Belief - Lughnasa 2020

When I was young, I desperately wanted to believe in something. I wanted to belong to something, perhaps because I didn’t get that feeling of belonging at home.

My early religious instruction was pretty normal. A pastoral church out in the country, an acceptable substitute denomination when my parents couldn’t find their own, macaroni iconography spray-painted gold, feeding carrots or apples to the neighboring horses after services. I still remember the excitement of the first day I was allowed to sit with my parents and sister rather than in the daycare center the church had for younger kids.

These bucolic outings were curtailed when the Congregationalist church opened a mile from our house. But we still attended as a family off and on when my father wasn’t traveling for his job, which meant less and less often.

That changed again after my parents got divorced. My mother declared she no longer benefited from going to church, though my sister and I still would. That never quite made sense to me, though I suspect now she was looking for a once a week break from us. The hypocrisy wasn’t lost on my sister, who started ditching church like school then stopped going altogether. I wasn’t far behind. Church was a family activity. My family had disappeared.

That didn’t mean I stopped searching, even in a back-burner kind of way. Or perhaps I felt a not so subtle need to conform. But none of that was pressing.

Then came the worst year of my life. Sixth grade arrived with a new school, new friends, and new expectations, all of which was normal enough. But those changes were combined with my sister’s now full-steam rebelliousness layered with my mother struggling to find a job then working nights. Most of what I remember from that year was them fighting Texas Cage Match style, knowing that at any moment it could spill over to me and often did. I remember feeling constantly terrified and exhausted. I often wished I would go to sleep and never wake up, that God would claim me. I didn’t have some vision of unearthly fantasy paradise filled with streets of gold and choirs of angels. That’s not what Congregationalists teach. I just knew heaven couldn’t be any worse than earth. All I wanted was some peace.

About that time a new church opened across the street from my middle school. The Evangel Temple. I don’t know what denomination it was. I suspect it didn’t have one at all. No one knew what to make of them. They were new and didn’t seem to play by the existing rules. I mean who named their church a temple? Not the Lutherans, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Catholics or even the Southern Baptists, never mind the Congregationalists. Not in the 70s, not in sleepy Rockledge, Florida. It sounded kind of Old Testament. Perhaps that should have been a clue. Yet here they were, all exciting, shiny and white.

But that’s not what grabbed my attention. Soon after opening, they started trolling the neighborhood in a brightly made up van like an ice cream truck, gathering an audience of kids with free candy, then enticing us with little Biblical puppet shows to say was how much fun their church could be. They were definitely progressive in spreading their Word, at least to our generation. They had a dedicated children’s church with its own rock band. They had a refurbished school bus that would pick us up if our parents didn’t want to attend. It was the perfect disaffected suburban setup, remarkably similar to other 70s cultural temptations. Remember, kids, samples are free.

Somewhere in my head I decided this might be a better way to spend my Sunday mornings than at home. All my friends were in church and television was a wasteland. Just Face the Nation, the 700 Club and the Bobby Bowden Show. And it wasn’t like there were any family activities in the offing, not even Sunday dinner. So, I signed up.

My mother was initially less than enthusiastic. But once the bus came around and honked its horn, she seemed onboard with my once again disappearing for several hours each week. In fact, as the shine wore off because I didn’t really make any friends in the children’s congregation or find it particularly entertaining or as comforting as I’d thought, she was the one who insisted I continue to attend.

The place was weird to me. The first thing they did each week was ask if anyone was new then drag them up on stage to be “saved.” Which I know now is a pretty standard scenario in most evangelical, charismatic and sometimes fundamentalist American Christian churches. Which, aside from making me uncomfortable, struck me as completely alien. No other church I’d been in did anything like this, especially with kids, especially without their parents around. Besides, it seemed unnecessary and redundant. I mean, I knew I’d been baptized. At least I’d seen the pictures though I couldn’t swear my parents weren’t beaming over some other random infant in a white christening dress near a font with a minister.

Plus, none of the sermons, if you could call them that, spoke to me or made much sense. None of the Bible stories were the way I remembered them. It all felt like a huge bait and switch. But as with any boring class in school, I tolerated it as I checked out and daydreamed the time away.

Then came the fateful day someone asked how old I was. I don’t remember if it was around my birthday or just a random question. Either way, thirteen was the answer. Oh, well, that’s a problem. Children’s church is for children only, meaning twelve and under. You now need to attend the regular church in the regular sanctuary. I didn’t like this idea very much. But being a rule follower, I did as I was asked. Not that it was a request. They’d given me one final week in children’s church as a courtesy. After that, the nice lady who ran the place drew a hard, red line.

The next Sunday, I went into the main sanctuary alone, which was as large and sterile as any other church I’d been in. The service was as dry and meaningless to me as any other I’d sat through, either in my previous churches or attending some of my friends’ churches as a guest. Hell, the last Congregationalist sermon I remember revolved around baseball. I’m not sure I followed the metaphor but I do vividly remember the minster examining the ball, tossing it up and down, and setting it on the podium. This was all Old Testament stories and sin as I remember. Definitely perplexing and adult, without a Virgil or Beatrice to guide me through.

But I couldn’t find a way out of it. My mother remained insistent I attend. I’d signed up so wasn’t allowed to quit. I did manage to get off the bus by saying I could ride my bike. My sister briefly went with me, but really that was just a cover for her to ditch and do something with her friends without my mother knowing. She swore me to secrecy and threatened me if I blew her in. That lasted until the day she wasn’t at the assigned meeting spot when I got out. I waited but knew when she didn’t show that I had to get home or risk my mother’s wrath. By this point, we were fighting over the lifeboats: it was every child for themselves.

I don’t remember how long I attended regular services before a family sitting down the pew from me said they’d noticed me attending alone and asked me where my family was. I told them my parents were divorced and neither my mother or sister wanted to come. They invited me to sit with them each week. I think the words “you can be part of our family” were uttered.

I may have only been thirteen but my stranger danger radar blared away full blast, red lights, sirens and everything. I went home that afternoon and told my mother I wasn’t going back. I didn’t tell her why or what had happened. She thought about trying to force me, but something in my stance and hardened eyes must have convinced her it would have been a futile effort. I was done.

So, after eighteen months, I was once again a confirmed heathen with my Sunday mornings free. That little experiment in freewill had definitely cured my itch to belong and believe, at least for a time.

That lasted until I was in high school and had a steady girlfriend. Which surprised even me. Somewhere in the time we were dating, she’d been born again outside the denomination of her birth. She was going to some nondenominational, fundamentalist church out in the sticks of Cocoa. She would tell me about her Bible study class, how great and educational it was. How we really should go together. As a couple. She’d told them all about me, which struck more than a little fear into my heart. After my earlier experience, I wasn’t particularly interested. But in the spirit of compromise and cooperation and a continuing relationship, I eventually, reluctantly agreed.

