Along The Highway

Despite my having read it so many times, and known of it through countless conversations, I have made a remarkable personal discovery that much of America, with its kaleidoscope of humanity, is to be found on its highways.

On a trip west, and heading through the Berkshires with their soft rolling hills, I gave a lift to two young girls. Upon stopping, the older-looking one opened the door and said, "New York?"

 "City or State?" I countered. She hesitated, looked back at her younger companion, and a secret sign passed between them.

"Are you going to New York City?" the younger one asked, standing back on the grass verge.

"No," I replied, "but I can take you part way, and you can try to get a lift to New York City from there."

Again the hidden signals passed between them. The younger girl gave a slight nod, and in they climbed. 

We sat in silence, while my attempts at conversation were suspiciously rebuffed. It wasn't until I switched on the radio and a rock star sang his latest money maker that they came to life.

I wondered about these two young girls. At first, I put them at about 16 or 17 years of age, two girls off to see the city. But a closer look told me that they were probably several years younger. I tried not to dwell too much on why they were out here on Interstate 90, miles from the nearest town.

In between their humming of the tune, I pushed in what I hoped were innocent questions about their travel. Where had they come from? Where were they going? I managed to make it light enough to add a joke about running away from home.

Again, the silence and the secret signals. I did not push further. I managed to elicit from them that they were traveling from Hartford to "their grandfather's house in Bridgeport." That would be comparable to traveling from London to Paris via Rio de Janeiro. Again, I resisted the desire to find a reason for this, and I suppose I though of the Samaritan, who helped but did not inquire.

The girls were painted in the colors of the age. Deep eye shadow and varnished finger and toe nails. They wore purples and puce, violets and green. Their natural hair color could only be guessed at. Underneath it all were two girls who should have been claiming their right to play baseball with the boys, instead of being here on this lonely highway. I could only wonder at why they were on the lam like this and if someone was worrying about them. I decided that all I would do was to remember their description, and to note where I had dropped them off.

I finally pointed them in the direction of New York City and left them. My heart went with them. I saw my own two girls in their faces. God forbid that they should ever find themselves in such a situation — and God ensure that someone would help them. Today, I might have second thoughts about stopping.

Once cleared of Albany, the New York farmland spread out, and the low clouds that had been with me since Boston opened up and the rain beat against the windshield.

Two figures huddled in the pelting rain, making a tent of their two coats. I pulled over, honking to them.

One figure ran up, a young, bearded man about 25. Behind him, a smaller figure hopped and dragged a foot.

"Hi," the young man said. "Her buckle has broken on her sandal." But he made made no attempt to run back and assist the small, round girl who came puffing up.

"My buckle broke," she said in a voice that rose above the rain.

"I already told him," the man said. She stared at him, as though he had robbed her of her moment in the limelight.

"Why don't you hop in out of the rain?" I beckoned them in, she in the middle and he, propping himself against the far door. This time I did not initiate any conversation. I had a feeling that I would not have to, and I was right. He called me "Sir," and she called me "Mister."

"How far ya going, mister?" she asked. I told them that I would go all the way to Buffalo on the Thruway.

"We're going to Elmira. You going there, mister?"

"Maybe he's not going to Elmira,"the man said, staring out the window, then turning to me, "Are you?"

I said, "No," but that they were welcome to accompany me as far as the nearest turnoff point to Elmira.

Both wet and exhausted, he soon feel asleep, but she poked him awake telling him that he had fallen asleep. He smiled, put his arm around her, and nodded off again. Soon, she fell asleep, and although this didn't fulfill my reason for picking them up—I wanted company—it was comforting to have them there.

They seemed "country people," not used to city ways or manners; had I been king or farmer, it would have made no difference to them. In contrast to their light abrasiveness toward each other, they slept as though all their worlds was wrapped up in each other. [this is a bit awkward, but wonderful, and I couldn't come up with better]

Miles later, I reached across and nudged his shoulder. He snapped up his head.

"The next town is your best spot for a lift to Elmira," I told him.

"Thank you sir," he said, "We really appreciate this."

Then she awoke and said, "Where are we, mister?"

He told her, "We get off soon."

When I looked for the last time in the rear view mirror I saw them holding their coats over their heads. It suddenly occurred to me that they could have been the parents of those two young girls.

