Author Archives: gail chumbley

Steal This Letter

If you feel like contacting your Republican Senators copy and paste this one. Tweak it for your own state and issues.

Senator,

Donald Trump’s stubborn refusal to face the reality of his election loss is as dangerous an assault on our nation as 911, and much more damaging than Pearl Harbor.

This election fiasco flies in the face of American traditions. General Washington sacrificed much of his personal happiness to found our nation. As America’s first president, he placed our republic above any personal comfort, and Washington’s legacy bears that out. When his officers suggested he take the reins of power, the general declined and went home to Mt Vernon.

In 1860 Abraham Lincoln preserved what Washington had begun, our Union. And though it cost him his life, the United States was Lincoln’s primary concern.

Both men, a founding father, and the savior of the Union, counted their interests as secondary, because America mattered more than any one man. Now, through a series of events, that responsibility has fallen to you. The GOP majority in the Senate can end this assault on our heritage, and you can make that happen. 

Your forebears would be proud.

The Republican Party came into being on a noble, decent premise. It is the Party of Lincoln, not a lout from Queens.

*Please don’t patronize me with excuses.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

A Heady Moment

The night race kicked off “Roosevelt Field’s “National Air Pageant.” The event, chaired by First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, celebrated aviation and also raised funds for Mrs Roosevelt’s special charities. In addition, the Darkness Derby, competition, promoted “Night Flight” a new Metro Goldwyn Mayer film. The movie premiered at the Capitol Theater the following evening, and leading lady, Helen Hayes emceed the opening. And it was on the Capitol stage that Chum received his trophy from the actress. 

This 1933 Transcontinental Air Race/Darkness Derby/Air Pageant/Film Premier, combined to make the moment a heady one for 24-year-old Mont “Chum” Chumbley. Armed with new friends and clients, and other air enthusiasts from the City, a promising future in flight lay before him. 

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles available on Kindle.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

The Unforgivable Curse

Many of us have read JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books and/or watched the films. The author created a wondrous world of spells, incantations, and even included law and order via three unforgivable curses. 

There are guardrails in this tale, and a bit of a messiah storyline. Harry willingly sacrifices himself, as had his parents and many others before. However, the “Boy Who Lived,” does, and returns to fight and vanquish wickedness. 

Love, too, permeates the storyline, and the righteous power of good over evil. 

But that’s not my take.

As a career History educator I came to a different conclusion; Harry Potter told me that failing to understand our shared past can be lethal. And that was the metaphor I preached to my History students.

Harry rises to the threat and defends all that is good and valuable in his world. If he didn’t, Harry could have been killed and his world destroyed.

It’s so apropos at this moment in our history to grasp our collective story as Americans.

Honest differences within the confines of our beliefs is one thing. Obliterating the tenants of democracy is quite another. 

Americans cannot surrender our country to this would-be dictator, the things that have cost our people so dearly. Freezing soldiers at Valley Forge did not languish to enable DJT to trademark his brand to hotels, steaks or a failed university. The fallen at Gettysburg, and the suffering in Battle of the Bulge was not to pave the way for DJT to get us all killed from a ravaging plague. The girls who perished in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, the miners murdered in the Ludlow Massacre, or humiliated Civil Rights workers beaten at the Woolworth’s lunch counter was not for Donald Trump to validate racism and sexism and undo labor laws. 

He doesn’t know our nation’s history, and as George Santayana warned us, we are condemned to sacrifice all over again. 

Vote. 

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

A Break In The Cover

Chum, Derby Winner.

Cloud cover continued to dog the exhausted flyer. Though dawn light saturated the sky, visibility hadn’t improved. 

Whirring through the gauzy gray, he weighed his options. If the weather didn’t improve, he would navigate out over open ocean and look for a break in the misty gloom. This contingency plan set, Chum streamed eastward, nervously checking and rechecking his wristwatch. 

From the corner of his eye, he spied a shifting break in the cover, and Chum didn’t hesitate. He pushed the yoke and slipped through the sudden gap.

A panorama of chalk-gray spindles greeted him. Automobiles the size of insects, inched along among the spires.The Waco soared above the Manhattan skyline.

Exhilarated and exhausted, Chum beelined over the East River, and on to Roosevelt Field.

Thundering down landing strip number 1, Chum slowed his Waco to a full stop, tired but satisfied he had prevailed. 

But the race had not ended.

Officials rushed the tarmac, urgently shouting and waving. Concerned about the commotion, he reached to turn the throttle off, and that was when he heard a chorus of NO above the din. Frantic hands pointed in the direction to another landing strip. If he shut down the motor he would be disqualified. Without a word, Chum promptly taxied to landing strip number 2, then shut down his biplane.

