Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
LIFE WITH VAL: THE PARTY
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I was recently in what can only be described as a verbal altercation with a couple of feminists today. They took exception to a picture that accompanied an article that I wrote showing a man holding up the world, Atlas-style, to keep it from crushing his family. It showed his wife, son, and daughter, obviously in fear, and on their knees praying. The feminists took the position that it portrayed the woman as weak, and needing a man to protect her.
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I was really taken aback by their position and lost all patience with them. I mean, what kind of rabid ideologue does it take to take offense at a picture of a man protecting his family!!!? One even said, "It is not a distraction to say we need to stop teaching boys to be saviors and start teach them to be partners," to which I replied, "Men NEED to feel like saviors. That's what makes them men..
When my wife died and my son and daughter were grown, many of my female friends stepped in to make sure that I didn't have to prowl the streets looking for sex, but I was still depressed. I thought my life was over as a man, because no one NEEDED me to be a man and to protect them. But fortunately, I was a musician, and met a lady - who did need me - and it made me feel like a man again, and it gave me a reason for living." So it's a part of a REAL man's nature to be a protector. Again, that's why nature made him bigger and stronger, and emotionally, that's what makes him a man. I didn't realize that myself, until I was left with an empty nest. I began to feel like I no longer had a reason for being.
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I went on to tell them the following:
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What some of you are doing here is buying into a philosophy that is destroying the poor and middle class. We are currently knee-deep in a CLASS WAR, and race, sex, and religion are the most potent weapons of the people who are waging this war. We’ve got to keep in mind that what the corporate/GOP alliance thrives on is anger, division, and frustration. They’re agenda - to lower the standard of living of the American middle class to conform to the new global economy, which pays people of many countries less per week than many middle class Americans spend on lunch per day - is so toxic to the American way of life that they MUST keep Americans divided to promote it.
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The picture in question is not about religion, it is not about the denigration of women, and it is not about anything other than Black men stepping up to the plate and being Black men. Thus, those people who see something else in it that is offensive to their narrow ideology, must understand that their vision is CONTRIVED, DIVISIVE, AND LACKS AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE BIG PICTURE. How do I know that? Because I posted the picture, and what they’re complaining about never once occurred to me when I posted it. So they are digging up, and looking under rocks to see what they want to see.
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Now, I can fully understand women wanting to be recognized as equals and peers in every sense of the word. But this photograph does not either say nor does it imply that women or not equal. It simply acknowledges the fact that men and women are DIFFERENT, just as nature did when it made men bigger and stronger than women.
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Equal doesn’t mean that men and women have equal assets. Equal means that men have certain strong suits that they need to bring to the table to combine with the assets that women provide to the family unit. And to even suggest that being feminine, and not being as physically strong as a man is less than equal, is being bigoted and condescending toward what it means to be a woman. Being physically strong is not everything. My late wife literally MADE me. The mere fact that I can write this is a tribute to the strength of that woman, and even though she’s gone now, I’m STILL trying to live up to the man I saw reflected in her eyes. And by the way, when she died she made $37,000 a year more than I did. One of our biggest arguments was I refused to let her hire ME.
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So if you’re a feminist, instead of nitpicking about what YOU THINK is being portrayed in a picture, your efforts would be better served in fighting to see that ALL women received equal pay for what they do. Because if that were the case, Val would have made $57,000 a year more than I did. And even though she's gone, I still get a check from her on the 28th of every month. So grow up, and see the big picture.
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That started me thinking about Val, and just how special she was. So I'd like to relate the following episode in our lives:
The Party
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My late wife Val and I met when she was 14 and I was 16 years old. Her aunt worked at the 55
th Street Medical Clinic in Los Angeles processing insurance documents, and my mother was head nurse and physician’s assistant. That year my mother hired Val to send Christmas cards to the patients. I met Val while I was on one of my routine missions to the clinic to bum money from either my mother or Dr. Atkins. It didn’t matter to me - whichever one I ran into first was cool.
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It was my routine to go to the front desk and have whoever was there buzz me into the inner sanctum. Once there I would lay in wait in the lunchroom for whoever came out of one of examining rooms first. I always hoped it was Dr. Atkins, because he was an easier touch. He didn’t have time to listen to my sad scenarios, so he’d just pull out his bankroll and start peeling off paper without even listening to me, with maybe a caustic remark like, "Eric, you need to get you a job." It was kinda embarrassing, because my younger brother, Fred (12 years old), used to work around the office to EARN his money. But, being the consummate little deadbeat that I was, a little embarrassment didn’t phase me a bit.