First problem. Bible study came with homework, which I wasn’t particularly inclined or interested in doing. I had a Bible. But sitting down to read it to discuss with a group of strangers wasn’t high on my list of things to do over a weekend. Second problem, the study group met before the first of two regularly scheduled services. So early, at least for me at the time, which meant setting an alarm on a day I might normally sleep in, especially after a late night on Saturday, or if I had to be at work at noon. Again, not high on my agenda.

But like a dutiful boyfriend, I did my best. For about eight weeks, I did (most) of the assigned reading and contributed to the discussion, though usually only when asked. My opinions weren’t what I’d call the standard interpretation at the table. But the group was at least different from what I’d seen before. The people seemed mostly ok. Though I had my doubts about the guy who would show up bright and early in a tie one week, late in a t-shirt and perhaps hungover the next, miss the next two or three meetings completely, then rinse and repeat. And the group treated it like nothing ever happened. Which struck me as pretty odd.

After the study group, my girlfriend and I attended the main service together. She seemed quite happy with the whole arrangement. At some point I realized she was showing me off, which I wasn’t sure I minded. While it wasn’t my favorite couple’s activity, the congregation was too conservative and literal for my taste, I could generally deal with it. Or so I thought.

Which lasted until a particular Sunday morning. We were sitting in the center of a long row of pews, about mid-distance front to back. Hard, polished wood pews as I remember. No pad or carpet like the Evangel Temple, which seems opulent by comparison. We had gone through the ritual of turning forward, back, and side to side to shake all our neighbors’ hands. It was springtime in Reagan’s newly minted America. Which cast us, I suppose, as the shining city on the hill.

The minister immediately launched a fiery sermon on the perils of premarital sex as a wage of sin. Living in the era of Just Say No, this rolled right off me. It was pretty standard rhetoric. I’d heard it all before. As far as that sin went, there were bigger worries in the world in my mind. In fact, I wasn’t really paying much attention at all.

Right up to the moment he added, “any woman who has sex before marriage is damaged goods in God’s eyes.” That caught my full and undivided attention. Had I just dropped back fifty years and landed in a church Pleasantville? Had my technicolor world just changed to black and white?

At first, I didn’t take his statement seriously. A smile might have tried to curl the corners of my mouth. I thought it was a provocative setup line for a twist that would lead to the real sermon. That had to be it. As I glance around, that nascent smile emerged stillborn. Everyone in front of me was nodding. These people were dead serious.

“Damaged goods.” The minister repeated that phrase for emphasis, with a pause for contemplation. Like women were precious cargo in their God’s eyes. Possessions not people.

I glanced at my girlfriend to check her reaction. She had a rapt expression fixed on the pastor as she nodded gravely, too. I quickly refocused forward, stunned, surrounded, my stranger danger blasting a red alert again. Understand that in our relationship, that ship was no longer tied up at the pier. It’s not like she and I had embarked on a different journey in that regard. Neither of us had sailed alone. Except I wasn’t damaged in her God’s eyes. She was. Not me. Just her.

Which made me wonder what kind of self-hating, hypocritical relationship I was in. If I had been alone, I would have walked out on the spot. I was that repulsed. As my anger curdled, I almost did. Instead, I donned a mask, not wanting to make a scene, working through the rest of the service from the safety of its disguise. On the drive home, I told her I would never go back. If she was comfortable accepting that kind of judgment knowing she didn’t conform to their God’s expectations and never could, that was her choice. Personally, I thought treating women like that was bullshit, albeit an ironic, artistic exclamation point in the statuary garden of the golden calf.

I am pretty sure that’s where our relationship began to founder, though it took another year or so to break up on the rocks. Looking back, that was for the best.

This time, I only kept free and clear from religious entanglements for another couple years. Once again, my return had to do with a girl. Two girls in fact.

The first was a friend who was two thousand miles away when she told me she’d attempted suicide. The second was in the campus Christian group my born-again roommate introduced me to for solace when I told him. She, and they, seemed different from the Christians I’d been around up to then. More caring and honest. Though still on the strange side of metaphysics in my mind, especially as an aspiring engineer.

Long story short, this girl was generous, kind and pretty. I liked her. I thought she liked me. I wanted to see where it might lead. That yellow brick road is paved with good intentions.

Where it ended up was in a tent revival, which is like a southern rite of passage as I understand it. I’d never been to one. Given what I’d seen and heard in the past several years, I figured I could handle it without a problem. How bad could it be? Once again, my estimation and reality didn’t quite intersect.

A tent revival is a lot like a circus sideshow. There’s a striped canvas tent setup in an empty lot on the outskirts of town. Inside there are row upon row of white folding chairs with an aisle down the center facing a platform stage. There are ushers, men, in long-sleeved button-up shirts who look a little like bouncers at a strip club. There is a local barker to warm up crowd and draw them in before the headline talent hits the stage. All this happens after dark.

Revivals are itinerant and somewhat mendicant. They travel from place to place, often in an established circuit, advertising their arrival at various evangelical and charismatic churches. Sometimes the headliners end up as a guest ministers or speakers in a local church, but more often not. Theirs is a particular talent more suited to Saturday night than Sunday morning. Some bill themselves as healers or miracle workers, others as speaking in tongues or any variant of being inhabited by the Spirit. Most are just fiery, inspired speakers who know how to work an audience, which ranges from small and intimate to local carnival large. It is a very strange ecosystem that inhabits the margins of society like a tidal pool.

It’s important to remember these speakers are old-school religious showmen. People turn up to be entertained as well as to be saved or renew their faith. While all are welcome, most know what they’re in for and exactly what to expect.

I didn’t. But I quickly learned. The dialog and narrative structure were novel to me, although as the night progressed, I found the plot points very familiar.

The first trick to showmanship is anticipation. You always make your audience wait. So, a 9 o’clock kickoff time drifts closer to 9:15-9:30. Bearing in mind this is springtime in Florida, so while not Amazonia hot, definitely not what you’d call cool. Pack a hundred or so bodies into a plasticized canvas tent and draw the flaps and it gets downright warm. Not quite uncomfortable, just bordering on giddy.

I don’t remember all the particulars of the how the evening unfolded. The lights were low to set the mood. There wasn’t a microphone, though it wasn’t a big space. An usher guarded the entrance with another at the stage entrance to outside and maybe a third stationed somewhere in front of the stage. There was a local warm-up act who gave the introduction. There was some sort of fiery sermon with allusions to the devil walking among us with his temptations and the punishment that awaited us should we yield. Like every religious service I’d been to, at some point they passed a plate. All of which built toward the highlight of the evening: the call for salvation.

At some point the speaker asked a series of questions. Who had never been here before? Who had a problem the Holy Spirit could address? Who needed to renew their faith? Who had never been saved?

For me, these were all rhetorical questions I had no intentions of answering, or even stirring for as they were asked. I knew what was coming from the Evangel Temple. While I was in the audience voluntarily, I had no desire to make it more than a spectator sport. I didn’t remember hearing a portion of my grade would be based on participation. So, I sat impassively with my arms tucked across my chest watching the spectacle unfold.