He had won.

Seven planes had ascended into darkening California skies. Of the seven only three found their way to Roosevelt Field. Chum’s Waco cabin had journeyed above the sleeping nation in 24 hours and 26 minutes; two minutes added by his last minute dash across the field. His victory award-$1,500, enough to reimburse the stock broker, and pay off his airplane. Not bad for a young man struggling through the worst year of the Great Depression.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-pat memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles available on Kindle.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

New York’s Lindbergh

Glendale California, October 1933

Building his own charter service at Roosevelt Field, Mont Chumbley got right to work building a clientele. Though 1933 marked the low point of the Great Depression, photographers and reporters from the Associated Press, United Press International, continued to work, beating a path from Manhattan to hire his Waco. Adding student-pilots to his schedule, plus weekends barnstorming around the countryside, Chum made ends meet. 

Friendships with other aviation boosters included Amelia Earhart, Broadway producer Leland Haywood, wealthy philanthropist Harry Guggenheim, and his first sweetheart, pilot Frances Harrel Marsalis. In a later interview Chum referred to a long ago passenger, Katharine Hepburn, as a ‘nice girl.’ 

By Autumn of 1933 Chum unexpectedly found himself a contender in a transcontinental night race, though it hadn’t been his idea. A prominent client who held a seat on the New York Stock Exchange believed Chum was New York’s answer to Lindbergh, funding needed modifications to his Waco C, if only the young man would enter. Chum, weighing his chances. finally agreed. 

His biplane soon readied, Chum winged his way from Long Island to Glendale, California, flying much of the trip west by moonlight for practice. Resting in Los Angeles much of October 2, 1933, Chum was told he was seeded third for take off, and finally lifted his Waco into dusky eastern skies. 

At his first stop, taxiing across a dark air field in Albuquerque, a fueler informed him another plane had already been and gone. A bit panicked, sure he was lagging behind, the young flyer hustled into the night sky, opening the throttle full bore to catch up. Just before dawn, the lights of Wichita appeared, where the spent pilot learned he was, in fact, the first entrant to arrive. 

Weary as Chum felt, he couldn’t sleep. Keyed up by the excitement, he had to wait on those planes yet to arrive. And by late morning only two aircraft had cleared Albuquerque, a Monocoupe and a Stinson. 

This night derby narrowed to a three-man contest.

Awarded 2 hours and 10 minutes for his first place in Wichita, Chum coaxed his Waco upward against the lengthening shadows of a Kansas sky. Hours later, at his last checkpoint in Indianapolis, Chum pushed on for New York. 

However, the weather wasn’t cooperative. 

Through western Pennsylvania, the bi-plane’s windshield began to pierce thickening clouds. Growing anxious, he thought he might be off course, or even worse, lost. But luck remained his co-pilot, when he glimpsed a small break in the inky mist. A lone light flickered below in the blackness, and he slipped down through the pocket.

Executing a bumpy landing on a farm field, the young flyer stumbled through darkness and dirt, making his way toward the light pole, and a modest farmhouse. Urgently thumping on the door, Chum roused a farmer and his wife, breathlessly apologizing for his intrusion. 

Explaining his predicament the bewildered couple kindly let him in. As the wife perked coffee, and laid out food, the farmer got out his maps and showed Chum his location. With heartfelt thanks, he apologized once again, then returned to the night sky, righting his direction toward New York and hopes for victory.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles are available on Kindle.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

Mr Jefferson, Mr Hamilton

My daughter kissing Alexander Hamilton in the National Gallery, 2017

Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the Government itself go to pieces lest that one be violated? Even in such a case, would not the official oath be broken if the Government should be overthrown when it was believed that disregarding the single law would tend to preserve it? A. Lincoln, July 4th, 1861

The roots of the United States Constitution can be traced back to the sparkling salons of Paris and the intellectual circles of England. Termed the Age of Enlightenment, the era produced farsighted treatises and essays, that later influenced the principles of American law.  

One discussion pondered the character of humanity. By simply breathing air were all guaranteed fundamental rights? Was every person, by nature, competent to participate in the political process? In other words, if left unbridled, could citizens mutually ensure good order among themselves? 

Philosophers John Locke and Charles-Louis Montesquieu believed in that innate goodness. To their way of thinking, people, left in a state of nature, could be trusted, guided by enlightened self-interest. A limited central government best served in this model, trusting in individual virtue.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson nearly plagiarized Locke, justifying the causes for the break with Great Britain. The “Sage of Monticello” explained that Parliament had failed in protecting freeborn British Colonials, and argued that it was a duty to establish a better system that did.

