Author Archives: gail chumbley

1924

 

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The runaway stole from the house while the father slept. He had a long walk to the train station, praying the old man wouldn’t bother to track him. Reaching town about daylight, Mont pulled open a peeling wood door, while his eyes scanned the depot. An empty waiting room greeted him, save one boy sitting low on a far bench. Mont stared closer and recognized him as a friend from school.
“Marshall” he gasped, smiling as he approached his friend. The schoolmate startled at the sound of his name, and Mont understood.
“Sorry Marsh, I’m worried about being dragged back too.”
“Hey, Mont. Where you off to?” he asked warily.
“Going to sea, Marsh, going east” was his response.
Marshall replied, “I’m going the other way, headed west, get hired by a coal company in Jenkinjones, West Virginia. I’m gonna make some real money.”
Sitting down next to his pal, Mont suddenly began to rethink his own plans. “West, Marsh?” The lure of the sea tugged hard, but having a friend along, not going it alone felt more comforting. “Jenkinjones, huh? Never heard of the place.” The two boys sat silently, cautiously glancing at the station door each time it opened. “Think they might hire me?” Mont finally asked. His friend smiled in response. And the two boys bought tickets for a west bound train headed toward the distant mountains. Destination: the Pocahontas Fuel Company.
Stepping onto the rail platform Mont and his companion silently and soberly blinked at the foreign landscape. The sky appeared decidedly grey, dead. All the erstwhile green foliage sealed in powdery black. Deep gouging and scarring disrupted the terrain. Marshall hailed a defeated looking passerby asking for directions to the coal company office. Without a word in reply the dilapidated man simply gestured up a hill to a large grey wooden building crisscrossed with weathered wooden stairs.
“Sure they’ll take us on?” Mont, with a sudden case of nerves wondered.
“I, I think so. Back home some older fellas said these companies want kids. We can work in spaces grown men can’t reach,” his high voice trembled as well, exposing his fear.

Mont promptly found that the reports were all too true. Not only were boys’ ideal workers, they proved much easier to bully and underpay. On his first day deep in a tunnel of darkness Mont faced his first test.

Standing on a narrow crevice, a veteran miner worked busting up coke with his pick ax. “Webster, hey, over here!” hollered the foreman from the inky dark. As the miner twisted around, the butt of the handle struck Mont hard behind his left temple. The boy’s head exploded in pain as Webster raged profanities in his throbbing ear. Kneeling in the dark, huffing sooty air the boy questioned why he had come to this place. His ear bled for days after.

Mont’s body ached, his fingers bled, painfully stiff and blistered–his knuckles grated raw. Black caked around each nostril, his facial pores embedded with coal dust. Digging around his small suitcase late one night, Mont caught his reflection in the bag’s tiny mirror. “Oh!” he gasped at his reflection, “I look like the rest of them!” In the morning, frightened and distraught, the boy hunted down his only friend. “I don’t like this place. Marsh, they look right through us. The company doesn’t care who comes out or vanishes in those shafts.” Tears sprouted suddenly in his friend’s eyes, Marshall’s wordless answer.

The company used every means to undermine demanding, tiresome union labor. The boy couldn’t help but hear men in the tunnels grumble about the strong arm tactics management used. Pocahontas hired informers, framed labor leaders and evaded safety improvements. Another strategy was importing cheap immigrant workers. The desperate from Europe toiled for less and accepted the dangers without complaint.

“Damn scabs” muttered a burly old timer. “Bosses trying to undo us . . . bring in Dagos, Pollock’s and other riff raff getting our jobs.” “They’re dumb, too” groused another grimy worker. “You tell ‘em something and they just stare.” The boy listened, sympathizing with the outrage, despite how much he hated the coal mines.

Mont studied one new miner, an import from Poland as he made his way into the blackness. Only in the country a couple of weeks, the foreigner headed into the tunnel carrying a short steel girder over his shoulder to use as structure support deeper in. Overhead, a raw electric wire was strung the length of the tunnel that powered coal carts carrying coke to the surface. The Virginia teen watched with interest as that girder just kissed the unprotected power line, knocking the hapless victim flat onto his backside. Mont quietly chuckled, he couldn’t stop himself. Then all the humor vanished, all the bigotry evaporated when the immigrant, attempting to regain some dignity, stood and brandishing the steel beam, deliberately attacked the line and instantly electrocuted himself. Miners rushed from all directions and crowded around the dead man, mouth slack and eyes glazed, sightless.

