Although my workout regimen on the Cybex equipment at the YMCA -- which I tackle two or three days a week -- is not particularly strenuous (I haven't increased the weights in ten years, nor do I subscribe to the well-substantiated theory that slower is better), I have a tendency to loiter between machines and daydream, examining bodies both shapely and not or gazing at one of the silent but scrawling televisions perched above the crowd.
I was in just such a pose about a week ago -- actually the eve of World Series Game One -- when I saw it, at least the end of it: ESPN's countdown of the ten most memorable moments in World Series history (filched from the Internet I later determined). I stood entranced, expectant, fascinated, wondering whether the mysterious individuals whose judgments on these matters are accepted as gospel had been sufficiently perspicacious to overcome their natural bias towards more recent personally-witnessed events and crown the proper champion.
And when, suddenly, it flashed up on the screen, the grand finale of the dramatic seventh game of the bizarre 1960 World Series, its grainy black-and-white footage flickering like an old newsreel, I could barely contain my emotions. "Yes!" I wanted to shout to the pained, perspiring, panting masses, immersed in their exertions (and i-pods) and oblivious to the ephemeral imagery on display. "Look up, sports fans. I was there -- at the greatest World Series game ever played," I silently exhorted, the hyperbole rolling off my silver tongue as glibly as if it were Howard Cosell's.
Those of you who may have read on this blog my defense of Barry Bonds and my lamentation on September will know by now that I am a baseball fan, infatuated and intrigued by (not to reprise myself): the perfect symmetry of the game -- nine positions, nine innings, three strikes, three outs, four balls, four bases; the unique physical and mental confrontation between pitcher and batter; the pristine beauty of the delicately manicured field, its green and sandy areas in bold contrast, upon which each player has staked out his exclusive territory; the graceful agility of a pitcher in motion, a batter unleashing his power, a diving shortstop, a fleet-footed outfielder; the seemingly endless, but nevertheless too soon concluded, 162-game season, necessary to separate the contenders from the pretenders; the mesmerizing statistical record -- of every pitch, every at-bat, every play, every game -- posted and archived for cowhide devotees to ponder and analyze.
The numbers are what lured me to baseball; it certainly wasn't athletic proficiency, since I lacked the strength, speed, and coordination to play it -- or any other sport -- at even a mediocre level. As a youngster, I could always withdraw from the playing field to the printed word -- I was a child let loose in a candy store after I learned to read, sampling one tasty treat after another -- a refuge that became more problematic when I was sent away to summer camp in the White Mountains of West Virginia at the tender age of eight. There I was thrust into a gaggle of budding baseball enthusiasts who were not only reasonably adept at hitting, fielding, and throwing -- and these were Jewish kids to boot -- but also amazingly well-versed in all sorts of Major League trivia. When camp lights went out, they would chatter on incessantly about teams, players, and averages, conversation to which I had nothing to contribute.
Upon returning home, I resolved never again to find myself adrift in a sea of sports ignorance -- even if I couldn't play the game. I embarked on a voyage of self-education, investing as much time and energy in baseball lore and current events as I did in school work, and thus became a fan. I was first out the door every morning to retrieve the newspaper, not for the front page, but for the comics, the sports section, and the box scores. I became an avid collector and trader of baseball cards, reveling in the statistics of even obscure players. I learned how to keep score, diligently recording hits and putouts on composition paper as reported by Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese on their Saturday Game of the Week. And I would listen to AM radio broadcasts while lying in bed in the dead of night, including the remarkable performance of Pittsburgh Pirate Harvey Haddix when, on May 29, 1959, he pitched twelve perfect innings against the Milwaukee Braves only to lose in the thirteenth.
Of course, every baseball fan -- especially a burgeoning one -- needs a team to root for. Inaugurating a personal foible that persists to this day, I became hopelessly enamored of two lovable losers: the Washington Senators in the American League, probably because their home was closest to my own (or maybe it was their early sixties eclectic flavor: who could ever forget Camilio Pascual and Pedro Ramos?) and the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League -- in their case because my mother hailed from the Pittsburgh area and whose father, as she was fond of relating, was a diehard Pirate fan who himself had played semi-professional baseball. Sadly, this family athletic gene expired permanently with his death from a heart attack in 1955.
If you were attracted to underdogs, the Pirates were an insightful choice. From 1950 through 1959, they averaged 61 wins and 93 losses, finished last five times, and posted winning records only in 1958 and 1959. Their one star, slugger Ralph Kiner, the League leader in home runs from 1946 to 1952, was traded the next year to the the Chicago Cubs after a contract dispute with General Manager Branch Rickey, who told him the Pirates could finish in last place without him.
But before he himself was fired in 1955, Rickey had laid the foundation for a competitive team: moving the quick, nimble Bill Mazeroski from shortstop to second base where he became, according to statistician guru Bill James, the position's premier defensive player; shipping diminutive reliever Elroy Face to Double A New Orleans in 1954 to learn to throw a forkball (today the split-finger fastball); drafting the gifted Puerto Rican outfielder, Roberto Clemente, from the Brooklyn Dodger's farm system; and signing Duke basketball All-American Dick Groat and the two pitchers who would become the backbone of the staff, Vernon Law and Bob Friend.
Although these capsule descriptions I have borrowed from William Nack's October 23, 2000, Sports Illustrated article, the names are as familiar to me today as my own children's, as well as others added by Rickey's successor, Joe Brown: the catching tandem of left-handed hitting Smokey Burgess and righty Hal Smith; the "fiery third baseman," Don Hoak; the aforementioned "wiry, chain-smoking Harvey Haddix, a crafty lefty nicknamed the Kitten because he had studied at the paw of St. Louis Cardinal veteran Harry (the Cat) Breechen"; the "sweet-fielding, bespectacled" Bill Virdon, also a former Cardinal; the well-traveled minor leaguer Rocky Nelson, mistaken by one of Brown's colleagues for television wonder boy Ricky Nelson; and the "tobacco-chewing, beagle-faced" manager, Danny Murtaugh, himself a former Pirate second baseman.
In searching my memory to reconstruct that 1960 line-up, only two names escaped me: outfielder Bob Skinner and utility infielder Gino Cimoli.
In 1958, Murtaugh's first year, the Pirates won 84 games and lost 70, finishing second to the Milwaukee Braves, if not a traditional rival, certainly one in my mind, since they were the favorite of my across-the-street neighbor, Randy E., who gloried in the exploits of that star-studded team's high-octane performers: Warren Spahn, Lew Burdette, Hank Aaron, Eddie Matthews, and Joe Adcock.
After reverting to form the next year and slipping to fourth place, in 1960 the Pirates shocked the baseball world, winning 12 of their first 15 games, ninety-five in all, and cruising to the National League pennant, seven games ahead of those despicable Braves. "Groat hit .325 to win the NL batting title. Law won 20 games, Friend 18, and Face saved 24. Mazeroski led major league second basemen in putouts, assists, double plays, and fielding average."
It's best for those who religiously follow the fortunes of perennial losers never to elevate their hopes too high and calmly to anticipate the worst so as not to be crushingly disappointed when inevitable disaster strikes. Thus, in spite of their wire-to-wire run, could it have been anything but a total surprise when the Pirates clinched the pennant, their first in thirty-three years?
Their World Series opponent, however, was no surprise: the mighty New York Yankees. If the Braves had stars, the Yankees had Hall-of-Famers, up and down the line-up, and you didn't have to be a Yankee fan, even much of a baseball fan, to regurgitate those names: Yogi Berra, Bill Skowron, Bobby Richardson, Tony Kubek, Elston Howard, Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, and the manager, Casey Stengel. The Yankees had claimed eight pennants and six World Series in the fifties. They finished the 1960 season by winning their last fifteen games and hitting 193 home runs, a new American League record.
