December 9, 2024

Philadelphia, when we arrived, was sunny and cold. The lake-effect storms that raked the northwestern rim of the state, Erie and its environs, threw a dusting at the City of Brotherly Love. We were going to make the best of it. The kids all had made it in, for the first time in two years.

We weighed transcendent joy against sadness. As we settled into hellos and hugs we heard of Sandy’s sister Kay’s hospitalization in Nashville. Cancer, again. We called. Family began traveling from Florida, Georgia, Canada. We whispered prayers and planned our road trip back to Tennessee.

At such moments we remind ourselves that perception of what is true and good and precious in our lives emerges not from achievements and behavior considered grand to the external world—career recognition and so forth—but from belief, trust, and affection among those closest to us.

Philly is a cold city in winter. Bitter winds whip around downtown office towers, the Art Museum and its Rocky Balboa statue, the wide Delaware is a metallic, industrial gray. The joy of anticipation of family reunion eased the anxiety of travel, the complicated, expensive logistics of nine people departing airports across the country. The flights arrived mostly on time.

Every American knows the country was born in Philadelphia. Crowds line up to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall on Chestnut Street downtown, where the first American patriots voted on the Declaration of Independence. In 1777, after routing George Washington’s colonials at Brandywine, the British redcoats marched in. In 1789 the Constitutional Convention ratified the Constitution.

The town has a muscular reputation. Probably everyone in America has seen “Rocky,” the story of no-account failure transformed into glory by hard work and heart. Local folks bought into the theme. Tourists love the statue, which looks out across majestic Ben Franklin Parkway.

Police coat streetlamps with grease to prevent drunks from shimmying up them to celebrate Phillies and Eagles playoff wins. Eagles fans threw snowballs at Santa in 1968.

The idea of Philly has been of the roughneck working-class East Coast brother of New York and Boston. Our New York/North Jersey family and friends would drive to the Jersey Shore but never visit Philadelphia or even the Jersey side of the Delaware. It was an alien thought, we barely knew it existed. Philadelphia people didn’t care.

The Main Line begins in Center City around Penn, the Ivy League school and Penn Med, the world-famous cancer center, then continues west past Villanova and St. Joseph’s, beyond U.S. 1, where the Wawa fast-food/fast gas chain has its headquarters. The outer suburbs center on the massive King of Prussia Mall off I-275 and immortal Valley Forge, a sublime memorial to the colonial Army’s heroism and suffering.    

Philly world fades into Amish and Mennonite country around Lancaster and New Holland. The gem of Gettysburg is the state’s south-central marker. The middle and all the way to Pittsburgh is 250 miles of farmland and old factory and mining towns, among them York and Altoona, which the Democrats call “Alabama,” broken up by Harrisburg and State College. 

Starting around 2010 and forward for a few years three of our four kids lived in Pennsylvania. Laura was in Pittsburgh working on urban “sustainability,” that is, improving life for city folks. Marie and Mike were in Lewisburg, where Marie ran the overseas education program at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, a picturesque spot near the big Susquehanna, which flows southeast across the state. They rented places near the river, which sometimes flooded.

Michael finished his Penn M.S. and has stayed for twenty years. Daughter-in-law Caroline grew up in King of Prussia in nearby Montgomery County, next to Valley Forge, then graduated from Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine.

Over time we slogged up the PA Turnpike to Pittsburgh or U.S. 15 to Lewisburg. The Pittsburgh trips always were in the dead of winter, across the bleak Alleghenies. In 2015 we detoured off the interstate to see the early work on the Flight 93 memorial near Shanksville. The Lewisburg trips took us through Harrisburg on 15, winding along the river through small isolated places mostly left behind by industrial decline.

In Philly we picked up the vitality of downtown markets, the amazing museums, Chestnut Hill and West Chester on either side of the Schuylkill, the Wyeth gallery and Brandywine.  We went to Phillies’ games at Citizens Bank Park.

We had our anxious Philadelphia moments. In January 2019 Michael brought us to visit Penn Med cancer oncologists about next steps for my problem. Six months later we came up again. Sandy felt numbness in her left arm. She spent a week in the Bryn Mawr Hospital ICU after a rush of microstrokes. The therapy continues.