In a moment of clarity Mont understood that there were worse places to live than in Pulaski and made up his mind to go back to Virginia.

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Happy New Year

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This is my second fall since retirement from the classroom, and though I am content with my decision to leave, I am feeling a little nostalgic.

From the portal of my computer I have watched teacher friends psych themselves up for their annual migration back to school. Pristine, empty classroom pics are gleefully posted online, arranged with care for the students to arrive. Posters are tacked up on the green cinder block walls, desks neatly arranged, and books organized on shelves. (By the way, the day before the kids came was the only time of the year that my room looked that orderly).

Believe me, the night before classes start feels electric. No “60 Minutes,” or “Sunday Night Football” can dampen the anticipation for the following morning–we are restless horses pushed into the gate. For the one and only time of the year, I actually would iron my clothes, set up the coffee on a timer, and review my plans for the morning. If I slept at all, it was only for a couple of crazy dream-filled hours. This was big stuff, life was starting over again, the possibilities seemed limitless.

I cannot speak for other departments, but mine was terrific. We all authentically liked and respected one another. And even better we laughed a lot. I think that is the part of starting up the new year that I miss the most. I weathered more seminars, speakers, and other “professional development” drudgery than I like to recall, but nothing ever restored my spirits quicker than a good laugh with my colleagues.

As I reminisce about school, I’m reminded that members of my department didn’t approach their teaching duties at all  the same way, but still effectively reached their students.

One colleague tried so hard to seem stern and exacting, really wanted to be seen as a disciplined guy. He demanded punctuality, meted out consequences according to the student handbook, but it was no use. The kids saw through his pretense, and many went out of their way to express their amusement with his charade. Kids waited for him at his door to harass him with shoulder bumps, jokes, razzing. They loved him and knew he felt likewise.

Another teacher was a completely different character. Meticulous to a fault, his classroom and teacher desk always in perfect order, his lesson plans exact and centered on the desktop. In the front of the room lay needed supplies, seating charts, sharpened pencils . . .the whole deal. And though it sounds like he ran a regimented show, his kids too, adored him, thriving in a well-planned and secure environment. Though they didn’t bounce him around, he wasn’t the type, the kids hollered greetings down the hall, waving excitedly to get his attention.

Then there was the guy next door. His style was just as different as any two sets of fingerprints. My neighbor maintained a strong boundary between himself and his students. His magic came through with his classroom instruction. Walking past his door revealed students busily delving into the subject matter through the medium of cardboard, music, duct tape and research for presentations. This teacher presided over a carefully managed laboratory, empowering students with his experiential style. Those kids learned self management.

I know that those outside education have a hard time understanding why we do it. We make so little, are so pushed around–by politicians, administrative dictates, and from parents rescuing their kids from one thing or another. In the end I believe we teach because we are determined optimists. We believe deeply in the rightness of our calling. We know that we can quietly do more good for our country than any other occupation. We model knowledge, compassion, fairness, enthusiasm, humor, and hope for the future.

We teach ourselves. Happy New Year.

 

 

The Sultan’s Tent

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Words, when used with purpose can trigger a powerful array of emotions. There are words such as “ruthless,” “cruel,” “tyrannical,” and countless other passionate terms. “Empire,” has become one such pejorative in the early Twenty First century, particularly when hyphened after the name American.

Empires reach back to the earliest of civilizations: Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Mayan, Inca, British, and on. The terms listed above certainly applied to the tactics of oppression used commonly by those powers. Still there isn’t much discussion of the legacy of the Ottoman Empire, (14th to the early 20th Centuries).

We are living today in the fallout of that once powerful Turkish Empire, and the west, for the most part, has no idea of this historical backdrop. And this is no study of the Ottomans, by any means, but it is a look at the consequences of that powerful empire’s ruthless, cruel, and tyrannical reign.

