Roger Barbee

By Roger Barbee

Reading Old Journals

Reading old journals can be an unsettling or a rich experience. Having thought of some of my journals from the mid-1990’s and later that I had shoved into a drawer of a file cabinet residing in a closet, I decided to pull them out and organize them in chronological order. I realized that I would need to read them, not too closely, but close enough to get the flavor of whatever day, month, and year in which I had written. I opened the first one remembering that Rick Bragg writes in All Over But the Shoutin’ “…dreaming backwards can carry a man through some dark rooms where the walls seem lined with razor blades.”

Reading the first journal that is over twenty years old opened a window to a life half-forgotten. Reading my thoughts of events and people in my then life, most entries surprised or pleased me and a few read as if they were of someone else’s life. Yet one entry was not about me but something I had thought enough of to copy into the journal without naming where I  had found it. Fortunately I had cited an author, whether correct or not.

A July 2000 entry read “Found this”, followed by what I had copied from somewhere– “Walker’s Decalogue by Howard Zahniser.” Like so many entries, I do not remember anything about this one and not knowing anything about Howard Zahniser I did a quick Internet search and read about his brief but impressive life as the primary author of the Wilderness Act which Congress passed in 1964. In his 2016 essay about Zahinser’s  achievements, Max Greenberg for the Wilderness Society paid tribute to him in these words, “He was just a dogged man who did the good, hard work of preserving our natural heritage for generations to come.”

However, what I was most interested in was the “Walker’s Decalogue.”  Regardless of its authorship, here is what I had written in my journal, and I am as awed by it now as I obviously had been when I copied it.                                                  

1.         Don’t pack your troubles in your rucksack

2.         Don’t grouse at the weather

3.         Don’t miss opportunities of friendship with man or beast

4.         Don’t walk half a yard in front of your companion

5.         Don’t overfeed your body

6.         Don’t starve your mind

7.         Don’t overwork your legs

8.         Don’t lose your temper if you lose your way

9.         Don’t leave anything behind you but a good impression

10.       Don’t take anything away but pleasant memories

I grant that a reader could argue that the decalogue is negative because of the Don’ts, or for subtraction or addition to the ten. However, I see the decalogue as positive because our lives are packed with journeys such as a trip to a grocery, or a drive to visit a friend, and any number of longer/shorter journeys whether we walk, ride, run, fly, or float.

After all, we all are sojourners in this life.

By Roger Barbee

Building Community One Water Meter at a Time

This week the man who maintains our lawn was trimming its edges as he always does before mowing. Nothing unusual about that except when I noticed him he was using his weed eater in an area just off the road and in the middle of our lawn. As if he were trimming around one of our beloved bushes, he carefully walked around the chosen spot to be certain that it was correctly trimmed. But there was nothing there—or so I thought. Seeing me he removed his ear protector, and I asked him what he was trimming. “Oh, it’s the water meter. They get so covered with grass that the town workers can’t find them and read them. I cleared it so the workers could do their job.”                         

Writing of plants reminds me of a corner in town that I frequently pass. It is dominated by a large, black walnut tree that shelters a house and its yard—both near a creek; the house’s grey stone foundation and tree date the house. During the fall, I am more aware of the tree’s presence and size because the street is covered with green husks of the tree’s fallen fruit. Passing that corner you will either step around the abundant husks or if driving hear a steady crunch as car tires crush them, leaving a dark brown mark on the asphalt.

The tree’s presence is an indicator of our area’s historical and pastoral setting nestled in the Shenandoah Valley with a rich agricultural presence. Because of our farming history, there are many walnut trees that remain still in many places and sometimes their presence clashes with modern sensibilities.

Some long-time residents tell me about their grandparents who planted walnut trees on their Valley land because the trees were a source for many needs. They provided nuts for food, dye for cloth, many parts of them, such as the bark, were sources for medicine, they could be tapped for a sap to make  honey, and gave shade for homes and buildings. They also were a source of a fine furniture wood and sheltered animals.  Yet unlike in those days, all of those products can be conveniently purchased today. No more of that intensive labor.  So what is left is for the walnut tree to be derided for its unsightly and even dangerous green hulls that litter current lands. Modern sensibility of ‘why bother when you can buy’ wins the day.

But I suggest that by choosing convenience we miss the opportunity of sharing and building community through a collective task. We miss the doing of a common good, whether the community is of family or neighborhood. We seem to have forgotten values that once served the Valley and all of us well.

