Frank is Emptiness

September 26th, 2024

We got home from church just before noon. As I pulled up to the driveway, I noticed that something was missing in the front yard. I couldn’t immediately think of what it was, and then it hit me,

“The yard sign is gone.”

Once we got out of the car, I walked to the front yard and looked around. It rained hard earlier in the day, and I thought that maybe the wind had caught hold of the sign, even though I had the stakes buried pretty deep in the ground. Nope, it wasn’t lying in the ditch, and I didn’t see it anywhere along the street. I concluded that somebody with an opposing political viewpoint decided to remove it.

I told my wife and my daughter that the sign was gone. My daughter asked me eagerly,

“Do you want me to order another one?”

“Uh yeah, sure.”

“How about a flag too?”

“Sure.”

A couple minutes later, she said, “The flag will be here tomorrow. You could put it on the door or hang it on the house above the garage door.”

“Let me think about it.”

I called the police to report the theft. I knew that they probably couldn’t do anything for me, but I couldn’t let it slide either.

The cop showed up a few minutes later. It was Sunday afternoon during a Packer game, so he probably wasn’t very busy. He asked what happened.

I replied, “I had a yard sign in front of the house and now I don’t.”

“Somebody stole it?”

“Yeah.”

“When did you last see it?”

“It was there when I went to bed last night, but it was gone when I came home from church this morning.”

“What kind of sign was it? Biden/Harris?”

“No, Biden isn’t running anymore. It was Harris/Walz.”

The officer nodded, “Yeah. you’re right. How much did you pay for it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe seventeen dollars. It’s not much to report.”

The policeman said, “A theft is a theft. Anything else you can tell me?”

“Not really.”

“Do have a camera on your house?”

“No, sorry.”

“Do you have any issues or conflicts with your neighbors?”

“Oddly enough, no I don’t.”

“If we catch the guy, do just want your sign back, or do you want him arrested?”

I chuckled. “I don’t think you’ll find the guy. If you do, you don’t need to arrest him. Just put the fear of God in the guy.”

“Got it.”

I told him, “The main reason I am reporting this is because whoever stole the sign probably is stealing other signs. I’m probably not the only person missing a sign.”

The cop nodded. “Here’s my card. This is the case number. If you need to do so, call my number and mention the case number.”

The officer left. I thought to myself,

“This is so chickenshit.”

What kind of person sneaks into somebody’s yard to take a political yard sign? It’s just totally gutless. This is what a coward would do.

This is democracy in America in 2024.

New improved sign

September 25th, 2024

Asher likes monster trucks. I think most little boys like them. Asher has several model trucks. He has the “Gravedigger” and the “Northern Nightmare”. He loves to take them to the playground. He rolls them down the slide and looks to see if they land in an upright position. He will do that over and over. He can only launch them down the slide when there aren’t many other kids around, because they want to actually slide down the slide. Asher and I tend to go to Kayla’s Place early in the morning. It’s less crowded and he has more time opportunity to toss his monster truck from up high.

Yesterday, there was another little boy at the playground. He too had a monster truck. He looked to be Asher’s age, maybe three or four years old. Asher saw him and wanted to play with the boy, and probably his truck. The boy’s father encouraged his son to play with Asher. Asher waited expectantly for the little guy to do that. The young man had no interest in playing with Asher. He turned away from him, and despite his father’s urgings, refused to have anything to do with Asher.

The dad got irritated by his boy’s behavior. He told,

“If you won’t play with the other boy, then we will just go home.”

His son refused to interact with Asher, so the dad said,

“Okay. We’re going home.”

The little guy didn’t like that, but his father picked him up and headed to the parking lot.

Asher stood there and watched his potential playmate get carried off. Asher looked utterly defeated.

He asked me, “Where did the boy go?”

I answered him, “He and his daddy went home.”

“What will I do?”

“There is another little boy here. You could play with him.”

“I don’t want to play with another boy. I want to play with that boy.”

He started crying quietly.

Then he asked me, “What can I do?”

I felt a twinge in my heart. Maybe it was from a half-remembered event like this one. Maybe it was because of something I felt at some playground six decades ago when some other little boy refused to play with me. I felt empathy for Asher. He wanted to play with a particular person, and that person for reasons unknown rejected him. There was no explanation for it. Asher did not understand why the other boy wouldn’t play with him. I didn’t understand it either.