By the turn of the Twentieth Century the Sultan’s realm was waning, the borderlands began breaking free from centuries of aggressive persecution. So unstable was the region by 1914, Turkey became a known as, “The Sick Man of Europe.” Siding with the Central Powers in World War One, (1914-1918) the once powerful kingdom gambled all, and ultimately lost their lands to treaty makers at Versailles. The western victors quickly assumed authority over the fallen empire, and promptly commenced to dissect the region, dividing up the spoils of war.

Before the Great War had ended devastation visited the various populations within the failing empire. Armenians had been slaughtered, Kurds, Yazidi’s, Christians, Jews, and Muslims began to emerge from under the now-eclipsed reach of Turkish authority. Western nations swooped in, and attempted to organized this unruly disgruntled mix of contending ethnic communities. Oblivious European leaders divided up much of the former Turkish empire, and Syria, for example, was born and handed over to the French. Mesopotamia ended up batted back and forth in heated debates between the two major Colonial  powers; Mosul ending up in the hands of France, and Baghdad into the hands of the Brits. At the same time uncooperative tribal strong arms jealously guarded their newly liberated territories from the presumptuous Europeans.

Enter the oil business.

Discovered by intrepid Western engineers, places formerly ruled by the Ottoman’s were found rich in petroleum reserves. A new, more urgent need for order rose because the financial stakes were, oh so much greater. The British charged into the unruly breach, and aided by the French (who also desired oil), contrived a new nation. Placing a puppet leader on the throne, the nation of Iraq was born. Muslims–Shia and Sunni, Kurds, Christians, Jews, etc…now found themselves suddenly under a new boss, a new flag, and lots of western oil engineers.

Now, due to short sighted foreign policy makers in Washington, no central government actually exists in this fabricated country of Iraq. The lid is off, and the artificial ties that supposedly held the nation together have utterly vanished. Mesopotamia had been a seething, unstable area before World War One, before Versailles, before Saddam Hussein, and before George W. Bush. Still, a thorough look back in time, without the blinders of oil profits clouding the issue, might have saved us all from the consequences of falling into the morass left by the Ottomans.

A bitter, contentious mess endures where the Turks once ruled. Now, today, the world looks to the American-Empire, which so unceremoniously blundered into this preexisting turmoil to restore stability to the chaos created long ago under the “Sultan’s Tent.”

How Many Presidents Are You?

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A life can be measured in a variety of ways. Most customary are calendar years, but except for birthdays, Driver’s Licenses, Voting, Social Security, and Medicare that approach is hardly an increment that shapes all people. Haphazard events, personal, national, or global can chisel changes as permanent, and indelible as any wrinkle or gray hair.

In River of January my central characters celebrated long lives filled with extraordinary adventures. Montgomery “Chum” Chumbley came of age in an uncertain world of rural isolation. His was a harsh environment of feast or famine, drought or flood, butchering livestock for food, and cruel, sweaty labor. His life offered narrow and limited opportunities–still trapped in the unchanging mold of the 19th Century.

William Howard Taft presided over the White House the year Chum was born. There were no niceties like electricity or indoor plumbing in his world. In fact the White House itself had barely installed electricity, running water, or a shelter for automobiles. Yet, by the time of Chum’s death in 2006, George W. Bush had ordered spying satellites and drones over Iraq, and NASA’s Space Shuttle program was headed into retirement. The last years of his life, Chum used a computer to keep up with his friends, and along with his television, he was current on world affairs.

Taft to Bush, seventeen presidents. He lived seventeen presidents. I’ve only lived through eleven. My parents thirteen so far, and my  own kids, five.

How old are you in president years?

What I Heard

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Ken Burns has done it again–hit another historical piece of film over the wall. I’ve enjoyed Burns work for decades, beginning with “The Civil War,” through “Baseball,” to “Jazz.” He has consistently combined solid historical research with the subtle beauty of an artist. But in his new “Mark Twain” biography I made a discovery I once believed impossible. I watched the film without any historical analysis or comment.

For the first time since publishing “River of January,” I watched simply from a writer’s perspective. In the film, scholars discussed how Clemens didn’t find his unique American voice until well after “The Innocence Abroad,” and “The Prince and the Pauper” were published. Twain’s masterpiece, “Huckleberry Finn,” came after years of hesitation until that singular voice could no longer be kept tethered.  The author reached deeply from his childhood–a bigoted world of ignorance, poor grammar, and slang with a twang. He defaulted to what he knew best, his inner core and colorful life.

