some of those originaldeclaration signers, don't really want it to say “pursuit of happiness.” Clearly,the happy word catches on. Property is their means of survival, as apropertied class. They are aggressive about securing it, obsessed withobtaining more. Land drunk. Land happy. They aren't smart enough to notwear out what land they have which is mainly why they want endlessly more.Planters, many of them.

Or are they just a very greedy bunch and greed is what brought theirprogenitors from the old world. Greedy for material or spiritual goods andgoodness.

Maybe they all have greedy genes. We'll have to ask geneticists about that.They tell us there may be a happiness gene. Isn't that nice? Maybe somedayinfants will be born smiling instead of crying. “We come smiling” is what afuture Shakespeare will maybe write.

Does happy mean property protected? Does happy mean security-patrolled

gated communities? Having many securities and stocks makes some happy Isuppose. Life insurance is an American invention. So much in America isabout feeling secure, financially secure. Physically safe, financially sound.Sleep tight. Not abnormal concerns, granted, especially in a society that preysupon its own people. People will go to extremes to get themselves a securityfix. Like junkies. Products are generated constantly to feed that addiction andfearful things are continually publicized to create new demand.

16



*****

I'm not anti-America though I find myself often suffering from overexposure to

America. It's hard to escape from the USA. In a Ho Chi Minh City hotel I haveto hear about a White House scandal; I have to watch the Cosby Show in anairport lounge in Seoul. Fed up with America might be the case; daily intake ofit is like eating all your meals at McDonald's. It's as if Ronald McDonald is inthe White House (our "trusted friend"), as if Ronald McDonald runs schools,writes books, makes T.V. shows, provides news, raises kids. Is RonaldMcDonald Big Brother?

*****

Even though we may be accused by our leaders or our neighbors of beingdisloyal, what common (= public) goal is there that is distinctly Americantowards to which we the people can aspire? What common something isthere that we are all of us supposed to be participant in?

To live a genuine life in a society that is true and good?

Generating wealth it seems is the goal.

What is there that might guide immigrants if they are to assimilate? The creed

and the greed? So, outwardly, if immigrants can recite the Declaration ofIndependence and the Preamble to the Constitution and sing the nationalanthem and wave the flag and walk and talk like corporate elites anddemonstrate their belief in middle class wholesome goody goodness goodsthey can then inwardly identify with other Americans?

There are individuals and groups who try to make life a bit better in certainways for certain people. Other groups try to make life worse.

Disloyal to what, or which?

Only one goal is so widespread that it might be called common. That ispursuit of happiness, which, ideally, means multidimensionally being able toget along in such a way that others--human and nonhuman alike--can getalong too. In practice, though, happiness means money. Pursuit of wealthmeans self-interest and all the land wasting, war waging, oppression of othersthat happiness brings with it in America. It brings unhappiness to others,those who are not us.

17



*****

Long ago what is to be this nation called America is advertised in Europe as a

land with much to offer. (This is before there is an independent entity to offerliberty to anyone.) Gold and all sorts of riches. And land itself; almost anywhite male can become land rich--no matter what humble beginnings, nomatter what natives happen to live there already.

Isn't it strange how in mainstream narratives of our national beginnings--thenarratives that make up our Ronald McDonald compulsory school education--we never hear settlers question their right to be here, never hear doubtexpressed? Do they believe so fervently--are they so indoctrinated--in their“right” that they simply overlook the existence of others inhabiting that landwho are there before settler Europeans arrive? What so impairs their sight?

What illusion can override that reality? Does their Christian religion give thema righteous go ahead? Is it a few words in the Book of Genesis about howtheir god gives Adam dominion over all that unleashes this--seen from avictim's eyes--terror? Or is it just plain old human viciousness that isn't hard tofind wherever one group comes to dominate another?

A better way of life. Gold Mountain (as the Chinese called it). Rich. Somegood deal of it is hype as it is now when land developers want to attractpeople to their projects. People go to that land, we the people, our ancestors,we go, moved by material wants, we swarm, eventually, as shoppers do tobargain sales. Cars lined up along highways for miles. Ellis island. Wagons

lined up at western land give aways. A Blue Light special at K-Mart: Attentionall shoppers! For a limited time only on aisle eleven . . .. This is who we are interms of values: price-buster kind of value, who we come from, many of us.