I was sitting on a bench. Asher came up to me and dried his tears on my t-shirt. He looked up at me and asked,

“What can I do?”

“Do you want to go to the library for story time?”

He perked up. “Yeah.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

“You have to carry me to the car.”

“Why do I have to carry you? Are you a lazy butt?”

Asher smiled and said, “Yeah. Carry me.”

I did.

September 18th, 2024

Hallelujah (/ˌhæləˈluːjə/ HAL-ə-LOO-yə; Biblical Hebrew: הַלְלוּ־יָהּ‎, romanized: hallū-Yāh, Modern Hebrew: הַלְּלוּ־יָהּ‎, romanized: halləlū-Yāh, lit. ‘praise Yah‘) is an interjection from the Hebrew language, used as an expression of gratitude to God. – from Wikipedia

Jeff Buckley only recorded one album, Grace. One of the songs on the album was written and originally sung by Leonard Cohen. The song is titled Hallelujah, and it has been covered by other artists besides Buckley. However, Buckley’s version is, at least for me, by far the most poignant.

Buckley uses only his guitar and his voice for the song. That’s enough, more than enough. The austere arrangement creates an intense mood that draws in the listener. He starts quietly and then suddenly his voice grows strong. This happens again and again with each verse.

Buckley begins by singing about King David, a warrior king who composed the psalms:

“Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor falls, the major lifts
The baffled king composing Hallelujah”

“Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah”

Buckley pauses briefly and then sings again about David. He sings about David’s love for Bathsheba, the wife of his general, Uriah. David committed adultery with her and then had Uriah killed in battle. David’s love almost destroyed him and all that he had built.

“Your faith was strong, but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah”

“Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah”

Buckley changes Cohen’s lyrics at this point to make a more personal statement.

“Baby, I’ve been here before
I’ve seen this room, and I’ve walked this floor

You know, I used to live alone before I knew you
And I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
And Love is not a victory march”

“It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah”

To me, Buckley is saying that love, be it his love or that of a king, is a terrible thing. It’s a reason to grieve and yet still a reason to praise God. He goes on:

“Well, there was a time when you let me know
What’s really going on below
But now you never show that to me, do you?
But remember, when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath, we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah”

Buckley is remembering something about love. It is glorious, and it is also in the past. He sings the last verse with pain in his voice.

“Maybe there’s a God above
But, all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you?
And it’s not a cry, that you hear at night
It’s not somebody, who’s seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah”

Buckley has a voice that is full of both joy and anguish. I understand what he means by “It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah”.

When I listened to this last verse, I remembered the times I have been wounded by life. I remembered when my eldest son told me that he killed a man in Iraq. I remembered when my grandson’s father abandoned his little boy and left us to raise him. I remember when our youngest son sobbed as he talked about his wife leaving him.

I looked at my hands and imagined holding my beating heart in them. I knew that all my tears would never wash the blood away.

All I could say was, “Hallelujah”, a cold and broken hallelujah.

Buckley sings the word over and over, until he fades out.

“Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah”

September 13th, 2024

Cudahy is strange town. It’s by no means a bad place to live, but it has seen better days. The city was founded by Patrick Cudahy back at the end of the 1800’s when he started his meat packing plant there. The meat packing plant still exists, although “Patrick Cudahy” meats got bought out by Smithfield several years ago. The plant still cranks out tons of bacon and sausage. Animal carcasses go in and lunch meats come out.

Cudahy was a classic industrial town. When I was young, it was not unusual for a kid fresh out of high school to get a good paying job at a factory in Cudahy. Manufacturing made the city prosperous. Besides Patrick Cudahy, there was Ladish on Packard Avenue. The factory there still covers several city blocks along the west side of that road. At one time the factory had the largest forge hammer on earth. They made all sorts of metal parts, some of them enormous in size. The environment in the factory was incredibly loud and hearing loss was common at Ladish. Across the street from Ladish were (and are) rows of taverns. There is an old joke about three guys coming out of the factory at the end of their shift:

One guy says, “It sure is windy today!”

Second guy, “It’s not Wednesday. It’s Thursday!”

Third guy, “I’m thirsty too! Let’s go to the bar!”

