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Poetry

Echoes of the Counter Culture

A Poem is Born

A poem is born
By describing what is sensed or seen
And never saying the word it
Without describing what “it” is.
Admiring yellow squash flowers
Among the riot of purple morning glories
In the gardens which greet the day.
Crows standing pensively
Rocking back and forth on their toes
In black wing tipped dress shoes
Hands intertwined behind their backs
Engaged in a familiar dialogue
About roadkill
The harbor
And their diving neighbors the cormorants.
Transplanting small sprouting vegetables
Who convey their gratitude for soil and love.
After a demonstration at the bank
Calling for corrupt lenders
To hold very long meetings inside federal jail cells.
After yoga, and music,
And even an unwelcome creeping sense of paranoia
That emerges of its own accord
And leaves the station on its own schedule.
At the end of a good day,
A present day,
Where pain and stiffness are at a minimum,
The mail is taken to the post office,
And you approach life and death with hands raised high
In the universal sign of surrender.
Welcomed home
By the lover you’ve awakened
Eating pumpkin pie made with home grown pumpkins
Roasted seed, and ginger.
.

Indigenous Matters and the 2024 MA Legislative Agenda

It is important to the rebalancing that I imagine is possible that we acknowledge that we live on lands loved for millennia before us by people of the Massachusett, Mohican, Nauset, Nipmuc, Pawtucket, Pocumtuc, Seaconke, Pokanoket, Pocumtuk, Nipmuc, Abenaki, Wabanaki Confederacy and Wampanoag tribes and nations. I give thanks to the indigenous people who stewarded the land and waters of Massachusetts for more than 15,000 years. I acknowledge that I inhabit land seized and stolen from these indigenous people, whose descendants still live among us. I am committed to honoring their wishes for respect, restoration, and independence and invite you to join me.


The 2022 Massachusetts Legislative Agenda

You may think you know all about why to support the MA Indigenous Legislative Agenda but there is still much to learn if you … WATCH THIS POWERFUL ONE-HOUR VIDEO OF THE JANUARY 11 INDIGENOUS PANEL SPEAKING ABOUT THE NEED TO SUPPORT INDIGENOUS-CENTERED BILLS IN MASSACHUSETTS!

And if you don’t have the time to be further re-educated and inspired …THEN JUST TAKE THIS ACTION STEP:-Go to https://bit.ly/SupportIndigenousBills and send an automated letter to the members of the legislative committees where the bills are currently sitting, asking that the bills be reported out of committee favorably. You can customize the letter if you want. Please share and get your friends and organizations to write, too!-Learn more about the bills and get updates via http://maindigenousagenda.org/-Email for more information: info@MAIndigenousAgenda.org or info@uaine.org

Move our bills out of committee before the deadline!

The 2021-2022 Indigenous Legislative Agenda includes 5 priorities: Remove Racist Mascots, Honor Indigenous People’s Day, Celebrate and Teach Native American Culture & History, Protect Native American Heritage, and Support the Education and Futures of Native Youth.

Join us in calling for each of these bills to move out of committee!

An Act prohibiting the use of Native American mascots by public schools in the Commonwealth. (S.2493/H.581) Currently about 30 public high schools in the state use Native American mascots. This bill would task the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education with establishing regulations to prohibit Native American mascots in MA public schools.

An Act establishing an Indigenous Peoples Day. (S.2027/H.3191 ) This bill replaces Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day in the Massachusetts General Laws.

An act relative to celebrating Native American culture and history. (S.382/H.651) This bill addresses the lack of Indigenous curriculum in Massachusetts public schools.

An Act providing for the creation of a permanent commission relative to the education of American Indian and Alaska Native residents of the Commonwealth(H.582) As a State Education Agency, the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education must engage in timely and meaningful consultation with stakeholders. Representatives of Indian tribes located in the state are explicitly identified as stakeholders.

An Act to protect Native American Heritage. (S.2239/H.3377 & S.2240/H.3385) This would ensure that Native American funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony (those of cultural, traditional or historical importance to their heritage) held in governmental, municipal or non-profit collections are not sold for profit.

Wesley Williams

A Black Man’s Life in America During the Twentieth Century

I am a man of few words and must say from the start that words do not come easily to me.  Which makes the fact I am saying anything, especially about myself, quite unusual.  I think of myself as a man of action more than deep reflection.  And although I do think about some things as much (or as little) as the next man, I am not an especially introspective person.  Nor do I dwell upon the complexities of life. Nor am I terribly well read, although a few books have had an immense impact on my life.  The fact is, as I think about it, that I have gained my way into this my eighty fifth year on the planet, mostly by persistence, desire, brawn, by my sheer physical strength, and my immense stubborn will.  By my deeds, I say … deeds and few words.  The fact I am saying any of this at all actually makes very little sense, but I’m trying.

The fact is I don’t talk about myself and I don’t philosophize.  Never have.  Never found it all that interesting frankly.

This particular project actually began because of my grandson Robert.  A strange young man, I tease him, who comes over to my apartment on One Hundred and Seventeenth St. one fine day and informs me he is taking an oral history class at City University and that he wants me to tell him the history of my life.  Gives me this little tape recorder and these tapes.  Says to me, “Grandpa, please just tell me the story of your life,” as if it was a story I actually knew, when truth is I have hardly looked at myself for one minute of one day, except in the mirror when I dress or shave, or walking past the window of some darkened storefront on the avenues.  “What do I have to say, young fool,” I ask him.  And he says, “Come on, gramps, be real, you know your life is an interesting story, please, just talk into the tape recorder as if you were talking to me and telling me one of your tales.”

Now honestly, there is nothing inherently more interesting in my story than in the next fellow’s story if you ask me.  I didn’t fight in a war overseas.  I didn’t win a gold medal at the Olympics.  I haven’t written any books.  And it’s damned sure I haven’t amassed a great fortune.  And I wasn’t even the first Negro fire fighter in the history of the New York City Fire Department.  But I was the first Negro fire chief in the history of the New York City and surely I was the first Black Battalion Chief in New York City Fire Department history, maybe unto now for all I know.  And I suppose that’s what Robert thinks about when he asks me to tell him my story.

I have lived in these so-called United States of America all my life.  What can I tell you?  I’ve actually lived in New York City all my life.  Fact is, I’d just as soon not leave the Bronx or Manhattan if I had my druthers.  As an adult I was certainly free to leave and I clearly and definitively did not, notwithstanding the pain of the everyday and of our history.  I am an American, after all, and I am proud of that fact as a Black man.