While I have never gathered walnuts, I have picked blackberries. When a young boy our paternal grandmother, Alice, would tell us if we picked a quart or more of blackberries she would bake us a cobbler. So we greased our necks and wrists with hardened bacon grease to combat chiggers and looped a pail through our belts so we could use both hands to pick—a quart or more was a lot of berries for such small hands. Marching off to a selected “patch” of berries, we were a ragged army of grandchildren warned to watch for copperheads but determined to pick the berries required for a cobbler. Our slight hands navigated the drooping but prickly canes laden with lush berries as we picked and picked in the stifling August morning. We stomped canes so as to clear a path and scare away the copperheads. When we tired we would eat a few berries and eventually returned to her kitchen with our combined bounty of berries. After supper we shared the fruit of our combined labor-Maw-Maw Alice’s, ours, and the hurtful canes that drooped with delicious berries. We were a small community, but one that was building by sharing in a common cause. We enjoyed the berries, sugar, and dough; we later appreciated the lessons of virtue held in Maw-Maw’s baking dish.

The community of Greenville, Mississippi was also small in 1940. Separated from the river by a levee it had a population of about 15,000 and was the home of the Delta- Times Democrat, a newspaper published by Betty and Hodding Carter and financially supported by William Percy. They saw the paper as a building tool for community and used it for that purpose to improve Greenville.  At one point during their work to that end, Will Percy sent the following note to Hodding Carter when his National Guard Unit was placed on WW II active duty: “You can’t do anything on the grand scale. But when this [WW II] comes to an end, you can work again for your own people in your own town. It isn’t national leaders we need as much as men of good will in each of the little towns of America. So try to keep Greenville a decent place by being a correct citizen yourself. The total of all the Greenvilles will make the kind of country we want or don’t want.”

 Certainly when Percy wrote his note to Carter there were problems in Greenville, the America, and WW II was just beginning. Yet his note, I offer, contains good advice for Americans in 2025—be of good will to try and make “each of the little towns of America” decent places to live and in that way make our country a better place.

Which brings me back to our lawn-man and his meticulous trimming of grass around the water meter. He could have just cut close with the mower, but he wanted the town workers to clearly see the meter.

So go out and find a water meter like task, or a black walnut tree, or stand in your front yard to chat with a neighbor. Be a “correct citizen” and work, in your own way, “for your own people in your own town.”

Trim a water meter and build community.

By Roger Barbee

 Irises

On the Lake Norman road where we lived was a brick rambler with many outbuildings, a few derelict cars scattered about, and other items. It was a bit over-run to say the least. However, the first spring we were there I admired a long row of glorious irises near the road—peach, yellow, purple, and red-all of various shades- seemed to flag me down each time I drove past the overgrown yard. On one of our outings, I pointed them out to Mike.

Mike and I had been competitors during our high school wrestling careers. He was a year behind me, but for two years we faced each other. Strangely enough, when Mary Ann and I moved to Mooresville, where he lived, he and I re-united. Terri his wife was an agent for a beauty product that my wife used and during their first conversation their husband’s names emerged and when Terri told Mike about the conversation, he remembered me. The four of us met for lunch, and Mike and I began sharing a weekly time. Two old competitors who shared a great deal, such as growing up in different but small cotton mill towns.  However, we differed on religion and politics which led to lively discussions. I still remember him once looking at me during one such talk and asking, “Are you that naïve?”

Being a native of the area and an engineer for Duke Power, the company that built lake Norman, Mike was a source of knowledge of the lake and its area. We often drove through the vicinity as he shared history of the flooding of the Catawba River and the rise of not only the water, but the energy for which the lake was designed. Once we went to Troutman for him to show me where his father and he would fish next to a now flooded grist mill, and he told me that the Route 150  metal bridge that had spanned the river was still there, but just under about 100 feet of lake water. I once asked him what was most difficult in building the lake and he grinned, saying, “Getting it level.”

On one spring day, as we were passing the house with the irises, I asked him if he would help me out. I explained that I wanted to ask the owner  about the row of flowers, but my wheelchair made it impossible to approach the house. Without a pause he said, “Pull in.”

