CarolinaBlue50's Open Salon Blog

It Is Well That War Is So Terrible

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 15:12:35 -0500

By December of 1862, President Abraham Lincoln had had quite enough.

South Carolina’s secession from the Union, the proximate cause of the current troubles, had taken place two years earlier. Since then, events had gone from bad to worse. The campaign in July of the previous year, the March to Richmond designed to end the South’s illegal tomfoolery, ended in a fiasco near the town of Manassas, Virginia, as the green and panicked Federal draftees turned tail and ran across a creek known as Bull Run. Only the disorganization of the Rebel forces had prevented them from crossing the Potomac and sacking the Federal capital of Washington.

A change of Union commanders, from the outmatched General Irvin McDowell to the boy wonder of the West, General George B. McClellan, was followed by a period of training and organization, and by a change in outlook. The war was not likely to be won with just a show of Union numerical superiority. The Federals would have to achieve victory the old-fashioned way: they would have to earn it.

But McClellan proved to be an unmitigated disaster. Fraught by indecisiveness, prone to believing his forces were vastly outnumbered when the opposite was true, “Little Mac” frittered away time and tactical advantage. His bold amphibious landing on the Virginia coastline and subsequent march to Richmond along the lines of the York and James Rivers were marked by delays and false starts, allowing the Confederate forces time to build up the defenses around their capital and, under the bold and decisive direction of General Robert E. Lee, to tip the momentum to their side.

After fighting and losing a second battle on the Bull Run battlefield, the Union was forced into defensive mode, shadowing Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia as it crossed into Federal territory. On 17 September 1862, the two forces clashed at Antietam Creek near the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland. Despite enjoying a two-to-one superiority in forces and having had a copy of Lee’s battle orders fall into his hands, McClellan nearly lost the fight, avoiding defeat only through the courage and valor of the units fighting under his command. That day remains the bloodiest day in American military history, with a combined 23,000 casualties in less than twelve hours of fighting.

By November, President Lincoln had replaced the ineffective McClellan with General Ambrose Burnside, one of McClellan’s subordinates. The commander-in-chief stressed to Burnside the need for decisive and forthright action in taking the fight to the enemy, and demanded to see a plan for the taking of Richmond forthwith. Burnside accommodated him, outlining a scheme to advance on the river town of Fredericksburg and then on to Richmond along the line of the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad.

On 11 December the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rappahannock River and seized the lightly-defended town of Fredericksburg. Lee had deployed the Army of Northern Virginia along the high ground southwest of the city itself and gathered his units into defensive positions on the commanding heights.

Burnside’s plan involved the separation of his forces into three Grand Divisions. The Right Division under the command of General Edwin “Bull” Sumner and the Center Division under General Joseph Hooker would attack the entrenched Confederate forces situated on Marye’s Heights overlooking the city, while the Left Division under General William Franklin would engage in a secondary assault of the Rebel lines about ten miles downstream from Fredericksburg. The principal attack on Marye’s Heights would be supported by 220 pieces of artillery massed on the opposite shore of the Rappahannock. The assault would be launched on 13 December.

The morning broke cold and foggy. Franklin’s attack on the Confederate right found an opening in the Rebels’ lines, and an aggressive and decisive assault there might have rewritten the result of the battle. But Franklin suffered from his former commanding general’s lack of “get up and go” and offensive spirit and allowed the attack to bog down. The Left Grand Division was unable to cross in force the rail line of the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac less than a mile from the southern bank of the Rappahannock. Another Union opportunity frittered away.

Meanwhile, the assault on Marye’s Heights above Fredericksburg was launched. The Union troops under Sumner left the city and approached the steep embankment by crossing a drainage ditch and an open field devoid of cover and concealment that stretched about five hundred yards. Wave after wave of Union assaults was decimated by Confederate sharpshooter and artillery fire, while the fog and mist kept the union batteries across the river silent. The lucky few that crossed the field and scaled the embankment of Marye’s Heights were forced to take cover behind a stone wall about fifty yards short of the Rebel lines. A few brave souls from the Irish Brigade managed to reach a sunken road a few yards from the Dixie troops at the top of the Heights; this road proved to be the high water mark of the attack.