This whole project, of me recording into this tape recorder thing, actually started out because my grandson Robert, a strange young man I tell him, came over to my apartment on One Hundred and Seventeenth Street one day, and told me he was taking an oral history class at City University.  Asked me to tell him the story of my life.  Gave me a little tape recorder and these tapes and said with that straight and earnest face Robert has, “Grandpa, please, just tell me the story of your life and I‘ll have the tape running,” as if the story of my life was a story I actually knew.  Strange young man, that Robert.  Always into books.  And oh my how earnest he is.  Truth is I have hardly looked at myself for one minute of one day, except in the mirror when I dress, or shave, or walk past some of the big windows of some of the storefronts on the avenues. 

Oh I know well that some people regard me with a admiration and respect, at least these days they do, but that has to do with my deeds, my rank, my status, my accomplishments and not with the inner man, although I’m sure the inner man is a reflection of the outer public man, and vice versa.  I just really never looked at it and I don’t think anyone ever actually asked me to.

“What do I have to say about anything, young fool,” I asked him. 

And he said, “oh just please, grandpops, please, just talk into the tape recorder as if you were standing at the pearly gates reviewing your life with god.

“Now you know I don’t believe in that foolishness, Robert, you know that,” I said.

“Well then just talk into the tape recorder as if you were telling your mother what happened to you after she died.  Tell grandma what happened to you.  Tell her.”

“You are a pushy bookish young man, Robert.  You know that?” I said, and I knew I was smiling as I said it.

I have lived in these so-called United States of America all my life.  What can I tell you?  I’ve actually lived in New York City all my life.  Fact is I’d just as soon not leave New York City at any time if I had my druthers.  The Bronx and Manhattan, that’s where I live, and have lived, and chose to live.  Lived in Jersey for a short while with Frances but didn’t really like it.  Who needs all those trees I say, just give me blacktop, brick, bright lights, and sidewalks.  Throw in a siren. There is no freer place on earth for me than walking down the streets of New York City.  Yes, son, New York, that’s my home.

As an adult I was certainly free to leave New York City and I clearly and definitively did not, notwithstanding the pain of the everyday and of our history.  I am a New Yorker, an American, and I tell any African who visits these shores that I am as proud of that fact as I am proud to be a Black man.

I was born in the summer of 1897, well before what these white people call World War One.  Funny how language, and those who shape the language, also shape and influence a people’s perception of reality.  I mean, thirty five to sixty million Africans were ripped from their homes and families and forced to live in the most horrific and degrading conditions for centuries, treated worst than dogs, owned and unfree, and that is called a “peculiar institution,” while fifty to sixty thousand young American white men die in foreign lands between 1914 and 1917 and it is called “the war to end all wars.”  I ask you.

My father James worked as an attendant at Grand Central Station for half a century.  Worked as hard and steady as any man who ever lived.  Loved his work, and loved bringing home his paycheck and putting it on the kitchen table for all to see.  “Honest week’s work.  Honest week’s wages.  Land of the free, home of the brave,” he would say.

His father had been a slave.  Now there’s a story there worth telling.  And my mother herself had been born a slave, although as a young child she and her mother were freed and came up to New York City.  Slavery has defined me, has defined our people, and has defined our country from the beginning.  When I was a boy we lived in the Bronx in an apartment my father rented way over by Pelham Parkway.  You can’t quite imagine what the Bronx was like nearly one hundred years ago.  But there were farmhouses still.  And people kept cows and chickens.  And if you were Black you lived in      .  And there were no public schools for colored children.  And I was born at home in my mother’s kitchen, with a hot tub of water on the floor, and my mother’s mother Rachel and the neighborhood midwife standing by.  No drugs.  No doctors.  No medicines.  No alcohol in that house.  Just my mother screaming, “Damn you, James, see if I ever let’s you touch me again.  Ever.”  Screaming and laughing and panting hard you know, and swearing things she never meant but in her times of urgency and birth.

I was a skinny runt of a kid.  Not an ounce of weight on me, when Ramsey found me.  Now Ramsey, there was a man’s man.  Just lived in that neighborhood, a quiet, never no nonsense man.  Had a little gym in the garage next to his house with some weight lifting equipment.  Inherited that house free and clear somehow.  Hardly ever employed.  Lived just to work out and exercise.  Loved to bring every kid in the neighborhood if he could into his garage and show them how to lift weights, do push ups, jump rope.
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Wesley Augustus Williams – from Wiki

Wesley Williams was a champion amateur weight lifter, and achieved a perfect score of 100% in the physical examination to enter the department. He was the one candidate of the 2,700 competing to score a 100% on the entrance physical examination and only the second man in the history of the department to gain a perfect score. Five years after entering the department in 1924, Williams won the heavyweight boxing championship at a weight of 185 lbs.

Williams was interviewed in 1976, when aged eighty, by Vulcan Society historian John L. Ruffins.[5] Williams was a well-educated grammar school graduate. Following his retirement from the department on April 1, 1952, he remained as active in the business affairs and social life of Harlem. Williams recalled how appreciative he was to receive the letter from Fireman John Woodson a few days before he was appointed in 1919, and commented on how accurately Woodson had stated the facts and the problems he was to face.

Williams had been placed number 13 on the civil service list for appointment as Fireman, New York City Fire Department. Even with his exceptionally high standing on the civil service list it was necessary to present character references. Williams’ father was the head Red Cap at Grand Central Station and had developed a personal relationship with the Vanderbilts, the Goulds and the Morgans who were the owners of the railroads and passed through the terminal frequently. Those who signed character references for the young Wesley included former president Theodore Roosevelt. Williams claimed that a previous employer of his father, Mr. Thawley, a millionaire and a heavy contributor to Tammany Hall, was instrumental in letting the “powers that be” (including the fire commissioner and the chief of the department) know that Wesley Williams was in the fire department to stay.

Williams was assigned to Engine Company 55, located at 363 Broome Street, Manhattan, in a predominantly Italian section.[6] When Williams reported for duty on January 10, 1919, the captain retired to avoid the stigma of being the captain of a company where a black fireman was to perform duty. In addition, each man in the company attempted to transfer, stating that they did not wish to work and sleep in the same firehouse with a black man.[7] The department believed if any transfers were permitted, it would have been impossible to keep any fireman in the company, as a result all transfers were denied for at least one year.[8] Fireman Williams was both ignored and ostracized and was given no direct instructions as to his duties or responsibilities. The company was now without a captain and five or six months passed before a replacement was assigned.

