Sexual Harassment Part III

            I want to take another look at this question of harassment that’s now so

prominent in the news. Last season on Madam Secretary, Elizabeth (Téa Leoni) went to the Philippines to meet with the madman president, who was known for his misogyny and his too frequently inappropriate behavior. When she turned her back on him for a moment, he grabbed her buttocks with both hands. She whirled and decked him with a wonderful right to the nose, breaking it and blackening both eyes. It was a perfect statement for these imperfect times.

             This current upsurge in women coming forward with complaints about sexual misbehavior by male politicians and entertainers is a healthy sign that we may actually be approaching true gender equality. It certainly will make all men more cautious in their relations with women. They may not yet believe in that equality but they’ll certainly respect it. Now, ladies, I must point out what I believe is a major mental difference between men and women. Many men (maybe even most) wouldn’t consider it as harassment for a woman to pat him on the ass as he passes by or stroke his leg at a dinner engagement or even proposition him. He’d consider the ass pat as a compliment, the leg rub as enticingly interesting, and the proposition as acceptable. What offends most women doesn’t offend most men. Men are such pigs. I don’t think most men are misogynists; I think they’re philogynists who would welcome any come-ons from almost any (but not all) women. Oink! Oink!

             I‘m happy to say that I’m not one of them. I love women just as I love my fellow man, but I wouldn’t welcome any sexual advances from just any woman. She’d have to be someone I already love, not just anyone for whom I might lust. I seem to be digging an ever deeper semantic hole for myself. Help! These are such confusing times. May we soon get to that place where we love all people, regardless of gender, race, or religion. All I ask is that we not lose hugs. I love hugs. I believe in the efficacy of hugs that heal, not hugs that harass. So, men, today I’d like for every one of you to give your wife, your children, your friends, even your enemies a big hug and tell them how much they mean to you. Hugs are good; gropes are bad.

Carnivals in the Past

         Before the written word, the past had to be preserved by assigning its details to a tribesman (or woman) who became the repository for the tribe’s history. And he (or she) would pass on that memorized history to a younger successor. This system was awkward and prone to the sort of errors we used to see in the children’s game of “Pass It On.” You remember how different the word or phrase was when it finally got to the last person in line? Only when these memories could be written down did we have a nearly flawless system for preserving the past.

          I was born and raised in Mobridge, South Dakota, a small, rural, farming and railroad community near the banks of the Missouri River, so my most vivid memories are there from my first seventeen years. If I don’t commit them to paper, they’ll slip away and vanish along with me when I die.

          As an exercise in memory, I’m going to recreate what I remember about the carnivals that came to town over Fourth of July celebrations, either a combination of all those carnivals or maybe just the one when I was twelve or thirteen.

          In the 1940’s, the carnival was set up on the south end of Main Street.  Its boundaries were the railroad tracks to the south, the Mobridge Wholesale House to the east, the White Horse Hotel to the west, and the Moose Club to the north. The Tilt-a-Whirl was always the first thing you bumped into when you approached from the north. It was about even with the Moose Club. What an evil ride it was. Young people today would laugh at me for calling it evil because they’re more accustomed to much more frightening rides now. I remember it as evil because I’d be called a sissy if I didn’t ride, so I did . . . and hated it every time. As I remember it, there were nine cars, each holding three or four people. You got in, pulled down the retaining bar for holding you in and for you to hold onto, and away you’d go, each car independently spinning in various directions as the whole ride whirled around. The severity of the spins depended on the combined weight of the riders in each car, the more of you there were, the more awful the ride. I think I closed my eyes during most of the ride and I hazily remember the pain in my upper leg when I’d be pinned to the side of a fellow rider. All I ever wanted to do was somehow get off without falling down dizzy or throwing up the hot dog I’d just eaten, the hot dog I’d just bought at the stand near the White Horse that also sold cotton candy. But I was wise enough never to eat any cotton candy before my potentially regurgitating ride on the evil, painful Tilt-a-Whirl.