Now we were back. Laura came from Minnesota, Kathleen and Steve from Wyoming, Marie and Mike and the boys, like us, from Upstate S.C. That evening, in frigid temps, we walked stiffly past the brilliant lights and floral explosion at Longwood Gardens, a magical spot in the farm country. We sipped hot chocolate, stunned by the lyrical winter beauty of the place.

We pulled on sweaters and overcoats to hike the woodland hills of Michael’s and Caroline’s property. The terrain was steep, the wind was raw, the trail obscured by fallen leaves. But the place, on the outer suburban fringes of the city, still sparkled with anticipation of Christmas, easing the chill. Philly does winter well.

We stayed up late visiting. In predawn darkness Kathleen and Steve hit the road for their flights, eventually back to Alta, Wyoming. Laura headed to St. Paul. We got to Mass and hung around a bit longer, regretting the end. The weekend was an anticipated Christmas and delayed Thanksgiving. We said so long, ‘til next time, and gave thanks.

December 2, 2024

Thanksgiving arrived with early rain, but also gladness and friends, younger folks who reached out to us when we were strangers in this town. We joined them for Thanksgiving breakfast. We followed an old recipe and baked my mom’s famous coffee cake.

Together we thanked the Lord for his blessings, and asked his protection for all of us, and others.

Blessings aren’t enough for all Americans. Three weeks earlier a bulky package arrived from St. Joseph’s Indian School in Chamberlain, South Dakota. It came via bulk mail, typical of requests for donations. Along with the fervent “ask” letter, the package contained a small blanket, address labels, a colorful canvas shopping bag, a tiny flashlight. 

We had never heard of St. Joseph’s. They found our name and address the way dozens of other charities find them: through the vast digital roster of millions of donors that resides on a powerful computer server in a windowless data farm, which could be anywhere.

The brochure describes St. Joseph’s as a home for 200 children of the Lakota-Sioux tribe. A website explains that “since 1927 the school’s mission has been to educate Native American children and their families for life—mind, body, heart, and spirit.” It features videos of cute children singing. But the website is a hardball pitch for donations. 

Solicitations arrive almost daily, from the AARP Foundation, Wounded Warrior, Doctors Without Borders, Second Harvest Bank of Metrolina, Catholic Relief Services. Then the local PBS station, my high school, my daughter’s alma mater.    

The AARP Foundation offers a LED lantern in exchange of a gift of $12. The lamp is “long-lasting, bright, and dimmable, a small token of our deep appreciation …” Wounded Warrior sends quarters pasted to a card.

Many pitches are powerful. Catholic Relief calls on us to “change a life this Christmas.” AARP: “Seniors are struggling to make ends meet.” Second Harvest Bank asks donors to “help neighbors facing hunger this Holiday Season.” Some are not. I still get dunning letters from my private, well-heeled high school, to which over 57 years I’ve not given a nickel.

A second letter arrived from St. Joseph’s, a “friendly reminder … to brighten a Lakota child’s Christmas.” It requested $25 toward Christmas dinners, $35 for gifts, $50 for winter clothing, or larger amounts, and added Philamayaye, Lakota for “thank you.” 

For many Americans the statistics showing a booming economy are a mirage. In September the Census Bureau reported that more than 36 million Americans, 11 percent of the population, are at or below the federal poverty level. These people need food, medical care, shelter.  Big cities have their pockets of poverty. In many rural places the side roads and alleys are lined with ramshackle buildings—shacks—that pass for homes.

Healthcare is out of reach for many Americans. Food pantries everywhere exhaust their stocks. Schools in poor communities struggle to secure books and supplies.

Americas are generous. The National Philanthropic Trust reports that Americans donated $557.2 billion in 2023, about a two percent increase over 2022 but less than the 4.1 percent inflation rate. Most of that, $347.4 billion, was given by individuals. Foundations donated $105.3 billion and private companies $36.5 billion.

The Trust says that 24 percent of charitable giving went to religious organizations. Education received 14 percent, foundations 13 percent and “public-society benefit” 10 percent.