Six Union divisions had been sent into the attack, one brigade after another, sixteen charges in all; each failed to scale the Heights, at a loss of as many as 8,000 casualties. In the Irish Brigade, one of the most highly decorated units of the war, all but one officer involved in the assault made the supreme sacrifice for their adopted country.

By 15 December, the Union Army had retreated across the Rappahannock and went into winter quarters in the area of Falmouth. General Ambrose E. Burnside, whose facial hair was copied by men of the day and were known as “Burnsides” before being reversed into the contemporary “sideburns,” was dismissed from his command a little over a month later, not quite three months’ tenure.

Historians love to engage in “what if” scenarios, and the one I always pose about Fredericksburg is this: what might have happened had Burnside placed the more timid and cautious Franklin in charge of the Marye’s Heights assault, while employing “Bull” Sumner downriver? Would Franklin, seeing the futility of the attack on the entrenched heights, have called a cessation to the slaughter? Would Sumner have attacked the Confederate right with the same vigor and determination that he launched against Marye’s Heights? Unfortunately, we’ll never know.

Watching the slaughter taking place above Fredericksburg, General Robert E. Lee remarked to his aides, “It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.”

After having toured the battlefield, Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin visited the White House and informed Lincoln, “It was not a battle, it was a butchery.”

And in the aftermath of the failed battle, Lincoln himself wrote, “If there is a worse place than hell, I am in it.”

Talking Raiford Blues (Conclusion)

Sat, 5 Dec 2009 05:12:48 -0500

This is the conclusion of a story begun here.

Reader advisory: The following story contains occasional crude language.

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

-- Confucius

The silver Greyhound finished its tortuous climb up the Blue Ridge Mountains and disgorged its passengers at the terminal on Tunnel Road. It was almost midnight. I shouldered my backpack and found my way to a moderately priced hotel downtown. I rented a room, stripped my clothes off, took a warm and relaxing shower, and hit the rack. My sleep came immediately and was dreamless and sound.

The early summer morning broke sunny and pleasantly cool, with a crisp breeze blowing the scent of pine from the mountains into the center of town. I dressed, checked out, and walked to the F. W. Woolworth downtown where I ate a breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee at the counter and bought a thick windbreaker. I’d spent all my life in hot, muggy Florida, and the mountain air was chilly to me.

I walked to the Peoples Drugs and purchased a map of Hendersonville and a pair of sunglasses. Then I started walking out of downtown Asheville, past the large high school, and onto Highway 74 South where I managed to hitch a ride in a Mack truck hauling lumber south to a sawmill in Georgia. I kept my sunglasses on and my mouth shut during the ride to the outskirts of Hendersonville. I didn’t want anybody remembering my face or voice later.

Hendersonville was a small town with the usual accoutrements: post office, a town hall, a couple of parks, gas stations, a few greasy-spoon diners, and neighborhoods with modest, single-family homes on quarter-acre tracts. A typical town of hard-working Americans who only wanted to be left alone and maybe catch a little break once in a while. They didn’t have much, but, then again, they didn’t want much, either. Sadly, like most of us, they busted their ass all their lives and had nothing to show for it. Well, shit, it didn’t matter none—you can’t take it with you anyways.

Pardee’s address was a modest bungalow perched on the side of a hill. His nearest neighbors were a good quarter-mile away around a bend in Davis Mountain Road. Perfect, as far as I was concerned. Out of earshot, hopefully. Could’ve been packed in close like my old place in Pasco County, so close you could hear your neighbor urinating from your living room window.

Before heading up the walkway to Pardee’s door, I had transferred the S & W .38 Special from the bottom of my backpack to an inside snap pocket in my windbreaker. I paused on his porch before knocking. I had dreamed of this day for years. By God, there were times when this vision was literally the only thing that sustained me during my time at Raiford.