That kind of sums up life in Cudahy decades ago. Men busted their asses in factories in probably unsafe conditions. At the end of a long shift, they went directly across the street to their favorite watering hole and held down a bar stool for a while. They earned enough to own a ranch house or a bungalow in town. They raised their kids, loved their wives, and eventually got a full pension.

It’s different now. Many of those manufacturing jobs are gone and they aren’t coming back, no matter what the politicians say. Manufacturing may come back in some form, but the jobs won’t be the kind where a man or woman can have a middle-class lifestyle. As it is now, Cudahy has a number of half-empty strip malls. The neighborhoods are still nice, and the park on the lakefront is beautiful, but the money isn’t in town anymore. Even some of the bars are closed. In this part of the world, if a tavern can’t make a profit, things are rough.

There are some interesting startups in Cudahy. One of them is Twisted Plants. It’s a vegan BBQ joint within shouting distance of the meat packing plant. The restaurant is a hole in the wall operation. There is a tiny dining area, but I have never seen anyone actually eat there. Their money is made in take-out food. The walls of Twisted Plants are plastered with posters from stoner movies. Most of the items on their menu have names from these films: “Pineapple Express” and “Up in Smoke” for example. It is idiosyncratic that a vegan burger shop that extolls the joys of weed exists in Cudahy. Also, almost all the people working there are Black. That too is odd for Cudahy.

A friend of mine turned me on to Twisted Plants several years ago. My friend is an Orthodox Jew who maintains a strict kosher diet. This means that for him dining out or getting take-out food is problematic. He has found that eating vegetarian meals helps him to simplify the kosher diet enormously. So, a vegan BBQ place is perfect for him. He loves the food.

There is a lot to love at Twisted Plants. Their food rocks. Seriously. The waffle fries are to die for. I’m a big fan of their burger, “Up in Smoke”. It has grilled onions, smoky plant-based bacon, BBQ sauce, pickles, twisted smokehouse sauce, lettuce, tomato, plant-based patty, American cheese (plant-based), and onion rings on it. The sweet, tangy aroma of the sauce is overpowering. It’s sloppy eating. The bun barely holds in the contents. I usually wind up using a fork and knife before I’m done with burger.

A few months ago, I went to get take-out from Twisted Plants. My wife is not a meat-eater, so she loves the “Pineapple Express” burger. I generally call in the order early. I don’t go there too often because the prices are not cheap. However, you get what you pay for. When I got to Twisted Plants, the food wasn’t quite ready. I struck up a conversation with the guy at the counter. I told him how much we loved the food. Then I told him about how my wife and I are raising our toddler grandson. He listened. Then he grabbed a plastic card from behind the counter and ran it through the register. He told me,

“Bring this with you the next time you come in.”

I didn’t ask him what the card was for. I thought that maybe it was a card they used to keep track of your purchases, and that after you buy a certain number of burgers, you get one free. I put it into my wallet and forgot about it.

Until yesterday.

I went to Twisted Plants yesterday afternoon to pick up an order. I dug out the card the guy had given to me, and I showed it to the young woman behind the counter. I said,

“I got this here the last time I came in. I don’t know what it does, if anything.”

She looked at it and said, “It looks like a gift card. How much do you have left on it?”

“I have no idea.”

She ran it through the register, and she used it to pay for about half of the order. I paid the rest with my debit card.

She handed me the paper bag full of warm, tangy goodness. I walked out and thought about the guy who gave me the card. Why did he give me a gift card? He didn’t know me, and I don’t know him. He just decided for reasons of his own to do me a solid.

God bless him and Twisted Plants.

September 10th, 2024

It was Asher’s first parade. He’s almost four years old, and this was his initial experience with marchers and banners and floats. I am not a big fan of parades. My time in the Army cured me of any interest in that sort of thing. However, it was the Labor Day parade, and our youngest son, Stefan, was going to march along with comrades in the Ironworker Union. Stefan is Asher’s godfather, and he wants to help raise us the lad. Stefan sees the boy as a budding Ironworker, eager to cheat death up the steel beams. Asher adores his strong uncle, and so we decided to let Asher see what Stefan does and who his friends are.

We got there early and found a place to stand on Chicago Street, near the endpoint of the parade route. The police were blocking off the side streets with some occasional difficulty. A cop who was positioning orange barrels got into a heated conversation with the driver of a minivan who thought he could sneak through the barrier. The officer was livid,

“Don’t you see these barrels?! I don’t care where you want to go! Turn yourself around and go back! TURN AROUND!”

