Roger Barbee

By Roger Barbee

            Robert Fitzgerald, the highly regarded translator of Homer, writes in his postscript of The Odyssey: “… It [The Odyssey] can no more be translated into English than rhododendron can be translated into dogwood. You must learn Greek if you want to experience Homer….” Not a reader of any foreign language, I am glad to have such a translator as Fitzgerald who admits that his craft is not sufficient to do justice to the original.  I recently encountered David Bentley Hart’s new translation of the New Testament which I enjoy and use. In our Sunday School, we are reading and studying The Forgotten Jesus by Robby Gallaty to better the Eastern Rabbi, Jesus.

            Reared as a Southern Baptist, I grew up reading or hearing the KJV translation of the Bible. As an adult I wandered– sometimes a Catholic, a Lutheran, a Brethren, and sometimes a none. Yet, as an English teacher, I read and sometimes taught stories from the KJV. No translation I read had its poetry and grace. We memorized the 23^rd Psalm and Lord’s Prayer and knew what the archaic words meant. And out of the KJV I held to certain beliefs, such as from Matthew 13:55: “Is not this [Jesus] the carpenter’s son?” Then last week I read in Gallaty this: “Read aloud Matthew 16:18; 21:24; and 1 Peter 2:4-5. If Jesus likely grew up working with stones as His father did, ….” I thought Gallaty had made a huge mistake or the printer did, but when I asked Pastor Steve about the passage, I learned that my understanding of Josephs’ craft was wrong and came to realize that I had been a lazy reader of Scripture who accepted Church tradition. As if to follow that experience, this past week in Wednesday night Bible study, Pastor Jerry taught about sheep and shepherd. Another enlightening followed by my friend Mike who directed me to my favorite commentator, William Barclay, and his view of Mark 6: 1-6.

            I faced my arrogance and re-read and listened. I discovered the various meanings of tekton. I learned about the relationship between a 1^st century shepherd {poimen) and his sheep, I felt like some of the disciples who asked Jesus to explain certain parables. For a brief and silly time, I felt as if I had been betrayed by my cherished KJV. But as I listened to my two Pastors, I came to realize that, just as I had told my students of literature, I had to be an active reader of my text and commentaries. I had to see the wisdom of Gallaty and his guidance into the life of an Eastern Rabbi during the 1^st Century.  It was then that I came to see Joseph and Jesus as craftsmen (Hart and Barclay’s word) or carpenters, or handymen and could grasp the idea of Jesus as a shepherd over His flock. Then I came to a deeper understanding of foundations and shepherds.

            And perhaps I will try to lean Greek. Then I will not be dependent on any translator.

By Roger Barbee

One advantage for me during the pandemic is that there is more time for reading. While it is true that I, as a retired person, did  not have the pressures of a job and young family before the pandemic, there was time for outside activities, such as church and meals in restaurants. The pandemic has caused those activities and others to be curtailed, so more reading has filled the slot.

One day this past week, I decided to re-read A Month in the Country, the delightful and powerful novel by J.L. Carr. The author states in the foreword that he was trying to write  “a rural idyll along the lines of Thomas Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree.” Carr accomplishes that and more in his story of Tom Birkin’s brief time in a remote Yorkshire village after the Great War as he restores a church painting depicting the apocalypse and his own re-healing seen through his eyes years hence.

In 2000 or so a fellow teacher recommended Carr’s short novel, and since then I have read it several times, given copies as gifts to fellow teachers and friends, and even owned a signed first edition. However, I gave that copy to my friend Druin who lives near Oxford, England. I had introduced Druin to Carr one summer while working in Pembroke College, and he is the one who pilfered my copy of The First Saturday in May, Carr’s nostalgic remembrance of a cricket match in 1936. Over the years, every time I mentioned First Saturday, Druin admitted his taking of the book while refusing to return it; so when my wife and I visited him and his family in 2010, I decided since he had one he might as well have the other, so I gave him my signed first edition of Month-one pilfered, one gifted.