That resonated with me in my own struggle for voice. I have come to realize that a personal truth has to come off the page to remain in the manuscript. If the story line, or flow of dialog doesn’t resonate, it has to go. There must be a truth to tell. The obstruction of a badly worded sentence, or contrived  idea hangs uneasily in my psyche. I have to write what I know to be authentic. It’s a weird dynamic too, and takes concentration to pull off. I put myself in the scene–whether it’s a cockpit, or a dressing room. From that bit of time travel I can survey the setting, describing it both physically and emotionally. I understand the importance of familiarity.

In another tidbit from the documentary, Ken Burns examined Clemens daily writing regimen.

At his home in Hartford (I’ve been there, it’s so cool) Twain worked in an upstairs room, away from everyone, committing his tales to paper. Each evening Clemens gathered his family and friends to listen to  his day’s bounty. I found that intriguing–not as a historian, but as a writer. (Twain had many notables among his friends, President Ulysses Grant for one.)

Samuel Clemens made writing his day-job, and used his household as an audience. Something I find I am unable to follow. However, my ears were carefully adhering to that writing schedule revelation, contemplating his patterns.

I too, need quiet and solitude, but don’t produce the same way. My engine needs to rev up before any writing session. I think and think and think (like Winne the Pooh) then inspired fire up the old laptop. The historic record can spark my thought processes, and the Chumbley archives also can prompt a productive writing session. All in all, a “fits and starts” style best describes my method. Both “River of January” and the new one “Figure Eight,” have come to life through my haphazard style.

Mark Twain can stand alone as a historic figure, apart from his brilliance as a man of letters. He belonged to a political group known as the “Anti Imperialist League,” opposing unrestrained immigration, especially from China and the Philippines. He disapproved of  John D. Rockefeller and other greedy Robber Barons, making no friends among the elite. All that I all ready know, and taught for years. The astounding thing is I watched the program hearing only the literary journey of an American lion.

You Will Use It Every Day

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My computer was on the blink, and a friend came over to fix it. We are lucky to have such a friend because this guy is an IT guru as well as a great neighbor. While waiting for some data to load we got to talking about all the world’s problems, and the discussion moved to kids and education. He had just left a math position at an alternative high school, and I had just retired after a long career in the classroom. We found we agreed on many, many points.

In particular he became exasperated by the constant line, “I’ll never use this (Algebra) again. Why should I have to learn it? Now believe me, there was a time that I would have joined the complaining ranks, because math was not, and has never been my thing. Today however, I’ve changed my mind about the age old gripe, realizing it wasn’t about the subject matter. With new eyes I looked at my math-computer friend and replied, “You were simply trying to teach him how to think–how to problem solve.”

And that is the purpose of educating young people. To nurture cognitive growth, skills and insights in order to progress into purposeful adulthood. If we as teachers and parents don’t expect anything from our kids beyond showing up to class, staying awake, and complying with instructions, how can a young person stretch themselves and mature. If we expect nothing from our kids, that is what we’ll get. Nothing.

I spent half of my career, before retirement, teaching AP US History, and Sophomore Honors History. My teaching assignment began to change my philosophy of education almost at once. It no longer meant a chronology of facts, not that those aren’t vital. The facts were something like bricks, or lego, or whatever, and students were required to line those up and draw conclusions. Let me illustrate. In a simple compare/contrast question the kids had to examine the expansionist policies of Jefferson and James K. Polk.

First of all they pre-wrote every fact about both presidents in a T-square. Next they looked at those facts: Louisiana Purchase through a treaty with France, Lewis and Clark Expedition, War with Mexico, land acquisitions of the Mexican Cession, opening of California, etc . . . With all that unloading the kids should have been able to make some assumptions from the historic record. After some analysis they could make some observations regarding Jefferson’s diplomacy in his negotiated real estate deal, versus Polk’s blatant military aggression. Also they should have added a personal opinion in there somehow for analytic flair– both presidents wanted the same thing, land, but Jefferson’s approach was more peaceful or principled (or something like that).

Now that process takes discipline and tons of practice. And some kids simply wouldn’t push themselves, and their grades reflected that lack of  effort. Some parents balked, believing we teachers shouldn’t ask that much of their young ones. But most students truly grew after getting the hang of connecting these dots.