Jefferson’s interpretation meant free landholders stretching across the vast continent required no political coercion. Government, in this scenario, left all persons in peace, limiting a federal system to foreign policy, tariffs and other national issues.

Jefferson’s political adversary, Alexander Hamilton held a starkly different view. Having come into the world without any standing, Hamilton rose in society by his own wits, and smarts. One had to earn the right to shape public policy. Hamilton championed a strong central government, endowed with enough power to found a stable nation-state. Economic authority, in particular, the power to tax, float bonds, and regulate tariffs was his prerequisite for lasting stability.  

In practice, by 1781, each state functioned as independent fiefdoms, loosely held together by the Articles of Confederation. Chaos abounded. The various states battled over countless rival interests. A failure to levy taxes especially crippled the nation’s ability to function. 

From Hamilton’s perspective the nation would collapse if nothing was done to curb mob rule. Violent acts flared throughout the fledgling nation. From credit to taxation, Hamilton understood, without a healthy economy philosophical differences were moot. So with real alarm Hamilton vented to a political foe, “your people, sir–your people is a great beast.” 

What good was victory at Yorktown if America failed to function? The British could bide their time and reoccupy when the country eventually collapsed. In fact, war heroes like Ethan Allen were reaching out to the British in Canada, to protect settlers in Vermont, and land promoters in the south opened similar talks with Spanish. 

Young Hamilton too,had borrowed liberally from Enlightened philosophers.The theories of Englishman, Thomas Hobbes especially persuaded the New Yorker that people required a strong central authority. Impetuous citizens and resisting states posed a far greater threat than any adversary.

When the Constitutional Convention finally adjourned in September, 1787, the product of their work, the US Constitution fused Hobbes, Locke, and other philosophers of the Enlightenment. A new creation like no other ever.

Jefferson, fresh from Paris, flipped out a bit reading the new framework. He argued that the document must remain limited, exercising narrow authority. Hamilton argued for a much broader reading, insisting that ‘implied powers’ made the Constitution flexible.

This difference established the first political parties: The Democratic-Republicans under Jefferson, and the Federalists under Hamilton.

 Americans still find a home somewhere between the beliefs of Mr Jefferson and Mr Hamilton. Except for the great beasts who overemphasize their 2nd Amendment rights to attack the halls of government, and wage war upon us all..

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles are on Kindle.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

Peer Review #4

Just My Imagination, Running Away With Me.

*Whitfield & Strong

The President fumed, crushing buttons on his cell phone, as if each tab detonated an explosion. On the big screen Wolf Blitzer, voice flat and controlled, droned on how the President continued to lag in the polls. 

“Fake news,” he muttered out of habit, and switched the channel.

Perched on the edge of an upholstered armchair, he clutched his remote in one hand, and his cellphone in the other, seething at the unfairness of the coverage.The broadcast cut to a political commercial; a carefully spliced montage of his public faux pas, ending with an endorsement from his adversary. 

“Ukraine,” he muttered, “Got to talk to Mitch and Kevin about a new Ukraine investigation.” 

“You cannot coerce them, you know.” The voice came from behind. “The people. They cannot all be manipulated, much as you might try. Most are not fools, and any goodwill must be earned.”

Not accustomed to direct insolence, the President twisted around in his chair snapping, “Just who the hell are . . .,” then trailed off. A tall, painfully angular man stood near a richly paneled door. Attired in a long black coat with tails, the visitor sported whiskers along his jawline.

“And they will never all love you. Ever. Such is the raucous nature of American democracy.”

The apparition paused a long moment. “Sowing divisions through fear and vitriol is not governing, and you shall surely fail.” The visitor stepped closer as he spoke, prompting the President to spring out of his chair, phone and remote forgotten on the carpet. 

“I recognize you . . .,” the President sputtered.

“We, all of us, sought this office fueled with purpose and ambition,” the visitor continued in a prairie twang. “However, once under oath, the campaign is over. A president faces the duty of serving all Americans, a challenge in the best of circumstances.

From the flickering screen a news anchor admonished, “Aides have confirmed that the President knew of the virus as early as February.” 

“It’s those hacks,” the President stabbed his finger accusingly at the big screen. The press is out to. . .”

His visitor laughed without humor. “Criticism of elected officials is as natural as the sun rising, and as perpetual. ‘Baboon’ was the nicest insult slung my way . . .by a serving general, no less. Then he up and ran against me in 1864.” The visitor chuckled lightly. “Still, the truth is we are all better with free speech than without. In our differing views we discover our deepest truths.”