Those, and the others who come to be free of persecution, which is basicallyan economic thing too. They are Puritan settlers, they are the people fromwhom, a Harvard professor [Samuel Huntington] recently says, talking abouthis recent book [WHO ARE WE? THE CHALLENGES TO AMERICAʼSNATIONAL IDENTITY], we get core values which give us our identity asAmericans.

For many it proves--not without some difficulty--to be somewhat better thanwhat they leave. Economically, religiously or socially. Undeveloped asAmerica is when they arrive, it is more attractive to them than where theycome from. Where they come from are places that cannot or will not provide achance for decent life--for various reasons--not for many, judging by thenumbers that come. From old country Europe and elsewhere, depending onthe times.

18



Of course there are those--who we do not mention in the same breath withthat “chance for a better life” wording--who have to seek refuge from thosewho come seeking refuge, those persecuted by those fleeing persecution,those bought and sold as slaves by those seeking economic opportunity. Talkabout absent minded: mister Harvard professor has completely forgotten that

aspect of settler "morality" or ideology--that core identity he says we all inheritthrough our American creed culture. Is it okay to treat others so badlybecause they are not like us, mister professor? He doesn't tell us we'recreeps. It's hard to sell books that don't lie. Ronald McDonald runs Harvardtoo, as well as the publishing business.

*****

There is no land give away that I know of. Not now. No gold rush. There is

dot.com bust, gene rush, space dust. Some find ways to keep themselvesexcited; they jump off cliffs or out of airplanes, skydive to feel alive, get thatadrenaline rush. Some empower themselves with drugs. Others get abductedby aliens. Still others are given antidepressants.

*****

Is it not an inspiring idea that men and women from different backgrounds cancome together to live, live together, work and play together, enjoy diversity,

enjoy feeling no inferiority, feel that one is being treated fairly, equal toanyone?

Is feeling equal what is really wanted? Under cover of respecting an equalitycreed (sometimes, maybe, in principle), most people derive pleasure infeeling superior and search high and low for what lets them feel that they insome way have it better than another, are in some way better off thansomeone else. Better than those in foreign countries and better than theirfellow Americans. Does it mean we are all equally driven to feel better off thanothers?

At a deeper, less social, more personal level, we are each searching forpower--not necessarily over others--but power over life itself. We want controlover our lives, want to bring life under our direction. Snap it up and be happy.We think we can.

I dream along with Martin Luther King, Jr. It's not bad, that dream. It's good,even if it is just a dream. It's good to have dreams: how things are supposedto be, how they should be, wouldn't it be fine, even though, yes, that's just

19



dreaming. Dreams can alleviate some of life's frustrations, some of its horror,life's trauma, how things really are at times, the screams.

How can anyone not be depressed, living in a society where relationsbetween humans can so often be characterized as predatory exploitation, as

greed, envy, and conflict, where relation with what is not human is, if notwholly destructive, nearly nonexistent, and not be spiritually worse for it?Unless of course we find some special way to be real. Meditate or something.Write poems to breathe. Love, sing, live a genuine life. How does onebecome a spirit in America, how can one be a spirit among so many ghosts?

What goal might there be that isn't destructive that might be what it is to beAmerican? America is its people. So let people be? If they are open-mindedand gentle America is open-minded and gentle. If they are narrow-mindedbigots America is narrow-minded and bigoted. There are so many differentkinds of people and each person has various dimensions. I don't know who all

is gentle and who is not, who's been naughty, who's been nice.

Often we don't see ourselves as we are. Nationality, the secular religion,tends to prevent that.

People it seems want there to be religion; they want there to be god where itall begins and ends. People want there to be nation, some responsibleauthority which will advise us to use duct tape. Some entity that is answer forit all. (Cause it all?)

