Trayvon Martin & George Zimmerman saw each other as enemies and made it so.

The shooting and subsequent death of Trayvon Martin was a modern tragedy. A tragedy born of anonymity and mutual distrust. Two people who lived in a community but didn’t know each other. Their first meeting led to angry words, shoving, fighting and death. This modern tragedy was and is preventable.

Background: we get more published information on the survivor, as he was charged with murder and history is written by survivors. George Zimmerman was a man who felt unsafe and wanted to do something to help prevent crime in his community. There were break-ins and robberies in his neighborhood. With the help of the local police, a neighborhood watch association was formed and George was appointed coordinator. He chose to sit out in his car and literally wach his neighborhood to help prevent the crime which was occurring. Subsequently he witnessed youths casing apartments. He called police and before the police could arrive, they were gone. Then a break-in was reported, George identified the youth that he saw casing the apartment. But what good was neighborhood watch, if he was powerless to stop the break-ins? He wanted to prevent the crime, not witness it. The table was set. Trayvon Martin went out to buy some candy one night and take a walk and was walking back to his Dad’s fiance’s apartment when he realized he was being followed. George was going to prevent a crime which wasn't occurring. Rather than turn and address George and have a respectful conversation, he ducked back, waited for the man to approach and confronted him. Angry words were exchanged, push came to shove and a fight broke out. Most of this comes from this wiki site, which I recommend:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin
 
Zimmerman was interviewed after the incident. He was voice stress tested for truth. Key eye witnesses came forward to give testimony. The consensus from these sources, as well as physical evidence from the scene was: rather than have an open conversation, their human interchange devolved into angry words and a shoving match, which ended with Trayvon on top of Zimmerman, wailing away mixed martial arts style and George pulling his gun and shooting Trayvon in the heart.

The reason this is preventable is two people should be able to talk to each other and learn that neither intends harm. Without knowledge of each other, we shouldn’t have immediate distrust, without skepticism. Here distrust prevailed. Both knew (wrongly) the other was up to no good. Trayvon referred to George as “a creepy-ass cracker.” George pictured Trayvon as a criminal who was not in his own neighborhood but was planning a break-in. George was wrong. Trayvon had a reason to be there because he was returning home. George was following because of neighborhood break-ins. Rather than respect each other and act civilly toward each other and have a reasoned conversation, a fight broke out and Trayvon was killed. Guns do escalate violence rather quickly. What went from a butt kicking of George to the death of Trayvon was courtesy of a concealed firearm. It’s true no one knows if George hadn’t had the gun what would have ultimately happened to him. Maybe just a good beating. We’ll never know because the fight escalated to a killing. The point, however, is there was no need for harsh words, shoving, or violence.

Distrust, crime, racial hatred (which, by the way, is not a one way street) and lack of civility and most of all, a large, non-homogenous population which is not bound by shared religion, beliefs, or values, can devolve into violence and killing in a heart beat. Much has been made of Trayvon’s age and race. The President identified with him. Yet we haven’t had anybody step up and say, if you would have neighborhood watch, get to know those neighbors. Stop hating each other. Let's not just identify that the tragedy involved a black youth wearing a hoody. Let's identify that we had a unnecessary confrontation between two human beings that could have and should have been avoided. The President could have been the coordinator of the neighborhood watch too. Stop the violence, people. As long as the moral and social values of disparate groups of citizens are so diverse, we will have confrontations and dislike and distrust, unless or until, leaders ask citizens to reach out and try to understand different motivations and life styles. The President's reach here should be to understand both sides to prevent a tragedy. We need basic trust in human beings. It is a pillar of society. Race is an issue but dislike, distrust and immediate recourse to angry words needs to cease. Calling out race only adds to the dislike and distrust. This issue is far from over but saying George Zimmerman is a racist is really an emotional response to a much bigger problem. George Zimmerman thought Trayvon Martin was a criminal because he looked and acted like criminals George had witnessed. Arabs are profiled because they run terrorist organizations. Young black youths are profiled because, at least in George's neighborhood, they were the one's breaking into apartments. If George is on the lookout for people fitting the description of criminal activity, that makes him logical. Trayvon immediately distrusted George too. He was being followed after all. What transpired certainly was fed by that profiling but it was not the proximate cause of Trayvon's death. The proximate cause of Trayvon's death was two human beings who failed to adequately communicate with each other in a reasonable way. Two human beings who instinctively feared and distrusted each other. Violence killed Trayvon Martin. Violence escalated from failed communication. We need to better understand how to teach each other to communicate.

It is crystal clear that George Zimmerman should not have gotten out of his car. We know the police would eventually come and probably after Trayvon had gotten back to his apartment. George would then have felt frustrated but that’s better than spending time in jail, accused of murder after shooting a fellow human being. If you would watch, stay in your car. Watching and confronting are not the same thing and precipitated the event. That doesn’t take a genius to figure out and was established at trial. It was a prominent and pivotal factor, but there are reasoned solutions to prevent escalation to violence when people approach each other.

Number one, you will be harmed and create harm for others if you automatically hate and distrust those with whom you come into contact. If you speak with respect and listen with intention to understand, you will create good will and peace. It is true a majority of the time. There are damaged people who will not be able to communicate with you and who mean you harm because they know nothing but harming themselves and others. Their history has damaged them almost beyond repair. But they are in the extreme minority of human beings. Governing yourself most of the time by the threat of confrontation with damaged people makes society unworkable. Most people mean you no harm. Return the favor.