When attending his first major emergency, Fireman Williams was ordered to take the nozzle of the hose line down into the cellar. The rest of the company was behind him to assist in moving the hose and to back him up. After the company had moved into place in the smoky cellar a series of explosions occurred and flames rolled over the probationary fireman’s head in waves as he operated the nozzle and directed the stream. The company, including the officer, retreated to the street, leaving the probationary fireman in the cellar to extinguish the fire alone[9][citation needed]. Battalion Chief Ben Parker, on discovering that the probationary man was still in the cellar, chastised the company and the officer for their actions. Fireman Williams established a reputation as a courageous fireman who would not back out in the face of adverse conditions.

Segregation within the fire department

The bed assigned to Wesley Williams was later to be the same bed assigned to any black fireman in any firehouse where he was assigned to perform duty. In Engine 55 it was the bed next to the toilet. No white fireman used the bed, even though the bed linen was changed after each man finished a night tour. This “black bed” became a source of bitter contention for many years in many firehouses.

Early Engine, Wesley Williams at front of pumper wagon by Engine 55 quarters. Photo:New York City Fire Museum.[10]

Through his previous experience as a parcel post truck driver, Williams had become proficient in the operation of motor vehicles. It was at this point in the history of the department, horses were being replaced by two-wheel Christie tractors,[11] thus motorizing both steamers and aerial trucks. An 84-hour work week came into being, a system that was to remain practically unchanged until 1939 when the three-platoon eight-hour plan was adopted. The shortage of firemen who possessed the mechanical ability to operate the new gasoline-driven tractors led to Williams being asked to take the apparatus out of quarters[12] and then back it in. He executed the maneuver so expertly he was assigned as the apparatus driver. This assignment caused much resentment against Williams among the members of Engine 55[citation needed].

Firefighter Wesley Williams; Engineer of Steamer operating Christie Tractor at 363 Broome St; Engine 55 in Little Italy NYC; circa 1920. The tractor had 2 wheels and pulled the steam fire engine (rear end with large wheels) in place of the Percheron draft horses.[13]

It prompted Assistant Chief of Department Patty Walsh to comment that “Of all the men in this Department, he (The Captain) had to pick that man to drive the apparatus!” Tradition dictated that the Motor Pump Operators should be the senior most experienced members of a fire company; the fact that Wesley Williams had little seniority, coupled with the fact that he was black, was not offset by the fact that he was the best qualified to operate the apparatus.

He did however have the run of the quarters, and found the roof to be unoccupied. There in the hose tower, where the wet hoses were hung after a fire he built a gym and kept a bookcase and this was where he spent his off hours exercising and studying fire manuals. The tower was quiet, it extended from above the firehouse roof to the cellar. It was in this small private gym that he continued his routine of physical fitness. An excellent swimmer, when uptown he spent time in the Harlem YMCA where he was schooled in the ‘Manly Arts’ by some of the sports best, old time prize fighters including Sam LangfordJoe Jeanette and Panama ‘Al’ Brown. When he was finally called to the cellar of engine co 55, it was not to discuss the merits of gloves vs knuckle. It was to settle a difference of opinion, in the then accepted manner. Whoever left the cellar first was vindicated. Having worked on the sand bag and punching bag until he was proficient led him to have an unfair advantage over the other firemen and having never failed to come out of the cellar first, the message was clear that he could box. In 1924 he entered the FDNY boxing tourney and became the heavyweight champ, only then was it revealed that he was a natural lefty and had a mean left hook that took everyone by surprise.[7]

On Sunday morning, October 19, 1920, a year and ten months after Williams had entered the department, he was walking with his father on St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem on his way to work. As the two men passed 187 St. Nicholas Avenue they noticed Ladder Company 40 had responded to a fire and had already placed a portable ladder against the front of the fire building. As he and his father approached the building, flames could be seen licking out of the front windows and smoke was partially covering the front of the building. Ladder Company-40’s wooden hand-operated aerial ladder was being maneuvered into position against the building so that 19-year-old William Thomas, trapped at a window, could be rescued. After sizing up the situation, Williams ascended the ladder in an effort to assist. As the tip of the aerial ladder approached the panic stricken youth, he made a desperate lunge for it and was successful in grasping the ladder but his grip faltered. As he was beginning to fall, Fireman Williams leaped from the ladder he was standing on, caught the aerial ladder with one hand and the falling Thomas with the other, thus preventing his fall to the street. After carrying the young man to the street and safety, Williams re-ascended the ladder and assisted in the rescue of five other children. The rescue was witnessed by two reporters, and became the subject of an article entitled, “NY’s Only Colored Fireman Saves Six From Burning Building”.[14]

When Fireman Williams reported to duty and recounted the rescue to his captain, the latter told him that it was in the line of duty and that he would not write it up for submission for a department citation. On another occasion, he and another fireman discovered a fire in a loft building at Spring and Lafayette Streets. Working together, they were able to rescue people from the burning building. Again the captain refused to forward a recommendation; however, the fireman who shared in the rescue reported the particulars to the captain of his company, Ladder 13, who ensured that he received recognition of the performance of an heroic act.

When Williams was promoted to lieutenant in 1927 he was assigned to the same Engine 55 where he had been a fireman, even though it was traditional to assign a newly appointed officer to a firehouse other than where he served as a fireman.[citation needed] The original plan was to assign the first black officer to headquarters and give him a desk job but Lieutenant Williams strongly objected, saying, “I took orders from white officers; white firemen will have to learn to take orders from a colored officer.” The day Williams was promoted and assigned as an officer in Engine 55, Fireman John O’Toole walked out of the firehouse, an action that made him immediately AWOL.[citation needed] When Lieutenant Williams admonished an officer for misconduct, charges had to be preferred against the fireman for failure to obey an order. A heavy fine was imposed by the trial commissioner, and the results of the trial were published in the Department Orders; this was official notification that when Lieutenant Williams, like any other officer, issued an order, it was to be obeyed. Seven years after his first promotion, Wesley Williams was promoted to captain in 1934.

Williams had become the company commander of the same firehouse he had entered 15 years ago. During his tour of duty in Engine 55 Wesley Williams had many near escapes in the area known as “Hell’s Hundred Acres”.[15] Four years after his promotion to captain, Williams was again promoted, this time to Battalion Chief in 1938; he remained in the area because he was assigned to the 3rd Battalion on Mercer Street.