          Close to this ride was the Penny Pitch, a flat, square board close to the ground, roped off, maybe six by six feet with small painted squares designating how much you could win if you landed on the square without touching the line. As I remembered it, you could win amounts up to a dollar. Did you win very often? No. I remember going there with both pockets full of the Indian head pennies my older brothers had been saving. I pitched both pockets empty without winning much, but the young woman running the game very carefully pocketed all my Indian heads, my brothers’ pennies. I wonder how much they’d be worth today.

          The middle of the carnival grounds held most of the arcade games, side by side along the north and south borders—a balloon pop where you threw darts at blown-up balloons hanging on the back wall, the baseball toss where you threw baseballs at a wall with fringed dolls sitting on shelves, a nickel pitch where you tried to get a nickel to stay in one of the pieces of glassware you could win (almost impossible to make the nickel stay in the vase or dish, and why would anyone, let alone a twelve-year-old boy, want to win some cheap glassware?), the basketball free throw, and the stand-alone challenge where you tried to ring the bell with a sledge hammer (and the guy running it would also try to guess your weight). One of my favorites was the crane you operated with a round handle that you turned to move the crane into position above various small stuffed animals or above that tempting tray of dimes. You then dropped the crane and hoped the metal jaws would grab an animal or a jawful of dimes. Then you carefully lifted the crane and navigated your bounty to the exit chute where you would drop your prize. Most often, though, the crane never latched onto anything or you dropped your prize before you got it to the chute.

          I remember only three rides besides the Tilt-a-Wheel—the Merry-go-round on the west side, the Ferris Wheel somewhere in the middle, and the swings on the east side near the wholesale house. I never rode on the swings because they looked so dangerous, just you strapped in a little seat attached to a long chain attached to a big metal ring that whizzed around in a circle, swinging the riders way out and around. I always imagined the chain snapping and sending the rider in a long toss like a stone out of a slingshot. No thanks.

          Somewhere near the east side, they always had a long trailer called the Fun House or the House of Mirrors. It couldn’t have been very scary because the trip from one end to the other, even though divided into narrow, back and forth passageways, couldn’t have been more than fifty feet. But you went through it in semi-darkness with warped mirrors along the way to show you as really short or tall, skinny or fat. I don’t remember any other little tricks there were along the way, but I suppose there was eerie music and screams piped in.

          And, finally, somewhere near the back of the grounds there would be a tent housing the freak show. The carny barker would announce each show about every half hour. “Step right up! Step right up! Come on in and see some of the strangest things you’ve ever seen! We got the bearded lady, the fattest lady in the world, the tattooed man, the man who lies on a bed of nails, the snake lady. She walks, she talks, she crawls on her belly like a snake! All kindsa freaks and geeks! Next show in ten minutes and all of for just a quarter, one skinny fourth of a dollar!” I don’t think I ever went into this tent, maybe because they had an age limit. I just don’t remember anything but the opening spiel.

          Sometime in the 50’s the carnival was moved and set up near the rodeo grounds. I don’t know why. Maybe some people complained about the congestion on Main Street and the mess that was always left behind. But the sights, the sounds, the smells of those carnivals on lower Main are etched in my memory, frozen there by my putting them down on paper. What are your carnival memories? Some probably the same as mine, some different. Just let your mind wander back to that time in your youth and see what’s there.

What's in a Name?