Second, if you are not a policeman, lock your gun away. A vast majority of the time a gun will be used on it’s owner or the owner's family member or a friend. It will be used for suicide. A tragic accident will occur. A child will die. The use of the gun will harm the owner in unfortunate or preventable ways. It happens almost every day. Or like the Zimmerman case, it will be used to kill an innocent boy. It is the rare minority of occasions that a gun will actually be used for it’s intended purpose. I must admit that I have known small women who live in dangerous circumstances who protected themselves with a gun. There are exceptions to every rule but this rule is clear. If you have a gun, and it is used on a human being (pistols are people shooters), that human being will be yourself, your spouse, your family or your friends and it will be a tragedy. Your circumstance will need to be extreme to justify having a weapon handy and even then it likely will do you more harm than good. The gun also provided false confidence to George Zimmerman when he decided to follow Trayvon Martin, thinking he was up to no good. Without it, he likely would have waited for police. That is a true tragedy. I’m not sure what Trayvon thought of George but he distrusted his motivations immediately. What happened to him was a horrible tragedy but a moment to stop and speak with respect to another human being would have saved his life. “Hey man, I Iive here and I’m going home. What are you up to? Why are you following me?” I realize some of it is fear but we shouldn’t automatically revert to confrontation. Throw up your deuces instead of your dukes. Can life be that simple? Why not? This confrontation was fed by immediate dislike and lack of understanding and respect from both sides. The only thing the perfect storm lacked was Trayvon’s gun. Then they could have just killed each other.

If George and Trayvon could have met and spoken and listened with mutual respect, they could, in time, have been brothers or friends. If not, they could at least have avoided violence. Mutual respect doesn't need to involve liking. Because human beings are brothers and brothers don't always get along. But brothers are family and family is blood. Mutual respect means caring. Wishing and hoping for the best for each other. It's a basic human belief that we are created equal and we need to begin to treat each other that way. But each, for their own reasons, immediately distrusted the other and their meeting was one of confrontation, violence and death. It was a self-fulfilling vision of tragedy. They saw each other as enemies and made it so.

It shouldn't be that way. It can't stay that way.

I wish only peace for Trayvon’s family. I hope George Zimmerman can heal, as well. His sorrow should be profound. This was a tragedy born of unfortunate circumstance fed by xenophobia and distrust. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools.” If this tragedy teaches anything, it teaches us he was right. Open the hand of friendship to those you don’t know. Listen to their stories. Offer compassion to heal their wounds. Make understanding their life your purpose. That's a neighborhood watch that needs to get started today.

If you would manage, listen. If you would make changes, seek consensus.

Management styles have evolved over the past few decades. I was a Staff Sergeant in the Air Force in the early 70s. The military is a dictatorship. You listen up closely and jump when commanded. There’s no need to ask how high. Just jump as high as you can all the time. At least that was the theory. I worked as a civilian in increasingly responsible positions after my discharge. Fifty years ago organizations were often either dictatorships or semi-enlightened despotisms. The boss hired and fired at will and his word was law. Working in this system as a mid level supervisor made me uneasy. When I mention semi-enlightened despots, I was being literal. Decisions were made with inadequate intel but by definition, they were law. No second guessing the boss, right?

Things changed in the 80s and 90s. I felt like some of the more positive philosophies germinated in northern California. I went to a number of seminars which pointed out adults respond better to positive reinforcement. Discipline wasn’t the right word, it was actually punishment. When you discharged an employee, it became known as workplace capital punishment. Supervision without punishment meant re-training and counseling. Sending folks over to human resources (formerly personnel) to visit the employee assistance program. There was an underlying reason why Billy didn’t show on time. Let’s get him some help.

At first I felt constrained. I had education. I had training. I had worked my way up and knew what the organization’s goals were. We were all about the customer. Putting the customer first. How could we compromise our mission by letting up on the employees?

In my 20s, it was, look, let’s do it my way, okay? When all else fails, listen up. I see the path clearly. I think logically. I work hard. Nobody works harder than me. And what the hell, I’m in charge. My way or the highway. It’s the “because I said so” mentality. A mother and her children.  I got some of this philosophy from the “boss.” That’s the way he treated me, after all. I passed it along. But I saw the boss discharge people for pretty odd reasons. I saw the organization become confused at times because what management did could be justified but now and again, things seemed more random to the rank and file. The other thing was leaders who surround themselves with sycophants want to hear echos. One head is better than two. If I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it. Over time I became disenchanted with this process. Not because pin heads in California told me so. Because common sense began to creep in.

I’ve always said people don’t change, they adapt. But I must admit, over the past half century I think I’ve actually changed. It may just be society changed and I went along. Adapted. Who knows?

I now approach management in a much different way. Before I act, before the organization moves, we work toward a buzz word of the 80s and 90s. By now it may be trite but I need to use it:

The word is consensus.

Consensus and consensual are forms of the same thing. With more than one or many in agreement.

You may be the smartest (or at least think you are). You may have the power and position of authority. You may be better educated and motivated. But here’s the thing. You’re not alone. If you were, you’d be in trouble. There’d be little disagreement but you’d be isolated. There’s good reason to feel isolated if you are alone. It’s a damn shame if you are one among many and manage to be isolated. You are in trouble if you fail to use the most powerful resource you have, your brothers and sisters. Does that term bother you? I’m not related to these people. Hell, I don’t even like half of them and can’t stand a couple of them. Besides, siblings fight a lot, don’t they? You prefer “workers” or “co-workers” or “employees?” "Team members" and "associates" are popular.  You spend all day or all night (your shift) with them. More waking time than with your formal family. They are your surrogate family and by extension, your brothers and sisters.

They don’t like you? Who likes to be given orders? You didn’t, that’s why you wanted to run things. They tend to disagree? If you fail to take them into consideration, that’s a given. Will a consensus always be achieved? It’s the goal. If it isn’t, something may need to be reorganized. I personally believe consensus can be reached but all generalizations are false and I’m wrong now and again. Let’s see what might be wrong if consensus can’t be achieved.

First, let’s go over motivation. What do people want? Of course if it’s work, they want to be paid. You can’t have starving employees and expect unity or harmony. They want to be positively recognized and they want to feel that there are worker’s rules that protect them. Active management means fair work rules that are uniformly applied. I was surprised at my first supervisory job when employees sought me out to try to get management to start paying more attention to the work place. They wanted co-workers who were ignoring rules to be held to account. It was a union shop. Fairness is ephemeral but a worthy goal. Good employees want bad employees counseled, retrained and if necessary, terminated. They only want to be protected from arbitrary or discriminatory management, not aggressive or active management. It is also true that non-discriminatory union practices mean legal protection for the same individuals they want terminated, if they can’t learn. That slaps management upside the head for doing what membership wants. Irony, however is a universal fact of life. Its often why you explain to your kids that nothing’s fair. But let me cut to the chase.