How was this going to work? I had to confess I didn’t have the first idea. I was about to deal the hand, and I was pretty sure I knew how it would end. I just didn’t know how Pardee would play it. When all was said and done, though, I didn’t think it would matter. I rapped my knuckles against the thick plywood door and waited.

After a minute, the door opened inward and a pleasant-looking woman stood in the opening. She was short, looked to be about forty, with dishwater blonde hair, smiling blue eyes, and a generous pair of breasts barely concealed by a floral pattern blouse open to the middle of her chest. She looked up at me with an inquisitive upturn of her full lips.

“Can I help you?” A sweet Southern voice with a hit of Appalachian twang.

“Sorry to bother you, ma’am. Is this the residence of Joe Bob Pardee?”

“Yes, it is. I’m his daughter, Helen. How do you know my father?”

I flashed a friendly smile and removed my sunglasses. “Well, ma’am, your father and I were old acquaintances back in Florida. I’m just passing through the area, but I was hoping to catch him and say hello while I’m here. Is he at home?”

Her face darkened slightly as she studied mine more closely. “I didn’t catch your name, sir.”

I moved closer to her, preventing her from slamming the door in front of me. “Well, Miz Helen, you didn’t catch my name because I didn’t give it. Now, I don’t mean to be forward, but I asked you a question a moment ago, and I didn’t get an answer. I’m wanting to know whether your father is home.”

I gave her credit. She didn’t shrink away from me; didn’t show any sign of distress at all. A cool customer.

“Listen, mister, I think you’d better just move on down the road now. We’re not looking for any trouble, but if you want some, I’ll have the Sheriff’s Department here so fast it’ll make your head spin. Daddy’s got a lot of friends on the force.” She turned away from the door and went into the front room, heading for the phone, I guessed. Or maybe a shotgun?

I dealt the hand, and now it was time to make the first play. I shouldered past the door, kicked it closed with the heel of my boot, and pulled the Smith out of my pocket.

“You need to stop right there, unless you want your next step to be your last.” I thumbed the hammer back on the revolver to punctuate the threat. “Now, for the last time, is your old man at home?”

She turned and stared at me, fire in her blazing blue eyes. “Yes, he’s here,” she hissed. “Where the hell else do you think he’d be? Why don’t you just get out of here and leave him alone?”

“Leave him alone? Leave him alone? That son of a bitch never left me alone for seven long years in that hellhole. No, he did leave me alone once. In the showers, when I was getting gang-raped by six convict bastards. He left me all alone with them. After he got his own self off watching. Bet he never told you about that, huh? That’s the kind of vile prick’s blood you’ve got pumping in your veins.”

She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, another voice floated from a back room of the house. It was more of a croak than the bark it had been, but it was unmistakably the voice of Joe Bob Pardee.

“Helen, please ask the gentleman to come on over here.”

I gestured with the .38 for Helen to lead me down the hall. We reached the room and she sat down in a chair next to her father’s bed.

The game had taken another twist. I barely recognized the emaciated figure lying in front of me. Pardee’s once-stout body had shriveled to half its former size. His face, once tanned and weathered, had transformed into a pasty white death mask. A clear plastic tube ran from a large ventilator next to the bed to Pardee’s nose. His eyes, once the cold gray of steel, were now bloodshot, rheumy, and puffy.

“So, Gibbons, did they let you out, or are you on the lam?” He spoke with an effort, and was punished for it by a prolonged coughing fit. He hawked up a glob of phlegm and spat it into a cuspidor he kept on a side table.

“I got released, boss.” I clipped the last word out with heavy irony as I pointed the Smith at his head. “They got the guy who was good for my beef. He’s probably sitting in my old cell right now. How do you like that tune, you old scumbag?”

He gave a weak, rasping laugh, a hollow echo of his old evil, full-throated one from the bad old days at Raiford. “You still peddling that innocent bullshit, Gibbons? I don’t know how you got some poor fool to take a fall for you, but you ain’t kiddin’ me, boy.”

“Dad, don’t exert yourself like this. You know what the doctor told you.” Helen’s voice was solicitous and soothing.