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But what I didn’t know was, on that particular day, when I walked through those doors it would change my life forever. When I walked up to the counter, Val was turned facing the files. I waited before I said anything, because even then she had the body of a full grown woman, so I just stood there and took in the view. But when she turned around, I was shocked to see that she was a young girl. I also saw that it was my lucky day, because when she looked at me I saw for the very first time that look in her eyes that made me feel special until the night she died.
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We were married on Christmas morning when she was 19 and I was 21, and she’s been an ongoing gift in my life every since - even today, now that she’s gone. When I originally wrote this, several years before her death, I pointed out that we have two kids - a daughter, Kai, who was 23 at the time, and a 21 year old son, Eric, Jr. They’d both graduated from college the previous month (Eric, on my birthday).
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I also pointed out . . . that I'm sort of a laid-back, ‘cerebral’ kind of guy who refuses to make a move without thinking it through. You know the type - the kind of guy who people aren't really sure about until they get to know him. Val, on the other hand, is a totally spontaneous, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of person that everyone loves on first sight. But she's *so* spontaneous that the kids and I have to keep an eye on her to keep her out of trouble.
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In both high school and college my son was the school basketball star, and before each game countless kids would congregate at my house waiting for Val. Others would go to the gym early to save seats in the bleachers, waiting for her to show up - and when she did, the party was on.
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The kids used to call the section where Val sat "The Dog Pound." More than once a player on the other team would miss free throws or plays because they were laughing so hard at something Val might have said about one of the referees or opposing players - and the funny thing was, in spite of that, the referees, and the kids on the other teams, loved her, and they all call her by her first name - some of the kids called her "Nani."
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Kids who were scheduled to play our team would come by the house and say, "Now Val, this is just a game. Don't be doggin' me on the court next week." And she'd say, "I ain’t gon have to, my son's gonna do it for me - and get out of my refrigerator. Don't Ruth feed you?" Sometimes after a game my son would say, "Moma, you know you were a bad girl at the game today, don't you?" And she'd say, "What? His topee was on crooked!" Sometimes I seriously wonder was the Whoopie Goldberg movie, "Eddie," loosely based on Val's Antics.
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She is so out there. She lives in her very own universe. I tell her sometimes, "Val, if WWIII broke-out, you wouldn't even know it until you heard the blast. And it's true. Val is so oblivious to the things that the rest of us worry about that it verges on dangerous. In spite of the fact that she is well known as one of the top Property Administrators at Hughes Aircraft in El Segundo, Ca., she manages to leave all of her business acumen in her desk at work. One day, for example, she saw a very expensive household item that she wanted to buy. So she came to me and asked if it was alright for us to purchase it. At the time, we were sort of strapped, so I told her that we didn't have the money. She looked at me with deep disappointment, and said with total sincerity, "What do you mean we don't have the money? You have a box full of checks in your desk drawer." So, needless to say, I handle the money in the family.
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But her disarming personality has also helped us out of a number of uncomfortable situations. About ten years ago when we moved from Los Angeles to Covina, California, we were one of just a few Black families in the area. Not being use to that sort of situation, we - make that I -was more than just a little uncomfortable. And to make things worse, one of the neighbors had a huge Confederate flag spread across one entire inside wall of his garage - and the garage door was always open, so whenever we drove down the street his blazing Dixie flag hit us right in the face. I felt uncomfortable with it, but hey, that flag was draped across that wall long before we moved into the neighborhood, and besides, the man has every right to love Dixie. The only thing I hate more than a racist is a person who comes into a situation and thinks everyone else should rearrange their lives to accommodate them. So I just learned to ignore it, as I THOUGHT Val had.
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About a month or so after we moved in, however, the lady from across the street invited us to a party that she was having. Again, being the laid-back kind of guy I am, I felt uncomfortable about the prospect. I don't like parties as a matter of course. You have to stand around laughing and smiling when you really don't feel it, and discussing issues that you really don't care about (How about those Dodgers?). It's not my thing - it makes me feel phony. I had the feeling that this party would be all that multiplied by a thousand - especially, not knowing anyone, and being the only Black couple there. "Hey, Bubba! Guess who’s comin’ to dinner?"