The curved drive led us past even more “stuff” than was visible from the road. The yard was jammed with discarded items giving it the look of a permanent yard sale. The carport of the 1960’s rambler had no car, but many other items-such as riding lawnmowers. However, as soon as I parked, Mike got out and walked to the door. An elderly woman wearing a housecoat answered his knock, heard his explanation about a man in a wheelchair, and gracefully walked down the brick steps to stand in a space of the carport to talk with the man in the wheelchair—me.

Mrs. Bumgardner and her husband had had a farm, but Duke Power claimed it through Eminent Domain to build the lake. Their farm had stretched to the now flooded Catawba River basin, and they had to move to the new brick rambler to make room for the lake in the early 1960’s . Her husband was deceased, but a granddaughter lived with her and helped manage things . She seemed delighted that I admired her irises and gave me permission to come back and remove a few for our garden “down the road.”

Before long, after the bloom, Mary Ann and I returned to remove a few irises. I most liked  the deep, almost black, purple ones and chose several of those, but also a few white/purple mixed ones and some pale, yellow ones. On his next visit Mike helped me plant them in a small bed beside our garden gate. They did well, and for many springs we enjoyed their brightness in the corner beside our garden gate.

But everything else changed while the little iris garden grew, spreading its glory in that corner.

Mike’s cancer returned. Years before he had battled prostate cancer, and now Terri and he travelled often to Durham for treatments. Yet, on each weekly visit with me he stoically shared his medical report as we continued our shared time. He always called before coming and would ask, “Want a coffee?” After arriving with my coffee and his soda, he would sit on my shop deck and talk about his family, especially his grandson’s approaching wedding. He would do small, but important things for me in the shop or yard—such as hang a bird box on a pine tree. He would also rake pine needles for mulching in his yard. Before long we stopped going to lunch because that took too much of our available time. We sat in the shop and talked because shared words became more important than food. I can’t remember his last visit to my shop, but I know that it was one like all our times before. No food but lots of nourishment.

I have read that the last sense we lose is our hearing. So the last time I saw Mike, who was then in hospice, he did not know I was there, but I held his hand and told him many things. I like to believe he heard me.

Not long afterwards we sold our Lake Norman house to return to the Shenandoah Valley. But I told the purchasers that I was taking a few of the irises.

Now, at the end of April 2026, there is a flush of dark, almost black, purple, and other colors gracing a spot near our back garden gate.

By Roger Barbee

Today’s morning ride was a cold one which is all-too common in many springs. The sun was just clearing the spit of Lake Norman we live by, and planes busily passed overhead on their way to Charlotte Douglas International Airport. The landing traffic here is steady, but not heavy, and I enjoy watching the massive machines seemingly float across our part of the world as they glide into the airport southwest of us. The planes come in from the east at about 1,000 feet and some bank for their landing and others directly approach it, but I enjoy watching them all, especially the larger international planes which, at first glance, appear not to be moving but hovering above in the golden hued morning light. While my view of the air traffic is a relaxed one, I’m sure the workers in the airports and control stations must be hard at work to keep up with all the coming and going. So much technology and human work is involved in accomplishing what I leisurely watch on many morning rides.

But the man-made flights are not the only ones this morning. Across the street is a flock of crows, their rich blackness almost too large for the landscape. They fly from pine top to pine top while telling each other some morning news. Lower to the ground are the robins who, after having established territory, busily build nests made of mud and pine needles which are almost perfect circles.  Behind me the resident mocking bird, named Atticus, announces its presence from the holly tree while the smaller Carolina wren challenges with its own high and melodious volume.

But my attention is held by the bird box attached to a tree directly in front of me. In the past nesting seasons it has been the home of titmice; however, this year its tenants are brown-headed nuthatches or bluebirds. I can’t decide which because there is a dispute going on over who has rights to the bird box. I watch as I ride and note that the small nuthatch seems to have the upper hand because one of the pair occupies the box-its small brown head protrudes from the entry hole and its mate calls from a near-by tree. But the usually timid bluebirds are not giving up and one of them flies from the roof of the box to a tree and back again to scold the brown-headed nuthatch in the box. It is a back and forth with much bird communication between each pair and harsher notes aimed at the opposing pair. I ride and watch. Eventually the bluebirds leave, the one nuthatch remains in the box, and the other glides over from its perch on the tree to take dominion over the box as it sits on the roof.