Pardee reached over and patted his daughter’s hand. “Don’t worry none about that. Mr. Vern Gibbons here came to do something, and it’s time to let him get on with it.” He looked over at me. “What’cha waitin’ for, boy? Lost your balls? You killed a nigrah, but you can’t shoot a white man? Is that it?”

I stared at the pathetic waste of a man three feet in front of me. The shower incident flashed past my eyes. The seven years of brutal sadism he wreaked on me boiled my blood and throbbed like a migraine in my temples.

My right index finger slowly pressed against the trigger of the Smith and Wesson.

My thumb lowered the hammer harmlessly against the round in the cylinder.

I wouldn’t give the prick his satisfaction, or his release from the prison his body had crafted.

“See you in hell, boss,” I told him as I walked out of the room, out of his house, and into the warm setting sun over the lush Blue Ridge mountains.

Fiction Friday: "Talking Raiford Blues"

Fri, 4 Dec 2009 01:12:12 -0500

Reader advisory: The following story contains occasional crude language and a scene of graphic violence.

The dingy silver Greyhound bus rumbled to a stop in front of the main entrance to the Florida State Prison in the town of Raiford. Reaching into the pocket of the penitentiary-issued suit jacket, I extracted the pre-paid one-way ticket to Jacksonville and climbed aboard. Adjusting my eyes from the searing brightness outside, I walked past the openly curious gazes of the handful of passengers and settled into a window seat near the back of the bus. Were the backs of the buses still only for colored folks?

The spare landscape of northern Florida passed by the window, and for a while I drank it in. Pine trees, white clapboard houses, a gas station, a school, and a couple of warehouses flashed by before I began to lose interest. I reached into the other breast pocket of the chocolate brown jacket and pulled out an envelope with the return address of the Florida Bureau of Prisons. Inside was a letter from the Governor of the state, certifying on that date, the 28^th of June 1973, that my conviction and sentence for murder in the second degree of one Elijah S. Burks were voided and my record expunged. Also in the envelope was a certified check in the amount of nine thousand dollars, a thousand per year for each year of my life I had lost while serving my sentence. I could still see the look on the face of the warden, J. D. Alexander, as he acknowledged and apologized for the miscarriage of justice the system had inflicted on me. He looked like something unpleasant he had eaten was settling uncomfortably on his stomach.

Two weeks earlier, some poor sap who had been busted red-handed on a homicide beef in Plant City and wound up confessing to the murders of Burks and two other men was found guilty and sentenced to life. His confession spared him a date with Old Sparky, Raiford’s electric chair. As a result, I was given my freedom that morning.

When I went into prison, Lyndon Johnson was President; now, Richard Nixon was in his second term. Neil Armstrong had walked on the moon while I served my time, and Vietnam had become part of the national vocabulary. The Athletics had moved from Kansas City to Oakland, the Braves from Milwaukee to Atlanta, and they even had a baseball team in Montreal, Canada. What else would I need to learn about?

The bus pulled into the grimy downtown station in Jacksonville. I waited until everyone else got off, then left the bus and looked for the nearest branch of the bank the state’s check had been drawn on. I cashed it, then found a biker store a couple of blocks away and bought a wallet with a chain that fastened to my belt. I went into a Belk’s and picked up a backpack, a pair of jeans, some boots, a few shirts and several changes of underwear. I used their dressing room, putting my chocolate brown suit in the department store’s bag. I gave the bag to the first bum I saw walking on the street outside the store.

One more purchase to go.

A darkly lit bar on Odessa Street looked promising, so I stopped in. The bartender, an older, heavyset guy with thinning hair and a soiled apron stopped polishing the glassware and looked at me.

“What’ll you have?”

I looked at the taps. “Lemme have a Bud. You got any food here?”

The barkeep jerked his head in the direction of the back of the joint where a flat metal grill sat unattended. “You want a burger?”

“Sounds good,” I said. “With cheese if you got it.”