Another friend that I shared Carr with was Joy, a lady and poet who I worked with at NCS for ten years. She was quite a literary person who enjoyed a strong poem, a well-crafted story, and chocolate. She was my best editor until her death, at age 90, in January 2020. (I often think that her death from heart failure was a foretelling of the dreadful year to follow.) Years ago I had introduced Joy and Druin via email and read many of their literary discussions with awe. One, a writer in Northwest DC and the other in Oxford, England, both sharing their delight in writers such as Carr and many more. Druin and I enjoyed Joy’s pleasure when she received, unannounced, a copy of Druin’s latest book, The Shape of Things to Come.

Now here I was removing the thin paperback from a bookshelf before I settled in to read a bit before the urge to nap took control. But I quickly became puzzled  by what I saw on the insider page when I opened the book,  However, the puzzlement soon evolved into a pleasing appreciation for life’s unannounced moments.  In the upper right-hand corner was a pasted label with Joy’s full name and address. A neat, diagonal line crossed through the label and below it in Joy’s neat hand was written: “From Roger B. 2/14/01” but below that line was written: “To Roger B. 9/23/15.” I had given her this copy of Month not long after I had “discovered” it, and she returned it for some reason fourteen years later. I flipped through the book and noticed pencil highlights that I had made during some reading but stuck between pages 22 and 23 was a bright colored piece of paper on which Joy had written these words from the novel: “And, at such a time, for a few of us there will always be a tugging at the heart, knowing a precious moment gone and we not there.”

I am writing this on Christmas Eve afternoon and wondering at how good literature and good friends intertwine in our lives. This past year, such a difficult one that has been full of toil and trouble and death, is also the one of Joy’s death. But the lines she copied onto that sheet of paper tell much about her and all of us. James, the brother of Jesus,  writes, “For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”

I did not nap, but instead placed Joy’s copy of Month beside my signed copy of Carr’s What Hetty Did in the class bookcase.. No longer will the small paperback sit on the shelf for reading copies.  Once in her last year, Joy told me that she was having too much fun living to die. That was all! No fear of death. No tugs of her heart.  Just a recognition and appreciation for life’s “precious moments.”

By Roger Barbee

Soon following our move to Lake Norman almost five years ago, my wife Mary Ann looked for a representative for a particular beauty product she used. Scanning a long list of saleswomen, she randomly chose one and called her. After their long conversation had finished, Mary Ann came to the library to tell me how pleasant Terri the saleswoman was and how much she looked forward to working with her. It was then that her phone rang, and Terri asked, “Did you say your husband’s name was Roger?”

In 1823 the English Romantic poet, Lord Byron, wrote his poem, Don Juan, in which he writes: “‘ Tis strange – but true; for truth is always strange; /Stranger than fiction; if it could be told,…” Over the years many other writers have expressed the same idea in various words, but no matter what version is written, all readers eventually learn the truth of Byron’s words.

There it was for me: Strange but True;  Life not Fiction.  The husband of Terri and I had wrestled against each other in high school. Mike wrestled for Mooresville High School, and I for A.L. Brown in Kannapolis. We competed in the same weight class for two years over fifty years ago and now we meet again, just not on a wrestling mat.

We four had the obligatory lunch to meet and talk and explore. Mike and I then continued sharing lunches, coffee in my shop, and he guided me around our new home, Lake Norman, which he knew well because his career was with the power company that built the Lake.  We soon discovered that we had much in common.: Both of our hometowns had been textile towns when we were wrestling against each other; our parents had worked in the mills; we lived in mill houses, and both of those houses are still family occupied. So much, besides wrestling, shared.