*****

Cold war comes. More money to chase, people get colder. Society decays,morality is answer experts say. Morality, nation. Nation, morality. Fear.Morality means Joe McCarthy just before I was born. Patriotism. Is anythingever any better for all the morality?

Nation. If people are afraid we cling to false morality. If people aren't afraid (=free) who needs morals, which is what real morality is: doing what is in ourheart at any given moment, which is what it is to be free. Whoʼs to say what

that should be?

Atom bombs come cold war comes assassinations come. Vietnam war comesmorality gradually means a way out of that war; warmonger patriotism is out.More fear comes bringing with it more morality immorality (if you get confusedabout what morality is go jump in a lake. Lakes are free beings, be withthem). Nonstop fear is here forever. The country is ever more badly run byever more falsely moral men meaning those who are most afraid of all who

20



seek to hide in power meaning those who need to be in power to escape theirfear. Nation hallucination bad trip bummer, people wanting to be safe wantingguns to be safe so afraid of their own fear. Presidential power; power of thepresident, support the president, support gun power sonuvagun.Empowerment masterminding undermining. Head of the most lethal weapon

mass destruction military humans have ever seen we the people's presidentour hired big gun. We let power go to our heads. It comes from our heads.Happy hunting.

Surrounded by secret service deadly men presidential symbol of our nationalfear is protected. Power ring paranoia center rings of hell. Bulletproof glass inbulletproof cars in bombproof bunkers deep underground, deep set fearsecretly bores to earth's vomit core the worm in the apple the pie is made ofbecause there are many more maniacs out there terrified, ones who couldn'tget into the White House, ones who can't pay for high powered campaigns orhigh-powered protection who buy high-powered rifles to shoot those who can.

Surveillance camera in backyard garden. Who will steal tomatoes?

Missleproof cities. Truthproof minds.

People without means live behind barred windows and doors, seventeenlocks--how do they afford it on welfare?--police helicopters chop chop slumprison night. Sirens all night every night. People closed for life twentyfourseven.

Viciously trying to escape.

*****

It begins with birth. We get a certificate. Our existence is recorded, listedsomewhere, sometimes lost. We are kept on file. But for connections withfamily and friends we become a lost soul in gray metal cabinet celebrations oflife or as colorless odorless electrons in often square often ash-gray moldedplastic machines. At birth we are given colorful nationality. I am an infant.

Processed when we are born, processed again and again and again at schoolat hospital--everywhere we go. Have to fill out identifying questionnaires tobuy baby's milk with food stamps. Have to fill out questionnaires did we everhave legionnaire's. At a public library twenty-five questions to borrow a book.Whatever is considered by whichever officiating agency or commercial entityto be relevant data they file and file (and on the sly for extra bucks slip it all tomarketeers). Height weight medical history drug allergies employment socialsecurity number telephone number ID number credit card number identifying

21



marks blood type organ donor health insurance carrier license plate numbercredit history hobby nickname income bracket pets. All encoded.

Privacy is not the issue here. It's people coming to think, to believe, that whothey are or what they are is what is recorded in those files. Identity. As our

society increasingly keeps us in isolation, genuine connections with otherhumans weaken. These are communal connections that in the past arerooted in actual survival. Now we hook up with others because he or she is acustomer I sell to or this one is my boss or we're together for some reason inone nonessential pursuit or another: diversion. These are relationships wecan move easily in and out of without too much life rending devastationshould things fall apart. Human contact with a label (Facebook Friends?)

Our very being amounts to what is considered relevant information. What ison record defines our existence. As if all we are can be accounted for. Lastlyis the data inscribed on our grave: "Here lies Bill. He was gay," etc.

Encaged by, as, identity. Ontological fear?

Does this mean that we eventually come to think of ourselves as well asothers as commodities with which no real relation exists? Which, if it doesmean that, parallels how many of us view external nature. Do we come tothink of others in terms of their opinions, their religion, their race, their ethnicbackground, their party affiliation, or as some information to use, to put towork for us?

*****

Summer 2003 I am on Amtrak from Florida on my way north to eventuallyPhiladelphia. America several months earlier launches an invasion of Iraq.