First Alarm

The alarm rang four times.  I hadn’t been asleep that long as I tumbled out of bed, sensing more than seeing the men moving about me.  I was still half asleep as I slid down the pole.  I hit the ground and stepped into my boots.  The door to the station house was already wide opened.  The dogs were sitting on the front seat of the pumper barking.  The sirens were blasting.  It had been awfully cold when I got to work around eight P.M.  It was well below freezing now.  I pulled on my jacket and gloves, slammed on my helmet, and clambered up onto the seat of the tiller at the back of the hook and ladder.  Rory O’Malley started the engine almost before he was fully seated and we were moving into the night.  Not two minutes had elapsed from the sound of the first alarm until all twelve men of our company and the rear of the sixty-foot long hook-and-ladder had cleared the station house doors.  I was oriented and awake.

Wesley Williams, the city’s first Negro commanding officers, led the way in the Chief’s sedan.  It was his job to read the alarm and know the fire’s location.  The company’s job was to follow the Chief to the fire, to take orders on site.  My job was to help get the ladders there, to keep the rear of the hook and ladder in line with the engine that pulled it, to make the tight curves, and miss the cars parked in the narrow city streets.

The fire we found was in a five-story walk up on 183rd.   Residents of the building were already standing in the street shivering in their nightclothes.  Flames could be seen behind the windows of a front facing apartment on the fourth floor.  Firemen from another company were running up the stairs leading into the front hallway.  Ladders were being extended along the street side of the building.  Someone had to get into the building and into the apartment and someone had to get onto the roof.  A fireman I worked with named Kretowicz was moving up the first ladder toward the window with the flames in it.  He liked fighting fires.  He loved the Chief.  He’d hung an axe in a hook on his belt and had tossed a blanket over his shoulder.  I could see he had no gloves on.  A pumper from another engine company was pushing a hard stream of water at the building façade.  Spray and mist were bouncing off the bricks, hitting the rungs of the ladder and freezing.  I saw Kretowicz’ foot slip, saw him fighting for a grip, saw his boots slipping as he fell to the street like a diver trying to right himself before entering the water.  He never made it.  There was something dreadfully wrong in an instant.  A fireman was never supposed to be lost or injured.  Some standard operating procedure had not been complied with, some foreseeable risk had not been appreciated.  Appreciated.  Fuck appreciated.  Dead.  Now there’s something to think about.

It would be Chief Williams job to talk to Kretowicz’s widow or mother, Chief Williams who would fill out the reams of paper and forms, Chief Williams who would take the administrative heat.  That Chief Williams was the city’s only Negro officer, and that he had just lost his first man at a fire, was not going to make his life one iota easier.

The Funeral

The Funeral

The day broke sunny and hot. Even so, my father put on his fire department dress uniform with his badge on the jacket front and his formal stiff dress hat. His badge had a piece of black tape across the numbers. Mother set out my good shoes, a dress shirt and a clip-on tie. The sunlight came through the Venetian blinds into the bedroom as I dressed. Mother actually kissed me softly on the cheek as I walked out the front door of the apartment into the cool marble hallway and down the stairs into the street. “What a handsome young man you are,” she said

We got into my father’s old Plymouth with the soft upholstered beige seats and drove east along the residential streets and apartment houses that are the Bronx. In less than twenty minutes we parked the car somewhere near Pelham Bay Road and walked to a building with an awning in front where lots of other men in uniform were gathered. The building was very quiet, notwithstanding the many people milling about it. My father signed a book when we went inside to a set of rooms filled with lots of cut flowers and soft purple velvet curtains and velvet covered chairs. My father shook hands with many of the men.

“Hey Marty,” the firemen say as they shake his hand. Or “Hello, brother. Who’s your assistant?” Or “who’s the new fireman?”

“Good to see you,” my father answered. “This is my boy, Sam. Son shake hands with my friend,” my father would say and I would reach out and shake the hand of one fireman after another.

“What do we have here, Marty,” a man named Captain Bannerman asked. “Looks like a fullback, or maybe a tiller man,” he said with a wink to me.

I shake the captain’s hand too.

My father holds my hand and walks over to a sparkling velvet open box. A flag is draped over part of it. Inside is a handsome man lying on his back in a fireman’s uniform. His eyes are closed.

“Son, meet Eddie Farrelli,” my father says, looking down at the face of the man in the casket. “The bravest man I ever knew. Just fought one fire too many. Eddie, this is my boy,” my father said.

I looked down into the casket at the man named Eddie Farrelli. “I’m pleased to meet you, sir,” I said. My father squeezed my hand a little tighter. I looked up into his face. He was crying.

We walked over to a woman seated on a chair against a wall with two children on either side of her.

“I’m Marty T,” my father said, shaking the woman’s hand. “I knew Eddie well. He and I had some good times together. He was a brave man. He talked very highly of you and your children.”

“Thank you, Marty” says the woman, “Eddie told me all about you too. And thank you for coming to pay respects, son,” she says to me.

We walk outside the funeral home. The city air is delightful, the sky bright. A cluster of uniformed firemen stand outside on the sidewalk. Some smoke cigarettes. Others brush and scuff the top of the sidewalk with the soles of their shoes looking down at the pavement.

“Life sucks,” says a big man with an immense moustache.

“Life sucks,” echoes a couple of the men.

“See you at the funeral,” says my father.

“See you around,” say a couple of the guys.

“I’d rather feed him than clothe him he’s growing so fast,” says one of the men ruffling my hair.

“Be good,” say a couple of the men.

“Yeah. Take good care of yourselves,” says my father.

We walk back to the car. We get inside. My father sits at the wheel for a while saying nothing.

“Let’s not go home yet,” he says as he starts the engine. “Let’s take the rest of the day off. Okay? Let’s stop somewhere and get some ice cream,” he says. “What do you like? Vanilla?” He looks at me. He rolls down his window. He looks to his left, and pulls out into traffic.