What’s in a name? Finding a first name for male babies is difficult, especially if you want to avoid all the old, white, traditional names, like John, Thomas, Joseph, or Peter. Thus, so many black parents choose names that echo Biblical and Muslim names but vary the spellings to make them original, often doubling up on vowels to make them singular, names like Rashaan,  Jabaal, Kawaan, Elijhan, Ifeanyl, Tyvon, Derwynn, Demaryius, Devontae, Kaelin, Daeshon, or Demetrious, to name only a few. In the past, Michael was often the most popular name but has since fallen way back, as have the other popular names like David, Jason, Jacob, and Tyler. And just look at what’s happened to the then popular Richard. It used to be shortened to “Dick,” but the slang term for penis got popular and anyone named Richard had little recourse except to go to Rick or Rich, but never Dick. Some first names can also be last names, often confusing people who don’t know to whom they’re speaking. For example, George, Michael, James, David, Anthony, Jackson, and Henry, and a slew of others can all be flipped to front or back. I was named after my father, Floyd Travis. “Floyd” back then was sort of a Depression first name. One can almost picture me as a young Floyd in the Thirties, wearing bib overalls and a hand-me-down Hooligan Snap Cap, maybe some earmuffs if it was winter. Until the last several decades, no male was given Travis as a first name, but now it’s all over the place. There aren’t many people with the last name of Floyd, but still a few. I remember when my wife and I would take golf vacations to Fayetteville, NC. One of the courses we played was owned by the father of well-known professional golfers Raymond and Marlene Floyd. We were signed in as Travis, Floyd and wife. Everyone working there thought we were Mr. and Mrs. Travis Floyd, and oh, did we get treated royally. The other oddity about my name is that my parents, to avoid confusion, called me by my middle name, Jerry, and for the rest of my life I have to explain why I’m Jerry but officially I’m Floyd. What’s in a name? Our given names are as important as anything else we name. So, think long and hard before assigning such an important label on your newborn boy or girl.

The Midnight Line, by Lee Child

       I just read Lee Child’s latest Reacher, The Midnight Line. It was typical Reacher in style and plot. That’s not a negative comment because most of us hooked on the series enjoy the style and plot similarities. The style always uses sentences that begin with the subject, almost never any introductory information. Most are short, primarily using Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, geometrically precise, just like Reacher himself. Child uses a shifting point of view, mostly Reacher in first-person, shifting briefly to third-person whenever he goes to other scenes not involving Reacher. Thus, the brevity of the Reacher sentences. When he’s in third-person, the sentences are more typically normal than when we’re hearing it from Reacher. Whenever he’s about to engage in a fight with one or more opponents, we get the arithmetic considerations of what he will do, in what order, and in how much time. All this goes click-click-click in his mind before the fight begins. The plots are often the same, involving Reacher heading for new country, wherever the wind takes him. Reacher is a loner by choice and he chooses to wander the county letting fate lead the way. He either takes a bus or he hitchhikes and fate often has him passing through strange little towns with strange little problems. And Reacher, being Reacher, just has to help. In The Midnight Line, he finds a West Point ring in a pawn shop in a tiny Wisconsin town. Why would a West Point graduate pawn this most prized possession? Reacher just has to scratch this itch. He buys the ring for $40, finds Jimmy the Rat, who sold it to the pawn dealer, learns who Jimmy got it from (after the typical geometrically precise fight with eight ugly bikers). That information takes him west to Rapid City and Arthur Scorpio, the unsavory fellow who got the ring from one of his unsavory employees. From there, the trail led him to Wyoming where he hoped to find the tiny woman who had given her ring away. The ring and the plot hinge on illegal drugs, primarily fentanyl and opioids. Typical Reacher, typically a good read.

          In light of all the current news about the rise in deaths from opioids, especially fentanyl, I was intrigued by what Child said about these drugs. He says that an opioid high is almost indescribable, so high and so pleasant that the one hooked will do anything, anything to continue that high, requiring ever higher doses as the body adjusts. Child tells us the history of drug use and abuse, beginning with opium and its derivatives used in many medicines sold routinely for minor aches and pains, for restless babies, for headaches and toothaches and belly aches. From the Civil War up to the present, morphine was used for wartime injuries without regard for dosages or frequency until those injured found themselves hooked. And now we have the same problem with fentanyl and the opioids, indiscriminate use for military injures, indiscriminate prescriptions written for any and all kinds of pain with millions addicted and hundreds of thousands dying from overdoses. Makes me wonder where it all will end, makes me curious about this high that’s higher than any other. Makes me think that pot-heads may not be so bad compared to opioid-heads.