Unfortunately, the girl I was with didn’t get the memo. She must have raised a hand and pointed at me behind my back. Suddenly, there was an usher at the head of our row, beckoning to me.

I should have shaken my head and refused. But again, there was a girl involved, one currently encouraging me to accompany this guy. Against my better instincts, I went along.

He guided me up on stage, to the end of a line of half a dozen others. The preacher made a show of more build-up, dragging a last couple stragglers up to join us. At this point, I wasn’t really paying attention because I really didn’t want to be there.

Once he was done with the preliminaries, the preacher started at the head of line. He stood before the first individual, looked them in the eye, then raised a hand and pressed it hard against their forehead, pushing back quickly with a loud, “Be healed” at the moment he made contact. That individual fell back as if they’d fainted into the waiting arms of one of the burly ushers who helped them to their feet and guided them shakily offstage.

The preacher moved down the line, bam, bam, bam, felling individuals one after another like a row of yellow pines. Like a trust exercise at a team-building seminar, each was caught by an usher who assisted them back to their seats. You could see the preacher’s performance was gathering steam. This was why the audience was here.

When he came to me, he gave me that same long, meaningful look into my eyes but didn’t say a word. I assume he thought I knew the script from those who came before. Maybe the first person in line was a ringer to show us the way. Except I’d been through similar before. While I had no intention of disrupting his performance, I also had no desire to participate unless I felt so moved.

“Be healed.” When his palm connected with my brow, my head rocked back. But I felt no spark, no spirit, no knee-buckling euphoria. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to feel something, maybe even hoped to. But there was nothing. So, my head just snapped back forward.

The preacher’s eyes narrowed as his expression flashed between annoyance and outright anger. I just met his gaze levelly before I was grabbed firmly by the arm from behind and hustled back to my folding chair, now more than a little scared. These guys were truly upset that I had ruined their show.

The whole affair wound down quickly after that. As we spilled out into the night, I did feel somewhat reborn, not in spirit but in clarity. After seven years, I’d finally peered behind the curtain and seen the show for what it was. Needless to say, my performance didn’t make a good impression. I didn’t get the girl. Again, likely for the best.

I can’t say that was the last time I was in a church, though I am pretty sure it was the last time I went voluntarily for anything other than a wedding or a funeral. Within a few years, I stopped calling myself a Christian entirely, which was a harder transition than some might think. From what I’d seen, it was no longer who I was or who I wanted to be.

Some people might have been embarrassed by this episode. I know a few people reading it might be embarrassed for me. I am not. I value this experience. If nothing else, it taught me about indoctrination, insular communities, critical thinking, and to see the world as it is, not as I think it should be.

I see similar events played out again and again on social media right now, the same concepts, the same tactics, the same manipulation, if not always surrounding the same belief. The arguments unfold in the same way, uncritically. They rely on blanket acceptance of dogmatic axioms and postulates. Such beliefs are one small step away from prejudice. They are easily manipulated and weaponized by unscrupulous leaders who claim that you are either with us or against us. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s about religion or gun control or capitalism or civil rights, once people self-segregate and divide into isolated camps, once the dialogue is distilled down to memes or clever turns of phrases, coherence and understanding is lost. Everything is reduced to black or white.

Except this world is painted shades of grey. Most sin is simply shame in disguise.

That doesn’t mean I no longer have beliefs. I do. Most are nuanced and require some exploration to untangle. Some border on religious though I rarely discuss them. More are philosophical. A few just bring me comfort even if they only have an internal consistency to me. But I continually renew them or discard them based on my current understanding of the world, refusing to take them solely as articles of faith.

Everyone has beliefs, not all of which are religious. They are often irrational. Most are harmless. Some aren’t. The thing is, the vast majority of people are born into them. Most never have much reason to question them outside of a little adolescent rebellion which often only serves as a test.

That is not inherently bad. Beliefs serve an important psychological and sociological function. They are a shortcut to make the world understandable and relatable. They quantify the world into easily digested categories so we can make simple decisions without expending an inordinate amount of energy and move on. In that they are an evolutionary advantage. But like any inherited, instinctive trait, in modern society they can easily short-circuit and run amok.

On the other side, so can unbridled, undisciplined skepticism. When someone claims you have to verify everything for yourself rather than accept the findings of people with experience and expertise, they are sending you on a fool’s errand. They are trying to wear you down into apathy and exhaustion. It’s only meant to erode trust and damage societal institutions. In that, it has become little more than its own corrupt belief system, secular not religious, though many refuse to see it.

Thinking critically is more than just validating other people’s evidence (that’s called peer review, the operative word being “peer”). It’s about hearing what is and isn’t said. It’s about understanding rhetorical arguments and cognitive biases, our own not someone else’s. It’s more about self-reflection than cross-examination.

In his defense at his trial for heresy, Socrates said to his accusers, “An unexamined life is not worth living”. By which he meant any unexamined belief. Wise words. For which he was condemned to death.

In the end, people believe what they want to believe, regardless of the contradictions, regardless of the hypocrisy, regardless of the evidence right before their eyes. No one can change them. No one can force them to see the truth. Unless you seek, you shall not find.

In that, the last of my Congregationalist indoctrination springs to mind: God helps those who help themselves. And if we lose our ability to do even that in these troubling and contentious times, may s/he have mercy on our souls.

© 2020 Edward P. Morgan III

Wildcard - Summer Solstice 2020

I am a big believer in participatory democracy. I always have been. Over the years, I’ve run into a lot of cynicism, which perpetually says that you can’t fight city hall. Politicians won’t listen to you anyway. Often that’s true. Except when you can and when they do. You just have to know how to approach it, and maybe get a little lucky.

In general, I am a crotchety old wizard. I live in my cave and like to be left alone. But when I emerge to engage the world, there’s often a well-timed spell involved. Usually nothing flashy but sometimes it inadvertently ends in pyrotechnics.

In previous essays, I’ve mentioned that one of the main reasons we bought this house was location. The property bordered on 400-600 undeveloped acres destined to become a county park. Just north of it was another large piece of property also optioned by the county that they were trying to figure out what to do with.

Everyone in the county wanted a piece of both of those tracts of land to use as recreational parks, a botanical garden, an art museum with studio space, sports fields, a wildlife preserve, locations for various county agencies, etc. The oddest request for space came from Pinellas County Utilities, the organization that supplies the county’s drinking water.

A short history lesson. This would have been in the late 90s. At the time Florida was involved in a water war with Georgia and Alabama, specifically over control and use of cross-border rivers. Because of an ongoing drought and increased development, as well as a diminishing aquifer, water was in short supply. Due to the shortage, that interstate infighting had spilled into internecine rivalries as counties around Tampa Bay struggled to secure water sources to quench the thirst of their growing populations. Our county, the most densely populated in the state, owned land in an adjoining county and proceeded to pump water out of the underlying aquifer, leading to a series of recriminations and lawsuits about who controlled what.