Sitting in Amtrak's cafe car early morning, with book and tea, quietly to myself,for some reason our train stops on Main Street in some small still asleep townin Georgia, or is it South Carolina? Sunball is not yet visible but a lighteningfrom east mingles with darkness; hazy forms quietly become brick hardwarestore, post office, bank, cement pavement, asphalt street. Over Main Street

hangs one traffic signal blinking yellow as if there is something on the blink. Iwonder if there is something wrong with our train.

The cafe's booths are almost all empty when I enter but with breaking dayseveral passengers shuffle in sleepily, looking rumpled and stale, as am I, notwell rested. One young man enters, baseball cap over close cut hair, hoodedthin sweatshirt loose over sleeveless T-shirt hanging on his slim upper body.He looks around. Mine is the only booth with one person seated; he asks if he

22



can share it. We talk briefly. He tells me he plans to attend college, which iswhy he joined the military. He wants an education but cannot afford college sogoes in the army to be able pay for his schooling. His eyes show sensitivity.An extended meaningful conversation with this young man seems promising.

He tells me he's been over in Iraq and has been told he is to be sent back.People across the aisle from us overhear him and chime in, interrupt us, withpraises, telling him how they all support him and what he's doing. People allover the car hear this. Many offer their thanks for all he and the troops aredoing for us. One man about my age says how much they all appreciate whatall “our boys” are sacrificing.

No one seems interested in what the “doing” in “doing for us” entails. Does itmean hospitals overfilled with armless, legless, eyeless, Iraqi kids?

In an instant sun is blazingly up, it's light an operatic aria spilling all over

Amtrak's Formica tabletops. This seems unnoticed by most, absorbed as theyare in this little pep rally.

I say no more until things are quiet again. Softly I say to this private: “I hopeyou come back in one piece, spiritually and physically.” That is all. He looks atme knowingly, knowing more than me it seems, knowing more than mebecause he is dark skinned in a country where a person can be beaten orkilled because of color. “Yeah. Dig that,” he replies.

He finishes his coffee and leaves. We wish each other good luck. Shakehands. I sit wondering: is playing soldier the only feeling of being “okay” he is

allowed in this country's mainstream social life? Is that the only sense ofsolidarity with those he shares nationality with? Not a “successful middleclass professional Black man,” if he is not soldier or ball player or entertainerare there forces doing their best to see that he is put behind bars? Ifpassengers in that cafe do not know that he is off to kill Iraqis will some feelthreatened, will they see him as a possible perp?

*****

My father's only eye tears when our nation's flag is raised in public. He hasone outside his home on his lawn day and night. He “fought for his country.”His love for his country is similar, I think, to the feelings of men interviewed ona Discovery Channel program, marines who fought at Iwo Jima and who areold now and who say they are still overwhelmed--with what they don't say--with love, or with pride, or both--when they see our nation's flag or hear ournational anthem.

23



These Iwo Jima survivors are men who lose limbs in that battle. From IwoJima they go through life without a leg or legs, arm or arms. Even though theylose limbs they do not lose feeling for their country. There is no bitternessexpressed in the program. The veterans speak no words of blame or criticismof their government or of the top brass who order the carnage. Nor do they

speak against war itself.

Is that war one of the main events in their lives? Dad says I am the best thingthat ever happened to him.

Though I do not go to war or serve my country in a military way, I sense thatmy dad's emotions and those of the Iwo Jima survivors are genuine. It's notsomething they pretend to feel; their feelings are not for show. Neither aremine. Would they feel that way if that war is lost? They've been through war'shell, are baptized by unnatural fire, and what our flag symbolizes for them islikely all that makes sense, what all the senseless death is all about.

Sometimes what is called love isn't necessarily rational. Does a flag alsosymbolize irrational nationality?

They are not flag-waving warmongers.

I never hear my dad and don't hear those interviewed vets question war itself.Not the particular war they were in but war as human behavior. It's as if theysimply accept that going to war is a necessary dimension of life, as if it's anunavoidable, preordained condition that comes with being human. No doubtthat is the message they receive from their society as they grow up. They

come to accept that unnatural behavior. We can grow accustomed to tastesand smells that are originally unpleasant.