No one gave the Pirates much of a chance against that powerhouse, and after humiliating 16-3 and 10-0 defeats in Games Two and Three, such prognostications seemed well-founded -- except for the surprising outcome of Games One, Four, and Five, in which the over-matched upstarts triumphed by the slim margins of 6-4, 3-2, and 5-2, prompting manager Murtaugh to observe between expectorations: "The Series will be decided on games won, not on total runs scored."
If the Buccaneers' bumptiousness wasn't exhilarating enough, imagine my reaction when sometime that week sitting at the dinner table, my father, in the ceremonious and portentous manner he was prone to exhibit in such situations, announced that he had in hand two tickets to Games Six and Seven of the World Series. My eyes widened in disbelief; surely I must have assumed he was playing the kind of subtle practical joke he was fond of, like reading from the newspaper bogus stories featuring a friend or family member. But, no; it was all true. Apparently, some connection or friendship involving my mother's spate of relatives from the Pittsburgh area had delivered the goods, a magic carpet ride to Forbes Field, my second Major League destination, the first having been Yankee Stadium during a family sightseeing tour of New York a few years earlier.
Back then baseball was still America's pastime, and the World Series was its preeminent sporting event. There were only three television networks; sports broadcasts were few and far between; the Super Bowl had yet to be invented; and the widespread popularity and continuous exposure of football and basketball were futuristic phenomena. The World Series was, refreshingly, a daytime event, and scores were snatched like lightning bugs from transistor radios smuggled into school bathrooms and hallways those autumn afternoons. Some teachers were accommodating or interested enough themselves to allow students to listen to the games in class -- but not my eighth-grade history teacher, Mr. Eddie H., who, in spite of a boundless adoration of the Yankees and a boisterous jealousy of my good fortune, was too strict a disciplinarian to interrupt his lesson plans.
To attend the World Series -- at the expense of missing a couple of days of school -- was quite a coup.
I suppose this adventure can also be depicted as a father and son bonding experience, one of the few we ever had -- that is, until we went into business together, after which we were permanently in bondage, so to speak. I do not mean to be derogatory; if there is blame to be cast, an equal amount must be borne by me.
My father and I had little in common. He was a gregarious, garrulous, extroverted, magnetic individual who never met a stranger; I was cerebral, reserved, introverted, and, in spite of my academic prowess, rife with insecurities. He was also intensely preoccupied with his growing business and with various community organizations, working six, sometimes seven days a week and traveling frequently -- a pattern I was fated to replicate years later. Looking back, I'm not sure if he really held any enthusiasm for baseball or the Pittsburgh Pirates or if he could name any of the players; I have to believe this trip was a genuine, heartfelt attempt to reach out to me, a shared activity he knew I would enjoy.
This is not to say he didn't take advantage of an opportunity to indulge himself along the way. I don't recall any details: what car we took (it wasn't his infamous Ford Galaxie convertible, a 1962 model) -- most likely my mother's Country Squire wood-paneled station wagon -- or where we stayed -- probably we economized and lodged with one of my mother's relatives -- but undoubtedly we detoured to Harrisonburg, Luray, and Winchester to pay business calls on Schewel managers Wilburn, Moore, and Lucas.
The question arises: What did we talk about, joined at the hip, just the two of us, for at least sixteen hours, eight on the drive up, eight on the drive home? Who remembers conversations half a century old? I can with confidence attest to the subjects we avoided: hunting and fishing, about which we were, and forever would be, blithely ignorant, and sex, about which he only spoke to me once, advising me to consult him if I ever found myself in a troublesome situation, in itself a depressingly unlikely prospect. I suspect that mostly he talked, I listened, and we stopped a few times to eat and for him to make telephone calls.
Not having attended a college or professional football game in many years, I can only make an educated guess as to what draws zealots to brave the elements week after week: a slavish devotion to their team; the communal energy flowing through the stadium like an electric charge; the violence seen and heard from a ringside seat; a submersion of one's identity in the synergistic clamor of the crowd; or maybe it's just the tailgating. I experience a similar thrill at a Major League baseball game, but would propose a slightly nuanced and largely ignored distinction.
I believe one reason baseball has suffered as a spectator sport over the last twenty years is that it does not translate to the television screen as facilely as football and basketball. To appreciate the subtleties and intricacies of a baseball game, one must be able to survey the whole field, all its components -- pitcher, batter, fielders -- and observe their reactions to the pitch and the ball in play. You can't see that on television, even in replays, whereas football (and basketball) broadcasts show almost all players in movement when action commences, afterwards isolating coverage in the critical areas. The camera actually diminishes the game of baseball while enhancing our viewing of those other sports.
I couldn't articulate that thought in 1960, but, perhaps, subconsciously, I felt it after passing through the concrete portico into the open stadium, for surely I paused, smiled, looked around in awe and excitement, and absorbed the breathtaking expanse of diamond and outfield, which would be frozen in time while the game ran its course.
Like a rocketing home-run ball disappearing over the fence, Forbes Field and that first game have faded into oblivion. Was there a fearsome conflict roiling in my brain, between the loyal fan's prayer for victory and the anxious twelve-year old's yearning for another contest? If so, it was quickly resolved by another Bronx blowout, 12-0, in which lightweight Bobby Richardson continued his uncharacteristic power surge, hitting two triples and driving in three runs, including a record-setting twelfth.
The next day, Thursday, October 13, would be the last of the season, no matter the outcome. My father and I had hardly settled in our seats -- somewhere on the first base side -- when the fireworks started. I remember three moments; for the rest, I refer again to William Nack's Sports Illustrated article, published on the fortieth anniversary of what he called "the Wackiest World Series of Them All."
The Pirates raced to a 4-0 lead on the strength of a first-inning two-run home run by Rocky Nelson and a second-inning two-run single by Bill Virdon. Casey Stengel replaced starter Bob Turley with 5'6" lefty-sinkerballer Bobby Shantz, who silenced the Pirate bats for the next five innings, allowing only a single by Smokey Burgess. In a move with significant implications, Burgess was lifted for a pinch runner, and his catching position was filled by Hal Smith.
Meanwhile, the Yankees clawed back. Vern Law, unable to push off from the rubber due to an injured foot, was throwing his arm out and courageously lasted until the sixth inning, giving up one run. But when Murtaugh turned to the dependable, indefatigable Roy Face, 68 appearances and 114 innings (this was a time when star relievers pitched one, two, or three innings, whatever was necessary) finally took its toll. Face gave up a run-scoring single to Mickey Mantle, a towering three-run homer to Yogi Berra that just avoided the right foul pole, and two more runs in the eighth. The Forbes Field faithful were restless and distraught; with only six outs left, the Yankees led 7-4 and looked like sure winners.
To quote Nack: "Then came the most bizarre half-inning of this bizarre series." With Gino Cimoli on first after a dink single to right, Bill Virdon hit a hard grounder to shortstop Tony Kubek, a sure double play. The ball hit a rock in the infield, bounced up sharply, and struck Kubek in the throat. I can see him now, lying on the ground, writhing in pain, clutching his throat -- the game turning, the crowd sensing something mystical in the air. Was this truly a team of destiny?
Dick Groat singled, scoring Cimoli, the Pirates' fifth run. Then, Stengel inexplicably pulled Shantz -- "the greatest fielding pitcher in the history of baseball," according to Joe Brown -- for Jim Coates. Bob Skinner sacrificed Virdon to third and Groat to second. Rocky Nelson flied out. Roberto Clemente came to the plate with two outs, and hit a bouncer to first baseman Bill Skowron, who fielded it cleanly and looked to throw to the pitcher Coates covering first, a routine play. But Coates -- no Bobby Shantz -- wasn't there; his mental lapse cost the Yankees the third out. Virdon scored, Groat moved to second, and Clemente was safe. The score was now 7-6, and back-up catcher Hal Smith stepped into the batter's box.
I will never forget Smith's home run, because, like every other frenzied fanatic in the grandstand, I was sure he had won the game and the Series for the Pirates. The prosaic name Hal Smith should have been etched in baseball marble forever; he had put his team ahead 9-7 with three outs to go.