The IRS reports 1.5 million tax-exempt 501(c)3 tax-exempt organizations operate in the U.S. These are religious, charitable, scientific, literary, and educational organizations. The solicitations you get in the mail or online almost certainly are tax-exempt. If you itemize your tax return you can claim your contributions as deductions.

The outfits that ask you to give are competing with each other for your dollars. Their solicitations try to persuade you that they are doing work you want to support.

Some charities, like the American Cancer Society and American Heart Foundation, are fundraising machines. But then, cancer and heart disease are killers. The big charities fund big research. They need the money.

We gave a few dollars to the Neighborhood Cancer Connection of Greenville, a tiny outfit that supports cancer victims and family members. The NCC provides counseling and donates wheelchairs, bedding, walkers, breast prostheses, and other items. It pays for prescriptions, transportation, and household bills for financially stressed patients.

We got a thank-you for our NCC donation, but no follow-up request. The letters keep coming from others, the brochures, the formulaic presentations of urgent need. The need is real, so is the marketing.

There should be a payback for checkwriting, an authentic sense of answering need. When we feel it, we’ll know it.  

Then too: “Giving Day” is tomorrow, December 2, following Cyber Monday, the big online shopping day. A lady named Celeste Flores directs GivingTuesday/United States and Canada. Other continents have their own teams.

Yes, there is a website, filled with enthusiasm: It calls for giving, financially or however you want to: volunteer to foster or walk dogs; beautify your neighborhood; buy someone a cup of coffee. Shovel snow for a senior, bring popsicles to a park to share. You might “visit a new neighborhood and strike up a conversation with someone different from you.” And so on.

People do these things even without looking at websites. You can write checks and send them to charities in their business reply envelopes. You’ll get a thank-you. Christmas is coming, after all. Spread the goodness around. Then buy someone a cup of coffee.

November 25, 2024

It was time to go up to Tennessee again, although it had just been four months. The idea came up mid-week, following the election hangover. We found a two-day rental in Sewanee, fifty miles west of Chattanooga, on Sewanee Mountain, a steep climb from the flatlands of Franklin County. It was as good a time as any. The year is ending, the evenings darkening.

In normal times, the route from Upstate South Carolina is one of two interstate angles: either north to Asheville, west on I-40, south on I-75 to Chattanooga, west on I-24 to the Monteagle Mountain. Or south: I-85 to Atlanta, north on I-75 to Chattanooga then pick up I-24. These days the northern angle is out: I-40 west is still closed or one lane only, part of the lingering nightmare of Helene.

The remaining route is the odd one, state roads through four states: west out of Greenville to Westminster, across the Chattooga River on U.S. 76 into Georgia, through Clayton, Hiwassee, and Blairsville. Then north into North Carolina to Murphy on U.S. 19, east to Cleveland, Tenn., on 74 to I-75 just north of Chattanooga, pick up I-24 to Monteagle.

No one we know goes that way, actually no one we know travels to Sewanee, home of the University of the South, the respected Episcopal Church-affiliated school founded 167 years ago. The school isn’t well known in our parts, where Clemson is the big draw.

A bridge out west of Westminster, S.C., drew us into a spooky 30-mile detour, a spider’s web of back roads that ended at a general store at a spot called Long Creek. We stumbled inside, the lady at the counter reassured us, “You’re almost to Clayton.” The S.C.-GA state line is the Chattooga, a national scenic river.

We stopped at the Clayton Café for breakfast. The well-kept town is decked out for Christmas, folks wished each other “Happy Thanksgiving.”

We pushed on, crossing the Appalachian Trail, through Georgia’s 9th Congressional District, represented by Andrew Clyde, a gun store owner whose campaign ads feature a drawing of an AR-15 automatic weapon. In 2023 he introduced a bill to designate the AR-15 as the “national gun of the United States.”

We crossed into North Carolina and hit the final turn west to Tennessee, U.S. 64/74 past the magical Ocoee, the world-famous white-water kayaking stream and the spectacular mountain lake. Then we were in Cleveland, Chattanooga, and chugging up the mountain to Sewanee, 300 miles, six hours total.