Normally these encounters would have been adventure enough for one trip. But farther on, through the clear gap left by the sweep of the wiper, another sodden hiker waved his thumb at the passing traffic. As I stopped, a dark complexioned man looked in the window. He said, "Excuse me, please, ver' goot. I go to Boofalo. OK?"

I said "OK," and he dripped into the car.

"Ver' goot. I come from Algeria. I go to Boofalo. Ver' goot."

"Fine," I told him.

"Ver' goot. Ver goot. Excuse me, pliz," he replied.

He wore heavy corduroy trousers, a thick sweater, and a fur-hooded parka. It was almost 90 degrees, very humid, and he was not even perspiring. I asked him if he wanted to take off his parka.

"Excuse me, pliz, ver' goot. I like America. Is goot," he said.

I had the feeling that if I told him Martians were kidnapping Chicago, he would have said, "Ver' goot."

Eventually he did take off his parka and sweater. Perhaps he was wearing his entire wardrobe. His English was about as good as my Algerian. I tried speaking French. It only made matters worse. Each time I said something in French, he asked me to tell him what it was in English.

The countryside south of the Adirondacks is rolling and sliced with tiny valleys, settled with small towns created from the river traffic which served the mills. We caught each other looking at the green slopes of the farmed fields, and I said, "Very pretty."

"Ver' goot," he said, "is nice. America is nice. Many trees, is ver' goot to have many trees. What is 'pretty'?"

"Pretty is beautiful," I said. "Only smaller." I pinched my index finger and thumb to indicate size.

I dropped him off  amid the industrial landscape of "Boofalo." We exchanged gifts. I swapped a cap of mine he had admired that said "Lake Placid, Winter Olympics, 1980" for a drink of orange juice.

"Thank you," he said, his charcoal eyes glowing. We shook hands and parted as we might have done had we met in the desert.

I felt better for having met them all. It would have been easy to simply pass them by. On a subway train or an elevator, I might not have given them a second thought. But special circumstances breed special perceptions. Ancient travelers often joined caravans for mutual protection; somehow, I felt part of a very historic tradition.

Although each of my hitchhikers was entirely different in background, character and outlook, they all had a wanderlust that impelled them to travel the highway. None of them showed any anxiety about arrival at their destination. On the contrary, I had the feeling that it was the traveling itself that was important.

As a personal experience, I found I had to readjust. Much of my life has centered around "home and hearth"— a sense of permanence that belonged inside four walls. I found myself feeling that perhaps the nomadic instinct is as much a part of human feeling for the world, as is putting down roots.

©  Roy H. Barnacle  2014

Going Back and Going Home

Nostalgia. The word is a formation of a Greek compound, consisting of nóstos, "returning home" -- a Homeric word -- and  álgos, "pain" or "ache."  I suffered from it for years, not from any pain or ache, but from a feeling of appreciation for the past or something related to the past, often in an idealized form.

A few years back, I re-visited the small Welsh village where I was sent as a World War II evacuee.  At the age of three, I could hardly have known of the events happening in Europe that woud change the world forever. Like most children, I trusted my parents to always do the right thing. My mother said I needed to leave London "to be safe."   Safety would be found in a small South Wales town by the name of Llantrisant, and translates as The Parish of the Three Saints.  (They being St.Illtyd, St. Gwynno and St. Dyfodwg.  Pronounciation is unavailable by this Cockney kid.)

. My memories of that small community were of a happy time, far away from the London Blitz. The house of Mrs. Adams, with whom I was billeted, was still there, as was the park with its trim gardens and smooth, bowling green . The small chapel still stood, although it had long ago lost its congregation. The winding road to the school at the top of the hill and the sweet shop where a penny bought a life-supply of candy were still in place.

But there were changes. It would be arrogant of me to think that none were made.  A huge recreation center had been built in the middle of the pristine landscape of the park. A busy rotary whirled in place of the quiet intersection by James' grocery store, and there was a new tire factory on the outskirts of the town. These intrusive occupants pushed my happy memories aside. I asked one long-time resident if much had changed for him over the last 50 or 60 years.

"Nothing too much," he replied in that wonderful Welsh lilt that I had adopted during my childhood stay. He had slowly accepted the changes, adjusted to them, and fitted them neatly into his daily routines.

We talked about the changes. He said that to him, and to others who lived in this village, the qualities and values that made up this town were still there. As we talked, I realized that our lives are constantly accommodating change. We may protest modern change and facilitation , but for the sake of their convenience and our comforts we accept much in the "name of progress" and the advancement of what we term "civilization."