And while I have watched this dispute in nature, planes continued their approach for landing  at the airport over thirty miles from where I ride. Certainly the speed, the size, the noise, and more features of the planes overshadow those of the crow, the mockingbird, the nuthatch, the blue bird, and the other birds in every way.  The planes provide a service as does the lake I live on with its shoreline of 520 miles. It provides power for citizens of this state, and most civic leaders and other people extol the lakes economic benefits. In 1959 Duke Power began the damming of the Catawba River just northwest of Charlotte and the flooding began–all the way to the 760-elevation line when the lake is at full pond. All this and more for progress we are told, and some of that argument has merit, but not all.

The 42 pine trees in our front yard prohibit us from having a manicured lawn like our neighbors. More than once we have been advised that, if we removed the trees, we could have an overly sculpted, sprayed, and un-natural shade of green grass. That may be true, but we then would be trading the birds, the shade in summer’s hot western sun, the butterflies, and all the other abundant life that, along with us, call this spit of land home.

I have ridden in planes. I enjoy seeing the piece of Lake Norman we live by. But most of all, I cherish the life under, in, and by the pine trees. All 42.

By Roger Barbee

Pastor Clarence Jordan showed us how.

In November 1942 he and Martin England, a Baptist missionary to Burma, placed a $2,500 down payment on a run-down farm eight miles southwest of Americus, Georgia. They named the scarred and eroded acres Koinonia Farm and began living the Sermon on the Mount as they worked to turn their purchase into a place guided by Jesus’ message in Matthew 5-7.

As a doctoral student in Greek at Louisville Seminary, Jordan did not just read the words of Jesus, but he began to use them as his guide for living each day. It was his firm  belief in those words that guided him to begin Koinonia Farm as a place for justice and equality during the days of a world war, the Ku Klux Klan, Senator Joe McCarthy, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, civil rights struggles, and more. His world, like ours, was divided. However, he remained loyal to the best sermon ever spoken and withstood attacks by the KKK and harassment by the FBI and local churches. In fact, because he brought a black man to a Christmas Eve service at his own Baptist church, the church told him not to return.

Pastor Jordan lived the words of Matthew 5:44 that tell us to love our enemies and at Koinonia Farm he showed us that it is not only possible, but better for us, to follow the Sermon on the Mount.

Koinonia Farm still operates today, and many scrumptious food items may be ordered from its website. I recommend Clarence Jordan, Essential Writings, edited by Joyce Hollyday, (Orbis publication) as a good primer on this man who showed us how to live during difficult times.

By Roger Barbee

While the NCAA, NBA, MLB, and NHL have suspended all activities, the National Collegiate Wrestling Association held its tournament this past weekend in Allen, Texas. It seemed no matter that Dallas closed all recreation centers, libraries, and cultural centers; five UT Southwestern faculty were in quarantine after exposure to coronavirus; the mayor of Dallas banned gatherings of 500 or more people; Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared a “state of disaster”; and this is just to mention a few reactions to the coronavirus. “I think a lot of this is driven by fear,” the NCWA executive director, Jim Giunta, said Friday on why he didn’t cancel the event. “We’re going to do everything in our power to create an environment that’s more than safe for our athletes. But after we do everything we can do, we’re going to operate on faith rather than fear.”

The event, not sanctioned by the NCAA, hosted 84 colleges as varied as The Apprentice School and Richland College and had over 600 wrestlers. University of Texas at Arlington coach Collin Stoner said, “I think when we start to cancel these events, the actual athlete and the hard work kind of fades away from them,” and that for him the virus was “on the back burner”, and that he was really proud that the tournament was not cancelled.

The tournament director, Giunta said that precautions such as posted signs about best practices to prevent the virus were placed around the venue, and he went on to state that any wrestler with a temperature higher than 100.4 was disqualified. But perhaps the best argument for having the tournament came from Jesse Castro, the Liberty University coach. He pontificated, “From a philosophical perspective, do I think it’s [reaction to the coronavirus] overhyped? Yes, I do,… “You know the talking points. We’ve dealt with this kind of stuff before. … We’re vigilant and we use common sense, but I refuse to live in fear. I’m not gonna do that.” He went on to say that he believes, as does Jerry Falwell, Jr., that the virus was being used by Democrats to impeach the president. Castro had 19 wrestlers in the tournament.