What people want:

    Bread and Circuses (McDonald’s & Netflix)
    Sustenance and Shelter for themselves and their family
    A reason not to fear Illness and Injury
    Dignity and respect & feel a sense of community
    A way to achieve old age with dignity


If they are not achieving the basics while expending their creative energy at your workplace, they likely won’t agree with management very often. So consensus achievement is a manageable goal for the enlightened workplace. It should also be a goal in other situations, just be aware of what you’re dealing with.

Once working in an enlightened workplace, employee’s desire (in fact, everybody desires):

    Creative Control.

It’s what you were after when you grabbed “control” and got a position of authority. It’s what drives politicians to run for office. The slacker, who tokes up all day and achieves nothing, is still seeking creative control.

If you are granted a position of authority, you are empowered to give everybody what they want. A sense of control. You must listen. You must write it down. You must repeat it back. You must have a fairly large control group. Most people are fair and want fairness for all. Widening your input will increase that fairness.

Why? What’s in it for me?

What I learned over decades of management is this:

You can’t control the behavior of other human beings. If you don’t understand this fact, you haven’t been in management very long.

Their behavior cannot be controlled through discipline, punishment or discharge. You can move them around and hurt or help them but ultimately what they do is up to them. So you need to stop trying to control their behavior and begin to open up to the idea that those employees will be much better motivated to do the things the organization needs if they think it’s their own idea. They will control their own behavior by doing what they agree to do. Consensus means they agree. Wow.

The other thing is people listen best after they are heard. Knowledgeable and intelligent people sit around patiently listening to everyone else, biding their time until they have a chance to be heard. Everyone wants to be heard, sooner or later. Once they are heard, they can relax and begin to listen. Why not let them be heard early and often. You will find they listen to you longer and harder and with a more open mind if they are heard from first.

Again, you don’t have control over other people’s behavior. They control their behavior. What you have is the ability to be heard. And what you must, above all, speak of is what you hear. Listen first. Listen hardest. Repeat it back. Write it down. Respect it. That’s the first step to consensus. Listening. You are paving the way for a two way street. People want (desperately need) to be heard. To be respected. To have some level of control. “I know what I’m going to do.” Have you asked anybody else? Did you discuss it with those it impacts the most, personally?

New managers must take the time to let everybody they supervise be heard. To make notes. Learn everybody’s name. Make few if any changes immediately because you have a golden opportunity to give your co-workers the feeling that have contributed to any changes that are made. Some of the changes you know you are going to make, need to be made AFTER your co-workers suggest them to you. You may already know it needs to be done but wait until others can take credit for it. They will soon understand the process is inclusive. They will soon share in the responsibility for the results that are achieved.

That may seem counter-intuitive for the ambitious. Organizational climbers want to take credit for all positive change. But employees know that individuals who glory hunt are out for themselves, alone. They won’t like and won’t support me-first supervisors and will submarine results. Engender a sense of community by making decisions based on consensus. This will share the responsibility with those who produce results and make success a mutual ambition.

Does achieving consensus slow the process? Yes. Does it make your job more difficult? Yes and no. It slows the process down, at least at first. It takes time to listen. It requires some patience. It means your own creative control is constrained. But here’s the thing. You can’t control other people’s behavior anyway. You can, however control a process that will empower others to control their own behavior. Slowly, gradually, your respect for those who work for you, your quiet way of listening, will build mutual respect. In time, the organization will become more of a team. More of a unit. The decisions the unit makes will work out sometimes and other times it won’t. You will get better feedback from people who feel they are responsible for the decisions. Subsequent decisions will get better results. Workers will begin to take ownership of the decision. It was their decision. Refinements will become second nature. Nobody’s waiting for management to recognize problems that they, the front line workers, see immediately. They will want to meet and make changes to make things work smoother. They know they’ll be heard. That benefits line workers. Ultimately it improves the organization. Success is shared, as it should be. It may have taken longer to implement the process but in the long run, everyone will benefit. That includes management, of course. Doing the right thing often pays off.



If you would manage, listen. If you would make changes, seek consensus. If you achieve success, recognize the strength of your team and reward them. It was achieved  mutually.


Editor's note: Your team will include negative people who won't want your organization to succeed. You will succeed in spite of these people IF they are in the minority. No organization will ever succeed if a majority of it's workers want it to fail.

Buses and the Bahamas

Standard Jitney bus crossing in front of us.

On-board Jitney

For our 42nd wedding anniversary, Ruth and I went on a cruise. It’s been 23 years since our last cruise. We drove to Charleston harbor over the weekend and boarded the Carnival Fantasy on Monday to visit Nassau, New Providence Island and Freeport, Grand Bahama Island. We’ve been to Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel and wanted to go somewhere new.

The 10 stayed on Bay Street, the 10a went further inland

The two day stops were in Nassau and Freeport. In Freeport we rode out and back to go snorkeling with Pat and Diane’s service from the cruise terminal to Port Lucaya. Our driver outbound tried to fill the trip with snappy banter but he wasn’t ready for prime time. Our bus driver, back from Port Lucaya to the cruise terminal, however, was a pro. He wanted to fill us in on the local culture and maybe earn a tip. I am a tightwad but was so impressed I tightened up with him as I debarked. He regaled us with stories the entire 20 minute ride. While we ate supper that night back on board, I filled in our cruise mates with some of this colorful information, which follows.

The Bahamian people are proud of their independence which was achieved in July, 1973 at 12:00AM.  The Bahamian flag’s colors all have meanings. The black center stands for the strength of the people, 85% of which are black. The blue areas are for the sea and the sky and the yellow stripe is for the sun. Then it got interesting. The white stripe at the base of the flag stands for the white sand beaches. He had a flag posted above the area where he drove. I later found out that there is no white stripe on the base of the flag, except for his copy. Apparently it was just a bunting on the edge. His travelog was probably 90% accurate, which is good. Here are other, colorful excerpts.