But Bob Friend, a starter who had also pitched too many innings, couldn't hold the lead. The Yankees scored two runs in the top of the ninth, thanks to a miraculous play by Mickey Mantle. Leading off first, he dove back to the base when the batter was forced out on a hard grounder, allowing the tying run to score from third.
Bill Mazeroski was first up for the Pirates in the bottom of the ninth.
He was an unlikely hero, the slick-fielding second baseman, hardly a power hitter, the son of an Ohio coal miner, who grew up in a little wooden house with no electricity or running water, "listening to his battery-operated radio tell stories of his beloved Cleveland Indians," Maz, as he was known. But after the second pitch -- "a high hummer delivered by Ralph Terry at 3:36 PM just where he wanted it" -- he would be legendary.
Nack writes: "He swung and struck the ball flush, sending it in a rising white arc to left center field. He was racing towards first base when he saw what everyone else saw, what Virdon and Skinner and Skowron and Richardson saw, what thousands saw from the stands, what millions who were watching on TV saw" -- and what I saw from my seat behind first base and will never forget seeing -- "Yogi Berra crabbing back to the warning track, turning to face the wall, looking up, and watching the ball sail over his head and clear the wall."
Final score: 10-9.
In 1993, Joe Carter hit a game-ending home run to win the World Series for the Toronto Blue Jays in Game Six. But Bill Mazeroski's walk-off home run remains the only one ever hit to win a seventh game.
The improbable champs had been outscored 55-27 and outhit 91-60; but, in the end, they prevailed.
A few years ago I attended a fund-raiser honoring Lynchburg icon and former Mayor Jimmie Bryan, at which various items of sports memorabilia were being auctioned off. I was casually examining the merchandise when I abruptly stopped, stared in astonishment, and delicately lifted from the table a most valuable object -- an autographed plastic-encased photograph of Bill Mazeroski crossing home plate after hitting his historic home run. In a foolish gesture of braggadocio, I pointed out to a friend that I had been there and seen it all, which only encouraged him to enter the auction -- and bid up the price. Nevertheless, I bought it, took it home, and propped it up on my dresser, where it sits today, a simple but magnificent reminder of the day forty-seven years ago when my father took me to the greatest baseball game ever played.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Race Relations
I ran into Jim E. a few days ago at the YMCA and complimented him on the Sphex Club paper he had delivered the evening before: "How Shall We Answer Dr. Johnson?" -- an erudite examination of the slave-holding practices of the Founding Fathers -- Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington -- whose behavior, the Club concluded, can variously be characterized as inexplicable, blatant hypocrisy, bonafide adherence to their perverse rationalizations and racial prejudices, or a simple manifestation of Dr. Samuel Johnson's aphorism: "Why is it we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of Negroes?"
This theme prompted a brief interchange between the two of us, his perspective on the prevailing racial attitudes in the Tennessee community where he grew up eliciting similar comments from me and subsequently inspiring me to reflect more extensively on the subject.
Although I have no empirical evidence at hand, it would seem safe to allege that no one is born a bigot and that our prejudices are products of parental, peer, and institutional -- religious, educational, and social -- influences, with parental being the strongest, at least during the first decade of one's life. Therefore, in thinking about my own evolving racial attitudes, I tried to assess how each of these factors might have impacted me, especially the parental one.
I have an early memory of my father taking me to a black family's Christmas Day celebration. (I use the term "black" because it is the one I am most comfortable with, even though it may be anachronous. The most common appellation in the fifties was, of course, "colored.") An extended multi-generational group seemed to be in attendance, exchanging gifts and enjoying an abundance of savory dishes: children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, and cousins, in spite of the fact that the house -- located, I believe, on Wise Street, off Fifth Street -- wasn't very big. The patriarch of the gathering was a tall, thin white-haired gentleman of quiet demeanor and regal bearing named Hylan H.
Hylan H. was a man whom my father held in high regard. Whether he was still employed by Schewel Furniture Company at the time of this visit or had retired, I do not recall. But in either case, he was -- or had been -- its warehouse manager.
In the mid-fifties, a period of vigorous economic growth, the Lynchburg Schewel store, a Main Street anchor, was undoubtedly thriving. While the dollar volume of revenue was far less than it is now, when one considers that the items comprising that figure -- sofas, chairs, beds, chests, tables, etc. -- were much less costly, it is entirely conceivable that the number of pieces received and delivered in a given period would match that of today. The warehouse manager, then and now, held an important position, one critical to building good customer relations, since a satisfactory selling experience could be spoiled by poor delivery service.
Hylan H. -- and his successor, another black man named Tom L. -- were responsible for hiring, training, and firing warehouse personnel, unloading trailers and rail cars, checking in new merchandise accurately, putting it away systematically, pulling and prepping it for delivery, and seeing that orders were delivered to customer homes in good condition and in a timely manner. Although not highly educated, these men had to be common-sense smart; they had to be able to judge and manage entry-level employees; and they had to be honest. In a day when there was no automated inventory control system, owners depended solely on the integrity of their supervisors for theft prevention.
I believe my father's and grandfather's racial attitudes were conditioned by their working association with black men like Hylan H. and Tom L. Because the success of their business depended on the talents of these men, they were less likely to see them as inferior and as objects of opprobrium, vilification, and abuse.
In addition to the employment factor, there was a second complementary mechanism by which blacks were drawn into a symbiosis with my father and grandfather: the merchant-customer relationship. In this segregated post-war era, black income levels were severely restricted, and if blacks were going to buy any furniture, appliances, or electronics, it would have to be on credit -- which was not as accessible or widespread as it is today. Schewel Furniture Company was willing to extend credit -- to blacks and whites -- when many other firms would not, and thus its customer base increasingly came to include many blacks, another reason for its owners to view that community with tolerance and sensitivity. (In a striking example of customer appreciation and astute marketing, the Schewel store was one of the few Main Street establishments to provide facilities for blacks; in a peculiar iteration, there were two female rest rooms in the basement, one for blacks, one for whites, and one male rest room, apparently used by both races.)
I experienced a similar acculturation on a personal level when I began working at Schewels in the early sixties during the summer and Christmas breaks. Since I was relegated to light warehouse and assembly duty, my cohorts were all black men, for whom I developed a curious admiration and reverence -- for the strength and stamina they exhibited in effortlessly unloading truck after truck; for their jovial camaraderie and constant verbal jousting; for the skill and efficiency with which they were able to perform any task requiring manual dexterity (at which I was sorely deficient); for their prodigious exploits with women, about which I heard daily, their confident boastful expressions the only evidence I needed to be convinced of their veracity; and for their easy acceptance of me, whether because I was the boss's son, or in spite of that fact, I could never quite fathom.
It amazes me now that I can picture these men so clearly and even remember their names: Eugene P., known as "Hot Dog," a tall, lean, gangling former Dunbar High School basketball star; Smith F., soft-spoken but tough, a coiled spring of belligerence lurking beneath his sly, smug grin; Phil Q., a gentle, grandfatherly giant of a man, his existential nature a consistent, calming presence; Henry J., a chattering, illiterate, middle-aged rogue, whose principal preoccupations were chasing and escaping women and losing and regaining his job, which he appeared to do with unrelenting frequency; and Dry Bones (I don't remember, don't think I ever really knew, his real name), all-purpose janitor and later chauffeur to Messrs. Abe and Ben Schewel, whose paper-thin fragility belied a sinewy strength, and who, it seemed, would crumble to dust in the face of a harsh wind.
Finally, there was the aforementioned Tom L., the Schewel Warehouse manager at the time I came to work there permanently in 1970. Tom L. was short, rotund, round-faced, and bald -- a flurry of activity, brash, outspoken, proud, demanding respect from blacks and whites alike, competent, dependable, and honest, Hylan H.'s protege, with an entirely different personality. He acknowledged me as the boss, or the boss's son, but never failed to put me in my place when I ventured into territory I knew nothing about -- like running his warehouse. Looking back, I believe Tom L., in spite of his genial, garrulous, exuberant manner, saw himself as somewhat of a tragic figure, who subconsciously believed he was worthy of greater achievements if he had been born in another skin, place, or time.