The overarching entity in charge of settling that conflict was Swiftmud (SW Florida Water Management District). Through their charter from the legislature, they have great power to mediate disputes. As a part of a tri-county settlement, our county agreed to several mandated actions so the state didn’t enter into a rob Peter to pay Paul scenario. That meant initiatives like conservation and constructing new reservoirs to capture rainwater as well as finding new sources of water if they existed.

The problem was, they really didn’t. The Florida Aquifer, one of the most productive in the world, was already strained to near capacity in trying to support the state’s agricultural base as well as major and expanding population centers such as Tampa/St. Pete, Orlando and Jacksonville. Over-pumping had already led to accusations of increased sinkhole development, a long-running issue in the state.

Without getting too mired in the technical details, there are several layers to the aquifer, each generally separated from the next by layers of partially isolating rock or ideally by isolating clay. Each layer rises and falls in an underground topography that often mimics but doesn’t completely follow the aboveground terrain. In some places, freshwater rises to the surface in the form of springs or rivers. In others, like beneath this county, it dives deep below, making water more expensive to extract.

To give you an idea, our well, which we use to water the lawn, taps a layer of non-potable fresh water near the surface (about 30 feet down) that gets replenished by rainwater and proximity to the ditch and the lake. It is considered a groundwater layer. Isolated below that is a brackish water layer, basically saltwater intrusion from the Gulf. Below that lies a freshwater layer that needs very little treatment because it is purified by the very slow percolation through the surrounding limestone. Beneath that is a second saline layer.

Each layer has a transmissivity, how fast you can draw water from without it running dry. Think of it like a water filter or a series of small pipes. You can only draw so much so fast no matter how hard you try. If you exceed that, you come up empty. Or sometimes you deplete the resource, weakening surrounding underground structures. Picture burying a balloon full of water beneath the sand at the beach. Then picture puncturing or draining it through a tube. If the balloon is close enough to the surface, the sand above can’t support its own weight. Like a poorly built dome, it collapses. You have just created a sinkhole.

In reality there is a lot more complexity to aquifers, water wars, and sinkholes but you get the idea. Sinkholes specifically only occur in very specific underground geologic terrain, not just anywhere. That fact becomes important in a minute.

So back to the county land where we started.

Because of the water wars, the county needed to show they were making a good faith effort to either conserve water or tap new water sources. On the conservation end, they began to design and implement a reclaimed water system that essentially cleaned water already available from the waste water treatment process and make it available for watering lawns, landscape and golf courses, the low-hanging fruit of county water consumption. The problem was that would take years to implement and even then, with the projected population growth rate, wouldn’t be enough.

That meant finding new sources of water within the county. The problem there was that the Florida Aquifer was pretty much already tapped to its maximum by our and the surrounding counties. Leaving aside that it would be expensive to drill deep enough to extract from it, it was the kind of zero-sum game scenario that Swiftmud didn’t really like. So, the county had to look elsewhere.

At the time, both Saudi Arabia and California, each short on water for different reasons, had developed and deployed innovative desalination plants. In both cases, their source water was an ocean or a saltwater gulf. One big problem with desalination plants is that even with the new technologies, creating drinking water from the ocean is a multistage process usually involving reverse osmosis. You may or may not recognize that term from a high school science class, but if you don’t it doesn’t matter. It’s just a process. But an expensive process.

Another problem with desalination has to do with the environmental impact of what to do with the super-salty waste water that is an inevitable byproduct. Typically, that has to be pipelined miles offshore into deep water where it won’t impact local fisheries. The outlets can’t be close to your intakes or you create a self-defeating feedback loop, which again makes for expensive engineering and infrastructure. With all that, at the time, you really had to have no other options before you went down the full desalination road.

Now because we live in Florida, which has seen a major population explosion in my lifetime and has long been short on water, there have been numerous groundwater surveys done over the course of decades. The gold standard are still the ones conducted and maintained by the federal government, specifically by the US Geological Survey. That name should ring a bell with many readers as where my wife worked for the vast majority of her career. But again, more on that in a minute.

Somewhere along the line, someone very clever looked at one of those surveys and noticed that briny layer we talked about wedged below the surface water layer of our well but above the freshwater Florida Aquifer. Brine is basically salty water, so not useful on its own, but not nearly as salty as the Gulf of Mexico where it seeped in from. Which means it wouldn’t cost as much to desalinate. And then this clever individual noticed that salt water layer deep below the freshwater of the Florida Aquifer, which also wasn’t clean or useful on its own. So, this clever individual, really a clever company, approached the county with a proposal.

They had developed an experimental technology that extracted freshwater from briny water at a fraction of the cost of extracting it from ocean water. How large a fraction I don’t remember but appealing enough for the county to consider. All they had to do was pump it out, which wouldn’t be too expensive because it wasn’t that deep, shallower in fact than the Florida Aquifer. But what to do with the waste water I mentioned? Well, why not just pump it back into the ground, into that already unusable layer below the Florida Aquifer? That would eliminate almost all the expensive logistical and environmental concerns.

The county really liked this idea. Mainly because they were under enormous pressure from Swiftmud, and by then the courts to find new water sources. Any perceived progress would do to buy them time for negotiations with the adjacent counties. Actual progress was somewhat less important.

But where to put such a project? I’ve mentioned this is a densely populated county. Land is just as scarce as water, and just as expensive to acquire without a developer’s deep pockets. But remember way back when you started reading that I mentioned the park land that had just opened up that everyone wanted a piece of? Sounds perfect right? The county already owned it. As it turns out, it wasn’t badly sited for what the company proposed. So, the county authorized some adjacent test wells and thought it was clear sailing. Done, done, and done. Problem solved as long as those wells panned out.

They did, at least according to the company operating them. So, they formally submitted their proposal. Because they had approached the county and not the other way around, there would be no competition. And because they knew the county was desperate, they crafted a sweetheart deal. The contract basically said they would construct and run the desal plant on land the county would lease to them for something like $1. The plant which would provide a minimum of 1 million gallons of drinking water a day, which the county would buy back from them at cost of extraction plus profit.

Now a million gallons sounds like a lot of water, but in a county with nearly a million people, it really isn’t all that much. But this company said, don’t worry. Based on the surveys, we can scale it up to extract at least ten times that amount without a problem. As it turns out, 10 million gallons a day was a magic number. It was nearly the exact good faith progress the courts and Swiftmud wanted the county to show. Once you threw in the reclaimed water system, that gave them a buffer. Almost sounded too good to be true.

As most of you know, with all contracts the devil is in the details. And as I remember it, this contract said that the company would build the plant on its own dime. But that the county was obligated to buy a million gallons of water a day, whether the plant could produce it or not. The technology, after all, was clearly labeled as experimental. Which meant that the company had never implemented it in the field at least at this scale. There was a clause in there about the county covering the cost of the plant if it backed out of the contract later. Basically, all the risk was on the county and all the reward went to the company.