Every college and university owes its students and athletes wise decisions concerning their welfare. The administrators and coaches who allowed their wrestlers to participate in the NCWA tournament have shown poor judgement and a high disregard for the well-being of their wrestlers. For someone like Coach Castro to say that we have dealt with “this kind of stuff before” demonstrates that he has no grasp of the danger in which he placed his wrestlers, his college, and himself.  I can only hope that none of the people involved become carriers or victims of this virus.

By Roger Barbee

Garden Enigma

Early evening and suddenly every bird at or near one of the three bird feeders in our back garden disappears. No bird song. Only the silent flutter of wings as the quiet before the storm passes, and the storm settles on a limb of a dogwood tree.

The resident Cooper’s Hawk perches, facing the house. Its roan-tinted chest plumage reflects late sunlight as the eyes study every piece of the small garden. Its flat crown reminds me, in a silly way, of the flat-top hair style some boys paraded during my youth. But this flat top half crowns two dark, piercing eyes that  search for a meal in our garden, the one where we feed its potential prey for our pleasure, not for its food.

The head moves from side to side and soon the body of death turns and faces the wider, back expanse of garden, perhaps hoping to find food in the larger area. But, when none presents itself, the grey-shoulder hungry one drops to the ground and peers into the thick, green foliage of the gardenia. One hop of grey death flushes a male cardinal that flies low to the ground before escaping to the safety of the rhododendron.

Unruffled, the Cooper’s Hawk takes dominion over our side garden and Doug’s large front yard by perching on the white fence dividing our properties. Unruffled, but obviously hungry, it sits there for some moments before gliding away to expand its search. Within moments of its departure, a fat squirrel appears on the ground below one of the dogwood trees, and birds return to the feeders.

The small, back garden returns to another cycle, one that is an enigma of sorts since we humans attract the birds and squirrels for our pleasure by feeding them, not to provide for the fearsome but beautiful Cooper’s Hawk.

            By Roger Barbee

Tucked in the driver’s door of my van is a small CD case. Most of the CD’s in it are commercially made, but a few were made by friends. Last week I removed one from the back  of the case that had written on it “Good ones” in the precise black ink penmanship of Connor, a deceased brother-in-law who had complied many CD’s for me before he died. After his funeral, I gave the ones I had to his  granddaughter, but this one had somehow remained with me, tucked away.

The note on it is correct: The jazz, soul, rock, and blues songs are by various artists and all are good. It is a soulful and restful gathering of vocals and instrumentals, but none of the songs or the musicians are identified. Yet, I put it in the slot and listened as I drove around on errands. The ninth song on the CD grabbed me: A rendition of Bob Dylan’s song from the 60’s, I Will Be Released. Driving about town I would push the repeat button each time the song finished, listening to the voice that I could not identify but liking the way the unknown woman had arranged the song of injustice. After about a week of driving and listening, I came into the modern world and typed the song title into the search engine of my computer. Mercy! This old dog finally found Nina Simone singing the version that Connor copied for the CD.

When you have 4:21 to spare, go to: https://youtu.be/w-du8MDE8nk and treat yourself. You will hear Simone’s  great voice and the fabulous musicians give life to Dylan’s song. But as much as I like the rendition, it is the first fifteen seconds that cause me to remember Connor.

Listening carefully, you will hear the musicians beginning, but something goes wrong and Simone says to them,  “Y’all pushin’, you’re pushin’ it, you’re pushin’ it!  Just relax, relax. You’re pushing it. It’ll go up by itself! Don’t put nothin’ in it unless ya feel it! Let’s do it again, please.”

Relax she says and it will go up by itself. While Simone is speaking about the cutting of  the song, her words carry way over into living. I like to think that she knew that, and I  know that Connor did. He lived that. He never pushed because he  knew that it would go up by itself. He was not indifferent or lazy. In fact, he was quite successful. But he enjoyed living. He loved people. Being around him was relaxing and fun and it required nothing but feeling life: The good living he modeled by feeling it.

What a chance for me on removing the gold CD from the back of the case. While Connor comes to me through the music on the CD, he especially does through cut number 9 and Simone’s charge not to push it, but to relax and feel it. It will go up by itself.

By Roger Barbee

For the past week I have been housebound because the heavy snow storm and its wind left a pile of snow on the back ramp, which I use to enter and exit our house. Over the past eight days of freezing temperatures the pile became a large ice mass. But my friend Shawn came yesterday and cut it into pieces that now jam an unused corner of our yard. This morning the sun shines on our back garden across a bright winter-blue sky, and when the warmth of day increases just a bit, I will venture out with Nick the beagle and ramble about the garden.