Finally, Chicago Street was cleared out for at least a mile or two. Then the motorcycle cops revved up their bikes and roared up and down their newly opened straightaway. They were having a blast. The police have a union, so this was their celebration too.

Before I go further, I have to explain that, in Milwaukee at least, Labor Day is about the unions. It’s their day to strut their stuff. I know that there are many people who despise unions. I’ve met a few of them. The people marching in the parade have met those kinds of people too (one of the marchers wore as shirt that said, “Proud to be a union thug”). I understand the feelings of those who dislike unions. Years ago, I worked as a supervisor at a trucking company that employed Teamster drivers. It was a painful experience for me. Both sides, management and the Teamsters, spent more time and energy trying to screw the other party than actually get the job done. The work environment was toxic.

On the other hand, I know people, family members and friends, who are in unions, and based on their stories, I have to conclude that there are workplaces that need unions to protect the interests of the employees. Certainly, in my son’s profession as an Ironworker, safety is paramount. People can easily die in his line of work. Stefan’s union forces the contractors to maintain strict safety standards. Corporations, especially large ones, simply have too much power. An individual cannot go to toe with The Man in those organizations. I worked as a supervisor at another trucking company for almost 28 years, and it was a scab outfit, virulently anti-union. There were times during my tenure at that company when people were treated like commodities. I know that I was sometimes guilty of doing that. A union where I worked would have obviously complicated the corporate effort to make a profit, but it would have also given the employers a stronger voice in policy matters. My rule of thumb is: If a company has a union, they deserve to have one.

Back to the parade…

The parade was long. It lasted for over an hour. I was unaware prior to being a spectator of how many unions there were in the metropolitan area. Different groups marched past us in a seemingly endless line. There were unions representing carpenters, laborers, electricians, plumbers, steamfitters, sheet metal workers, operating engineers, teachers, firefighters, nurses, Teamsters, and of course the Ironworkers. There were floats with musicians on board. Asher got his boogie on. The participants in the march smiled and waved. They threw candy to the little kids. Asher scored big. The marchers exuded a feeling of joy and pride, and it was contagious.

The Ironworkers had a float of sorts. It was a long flatbed trailer with several men standing on it. Near the front of the trailer was mounted a large steel beam, exactly like the kind used in construction. Close to the rear of the trailer were a few guys heating up rivets on a charcoal grill. Once the rivets were hot, they gave them to the guys in the front to pound into the holes of the beam. That’s an anachronistic way to secure a beam, but there is tradition at attached to the process. It’s also loud as hell and makes for a good show.

Stefan was marching with his coworkers in front of the trailer. He came over to the us on the side of the street to give Asher a child sized Ironworkers t-shirt. Stefan grinned at Asher, and he smiled back. Then Stefan rejoined his union and finished the march.

I think Asher had a good time at his first parade.

Asher at the parade

Stefan brining Asher his t-shirt

September 6th, 2024

A couple days ago, the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, published a letter from me. It is as follows:

“Dear Editor: I served in West Germany as a U.S. Army officer back in the early 1980’s, when the Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union was intense.

I always had the feeling while I was there that a nuclear war could start any day. I get the same feeling now with the war in Ukraine. Since the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk began, the feeling has grown stronger. Ukraine clearly has a right to attack Russian territory, but the stakes are incredibly high. The question is: When will Putin get so desperate that he launches a nuclear weapon?

If and when Putin fires a nuclear device, he will cross the reddest of red lines, and it won’t end there. Nukes are like potato chips — one is never enough. The world has a laser-like focus on the war in Gaza. Our attention should be on Ukraine. That’s where the danger lies.”

In my experience, it takes a while for a letter to the editor to filter through the system. I sent this letter, or something very similar, to other newspapers. Maybe another publication will see fit to use it. Even if only one paper used it, it’s a win.

August 27th, 2024

Our youngest son, Stefan, went to work before the sun was up. He’s an Ironworker and he has been busy at a jobsite where they are putting up a big box warehouse. He is doing connecting and welding at the site. He was muttering to himself when he packed his lunch. He told me,

“I don’t think I am going to make it through the day.”

“Oh?”

