My mother, Gail, must have been reading a biography of Clarence Darrow in the summer of 1963. She told me about his 8-hour closing statement, which saved Leopold and Loeb from the death penalty. “You can save someone’s life by talking,” I thought, and decided to become a lawyer. I never changed my mind.

I refused LSD in high school, since I would need my brain cells for “law school,” which I didn’t know much about, but I knew it would be hard. I restrained myself from committing extravagant misdeeds, because I wanted to be a judge. That is, until I learned what the job required.

I’m glad I was able to help so many people with my efforts. Discrimination, wrongful termination, and family law affect people’s lives, relationships, and mental states. My philosophy was to empower my clients with every conversation.

The stress of working full time in the big city, necessary to pay the bills, finally persuaded me to cut loose. I was able to retire this year, which I know is not available to everyone. I still do some consulting, and read about new legislation, state and federal, looking beneath the surface to discern who is pushing it, who will benefit, and what the future effects might be.

I have no regrets about my 1963 decision, made instantly. Much like James Baldwin, I understand that 8-year old children may have heavy minds.

Homo disappointment occurs when it is widely reported that men such as Malcolm X, Will Smith and/or Duane Martin had any sexual contact with another man, at any age. It’s almost as bad as discovering Snoop Dogg is only giving up fire pit smoke.

The popular idea of a “real man” is strictly straight, virile, responsible, and decisive. He is part of the “father figure” that appeals to the need to feel taken care of and watched over as part of a family. No matter how many times these patriarchal figures fail us, too many people continue to long for such heroic, sanitized men.

Casual or consenting sexual conduct between men, even years ago, destroys the image of the father figure, and invokes prejudice which diminishes the character and intelligence of the man who has now been exposed. The social judgment is quick and detrimental. Others learn, once again, that covering up is essential.

The 1526 slave rebellion at Ayllon Colony, established by Spanish colonizers at the mouth of the Big Pee Dee River (now South Carolina), is often ignored, but it is part of U.S. history.

The self-emancipated Africans remained, while the colonizers left. Their descendants met Menendez in St. Augustine in 1565. Free Black men were the first non-indigenous residents of this country.

Enslaved African men were taken to Western Massachusetts in 1617 by Dutch colonizers, then abandoned. One survivor, Amircho, was found in Eastern Massachusetts in 1633. English colonizers did not arrive until 1620.

Jan Rodrigues, a Black man, became the first non-indigenous resident of Manhattan in 1613, long before the Dutch West India Company established the New Netherlands in 1624.

Remember these men, who were here first. The image of brave White people who established settlements, then brought in enslaved Africans, only continues centuries of ignorance.

“It was just a story of how the bitter cold gets into your bones and never leaves you, of how the memories get into your heart and never leave you alone, of the pain and bitterness of what happens to you when you’re small and have no defenses but still know evil when it happens, of secrets about evil you have no one to tell, of the life you live in secret, knowing your own pain and the pain of others but helpless to do anything …” Robert Goolrick, “A Reliable Wife” (2009)

Robert Goolrick was severely abused by his alcoholic parents and the families who produced them. He engaged in self-harm by cutting his skin, consuming alcohol and drugs, and mindless sex. Crimes have consequences.

Let’s remember the children who experienced early trauma, who split off to cope with abuse, and may not have made it back to the sane world, just yet.

The Montgomery Riverfront Brawl (August 5, 2023) is an All American story worthy of a full-length essay by James Baldwin.

I am deeply grateful to my fellow ‘Mericans for taking out their phones and recording! It is important to see events for ourselves, without editorials, spins, or downright lies.

Alabama is just one state of fifty. There is no basis, at all, for pretending any state in the Union could not see a similar event within its boundaries.

For once it is obvious that White people can be the instigators of unprovoked violence. Women not much smarter than the men. Is this what we envisioned when we sought to be equal?

I congratulate the fine citizens who stepped up (or swam up!) to help an innocent Black man simpy trying to do his job as co-captain of a boat lawfully entitled to dock as part of normal business operations.

Be an Angel. Not the alternative.

There is a pond at the condo complex which is designated as a duck sanctuary. It is common to see ducks around, often in the parking lots, which doesn’t seem to be very safe for them.

As spring slowly came on this year, I often saw a small female with her larger, male companion. She was limping. He would stand guard for her while she was in the bushes, looking for food.

One day I saw the two of them with a large, turquoise cockle-crested male, biting on the female’s neck. Then he climbed on top of her, while Mr. Guard stood right there, looking off in the distance. I started yelling at them, not understanding the biting was to show dominance, and female ducks select their mates. The three of them walked away, quacking in a distressed manner.

Last month I saw the female again, swimming in the chlorinated pool. No ducklings. She was too small this year, anyway. Now she is much larger, although still limping. I swam in the pool, keeping away from her. She got out, but then started drinking the pool water, which didn’t seem to be a good idea. Mr. Guard showed up, and they flew over to the creek.