I finished the Bud while I was waiting for the burger, then ordered another one when my meal came. Had to watch the brew—I didn’t want to get soused. While I ate, I watched the bartender as he polished the glasses. Worth a shot, I figured. I reached in my wallet and palmed a twenty. “Hey,” I called to the bartender.

“Yeah?”

“My name’s Vern. What’s yours?”

The bartender considered for a moment. “Pat.”

“Well, Pat, I got a question. The right answer might be worth something to me.” I let one corner of the twenty peek out from under my fingers.

Pat looked at it, his eyes brightening. It was more than he’d likely see in tips all week in a joint like this. He sidled down the bar to where I was sitting.

“What’cha looking for, Vern? You need a girl?”

“That would be nice, but that’s not what I really need right now.” I lowered my head and my voice. “I need to buy a gun. You got any ideas?” I worked the bill far enough out of my hand that Andrew Jackson’s head saw the light of day.

“Yeah, Vern, I might know a guy.”

“Pat, I need this gun kinda quick. Some ammo, too. Nobody asks no questions.”

The barkeep turned away from me and picked up a phone from under the bar. His stubby fingers worked from memory as they spun the rotary dial. He muttered a few words, then hung up and placed the black instrument back under the counter.

“Alley out back. Guy named Frankie. Fifteen minutes.” He slid the Jackson from under my fingers and into a pocket in his dirty apron in one smooth motion. He went back to polishing glassware.

After ten minutes, I finished my burger and drained my brew. I peeled off a ten-spot for the bill and walked out of the bar and around back. Two guys were already there, Marlboros dangling from their mouths. The shorter one looked at me. “You Vern?”

“Yeah. You Frankie?” The short guy nodded. “I wasn’t expecting company, Frankie. What’s up?”

He looked me over, lingering on my eyes. He thought a moment, then turned to the taller guy. “Tommy, go take a walk, would’ja?”

When we were alone, Frankie started to reach into his jacket.

“Slowly, Frankie.” My voice was soft, almost indifferent. “Two fingers only, pal.”

He pulled out a Smith & Wesson .38 Special from an inside pocket, just his thumb and forefinger on the grip. “Two hundred,” he said.

“You’re out of your mind. You think I just fell off the turnip truck?”

Frankie smiled, stubby teeth yellowed with nicotine. “You want it clean, no questions, right? Serial number’s filed down, it’s untraceable, and the butt’s taped. I got two boxes shells.” He looked me in the eye. “No questions,” he repeated.

I took the Smith from him. I opened and spun the empty cylinder and snapped it back, looked down the barrel, cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger. The action was tight, the barrel immaculate. The weapon had never been fired. I hefted the Smith in my hand and felt its cool, solid weight. It would do. I reached in my wallet and gave him two hundreds. Frankie handed over the boxes of ammo.

Giving me a parting look, Frankie turned and disappeared. I reopened the cylinder, quickly slipped six slugs into it, and snapped it home again. I put the Smith at the bottom of my backpack beneath my undershorts, and headed back to the bus terminal.

I bought a one-way ticket to Asheville, North Carolina, and waited an hour for the bus to arrive. I boarded and found a seat way in the back by the window again. I stashed my backpack under my seat and got comfortable. It was supposed to be an eight-hour trip. As we pulled out of the terminal and on to the highway, the swaying motion of the bus put me in a kind of half-sleep.

It was my second day in Raiford. I had been working in the prison cabbage fields, busting my ass all day in the broiling hot sun. I rode the truck back to the cell block, stripped, wrapped a towel around me, put on my flip-flops, and went to the showers.

The thin stream of cool water felt soothing against my hot, sweaty, gritty skin. If I had known better, the absence of any other prisoners in the shower room would have sent warning bells screaming in my head, but I wasn’t savvy. Until two inmates entered…

A short, wiry Hispanic with jailhouse tats up and down both arms and across his chest and back walked under the shower head to my left. A tall, overweight Negro stepped over to the place to my right. Neither turned on the water.