Queen Noir

Queen Noir
I don’t remember exactly how we found Queen Noir, but at the time it seemed to be a match made in heaven. There we were, two-dozen hippies with a burned down house, no food, the great frozen outdoors as our refrigerator to keep the scraps in, and a dozen kids with no toys. And there was Queen Noir, in a palace filled with toys – talking toys, walking toys, educational toys, toys that spoke and toys that played music, furry stuffed toys, toys with hearts and toys without hearts – and almost no kids to play with them. Not to mention the Queen’s fully equipped kitchen and her fully stocked larder.
Some of the women at the commune had heard there was a wealthy woman going it on her own in a centuries old brick farmhouse that had a preschool attached on the Shakerville Road and that the Queen was looking for additional kids to share the facilities with her son and the two or three other kids she’d found who thus far had joined her … all offspring of faculty at the University in the state capital, about twenty minutes east.
“No, we couldn’t conceivably pay tuition,” the women told Queen Noir when they met her at the Schoolhouse. “No, not even a token payment. But what we can do is add a dozen kids to your enrollment, and provide creative teachers to your staff – musicians, bakers, gardeners, artists, craftspeople, unemployed licensed reading specialists with Masters degrees in education, woodworkers, maple-sugar makers.
“OMG,” Queen Noir spoke her pleasure, “Are the gods now making house calls?”
“Holy shit,” spoke the commune women, “Have the gods just answered our prayers?”
Well, actually, what Noir asked is “Do you have lice?” And “Do you use drugs?”
And what the hippie women answered was, “We’ll all be here tomorrow, Nori. Come on kids, time to go home.”

To the Town Librarian

Dear Ms. Towle, Franklin Town Librarian/Historian:

I had the pleasure of returning to Franklin in the 1990s to visit the land on which our commune, Earthworks, existed from February 2, 1970, until some time roughly four years later when it finally and fitfully dissolved.

My wife and I stopped at the general store for sodas and to ask after old friends when we noticed your impressive book on the history of the town of Franklin for sale on the counter. We opened on impulse to the index under “commune” and were pleased and surprised to find your history of our small moment in the life of this lovely town.

Though your words were mostly kind and good humored, and perhaps reflected how the commune and its members were perceived by many of the townspeople amidst whom we lived, the history you provided was limited in its view and somewhat derisive. I write this addendum to your rendition in an effort to provide a more accurate picture of the Franklin commune as it was and as it was meant to be.

Earthworks, or “the Franklin Commune” as we were universally known by others, was founded in an effort to “return to the land,” to master the skills that would promote agrarian self sufficiency, and to help create a society that would provide an alternative to the despair and destruction we were experiencing in our culture, our country, and our environment. We were upset about the state of world affairs and had set about in a manner we acknowledged to be experimental to improve them. We were particularly opposed to our government’s military violence, to the competitive behaviors we felt were inherent in capitalism, and to the selfish male dominated non-cooperative values we then believed were wrongly engendered by the nuclear family. The Vietnam holocaust was to us a source of daily pain. So too was the perceived destruction of our natural environment and the permanent annihilation of other living species. We hoped we could make things better. We intended to be social reformers and pioneers, not escapists. Our productive and social failings, and our now obviously erroneous views regarding how planetary life might actually and ultimately be improved, especially in the light of subsequent world and personal history, humble and embarrass us today. Yet all of us benefited from our time and experiences at Franklin, learned lessons not available in classrooms or cities, and grew as people, parents, and citizens.

Dr. Jane Wheelwright, a Jungian therapist, who shared some of the values we espoused, purchased the farm we lived on for us. Jane was always the “owner” of the Franklin commune property, but she imposed no restrictions on our personal practices or use of the land, and left us free to do with our lives and the property as we wished. Since we didn’t believe in private ownership of property this little fiction worked quite well. Jane never provided any money directly to us, but did pay the taxes on the farm, thus leaving us use of the property free and clear. In hindsight, her graciousness, and the fact that we did not actually own the land, influenced a number of our decisions and contributed to a number of attitudes and practices that did not serve us well.

Four couples, along with four children, began the commune with a very vague, somewhat shared, but poorly articulated vision of what our goals and our lifestyle were to be. Genuine participatory democracy was our ideal. Private ownership was out. Collectivity was in. Individual leadership was out. Male dominance was out. The nuclear family was out. We would try to live self-sufficiently, without dependence on fossil fuels or purchased goods. We would heat and cook with wood, grow our own food, do the farm work with horses, raise cash crops to barter for other necessities, educate our own children. The means to achieve these ends were often not agreed upon, and our vaguely articulated ideals were often in conflict with the reality of individual social and emotional demands, as well as the demands of farm life. For guidance we looked to romanticized visions of Native Americans and other indigenous “natural” people and to agrarian communes elsewhere in the world as we chose to selectively perceive them.

No matter how skilled or unskilled a commune member was, for example, we believed every person was required to learn to perform every task as an equal, whether that was pounding nails, shoveling manure, operating machinery, or mopping the floor and caring for the children. (“Give a person a fish and you feed him/her for one day. Teach a person to fish and you feed her for a lifetime.”) I remember the shocked disapproval of two men visiting from an Israeli kibbutz as they watched ten or twelve healthy and potentially productive adults standing around doing nothing as one inexperienced communard tried to back the hay wagon up the ramp to the barn for unloading at the height of haying season. Efficient we were not.

We also had a disastrous open enrollment policy. After all, since people should not own the land or the earth, and since private ownership was eschewed, anyone who wished to be a part of our commune must be welcomed. At times during our first summer well over forty people were living on the farm, which strained our resources tremendously. And although the core group of “founders” always held some primacy, we were often trying to give that power away as well.

Evening meetings were mandatory to process events and divide the next day’s work responsibilities. These meetings were also leaderless, frustrating, and inefficient, but in our view necessary to the development of the new society we imaged we were creating.

Our first purchase was a cow. That none of us had ever owned or milked a cow before in our lives did not deter us from this simple, safe, child centered, and immediately rewarding enterprise. Next we bought a team of horses, Jim, the steady and practical older gelding, and Mike, his stronger but far wilder and younger partner. Horses, unlike cows, are not easy or non-dangerous. They also don’t respond well to multiple handlers. Naturally, when word got out that we were planning to work with horses some of the old timers from town who loved and honored this way of life came by to offer instruction and encouragement. Particularly important to us was George Truax, who gave endlessly of his time and wisdom in the arts and crafts of horse management, horse care, and the use and repair of horse drawn equipment.

After our first cow and horses we acquired others, as well as chickens, pigs, goats, more dogs, and cats. The farm was fertile and richly blessed with good growing lands. It also had a remarkably healthy and productive sugar bush, with a more or less complete set of sugar gathering and processing equipment. Although we had only moved onto the farm in February, and knew nothing at that time about horses or sugaring, when the sap started running after town meeting that spring of 1970, like many other Vermont farmers, we set out our taps. We produced over 150 gallons of fine quality maple syrup that first spring, marketed the syrup to a natural foods outlet in New York City under the Earthworks label, and made what seemed a handsome profit. Given the labor we put into this endeavor we probably cleared fifteen cents per hour.