Cable Beach

Our children all wear the uniform of their school. Each school has their own color uniform. In the Bahamas, we don’t spank the children. We beat the children. If the children don’t go to school and are caught, they are beaten five times. Once by the adult that catches them, then by the Auntie, the Uncle, the Momma and the Dad. And if the child goes to the police to complain about the beating, you know what happens then? The police beat the child.

There were enough #10s to maintain a 5 minute headway

 
The majority religion in the Bahamas is Baptist. One thing about our churches, there is a bar next to every church and a church next to every bar. You can go straight from the church to the bar and from the bar to the church. What you think the drinking age is in the Bahamas? 18? 21? There is no drinking age in the Bahamas. If you are old enough to be able to reach up over the bar you can get a drink.

Local hipster dude caught the aisle seat.

The man that owns the KFC and Burger King franchises is the richest man on the island. He has the biggest home, called Cooper’s castle. It is right on the shoreline.

We had three powerful and wicked woman visit the islands in 2004&5, Frances and Jeanne and Wilma. They damage us so bad, some things still are not rebuilt. But the government help up by giving the people plywood, shingles and nails. We don’t ever want to see such dangerous women again. You know what you do to a woman named Frances or Jeanne or Wilma, if you meet them?  [author’s note: There was so much beating going on, you had to figure maybe you beat them but no] You leave them alone. They are very powerful and should not be mess with.

His presentation was much like a quiz show, where he asked us questions and then told us the correct answer if we didn’t know. Many of the bus riders had ridden before and knew many of the answers.

Bahamas means shallow water.

Columbus discovered the Bahamas in 1492 and was met by the friendly Lucayan Indians. He turned them into slaves.

The Bahamas consist of 700 islands and 2,400 uninhabited islets and cays. They are located only 50 miles off the east coast of Florida. They extend for about 760 miles from end to end.

Once reliant on agriculture and fishing, the number one enterprise in the Bahamas is now tourism.

Carnival cruise lines own a majority of the dry docks on Grand Bahamas.

It made the ride go quicker and was all in good humor.

In Nassau, I read the best way to go to Cable Beach was to take the local bus, or jitney. A jitney is a series of privately owned buses or vans which serve the public in lieu or a formal transit system. In big cities in the United States, jitneys predated public transit. It was the entrepreneur’s solution to a public need. In New York and other large cities, jitneys competed with one another to make a living by providing transportation. It almost became chaotic and governments began to regulate public transportation. In Nassau, the jitneys are regulated but they are a blend of formal and informal. Each jitney bears a number corresponding to the route it serves. We rode the #10 which sticks to Bay Street and the coast to go from downtown to Cable Beach. The jitneys are everywhere downtown.

The horses all wear hats (grudgingly)

The fare was $1.25, one way. Downtown, an employee vets tourist riders to make sure they understand cash will be required. When I offered the money, it was turned down. We boarded the “bus” which was bigger than a van and smaller than a bus. Ridership is largely locals with a scattering of tourists. Auto traffic, in the British tradition, sticks to the left side of the road.

There's no shame in sitting in the aisle.

When I mentioned our planned jitney trip on the cruise ship I was met with “sounds dangerous.” Perhaps, but the Bahamians we encountered were universally helpful and friendly. Music was played almost everywhere and there was a laid back atmosphere. In fact, most people went out of their way to show us what I asked or if they didn’t know, find someone for me that did. It’s true that tourism is their number one industry and it’s an economic imperative to be kind to strangers but I felt it was more than that. I felt a certain ownership of the islands from their people. No one wanted to besmirch their widely held friendly reputation.  I also felt they are an open, helpful and friendly people because it’s cultural. It’s true a couple of days spent on the islands is not a definitive test and I’m also sure if we’d gone to the periphery of the city at 2:00AM with a handful of cash and snoot full of booze we might have been mugged, but to be honest I think it’s a lot more dangerous in the states in urbanized areas than in the Bahamas.

The jitney operators wait until there’s a good crowd aboard before they pull off. Rule of thumb seems to be the two seats on one side and the one seat on the other should all be full before disembarking. Once we pulled off and made the hill and turned by the Governor’s mansion we started picking up more riders. How do you pick up more riders when all the seats are full? Do they allow standees? Rather than stand people in the aisles, the side of the bus with one row has a jump seat which can be slid out and folded up to sit in what was once the aisle. This means starting at the back of the jitney, the bus fills up across the entire row with four abreast and continues forward until all the rows have four across. Getting in and out then requires cooperation from all. It worked pretty well. If an emergency happened and we had to evacuate, it would be a little ugly (there was only one side door through which everyone boarded and alighted but I’m sure the locals don’t want to run their system based on the unlikely exception, like we do here in the states. I doubt they can afford to. They run it by the normal daily need, which makes common sense but doesn’t protect everyone from everything. It’s pretty laid back.

The driver keeps his money laid on on the engine’s tunnel-home so people can make change. You can change your bills with the coins laid out on a piece of cloth. I surrendered three dollars for the two of us, effectively paying a buck and a half instead of a buck and a quarter. I figured it was an exact change system (it’s not) and wasn’t prepared for the informality of the whole thing. Paying when you get off instead of when you get on spreads the dwell out, it seems. It is quite the honor system, unless they beat you if you don’t pay. Our riders were locals who were going out to work at the hotels and restaurants supported by tourism and others making their daily rounds. Music always blared from speakers on the vehicles and most of it was local reggae or island music. There was lots of greetings as most everybody seemed to know each other but that’s true here in the states when you ride off peak.  All in all a fun day.

The ride in Freeport was on a pre-scheduled parlor coach, which was little different from  the states. We paid $5 one way. There is a transit system in Freeport but we stuck pretty much to the cruise harbor and Port Lucaya because we wanted to snorkel most of the day. It is pro-ported to be more formalized than Nassau. I’ll leave it an open question for another trip, another day, hopefully.