All at once, they each grabbed one of my arms and slammed me against the faded white walls of the shower. I shouted out—the colored man slammed a meaty fist into my face. “Shut up, motherfucker. Ain’t nobody gonna help you here.” The Spanish guy with the tattoos gave me a kick in my genitals. I screamed out again and doubled over in pain. “That’s right, maricon. You have assumed the proper position.”

The first of four other inmates walked up behind me and pulled his towel aside. He rammed his swollen phallus into my rectum. The pain was so sharp I saw red spots swimming in my eyes. With each thrust, my cries grew fainter. The men on either side of me forced my head lower, pulling my buttocks up higher. I heaved the contents of my stomach onto the wet, slippery tile floor.

When the first man had finished, the next one stepped up to take his place. The pain, the degradation, the inevitability of the attacks had drained all shreds of resistance from me. I swayed and buckled. I prayed the assaults would be finished quickly. I prayed that I would die quickly.

At one point, I think it was while the third guy was taking his turn, I swung my head to the left. That’s when I saw him.

He had to be about sixty. A fringe of snow white hair crowned his tanned, creased, leathery face. A hand-rolled cigarette hung from his lips. A sick gleam was visible in his gray eyes. He wore the crisp, starched gray shirt and slacks of a prison guard, the Florida Bureau of Prisons patch prominent on his sleeve. The hand he wasn’t smoking with was in the pocket of his trousers, moving slowly over his groin.

Sergeant Joe Bob Pardee.

“Help me… HELP me!” I said in as loud a voice as I could muster, looking straight at him.

Pardee stood there, then coughed up some phlegm and spat at the floor drain. He turned and walked away without a word.

The bus clattered to a stop in Charleston, South Carolina, to take on and discharge passengers. I emerged from my reverie, watching people shuttling on and off the Greyhound. As the bus pulled onto the highway again, my thoughts returned to Raiford and Sergeant Pardee.

The incident in the shower room was my first and last sexual assault, but it was not my last encounter with Pardee. He seemed to have made me his pet project. He worked me harder in the fields than the other convicts, denying me water and rest breaks in an arbitrary manner. On a couple of occasions he had one of his inmate stooges take a run at me in the yard, then pounded me with his truncheon while allegedly breaking up the fight. He singled me out for special treatment at every opportunity, and all I ever did was stare at him a split-second longer than was acceptable and say, “yes, boss.”

Two years before my release, there was a ceremony attended by the guards and some of the trustees in the mess hall. Pardee was retiring. Before he left, he paid me a visit in my cell, one last time.

“Today’s your lucky day, Gibbons.” He coughed, then took a drag from his hand-rolled cigarette. “Discipline in this block’s gonna go all to shit now I’m gone.” He barked out a half-cough, half-laugh. "I’m really gonna miss you, Gibbons. You keep swearin’ you’re innocent, but you an’ I knows different, don’t we. Wanna know why I busted your balls so bad?”

“Yes, boss.”

“’Cause you’re a lyin’ hypocrite, is why, and I cain’t stand a hypocrite. You ain’t any better than any of the other swingin’ dicks in this block, but you keep thinkin’ you is. And that’s why I broke you, son. Now, it’s time for me to go. Y’all be real careful now, hear?”

“Yes, boss.” I looked into those narrow gray eyes one last time. “See you around, boss.”

Pardee let go with another laugh-cough, swung on his heel, and strode away. “I’ll see you, Gibbons—in hell.”

But Pardee was wrong, of course. He thought I’d never get out of Raiford except in a plain, bleached-white pine box. He never reckoned with the possibility that I’d be exonerated.

It cost me ten decks of Camels out of my canteen fund, almost all the money my wife Shirley had put into it before she ran off with some accountant from Oldsmar. One of the trustees who worked in the office, Skidmore, managed to get me a copy of the prison’s newsletter with Pardee’s mailing address on it. I memorized it and gave it back to Skidmore so it could go out in the mail.

14902 Davis Mountain Road, Hendersonville, North Carolina. About fifteen miles south of Asheville.

I was going to pay Sergeant Joe Bob Pardee, retired, a visit.