He said, “It’s already 87 degrees outside!”

Then he reconsidered and said, “Well, it was 87 when I came home last night from teaching the apprentices. The heat index is supposed to hit 105 today.”

He went on, “I can’t wait to hear some office worker to complain about how hot it is.”

He smiled ruefully and said, “Fuck you, Bitch”, to the imaginary cubicle geek.

Stefan’s job is brutal in the heat. He has to wear a long sleeve shirt, thick gloves, and welding helmet much of the time. He comes home after his shift utterly exhausted and more than a little bit irritable.

Taking it to another level, my other son, Hans, pumps concrete down in Texas. His work is physically demanding, and he is in the heat for hours on end. He fills his cooler with water, Pedialyte, and pickle juice. That still is never enough. He’s had heat exhaustion on the job more than once. His body can only tolerate so much. Many employers don’t seem very concerned about that sort of thing.

When I was working, I was a dock supervisor at a trucking company. I spent most of my time outside, Granted, the dock had a roof, but all the doors were open 24/7 while we were transferring freight from one trailer to another. Whatever the weather was outside was the weather we experienced on the dock.

I didn’t have too much trouble with heat on my shift. I worked nights for many years. I had issues at the other end of the temperature spectrum. I hated winter, absolutely hated it. There was usually a week or two at the beginning of February when the temps hovered around zero degrees. That was bad. There is nothing more depressing than working in the cold and the dark. I used to wait for the sunrise. It didn’t get any nicer, but the sunshine gave an illusion of warmth.

Several years before I retired, corporate management decreed that all supervisors had to spend all their time on the dock. The implication was that the supervisors needed to babysit the forklift drivers. In any case, that meant I had to do all my computer work, that I had previously been able to do in the office, out on the dock, which meant I had to take off my thick gloves to type on the keyboard. I would do that until my hands went numb. I then would scurry into the break room until my fingers ached, and then once I had feeling, I would go out and do the same shit again.

It was like with the forklift drivers too. Let me be clear about this: hypothermia sucks, as does frostbite. It doesn’t take long for extreme cold to penetrate, regardless of how many layers of clothes a person is wearing. The guys would work as long as they could and then tell me with their faces beet red from exposure,

“Hey, I need to go in, get a coffee, and warm up.”

Invariably, I told them,

“Go. Do it. Just remember to come back.”

I didn’t let the men go on break because I was a nice guy (I wasn’t a nice guy). It was all enlightened self-interest. Simply for productivity reasons, I wanted them to get a chance to get warm. Working in extreme conditions, be they hot or cold, wears a person down. It just makes economic sense to give these workers time to recover. Yet, the trend in corporate America seems to be in the direction of grinding employees until they drop. That isn’t just immoral. It’s also stupid.

August 26th, 2024

Several years ago, my wife and I stayed in Seattle with a woman who was very hospitable toward us, even though we had just met her. Karin and I had been staying with two Buddhist monks at their temple, but they needed to be away for a couple days, so we were introduced to Myra, and she welcomed us into her home with open arms. Like our two Buddhist friends, Myra was an avid peace activist, and she definitely qualified as a progressive. She showed us around her home city, and she went out of her way to befriend us.

During our short stay in her home, Myra and I had long conversations. We discussed a wide range of topics, and Myra prided herself on being open-minded. At one point, I talked to her about our oldest son, Hans, who had fought in Iraq and who was a gun enthusiast. As I described his love of firearms, she became visibly agitated and blurted out,

“I could never talk with somebody like that.”

Her comment stunned me. She had never met Hans, and she only knew about him what little I had told her. However, she decided on that limited amount of information that Hans was a person whom she couldn’t tolerate. Based on her visceral opposition to guns, Hans was a persona non grata.

A few years later, Karin and I were back with the Buddhist monks. We were with them participating in an activity sponsored by Ground Zero, an antiwar group located right next to a nuclear submarine base. A young woman from New York showed up. I greeted her and started a conversation. As I introduced myself, I mentioned that I was a vet. Her reaction to my comment was swift:

“I feel sorry for you!”

End of conversation. She wanted nothing to do with me based on my military experience, and at that point, I wasn’t very interested in talking to her either. However, this young woman lent Karin a shawl later in the day when the weather turned cold, so she had a generous heart. She just couldn’t stand to talk with a veteran.