My other youthful exposure to blacks came in the form of my family's female servants, or maids, who were a common sight in many Southern households in those days -- and still are. I remember a series of these women passing through our homes, some even staying for extended periods on a live-in basis, and my mother's constant refrain that she could never find a "good one," whatever that meant.
The maid most clearly delineated in my consciousness is the classically christened Eula Mae L., a diminutive, vivacious, coal-black workaholic with a squeaky, high-pitched voice that never seemed to abate -- a female version of Tom L., if you will. When charged with the task, she was a stern disciplinerian, which ultimately only endeared her to my siblings and me more. Her most compelling attribute -- really the primary prerequisite for any accomplished maid -- was her cooking skill, exemplified by her tasty fried chicken, which we devoured one Sunday evening, only to discover afterwards that we had enjoyed the three chicks our father had brought home six months earlier as pets but had handed over to Eula to raise to maturity in her back yard when they outgrew their tiny cage.
My grandmother's maid, Alice, a fixture in her home for many years, conformed to the model more closely. She was so shy, laconic, and unobtrusive that she seemed to melt into the woodwork.
The question at hand, now, is whether these encounters with blacks -- as customers, as menial handlers of furniture, and as household servants -- engendered authentic liberal, open-minded thinking or whether they merely substantiated a traditional, paternalistic paradigm -- through which blacks were viewed as contented in their roles and inferior in the sense that they were qualified only for these roles.
No matter how fairly we treated her or how sincerely we attempted to define the relationship as one between an employer and employee, it is difficult for me to divorce the the black female's role as a maid from the paradigm defined above; it resembles a little too much an ante-bellum Southern plantation scenario.
The other two circumstances -- black males as menial laborers and blacks as customers -- seem less problematic, the former because of the level of responsibility entrusted to the black supervisor (but, admittedly, ignoring the condition of his subordinates); the latter because it presupposes a certain independence on the part of the customer. Such reasoning induces one to ask: if blacks were so capable, why were they not promoted to better, higher-paying positions? Which leads me to some concluding remarks in further support of my argument that these forms of black-white interaction -- the two noted in this paragraph, at least -- effectively counteracted prejudice and fostered tolerance and understanding.
Like the Founding Fathers -- who, in spite of their genius and courage, were unable to break through conventional racial barriers -- Southerners of the fifties and sixties were constrained by contemporary mores, especially segregation. Other than the contacts I have described, blacks were invisible to us, and the curtains were drawn to keep them that way. I remember blacks banished to the back of the bus and to the balcony of the movie theater, practices which, according to her, shocked my Pennsylvania-bred mother when she first came South. If my parents and grandparents weren't bigots or racists, neither were they by any stretch of the imagination activists, never openly promoting equal justice or the redressing of dimly-perceived (at that time) wrongs. In fact, my father declined to join the Civil Rights March on Washington when invited by a former Lynchburg rabbi, fearful of negative business repercussions. And it would have been too revolutionary -- and too threatening to employees and customers alike -- to place a black person on the sales floor or in the credit office -- even if such a thought ever entered his mind.
In further defense of my forbears, their language and behavior towards blacks were, to my knowledge, considerate, respectful, and non-abusive. I suppose in making that claim, I am absolving my grandfather and father -- particularly the former -- of the use of the derogatory Yiddish term for blacks: "svartzers," or, as they pronounced it, "swatzas" -- excusable, I submit, because its meaning was unknown to the general populace, including those to whom it referred. Yes, it was the "n" word in Yiddish, but it wasn't the "n" word, which I never heard either man speak, in a time when it was a fairly common epithet. Thus, I interpret their posture towards their black employees as genuinely caring and not patronizing.
I would also assert that with respect to all three generations -- myself included as the third -- a more tolerant attitude was informed by our Jewish heritage, and not by any prescribed religious beliefs but rather by a knowledge of ethnic persecution. It was surely no secret to any family member that my great-grandfather had fled Czarist oppression in late nineteenth-century Russia, where Jews were deemed second-class citizens, excluded from certain professions, and not allowed to own property, a state of affairs eerily similar to that confronting Southern blacks. While my religious school textbooks were ominously silent on the Holocaust -- this was a period when American Jewry was reluctant to broadcast its victimization and martyrdom -- they consistently emphasized the forceful separation and confinement of Jews throughout history to selected and less attractive living areas, called ghettos, another phenomenon echoed by the contemporary treatment of blacks. The parallels were subtle, never openly expressed, but they were undeniable; and it was left to the individual, student or adult, to look to his own conscience and draw the analogy.
If, looking back on my formative years in a segregated society, I regret anything, it would be an obtuseness, an obliviousness, a bland incurious acquiescence in the shameful standards of the day, a failure to move beyond the benign, isolated connections I forged with a handful of black people. When E. C. Glass High School was integrated in 1963 (or 1964) -- with the admission of two students, one male, one female, into a corpus of fifteen hundred -- reactions were predictable: some violently and vociferously opposed, a small minority supportive, a silent majority in the middle, where I place myself. At least I tried to be cordial and helpful, if not overtly friendly, as both students were in several of my classes. I am proud to report that I had a few friends who actively reached out to the boy and invited him to join their rock-and-roll band. (Or was that just another stereotype: the rhythmic black singer enhancing his white musician back-ups?)
Today, fifty years later, in spite of revolutionary changes that have created a myriad of opportunities for blacks and raised their standard of living significantly, de facto segregation persists as the order of the day. While public institutions are integrated, I suspect interracial socialization is minimal at best, just as it in the greater society. Outside the workplace, I rarely cross paths with blacks, other than at an occasional non-profit meeting or the YMCA. Many individuals harbor hostile feelings towards blacks and some profess them openly. They resent the deployment of tax dollars for social services and public assistance for blacks (and whites), refusing to acknowledge that not every person brings into the world the same intelligence, interpersonal skills, and parental and peer nourishment required for upward mobility and success.
Great minds struggle with these issues every day. The conundrum of our Founding Fathers espousing liberty and equal justice for all while failing to manumit their slaves suggests that solutions will remain elusive.
This theme prompted a brief interchange between the two of us, his perspective on the prevailing racial attitudes in the Tennessee community where he grew up eliciting similar comments from me and subsequently inspiring me to reflect more extensively on the subject.
Although I have no empirical evidence at hand, it would seem safe to allege that no one is born a bigot and that our prejudices are products of parental, peer, and institutional -- religious, educational, and social -- influences, with parental being the strongest, at least during the first decade of one's life. Therefore, in thinking about my own evolving racial attitudes, I tried to assess how each of these factors might have impacted me, especially the parental one.
I have an early memory of my father taking me to a black family's Christmas Day celebration. (I use the term "black" because it is the one I am most comfortable with, even though it may be anachronous. The most common appellation in the fifties was, of course, "colored.") An extended multi-generational group seemed to be in attendance, exchanging gifts and enjoying an abundance of savory dishes: children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, and cousins, in spite of the fact that the house -- located, I believe, on Wise Street, off Fifth Street -- wasn't very big. The patriarch of the gathering was a tall, thin white-haired gentleman of quiet demeanor and regal bearing named Hylan H.
Hylan H. was a man whom my father held in high regard. Whether he was still employed by Schewel Furniture Company at the time of this visit or had retired, I do not recall. But in either case, he was -- or had been -- its warehouse manager.
In the mid-fifties, a period of vigorous economic growth, the Lynchburg Schewel store, a Main Street anchor, was undoubtedly thriving. While the dollar volume of revenue was far less than it is now, when one considers that the items comprising that figure -- sofas, chairs, beds, chests, tables, etc. -- were much less costly, it is entirely conceivable that the number of pieces received and delivered in a given period would match that of today. The warehouse manager, then and now, held an important position, one critical to building good customer relations, since a satisfactory selling experience could be spoiled by poor delivery service.