It begins for me, and for others in my generation, the training, when we aretoo young to know better. Toy shops full of playful armament things. After acertain age, Christmas presents, along with sporting goods, becomeabundantly militaristic: Mighty Mo cannon, plastic soldiers, battery poweredmachine guns that make sounds, army helmets, and fake dog tags. Hoursand hours of playing war. Running around our neighborhood pretending to killeach other. One kid has a toy bazooka. We play Combat! or Gallant Men. Wename ourselves after characters from those T.V. shows.

Those men in the Discovery Channel show don't come across as particularlycontemplative individuals. They seem to be, now, practical men, family men.Down to earth. They have great grandchildren. Is that what the director istrying to project? I don't know. It is a "documentary" so it is supposedly

journalistically objective and ideologically neutral. Probably there is a certainamount of editorial concern given to who is interviewed or to whichinterviewee responses are selected for broadcast.

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Yet for all their good common sense those men do not--at least on thatprogram--see through the “fight for your country” indoctrination. Is it that theyare afraid to or maybe they choose not to see and think that freedom givesthem the right to close their minds. If it is me I don't think I would want to go

back to an event--a huge boulder of a presence looming in their lives--andaccept that it was all about oil or about factories or cars or Coca Cola orMcDonald's hamburger joints in Dresden or Tokyo. I want it to have beenabout something more honorable in our cultural scheme of things: protectingdemocracy; freedom. Making the world America-friendly?

I do not feel as they do and do not feel devoted to my country in a way thatmakes me want to get myself to a battlefield. I am alive to being beyondnations, alive to life that preexists nations, alive to and as life that will go oneven as cockroaches possibly long after we humans wipe ourselves out (thesound of one hand clapping, the other waving goodbye).

Are there any who fought in their wars who are turned off and revolted by theentire horrific ordeal and who are turned off by patriotism expressed aswarrior cult men in ribbons and medals ritually raising lowering foldingsaluting flags presenting flags shooting off twenty-one bullets twenty-onecannons jets booming overhead? Such men are not on that DiscoveryChannel program, but, if they exist--as Iʼm sure they do--are their feelings anyless genuine? Because the idea of war makes them sick are they traitors orunpatriotic?

Being alive is feeling enough for life. It's beyond anything symbolic, beyond

words, beyond me. Yet it is me. War is a false teacher.

There is what we call destruction. Fire tsunami earthquake hurricane floodand everything else.

There is no war in life we are made of. War is distortion. Milton projected awar in heaven. Such is what might occur to someone wanting to explain it all.There is no war anywhere in life but what's in our skulls. Animals, yes, fight,prey, eat each other. Out of instinct; to live. Humans exist in that dimension aswell. We must eat. That biological imperative requires that another living thingmust die, plant or animal. We eat death. Eat is the heart of death. Nonhuman

animals are different: they do not behave according to arbitrary abstractionsor consciously fabricated rules as if they are involved in a game:

Now, these people with the red cross it's against the rules to kill. It's okay totarget this building but not that building. Don't bomb that because it's acultural treasure. We'll stop killing from zero 600 hours until 1400 hoursbecause it's a religious holiday. Time out. Resume play. Foul! The rules sayyou're not allowed to do this this this trying " to extract information. Well,

25



you're not allowed to cut off heads. Blow to bits is okay but no cuts to thehead, okay? Shake hands. Let's get out there and have good, clean war.

Emails come. Ones that are at times patriotically fervent. About "Our boys,"how they are fighting for “our freedom.” Pics of yellow ribbons tied toflagpoles. One ends: “If the language we speak is English we have a soldierto thank.” People get hype in the head; where is their heart?

Because they are “our” boys, “our” team, do I wish them well even though I donot know who they are or what they might be like in person? Good natured,well-meaning women and men are they? Rapist, sadist, torturer--who knowswhat? Do I wish Iraq's people well? I wish no one any harm. Good ole wellwishing me, tuning my thoughts to wishing wells.