Several years ago, I attended a national conference about immigration rights. For some reason, Planned Parenthood had a booth set up at the meeting. I am a Catholic, but I decided to stop and talked with the young lady at the booth. We had an honest and open discussion about abortion and the other things that Planned Parenthood does. I found it to be very interesting. When I got home, I spoke with a member of our church about it. The man was a conservative Catholic completely opposed to abortion. He told me,

“I’ve never talked with anyone from Planned Parenthood”, and the tone of his voice made it clear to me that he had no intention of ever talking to somebody from that organization.

Recently, the pro-Palestinian students at a nearby university built an encampment. I went to talk with them. I didn’t actually get to talk with the students, but I spoke to an older woman who was apparently their acting den mother. I mentioned my visit to members of the synagogue that I attend, and some of them made it clear that they would never interact with the people there.

I think it is unwise to ignore people because their views are abhorrent to me. It is good to understand another person even if they are your adversary, or especially if they are.

I find it useful to talk with people who hold viewpoints different than my own. I learn new things that way. I don’t necessarily find that to be easy. I may not like them or their opinions. However, I often see better the flaws in my own thinking. I try not to dismiss somebody sight unseen and voice unheard. If I do that, I miss out on something., maybe something important.

August29th, 2024

I care for our three-year-old grandson, Asher, most mornings. My wife, Karin, generally watches over the boy in the afternoon. Karin is often busy in the morning with her knitting groups or with her fiber projects at home. I try to give her at least a couple hours of quiet time when she wants to spin on her wheel or weave on her floor loom. So, Asher and I go places. Sometimes, he wants to go to one of the local playgrounds. Sometimes, he wants to hang out at the library. It doesn’t much matter to me where we go as long as the boy gets some exercise and stays away from videos.

A week ago, I asked Asher if he wanted to see the alpacas.

He quickly replied, “Yes! I want to visit the alpacas.!”

We drove a few miles south to the Eco-Justice Center in Racine. The Eco-Justice Center is a farm in a semi-rural area that for many years was operated by Dominican Sisters. Now, it’s run about a non-profit composed mainly of young women. The farm raises alpacas, goats, and chickens. In addition, the place is a testing ground for organic farming techniques and renewable energy. The farm is well on its way to being 90% energy self-sufficient. Asher and I go there to see the animals, and to check out any new projects.

When we arrived, Alex, the volunteer manager, and one of the young women were getting ready to move the alpacas. Alex told us,

“We’re going to take the alpacas to the north pasture. Do you want to walk with us?”

Asher grinned and said, “We’re going to walk with the alpacas!”

And we did. We walked close to the animals, but not too close. Alex had clued us in that they like to kick if a person gets too close to them. Alex and the young woman slowly led the alpacas down a trail and into a corral. I noticed that much of the pasture was covered with baby trees in tall blue plastic tubes. I asked Alex about the trees.

He told me, “We got a grant to plant trees to reduce soil erosion in this area. We planted 400 of them, mostly willows and poplars that grow fast. Later, we will plant some disease-resistant elms.”

I was interested. Asher was not. However, Asher was fascinated with the wind turbine that was spinning high up on a pole. He decided that he didn’t want to see the goats or the chickens, so we went back to the car.

I asked Asher, “Do you want to go to the lighthouse?”

He smiled and said, “Yeah!”

We drove a couple miles to the lighthouse at Wind Point. It’s over 100 years old, and it sits a few yards from the Lake Michigan shore. It was cool and there was stiff breeze coming off the lake. The wind whipped up the breakers and the water near the beach was brown from the churned-up sand. The sun shown on the water further away. It was a deep blue color that sparkled in the light.

Asher Liked the beach. He insisted on walking on top of the boulders near the water. I held his hand as he stepped from one stone to the next. The wind blew through his hair, and he kept pulling on my hand as we walked.

I looked at Asher and I looked at scenery. I thought for a moment, and then I realized that there was nothing else I would rather be doing.

August 18th, 2024

I drove the old man home after we were done at the synagogue. He doesn’t live very far from the shul, so the trip didn’t take very long. Still, we had time enough for a heart-to-heart conversation about the meeting that had just ended. My friend was upset about a number of things, and he welcomed the opportunity to vent in my car.

