Tomfoolery

“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.” Mark Twain

Thomas Skelton

The origin of the word “tomfoolery,” meaning to acting even worse than a fool, comes from England in the time of William Shakespeare.  Thomas Skelton was a sadistic jester at Moncuster Castle in Cumbria who allegedly played vile jokes on those whom Sir William Pennington disliked, once cutting off the had of a butcher with whom
his master’s daughter had fallen in love with his own knife.  Rumor had it that he’d sit under a tree and tell passersby who asked for directions to take a path that led to quicksand and their death.

Trump’s latest tomfoolery is to announce that despite the pandemic he’ll be holding a MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, location of the infamous 1921 massacre that killed scores of black people and destroyed their neighborhood. The original date was June 19, known as “Juneteenth” and celebrated when slaves learned of their emancipation. Attendees have to sign a waiver agreeing not to hold sponsors liable in case they catch Covid-19.  Imagine. Trump also announced that he’d be giving his Republican National Convention speech in Jacksonville, Florida, on August 27, the sixtieth anniversary of that city’s notorious “Axe Handle Riot,” when a Klan-inspired white mob attacked peaceful black demonstrators with axe handles.  Trump has also criticized those who wish to rename the dozen military bases (Bragg, Hooker, Benning, etc.) named for Confederate leaders. 

Don Coffin passed on this statement by former General David Petrakis: “For an organization designed to win wars to train for them atinstallations named for those who led a losing force is sufficiently peculiar, but when we consider the cause for which these officers fought, we begin to penetrate the confusion of Civil War memory. These bases are, after all, federal installations, home to soldiers who swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. The irony of training at bases named for who took up arms against the United States, and for the right to enslave others, is inescapable to anyone paying attention. Now, belatedly, is the moment for us to pay such attention.”

Even more damning was a recent statement by former Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis, branding Trump the first president in his lifetime “who does not
try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us.”  The country has not been so polarized in 50 years, since Nixon, Vietnam, and Watergate. Some, referencing the poem “Second Coming” (1919) by William B. Yeats, fear the center won’t hold and that the country is slouching toward anarchy. But for the prospect of voting Trump out of office in November, they may have a point. Here are the first lines of “Second Coming”:

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world 

Republican Senator from South Carolina Tim Scott, an African American, appeared on the Sunday talk shows to tout a bipartisan legislative proposal for police reforms regarding the use of choke holds, no-knock procedures, and compiling a record of complaints against individual.  When Scott described to fellow Republican legislators how he’d been stopped and hassled numerous times by cops, including after he’d become a member of Congress, they supposedly were shocked and mortified.  While I doubt that anything meaningful will come from Scott’s efforts, given Trump’s intransigence to any gesture of compromise, Republicans are clearly worried about a possible election debacle.

 On Flag Day historian Ray Boomhower quoted Norman Thomas: “If you want a symbolic gesture, don’t burn the flag; wash it.” The flag Trump seems most eager to defend lately is the Confederate Battle flag.  In fact, when NASCAR announced that Confederate flags were not welcome at its events, he ridiculed the decision-makers. 

Former Valparaiso University History professor Heath Carter, now at Princeton
Theological Seminary, has made available on Facebook a lecture series he’s
giving at Nassau Presbyterian Church on the church during times of crisis. Introducing
himself, Carter noted that the series will offer both comfort and cautionary
tales. The initial one dealt with racism during a time of epidemic - the 1793
yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia, founded by Quaker William Penn as the
“City of Brotherly Love” and then the nation’s capital and largest city. Noted
doctor Benjamin Rush, believing African Americans to be immune to the disease,
convinced many free blacks to nurse the sick with dire consequences. Not only did
many perish, others were unfairly blamed for thefts and for spreading the disease.
After the terror abated, members of St. George’s Church, heretofore integrated,
voted to restrict blacks to the balcony. When Richard Allen refused to obey the edict and was forcibly removed, the other black members walked out and subsequently founded Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church, which is still in existence. Meanwhile, at Valparaiso religious leaders and many others of good will participated in a peaceful vigil and later a die-in to honor and mourn the black victims of police violence.

photo by Allison Schuette

Liam off camera

Sampter in sports jacket

Alissa visited overnight, and James celebrated his twentieth birthday with friends Andrew, Nate, and Liam. Dave got them to go on Facebook and sing Smash Mouth’s “All Star” (You’re an all star, Get your game on”). Janet Bayer found a1990 photo her
friend Anita took of a Going Away party for the Bayers upon their move to Vermont. I’m wearing a blue vest and tie and except for the nerdy glasses was looking quite dapper but, I wrote Janet, not as dapper as Al Sampter, mentor to my mentor, Mike Bayer.

Eleanor Bailey wrote:

    On This Day-June 15, 1943 -77 years ago. The town of Sumava Resorts in Newton County Indiana had been flooded for several days. (May-June flood Kankakee River 1943). We lived on the first road to the left. Mother was expecting her third child and our family was staying temporarily at the home of Dr. Raymond Merchant, who made house calls and had his office in his basement, in Lake Village. My brother Bill was born at Gary Methodist Hospital on June 15. I remember being in the car and crossing the railroad tracks at entrance to Sumava. There was a sign
that read 15 miles an hour to avoid dust. The flood waters were half-way up on
the sign post. R.I.P. Bill Bailey (1943-2014).

I was tempted to respond with the song title, “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home?” but feared it would be taken the wrong way.  I befriended Eleanor Bailey thinking she was a high school classmate, but she knows mutual friend Kay Westhues – so I don’t know Eleanor very well.

Anne Koehler wrote about growing up in Germany with two brothers and a sister on a farm in Damendorf, northern Germany, less than a two-hour drive from the Danish border.

    The farm was medium sized with a variety of crops and animals. We grew wheat, barley, rye, potatoes, sugar and regular beets, flax, alfalfa. There were horses, about 25 milk cows, turkeys, ducks,laying hens and pigs. We were located in an end moraine.  Rocks and stones would surface every year and had to be picked off the fields. They were crushed and used for roads.- Our little pond in back of the garden had diving boards in three heights. This is where the children from the whole village would gather for a swim. We had to share it with calves and pigs, which did not bother us in the least. Great times until one day a boy drowned. A trained diver found him, but he could not be revived. It was a sad experience. - The low fields behind the farm would flood and freeze over in winter, making a splendid skating surface. The older boys would play ice hockey, we would skate or be be pulled on sleds. We also had a chair-like sled, -- In those days we did not own a milking machine. A hired man was singly in charge of milking the cows. Occasionally he got days off. So on Easter 1955. We had to help with the chores. I had gone to a party in the village tavern the night before and was hung over. While milking the cow Undine, my visiting cousin Hermann from southern Germany decided to take a photo. He captioned it: The city dweller says: oh that's where the milk comes from. The cow looks really good. It is a Holstein!!!