I was, in reality teaching the same thing as my friend, the Algebra teacher. We were both trying to show the kids how to process information and formulate conclusions. In a sense there are no “A’s” in this approach to education. How can one grade intellectual depth? Instead the aim was to foster a sense of self-agency and autonomy, skills useful in a democratic society and a purposeful life. If our young people can think, and teach their kids to think, the Republic is secure.

Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss

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There was a documentary years ago titled “Blood and Belonging.” It was an examination of primarily Eastern European ethnic groups, and the power of splinter nationalities. According to the film these groups, from Bosnians to Ukrainians hold their identities above any other affiliation–above any other allegiance. There was some discussion of group history, persecution, and twentieth century experiences from WWI to the present.

Now all of these people and their mini-revolutions appear virtuous on the surface, and members of these factions sound as justified as redneck Obama haters after their fourth beer. And there is no doubt that harms and war crimes have been committed against these same minorities. One only has to look to the Armenians during the First World War, or the Kurds under Saddam Hussein. In the recent past the Balkan Wars have provided the most harrowing of modern day slaughters, not to forget Rwanda or other such atrocities. Genocide carried out in the name of freedom fighting.

Here’s the problem. These numerous brush fires, these countless struggles are now prosecuted in a much smaller world. A world with heat-seeking missiles, smart bombs, and gulp . . . atomic weapons. Localized grievances can explode, literally, targeting disinterested victims who just happened to fly over a particular airspace. But to these subgroups on the ground, (because they are inherently good) violent ends more than justify the murderous means.

Somehow sectarian or religious splintering doesn’t appear too healthy for the rest of us. Suit wearing warlords, gang leaders, thugs, inflaming heavily armed followers simply puts the rest of us in more peril by insuring more violence.

President Wilson referred to such strong arm leadership as “criminal.” And I think I’m with Old Woodrow on this one.

Confessions Of An Aging Teenybopper

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Culling through pictures, playbills, luggage tags and every sort of memento in the Chumbley archive, I discovered some odd newspaper clippings. This small sheaf of articles stood out because they had no bearing on show business, airplanes, or any other achievement of my principle characters in “River of January”. The collection, clipped together was titled, “Love and Marriage.” “Love and Marriage?” Helen was a career girl, a professional! Yet she had carefully cut them out of the paper, and valued the advice enough to keep them for over seventy odd years.

Helen was, in reality, a romantic girl, a girl who dreamed of an ideal ‘happily ever after.’
Like me.
Yes, I am a closet romantic. Despite all the years spent teaching wars, treaties,and politics, I still hold on to my teenage heart.
The boy pictured in this essay is Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders. The band wasn’t my favorite by any means, but he was so cute. His smile on a show, “Where the Action Is,” cut me to the core. I was infatuated, as were most seventh grade girls in America.
My hair hung straight, fortunate at a time of when straight hair was the thing, wore A-line dresses called Tent dresses, and cute little round toed pumps with crazy designed stockings. Preferred lipstick came from Yardley, an English brand, or for us poor girls, Avon. The color was frosted white, or subtly pink.
And I liked boys. Boys were the ideal “them,” the unfathomable other, the male prepubescence sirens that dominated my thoughts, and permeated all conversations with my girlfriends.
Just the opening bar to the Beatles, “Night Before,” sent me into a tail spin. Paul wanted me to love him. Sigh. And the Young Rascals asked, “How Can I be Sure?” And that tore me up. My heart and mind was an explosive combination of fantasy, adrenaline, hormones, and electric guitar riffs.
It’s still a jumble in my mind, those long ago days. But I think that is somehow the right way to remember. There was a war, (in Vietnam), riots, (in Watts), and students rising up across college campuses with an unrest detectable in my seventh grade classroom.
Most of the upheaval I processed in terms of cute boys. There, I admit it. But that was certainly a long time ago, and today those glamorized notions have been replaced with a deeper understanding of the historic record, and a trail of broken relationships. And maturity.
It hasn’t been seventy years of saving the “Love and Marriage” columns, but young girls and romantic idealism remains a constant. Younger girls are more transparent, expressing their romantic enthusiasm, but we older girls haven’t forgotten.
Just check out my playlist on itunes.