None of that seemed to matter. The county commission had stars in their eyes and was ready to sign up for about anything. Just hand them the pen.

Now there’s a tricky thing about county government in Florida. It’s subject to the Sunshine Law which at the time was one of the strongest government transparency laws in the United States. Which meant any contract, any project, any money authorized and spent had to be part of the public record, with time for public comment.

When this item was first floated at a commission meeting, buried as it was in all the various business the county does, the public didn’t take much notice. But a reporter from the regionally recognized local paper did. The paper had covered the water wars and knew there was a story here, especially with the proposed use of park land, which everyone was already talking about. So, s/he did his/her job, talked to the right people, chased down the details, and published the story. The commission again didn’t seem to care because they thought they were solving a problem, despite the shakiness of the proposed contract.

The general public did not agree. The story quickly blew up. People started scrounging up pitchforks and torches as they ripped their bodices in preparation for storming the barricades. Within days we had received fliers from a NIMBY organization that had just formed to oppose the project. They flooded the commissioners with angry letters and phone calls the point where the commission was forced to delay voting on the proposal in the routinely scheduled general meeting.

But the commission hadn’t given up. Being career politicians, they had seen this kind of reaction before. They understood the fervor often quickly died down as the public shifted its focus to the next daily outrage. So, they went on a bit of a charm offensive, scheduling three separate public hearings to pitch the proposal where the company and their consulting team would present their plans and be available to answer questions. And like any commission meeting, public comment would be accepted in the form of time blocks for any citizen to speak. They slated three of these informational meetings over the course of a couple weeks, one in the north of the county, one in the south and one central maybe half a mile from where the proposed plant would be built. That one was assigned to a room in a cooperative extension that we’ve since learned is the largest conference room the county owns.

The north and south meetings went off without a hitch. A few dozen people showed up and generally expressed their lack of support but in no numbers that might blunt the effort. You could sense the commission felt like things were back on track. All they had to do was survive the final meeting, vote the project through and deflect a little fallout. No significant problem.

Especially since the NIMBY organization I mentioned wasn’t exactly helping the opposition’s cause. Full disclosure, I am no fan of NIMBY organizations because in general they are more interested in killing projects because of their homes’ resale value rather than because they are not in the best interest of the community. The name says it all. Not In My Back Yard. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a desal plant, a Walmart or a fire station. In general, they dislike change.

Then again, I was no fan of this experimental desal plant either. Mainly because it didn’t pass the smell test. I also didn’t think the proposed location was the proper use of park land. But in the end, I believe in democracy. If it passed muster and the county voted it in, I would have to deal with it. A couple big ifs.

Anyway, the first issue this newly fledged NIMBY organization focused on in its literature was sinkholes. They painted a grim and inaccurate picture of our houses being swallowed up when the plant over-pumped the aquifer, as everyone rightly expected they might. Now remember somewhere near the dawn of this essay that I mentioned sinkholes depend on the underlying geology? Yeah, this part of the county doesn’t have that structure. Karen knew that from glancing at a couple bedrock maps. Not really a problem.

Which she told a couple neighbors who were semi-organizers when we were talking to them one day. Initially they didn’t want to believe her, even though she said she was a geologist, because they thought she might support the project. We cleared that up pretty quickly, and I added that as an engineer, I was more concerned with the plant’s proximity to the water. The lake in the park the county proposed putting right beside is a 100-acre reservoir that drains through a series of creeks and canals both north and south before meandering its way to the Gulf. Any saltwater intrusion would be devastating to the surrounding ecosystem, never mind out subsurface wells.

While they remained skeptical about the likely lack of sinkholes, they added environmental impacts to their list of grievances. Their continued skepticism meant we couldn’t sign on to their movement directly as it struck us as not just NIMBY but anti-science. Even back then, neither of us was comfortable with the kind of science denial we heard, and that was before it was fully in vogue.

At the same time, we weren’t ready to completely shut them down either. While their facts might have been wrong, their instincts were right. The county seemed to be trying to pull one over on the public. And without a public outcry, it was unlikely to be stopped. They were mostly harmless, anyway, in that Douglas Adams kind of way. But without them, there would be no way to stop this project if stopping it was warranted. So, we were stuck with somewhat unreliable allies. But allies nonetheless.

Now the key words in the above paragraph are “if it was warranted.” From my point of view, if the science supported the project, I was willing to begrudgingly accept it because I recognized the problem. Or at least fight it only on the grounds of inappropriate siting alone. As I said, I am definitely not NIMBY and am not focused on winning at any cost.

But when I do enter the lists, it’s always with an eye on the prize. I figured these allies might have a part to play before this drama ended. So, we left them to it while we investigated other avenues, neither joining nor disclaiming them.

The first step was determining whether the project would actually be feasible. When I asked my resident staff geologist, she promptly answered, “Dammit, I’m a sedimentologist, not a hydrologist.” Well, do you know any hydrologists, I prodded innocently. Narrow eyes, a light bulb sparking. May-be. Let me look into it.

Karen did a search of relevant research in her office, which came up empty. Not surprising since they were a coastal research center. But there was a hydrology office located across the bay. She dug up a contact and wrote them, asking for information, as a private citizen not a federal geologist. I’m a little foggy on exactly what happened next, but I assume it involved trench coats and a dead-drop in a dark alley near the airport somewhere around midnight with an admonishment that, “Should you or any of your team be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions." Or words to that effect.

What Karen came up with was two official USGS research reports on the underlying hydrology of this area near our lake. Turns out, they had been studying it for at least a decade. As a private citizen, Karen neither asked for nor received any interpretation of the data, just the reports as written. But one thing a master’s degree teaches you is how to read an official government research study, even if it’s not in your particular field of specialty.

Both reports said pretty much the same thing. The underlying geology would only support pulling about a million gallons a day at most from the brine layer. Which translated to less than a million gallons of fresh water once it went through the desalination process. Anything more was unsustainable, though the specific impacts of attempting it went unaddressed. As did the level of isolation between the proposed wastewater injection layer and the freshwater Florida Aquifer should that be attempted.

And the commission had requested and received copies of both reports. They might even have been involved in commissioning the second one.

Being extra cautious to make sure that she wasn’t missing something, Karen approached a hydrologist colleague in her office to confirm what she thought she’d read. Yup, that is exactly what those reports were saying. And no, the underlying geology hadn’t magically transformed in the decade between the two reports, despite anyone’s wishful thinking.

When she told me what she’d found, I knew we had all the ammunition we needed. Locked and loaded, it was now just a matter of how to play it out. I knew exactly how to work it for maximum impact, but that required Karen playing an active role. While I could be the front man myself, and had absolutely no problem doing so, I knew she would be better for multiple reasons.