Naturally, when our horse drawn equipment broke down, as old equipment often and inevitably does, we were hard pressed to find or fashion parts. In this realm, we became increasingly familiar with numbers of lovely, profound, and philosophical older farmers who gave graciously of their knowledge, skill, and used machine parts. Ken and Grace Spooner were also important to us in this regard. We often had the image that we kept a team of horses to spread manure on the fields, to plow the fields, to sow hay for the animals, to reap hay for the animals, including the horses, so they could take out the manure, etc. We were their servants as well as they were ours. The margin of profit on our “self-sufficient” turn of the century dairy was slim at best.

We were extremely happy and also extremely troubled throughout our existence. The beauty and the freedom we appreciated were ample and ever present. The hardships and harsh demands of farm life to novices were equally prominent. Inordinate amounts of time were spent making the simplest decisions. We were ridiculously inefficient. We did not achieve our production goals. Our notion that we could raise all our food organically fell short each year. Yet we put tremendous effort into food production and gardening, planted and harvested a two-acre vegetable garden, produced twenty five to fifty percent of the foods we consumed, and lived on an unbelievably meager amount of cash given our numbers.

Then too, we were not prepared for the rigors of country life and experienced some profound and serious setbacks. Large animals who we loved and cared for got sick and we had no sense of how to help them heal. Some even died in our care. Potato bugs ravaged our fields notwithstanding a commitment that every man, woman, and child would spend one hour each morning collectively hand picking bugs off our crops, an endeavor we persisted in for weeks. And the August drought the summer of ’70, when our spring and potable water source quite literally ran dry, shocked us as well as seriously threatened ours and our children’s health and well being. With over forty people living on the property, and with the main crops needing to be harvested, the fact that we didn’t have water to drink created an energy and time consuming problem we had completely failed to anticipate or prepare for.

In this regard, our failure to harvest the oat field planted in spring’s enthusiasm reflects over commitment and the absence of good harvesting equipment, as well as an overall level of disorganization and naiveté. The collective harvest of the oat field in winter was a political and spiritual gesture as much as a practical one, where over seventy persons from elsewhere in the state joined us one cold January day to make our way through the field in a visible manifestation of the rewards of joint endeavor. The image was far more important than the actual meager product. The sheaves of harvested oats that stood in that field were a reminder to one and all of what we were capable of achieving …and what we had failed to achieve.

There was energy in the commune movement that was far greater than we were, a social force operating beyond our will or control. Whereas one day there seemed to be few if any communes in Vermont or in the nation, by the summer of 1971 there were easily one hundred separate conglomerates of people sharing living situations in Vermont who considered themselves communes. These ranged from “political” communes, with no base on the land, to “spiritual/life style” communes with no interest in politics. In the summer of 1971 the Earthworks Commune co-sponsored a “gathering of the tribes” at the Franklin farm. Over three hundred people from dozens of separate communes across the state showed up for this meeting and numerous projects whose scope exceeded that which any one commune could create emerged from the gathering, including a free health clinic in Burlington, a food buying co-op, and a children’s school at the Mt. Philo commune in Ferrisburg which drew children to it from numerous communes across the state.

The fire that destroyed the main house and wood shed right before Thanksgiving of our second year was a devastating blow and came at a particularly unfortunate time in the evolution of the commune. We had finally achieved a modest degree of stability. Our membership was relatively fixed at thirteen adults and six children. We had a very successful summer and fall from a production perspective. The shed was filed to the rafters with over sixty cords of wood. The root cellar held hundreds of pounds of summer crops, canned food, and preserved meat. We had devised a plan to reduce the number of mouths we had to feed in the difficult winter months, including a plan to house the children at the Philo Commune’s “Children’s School” and rotate parents as teachers to that site. We were prepared for sugaring well in advance.

After the fire we were forced to face the issue of our survival in very pragmatic terms. We had no place to live, no food, and no financial resources. A series of meetings about regrouping versus dissolving were held, mostly at Nat and Mimi Worman’s home. We decided to attempt to stay together and rebuild. We erected a makeshift cabin where we could cook and where eight crowded adults could sleep. Others slept in the barn and converted school buses. Many from town succored us with food and clothing; communards from elsewhere in the state, particularly the Mullin Hill Commune in West Glover, provided manual labor. We drafted plans to build a combination workshop and home, the very home where the Gagne family who farms this land lives today.

Building in the midst of a Vermont winter is not ideal to say the least. Daylight hours are pitiably short. Frozen boards split from the pounding of nails. Gloved hands are not agile. Yet we did survive that winter, the children went to the school at Philo, and the stock thrived. By spring many people from elsewhere in Vermont came to help in the sugaring and rebuilding. Naturally, numerous helpers also meant numerous visitors to feed and house, but we were now organized, even “specialized.” Only three or four people drove our team of horses. Only three or four people worked the fire and the fifteen-foot boiling pan in our sugarhouse. Guests helped cook, care for youngsters, carry wood, and gather sap.

I have a particular vision of that sugaring season which captures the essence of the Franklin commune experience for me. We were gathering heavily flowing maple sap on a glorious sunny day, temperatures in the high forties, using a three hundred gallon tank being drawn by our team of horses on a dray through deep snow. Dozens of people were tromping through the woods pouring sap from the tap buckets into gathering buckets and unloading those buckets joyfully and speedily into the horse drawn tank. As we drove the first fully loaded tank back toward the sugarhouse the dray hit a hidden rock and tipped over pitching the gathering tank off the dray and onto its side. Though we only lost about twenty or thirty gallons of sap, the tank was far too heavy for us to right and reset on the dray, even with all the people power we had. So we set about unloading the sap we had gathered in the tank back into the gathering pails and then retraced our steps through the snow to the trees we had just harvested where we poured the sap back into the very buckets just unloaded. It was as if someone had taken a movie of our operation and was now playing the reel in reverse.

Yet we did right the tank, and again made sweet syrup amidst our laughter, self doubt and self ridicule. We also finished the shop, planted the year’s crops, and persevered through similar joys and failures for a number of years more.

Then the war in Vietnam ended and the “counter-cultural” energy seemed to dissipate. Commune parents and their biological children hungered to make safer saner units to live in. Couples now separated could not comfortably live with ex-spouses in new couplings. Old disputes and disagreements as to how we would live were no longer promising of agreeable resolution. Founding members drifted off and the connection to Jane was frayed. Newcomers did not find the commune as romantic or attractive as it had once been. The commune dissolved. Jane sold the land. The sap flowed in the trees. The grass grew over the scar in the earth that had been our home.