Each week he would call and ask, “Want a coffee?” then in a few minutes he would appear with a soda for himself and the promised coffee for me. Each weekly visit found Mike helping me with some project in the yard or my shop. He is most responsible for the deck that expanded my small shop– giving me much needed work space. A trained engineer, he made certain it was correct and safe. Exact, even. He would rake the abundant pine needles fallen from the 42 pine trees in our yard to use for mulch in his gardens.  Our weekly visit often included lunch, and when we ate at his favorite fast-food eatery, he would pull a rash of coupons from a pocket before paying and say, “A poor man spends money like he is rich, but a rich man spends it like he is poor.”  Then as we ate, some finer points of theology or politics would be discussed. I will always remember how he once looked at me during one of these “discussions” and asked, “Are you that naïve?”

When I work with a project on the deck that Mike more or less built or move in my wheelchair around the yard gleaning pine cones, I see his presence. The bluebird nesting-box with the red roof still graces the pine tree where he fastened it after I “mentioned” to him how it needed to be there. When I admired a long row of irises in a neighbor’s yard, I asked Mike one day as we returned from a road trip to knock on the unreachable (for my wheelchair) door to inquire if I could have some. The kind, elderly lady must of approved of Mike because she gave me permission to take any irises I wanted, and now next to the back garden gate is a small, varied-colored growth of purple irises that Mike and I planted; and, like our friendship, it grows and thickens and blooms.

Both our lives, like all lives, have had their dips and twists and failures and mountaintops. But for two boys from the mill hills of small, textile towns, we have been blessed and have done well. And as I share life with Mike long after our competitive days, I appreciate more and more the odd, interesting, and fulfilling paths that we all travel, whether planned or not. Mary Ann and I moved to Lake Norman not knowing that the “Stranger than fiction” of Byron would happen, and that a friendship would be forged out of a time long ago when two scrappy, mill-hill boys competed against each other. Byron also writes that “…truth is always strange.”  He’s right, of course, but not always in the way it may appear. It’s not strange that Mike and I respected each other as wrestlers. Nor is it strange that there is something deeper now.

By Roger Barbee

(This is a book review by Roger. This is a topic that needs our prayer.)

The Face of Addiction: Stories of Loss and Recovery

Joshua Lawson

Quoir,  $7.95 softcover

A dozen voices from southern Ohio along the Ohio River reveal the humanity behind addiction. These dozen daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, and others speak honestly to Joshua Lawson. In their sharing, they show that they are not to be shunned, but to be loved and valued because what they have is an illness, a disease like any other.

As a culture, we too often agree with a sheriff’s words that the only cure for an addict is “a tall tree and a short rope.” In making the users of the “opioid crisis” invisible faces, we make them enemies and losers and worse. But they are, as shown in these interviews, victims of sexual abuse, parental mistreatment, emotional trauma, and other ills. Being addicted to any drug, we learn over and over from these interviews, is not a choice but a result.

Lawson brief book is a testament to St. Paul’s words in Romans 7:19 and because of those words, we need to love the addict and help each of the many of them in our midst realize that they, too, are a child of God. Blaming is not a cure, but validating is.

By Roger Barbee

Morning rides on my stationary handcycle have led to many friendships.  On one of those rides just after our move here four years ago, a man walked up and asked me, “How much of that [the riding on the handcycle] do you do?” As another friend says about our chance encounter, “A beautiful way it happened.”

Mr. John Davidson lives near us,  and after his four years of naval service during the Korean War,  he taught math in Statesville High School.  Once when I inquired if he had taught algebra or geometry or calculus, he responded, “No, math! You know, like six times six equals thirty-six.” Math! A discipline too often ignored in today’s educational world. His wife also taught, and they moved to the lake in the early 1980’s  and reared three children. Their home and yard reflects the disciplined order of his appreciation for math. While not stuffy or overly ordered, the yard, home, and outbuildings reflect attention to detail, such as the many stones carefully placed around trees, plantings, and the driveway. All is ordered but not rigid. You know! Six times six.