That prompted a second discussion on ethics and conflict of interest. Because they were USGS reports, and she was a USGS employee, she had to be very careful not to even hint that she was speaking in any official capacity. Which I absolutely knew wasn’t a problem as long as she didn’t mention who she worked for. I’d done my due diligence. Government employees maintain their right to free speech as long as they don’t overtly invoke their agency. The reports were in the public record, freely available to anyone who asked. Karen interpreted them based on her education, not her position with the agency. It’s a tricky balance but a pathway existed as long as she was careful.

To help convince her, I outlined my plan. Reluctantly, she agreed.

By now, we were just a few days away from the public meeting. Which worked out perfectly. With her onboard, I knew exactly how to set this up. First rule: Don’t talk about Project Mayhem. Second rule: Don’t. Talk. About. Project. Mayhem.

At this point, operational security meant strictly need to know basis only. Never trust especially sketchy allies with sensitive information if you want to maintain the element of surprise. If your enemy doesn’t have time to prepare, they can simply react. Use that.

So, when the public meeting rolled around, we stayed in our work clothes, shirt and tie for me, business casual for her, and drove to the meeting. We wanted to arrive a little early to make sure we could get Karen a time slot to speak.

When we pulled up, the county cooperative extension was already mobbed. Hundreds of people were streaming into the building. Two different individuals with clipboards tried to stop us and get us to sign a petition opposing the proposal. By then, I had my game face on. I simply waved them off and kept walking, my dress shoes hitting the concrete with a heavy heel. A third canvasser in support of the measure took one look, got my best “bring it” stare, and didn’t even try.

We got a lot of sidelong glances on our approach. No one was sure exactly who we were. Everyone suspected we were players by the way we were dressed and moving with a purpose, along with the papers Karen carried, but they had no idea on whose side. Exactly as I wanted it.

Inside, we found row upon row of chairs set out with aisles separating them. At the top of the center aisle was a microphone facing the table where the Commissioners would sit. To one side, near the entrance was a large table with a conceptual diagram of the proposed desal plant and where it would be situated. The consulting team hired by the company making the proposal hovered around in their suits, ready to answer questions. We only glanced at them on the way by.

Instead, we headed for the signup sheet for public comment. Karen entered her name. We sat toward the back near the center of the room where we could survey the crowd. Then we settled in and waited. I engaged the eyes that look right through you to ensure people kept their distance, seeing but not making eye contact or acknowledging anyone.

Eventually, the meeting was called to order. By then, every seat was filled with SRO in the back. Only three Commissioners had bothered to show up, the Chairperson and two others. Only one of them was interesting. He had been appointed by the governor to finish a vacated term. Not only was he the only Democrat on the commission in a decade, he was also the only, and perhaps first, person of color. All of which put him in a somewhat awkward position in this county at the time if he intended to stand for an elected term.

The desal plant was the one item on the agenda that night. The consulting firm for the company gave a brief introductory presentation of the proposal. A polished, professional presentation. Nothing new or earth-shattering. We didn’t pay much attention other than to note the overall contours of the plan remained unchanged.

Next, the Chairperson opened the floor for public comment. An official called the first name on the list. Each person had three minutes to speak. Karen had at least a dozen people ahead of her. By convention, the Commission did not address public comments, they typically just sat and listened. A few speakers in we could sense they were only there to make a good-faith showing, absorb any damage, and move on to a vote the next week. All they had to do was survive the meeting just like they had the other two.

Two of the commissioners sat stone-faced as citizen after citizen stood at the microphone to object to this proposal. The Democrat looked more sympathetic but only slightly. Most of the speakers were impassioned though not always eloquent, which is the way a democracy is supposed to work. Their facts were all over the board as we knew they would be. But we could see there were no new arguments. The Commissioners had heard it all before. Sometimes from the exact same speakers. A quiet boredom evolved behind their Easter Island expressions. They just wanted to get this over with. Even the crowd and speakers began to sense theirs was a futile rearguard action. When the clock ran out on the evening, it would be all over but the crying.

I was taking in the room again when Karen’s name was called. Specifically, I was watching the consulting team sitting up front, facing the commissioners. When Karen rose after the official called her name, I saw the only woman on the team snap her head around to look. Turned out, she recognized Karen from them both being members of the local Association of Women Geologists chapter. For an instant, this woman looked like she’d been poleaxed. Her expression quickly transformed back to neutral as she turned to face forward, staring at nothing in particular. That told me everything I needed to know. We had the initiative and had maintained the element of surprise.

The hall quieted as Karen strode up the aisle, papers in hand. All eyes traced her progress as she approached the microphone. After introducing herself by name and city of residence, she launched into her very brief geological review. As she did, the expression of two of the commissioners transformed from bored to apprehensive. The Democrat leaned in to listen more intently. Less than three minutes later, Karen concluded by holding up the pair of reports in her hand, slightly splayed so the Commissioners could see them both, as she pointedly asked her final question “Why are you even considering this proposal when you have two US Geological Survey reports that say it won’t work?”

There was a moment of stunned silence as Karen turned away from the microphone and headed back toward her seat. Less than a second later, the room erupted. A woman from the neighborhood, a member of the opposition, raised a hand in a high-five as Karen passed. She slapped it as she strode by.

The remaining speakers on the list spoke, but you could tell their remarks were pro forma. Everyone knew the argument had already been won.

The commissioners looked dismayed. Our ambush had been perfectly executed.

So perfectly, in fact, that the moment the Chairperson gaveled the meeting to a close, he and his comrade bolted from the room, not even pausing to shake a hand or acknowledge any constituents. Only the Democrat remained, and he sought Karen out. He only had one question for her.

“Are you a geologist?”

She smiled sweetly back at him and answered, “As a matter of fact, I am,” neglecting her affiliation. He nodded sagely before continuing to circulate through the room, obviously calculating how to exploit this newfound knowledge. We left right after, before anyone else could seek us out. Mission accomplished.

The following week, the Commission pulled the proposal from the next commission meeting’s agenda, awaiting further study. Karen was afraid that meant they’d try to bring it back. I shook my head. They were just saving face until no one else was looking. Sure enough, a few months later, they quietly strangled the proposal in its sleep with a formal vote and buried it in an unmarked drainage ditch behind the house.

By then, Karen had been transformed into a local folk hero, somewhat because of her high recognition factor. People we didn’t know and had never really met would wave and introduce themselves whenever we were in the park. They’d thank her for what she’d done. The neighbor couple we’d talked to early on smiled and reminisced every time they saw us walking literally for years after. No one would forget Karen’s fateful encounter with the Commission that night, charging like Uxbridge at Waterloo from behind the concealment of the crest to spike battery after battery of exposed French guns. By the time she rode back to the safety of her lines, unscathed in her case, the Grand Battery would fire no more.

So, what is the lesson in all this? Come now, if you’ve read the previous essays this year, you know there has to be one.

The first and simplest is the most obvious. You absolutely can fight city hall and win, but only if you know how to seize a moment and have all your facts in line and a little expertise with a little guts behind it. It helps immensely if your opposition is unprepared. Politicians often are.

But that’s not the one I wanted to focus on. The real lesson to me is more subtle. And that lesson concerns allies.