To be continued…

Its You're Choice, or, Common Errors While Blogging

Wed, 2 Dec 2009 09:12:24 -0500

In the four months I’ve been a member of the Open Salon community, I have read some seriously good material; entries written on a skill level that exceeds that of any of the other writing communities I have been affiliated with.

From the political commentary of many of those here, to the short fiction of folks like Torman and Scanner, to the humor of Kristy CC and Mister Comedy, to the poetry of Chicago Guy, Caroline Hagood, and femme forte, to the reminiscences of people like At Home Pilgrim and FusunA, there is so much quality writing that I spend far too many hours reading here and neglecting my own writing and conventional reading (books—remember them?)

But, old-school anal retentive that I am, I can’t help but notice the pervasiveness of elementary errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling across the OS landscape. Let me be clear: I’m not specifically referring to any of the folks mentioned above. In fact, you would have to roam the ends of the earth to find a more beautiful and precise use of the English language than that found in Caroline Hagood’s entries. I’m speaking in general.

A post with obvious errors is like a beautiful woman who has long, wavy, lustrous hair, flawless complexion, sparkling, lively eyes, and a divine figure sheathed in haute couture apparel—and who reveals two missing front teeth when she smiles.

You need to indulge this man rapidly closing in on sixty. I learned the skills of the mother tongue for many years at the hands of Roman Catholic instructors: the Sisters of Charity, the Brothers of the Christian Schools, and the Jesuits. What they may have lacked in spontaneity and creativity in tutorial methods, they more than compensated for with a relentless discipline and dedication to inculcating the fundamental skills of using the English language.

I learned spelling and grammar in the days before Spell Check—heck, I learned them before the advent of the personal computer. In those days, I was required to understand the rules of the language by memorizing the parts of speech, by diagramming sentences, by learning how to use a dictionary, and by incessant practice. Perhaps, given this background, you can understand why fundamental errors in English usage make me reach for my blood pressure medication.

Allow me the liberty of pointing out three errors I see repeatedly on Open Salon (and, to be honest, on all “writing” sites.)

§ It’s vs. its: This error, and its ilk, is quite possibly the most commonly abused mistake, and one that is easily corrected. It’s is a contraction of it is. Its is a possessive pronoun, indicating that whatever follows the word belongs to the noun that preceded it. The rule also applies to the similarly tortured misuse of you’re and your: the first means you are, the second means something that belongs to you.

Examples: It’s a poor reflection on its author when an entry contains numerous grammar errors.

It’s cold out: you’re going to need your heavy jacket, hat, and gloves.

To vs. too: This happens often enough that I’m becoming convinced it’s just a typographical error, but, for the record. To is the first word in an infinitive, followed by the verb. To run, to write, to correct others. Too has several usages, including as a synonym for also and as an indication of excess: too cold, too many.

Examples: It’s important to proofread your writing because Spell Check allows too many errors.

I have to drive to the store, and I’ll be stopping at the library, too.

Breath vs. breathe: I’ve begun noticing this one only recently, but it’s definitely proliferating like rabbits in the springtime. Breath is a noun; breathe is a verb. A breath is what you take when you breathe.

Example: I need you to take a deep breath; breathe slowly.

In this age of txting, IM’ing, and tweeting, the rules of grammar and spelling have taken hits unlike any in the previous three centuries of English usage. You may choose to ignore my fixation with the rules of language as the obsession of a man whose time has come and gone. Be that as it may; let me just say this.

You can present your writing to your peers as professionally and as perfectly as possible.

Or, you can be the pretty girl with the missing teeth.

It’s your choice.

If you enjoyed this, you might also appreciate this article in The New York Times. If you didn’t, please come back in two days for Fiction Friday!

Young Fool

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:11:34 -0500

Over the weekend, my good friend Torman posted an entry about recently coming to the aid of a woman in distress. It made me recall my own experience in that regard thirty-five years ago…

It could have been a dream. I had just gone to bed a half-hour earlier. Incipient sleep was interrupted by a desperate knocking on my door in an apartment complex in Eagan, a suburb of Minneapolis-St. Paul.