Nearly half a dozen residents of Earthworks still live in Vermont, some in politically and socially active roles. Others have careers in carpentry, psychotherapy, and the law. Occasionally we get together out of on going friendship or just plain curiosity. I know where every one who lived on the Franklin commune twenty years ago is today. Except for Peter and Shannon and their son who was born on the farm and lovingly named Truax, after our departed mentor George.

Hassids

Hassids

We were sitting on the front porch outside the house early one summer morning, more of a six foot wide deck than a porch, with no railings and no steps, the porch an idea incomplete in actualization, like so much in our lives then, in front of the main door to the living room, the door we never used in winter because it let cold air directly into the belly of the house, and never used in summer because it had no screen and let all the flies into the house. Everyone was there to begin the morning meeting on what was a warm, glorious, bright, sun filled summer day, Vermont at its stunning, fecund best. The dogs and cats cruised around the dangling legs of the people seated on the edge of the deck. They rubbed themselves and wove in and out of people’s legs, porch support posts, and standing children. They snapped at flies and lolled in the sun. They gazed down the road. It was going to be a scorching hot day.

The chickens scratched around looking for grain and bugs. The flies buzzed the half empty breakfast dishes. People were rolling and smoking cigarettes, or quitting smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee or giving up drinking coffee, finishing breakfast or fasting, everyone awaiting to start the meeting so we could get on with the day, at least twenty of us sitting or leaning on the edge of the porch, standing on or near the porch, watching the horses in the field, playing with the kids, brushing their long hair, petting the dogs and cats. A most beautiful Vermont summer morning. And there was much work needing to be done, fields to be planted and harvested, horses to be hitched, trips into town, machinery needing repair, construction and maintenance projects, animal husbandry projects. Kids care. House care. We had discussed this all in last night’s meeting and were waiting now to make a few last minute accommodations, when far down the long driveway leading to the house we noticed a black Volkswagen driving slowly towards us, hardly kicking up dust.

No one we knew had a black Volkswagen. Natives of northern Vermont and hippies didn’t do little Volkswagens. VW vans maybe, although parts were hard to come by, but not bugs. Never. We were Dodge Dart, Volvo, and Chevy people.

By the time the Volkswagen reached the sugarhouse we saw that there were New York plates on the car. By the time the VW reached the remains of the animal carcass and the car engine hoist in the side yard we could see that there were two men with dark clothing and heavy beards in the car, two men wearing big black felt hats, big black beards with curly sideburns, and long black coats. The car stopped right next to the porch. The engine was turned off. The men stepped out into the dust of our driveway and the bright Vermont sunshine in their long black coats and shiny black dress shoes. It grew totally still on the deck, all eyes drawn to the VW. No one said a word. You could hear the flies buzzing. Our mouths were opened in anticipation. This is not a dream, I thought, although I wondered for a moment.

“We are here to find the Jews,” the shorter bearded man said.

“A CIA ruse,” whispered Charlie under his breath.

“We want to know why so many Jews are joining communes,” the taller bearded man said. “We are traveling around Vermont, visiting communes, trying to find out why so many Jews are drawn to live on them. We’ve been to Glover, and to Packer’s Corners. The people there told us the Franklin commune was rich and prosperous.

One by one people started to drift away from the porch, molecules dispersing from the center. Tasks all of a sudden seem urgent. There were so many things to do, and talking to two crazy guys in long black coats from Brooklyn who are looking for Jews was not one of them. I looked around and within sixty seconds there were only three of us left on the porch, the only Jews on the commune.

“Why don’t Hasidic women have equal rights?” Leslie asked them with her fierce, deep, and abiding feminist attitudes on florid display as she walked away before they could even answer.

“I don’t believe in god,” Hutcher said. You could tell from his pronunciation alone that he’d spelled it with a small letter gee.

“How can you not believe in God?!” one of the Hassids asked, quite genuinely shocked.

“Just a question of which myths and fairy tales you choose to believe in,” Hutcher said, and he too walked away.

“So, how many Jew live on this commune?” the taller one asked me.

“Well, three,” I said, “the gorgeous woman with the dark hair who just walked away from you, the guy with the bushy beard who just told you god didn’t exist and walked away from you, and me, who has a lot of work to do and is now also going to walk away from you.”

“Wait, please,” the tall one said earnestly, “we really do want to see your commune, to understand why you are living here.”

I’m thinking about this when two year old Maia comes running over to me from around the corner of the house. She has a smile on her face stretching from ear to ear. Her hands look like they haven’t been washed in days. She is carrying a piece of toast with honey dripping from it. Her clothes are filthy. Her mouth is ringed with crumbs. A squadron of flies is following her looking for breakfast. She is still the cutest sweetest creature I have ever known. And more than that, she has clearly been sent to rescue me.

“They need you over there,” she says, pointing to Barbara and Libby who are watching their little messenger and grinning while preparing to hitch the manure spreader to the old John Deere tractor. They have clearly sent Maia as their emissary.

“You are the sweetest little pumpkin I have ever seen,” I say to her. “Come on, we’re going to show these gentlemen our farm, okay.” I look at Libby and wink.

“Okay. Let’s show them Piggy and her babies first,” says Maia, who I pick up into my arms as we walk from the porch toward the big garden.

The way our farm is laid out, in a pattern established generations before we ever set foot on it, like so many Vermont dairy farms, the barn stands between the house and the nicest vista on the property. The idea being that when you look out from the front of the house, from the kitchen, from the living room, or from the deck, what you would see is the barn. After all, the barn was the lifeblood of the family farm, and apparently you needed and wanted to see it when you look out from the comfort of your home. Industry before beauty. The problem, of course, is that if you are hippies and the massive red structure is all you see when you look out the window you know you are being cheated of a view. And in order to see the stream at the bottom of the meadow behind the barn, or to even see the rolling hill rising behind the stream into the hardwoods where the sun sets and the moon rises, you have to stand inside the barn with the door to the manure pile open.

We walk on the rutted dirt road between the house and the barn, me in my overalls and big boots, Maia her floral dress and flip flops pulling me along by the hand, the Hassids in their black long coats and no longer so shiny shoes beside us.

“The field you see in front of you is our vegetable garden,” I say, “we have over three acres of vegetables under cultivation. Lettuce, tomatoes, summer and winter squash, potatoes, onions, string beans and pole beans. We planted it by hand. We weed it by hand. We fight the bugs off by hand. No chemicals.”

“It is so very, very beautiful,” says one of the men.