Hylan H. -- and his successor, another black man named Tom L. -- were responsible for hiring, training, and firing warehouse personnel, unloading trailers and rail cars, checking in new merchandise accurately, putting it away systematically, pulling and prepping it for delivery, and seeing that orders were delivered to customer homes in good condition and in a timely manner. Although not highly educated, these men had to be common-sense smart; they had to be able to judge and manage entry-level employees; and they had to be honest. In a day when there was no automated inventory control system, owners depended solely on the integrity of their supervisors for theft prevention.
I believe my father's and grandfather's racial attitudes were conditioned by their working association with black men like Hylan H. and Tom L. Because the success of their business depended on the talents of these men, they were less likely to see them as inferior and as objects of opprobrium, vilification, and abuse.
In addition to the employment factor, there was a second complementary mechanism by which blacks were drawn into a symbiosis with my father and grandfather: the merchant-customer relationship. In this segregated post-war era, black income levels were severely restricted, and if blacks were going to buy any furniture, appliances, or electronics, it would have to be on credit -- which was not as accessible or widespread as it is today. Schewel Furniture Company was willing to extend credit -- to blacks and whites -- when many other firms would not, and thus its customer base increasingly came to include many blacks, another reason for its owners to view that community with tolerance and sensitivity. (In a striking example of customer appreciation and astute marketing, the Schewel store was one of the few Main Street establishments to provide facilities for blacks; in a peculiar iteration, there were two female rest rooms in the basement, one for blacks, one for whites, and one male rest room, apparently used by both races.)
I experienced a similar acculturation on a personal level when I began working at Schewels in the early sixties during the summer and Christmas breaks. Since I was relegated to light warehouse and assembly duty, my cohorts were all black men, for whom I developed a curious admiration and reverence -- for the strength and stamina they exhibited in effortlessly unloading truck after truck; for their jovial camaraderie and constant verbal jousting; for the skill and efficiency with which they were able to perform any task requiring manual dexterity (at which I was sorely deficient); for their prodigious exploits with women, about which I heard daily, their confident boastful expressions the only evidence I needed to be convinced of their veracity; and for their easy acceptance of me, whether because I was the boss's son, or in spite of that fact, I could never quite fathom.
It amazes me now that I can picture these men so clearly and even remember their names: Eugene P., known as "Hot Dog," a tall, lean, gangling former Dunbar High School basketball star; Smith F., soft-spoken but tough, a coiled spring of belligerence lurking beneath his sly, smug grin; Phil Q., a gentle, grandfatherly giant of a man, his existential nature a consistent, calming presence; Henry J., a chattering, illiterate, middle-aged rogue, whose principal preoccupations were chasing and escaping women and losing and regaining his job, which he appeared to do with unrelenting frequency; and Dry Bones (I don't remember, don't think I ever really knew, his real name), all-purpose janitor and later chauffeur to Messrs. Abe and Ben Schewel, whose paper-thin fragility belied a sinewy strength, and who, it seemed, would crumble to dust in the face of a harsh wind.
Finally, there was the aforementioned Tom L., the Schewel Warehouse manager at the time I came to work there permanently in 1970. Tom L. was short, rotund, round-faced, and bald -- a flurry of activity, brash, outspoken, proud, demanding respect from blacks and whites alike, competent, dependable, and honest, Hylan H.'s protege, with an entirely different personality. He acknowledged me as the boss, or the boss's son, but never failed to put me in my place when I ventured into territory I knew nothing about -- like running his warehouse. Looking back, I believe Tom L., in spite of his genial, garrulous, exuberant manner, saw himself as somewhat of a tragic figure, who subconsciously believed he was worthy of greater achievements if he had been born in another skin, place, or time.
My other youthful exposure to blacks came in the form of my family's female servants, or maids, who were a common sight in many Southern households in those days -- and still are. I remember a series of these women passing through our homes, some even staying for extended periods on a live-in basis, and my mother's constant refrain that she could never find a "good one," whatever that meant.
The maid most clearly delineated in my consciousness is the classically christened Eula Mae L., a diminutive, vivacious, coal-black workaholic with a squeaky, high-pitched voice that never seemed to abate -- a female version of Tom L., if you will. When charged with the task, she was a stern disciplinerian, which ultimately only endeared her to my siblings and me more. Her most compelling attribute -- really the primary prerequisite for any accomplished maid -- was her cooking skill, exemplified by her tasty fried chicken, which we devoured one Sunday evening, only to discover afterwards that we had enjoyed the three chicks our father had brought home six months earlier as pets but had handed over to Eula to raise to maturity in her back yard when they outgrew their tiny cage.
My grandmother's maid, Alice, a fixture in her home for many years, conformed to the model more closely. She was so shy, laconic, and unobtrusive that she seemed to melt into the woodwork.
The question at hand, now, is whether these encounters with blacks -- as customers, as menial handlers of furniture, and as household servants -- engendered authentic liberal, open-minded thinking or whether they merely substantiated a traditional, paternalistic paradigm -- through which blacks were viewed as contented in their roles and inferior in the sense that they were qualified only for these roles.
No matter how fairly we treated her or how sincerely we attempted to define the relationship as one between an employer and employee, it is difficult for me to divorce the the black female's role as a maid from the paradigm defined above; it resembles a little too much an ante-bellum Southern plantation scenario.
The other two circumstances -- black males as menial laborers and blacks as customers -- seem less problematic, the former because of the level of responsibility entrusted to the black supervisor (but, admittedly, ignoring the condition of his subordinates); the latter because it presupposes a certain independence on the part of the customer. Such reasoning induces one to ask: if blacks were so capable, why were they not promoted to better, higher-paying positions? Which leads me to some concluding remarks in further support of my argument that these forms of black-white interaction -- the two noted in this paragraph, at least -- effectively counteracted prejudice and fostered tolerance and understanding.
Like the Founding Fathers -- who, in spite of their genius and courage, were unable to break through conventional racial barriers -- Southerners of the fifties and sixties were constrained by contemporary mores, especially segregation. Other than the contacts I have described, blacks were invisible to us, and the curtains were drawn to keep them that way. I remember blacks banished to the back of the bus and to the balcony of the movie theater, practices which, according to her, shocked my Pennsylvania-bred mother when she first came South. If my parents and grandparents weren't bigots or racists, neither were they by any stretch of the imagination activists, never openly promoting equal justice or the redressing of dimly-perceived (at that time) wrongs. In fact, my father declined to join the Civil Rights March on Washington when invited by a former Lynchburg rabbi, fearful of negative business repercussions. And it would have been too revolutionary -- and too threatening to employees and customers alike -- to place a black person on the sales floor or in the credit office -- even if such a thought ever entered his mind.
In further defense of my forbears, their language and behavior towards blacks were, to my knowledge, considerate, respectful, and non-abusive. I suppose in making that claim, I am absolving my grandfather and father -- particularly the former -- of the use of the derogatory Yiddish term for blacks: "svartzers," or, as they pronounced it, "swatzas" -- excusable, I submit, because its meaning was unknown to the general populace, including those to whom it referred. Yes, it was the "n" word in Yiddish, but it wasn't the "n" word, which I never heard either man speak, in a time when it was a fairly common epithet. Thus, I interpret their posture towards their black employees as genuinely caring and not patronizing.
I would also assert that with respect to all three generations -- myself included as the third -- a more tolerant attitude was informed by our Jewish heritage, and not by any prescribed religious beliefs but rather by a knowledge of ethnic persecution. It was surely no secret to any family member that my great-grandfather had fled Czarist oppression in late nineteenth-century Russia, where Jews were deemed second-class citizens, excluded from certain professions, and not allowed to own property, a state of affairs eerily similar to that confronting Southern blacks. While my religious school textbooks were ominously silent on the Holocaust -- this was a period when American Jewry was reluctant to broadcast its victimization and martyrdom -- they consistently emphasized the forceful separation and confinement of Jews throughout history to selected and less attractive living areas, called ghettos, another phenomenon echoed by the contemporary treatment of blacks. The parallels were subtle, never openly expressed, but they were undeniable; and it was left to the individual, student or adult, to look to his own conscience and draw the analogy.