Winter had arrived on the mountain, the rental was small and chilly, but okay. In the morning we browsed through Sewanee’s majestic Gothic campus. The place, a setting of tragic and heroic Southern history and rich with memories of our Tennessee years, still calls us back.

Sandy grew up in Cowan, just below Sewanee Mountain. It’s a small place near the south edge of Franklin County, which before the Civil War threatened to secede from Tennessee and join Alabama unless the state seceded from the Union, which it did in June 1861.

From Sewanee to Cowan U.S. 41A descends sharply to pastureland for a couple of miles, then passes old neighborhoods of one-level homes. There’s an elementary school and a library, a post office, a couple of curiosity/antique shops. The Chattanooga-Nashville and St. Louis track crosses the town center, the railroad museum is a tourist stop.

The Genesco shoe factory and Marquette Cement and Stone shut down decades ago, throwing about one hundred men out of work. Even earlier, the lumber mill burned to the ground. The dime store, the insurance company, a laundromat, a café, all are closed.  Brown’s Diner, where Sandy served chicken and burgers as a teenager, now is something else.

Franklin County schools were segregated until 1964, nine years after Brown vs. Board of Education, when the County lost a lawsuit filed in Sewanee.  Until the early 1970s Franklin County High School required girls to wear dresses and skirts.  

Cowan was for generations a typical small Southern place. Whites lived on the north side of 41A and a block or two of large homes along the highway, Blacks stayed on the south side of the CN&St.L track.

Winchester, the county seat six miles west of Cowan, was built with the usual town square set off by a courthouse, some retail, law firms, a few restaurants. The Oldham movie theater, the “walk-in” (to distinguish it from the “drive-in”) across from the courthouse, is still open.

Now 41A north of downtown is a car-choked fast-food and retail strip leading to a Walmart. Sandy’s tiny Catholic elementary school is long closed. Her eighth-grade class graduated eight students. 

We slogged the four miles of descending switchbacks to Cowan. The fields were brown with the season. The cemetery was deserted, dozens of family members comfortably at peace, we guessed. A block or so from her old homestead Sandy spotted a first cousin blowing leaves from family property. We visited for a bit.

Cowan’s business block was quiet, not a pedestrian in sight. Eighteen-wheelers rumbled past on 41A. We stopped in front of Franklin House, formerly the Franklin-Pearson Hotel, a stately, gorgeous place. We had stayed ten years ago, then the only guests. I wondered about the business prospects.  

The owner, Rachel, who bought the hotel in 2020 and decorated the rooms with the work of local artists, was hanging Christmas lights. She introduced us to her great aunt, Polly Hughes, 105 years-young, gracious and gentle. Polly, it turned out, had lived long ago on the same Cowan street as Sandy. Rachel lived for years in New York and Florida. Cowan drew her back.

“The hotel is lovely,” Polly advised. “Stay here with Rachel next time you come.” Rachel gave us a tour of the tasteful rooms, set off by oil landscapes and abstracts, and the large event venue. “We have church here Sundays,” she said.

We said goodbye, promising to return. Rachel smiled and went back to her lights. We headed back to Sewanee, to our chilly rental, and turned up the heat.

November 18, 2024

On Veterans Day last week, restaurants offered discounts to vets, barbershops gave free haircuts. I got my free coffee at Starbucks. Lowes, Home Depot, and other retailers offer standing discounts to veterans. Former enlisted Marine Thomas Brennan, who fought at Fallujah in Iraq in 2004, has a better idea.

Brennan, who visited talk-show host Jon Stewart last week, left the service and earned a degree at Columbia’s School of Journalism. In 2013 he wrote an article about the Defense Department’s plan to cut funding for programs devoted to suicide prevention for active-duty personnel.

“Within three days,” Brennan said, “the Secretary of Defense restored mental healthcare to full capacity. It was a moment in my career where I felt I really saved a life. So I asked myself, how can there be a national newsroom that focuses on these topics, and help increase awareness among the American public of issues that veterans and military families face.”

Brennan created a non-profit organization called The War Horse to accomplish that mission. In 2016 he recruited supporters who helped fund the group. The War Horse staff of seven recruits journalists who report on the impact of military life, and on Defense Department and service policies. The intent is to support the service community, but then also to educate the 99 percent of Americans who know nothing about military life.