Mr. John, as I know him, recently sold his last sailboat. He first sailed on a Japanese lake while on R&R during the Korean War. His joy of sailing grew from that brief experience, and he was, until recently, an active sailor on Lake Norman. However, that great equalizer–age– made it necessary to sell his last sailboat, but his passion for the simple beauty of sailing still lives, and he is fond of telling stories of his sailing adventures. During one of my morning rides he walked by and upon meeting Ken, another neighbor who moved here from Rhode Island, he discovered their shared love for boating and that they had boated on the same New England lakes. The chatter that morning around the stationary bike was more than I could compete with, so I listened and enjoyed their talk.

While age has curbed his sailing, Mr. John’s age has not affected his operation of the ham radio, and each morning, very early, he is busy talking with his many friends across the globe. More than once he has tried to get me involved in this hobby by joyfully sharing the fun he gains from it. But that is what Mr. John does: He shares the joy he has gained from life.

So many events and encounters in life happen by chance. And as I age, I realize more and more how often we come to understand that whatever happens by chance is often a “beautiful thing.” At the moment whatever “it” was probably did not appear special, but as “it”  moved with that great equalizer time, the beauty of “it” blossomed like a Christmas cactus that we can hold dear and, like young Mary, ponder in our hearts.

So, Mr. John, on your 92 birthday, know that I hold your friendship, wisdom, and keen sense of humor close. Your walking by that morning years ago did happen in a beautiful way.

By Roger Barbee

He was one of the many young Americans who was part of the planned invasion force of Japan in 1945. Because of the fierce defenses shown by the Japanese on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the  United States military leaders rightly anticipated a similar defense of the Japanese homeland. The young American soldiers assembled for the invading force stoically faced death. One of those young soldiers on the Liberty ships sailing across the Pacific Ocean, Mr. Graham, was all of 20 years old.

Mr. Graham and I met at a local restaurant shortly after  my wife and I moved to Mooresville. We had gone exploring for a good restaurant and found one that we liked. We had a good meal, and as I passed his table at which he was sharing dinner with his daughter, he reached out and asked me had I served in the military. Had I been in Vietnam? When I told him no, he apologized for bothering me, but explained that my wheelchair had caused him to think that I was perhaps a veteran. My wife continued her walk to our car, but I was struck by his manners and grace, so I stayed in the isle chatting with the dignified gentleman as his patient daughter looked on. Before I left to join my wife, we discovered that he lived at the end of our road. With that “sign” our friendship was born.

Because of his age, Mr. Graham has moved into an assisted living complex. But each week his caregiver Marilyn drives him to his house at the end of our road to check on it,  and he always stops to see me. If I am not outside in the yard or shop, he calls to inquire of my health and location. He never stays long, but his visits are packed with news, street chatter, and complaints of my religion and politics, all in good humor but loaded with a bit of salt. Over the four years during such visits, Mr. Graham and I have shared much. I know about his oil business here in Mooresville, how much he paid for his house in the early 1980’s, his religious beliefs, his four sons and one daughter, how he wishes he had been a better reader, and more. When he first told me about his wife of seventy years, Louise, a moist longing came to his eyes, and he grew silent after telling me her name. But my friendship with this 96-year-old man is also held close because he is one of the many, unnamed heroes of our country.

Mr. Graham, regretfully not a reader, probably has never heard of Wiglaf or the poem in which he demonstrates characteristics shared with Mr. Graham and his generation. In the epic poem Beowulf, the great king of that name grows old, and his kingdom is threatened by a fierce, fire-breathing dragon. He and his followers enter the lair of the dragon, but no longer the warrior he was, Beowulf suffers a mortal wound. All but one of his followers flee the lair, but Wiglaf remains to fight by his king’s side, and he slays the beast as Beowulf dies.

Because of President Truman, Mr. Graham and the other young men would not have to invade Japan. But all the other soldiers on Liberty ships along with him, willed themselves to do what was being asked.  They were prepared to invade Japan, but as is written in Beowulf, “Fate goes as Fate must” and they were spared that peril.

At an age in 1945 that today causes parents to worry if a child drives on an interstate, Mr. Graham and his generation walked into the lair of the enemy, just as did Wiglaf. Not because they wanted to, but because duty to a cause larger than they demanded it.