If these men and women on either side want to put themselves in harm's way,to consciously risk having their lives cut off or snuffing out someone else's, ifthey're young and stupid or so hopelessly depressed and hard up that theycan't imagine something better to do with themselves, well, what can I say? I'lllet freedom ring itself, thanks. May they not get hurt or hurt others. Wake upand go home. Live your lives in peace if you can. Forget the glory. Try to livethis life you are given. Everyone: insurgents, terrorists, “our boys.” Everyonewake up and live.

Freedom for some Americans is sending out for pizza. They pay others to gooff to wars. They are told war is to protect freedom or American interests.

Many people accept that; they have their “freedom” delivered, and it's usuallypoor excuse for pizza.

These patriots are not aware that spiritual freedom--the freedom withoutwhich all other freedoms mean next to nothing--comes from within. Theybamboozle themselves out of their own lives and replace life with somethingelse, identity, opinion--ready made opinion taken from newspaper editorial orradio talk show or internet chat or president's lips. They get opinionsomewhere, anywhere, but not from within. There are no opinions within us.All that goes into making a star as well as into making dark matter--or whatmakes this earth and makes us--none of it is opinion.

*****

Once while back visiting my mother and father they tell me about a club theyare thinking of joining. It's name is the Elks. Or is it Moose? Before thatneither are members of that kind of organization, but this club has dancing

26



once a week or once a month and they have live bands that play “their”music, which means the big band sound. Jitterbug granny and gramps. Theyget invited to this club by friends as guests and so enjoy themselves that firstnight that they are thinking of joining. They apply for membership.

One afternoon after they mail in an application someone from the club'smembership committee comes out to “investigate,” as my dad put it. Up frontit is just old smiley face “howdy-do, folks” but perceptive dad realizes thisfellow has come to see what color their skin is. And whether they are fineupstanding Christian folk or poor white trash trailer dwellers or what.

They do not follow through with their membership application becauseanother time at this club, maybe it is another time as guests, before thedancing there is a meal and an awards ceremony honoring several localpolice officers, one of whom has dark skin. The fellow sitting next to my father,not his friend but some other fellow, leans over to dad, nudges him and in a

whisper reports: “You won't see too many black faces around here.”

Once one someone from long ago America and his wife are visiting us here inJapan. The woman passionately, almost fanatically, reports not long after wemeet--we are not yet together thirty minutes--that they don't like Chinesepeople. They like Japanese, but they don't like Chinese. There is this and thatreason, which may make sense to her, but which sounds pathetic to me.Does she feel threatened or uncomfortable with all these black-haireddifferent skin tones around?

I don't know how much education old bull Elk has. My visitors have degrees in

computer something or other. With enough brain power to get them throughcollege and beyond. They live comfortably in suburbia, travel abroad forvacation.

Neither blue collar Elk nor white collar visitors think for themselves. Yes, theythink “I'm going to invest my money in this or that” or “I'm going to go intoassisted living,” etc, but they are unable to put their thoughts in their heart orhave their heart in their thoughts. Are they living closed in their narrow mindedworlds, afraid to come out?

Luckily for me and hopefully for them, deep inside them there is better; there

is a human being that is not what appears at surface. There is potential, andthe hope is that they will be enlightened by their own hearts before they diehopelessly miserable closed in hateʼs coffin.

What hurts is that from early childhood, in short pants and suspenders justlearning to play outdoors, my mother or grandmother watching me from parkbench or lawn chair or kitchen window, I want to be friends with everyone.What reason is there to dislike anyone? Until someone proves to be cruel,

27



small-hearted. I have to pretend to be friends with them no matter--or elsewho is there to play with? I come to accept others with whom play more oftenthan not means conflict, and I learn to accept play that at times is notenjoyment. Thatʼs life?

Happy.

There are times early on they call me names, make fun of me, theseplaymates. Swivel hips, liver lips. I come to see myself as unattractive,unacceptable, inadequate. Not knowing any better, I allow them to control meso they will not hurt me. I let them make me their “friend.”