In recent years, I’ve heard a lot of talk about what it means to be an ally, whether regarding LGBT rights, women’s rights or civil rights, or even ordinary politics. Mostly from people who have little idea what they are talking about or what that word truly means.

An ally is not a subordinate, even though they fight beside you. They do not blindly follow your orders or slavishly defend your position. Those are people who have already enlisted in your army, who fight and die beneath your banner because they choose to for one reason or another. With them, you are all one unit, one organization. They are you in a sociological sense.

An ally is not.

An ally is someone whose goals and objectives overlap with your own. They fight for their own reasons, for their own causes, some of which you may or may not agree with or fully understand. Some are allies of convenience, others are more deep-rooted and dependable. But either way, they choose their own ground and make their own decisions, right or wrong. If your interests align, especially if you are outnumbered and outgunned, it is best to welcome them, even if you cast a wary eye toward a future where circumstances may change.

If all that sounds a bit Machiavellian, it absolutely is. It also happens to be the way the sausage gets made, to misquote Bismarck. For any of his faults, he was a man who fundamentally understood how politics and allies work.

Without the NIMBY crowd of opposition, we were unlikely to succeed. They did the hard work of crystallizing the opposition and getting people to turn out. Without an audience, without a pitchfork and torch wielding mob behind her, Karen’s facts would likely have fallen upon deaf ears. Just another bit of information to spin. Politicians are good at that and do it all the time. They usually only listen when you threaten them with votes.

In fact, this opposition’s efforts may have led to the slow transformation of the County Commission which had been dominated by a single political party for three decades at that time. In that, the Commission had become more than a bit arrogant in thinking they could do whatever they wanted without consequence. They eventually paid for that, one by one.

This opposition had the numbers and emotion on their side, two things we could never conjure up. We had facts, a strategy and a sense of timing. They knew where to strike, we knew how and when to direct the blow.

Each side didn’t want this project, each for different reasons. Our interests aligned. Which is why we neither joined them nor disparaged them early on. We needed them. Just as they needed us, though they didn’t know it until the end. We didn’t share an outlook and didn’t share tactics, or even information, just a common goal. When it was won, it was done and the alliance dissolved. But we both walked away happy.

And if our interests had aligned once more in the future, perhaps we could have worked together again.

So, as we talk about BLM, or LBGT, or renewed interest in ERA, please remember that while not everyone who stands beside you is black or gay or female, they still might be dying beside you for their own heartfelt reasons. Sure, you can attempt to educate and enlighten them if you are able, and likely should. But it’s better to honor them than disparage them, especially if you want them to continue to fight.

Or in Karen’s case, to pull the sword from the stone and unite the disparate tribes of Pinellas in an epic quest for good governance.

© 2020 Edward P. Morgan III

Homelessness – Beltane 2020

Thirty-eight years ago, I was standing in the driveway of the house where I grew up when a Rockledge cop said to me, “We can absolutely arrest her and charge her with battery right now if that’s what you want. She will go to jail. But either way, you need to find a new place to live.”

He had just finished examining my arm to confirm the teeth-marks that had resulted in my call. His partner was inside, talking to my mother, getting her side of the story. Ultimately, she heard the same thing, that she could be sent to jail immediately. All I had to do was say the word.

I didn’t.

Like many choices I made that day, I am not sure why.

I don’t remember exactly how the fight kicked off, or really what it was about. There had been friction between my mother and I since I’d turned eighteen a few months earlier, some of which stemmed from my father no longer paying child support even though I was still in high school. But I don’t think she liked me asserting any of my newfound independence.

What I remember is waking up with her screaming at me. I was on my feet when she burst into my room in a rage. I’m sure prompted by something I had or hadn’t done, though I can’t for the life of me remember what that might have been. Or maybe I’d been out late the night before and sleeping in, which she never liked.

What I do is remember standing in my underwear wondering what the hell was going on when she started pounding on me with her fists. This wasn’t the first time she’d gotten physical with me. A year or so before, she’d slung a frozen roast across the counter into my chest, cracking a rib or at least tearing cartilage, because she said I “was being sullen.” My father told me a horrific story that I only remember peripherally from when I was four.

Unlike then, this time I had a moment of crystal clarity. At the time I still had a very skewed impression of my mother, and the allocation of power and size between us. I remember having been afraid of her for a long time. Up until that very instant, I still saw her through a younger child’s eyes, as much bigger and more intimidating than she really was.

It was only as her fists were raining down on my chest that I finally realized that I was a 6’ 1” male and she was a 5’ 4” female more than twice my age. Though I wasn’t strong, I was stronger than she was, and had reach and at least 40 pounds on her. Even though I was barely awake, something clicked in my head that said I no longer had to take her abuse.

So, I grabbed her wrists to prevent her from hitting me anymore. I remember holding them firmly but not squeezing. I could stop her and there was not much she could do. With that epiphany, I remember feeling really proud of myself for having figured that out.

That lasted for a full second until she switched attack vectors and started kicking for my balls. Thankfully, most women overestimate this tactic. Most guys are really good at defending the boys unless they are taken by surprise. I was no different. I turned my hips to shield them, then outstretched my arms to full length.

Once again, I briefly thought I had the situation under control. I just needed her to understand it and calm the fuck down. Once again, I underestimated why in the Irish pantheon two of the three gods of war are female.

Up to now, she surprised me but hadn’t really hurt me, though that had absolutely been her intent. Her next move made that abundantly clear. She clamped her teeth on my forearm and bit down. Hard. The sudden pain got my full and undivided attention.

I still have no idea why I didn’t throw her into a wall. All I wanted to do was stop her, not hurt her. But this tested my patience. Instead, she got what she exactly wanted. I released her wrists, and took a step back, my fists now clenched to defend myself if she came at me again.

When she didn’t, I cautiously examined my arm to see what she had done. I was stunned to find the very clear, deep impressions of her teeth. Just short of breaking skin. This from a woman who was the teacher of sometimes young children and had zero tolerance for biting.

I glared up at her and said I could call the cops for that. She dared me to. She said they’d laugh when they arrived. She mocked that I’d been bitten and bested by my 42-year-old mother. Another mistake on her part in a series of bad decisions. I dialed 911 and told them what had happened. The dispatcher said a cruiser was on the way.

When it arrived, I recognized one of the two officers who got out of the car. He frequented the restaurant where I worked. He and I had talked a number of times. He’d pulled security duty at my boss’s wedding reception. He was personable but no-nonsense and showed no favoritism. He’d made that abundantly clear before.

He interviewed me in the driveway, his partner my mother inside the house. They separated us, per protocol, to see how our stories fit together, then compared notes. When he came out of that conclave, he told me my mother had confirmed most of what I’d said. She’d basically confessed, enough that they could charge her. But not me as he made it clear that I’d done nothing wrong. The marks on my arm were enough. They were still clearly visible after the fifteen minutes it took for the cruiser to arrive. His partner had informed her that her fate was in my hands.