If, looking back on my formative years in a segregated society, I regret anything, it would be an obtuseness, an obliviousness, a bland incurious acquiescence in the shameful standards of the day, a failure to move beyond the benign, isolated connections I forged with a handful of black people. When E. C. Glass High School was integrated in 1963 (or 1964) -- with the admission of two students, one male, one female, into a corpus of fifteen hundred -- reactions were predictable: some violently and vociferously opposed, a small minority supportive, a silent majority in the middle, where I place myself. At least I tried to be cordial and helpful, if not overtly friendly, as both students were in several of my classes. I am proud to report that I had a few friends who actively reached out to the boy and invited him to join their rock-and-roll band. (Or was that just another stereotype: the rhythmic black singer enhancing his white musician back-ups?)
Today, fifty years later, in spite of revolutionary changes that have created a myriad of opportunities for blacks and raised their standard of living significantly, de facto segregation persists as the order of the day. While public institutions are integrated, I suspect interracial socialization is minimal at best, just as it in the greater society. Outside the workplace, I rarely cross paths with blacks, other than at an occasional non-profit meeting or the YMCA. Many individuals harbor hostile feelings towards blacks and some profess them openly. They resent the deployment of tax dollars for social services and public assistance for blacks (and whites), refusing to acknowledge that not every person brings into the world the same intelligence, interpersonal skills, and parental and peer nourishment required for upward mobility and success.
Great minds struggle with these issues every day. The conundrum of our Founding Fathers espousing liberty and equal justice for all while failing to manumit their slaves suggests that solutions will remain elusive.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Waylaid at Wal-Mart
To paraphrase my previous blog, it's Sunday in late August -- although it could have been any day in this or any other year -- and my wife and I are in Wilmington, N.C., visiting our daughter, Adrienne. In the midst of such pleasant outings, usually after a meal has been completed and future dining options have been thoroughly vetted, which business can absorb the greater part, but, unfortunately, not the whole part, of a day, invariably the conversation turns to that activity upon which so many females of our species depend for sustenance and invigoration and so many males, including myself, cast their most intense aspersion -- shopping.
It's not the idea of spending money that irritates me. I am blessed with a wonderful wife, among whose many attributes is a feverish frugality, most often expressed in proud purchases of stylish, flattering clothes at bargain prices. Rather it is the interminable, indeterminate nature of the enterprise -- browsing racks and shelves, examining, touching, trying on, modeling, seeking approval or rejection -- which I find analogous to strategic planning sessions -- which I also despise and which consume untold hours generating problematic prescriptions seldom practiced.
In addition, I would much prefer to avoid physically forking over the funds, and, instead, pay the bill blindly when it arrives in the mail months later, thereby assuming that every item contained therein is a necessity and not the result of some frivolous impulse (or non-impulse).
If the inevitable decision to shop wasn't grievous enough, the emporium chosen was even more troubling. Somehow I was persuaded, cajoled, or enticed with the possibility of future rewards, to abandon all rationality, risk the equilibrium of a cheery vacation day, and brave the jungle of a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Why is it that, when we are away from home, we gravitate to the maw of the beast?
Now, I've been to Wal-Mart before, but, for a 59-year-old man, I believe my scorecard of infrequent visits -- less than ten -- must be close to a record. I acknowledge two perfunctory and satisfactory morning excursions to our local Wards Road store to purchase desperately needed items -- folding lawn chairs and crude sign materials -- and to nighttime grocery shopping in Myrtle Beach--two time periods when the crowds, though certainly sizable, were at least manageable, thus leaving me completely unprepared for what I was to confront that Sunday afternoon.
Our first obstacle -- not easily overcome if you are from out of town -- was finding the store. Oh, we could see it all right, but getting there was a different matter. Apparently, the Wilmington Wal-Mart is located off a side street connecting two busy thoroughfares, and the access from this street is all but invisible to foreigners. We circled our object at least once before sneaking up on it from the rear--whereupon we were immediately confronted by our second daunting Wal-Mart challenge: the parking lot.
I believe the entire ministry in Wilmington, N.C., must have preached the same sermon that Sunday morning: "May God bless you, my congregants. Now, go forth and shop." Not only was every parking space occupied, but the connecting arteries were clogged with vehicles (not to mention the isolated shopping cart carelessly abandoned in the roadway), mostly pick-up trucks and SUV's (in my opinion, a totally gratuitous and wasteful mode of transportation in a place where the temperature never drops below 40 degrees), entering, leaving, or greedily seeking an opening close to the building.
There we were, stranded in a parking lot traffic jam. We might spot a space a row or two away, only to watch helplessly while it evaporated in the shimmering heat. When, after about ten minutes of anxious hunting, we did find a place to park, of course we were facing the wrong direction, and had to creep past it and, in a delicate but rapid manuever, dart in backwards, lest it be cruelly snatched from us in the interim.
To me, Wal-Marts are the concrete and steel manifestations of the current era's weirdly inverted economic realities. They are our modern-day factories: expansive, enclosed arenas with broad, straight aisles, exposed beams overhead, and bleached fluorescent lighting, seething with a contained energy robotically propelling finished consumer goods out the door, differing from their precurors only in the fact that the merchandise has arrived in house already perfected, having been produced in mirror-image, if less pristine, structures on distant continents.
Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly sales statistics are tabulated instantaneously by an incessant blip-blip-blip which greets us -- and all visitors -- immediately upon our entrance: the sound of purchases being swiped across a bar code machine and audible evidence that customers are buying at a frantic pace, luring the newly-arrived to join the party.
At this point, I must confess that my wife and I were not so demented as to brazen Wal-Mart without an objective in our sights: a bicycle for our daughter, which objective promptly became obscured in the frenzy which attacked us like an epileptic seizure when we strolled through the inviting automatic retracting doors. Actually, those doors seemed permanently locked in the retracted position, so constant was the traffic passing to and fro.
"Honey, I believe I'll look around," said my wife, words guaranteed to spark fear in the heart of any obedient husband, frightening enough when spoken in a traditional department or clothing store, but particularly terrifying when echoing through a cavernous Wal-Mart. "Sure, honey," was the only meek response I could muster. "I guess I'll look around, too."
"Look around at what?" I muttered to myself, as my wife merrily disappeared into the bowels of this organic building, leaving me to my own meager resources. When I go into a store, there are only three areas I am even minimally interested in scoping out: mens clothing, books, and furniture. And Wal-Mart's inventory in each of these categories is understandably bleak and quickly dispensed with. What passes for a mens department is shelf after shelf of blue jeans and slacks (also mostly blue); the only books on hand are the top twenty hardback and paperback bestsellers and a worthy assortment of Bibles; and the furniture display is confined to one short aisle of ready-to-assemble desks, television stands, and bookcases, for which I should be eternally grateful.
But what an array of other delectable material is spread out before us patrons -- like a Golden Corral buffet in front of a homeless man: rack after rack of apparel, for women and children, anchoring the center of the store, surrounded by: paper, paper, and more paper; detergents and cleaners; small appliances of every make and model; cookware; dinnerware; bath and bed furnishings; lamps and lighting; shoes and boots (male and female); rugs, blinds, and shades; rolls of fabric; electronics and DVD's; tires, batteries, and motor oil; sporting goods; camping, fishing, and hunting supplies; tools; bath and kitchen decor; health and beauty aids; lawn and garden equipment; jewelry; and of course, groceries, fresh, frozen, canned, cooked, processed, and packaged -- none of which held any attraction for me. Yes, there I was, cast adrift in a sea of delights upon which normal folks would engorge themselves, yet which to me tasted only of salt.