It may seem odd to think of warm weather when ice blocks occupy one part of my world, but I saw a reminder of it yesterday out a back window—a pair of doves sat together on a limb of the center dogwood tree before one mounted the other. It’s the middle of January, so I  don’t know for sure about their act, but it is a fresh reminder that, yes, the days are getting longer and warmer. But I remind myself that, no matter what the doves were doing, Shawn’s labor freed me from my housebound sentence, so Nick and I will shortly roam about our back garden.

Even in morning cold, the garden is busy with bird life. A blue bird inspects the entry hole of the birdbox on the center dogwood tree before realizing that the hole is too small, and a brown headed nuthatch moves about the tree trunk looking for day’s first offering. On a high branch a Carolina chickadee basks in morning’s sunlight filtering through the pine canopy.

However, my “play date” with Nick did not materialize because Mary Ann and I decided to get out of the house and go to a favorite flea market. We enjoyed the shared outing and returned in time to take a long walk with Nick on which he met and impressed some neighbors we did not know.

The day did not go as I had planned; but it proved to be an adventure of sorts and that is what matters at its end. That is one of the many sweet spots of life—there are the possibilities for the coming day and for tomorrow and for the next day and so on. After all, Mary Ann, Nick, and I shared parts of the day and we will tomorrow. It’s the way our days go since we were adopted by this beagle. And in the sharing is the joy.

By Roger Barbee

            In May 1968 I graduated from college with a degree in English. I went home that summer to work in Cannon Mills, Plant 1, but as soon as August came, and Uncle Grant sold me that two-toned green rambler, I headed to what I viewed as the “promised land” of the North, which for me was Washington, D.C. I remember on the long drive to my apartment in Maryland seeing a “Wallace for President” sign somewhere in N.C., and thinking, “No more of that.”

            During my college years I became good friends with William MacPherson, who had grown up in Arlington, Va. I visited his home and thus, D.C., over the four years of gaining an education. I came to think of the area as the “land of milk and honey” for such a fired-up, young radical as I. The time of my graduation was the time of George Wallace and “Clean” Gene, who were candidates for President. It was also the time of Dr. King, Jr.’s assassination and the subsequent riots. It was the time of protests. It was the time of Howard Zinn and nightly newscasts of battles in Vietnam, complete with the day’s body count. It was an exciting time to be twenty-one years old and beginning a teaching career in a rural county of Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

            Or so I thought until I recently ran across a reference to a man named Clarence Jordon. Jordon was a strong believer in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the fall of 1941 when he met a gentle missionary named Martin England who believed as he, they began dreaming of establishing Koinonia Farm as a way of countering the plight of farmers.  Life on Koinonia Farm would follow Scripture, especially the Sermon on the Mount. In 1942 they purchased a run-down farm southwest of Americus, Georgia, and the work to establish a community of all people began. But, the local population objected to the Koinonians eating together because some were white and some black, and just wages were paid to black workers which went against the rules of Jim Crow. Violence was not long in coming and until his death of a heart attack in 1969, Jordon peacefully followed the tenets of the Sermon on the Mount as angry whites burned down buildings of the farm, stole from it, destroyed its equipment, shot at its members, and local merchants refused to sell seeds and fertilizer to the farm. In describing the personalities warped by hate that tried to kill the farm, Jordon said, “We have too many enemies to leave them without hope.” I am indebted to Joyce Hollyday for some of this information.

Since reading the reference to Jordon and the Koinonia Farm, I have read his Cotton Patch Version of Luke and Acts, a brief sketch of his life by Joyce Hollyday, and have begun his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. I am captured by his faith, adherence to Scripture, and his legacy of Koinonia Farm. And I can’t help but go back to my years of college in the 1960’s and my mistaken belief that everything I desired was in a large, northern city.

A son of the South, I highly anticipated the time I could move to a world more suited to my beliefs—equality for men and women, peace, honest work, learning, in brief, everyone coming together to make the world better. I saw my dream in D.C. and went there. But, now, all these years later in 2018, I “discover” a man and a place that had everything I desired. Now, I am not fool enough to think that, going back these fifty years, everything would be peachy. Perhaps Jordon would not have appreciated me or my ways; maybe I not his. So be that. Yet, I am intrigued by my not seeing what was almost right in front of me and held all that my radical heart desired in 1968.