Humility Are Us

I am often amazed by smart people who think themselves nearly infallible because they know so much and try so hard. They are earnest. They are leaders. They believe very strongly in themselves and their judgment. I'm glad such people exist. Society needs people who take things seriously, work hard and think positively about themselves. My own personal inquiry about such people is, are they humble? The word humble is derived from humility, which is achieved through humiliation. That is, until you are personally humiliated and know what that feels like, you often lack humility and are therefore not at all humble. I can deal with smart, aggressive people who want to lead as long as there is an underlying element of humility. Makes them human. Some of it is also about empathy, of course. Putting yourself in the place of the followers. Again, being a good leader is often defined by how good a follower you were. You can empathize with those who must follow because you were once where they are and know how it feels. Those who would lead but have not followed and who would give orders to others but lack humility, make me very nervous. If you feel the same, read on.

I am an outstanding example of someone who has felt humiliation, early and often. My friends in grammar school held me up to a mirror whenever I would get so full of myself that I forgot to think about others. My parents didn't know they were suppose to make me feel special, so they often showed me how stupid I was acting. So that's probably where my humility comes from. I guess now you can say I want others to feel my pain. I have hundreds of examples of my own stupidity or ignorance running rampant but I want to share a particularly egregious example of ignorance rearing it's homely persona at a critical moment in my past. It's also funny.

I joined the Air Force in 1970. Went to Lackland AFB for basic training. Like every other budding airman there, I was challenged by the "confidence course." It was what used to be called an obstacle course but renamed after what it was supposed to instill in it's participants. The first week or two in, you went out to do the course and well, with little PT behind you, you struggled to complete the course and once in a while didn't finish a particular obstacle. After a few weeks of PT and running, you got in better shape and most everybody did much better on the second go round and did it much faster. It was a requirement to finish basic. You had to finish the course. Now to set up my personal challenge. Also at Lackland we enjoyed pretty decent chow at the chow hall (cafeteria style) and breakfast was always filled with a lot of choices. What we lacked was very long to eat but you learned to rush if you expected to eat very much. The morning of our second try at the confidence course, we were filled with eager anticipation. Most of my flight felt in much better shape and we knew the course better. Every morning after my first two weeks of acclimation, I had tried to take at least something different to try at the chow hall. Keep it interesting. This morning I selected a nice bowl of warm prunes to go with my eggs and toast. They were a bit weird but also kinda sweet and overall I liked them and ate them all and drank the juice. I had never experienced warm prunes before but my knowledge of the fruit was soon to be expanded. Before breakfast, we had been up since dawn, had done morning PT and were scheduled to arrive at the confidence course a little before 10:30AM. "Hurry up and wait" is the motto of the military and we marched quick time across base and out to the woods where the course was located to stand and wait. It was a decent march and got us quite warmed up. In prior summers at Lackland, they had killed a few recruits and we were wearing pith topis and carrying a canteen of water wherever we went. Lord knows what it cost the government when one of us died so we had to do our best to protect our benefactor whenever we could. Our road guards carried an extra canteen of salt tablets and passed them out twice a day. Once in a while somebody collapsed from the heat but it wasn't fatal, just life threatening. It was more an inconvenience, which they could tolerate. Screaming often ensued but that was clearly out of love. We stood at parade rest for a half hour because the schedule was falling behind. Perhaps some airman had to be hospitalized because they were allergic to tear gas. Who knows? What I did know, however, was the first rumblings of my bowels was occurring around the time we were originally due to take the course. After waiting another 15 minutes, I knew I was in serious, serious trouble. I wasn't able to stand still any longer, parade rest or no. Something was coming down the old alimentary canal and there was no stopping it. We were told to get ready as we were going to go on the course at any time. I was not going to be able to run and jump and scale anything with the explosive gas I was experiencing and there was no point in telling anybody, they'd just scream at me. I just took off toward the nearest stand of trees to let nature take it's course and miracle of miracles there was an old bathroom no longer in use, just behind the trees. It was made of concrete blocks with two stalls, still with conveniences. It was overgrown, foul and dirty and awful but it looked like a little bit of heaven to me. I exploded into the old john and sacrificed a handkerchief and ran like a fool back to where my flight had been and found they had moved up significantly and was now queued up to be next in line to tackle the course. At that moment I realized I had made a very stupid mistake to sample a completely new food before taking on a difficult course. If I couldn't complete it, at a minimum it would set me back a week in training. Luck had seen me through it. It was, however, yet another reason to be humble. I didn't embrace the experience but I learned from it. And sometime in the future, if you grow tired of a co-worker who can't seem to empathize with others or manage to show any humility, try to encourage them to have a large, warm bowl of prunes the morning before your next important meeting. Worked for me.

Be careful or grateful what you wish for

The old Chinese proverb is "be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it." That, and "may you live in interesting times." These are sardonic sayings because life is full of irony. There are a lot of Chinese and irony isn't lost on a population of 2,000,000,000. I can agree that in some instances what you initially wish for isn't always what you thought it would be. In the late 70s, early 80s, I got to attend various training seminars and meetings related to public transit. I was located in greater New Orleans and flew to Texas quite a lot. I have fond memories of flying in those decades. Lots of airlines. Lots of choices. Free meals. Friendly, accommodating flight attendants who were often attractive women. Fewer cavity searches. To Texas you had TTA (tree top airlines or Trans Texas), Southwest (hasn't changed much in decades and much the model of the industry now) and Braniff. Southwest was also called cattle car airlines for obvious reasons, which you'll appreciate if you've flown with them. They were great for being on time (the cattle car concept worked for that), had an excellent safety record and were friendly and a little weird. I liked that. As I recall, I was flying on a Sunday afternoon in the spring. I often chose Braniff over Southwest because they fed you more than peanuts (another staple of Southwest), gave you a seat assignment, in advance and flew decent jets with leather seats. The kicker was they were about the same cost on many flights as their competition and you got the frills for almost nothing. Probably why they no longer exist. 

I was looking forward to a leisurely flight and evening in Houston. I liked to show up early in case I had transportation trouble and that day had none and was quite early, nearly as early as you must show up today. As I approached Braniff's counter, I was greeted by the friendly faces of the airline's staff with a smile. Things were pretty sweet. When the ticket agent looked at my ticket and flight she frowned and said, "you know there's a big storm rolling in and I seriously doubt your flight will take off." Wow, talk about ruin your plans. Then she said, "you know you're early enough and we have a flight due to take off in just about five minutes. It should beat the storm. I can switch your ticket out and if you run, you can just make the door closure." That brought a big smile to my face. I was going to get what I wished for. "Fabulous, let's do it." I love to quote Gary Gilmore.

