Back in the Trenches
Lake Barcroft 4th of July—photo by Larry Golfer © 2022
This week was totally weird—even Layla was confused to be taking her morning constitutional so early—where the hell were my dress shoes—and the belt—where was that? Is that razor still sharp? You just don’t know how much fussing one does just to look semi-professional at work.
A first day of work like I’d never experienced. When I first moved up from Miami, I found an apartment om Wiehle Avenue in Reston. The office I’ve joined is just down the road near the W&D bike path, so it seems I’ve come full circle.
As my next door neighbor, Neil exclaimed, “Are you crazy?” But I hadn’t decided on my own to retire, so coming back, while it’s requiring mental readjustments, doesn’t feel foreign.
But I’m getting ahead of myself as usual.
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The point of this blog is related—coming full circle while realizing life’s lessons are always at work. With that as an intro, I’d like to introduce a favorite writer, John Weiss.
“Empathy comes at a cost. It takes time, energy, and focus to care about other people. Listening and truly understanding the views and feelings of others may challenge your views and feelings. It can be uncomfortable, but it can also help you grow.” from Have You Strayed from This Important Human Quality? by John Weiss on his website
John is always timely. Civility on the Internet isn’t the world’s strong suit these days and the corruption has spread like an infection to where we hardly know how to behave in public. Maybe it’s just a passing phase, though if so, it’s taking too long to pass—a wicked bad kidney stone would pass faster.
There have been stories of fragmenting families, neighborhoods, even countries in times past, so nothing new, right? The long view may be to stay patient and keep calm. But I seriously doubt our presently missing empathy was difficult for John Weiss to take note of. And it worries me as much as it must Weiss.
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Shortly after Trump was elected in 2016, I had dinner with an architect—a friend of more years than neither shall admit to—I’d say he was Republican, but that comes with too many qualifications these days. If Lincoln was still leading them, I could be a party member. Al and I have been fellow travelers with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and at the time of this story we were in Richmond attending the annual Virginia AIA convention.
Previously while we both were serving on the AIA state board, we traveled to and from Metro Washington to Richmond. We’d meet up in a commuter lot in Fredericksburg with lots of time in the car to discuss business outside of the AIA, business ups and downs, “How’s this recession treating you—you’re doing OK?” “Some days.” and life in general, and came to know a bit about each other.
He loved to tease me about how long my house addition was taking to design. At the AIA board meetings, when important issues were raised, I listened to his take on the matters at hand. We weren’t always in synch with our views, but I can’t recall we were ever on opposite sides of the issues. Before I stepped off the Executive Committee, I conned him into serving as president, so I’d get a regular ride to Richmond.
Al never grandstanded, something I’ve always appreciated in a person. To this day, I have no idea how he views me, except when we disagree on our politics; we understand those are different. Take Rory Stewart and Alistair Campbell, who both dwell in the British political world. Stewart is a former Conservative member of Parliament and Campbell is a Labor chap who served in Tony Blair’s cabinet, and they get along, right? The key is they seem to respect each other with candor to spare.
But that November 2016 evening at dinner, Al was gleefully ribbing me about Trump’s election—the New York developer who was going to lower taxes, fix immigration and the economy—and I on the other hand was angry to have a clearly erratic braggart as president. I won’t claim that evening was so enjoyable, but we didn’t part ways over it. I couldn’t picture Al grabbing at women’s privates or designing a golden escalator—he has morals and far better design taste.
More recently since I began publishing, he’s called me to task for blogs he disagrees with—and has approved of others I’ve written. I suspect he’s parted ways with Trump, but he’s still conservative and I’m still not—even if I’m not the left-leaning anti-war activist I was in college.
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Back in ’68-69 at Clemson, I was an associate of SSOC protesting the Vietnam War. I recall a woman’s feminist conference held at Clemson, with the main speakers arriving from Columbia, the state capital that was bombed by Sherman. They still flew the Confederate battle flag over the Capital building in the 70s. Several related problems became apparent with that particular SSOC event, the doctrinaire debates, and a sense that ideology was at least as important as the moral issues—the war and racism. I stayed with the protests but dropped the association mainly because it seemed futile—and worse, I’ve always suspected ideology.
I read later that SSOC and SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) joined forces, then SDS dissolved into the Weather Underground, and the true extremists set out to firebomb ROTC buildings on various college campuses, some successfully.
I had done two years in ROTC, as all male students were required to do, Clemson being a former military college. I knew a few architecture students who signed up for the full ride, who knew they were heading to Vietnam when they graduated. These were not evil people, best I could tell. At the same time, Father Fisher, the Catholic chaplain, was arguing against the Vietnam War, and by this time I knew it was at the least the wrong war for the wrong reasons.