The War Horse, Brennan says, “is a nonprofit newsroom that holds power to account, strengthens our democracy, and improves understanding of the true cost of military service.”

The uncompromising baseline for active service members, their families, and veterans, is war.  Another milestone passed last week: November 7, the 20th anniversary of the start of the Second Battle of Fallujah.

The Iraq War began in March 2003 when U.S. and allied forces invaded Iraq on the pretext that Saddam Hussein’s regime was stockpiling materials that could be used to build “weapons of mass destruction,” although no evidence of them had been found. Baghdad was captured in early April. On May 1 President George Bush declared the war over.

Occupation, the hard part, then began. Iraq was filled with extremist Muslim insurgents, who operated out of Fallujah, a city of about 300,000. In March 2004 the Marines launched Operation Vigilant Resolve to expel them. The operation, the First Battle of Fallujah, ended in late April with an agreement with local citizens to prevent the insurgents from returning. But they did return.

The Second Battle, in which Brennan and his Marine unit fought, started November 7 and lasted through December. Some 6,500 Marines and 1,500 soldiers fought in Operation Phantom Fury—Fallujah Two, along with British and Iraqi troops. The allies faced 2,000 or 3,000 insurgents in the city.

The allies came down hard on the insurgents, with Navy and Air Force aircraft and Army Special Forces as well as the ground troops, who fought building to building. Fallujah was the bloodiest battle of the war. More than 100 Americans were killed. Ten enlisted Marines were awarded the Navy Cross.

In November 2004 Brennan was a 19-year-old lance corporal serving with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment at al-Asad, Iraq. His platoon got on trucks and drove to Camp Fallujah. On November 10 they attacked the city. Lance Corporal Bradley Faircloth was killed by insurgent fire.

Brennan confronted survivor’s guilt. He wrote, “For 20 years I wished I had fired a rocket into an enemy stronghold instead of letting [Faircloth] kick in that door.” As the 20th anniversary of the battle approached he arranged a reunion of members of his platoon. They talked and shared emotions. The platoon’s Navy corpsman suffered an intense sense of guilt because he was unable to save Faircloth’s life. He was comforted by Faircloth’s mother, who attended the reunion.

Their meeting inspired production of a 25-minute film, Shadows of Fallujah, that integrates platoon members’ accounts with BBC footage. The film is one response to the Marines’ questions. How do they respond to the intensity and savagery of combat? How can other Americans understand what they experienced?

The Iraq War was and is an American nightmare. American troops remained in Fallujah on a pacification mission. But by 2006 Al-Anbar province, which includes Fallujah, was again filled with insurgents.

In the interview Stewart said that Veterans Day observances he saw at Sunday football games resembled a kind of “numbing patriotism … the disparity between what the soldiers are experiencing, what the families are experiencing, and this rah-rah it’s Veterans Day, come to Denny’s for 10 percent off—it’s jarring.”

Brennan explained that service members need more than the Veterans Day rituals. “The performative ‘thank you for your service,’ where somebody just continues walking and continues their day—I’d rather not get that.

“What I want from the American public on Veterans Day and every other day is for them to actually care about the policies … that are going to affect veterans and military families and active-duty service members.”

The War Horse has taken on more than 100 writing projects. Its teams investigated an online sexual harassment scandal in the Marine Corps that led to a Congressional investigation and  policy changes. It covered the stories of women veterans and their successful reentry in academics, business, and social work. The organization has conducted writing seminars for military spouses, and for medics and corpsmen.

The War Horse, Brennan tells us, is built for action. It also is built on memories. One memory: in the early 1970s I was assigned as a second lieutenant to Headquarters Marine Corps in Washington. Marines were directed to wear civilian clothes to work three days each week, to lower the military profile in the D.C. area to avoid antagonizing the antiwar locals.

The no-uniform gesture was stupid and futile. In 1973 a smart, brave outfit like The War Horse could have explained to politicians that the anti-war movement was the whole country. The War Horse was needed then, as it’s needed today.