By Roger Barbee

The back garden pulsates with animal and plant life this colorful, fall morning: Doves bob across the ground beneath birdfeeders eating fallen seeds, some bluebirds and brown-headed nuthatches take deep drinks from a birdbath, and the cold-tolerant pansies turn to face day’s first sunburst, but the gate to the garden no longer needs to be fully closed, the “poopy bags” are no longer needed, and the screen door to the porch no longer will be scratched by an impatient paw, the abelia bush will no longer shake as it is used as a backscratcher, no longer will a set of inquiring eyes ask when the next treat will be given, the wicker chair in the library no longer will need to be kept empty in case a nap becomes necessary, no longer will the broom or vacuum be barked at as it is cleaning a floor or rug, and Mary Ann’s “brown dog coat” will no longer be needed on cold, winter nights, no longer will a beagle stand on my footrest for me to scratch her ears, and no longer will the click-click of toenails announce her walking to the kitchen to investigate what’s for supper. Callie, our 15-year-old beagle, died in Mary Ann’s lap this morning after Dr. Shivers administered the shots. Her grand heart finally failed her, and one lung filled with fluid; so like many loved animals, she was gently “put to sleep.”

Callie was Mary Ann’s first dog. She was rescued with her two brothers when they, mere puppies, were found in the middle of a busy street.  She was given to Mary Ann, but eventually, Nolan the abandoned hound and Mickey, one of Callie’s brothers, came to us. That’s quite a pack for a woman who never had had a dog before Callie– who came first and left last. But over the 15 years of life with Callie and her mates, Mary Ann discovered the joy of life with dogs. Especially hounds.

Fifteen years shared with a beagle carries many memories. As a young dog she sat under one of the hackberry trees of our Shenandoah Valley farm peering into its branches for the squirrel she had chased, and neither rain, darkness, pleads from her owners could convince her to end her vigil. Always playful, and Mary Ann and I still laugh at the memory of her pulling a ear of Nolan with her teeth in an attempt to get him to run and play. She loved company and two weeks ago she ran circles in our garden when Judy and Mike came for dinner-we like to think that was her way of being polite and welcoming. An open car door could only mean one thing and unlike other dogs, she looked out the windshield in anticipation of an adventure or things to see, no head of hers would hang out a side window seeing what was past. During her last ride to the vets, she perked up for that memory moment when she realized where she was, but her sweet head too soon drooped back onto Mary Ann’s lap. When we moved to Lake Norman four- and one-half years ago, the hounds rode with me. Of course, she sat in the passenger seat, the alert surveyor of all that was coming. While Nolan and Mickey always obeyed her commands, she never found the courage to remove any cat from her chair or bed. This past summer when we extended our garden fence, she enjoyed walking on the sidewalk to the end, sometimes looking back over her shoulder as if to clarify that her walk was permissible.

All of this and more. But physical failure demanded that our sweet Callie go. As sad as that is, we are a better couple for having shared fifteen years of life with her. Now, two days after her death, the back garden holds its abundance of life, but there is no little beagle who will walk along the sidewalk to survey the newly expanded space while glancing over her shoulder.  And the gate need not be fully closed.

By Roger Barbee

Had I not changed my mind, I would have missed it. However, because I decided to take my coffee onto the screened porch instead of going into the library and turning on my computer, I witnessed the regular recurrence that is all the same, yet different.

Light had yet to penetrate the porch or any thing else. I could make out shadows, and I saw our four cats already lounging in baskets and favorite spots on the porch floor. The abelia bush was full of blooms and bees, which I could hear but not see. Male crickets called for mates from the pine needle mulch and way off a small boat engine revealed someone likely going to a favorite fishing hole before day broke. A dove cooed from a neighbor’s thicket of pine trees while a solitary crow called its mates from our trees near the lake. Off, over the  spit of Lake Norman we call home, the first distinct sunlight lit the darkness. Waiting for the sun to clear the horizon of Stutts Road, I drank the last of my coffee and knew that I had made the right, but fortunate, decision. After all, the computer could only offer me what I already knew-the news, a few emails, or WordPerfect.