I grabbed my carry-on and altered ticket and ran down the concourse. If you're old enough you can remember the commercial with OJ running through airports jumping over seats and sprinting. Better times for all, especially OJ. I ran. I jumped. I sprinted. I just made it in time for the doors to be sealed behind me. I even got an aisle seat. What transpired that day can't happen now. We understand the forces of downdrafts, micro-bursts, wind shear and there are detectors at the end of each runway. Not so this day, however. We took off as the skies darkened, as I recall, on the east-west runway, heading east. Normally storms came at us from the west, northwest but I don't know from which direction the storm was coming that day. The reason I say we took off going east is as the pilot climbed and slightly banked starboard, I could see Kenner outside the plane windows below me and if you go west, you only see swamp, north you get the lake. I was on the right side of the plane. As an aside, much of north Kenner hadn't been developed yet. The airport, which was then Moisant Field and is now Louis Armstrong International, is located in the midst of Kenner, which grew up around the airport. The airport was located well out of town when it was built but back then zoning didn't preclude building a house in close proximity. That would change, of course, in time, although the houses in Kenner are still there, at least most of them are. Within a year or so later than my Sunday flight to Houston, PanAm flight 759 would crash into the same Kenner neighborhood, demolishing six houses, killing all 145 people on board and another 6 who were on the ground. It was one of those tragedies that the FAA learned a lot from. Knowledge, however, isn't retro-active and on this Sunday, what became immediately obvious was we weren't going to be doing any noise abatement even though we were flying over a residential neighborhood. The Captain pushed us up into the sky with all the throttle he had but we weren't climbing very well at all. The bumping and jumping began as the plane strained and made funny noises and the lights on the plane were having a hard time staying lit and were flickering and eventually would go out. We were sort of suspended in air with the engines at full throttle and the storm was shaking us like a rag doll and we weren't climbing, we were bouncing. We were moving forward but I felt we were approaching a stall. I could almost feel the back end of the plane begin to pull us down and we didn't have far to go to the ground. I do not ever want to feel that sensation again. The pilot had to give up on the climb and just try to regain air speed. There was a moment of clarity when I realized we were pretty much going to crash. It was imminent. You can't stall a commercial jet like that at low altitude and expect much else. There was really no other conclusion to be had from the events. We weren't going to make it because we didn't have enough air speed. The storm was pushing us down toward the ground and we never should have tried to take off in the first place. It seemed like it went on for several minutes but I know it was only a matter of a minute. A minute's a long time when you're in a commercial jet that can't maintain airspeed and is drifting downward. There was the smell of panic in the cabin. I noticed people's faces were pale with flecks of white on the their skin. I saw a dozen or so people vomiting in bags. To this day, I had never witnessed anybody throwing up in those little bags. There was general crying and sobbing. That, and the throwing-up was epidemic. I was in my 30s and felt I had achieved a lot in my life. I always thought when my time came, I'd be okay with it, as I was satisfied with my life's achievements. This one moment put that to lie. In no way was I ready to die. It was the farthest thing from the truth. I wanted another second, another minute, any chance to survive at all, was acceptable to me. The plane shuddered over and over and just as it seemed we would not stop drifting backwards, the pilot dropped more altitude and brought the nose down and managed to arrest the stall. We had also moved southeast far enough to start to clear some of the wind sheer that was pushing down on us. The plane began to level a bit and we simply flew low until he could use his gradually increasing airspeed to start climbing. In another moment, there was palpable relief on board. The lights came back on. We were climbing toward cruise altitude and sunshine. We weren't going to die after all. I had been on a rough flight where we should have diverted but didn't and laded in a snow storm in Omaha. It was terrible and bumpy and when we landed everybody burst out in applause. There was no applause or jubilation this day. Just embarrassment and relief. In 1982, Flight 759 hit a tree while trying to regain airspeed while being forced down by wind sheer and cold, rapid down drafts. PanAm had had no luck that day. Braniff must have had a horseshoe aboard for this day because we managed to regain our airspeed and climb back up into the sky without hitting anything. In retrospect, I know it was foolish to run to get on a plane taking off into an approaching storm. But in experiencing an event that made me think I was to die, I learned something. I'm better prepared to ask for another minute of life and always willing to wish for it. The Chinese aren't right about everything.

Why I was always a band rat

I'm from New Orleans. It will always be my home even though I haven't technically lived in the city since 1958. My parents and I lived in Ruston, Louisiana and then Metairie, which is a suburb of New Orleans between 1959 and 1970. I attended LSUNO/UNO for four years to maintain my draft deferment and to try to figure who I was and what I should be doing. I wasn't ready for much else at 17. 

By late 1969 I was out of school, better educated but not altogether sure who I was. The good news was I was no longer 17 and was not an immediate hazard to myself or others (when I wasn't drinking). What wise professors did teach me, however, was how little I knew and how far I was from achieving it. What I would be doing was then decided by outside forces. Leaving school meant I was no longer draft deferred but rather I was draft bait. When my draft number for 1970 was announced as 65, I either had to join the military or be drafted by late winter.

The Air Force seemed like a good place to receive training and avoid being a foot soldier. Men, boys?, drafted in Louisiana went straight to Fort Polk (Tiger town) and a lot of them became reluctant 11-Bravos in Southeast Asia. It's not like I didn't want to lose a leg or a foot, it was more like if I had a choice in the matter, getting a better deal with the Air Force was a practical decision. For the record, I could have gone Army and I could have and would have fought.

Like most of my life I would have approached it as a challenge and tried my best to be a razor sharp killer. There are those who think I was a draft dodger who joined to avoid a fight. There is a grain of truth to that, certainly since I was attempting to avoid getting killed or maimed. But the other truth is I simply made a tactical decision to improve myself and avoid death. I understand those who don't want to fight or kill. I respect their decision but it just isn't me. I studied history for four years in college and those unwilling to fight, pave the way for slavery.