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But Val immediately lit-up. The lady had said the magic word--PAAAAAR-TAY! Before I could say a word, Val took the ball and ran with it. "I'd love to! Hey, can I be the bartender? I make the best...." The lady ended up at our house all afternoon laughing and talking with Val. By the time she floated back across the street, under the influence of a quart of Val's "sample" Margaritas, Val was up on all the neighborhood gossip, and the two women had forged an unshakable, Most Favorite Neighbor Treaty.
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The lady's name was Rose, and watching her and Val together was very enlightening. By watching the way that she and Val bonded I began to recognize that people don't naturally bond by race. In a multiracial society, grouping according to race is a contrivance of man. Let to their on preference, and the absence of artificial societal rules, people would bond according to type. Watching Val and the blond, blue-eye Rose together made that perfectly clear. These two women were clearly sisters. They had just met a few hours ago, but if some who didn't know them walked into the room they'd think they grew up together. And later, my son and daughter validated my new recognition beyond refute. When they went to school and began to blend into the neighborhood, their crew looked like a United Nations assembly. The only thing missing was an Eskimo, and they didn't even seem to realize that there were any differences between themselves.
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That taught me a lot, and it caused me to drastically revise the way I viewed the world. It's a lesson that I should have learned years earlier, because when I was in the Marine Corps, my closest friend was a White Hillbilly from Kentucky name Stan. We hated one another upon first sight, due to our preconceived notions. Stan saw me as a radical Black militant, which I was, and I saw him as a racist Hillbilly, which he was. But he was also a world-class Black belt in the marshal arts (he later made a career as a Navy Seal close combat instructor (the Marine Corps is a part of the Department of the Navy).
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But anyway, I was in Oceanside one night in a phone trying to call home. I dropped my dime and I was bent over trying to pick it up. This damn BLACK MP thought I was drunk and grabbed me and caused me to bump my head on the little counter that they used to have under the phone, and it hurt like hell. So I came out swinging, and MPs (on Black and one White) started beating me with their clubs. Stan happen to be there at the Greyhound bus station and came and jumped in on my side. It took four Oceanside policeman to peel us off their asses. But fortunately, after we were subdued, one of the MPs (the Black one, of course) decided to spray me with mace, after I was handcuffed.
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Our 1st Sergeant (also from Kentucky like Stan) came and got us out the brig the next morning. Then when he got us back to his office he said, "You know, I'm completely cluster fucked about you two. Everybody in the unit knows that you can't stand each other. So how in the hell did you two end up in the brig for givin' two MPs a good ole Marine Corps ass kickin' (congratulations, by the way, I here you did the unit proud)? Sgt. Delorge, aren't you the one that said that Cpl. Wattree was an asshole? Then Stan said something that I'll never forget - "But he's our asshole, Top." Thereafter, Top just smiled and called the Provost Marshal and said, I hear your people sprayed one of my Marines after he was handcuffed. That's an unprovoked assault. The old man is pissed, and he order me to follow up on that. Yeah, I know, but ain't that what we train 'em to do? Well, I'll tell you what, why don't you just let me handle these two on my end and we call it a wash. Okay, I owe you one." Then he look up and told us, "Get the hell out of office." Thereafter, me and Stan were inseparable.
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Many years later I went to visit the colonel I used to work for (I used to do all of the writing for the battalion when he was our battalion commander), who by that time was a Maj. General and the commanding general of Camp Pendleton, and he told me that they still used me and Stan's story for morale training - and often used Stan who had become a training officer with the Navy Seals, to tell it. So I should have known how the racial dynamic works on an individual level, but the instant connection between Val and Rose served to bring that reality back home.
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But when it came to this party, that was a different situation. Relationships forged between individuals, and the group dynamic works much differently, as the current situation in our society readily attests. So I began to think that this was going to be more complicated than I thought - it had become serious. We had just moved to the area, and already, life as we were just coming to know it was about to come to a screechin' halt. I could just picture this nice, quiet neighborhood under the influence of Val and her notorious mixed drinks. Once the neighbors came down from their hangovers they'd never forgive us. I could just see the headline of the next day’s San Gabriel Tribune now - "BLACK CHICK CORRUPTS COVINA!" - and knowing my woman, there was no doubt in my mind that’s exactly what was about to happen.
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Val has a real knack for mixing drinks in a way that masked the liquor. She can blend various juices, fruits and crushed ice with more artistic flare than a Renaissance master. If she could pull-off the same thing with paint and canvas we'd be instant millionaires. She can mix these drinks so well, and make them so pleasing to the taste, that people generally forget about the gallon of liquor that's in them. We'd have parties where I'd here non-drinkers saying, "Ah Val, can I have another 'slush,' please?" I'd think, "slush, indeed. The only thing that's going to be slushed is you, in about five minutes." Val got a real kick out of it - and now she was about to do it to our new, unsuspecting, neighbors.