I was struck by one undeniable phenomenon: the prices, as best I could judge, based on my limited shopping experience, were, as advertised, consistently low. I do buy some articles of clothing on occasion, but this was virgin territory: $9.84, $10.76, $11.92, $12.67. I hardly see how they can transport the stuff from Bangladesh for much less than that. And even commodities like gum, candy, and bottled water I found to be 20 to 30 per cent less than what I have paid in other places.
Say what you want about Wal-Mart -- its underpricing and undermining of local retailers; its transformation of green fields and farmland into asphalt and big boxes; its dumbing down of service sector wage rates and benefit packages; and its embracing of offshore sourcing, regardless of the consequences, in a relentless quest for lower costs -- it is raising the American consumer's standard of living by saving him money.
Suddenly, my contemplation -- and boredom -- were interrupted by an unfamiliar (to me, that is) sound: my cell phone was ringing. Yes, I had it with me, turned on, even, for how else was I to reconnect with my wife in this supersized labyrinth, both of us wandering aimlessly.
After we exchanged obligatory "Where are you's," ("I'm in Wal-Mart. Where are you?") she abruptly summoned me to the vicinity of the toy department, reminding me of our putative purpose: a bicycle for our daughter.
Of course, since I stubbornly refused to ask directions (Is that really necessary in a store?), it took me more than a few minutes to navigate the packed aisles and dodge the ubiquitous shopping carts, hazards for which one must constantly be on the alert, thus making it even more difficult for me to locate and reach my goal.
If you think modern marketers obsessed with proliferating choices have made selecting a tube of toothpaste confusing, try looking at bicycles. Upon my encountering two long rows of spokes and wheels, one stacked on top of the other -- and basically out of reach -- perplexity and panic set in. Well, we knew we wanted a girl's model, but should it 24 or 36 inches; a roadster, speedster, coaster, or mountain climber; three-speed, five-speed, ten-speed, or twenty-speed; and, the most important question, what color?
After some discussion and surprisingly little disagreement, my wife and I settled on a 26-inch ten-speed, violet roadster with a quirky rear-wheel kickstand, which was securely lodged on the upper level. We managed to corral a horsey-looking store employee, distinguishable from hordes of shoppers only by an apron and his name tag, who grimly pried our newest fixation from its moorings and manipulated it to the floor.
Since we were concerned about fitting the bicycle in our car, I asked the fellow if he could detach the front wheel. "Company policy won't let me," he replied, sincerely apologetic. "But you can buy a wrench in the tool department and do it yourself," he offered, exhibiting add-on salesmanship of the highest order. Following his directions, I stumbled upon bin after bin of fixed and adjustable iterations ("So many wrenches, so little time," to paraphrase a famous wench herself), before deciding on one of each, at the disposable price of $1.19.
I was about to wheel the bicycle to the front of the store when my wife spoke up: "Honey, would you take this?" I looked around in bewilderment for a few seconds, before my gaze came to rest upon a surfeited shopping cart parked innocently on the sidelines, which I had assumed belonged to someone else.
"What this?" I asked, with an obsequious grin. "Just a few supplies for Adrienne's new apartment. Since we were here, I thought I might as well help her out," she replied, thus validating the seductive power of those blip-blip-blips and row after row of irresistible, inexpensive merchandise.
Either the cart was too unwieldy for her, or she wanted me to demonstrate uncharacteristic gentlemanly chivalry and run interference for her on the way to the checkout counter, more aware of the pitfalls of the course than I was. Looking back, I would submit that the vehicular aisles in Wal-Mart in Wilmington, N.C., on a Sunday afternoon are about as congested as I-81 between Roanoke and Blacksburg and just as perilous.
Since I did not see an octagonal sign at the end of the bicycle aisle, I did not stop and look both ways before entering moving traffic, upon which I was rudely and resoundingly struck by speeding shopping carts (or reckless drivers, depending on one's point of view), first on my left and then on my right. Other than the shock which reverberated up through my hands grasping the cart handles to my shoulder blades, little harm was done, all three of us embarrassed cart-mishandlers exchanging polite "Excuse me's."
From that point, I carefully made my way to the checkout counter -- its blip-blip-blips growing progressively louder like a metal detector striking gold -- my eyes peeled for wayward carts and self-absorbed shoppers. I danced between two counters, trying to ascertain the shortest line, and eventually sidled up to a register, where a young lady -- the factory conveyor belt's last stop -- routinely swiped every item, including the bicycle, and took my payment. I finally got to experience all those blip-blip-blips up close and personal.
I blasted through the retractable doors, joyous at escaping the insatiable beast, only to realize that one is not Wal-Mart free until one has exited the parking lot -- no easy task. Oh, our car was where we had left it; we just weren't sure exactly where that was. And once we found it and loaded it with our newest most cherished possessions, we still had to extricate ourselves from the same traffic jam we had barely escaped two hours earlier.
As we pulled onto the main road, I breathed a welcome sigh of relief -- until my wife commented that we needed a few more things for Adrienne's apartment and, on a wing and a prayer, serenely directed me to our next destination: Target.
To add insult to injury, we later determined that the bicycle's front brakes were defective and returned it to Wal-Mart for credit.
All in all, I'd rather run ten miles.
It's not the idea of spending money that irritates me. I am blessed with a wonderful wife, among whose many attributes is a feverish frugality, most often expressed in proud purchases of stylish, flattering clothes at bargain prices. Rather it is the interminable, indeterminate nature of the enterprise -- browsing racks and shelves, examining, touching, trying on, modeling, seeking approval or rejection -- which I find analogous to strategic planning sessions -- which I also despise and which consume untold hours generating problematic prescriptions seldom practiced.
In addition, I would much prefer to avoid physically forking over the funds, and, instead, pay the bill blindly when it arrives in the mail months later, thereby assuming that every item contained therein is a necessity and not the result of some frivolous impulse (or non-impulse).
If the inevitable decision to shop wasn't grievous enough, the emporium chosen was even more troubling. Somehow I was persuaded, cajoled, or enticed with the possibility of future rewards, to abandon all rationality, risk the equilibrium of a cheery vacation day, and brave the jungle of a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Why is it that, when we are away from home, we gravitate to the maw of the beast?
Now, I've been to Wal-Mart before, but, for a 59-year-old man, I believe my scorecard of infrequent visits -- less than ten -- must be close to a record. I acknowledge two perfunctory and satisfactory morning excursions to our local Wards Road store to purchase desperately needed items -- folding lawn chairs and crude sign materials -- and to nighttime grocery shopping in Myrtle Beach--two time periods when the crowds, though certainly sizable, were at least manageable, thus leaving me completely unprepared for what I was to confront that Sunday afternoon.
Our first obstacle -- not easily overcome if you are from out of town -- was finding the store. Oh, we could see it all right, but getting there was a different matter. Apparently, the Wilmington Wal-Mart is located off a side street connecting two busy thoroughfares, and the access from this street is all but invisible to foreigners. We circled our object at least once before sneaking up on it from the rear--whereupon we were immediately confronted by our second daunting Wal-Mart challenge: the parking lot.
I believe the entire ministry in Wilmington, N.C., must have preached the same sermon that Sunday morning: "May God bless you, my congregants. Now, go forth and shop." Not only was every parking space occupied, but the connecting arteries were clogged with vehicles (not to mention the isolated shopping cart carelessly abandoned in the roadway), mostly pick-up trucks and SUV's (in my opinion, a totally gratuitous and wasteful mode of transportation in a place where the temperature never drops below 40 degrees), entering, leaving, or greedily seeking an opening close to the building.
There we were, stranded in a parking lot traffic jam. We might spot a space a row or two away, only to watch helplessly while it evaporated in the shimmering heat. When, after about ten minutes of anxious hunting, we did find a place to park, of course we were facing the wrong direction, and had to creep past it and, in a delicate but rapid manuever, dart in backwards, lest it be cruelly snatched from us in the interim.