“You are truly blessed,” says the other.

And as I look out over the field in that moment it does feel as if we are blessed, although I have never thought of it that way. The sunflowers have started to bloom. Incredibly beautiful golden sunflower petals glisten in the morning sun. The light pouring trough the petals reveals their translucence. Drunken bees, drawn to the cornucopia of sunflower pollen, are stumbling into the aura of the flowers. In the movement of the sunflower heads on the tall stalks you sense the breeze.

At the end of the barn is the cattle run. At the bottom of the run are Piggy and her babies, a dozen of them grunting and rutting and crawling around on their mother who has been laying against the fence her belly fully distended. When she senses our approach she shakes off her slumber and the piglets to raise up on her stubby legs, alert for food. I show the Hassids the pigsty feeling a bit defensive.

“Run up to the garden and grab one or two of the tomatoes that have fallen on the ground, Maia, would you,” I say.

“We bred this pig,” I tell the Hassids. “The boar is in the barn. He’s just too big and nasty to let out. Takes seven or eight people and the better part of an hour to get him back in if he’s free. Tried a leash but couldn’t hold on to him. A very tough old man, Arnold. That’s the boar’s name.” I’m smiling. “We’ll sell some of these piglets before winter and slaughter the others for meat. They never cost us a penny. The first pigs were given to us. I know they’re not kosher, but they can be mighty tasty.”

“God is good,” says the tall one.

“You are richly blessed,” says the other

“This is so beautiful,” they say. “My God, look at this wonderful place you have here. It is a gift, a mitzvah, a sign from God. Look at those hills, those fields, those wonderful animals. Oh, God must love you so much!”

I like these guys. They see the place as it is, beautiful as it is. Even in its dirtiest aspect.

Maia comes running down to the pigpen. She throws the tomatoes inside the fence. There is joyous squealing and grunting before the tomatoes are turned into pork. She is laughing. I am laughing. The Hassids are laughing.

I take the Hassids inside the barn, show them the horses, and give them the independence from technology rap. They are attentive and appreciative. They seem to understand why this place and the choices we have made here make sense to us. I am struck by their enthusiasm. It is earnest and genuine. Our farm is, of course, spectacularly beautiful and they are seeing it for what it is. They do not see the warts, the mess, the broken down machinery. And if they do, they’re not saying anything about it.

“What magnificent animals they are,” says the shorter of the men. “And so many little ones. God must love you. It is a sign. A gift. You are so blessed. It is a marvelous wonderful marvelous wonder.” You gotta like this guy.

They ask me more about the farm, about how many people live here, about what we really do, about what inspires us. They are surprised we appear to have absolutely no spiritual or religious practices. They keep saying, “God loves you,” as if the fact they really believe it quite simply means it is true. I am a bit in awe of their affirmative positive energy. I show them the rest of the barn, the chickens, the hay we have harvested. I talk about self-sufficiency and political relevance. The dogs follow wagging their tails. I am aware of my dirty overalls, my hair, untended and uncut for months down around my shoulders. I see myself through their eyes, a rural Jewish giant who needs a shave with a beautiful two-year-old child in my arms who is still smiling across an entire continent.

“I really have to get to work fellows,” I say, “people are waiting for me.”

They nod. We start back toward their car. They continue effusive in their praise and enthusiasm. It is ridiculous, but I too am still smiling.

We reach the house. They shake my hand earnestly. Passionately. They climb into the VW.

“It was a pleasure to meet you,” I say, “good luck on your journeys.”

“It was a pleasure to meet you,” they say. “You have such a gift here. God is so good to you.” They are bubbling over with excitement as they climb back into their car. “Count your blessings,” they yell with that same ridiculous enthusiasm from the rolled down car window. “Remember God loves you,” they shout. “You are blessed one thousand times,” they say. “Remember to pray. Give thanks,” they say. They start their engine.

“Say a thousand prayers!” they are shouting. “Remember that God loves you. Tell God you love him! The world is good! The word is good. God is the word. God is good. Lay on your phylacteries every day! Remember!”

“You know,” I say, almost as an after thought I could have sworn I’d said to myself, “I’ve never put on phylacteries in my entire life.”

“What?” they shout in unison, “you have never worn teffilin? It is a blessing, a mitzvah, something that must be done. It is an honor, a duty to do so.”

It’s like a Charlie Chaplin movie. The car which had started to roll slowly forward down the hill screeches to a halt. It grinds backs up to the porch. The two guys in the black beards and coats jump out of the car and run over to me.

“But you are Jewish, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve never laid teffilin?”

“No.”

“Laying tefillin is a mitzvah, a blessing. Please, if you would be so kind, perhaps we could lay tefillin on you here and now.”

I think about it for all of two seconds. “Sure,” I say, “Why not?”

So the short one goes back into the car and takes out a beautiful deep blue velvet pouch with gold embroidered lettering on it. From inside the pouch he removes the phylacteries, the small black leather boxes with the lengthy leather straps attached.

“Let us say the morning prayers together,” the short one says.

“This will be good,” the tall one says. “It is an honor for us, a blessing to be able to do this for you.”

“Stand here,” one says. “Give me your left arm.”

For me this has all become a little embarrassing. But it is also strangely moving. I put Maia down. I stand in front of them facing the early morning sun arisen over the distant hills as they wrap the ritual boxes and thongs around my arm and fingers. They say words in Hebrew, rocking back and forth, eyes closed, enraptured.

“Repeat after me,” one says. And I repeat the sounds that seem so familiar, even if their literal meanings are completely obscure.

The prayers are soon over. My arms are unwrapped. The ritual objects are placed back in their ritual containers. I pick up Maia who has been standing there watching this entire process eyes wide. The men are smiling. Their eyes are shining. We shake hands again.

“God is good,” they say for the hundredth time.

“God is good,” I say back.

They get in the car. They start the engine and roll slowly down the driveway yelling out the windows, “God is good.”

I hold onto these images. The incongruity of the Hassidic men in their black long coats standing in the mess that is our commune that morning, seeing the beauty that I saw, perhaps even seeing more beauty than I saw, showing me the very beauty they have seen, opening my eyes to a kind of enthusiasm I do not usually feel. It is good to have had this moment of phylacteries being wrapped on my arms as the working day is about to begin. I take Maia’s hand. We walk together toward the manure spreader.

The men call back once more, a faint echo that runs up the driveway and thru our land to end in the hills behind us. “God is good. God is very good.” I hear it softly. I see them looking at one another in the VW. They are laughing joyously. Giddy.