By now the President began tuning out much of what the visitor was saying, his irritation making him bold. “You need to leave,” he snapped. “I have a busy schedule.” 

Unruffled, the unwelcome guest studied the President intently. “In my time an entire section of the nation disputed the results of my election.”

“You lost the popular vote, but won the Electoral?” The President couldn’t help but ask.

“Indeed. Eleven southern states chose the battlefield over a peaceful transfer of power.” 

“What did you do?” 

“I defended the Republic.”

His visitor continued sadly. “However the butcher’s bill for this unity came dearly; 700,000 American lives.” The visitor heaved a weary sigh. “And that delicate balance has endured through all national crises, preserved only through considerable effort and executive leadership. A unity you undermine at every opportunity. ” 

“Wrong, wrong, wrong. My supporters all love me. You should see the crowds at my rallies.”

“And the rest of America?” The visitor peered intently at the President. “Remember sir, we are friends, not enemies. We must not be enemies.” His voice quietly trailed off in an echo, and he was gone.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles are available on Kindle.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

The Play, “Clay”

This excerpt comes from my unpublished drama exploring the life of Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky. Unlike the current Senate majority leader from the Bluegrass State, Clay put our nation over the empty exercise of power.

SCENE TWO
The stage is dark. A painting of the White House on Andrew Jackson’s riotous inauguration day appears on the back curtain. The tune, “Turkey In The Hay” plays for a moment.

Clay speaks in the darkness.
CLAY
A mob dressed in homespun and broadcloth descended upon the Executive Mansion. Fighting, biting and kicking, rowdy supporters scuffled in the crush, jockeying to seize a glimpse of their man.


Clay produces a small stemmed glass, drops and crushes it underfoot.
CLAY
Delicate crystal crunched beneath rustic clogs and muddy brogans, while tributaries of hard liquor streamed over polished floors and carpets. Furniture buckled under the weight of gawkers, until the forlorn new President, nearly crushed, had to be secreted out a ground floor window. Desperate servants towed tubs of alcohol to the outside grounds and eventually cleared the residence.


Clay gestures toward the image.
CLAY
Behold, the majesty of people!


The painting and music fade.
CLAY
Home at Ashland, Lucretia and I beheld a residence in neglect and disrepair. Overgrown orchards, toppling fences, peeling white wash, collapsed wells. Our days were dedicated to mending, pruning, and scraping. Still, while I tended to my plantation, political allies faithfully kept me informed of developments in Washington City.


Clay settles in his chair, producing a corncob pipe, making ready to smoke.
CLAY
Scores of federal workers, preparing for the Jacksonian storm, quit their public offices to secure more certain employment elsewhere. This newly-minted President had warned Washington, announcing a policy he termed “rotation in office,” promising experienced employees they would be replaced. Jackson insisted that his action was a remedy to corruption and patronage. Then without a blush, he awarded those same jobs to his loyal allies. Loyalty, you see, is what he prized over all else, including honor and decency.


Clay scoffs, adjusting his pipe.
CLAY
The caliber of cabinet nominees proved unexceptional as well. Lackluster does not quite capture this collection of lackeys, particularly Roger Taney as Attorney General and John Eaton at War. But the official cabinet was of no consequence. If the President needed advice, a rare happenstance, he turned to personal cronies, his unofficial “Kitchen Cabinet.”

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles available on Kindle.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

Englishman’s Foot

Englishman’s Foot is a non-native plant introduced by English settlers to the New World. The plant sprouted from manure droppings from equally non-native cattle. It spread unabated throughout New England, and metaphorically named by the native people.

The story is a familiar one. Dissenters of the Church of England, disciples of reformer John Calvin, departed for Holland, washing their hands of what they viewed as English apostasy. After a time among the Dutch, these expatriates watched in horror as their children came of age in the secular world of the Continent. Alarmed, William Bradford and other Separatist leaders determined to leave Holland as well, to take their chances in the New World. 

Bradford, later explained this decision in On Plymouth Plantation, deciding it was better to lose their offspring to the tomahawk than to lose their mortal souls to God. 

You know the next part of this story. 

Pilgrims, The Mayflower, Plymouth Rock, Samoset, Squanto, Corn, Thanksgiving, shoe buckles, etc . .

But this story concerns those already inhabiting the New World, the indigenous peoples of America. In truth, white men had been poking around the shores of early America well before the Mayflower sailed. Explorers, trappers, and fishermen had already encountered native people, trading goods, microbes, cultural practices, and language. Some indigenous folk spoke a bit of English, or the French they had acquired from couriers du bois.