I hope she has a good summer.

As I study more history, I am struck by how often books are written to glorify one group, at the expense of others. History is written by the victors, it is said, and many books certainly fit comfortably into this narrative.

As we move into the 21st century, this narrative feels tired and incomplete. I have a new approach to try out on the states of California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Utah. I have lived in four of them, and I have many ties to Washington State, including several visits.

These five states were stolen from indigenous tribes; held enslaved persons under color of law; experienced the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and hate groups; engaged in greedy capitalism which caused suffering to others; have enacted laws affecting the LGBTQ+ community; and they all have a lot of women.

I’m looking forward to a different approach, by myself, and others.

The Salt Lake County Library is using the term “waves of freedom” in observing Juneteenth. I appreciate this point of view, reaching from the most successful slave rebellion in the continental U.S. in 1526, to modern-day injustice which keeps many African-Americans in prison, under the belief that this is the best we can do (see the story of C.J. Rice, The Atlantic, November, 2022).

The desire to be free is innate in human beings. The African Slave Trade was created to provide labor to capitalist enterprises in Europe and the Americas, and its maintenance required much brutality, social and legal support, and death. Mental gymnastics used the extension of Christianity and the imposition of inferiority, sub- or non- humanity, on Africans, while protecting the security and superiority of Europeans.

June 19, 1865, was a midway point. Chattel slavery was still legal in California, New Jersey, and Kentucky. The fall of Reconstruction in 1877 brought neoslavery, supported by the Federal government and Nothern investors, to ensure a labor supply. The student-led civil rebellion of the 1950s changed the concentration-camp atmosphere of the South, and brought national attention to the relentless tactics used to maintain it.

The North has been slow to acknowledge its own profits from slavery and neo-slavery. Lynchings occurred nationwide, along with Klan activity. No state has been left untouched by issues of police brutality, income inequality, or the massive acquisition of assets by a small percentage of the population.

Freedom is precious, and always at risk of loss. We should never forget how easily we can fall back.

“Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” (1970) by Dee Brown, should be read by all residents of the U.S.A. I reside on land stolen from the Utes, Paiutes, Shoshone, and Goshutes tribes.

There has been a concerted effort by political conservatives to ban such books from schools, in a feeble attempt to protect their childen from the truth. Books which set forth and examine the true history of this nation are disturbing, because they do not support the Great American Myth of superior white people making something out of nothing with their own bare, brave hands.

Do not believe the myths, even those in your own family. I grew up believing I was part Potawatomie, but in fact I am the descendant of genociders in Southern Pennsylvania. My sixth great-grandfather, Hans Michel Walck, arrived in Philadelphia in 1732. He acquired legal title to 250 acres of land, for his farm. His son, Michael Wallack, was known as an “Indian hunter and fighter,” that is, a killer.

“Bury My Heart” is a history of the American West, but the same genocidal tactics were used in the East. The consequences of genocide, removal, taking children from their families, and erasure of indigenous culture, are depression, anxiety, dismay, isolation, heavy restrictions on daily life, and often, depths of poverty.

It does no good to deny well-established historical facts. Ignorance is not bliss. Efforts to deny reality will fail. Resist the Great American Myth.

Abigail was killed by Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and Sarah Livingston Jay in 1783, for trying to be free. Due to the immense gloss provided to her murderers, her story has always been suppressed.

But times have changed, at least a little bit. Abigail’s story was set forth in the New York Times yesterday, written by Martha S. Jones, from Paris. Jones took the time to follow up on the old story, to help us understand the lives of the enslaved and the enslavers.

Franklin and Jay were in France to obtain support and money for their own American Revolutionary War. When John Jay left for England to settle an inheritance in October, 1783, Abigail took the opportunity to run away, to the home of an English washerwoman who promised to pay her for her work, “taking only her clothes.” The Abigail letters can be found in Richard B. Morris’ “John Jay: The Winning of the Peace, Unpublished Papers 1780-1784” (1980). Morris had the integrity to include these letters, long before diversity was a common concept.

Franklin could have remained uninvolved; instead he sought to impress the lovely Sarah by putting her runaway maid in jail. Sarah could have requested Abigail’s freedom, as many white women did at one time or another, but instead took Franklin’s advice to leave her in jail. John Jay could have taken a different path, but instead acted just like a slaveowner and advised Sarah to take Franklin’s advice.

Abigail became very ill in jail, spent time at the infirmary, and finally asked to “come home.” She died of her illness a week later. The servants felt haunted, but Sarah simply laughed at them. John promised to find her another maid.

As Frederick Douglass has noted, slavery inevitably ruins the character of the enslaver. The Abigail letters are a strong example of this ruination.