“Who is it?” I slipped a robe over my T-shirt and shorts, my eye pressed to the one-way viewer in the door.

“Please—let me in. Hurry! My husband is going crazy!”

My apartment was located at one end of the third floor, the door staring down a long corridor. I could see the face of the woman who was pounding on my door. I vaguely recognized her as a neighbor from a few units down. I let her in.

She was in her early twenties, around my age. Her long auburn hair was tangled and disheveled. Tears rolled down her face; an ugly welt was forming under her puffy left eye. And she was naked from the waist up.

Sheepishly averting my gaze from her bare breasts, I took off my robe and wrapped it around her and led her into the living room and sat her on the sofa. I excused myself for a moment to put on a pair of pants and a purple Minnesota Vikings sweatshirt in my bedroom, then went to the kitchen and poured two glasses of water and brought them into the living room. I remember checking that the double locks on the door were bolted.

I offered her one of the waters and debated where to sit. Would she prefer the comfort of a fellow human being next to her, or was another male presence in close proximity to her too threatening? I chose the recliner across from her and raised my glass in her direction. “I’m Ken,” I offered lamely, afraid I sounded like I was hitting on her at a bar.

“I’m Andrea. My husband has gone berserk. And he’s got a hunting rifle.”

As if on cue, there was a banging again at my door. From the rage and the obscenities echoing down the corridor, it was clear the mad husband was trying to locate his wife. I went to my hall closet and retrieved my own Winchester .22, but the rage and the obscenities receded down the hall and disappeared.

“I’m going to call the police, OK?” I hoped she wouldn’t raise any objections about her husband getting carted away by the gendarmes. Fortunately, she didn’t; she just nodded glumly and sipped her water.

A squad car arrived about five minutes later; I saw it from the living room window. It was then that a form of lunacy took hold of me.

Gesturing to Andrea to remain where she was, I walked to the door and peered through the viewer down the hall. It was empty, and all the doors were shut. Opening my door quickly, I ran the ten feet to the staircase leading down to the street level. I met the officers at the entrance.

“Hi. I’m the guy that called this in. I thought I’d come down and let you know what’s going on.” I gave them a brief recap of what I knew, and then led them up to the second floor.

Opening the door to the hallway there, I pointed out where Andrea’s apartment was located and where mine was so that when they reached the next floor, they’d have an idea of the layout. Once I was done, I started to lead them up the final flight of stairs.

“Uh, sir,” one of them said. “We need you to stay on the landing here. We’ll come and get you when it’s safe.”

I waited on the landing alone, the reality of the situation finally beginning to sink in. I held my breath, dreading the sound of firearms discharging, but after about five uneventful minutes, one of the officers came down the stairs.

“OK, sir. My partner is with the suspect in his apartment. We want you to go back to your unit, then my partner will escort the suspect to our cruiser. After that, I’ll come back to your apartment and bring his wife back to her apartment.”

“What’s going to happen with her? Will she be safe?”

“Sir, she’ll be OK. The husband isn’t going to be anywhere near her tonight. Our people will work with her to figure out what she wants to do after that. Thank you for your interest.”

I went back to my apartment and relayed to Angela what the officer had just told me. Her face was a jumble of relief, anxiety, and uncertainty. “Thank you for everything,” she told me.

The officer rapped sharply on the door, identifying himself by name. Angela got up and we walked to the door. The officer brought her down the hall to her apartment, talking to her as they went.

I never saw her again. The apartment was vacant a month later. I never did discover what happened to Angela or her husband.

As I look back over three and a half decades to this incident, I have questions. Did I do the right thing? No, that’s not right: of course it was the right thing. Was it the prudent thing? Had I exposed myself to an unacceptable level of risk and just got lucky? God protects fools, drunks, and children, they say. How would I react, confronted with similar circumstances today?

I’ve got no real answers.

Oh, and I never got my robe back from Angela, either.