When the O'Jays' sang "War, what is it good for, huh, absolutely nothing" seem to overlook the words and deeds of Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain who could have avoided killing in the Civil War, as he had both status and position but stated, "I fear, this war, so costly of blood and treasure, will not cease until men of the North are willing to leave good positions, and sacrifice the dearest personal interests, to rescue our country from desolation, and defend the national existence against treachery."

War is the horrible price men pay for freedom, THAT's what it's good for even for those who fail to recognize it. In any case, I took the oath at the customs house downtown and rode the Airport Downtown Express bus to the airport to board a plane for San Antonio. I knew the bus line well. I rode it every weekday from Metairie Road to Phlox Avenue to attend East Jefferson High School for three years. I also rode it into town on weekends and the summer to see movies and hang out, ala' Petulia Clark's biggest hit. 

Several decades later I would, after working there for over 25 years, be President and General Manager of Louisiana Transit. Transit buses tended to be an artery that fed me throughout my life.  After Air Force basic training at Lackland AFB (San Antonio) I was bussed to Wichita Falls, Texas to Shepard AFB for tech school. Joining the Air Force to fly and then finding myself on a bus riding across Texas from one base to another seemed humiliating at the time but again, buses (I also worked for Trailways for a while) were my conveyor belt. 

Since only college graduates with 20/20 vision were trained to be pilots and navigators and since I hadn't gotten my diploma in four years, what I could do in the Air Force was defined for me in a class we took at Lackland. It was to be a memorable experience. Basic Training is pretty serious with a lot of screaming. But we'd been through a few weeks of it by now and I guess the Sergeant who put on the class for us to fill out our wish list for school assignments decided to give us a little entertainment. 

He came in in uniform but he took on the persona of "Reginald Van Gleason" comedian Jackie Gleason's alter ego that is pretty much Johnny Carson's tea time movie host "Art Fern" or Ernie Kovac's "Percy Dovetonsils." A completely over the top impersonation of a high class, huckster dufus with high tonsil talking and nonsensical attitude. Here's a Youtube sketch of Gleason portraying Reggie:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4VUCZRasLs

You have to wait a minute and fifty for Reggie to appear but I think it's worth it. To this day I think about a third of the class thought the guy was actually like the character he was portraying while he conducted his class. It was a tremendous comedic relief for me and gave me hope that the Air Force did actually have a great sense of humor. You'd never know it from our DIs. 

I filled out my request form for several choices from 1 to 5 or something. Computer Operator was my third choice for duty assignment and what I wound up with. First choice was language school. They said you'd learn languages like Russian. I took the test and didn't feel that I did really well but came within 1 point out of 100 (off by 1%) of making the cut for the school which lasted 10 months. One of my ideas was to select the longest school I could get. Turns out the only language they taught was Vietnamese, which I guess is why it takes 10 months to get fluent. 

Not sure if I would have chosen language school knowing that was the only language they were teaching. Even though my bold words above say 'I'd fight, if asked,' I was still avoiding death and dismemberment rather instinctively because I wasn't looking for overseas assignments.  I wanted to go to the Florida panhandle, not Viet Nam. And yes, I am fluent in hypocrisy. The next longest school was Air Traffic Controller. 

If I joined the Air Force for training, why not go all out and it was the next to longest school after language school. I had to take a flight physical for that school. I technically passed the physical but the doc said he was not going to recommend me for the position because he knew if I flew a lot and couldn't clear my ears well, I didn't handle the altitude changes well, I shouldn't be doing it as my primary MOS. Turns out air traffic controller was to be forward air controller in Viet Nam and they flew you out to call in the strikes. So I got my third choice. 

This triggered my ride to Sheppard on a bus. I also spent a few extra weeks playing in the Lackland Drum and Bugle Corps. I am a band rat. When I hit a base or a campus I seek out musicians and look to join. It is an affliction that came upon me in Junior High. I joined band because my Dad picked me up from first day tryouts for basketball on instructions from my Mother who felt that I was too frail to compete safely. 

I had a heart murmur which was similar to my Dad's. He got rheumatic fever in the navy while training to be a dive bomber in WWII outside Chicago. They ran the trainees out into a wet field at night in the cold and left them out for a few hours for an air raid. He caught pneumonia and got rheumatic fever. It left him with a bad heart. Similarly I was thought to have had rheumatic fever when I was 6 years old. I missed a few months of school. By the time I was 12, I got a clear bill of health but by then it was too late. 

I wasn't running up and down a basketball court, I was marching in a band with a trombone. In junior high, before we chose instruments, they had an expert come in and look at our embouchures (teeth and mouth alignment) to recommend an instrument to match our mouth's foundation to an instrument appropriate to the player. I was told I had a woodwind embouchure. I chose trombone which is a brass instrument. I sorta wanted trumpet but so did everybody so trombone was a little different. To this day, after playing seriously for decades I don't have a good upper register. I guess the gal who made the recommendation could tell me she told me so. In defense, I went bass trombone as soon as I could lay my hands on one because I have a fantastic lower register. After that it was love.

I played baritone bugle in both the Lackland and Shepard AFB drum and bugle corps. I’d never been accused of being a prodigy with a horn. I sat either 2nd or 3rd trombone through much of high school. By the time I was a senior, I was 2nd chair 1st trombone but that was more based on seniority than anything else. I also played in the stage band in high school. Our director, Martin “Mike” Clancy had been a lower brass player himself and took a liking to me because I wasn’t an out and out thug. Unfortunately our high school had it’s share of thugs. 

My Dad sat on me most of my youth and I had grudging respect for authority because I hadn’t been given much of a choice. We called Mr. Clancy “Prof.” Prof had given me some music for trombone to practice. It was “Red Roses for a Blue Lady.” I had a couple of Si Zenter albums and I would ape his style, which was heavy on the vibrato, using the slide to produce the unique sound. The night of our stage band’s senior concert, which preceded the regular band’s concert, Prof told me I would be playing Red Roses as a solo with guitar chord backup. 