The low clouds turned colors and began to look like a horizontal rainbow, I head more birds join the dove and crow, and I could distinguish the bees from the blossoms. A cat moved and stretched in its basket. A car rumbled down our road, carrying someone to work. The day was here, and I witnessed its birth.

Enjoy it, compliments of God!

By Roger Barbee

What Air’s in Your Tires

Because we paraplegics use our arms and shoulders to propel our manual wheelchairs, the condition of our shoulders is especially important. It matters not how large our biceps may grow, if our shoulders suffer injury, we will be forced to use a battery powered chair or have someone push us anywhere we wish to go. In case the reader is not aware, battery powered chairs are expensive, and having someone push us to wherever we desire to go is not practical. Thus, when I recently developed a constant, stabbing pain in my left shoulder I was concerned.

I did what I think most folks do when a physical pain comes on—I took an inventory. I curtailed my riding of the stationary handcycle by riding less days each week and clocking less miles. I also made my workouts less strenuous. When that did not change the intensity and frequency of the pain, I strove to decrease the  amount of hard pushing of my wheelchair that I had to do. Even though our house is built on a slab, and our lot is mostly flat, I was cautious about the  ramp leading to our back porch and the ramp to my shop. I concentrated more on how I pushed my wheelchair in order to not stress my shoulders, especially the left one. Finally, the ache’s frequency and intensity did not change,  In a fashion, I just quit and, taking the convenient way out of my problem, decided that after twenty years in a wheelchair my shoulders were finally giving out from being used for what they were not designed to do.

Not long after that pathetic conclusion, I noticed that the air pressure of my wheelchair tires seemed low. While in my shop later that day, I pumped each tire to the recommended ninety pounds of pressure and went on about my business. Now, I am no Archimedes, but within a few days I noticed the pain in my left shoulder had lessened. I began my old riding regime and felt no sudden twinges when I went up the two ramps that I must use every day. While I never shouted, “Eureka”, I was, as they say, one happy camper. And paraplegic.

The 2010 van that I drive, like all contemporary vehicles, has an abundance of notifications that appear on the displays or even on a cellphone. Mine has this silly, yellow logo that appears on the speedometer’s lower left-hand corner if the pressure in any tire becomes too low. It is just one more example of, to paraphrase the slogan of one early pioneering scientific company, “Better living through….” In this case, through computers. But my wheelchair is manual and has no computer or intelligent operator it seems. Because of low tire pressure, my wheelchair required more force to move it, requiring more work from my shoulders, especially the left one. Gads, after twenty years of using a wheelchair, wouldn’t you think that I would know to check tire pressure?

My first wheelchair was black and had hard rubber tires. It took little time to realize that, while the tires would never go flat, the hard tires caused discomfort, and I despised the black. Quickly, I purchased a purple wheelchair with pneumatic tires–the color was cool and the ride comfortable. But a wheelchair is, after all, a machine and like any machine it must be maintained. But the air of the tires is so common, not complex like other parts. Air! It’s all around us and free. All life on earth depends on it, even in so simple of an invention as the  pneumatic tire.

A quick Google search reveals that the pneumatic tire was patented in the United States by Robert W. Thompson, a Scottish inventor, in 1847. (In 1849 he patented the fountain pen.) His “aerial wheels” were a hollow leather tire enclosing a rubberized fabric tube filled with air. However, because the price of rubber was so high, his inventor languished for over fifty years until a new way of manufacturing rubber lowered its price.

But never mind. The point is that because of such a simple cause, my shoulders suffered, and that sharp pain could have developed into something much more serious. And I think that our  lives are so much like the lack of  adequate air in my tires. We all need air in so many ways for our lives, but what air fills our souls? What air supports our dreams? What air refreshes our spirits? Our lives are made better when we believe in something larger than ourselves, and for me that is God. He is the air that I breathe. He is the air that keeps me afloat. He is the air that soothes my pains. He is the air that cools my burnings. He is the air in the tires of my wheelchair that allows me to push and roll easily as I traverse life.