The lesson learned was twofold: one needs more empathy and less ideology. I know for a fact that John Weiss, the former chief of police for a small California town, will be rolling his eyes over my story, but that’s OK. Al has known me for much longer, so not much I can say would surprise him. I cut my hair a very long time ago.
Several years later at Yale, I helped Chad Floyd with his thesis project. Chad is a founding partner with Centerbrook Architects in the picturesque seaside village of Essex, CT). While working one night in the studio, he told me the story of his commanding a platoon of Marines during the Tet Offensive, and after the battle climbing over the dead Viet Cong bodies, men who’d attacked his platoon’s position in suicide waves. To this day, I pity Chad for the nightmares in the aftermath. And the children of those dead men.
Jimmy Carter wasn’t a too successful politician, even if his morals were first rate. Ronald Reagan had the golden tongue, I’ll grant, but his squashing the nascent environmental movement in the Federal government was a moral failure. Not that he was alone in ducking the issue; he had plenty of help from both parties. We fat ass Americans apparently want nothing to do with sacrifice and our politicians vote accordingly—too many of our ‘leaders’ shoot for the lowest common denominator.
I’m no more a saint than Al is, but we see each other in ways not all of my left-leaning friends understand. By refusing to give up on each other, in a small way I’d like to think we bridge this current divide. We were friends before Trump, and we continue to stay friends. I don’t need someone parroting my beliefs anymore than he does.
It’s his firm I’m going to work for—at least until Al figures me out.
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From my favorite podcast—my only one, to be precise—The Rest Is Politics with Rory Stewart & Alistair Campbell:
“On the 6th anniversary of Brexit, what are you doing to celebrate the occasion, Alistair?” quips the ex-Conservative PM.
“Well, I am reading the New European [newspaper] front page which lists all the Brexit benefits in full—it’s a blank white page, and then reading the six pages inside about all the things that have gone wrong.” from The Rest Is Politics
In answering a question from one of their listeners, Campbell reads the question in reference to a life in politics and Stewart answers:
“Is it possible to separate out the personal and the political?” Campbell sets him up.
“It’s—god—it depends whether you think someone is fundamentally decent. I think in the end if you can see the moral energy and force of them; I think you can separate it out, and if you can’t I think the politics becomes, and I think this is often the problem that I felt as a Conservative MP [member of Parliament[ when I was debating with the Left that often the people I was debating thought I was fundamentally evil—in that case you can’t do it.” from The Rest Is Politics
I’ve quoted Stewart’s ad-lib response verbatim, if it seems a bit scattered—but then he is a conservative. In fact, I admire them both.
I’ve never know a time where the term ‘popularism’—left and right—is as disparaged. The world is wrapped up in divisive politics. Get your base riled and get into power—legally or not. He who dies with the most ballots wins. If you have a driver you’ve made it. “I have no car and it’s breaking my heart/but I found a driver and that’s a start”—Lennon & McCartney.
Likely as not, even in the more genteel days, motivations were sometimes suspect, but it feels as if the exceptions today have become the rule.
Lake Barcroft 4th of July—photo by Larry Golfer © 2022
The 4th on the Lake
This year’s fireworks were great—so I’ve been told.
I was hunkered down in the house with Layla, who gets freaked out by loud bangs. Her stress began with thunderstorms, the violent ones with wild winds, and white strikes hitting the water, followed by—wait for it—the boom. These days when she hears fireworks miles away she looks like she’s about to head downstairs for cover. She also is known to crawl under my chair.
Myself, I like fireworks, the louder the better, but I like my Siberian friend even more, so we missed the show. D headed down the street with friends and enjoyed them, sniff, sniff.
The fireworks have been a Lake Barcroft tradition for decades.
Looking street-ward, I watched the car foot traffic heading to the beach down the street. Anyone with a view had their hands full with guests.
All day long boats were going back and forth framed by the living room window, but come dusk they began to move more purposefully west in a flow, even paddleboards and kayaks, all heading toward the beach where the fireworks were to be set off. It’s an annual ritual. Rituals are how we creatures like to congregate in large clusters for a shared event, it’s a mark of the species. The instinct can be surprisingly unexpected—like even in left-leaning communities.
Larry Golfer, the community’s photographer of record—famous for his shots of avian creatures—did an entire set of shots on the fireworks. I’ve included just a few, but the whole collection can be found on Lake Barcroft Fireworks '22
And Larry’s photos of the 4th of July parade: 4th of July Lake Barcroft Parade. The photographs could have been taken anywhere in Middle America instead of a place just miles from the nation’s capital. Perhaps those countrymen living in Kansas may appreciate we’re not so different here.