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The night of the party I wasn't as uneasy about it as I had been previously, because by then I'd had a week to get to know both Rose, who seemed to have made Val her closest friend on the block, and her husband, Al, who was really a nice guy. But I still wasn't passionate about the prospect of being paraded about as the new Black guy on the block to a lot of people that I didn't know. So I begged off with a cold that I had made it a point to cultivate three days prior to the event.
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The night of the party I kissed Val on the cheek and told her to have a good time. But as she was leaving I held on to her hand and reminded her, "but not too good of a time." She promised to be good, and she was off.
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I then got comfortable and settled into the bedroom to watch television for the night, but I kept the windows open and the blinds open so I could keep an eye - and ear - on the house.
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By 12:30 a.m. the party was going full blast. I could hear the laughter and the faint sound of music playing in the house, but by 2:00 a.m. I began to hear the sounds of Val working her magic. A couple of guys who I recognized as two of my more conservative neighbors were in front of the house arm-wrestling on the hood of a brand new Chrysler, and another guy was calling out to a woman who was struggling down the street barefoot in an evening gown. So I decided I'd better drop in on the party.
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When I walked in it was clear that Val was in full control of the festivities. It was also clear that I didn't have to worry about uneasy small-talk - everybody in the house was about as loose as you can get. Val walked up and hugged me, saying, "Hi, honey! Hey everybody! This is my Nu-nu, Eric." I heard various drunken responses:
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"Hi, Eric"!
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"Hey, Nu-Nu!"
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"What's his name?" "Nu-NU?"
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"Big, ugly rascal, ain't he? Just kiddin', don't beat me up, brother!"
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Then this one guy walked up and said, "Hi, I'm Stewart. I live down the street. This is quite a lady you got here."
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"Yeah, I know," I said. "I hope she's been behaving herself?"
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"Naw, I can't say that she has," the man said. "First, she done got everybody drunk - but I can't fault her for that, that's what I came here for - but then, she called me a Commie."
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I said, "what?"
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Then Stewart's wife chimed in. Between the booze and her laughter, she could barely get her words out. She introduced herself as Sue, and said, "No, she asked my husband, 'Are you a communist or something? And my husband said, 'No, I ain't no damned Commie. What made you say that?' Then Val said, 'Well, why you got that Communist flag in your garage?'" Sue went on, trying to talk through her laughter. "Then Stewart said, 'That ain't no damned communist flag! That's Old Dixie. We from Georgia.'"
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With that, someone else took up the story. "Then Val said, 'Same thing.'" Then everyone fell out laughing all over again (even me, because I knew Val was serious) as Stewart stood there pretending to be incensed. But everyone knew inside that while the joke was suppose to be on Stewart, we were actually laughing at the childlike way in which Val viewed what was suppose to be an uncomfortable subject.
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It seems that Stewart had been receiving a lot of ribbing over the flag for quite sometime, and Val's remark just put the icing on the cake. It turns out that he and Sue are both really nice people. Stewart is quite an intellectual, and - believe it or not - has turned out to be my closest friend in the neighborhood. We spend hours together debating everything. He says, "I admit, I’m a Southern bigot - I think we should lynch anyone who roots against Georgia Tech."
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Stewart and I agreed on one thing, however - since the essence of our being is what we think, and physical attributes are purely superficial, it makes more sense to define ourselves according to the way we think, rather than the way we look - and if that is true, then our preoccupation with race is an exercise in stupidity.
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LOOK AT WHAT OUR BABIES
BROUGHT HOME |
I really like that guy, and if it weren’t for Val we probably never would have met. And she’s brought so many other things into my life. I discovered my love for writing as a direct result of finding that I didn’t write well enough to answer the love letters she used to send me while I was in the Marine Corps; she encouraged me to go to college, and she also talked me into buying my first Commodore 64 Computer when personal computers first hit the market. So, while living with Val can indeed be challenging, I can’t imagine life without her.
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I could go on and on about this woman, but I’ve got to go now - it’s time for me to mount a campaign for dinner.
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"Oh, Sugar Lips!"
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"Sugar Lips my ass. Hit the microwave, Buddy!"
Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.
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