To me, Wal-Marts are the concrete and steel manifestations of the current era's weirdly inverted economic realities. They are our modern-day factories: expansive, enclosed arenas with broad, straight aisles, exposed beams overhead, and bleached fluorescent lighting, seething with a contained energy robotically propelling finished consumer goods out the door, differing from their precurors only in the fact that the merchandise has arrived in house already perfected, having been produced in mirror-image, if less pristine, structures on distant continents.
Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly sales statistics are tabulated instantaneously by an incessant blip-blip-blip which greets us -- and all visitors -- immediately upon our entrance: the sound of purchases being swiped across a bar code machine and audible evidence that customers are buying at a frantic pace, luring the newly-arrived to join the party.
At this point, I must confess that my wife and I were not so demented as to brazen Wal-Mart without an objective in our sights: a bicycle for our daughter, which objective promptly became obscured in the frenzy which attacked us like an epileptic seizure when we strolled through the inviting automatic retracting doors. Actually, those doors seemed permanently locked in the retracted position, so constant was the traffic passing to and fro.
"Honey, I believe I'll look around," said my wife, words guaranteed to spark fear in the heart of any obedient husband, frightening enough when spoken in a traditional department or clothing store, but particularly terrifying when echoing through a cavernous Wal-Mart. "Sure, honey," was the only meek response I could muster. "I guess I'll look around, too."
"Look around at what?" I muttered to myself, as my wife merrily disappeared into the bowels of this organic building, leaving me to my own meager resources. When I go into a store, there are only three areas I am even minimally interested in scoping out: mens clothing, books, and furniture. And Wal-Mart's inventory in each of these categories is understandably bleak and quickly dispensed with. What passes for a mens department is shelf after shelf of blue jeans and slacks (also mostly blue); the only books on hand are the top twenty hardback and paperback bestsellers and a worthy assortment of Bibles; and the furniture display is confined to one short aisle of ready-to-assemble desks, television stands, and bookcases, for which I should be eternally grateful.
But what an array of other delectable material is spread out before us patrons -- like a Golden Corral buffet in front of a homeless man: rack after rack of apparel, for women and children, anchoring the center of the store, surrounded by: paper, paper, and more paper; detergents and cleaners; small appliances of every make and model; cookware; dinnerware; bath and bed furnishings; lamps and lighting; shoes and boots (male and female); rugs, blinds, and shades; rolls of fabric; electronics and DVD's; tires, batteries, and motor oil; sporting goods; camping, fishing, and hunting supplies; tools; bath and kitchen decor; health and beauty aids; lawn and garden equipment; jewelry; and of course, groceries, fresh, frozen, canned, cooked, processed, and packaged -- none of which held any attraction for me. Yes, there I was, cast adrift in a sea of delights upon which normal folks would engorge themselves, yet which to me tasted only of salt.
I was struck by one undeniable phenomenon: the prices, as best I could judge, based on my limited shopping experience, were, as advertised, consistently low. I do buy some articles of clothing on occasion, but this was virgin territory: $9.84, $10.76, $11.92, $12.67. I hardly see how they can transport the stuff from Bangladesh for much less than that. And even commodities like gum, candy, and bottled water I found to be 20 to 30 per cent less than what I have paid in other places.
Say what you want about Wal-Mart -- its underpricing and undermining of local retailers; its transformation of green fields and farmland into asphalt and big boxes; its dumbing down of service sector wage rates and benefit packages; and its embracing of offshore sourcing, regardless of the consequences, in a relentless quest for lower costs -- it is raising the American consumer's standard of living by saving him money.
Suddenly, my contemplation -- and boredom -- were interrupted by an unfamiliar (to me, that is) sound: my cell phone was ringing. Yes, I had it with me, turned on, even, for how else was I to reconnect with my wife in this supersized labyrinth, both of us wandering aimlessly.
After we exchanged obligatory "Where are you's," ("I'm in Wal-Mart. Where are you?") she abruptly summoned me to the vicinity of the toy department, reminding me of our putative purpose: a bicycle for our daughter.
Of course, since I stubbornly refused to ask directions (Is that really necessary in a store?), it took me more than a few minutes to navigate the packed aisles and dodge the ubiquitous shopping carts, hazards for which one must constantly be on the alert, thus making it even more difficult for me to locate and reach my goal.
If you think modern marketers obsessed with proliferating choices have made selecting a tube of toothpaste confusing, try looking at bicycles. Upon my encountering two long rows of spokes and wheels, one stacked on top of the other -- and basically out of reach -- perplexity and panic set in. Well, we knew we wanted a girl's model, but should it 24 or 36 inches; a roadster, speedster, coaster, or mountain climber; three-speed, five-speed, ten-speed, or twenty-speed; and, the most important question, what color?
After some discussion and surprisingly little disagreement, my wife and I settled on a 26-inch ten-speed, violet roadster with a quirky rear-wheel kickstand, which was securely lodged on the upper level. We managed to corral a horsey-looking store employee, distinguishable from hordes of shoppers only by an apron and his name tag, who grimly pried our newest fixation from its moorings and manipulated it to the floor.
Since we were concerned about fitting the bicycle in our car, I asked the fellow if he could detach the front wheel. "Company policy won't let me," he replied, sincerely apologetic. "But you can buy a wrench in the tool department and do it yourself," he offered, exhibiting add-on salesmanship of the highest order. Following his directions, I stumbled upon bin after bin of fixed and adjustable iterations ("So many wrenches, so little time," to paraphrase a famous wench herself), before deciding on one of each, at the disposable price of $1.19.
I was about to wheel the bicycle to the front of the store when my wife spoke up: "Honey, would you take this?" I looked around in bewilderment for a few seconds, before my gaze came to rest upon a surfeited shopping cart parked innocently on the sidelines, which I had assumed belonged to someone else.
"What this?" I asked, with an obsequious grin. "Just a few supplies for Adrienne's new apartment. Since we were here, I thought I might as well help her out," she replied, thus validating the seductive power of those blip-blip-blips and row after row of irresistible, inexpensive merchandise.
Either the cart was too unwieldy for her, or she wanted me to demonstrate uncharacteristic gentlemanly chivalry and run interference for her on the way to the checkout counter, more aware of the pitfalls of the course than I was. Looking back, I would submit that the vehicular aisles in Wal-Mart in Wilmington, N.C., on a Sunday afternoon are about as congested as I-81 between Roanoke and Blacksburg and just as perilous.
Since I did not see an octagonal sign at the end of the bicycle aisle, I did not stop and look both ways before entering moving traffic, upon which I was rudely and resoundingly struck by speeding shopping carts (or reckless drivers, depending on one's point of view), first on my left and then on my right. Other than the shock which reverberated up through my hands grasping the cart handles to my shoulder blades, little harm was done, all three of us embarrassed cart-mishandlers exchanging polite "Excuse me's."
From that point, I carefully made my way to the checkout counter -- its blip-blip-blips growing progressively louder like a metal detector striking gold -- my eyes peeled for wayward carts and self-absorbed shoppers. I danced between two counters, trying to ascertain the shortest line, and eventually sidled up to a register, where a young lady -- the factory conveyor belt's last stop -- routinely swiped every item, including the bicycle, and took my payment. I finally got to experience all those blip-blip-blips up close and personal.
I blasted through the retractable doors, joyous at escaping the insatiable beast, only to realize that one is not Wal-Mart free until one has exited the parking lot -- no easy task. Oh, our car was where we had left it; we just weren't sure exactly where that was. And once we found it and loaded it with our newest most cherished possessions, we still had to extricate ourselves from the same traffic jam we had barely escaped two hours earlier.
As we pulled onto the main road, I breathed a welcome sigh of relief -- until my wife commented that we needed a few more things for Adrienne's apartment and, on a wing and a prayer, serenely directed me to our next destination: Target.
To add insult to injury, we later determined that the bicycle's front brakes were defective and returned it to Wal-Mart for credit.
All in all, I'd rather run ten miles.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
