The first
time I went to Florida, my parents took me there by train. I was
only nine years old. Harry Truman was president, and we were fighting
in Korea.
From Union
Station in Erie, PA we took the New York Central to Cleveland
where we changed trains. The train from Cleveland to Miami took
two days. We had Pullman accomodation. It was all very exciting.
My grandmother
was in her seventies, and she had spent the winter in Miami Beach
every year for decades. She was already in Miami Beach staying
in the same hotel she always did in South Beach (where fewer grandmothers
can today be found).
In order
to make this trip, I had to miss school. This, of course, only
intensified my pleasure and anticipation. When the train pulled
into the Atlanta train station in the morning, and I peered out
the train window, still laying in my curtained compartment, I
saw something quite strange. There were signs over doorways on
the train platform, and they read "WHITE" and "COLORED."
This totally mystified and intrigued me, I remember, and it was
only at breakfast soon afterwards that my mother, a liberal Democrat,
gave me my first real lesson in American race relations of the
time. (Later, in Miami Beach, after boarding one of the ubiquitous
small jitney buses of that era, I got another lesson. I was with
my grandmother, and the jitney was almost full. So we sat in the
back rows where there were a number of empty seats. The young
jitney driver yelled at my grandmother who paid no attention to
him. He got out of the driver's seat and came back to where we
were. "You can't sit here," he said to us, "Only
colored people can sit here." My grandmother, who had been
chased by deadly Cossacks her village of Bobrovits in Russia fifty
years before, didn't budge. The driver didn't have a chance. My
grandmother was no Rosa Parks, but this time she wasn't leaving.
I don't remember
much about the food in the dining car, but I do remember our waiter
telling us that he had regularly waited on President Roosevelt
when, only a few years before, the president went on one of his
frequent train trips to Warm Springs in Georgia.
The most
indelible memory came from my first sighting of palm trees. I
was, after all, just a little boy from the North, and I was accustomed
at this season to snow and bare maple and birch trees. Suddenly
before my eyes appeared a very tall palm tree. Not only that,
there were real coconuts tucked under its fronds. Coconuts!
I am, as
I write this, on the Silver Meteor en route to West Palm Beach.
We are six hours late. I am going to see my Aunt Rosalie who is
91 years old, and the youngest (and only surviving) child of my
grandmother. Amtrak is today the only choice I have for train
travel. Harry Truman is no longer president, and our troops are
now in another struggle against a world threat, this time against
terrorism. George W. Bush is the commander-in-chief, and he's
now as unpopular and stubborn as Truman was in 1951.
I had a great
childhood in Erie, PA. Most of my aunts and uncles lived there.
It was still a time when families lived in one place. The only
surviving son of my grandparents on my mother's side was my Uncle
Sol who managed the family furniture business founded in 1899.
He was married to Aunt Reta from Youngstown, Ohio. They had no
children, but they poured out limitless affection on willing nephews
and neices. Aunt Reta taught me how to make crepes Suzette when
I was twelve, and I got drunk. My mother didn't speak to Aunt
Reta for six months. Aunt Sylvia was the oldest sister. She played
second violin in the Erie Philharmonic . When I was ten, and had
the mumps, she brought me a copy of her favorite novel, Les Miserables,
and so began my serious reading life. She was married to Uncle
Leon, one of the city's great characters. He had an antique store
and was a pioneer radio broadcaster (I used to appear on his daily
radio show on my birthday). He was also a poet, and knew most
of Shakespeare by heart. The state legislature made him the Pennsylvania
poet laureate. Aunt Rosalie, the youngest sister was a painter
and very romantic (as she is to this day). Like all her sisters
(and Aunt Reta) she is a wonderful cook, but her pies and stews
always had unusual ingredients. Her husband was Uncle Sigmund,
who was born in Vienna, and escaped from the Nazis on the day
of the Anschluss by taking the only safe way out of Austria, a
train to Berlin! He was later captured in France, and tortured
in a Vichy concentration camp before escaping via Spain and Portugal
to the United States where he soon met Aunt Rosalie. He filled
my childhood with fabulous first-hand tales of hearing Franz Kafka
lecture, and attending (after staying up all night for standing-room
tickets) the world premiere of a Puccini opera with the composer
in the audience.
Except for
Aunt Rosalie, they are all gone now, but when I arrive in West
Palm Beach, I am immersed, as if by time travel, in their world
one more time. I can find no one to defend President Bush, but
this is no surprise. They never liked him. The next day, I meet
a British-American, a conservative who has become, after initial
support, a critic of President Bush, as critical as the liberal
seniors in Aunt Rosalie's gated community. I drive my rented car
to Port Charlotte on Florida's west coast to see some old friends
from Minnesota. now living there. At a small dinner party, made
up of moderate Republicans, the conversation turns to politics
and the state of the world. Once again, supporters of the president
have become his critics.
Returning
to Aunt Rosalie's, I attend a community meeting at which the hot
issue is the slow pace of the rebuiliding of the community center
these seniors use for films, shows, card games and other activities.
The old one was destroyed by recent hurricanes. Men and women
in the 70's and 80's, most of them retired from successful careers,
are understandably impatients for the new faciliity for which
they have continued to pay with a monthly fee. The folks in charge
explain the inevitable problems for reconstruction, including
the fact that virtually all the local contractors are busy on
repairing all the other damaged properties in South Florida. But
time is very important to these senior citizens. They feel they
are running out of it. They feel they can't afford to take a the
long view.
Amid the
complaining and the sniping and the explanations at this meeting,
I realize why I have been having such a hard time explaining to
friends at home, and to folks I meet here, the "big picture"
of this war against terrorism. I have defended, and continue to
defend, President Bush's vision, but it is becomimg harder and
harder to defend his inability to explain his policies to the
American people. The truth is that communication is an important
part of his job.
For the first
time, I see that the political fault lines in the country are
revealing new and deeper tremors. My seismograph has been a few
conversations which are an obviously imperfect measure. I have
not spoken with foreign presidents or prime ministers, sheiks
or potentates. They should have better instruments in the White
House, but I suspect the results would be the same.
Barry
Casselman writes about national politics for Preludium News Service.
Copyright
(c) 2006 News World Communications, Inc.