Then parents tell me to defend myself. They tell me to fight back, not to letanyone push me around. Physical violence or threatening others withviolence becomes second nature. That and verbal abuse. At first I don't knowhow to do it: how to fight or threaten. I don't want to learn but do.

In school, grades K thru 3, each day begins with mandatory Bible readingsand flag pledging. Each recess, lunch period, and after school walking home Ifeel threatened. Should I turn the other cheek? Love my oppressors? Can Iescape into Jesus? Saying bedtime prayers does not fortify me against thesebullies.

It hurts because I learn to be like them. I have to become like them, suppressmy gentle nature, to survive. Have to become less than I am. Become likethem who too are being less than themselves. A world of not who we are.

There is choice. My initial choice is do nothing, donʼt fight back. They treat me

badly: pick on me, threaten, call me names, push, trip, punch. My first choicewas wrong? So fight. Fight back, a bully backs down, other kids come to melooking for protection. My own gang forms. I am a protection racket. Neitherchoice for me is a good one but finally my parents move to a neighboringtown where kids in school are a bit more upscale socially and where there isno kiddie school gang scene.

*****

“I love my country,” some people say. My mouth is closed on the subject oflove. When they say “I love America” it makes me wonder just how it feels tolove a country. I donʼt get the heart of it.

How do they mean it? Are they blessed with an emotional capacity lacking inme? Do their words represent feelings they donʼt really have but they thinkthey're expected to say as social ritual? Do they mean love in a shallow way

28



as when someone says “I love Paris," “I love New York,” or "I love football"? Idon't know. Itʼs not for me to judge their love.

Do they find themselves able to rejoice in the fact that they are Americans? Istheir love something like that long ago philosopher's “love of the good”? Have

they looked for what is good in their national community and, findingsomething, felt that, whatever that goodness is, it far outweighs the bad, somuch as to inspire love, reverence, devotion?

Is my own lack of love then my own responsibility? I do not look for the good,or do not look hard enough? Should one really have to look for what is called“the good”? Should one have to look for love? Shouldn't it be apparentthrough us, in our everyday actions and behaviors? Wouldn't our acts as anational community be love?

In the feel of being shit on what is good? Where's the love? Is love our

nation's buried life?

If America is a matter of belief in an idea, is a nation like a religion? Truebelievers are its champions? This sounds like chivalry from long ago. Yetpeople look to beliefs for stability. Taking them away produces what effect? Asense of loss. There is only a territory--being alive and dying--but no map tolive and die by. Persons of spirit do not get caught up in this. It ʼs a worldly,wordy, business.

*****

Our house on Elm Terrace in Riverton, New Jersey, my family in it, our dogButtons. White birch and sycamore in our back yard. Fruit from thatbuttonwood tree: itchy balls we call them. Neighbors. The hill up our street wesled down. That three story dark brick elementary school, the houses and littlestores along the way. Fred's barber shop. Cott's candy store. Klipple's bakery.Friday's fuel.

Our street is lined with elm trees. Seed pods we become dizzy chasing whenthey fall whirling in breeze. We open some to stick on our noses. Fall days

playing in piles of leaves that are raked off lawns to curb sides for a leaf-sucker truck. Some winter days, snow days, we are up the street on a golfcourse double bunkers with sleds; dozens of kids. Snow bright and wet insun. Slushy after that day's sledding. Our snow suits soaked.

That place, those people, those trees and moons; that ground. A world we areof; a life we are of. In it are hurtful things that make that world too. Next doorlives a man who beats his beagles; he kicks them and hits them with a chain.

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Poor things yelp in pain. To hear it as a child. I plead with him to stop. “It ʼsdiscipline,” he tells me.

Home life, home town surroundings that are breathed, absorbed. Personalexperiences; all else is distant. We are bombarded with distances. What can

be held close? “America the Beautiful” is a song in a book we learn to sing inelementary school. America is writing in textbooks in social studies class. It isa system of government we are taught about in school. America is pictures ofmen, long ago men in long coats and powdered wigs. Handlebar moustachecivil war soldiers, or bearded. Lanky log splitting Lincoln. A few women.Bonneted Betsy Ross sewing her flag. Clara Barton.