By Roger Barbee

The cultural war is full of blather concerning how our schools teach history. In Texas, a heated discussion is on-going about a book’s treatment of one of that state’s icons, The Alamo. I remember watching the Walt Disney movie version of that battle and its heroes and villains but know now how wrong Disney’s telling was. But I remain curious about the process of our learning history whether in the classroom or during independent reading or watching a movie.

For instance, I am reading a memoir by President Carter. I am reading it because I liked the man when he was President, and, because I grew up in a small town, the sub-title of the book attracted me: “Memories of a Rural Boyhood.” The title, An Hour Before Daylight, offered me much to learn about a young boy’s life in rural Georgia during the early 20^th Century. Now, I accept that because it is his memoir, President Carter is entitled to his memory and his purpose for the book as he writes in the dedication: “To my newest grandson, Hugo, with hopes that this book might someday let him better comprehend the lives of his ancestors.” I, too, hope the book gives Hugo a window into the lives of his grandpa and other ancestors; it has certainly taught me. It has also raised questions concerning President Carter’s interpretations of events during his early life, and thus how we learn history or what we are told is historical by writers.

On page 149, President Carter writes: “ I also knew about some of the serious crimes that were committed in our region. One tragic and horrible measure of poverty in those days was the lynchings that occurred, at least partially because of growing competition even for the least desirable jobs, which in the past had been saved for black workers. As the Depression deepened, an Atlanta organization adopted the slogan ‘No Jobs for Niggers [sic]Until Every White Man Has A Job.’ The number of lynchings in America quadrupled in 1933 over the previous year, and remained equally high during the hard time that followed.”

This explanation of lynchings comes from a Naval Academy graduate who also served one term as President of the United States, so what could be wrong? Well, Carter is correct when he writes of lynchings as “tragic and horrible.” He also is correct in that the lynchings of Blacks quadrupled in 1933 as compared to 1932. But is he correct when he credits the lynching of Black citizens “partially” to the Depression and its hard times?  Hardly.

Lynchings were not a “horrible measure of poverty in those days”  as President Carter writes. Every study of every lynching shows that the “tragic and horrible” act took place when the hate filled injustice of a white majority avenged any real or perceived violation of the Jim Crow code. Any minority could be lynched, but the violence was mostly reserved for Blacks as a way of striking fear in the local population. I don’t know why President Carter writes of the history of lynching as he does, but on that page his memory collides with historical fact, and he is wrong in his interpretation of history in this example and one more that I will mention,

“Worse Than Slavery” (Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice)  is the story of the feared prison farm in Mississippi by David Oshinsky. In his well-documented book, Oshinsky shows us an American gulag that allowed prisoners to be “hired out” to wealthy landowners to work on their plantations.  Parchman Farm would not have differed much from the chain gangs in Georgia that Carter writes of with the convicts, mostly Blacks, dressed in their horizontally stripped shirts and pants. He describes the chains used to tether the men together and he shares how he and his buddies romanticized the lives of the men they saw on the chain gangs. However, on page 61 he writes: “Georgia law permitted the chain gangs to be contracted out to private employers, so they helped with road construction, railroad maintenance, and other such jobs.” Oshinsky details the same system used in Mississippi and it is one of harsh treatment to any convict “hired out” to a private contractor. What Carter gives us is a romantic view of life on a chain gang much like that when he was young, and  I doubt that any prisoner brutalized under such a system would view his labors as helping with public works improvement.

I don’t know why President Carter would write such historically wrong interpretations. Yet he has, and that fact is dangerous because he is a respected person and his word, like the word of many well-known people, is revered. Years ago, when the brand-new alternator my mechanic friend Larry had just installed in my Jeep failed, he explained it this way:” It was made by people, and any people made thing can fail.” So can people’s view of history.