I knew he did it because I was a good kid and I played the solo but to this day have no idea if it was really any good or not. I’d always questioned my worth, throughout most of my early years. The same year I played that solo, Mr. Clancy asked me and another trombone player to play with his Dad’s band in Mardi Gras parades. That year, my senior year, I played every day or night for eleven days and nights in a parades throughout town. From Carrollton on the first Saturday of carnival to both Rex and Comus on the final day of carnival, which is Mardi Gras. 

Some nights I marched with my high school and other nights with Clancy’s jazz band, which was Mr. Clancy’s father’s group. We were the king of carnival’s band behind the lead float in Rex. After Comus on Mardi Gras night I was soot black. The Flambeaux carried either fusee flares or oil burning rag lights. Both produced light but also produced a lot of soot. When my Dad, bless his heart, picked me up after Comus, he didn’t recognize me. I’d lost ten pounds by the end of the week and I was jet black.

I played at Lackland while on TDY for a few weeks on voluntary assignment. They let us delay our tech school for as many weeks as we wanted to stay at Lackland and play in the corps. One of the guys I played with accepted an assignment to play in the Air Force academy drum and bugle corps in Colorado Springs rather than get his tech school training. It would be his permanent duty assignment. We marched in graduations, parades and played to the colors when the flags were raised and lowered. In time, however, I felt I needed to move on and get the training for which I had joined the Air Force. It turned out, however, that Shepard AFB, where I would get eight weeks of computer training had another music assignment in store for me.

When I got to Shepard, I heard they had a corps and I sought them out and managed to catch on. To join the corps at Lackland you had to audition. If you had corps experience in the Air Force, you no longer had to audition, you were a legacy. The guy who ran the flight I was in initially was pissed off at me and gave me grief but in the end I got the orders and he had to let me go. I moved myself on foot across base to be in the corps. I was about five or six weeks into playing with the corps when we were practicing in a big room. 

We were working on a fairly new march. The bugle had a key and a rotor, in the key of G. You had to under or over blow it now and again to get subtle notes just right. By now all bugles are in the key of Bb, just like band instruments but back then it was traditional for corps to have G instruments. G bugles don’t have the tonal range a regular band instrument has. For one thing it lacks the three keys a Bb instrument has. It just has fewer ways of producing mid tones. By now I had been playing on a bugle for a few months and had played trombone for nine years prior to that, including college. 

Perhaps I’d never been outstanding but by now I was competent. The Master Sergeant who had the corps had guys coming and going all the time. Troops came on base to get training, stayed a few weeks and moved on. Turnover was constant. He didn’t know me very well and for that matter didn’t know a lot of the baritone bugles of which there were about a dozen. The other thing I’d always done defensively is play out. Filling the horn hid struggles for range. Once you put enough air from your diaphragm into the horn you could pretty much blow any note you wanted, even if you struggled to hit upper range notes. It was defensive. It also meant I’d better know my part because you could hear me from just about anywhere. When I was at Ruston High School Mr. Barnes always knew when I hit a clunker because he could always hear me anywhere he was in the football stadium at practice. I was on the upper edge of whatever we were playing whether a high “piano” or a stronger “fortissimo.”

This day at Shepard, Sarge was directing us and was trying to figure out who was playing a certain phrase in the music and he couldn’t figure out where in lower brass it was coming from. Rather than embarrass anybody by making us play our parts one at a time, he had one bugle lay out each time we played the twelve bars of music as a group. We didn’t sit first chair or anything and I sat toward the end of the line. As we played the phrase over and over as one by one each bugle laid out, we played it over and over about nine times with a fair consistency. 

Then it became my turn to lay out. The other eleven horns began to play the phrase and little by little as they got two bars then three, it began to unravel and by the fourth bar the whole thing fell apart. Kind of like a musical train wreck. It then got weirdly silent. Nobody had said stop playing, it just fell apart when one out of twelve bugles laid out. I had been so loud for so long, I was carrying the entire section under me. When I was playing, I was the umbrella to play under. When I quit, the safety blanket was pulled. It was a strange moment. Most of my life I wasn’t sure of my worth. Sarge just shook his head and said, “look, don’t ever lay out again, okay?” It brought the house down. It was a defining moment for me. I was needed.

One night we went to town to play at a function in Wichita Falls. A school bus picked us up, we went to town, played our dozen or so marches, it got dark and we were picked up again by the same driver to return to base. I remember none of the details of where we played or what. On the way back to base on a fifteen minute ride, some of the guys in the back started to sing. It was kind of unorganized but one by one everybody started to fill in. We were musicians after all and most of us could hit the notes. 

The guys on the bus were a wide cross section of America. Tall, short, white, black and everything in between. A couple guys broke out with “Dixie.” You’d think the black guys would be offended but most of them had great voices and we hit two choruses and the volume picked up and well, it was amazing. The acoustics on the bus were like being in a sound chamber and our voices filled it to the breaking point. It was both loud and well, impressive. We were actually better singing than we were playing the bugle. 

Not a second after the last chorus of Dixie died, than Battle Hymn of the Republic began. If Dixie had been loud, the Battle Hymn became even fuller. Goosebumps raised on my arms as we sang three verses. I don’t know how I or anybody else on the bus knew all the verses of Battle Hymn, but there it was, in amazing harmony and it was stirring. As stirring as anything I can remember. As the final chorus wound down we realized we’d arrived at our barracks a couple of minutes ago and no one got up until we finished the final chorus. I was in the second row toward the front sitting behind the driver. As we began to rise to get off, the bus driver stood up in the middle of the aisle to address us. I sat close enough to see he had tears in his eyes. He told us he’d take us anywhere at anytime and consider it a privilege. It was an amazing, special moment in my life. It is almost indescribable to see such emotion in a perfect stranger but that’s what music is capable of. It’s why I was always a band rat.

No, I'm not gay, not that there's anything wrong with that. I guess it's the beret or the neck scarf or the whole getup. Peter Allen would have loved it, for sure. Took me several decades to find a Getzen G bugle to replace the one (holding here) I left behind in Wichita Falls. Ebay. I love the thing and play it regularly. Bugles are an acquired taste.