Man of La Mancha

I’m not sure I have enough enthusiastic adjectives in my vocabulary to say how much I enjoyed our recent trip to the Arizona Broadway Theatre to see Man of La Mancha. “Fabulous” will have to do. My all-time favorite musical is Into the Woods, but La Mancha is certainly in a tie with several others for second. We first saw this show in L.A. about fifty years ago. It was at the recently opened Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and it had Richard Kiley in the lead role of Don Quixote. We were young, dirt-poor teachers living in Barstow, but we just had to see this show. Our poverty got us two seats in the upper balcony where we feared either nose bleeds or an accidental tumble from our steep cheap seats to the ground floor. I can’t remember who played Sancho Panza, but it was a funny fat fellow that might have been Buddy Hackett but was more likely James Coco, who played it in the film version in the next decade. Even with all the research help on the internet, I couldn’t find much about this West Coast version of the play. It was a fabulous performance fifty years ago and equally fabulous in 2017 at the ABT. The score is dominated by “The Impossible Dream” which concludes Act I and is reprised at the start of Act II and twice more before the final curtain. What a perfect lyric to define knighthood’s definition of chivalry and romantic love—to protect the weak and defeat evil, to hold woman in highest regard, to defend her honor against all who would diminish her. How fitting that this musical should include a scene depicting the brutalizing of Aldonza, or Quixote’s Dulcinea. Fitting in that we’re in the midst of all these prominent men now being accused of assaulting or harassing so many women. From 15^th century Spain and its inquisition to 21^st century USA, some of our attitudes toward women have gotten better but not nearly enough better. Six hundred years and we still have the inequality of the sexes, still have episodes of man’s brutality toward women.

The voices were all exceptional, especially that of James Rio who played Cervantes/Quixote. Jessica Medoff as Aldonza/Dulcinea was a bit screechy at times, causing her to sharp a few notes. But she fit the character perfectly—the tough, sharp-tongued whore Aldonza and the softer, sweeter Dulcinea when she finally accepts Quixote’s image of her. All of the action takes place on one set, the underground prison where the men and women were being held for the trials by the Inquisition. Again, I’m amazed at what his dinner theater can accomplish in such a small venue, with such a small stage. The set had six entrances, the most dramatic of which was the descending passage along the back to the wide ramp lowered and raised by chains, lowered for the soldiers of the Inquisition, raised to contain the prisoners. When Cervantes joins them, the others mistrust him and would put him on trial in their own kangaroo court with jurors (the prisoners) stacked against him. Cervantes defends himself by telling them the story he has written about the would-be knight Don Quixote. And thus, the story within a story. If you get a chance to see this musical at ABT or anywhere else, take it. You’ll laugh and weep a bit just as I did.

Harassment, Part II

A female friend of mine pointed out to me a few things I’d overlooked in my essay on harassment, and I find them so relevant I have to share them with you.  Harassment is all about power, she said—physical power as well as the power of handing out jobs or promotions or grades. First, and most basically, most men are bigger and stronger than most women, and they can use that power to force themselves physically on women, women they know or work with or complete strangers. The result is either assault or rape or both. No confusion there. That seems pretty cut and dried. It’s when you get to power other than physical that it gets confusing. We’re still living in a patriarchal society, and even though we’re getting closer to gender equality, we still have a long way to go. Right now, men hold more corporate, political, and educational authority than women, and with that authority comes the power of quid pro quo, “I’ll give you ____ (job, promotion, grade, raise, etc.) and you’ll give me a sexual favor.” The reverse is “If you don’t do it, I’ll _____ you (fire, demote, fail, ridicule).” “If you report me, I’ll _____ (deny it, laugh at you, belittle you, make your life a holy hell).” She mentioned a comic she’d heard make this useful observation about harassment:

“All right, guys, don’t do anything or assume anything about a woman that you wouldn’t do to or assume about Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson. You probably wouldn’t tell Dwayne that shirt he’s wearing makes him look really sexy. You probably wouldn’t feel comfortable stroking one of his tattoos for no good reason. If the Rock asked you to meet him privately to discuss a work issue, you probably wouldn’t assume he was coming on to you. In every case if you did those things, the Rock would probably hand you your head. So, guys, treat your female friends and colleagues as though they’re all Dwayne Johnson and you’ll never fall into the harassment trap.” Another tip she gave me: Men shouldn’t do anything to a woman that they’d feel uncomfortable with if a man did that to them in prison.  And you can imagine all the nastiness that thought brings to mind. Good advice. All right, I’m much less confused now.