As tempting as it was to have her thrown in jail just to make sure the message sank in, I knew there would be repercussions if I did. But I took his warning seriously. Domestic abuse never ends well where the abused and the abuser continue to cohabitate.

So, I told him they could cut her loose, got in my car and left. I had keys and planned to come back and collect my things the next day while she was at work.

But where to go? Where would I sleep that night?

Those were suddenly existential questions. I drifted around, still in shock, not knowing exactly where to go or what to do.

At some point, I called my grandparents in Cape Canaveral. My grandfather, my father’s father, made it clear that I could not go there. I sensed my grandmother was less than pleased. But it wasn’t in her nature to defy her husband. My other grandparents were fifteen hundred miles away, with the rest of my extended family. My sister was three thousand. My father at least a couple hundred, but I had good reason to doubt he would welcome me.

All my high school friends still lived at home. I could picture none of them being able to offer me a place to stay. Most of them had no inkling of my situation. Some still didn’t until just a few years ago. I’ve said before that when I was younger, I’d learned not to discuss life at home because of the long looks, the awkward silences and the distancing I’d received when I had. Society often values and rewards secrecy over safety in that regard.

Eventually, I ended up at my friend’s place in public housing. Yeah, the one from the 2 o’clock news. By then it was dark and I was desperate. I begged him to crash on his couch just for one night. Hell even a few hours. My only other option was sleeping in my car on the street outside. I didn’t know where else to go.

In the last essay, I alluded to the vagaries of public housing. Here’s a more concrete example of their Byzantine, if well-intentioned, rules.

As kids, most of us remember sleepovers. You know, where you and one friend or many get together for a night at one or another of your houses, either in guest beds or in sleeping bags on the floor. Usually you stay up late playing games or watching movies, then whisper even later into the night until a host parent somehow convinces you all to go to sleep.

Most people see it as a completely unremarkable childhood activity. When we were very young, staying a night away from home was a kind of rite of passage. Most parents I’ve talked to view it as a small, sometimes necessary break. Unless, of course, they are hosting.

That wasn’t really a thing in public housing. It couldn’t be. By rule of the Public Housing Authority, having anyone unregistered stay even a single night was a violation that could see the entire family evicted. Immediately.

My friend’s mother informed me of all that in no uncertain terms. I had no desire to put anyone at risk but, like a child, I was already shutting down mentally, unable to think clearly. I desperately needed time to reset and regroup. I’d run through every possibility I could think of.

My friend’s mother was torn in a way I’d rarely seen. She called me an adoptive son and I knew she meant it. I could see she truly wanted to help but felt constrained by circumstance. She quizzed me to see if I really had exhausted every other possibility. She looked stricken and horrified when I told her my grandparents had refused me shelter even for a single night.

But she was one of the few adults in my life who was familiar with my situation and not uncomfortable with knowing about it. In the past, she had called my mother, and talked with her woman to woman, trying to help smooth a situation out. She had been told, in no uncertain terms, to mind her own business and to never call again. She understood the anguish, the fear, the complete uncertainty I was going through.

That’s when she made a decision. I could see it on her face. True to her unique, pragmatic style, she turned away from me, looking instead at her son and informed him that she was going to bed. That she would be getting up at a certain time in the morning, which I’d never heard her do. That she wouldn’t come out until then. My friend nodded and repeated back the time. That was her tacit permission for me to stay as long as I was gone by then.

It was one of the bravest things I’ve ever witnessed. She put her family at risk. For me. It’s only with time that I’ve fully understood to what extent. Not something I am ever likely to forget.

But one night was all I needed. The next day, through good fortune and a little generosity, I signed a lease on a basic, furnished apartment. I received a small donation of bedding, towels and other household goods. I adjusted my hours at my minimum-wage job from part-time to full-time. That summer, I cooked and cleaned and paid my bills, day to day and month to month. In the end, my finances were roughly even, no more saving than I’d started with but no debt either. Not exactly the way I intended to spend the summer between high school and college, but life is what happens while we’re making other plans.

Some people will read this and say, it was only one night. Well, I would respectfully point out that’s hindsight. I didn’t know how things would turn out a priori. And I will never forget that feeling of uncertainty and heart-freezing fear. And I know that not everyone has that choice. If you wonder why so many people continue to live with abusers, to an extent many have no other good option.

“We are all just three bad breaks away from seeing throwing scud missiles as a valid career path.” (author unknown)

More importantly, we are all just three bad breaks away from being that person so many in our society like to look down on. That person caught in a downward spiral. That person who struggles. That person who needs help.

That could be from your attention wandering for a split second too long in a parking lot with a pedestrian, your birth control failing under normal parameters in high school or college, or that lump that you thought was a sebaceous cyst instead being something malignant. It could be an identity theft. It could be getting laid off from your job. It could be the family or circumstances you were born into. It could be a mental illness. Stack three of them together and you could be almost anyone.

Your life and circumstances can change in an instant, not always because of poor planning or poor choices but rather because sometimes random things happen to random people. If you've avoided them, you are exceptional in that you're lucky, not superior.

The day you forget that is the day you put your first foot into the grave. Because your sense of compassion and empathy has begun to die. And with it, your humanity.

Three bad breaks. My first was being assaulted. I didn’t ask for that. I didn’t intend it or provoke it. It came to me. In my room. In my underwear. My second could have been not having found a safe place to stay for a night and shake off the shock so I could decide what to do next, what needed to be done. Because I did, I got a shot to turn things around. My third could have been not finding help in nailing down a place to live that I could afford. Without it, I would likely have had to crawl back home. Had that happened, one of us living there might have eventually ended up dead.

My outcome was only possible because someone took a chance and gave me a night to catch my breath.

So when I see that homeless person crouched beside my local Outback, or get accosted by a vagrant in St. Pete on my way from a restaurant to my car, or I hear about people in desperate need of a social safety net, my first thought isn’t “hey, I bootstrapped myself, and so should you.” No, even if I don’t always spare a dollar, I spare a direct look in the eye and a nod of acknowledgement. I spare a vote to get society pointed in the right direction even if it impacts me. I spare a donation to a local shelter.

I know it’s not much, but more than some. Because I’ve been there, if only for one night, and remember how it feels. I walked away with a lesson and a lifelong perspective. A lesson I was lucky to learn so cheaply.

But having that lesson defines the difference between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy is imagining yourself in someone else’s shoes, thinking about how they might feel and acting accordingly. Empathy is relating to their situation by drawing on your own experience, even tangentially. Sympathy is an important part of the social contract but sometimes drifts into unproductive pity. Empathy is more powerful, yet often more difficult to maintain. Fundamentally, the difference is one between imagination and experience, no matter how small or remote.

I suspect that when the coronavirus crisis ends, a number of people who started with a bootstrap attitude will have a broader understanding of what three breaks might mean. While I wish nothing ill upon anyone, I hope we as a society will use that newfound perspective wisely.

© 2020 Edward P. Morgan III