In 1621, the Pokanoket peoples of the Wampanoag Confederacy observed the arrival of the Pilgrims to Massachusetts Bay. Their sachem, or leader, Massasoit, made the decision to cautiously welcome these newcomers, rather than force them back into the sea.

Dispatching the English-speaking native, Samoset, Massasoit hoped to learn the intentions of these outsiders. His own people weakened especially by small pox, and perpetual warfare, influenced his decision to feel out an alliance with these gun-toting English settlers, in particular, against the Narragansett of nearby Rhode Island. Massasoit’s peaceful reception forged an uneasy pact that helped the Separatists survive their “starving time.”

After Massasoit’s death in 1661, followed soon by his eldest son, his second son, King Philip, became the new sachem of the Wampanoag.

Philip’s time witnessed a massive expansion of British New England. Ships from East Anglia seemed to appear daily on the horizon, emptying thousands of new settlers to the Bay Colony. Plymouth Separatists welcomed the influx of these new colonists. The Massachusetts Bay Colony soon pressed hard on native lands, and it wasn’t long until Philip’s tolerance for the English reached a breaking point. By 1675, King Philip determined to take the action his father had avoided-force the English off Native land.

It was a forlorn hope, and Philip ultimately met his end at the hands of a fellow-Wampanoag, an informer. The sachem’s corpse was mutilated, his torso drawn and quartered, and his head posted on a pike in Plymouth as a warning to all others. Philip’s head remained on that pike for decades. 

In the end, and it truly was the end, Philip’s wife and son were sold into slavery in the Caribbean.

Ironically the offspring lost were in fact Wampanoag, not English. And King Philip’s War set a bloody pattern repeated frequently in the colonial period and after.

Enjoy the turkey, but remember the cost paid by the vanquished.

Gail Chumbley is the author of “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight,” a two-part memoir. Both titles are available on Kindle. Chumbley additionally authored three stage plays: Clay regarding the life of statesman Henry Clay, Wolf By The Ears delving into American slavery, and Peer Review where 47 meets four previous presidents.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

En

Gratuitous Harms

“The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.” Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce

Hopefully a majority of Americans agree that the time has come to change administrations in Washington. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will usher in a presidency of competence and dignity. Howard University, where Harris did her undergraduate work, is proud of her selection as Joe Biden’s running mate, and Howard alumni are bursting with pride. This ticket is honestly historic.

Still . . .

I am troubled by the trumpeting of Senator Harris’ connection to Howard University as positive while other historic figures are dismissed for living their lives within the constraints of their time. Please don’t misunderstand. A number of “dead white guys,” from the past have it coming, committing gratuitous harms beyond the scope of humanity and justice. Slavery was and is such an abomination, but not America’s only sin. 

That is where General Oliver Otis Howard comes in. A Civil War general, a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and one-time president and namesake of Howard University.   

Born and bred in Maine, Oliver Otis Howard opposed slavery as did many Americans north of the Mason-Dixon Line. A West Point graduate, Howard entered the Civil War commanding a volunteer unit from his home state— leading his men from the First Bull Run, to Antietam, to Gettysburg, and on to Sherman’s March Through Georgia.

His work with aiding newly emancipated blacks after the war brought attention to Howard’s concern for civil rights, leading to Howard’s appointment as Commissioner of the Freedman’s Bureau, and later President of Howard University, a traditionally black institution.

However . . .

By 1874 this same General, O.O. Howard returned to the regular Army, where he was sent out West as the Commander of the Department of the Columbia. That was where General Howard who, in 1877, set out to vanquish the Nez Perce in what is today Central Idaho. 

The General doggedly pursued Chief Joseph and his 250 followers through what is now western Montana. Joseph succeeded in evading Howard and his forces for nearly eleven hundred miles, where the Nez Perce were finally stopped within 40 miles of freedom across the Canadian border. Exhausted, the Nez Perce were forced onto the reservation in Idaho. 

Following the Nez Perce episode Howard set out to apprehend the Bannock and Piute nations further south.

Why was this actively Christian man and abolitionist kind to newly freed blacks, and a killer of Natives? The answer is simple-Indians had land to confiscate, and freedmen had nothing. 

It is perilous to celebrate or reject historic figures outright for one facet of their lives. Not one of us can pass scrutiny based on the moment of our worst actions. While General Howard showed admirable humanity with one underclass of Americans, that behavior did not transfer to another.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles are available on Kindle.

gailchumbley@gmail.com