What does being American really mean in that immediacy? Where isAmerica? What is American? Is it us? Or do we have to behave in certainways to "qualify"? (It is possible, I learn later, to be “unAmerican.”) Pictures ofourselves are not in our social studies books; our personal lives are not

material for any course we have. Teachers never ask us to consider whatAmerica is in our lives, though they assign us patriotic essays to write for acontest. We make our language into a flag we wave as words in hopes ofsome reward.

Do we, as people, ruin the land we call America? Do we, Americans, we thepeople, foul it, pollute the land's rivers and lakes, gas up the air, make selfgovernment a joke high level execs chuckle at in corporate boardrooms?

All that is around us and in us. Then to look around and look within and take itall in and think of it not as what it is but as America. Things are okay or not

okay just as they are. What need is there to top it all off with a metaphysicalmaraschino cherry of “America.” Why not just “life?”

Does the constitution say what America is, or is the entire document what itmeans?

Maybe this is all taught in civics class.

In our school we are made to learn things about America but are never askedto work out for ourselves on a personal level what it is to be American. As partof what it is to be a person. A man or woman in the universe examining what it

is to be a certain nationality, as part of an examined life.

The public schools I went to do not commit to specifics. We are just supposedto salute and pledge and appear patriotic. Recalling what little religiouseducation I have--Sunday school classes and Bible readings--there is adefinite program of predetermined meanings that are revealed throughvarious stages of life in a church. Confirmation is one.

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In Boy Scouts there is a defined character young boys are to modelthemselves after: be honest, prepared, helpful, etc. I do not recall beingpresented with any particular behavior as an American. Other than "fight formy country," other than the notion that we, as a group, hold this and that andare dedicated to such and such a proposition, other than pledging myself to

liberty and justice for all, other than the trinity of god, country, family. There isnothing that addresses me as a person. There are those who say that godspeaks to them but my country never speaks to me. How would Americasound? White noise?

To make efforts to actualize a republic that is really about liberty and justicefor all is more important than having kids repeat words in a schoolroom.

*****

Wild places where things flow without human intervention. Even though suchplaces are now unlikely. Somewhere without designation. No name.Unmapped. Empty, uncolored, unknown. Nothing to proclaim possession orownership. Then someone comes along, names it, by which act they bringthat place into human thought, which means bring it under human control.Thought control. Establish dominion. We kill freedom. Now it supposedlybelongs to some government, belongs to someone, belongs. As we do. Wethink we do.

Before that, before anyone claims it, walk there and smell trees, soil, feel

breeze, sun warm, earth under feet hard or soft, sky blue, air clear, or get wetwith rain. Feel them. Feel with them. Each in its own flow all flow together.Then someone comes along and calls it America. Do trees meadow grassesbow down, rise and stand at attention, salute flags or hint acknowledgementthat they are now supposedly American trees, American grasses? AnAmerican sky?

Trees are cut down earth upturned turned under turned to; mountains areblasted away, blasted into or through, rivers are dammed, cities built andempowered, city air is filmy with gaseous substances and urban smells. Ouracts as a particular group in a particular place might be called American acts.

We foul it and think it's fair. Itʼs our stench, the city smog. What is a word butits act?

How about me? More definitely nature than nation, which, nation, is someencoded memory cells in part of my brain: I get filmy and fouled.

*****

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There are gentle souls in America. While growing up or later on in life I meetsome. They seem able to go on living there and rest in their essential nature.Ignoring evil maybe. Nowhere is it easy. My hat goes off to them. I respect

and admire too those who have been, and still are, confronted with, who havesuffered, bigotry and small heartedness, the violence and mindlessness, inAmerican society (though elsewhere it can be as bad or worse, or better too)and who manage still to remain open to love, to life, those who do not closedown those who do not respond to stupidity with stupidity. It's an honor tothink of them as friends.

Scott Watson

Sendai, Japan

On Being American

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