The meeting had been held right after Shacharit, the morning service on Shabbat. There was a light lunch set up for everyone. Miryam Rosenzweig was the guest speaker at the gathering. She is the President and CEO of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. Miryam spoke briefly about what she does at the federation. She discussed security measures that the federation is providing for members of the local Jewish community. She acknowledged that we are living in turbulent times that provoke strong emotional reactions. Miryam indicated that our emotions don’t need to dictate the decisions that we make.

After her initial comments, Miryam threw the meeting open for questions. There were numerous questions, and they tended to be pointed. Most of the queries involved the pro-Palestinian encampment that had been set up during the spring on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The encampment was there for three weeks before a deal was cut between the demonstrators and the chancellor of the university. The site of the encampment was only two blocks away from the synagogue. It was impossible for members of our community to ignore, and for many of the people coming to the synagogue it reeked of antisemitism. There were strong emotional reactions to the signs and slogans exhibited at the encampment.

Let me note at this point that I am not Jewish. I go on a regular basis to the synagogue, and I am close friends with several of the members there. I am fully accepted as part of the community. However, I do not and cannot completely understand the effects of antisemitism on people who are Jewish. I know that the protesters at the encampment adamantly denied being antisemitic. They told me so when I visited their site. Even so, it seems to me that the people who can best determine whether somebody is the victim of prejudice are the ones who are on the receiving end of the bigotry. Several people at the meeting made it clear that they were experiencing antisemitism. I accept their view on the matter.

A question that came up was why the federation has not encouraged counterdemonstrations at the encampment. This is pertinent because the pro-Palestinian protests will resume when classes start in the fall, and the activists plan on being more vocal and more disruptive. They have to up the ante. The activists need to be more provocative in order to remain newsworthy. Miryam did not explain in full the reasons for not having counterprotests, but she indicated that they were not the best possible answer. A couple people from the synagogue wanted the federation to provide a strong response to the words and actions of the Palestinian supporters. Miryam replied that the federation is responding, but not in direct confrontation with the protesters on campus.

The old man in my car was not happy about that answer. He is a refugee from the Soviet Union, and he spent years experiencing old school antisemitism back in the Old Country. He told me,

“We Jews can’t be victims! We can’t let this happen here in this country! We have to show them a fist!”

I thought about that. It’s not necessarily a smart move. A show of strength can cut both ways. As Miryam said, we can’t let raw emotion determine our actions.

I have been involved with a number of demonstrations over the years, and they all have an element of chaos. There is always the potential for things to get out of hand in a big hurry. A successful demonstration requires that the participants be trained and that folks stay on message, even when under stress. I helped to manage a May Day march several years ago. I was a marshal, and I just needed to lead the crowd down the street. The march went from an assembly point to a rally site several miles away. Keeping people on the route was like herding cats. I found the job to be exhausting.

Now, imagine a protest where there is active opposition. During that same march, there were counter protesters at the rally point. There weren’t many of them, but they were there. It was distinctly uncomfortable to stare across a street and see people who probably hated me. It was hard to face these individuals and stay calm, especially if they saw fit to hurl abuse in my direction. Police on horseback were between the two groups, but that was small comfort. I guess they kept the peace. I should be grateful for that.

The purpose of a demonstration is to get someone’s attention. It doesn’t matter if the eye that sees the protest is from the mainstream media or just a curious YouTuber. A protest is a failure if it goes unnoticed. I was told once that any publicity is good publicity. I don’t believe that. A group can get noticed for all the wrong reasons. A shouting match or, worse yet, an act of violence will go viral almost instantly. When that happens, the message is lost. BLM probably had a valid message, but all I can remember from those protests are videos of burning cars.

A counterdemonstration is guaranteed to be a confrontation with passionate participants on both sides of the street. Emotions run high, and staying unperturbed is difficult. That’s where discipline, experience, and solidarity come into play. And you don’t want any stray actors showing up whose fondest dream is to bust a couple windows and set fire to a Starbucks. Yet, those are exactly the individuals who are drawn to these events, like moths to a flame. The fact is that a counterprotest is a risky proposition, even when all the people involved have their heads on straight. It doesn’t take much for everything to go south.

So, Miryam is right. A counterdemonstration might make people feel good about themselves (“We showed them!”), but it really doesn’t make the situation any better. It can potentially make it all a lot worse.