It took a conversation between me and one of my daughters, then 10 years old, as I drove her to yet another soccer match on a Saturday, to bring home how much life has changed between my childhood and hers, indeed of all my four children. Technology, innovation, communication, and changing social customs have all contributed to dramatic changes in the way we live and interact with each other.

I grumbled about my Saturdays not being my own anymore. So Sarah asked, "Daddy, what did you do on a Saturday when you were a little boy?" It seemed as though my answer had been waiting with eager expectancy for that question for years. It leapt from my lips with an eloquence that surprised us both.

                "Ah yes," I replied. "My Saturdays. I would get my map of the London Home Counties and pore over it for an hour. Then, I would pick some interesting sounding name, circle it, and map out the route. Out would come my bicycle, and I would set off on my planned journey. Sometimes the trip was more than a hundred miles. Sometimes it would be to visit family or friend."

Sarah thought for a moment: "Your Mom let you go?" she said with a slight note of incredulity in her voice.         "Yes, of course."

                "Wasn't she afraid?" exclaimed my daughter.

                "Of what?" I answered. "There was no traffic. The streets were safe. The towns and villages that I passed through always had a small cafe where I could buy something to eat or drink."

                "But what about, you know, those guys?"

Yes, I knew. I knew she was referring to the headlines which shout that it is not safe for children to be out on the streets, or, for that matter, at home alone, that they cannot be left in cars or strollers outside a store, that leaving  children with others invites risk, and that our young offspring are marketable items, or socially manipulative objects, or future earners.

I knew that we were at a juncture where I could easily frighten my daughter, create a block of cynicism in her, or produce a hundred other negative tones in her young mind. We tread a fine line while keeping keeping our children informed of the world around them, yet keeping them innocent and blameless of the world's failings and frailties. I realized with a mixture of melancholy and hope that the climates of my childhood and my children's were a world apart. I also realized that this difference, this awkward dissimilarity of our childhoods, would not, need not stand in the way of giving them that sense of adventure, inquisitiveness, and wonder that I enjoyed in that far away Welsh village.

As an evacuee, I was shielded and protected from the ravages and horrors of Hitler's terror. What I knew about those dark days, I read years afterwards. No one in that village made it a point to tell me what I was protected from. I just was and didn't have to know from what.

Today's children cannot avoid instantly learning about the weakness of their president, of the injustices in our courts, of the revulsion of demented minds, the nature of extremes, or the brutality of today's terrorism. It is this instantaneousness that gives little time to make an honest evaluation of events and consequences in the world.

Is our task now, not so much to make these  things invisible, but to educate our children how to combat them, overcome them, or heal them? My involvement in my children's growth and progress is a hundred times more than my own parents' input in my childhood. My father left me nothing but the world to make my way in. It was a world of safe streets, kind and decent people, of  unclogged streets, respect for authority, and of TV-free living rooms. Perhaps my parents did not need to spend a great deal of time looking for negative aspects in my life or their own. The qualities they instilled would serve me well in a world that was largely congruous and amicable.

Today, I know that caring for my children's safety I cannot let them wander too far from home without some protection from the world. But I can also tell them there is much to appreciate and value. They may have to be driven to their soccer matches in lieu of walking or cycling as I did, but those moments traveling in the car are filled with open, honest and fun-filled conversations. We fill our journey with our voices in song, taking great advantage of the moments together.

Lacking a safe subway system today, I may have to take my son into town to see the sights of the city, where I once bicycled or walked; but it affords me an opportunity to share the journey with him and to contribute my experiences to the moments we share. Perhaps, just perhaps, I watched my children more than my own parents ever did, but there is a meshing of our minds that was never there when I set out on my own early explorations.

I miss those days of yore, that small village in Wales, and I miss my children, whether they are in the next town, state, or country. They are all out on their own now; half of them married with children. But when they were part of my milieu, my surroundings, they took up a lot of my time, as I took up a lot of that small Welsh village's time. 

Adjusting our love and care for children to today's world should be an affirmative journey, not one of fear, resentment, or inconvenience. I am thankful that my children do not feel restricted in their world of watchfulness and shielding. I don't know what the world will be like when my children care for their own, but I do know that the values of love, respect, courage, and appreciation for all that is good and honest, and for each other, will serve them well.

                © Roy H. Barnacle 2011

The Best of Both Worlds

By Roy H. Barnacle

Someone once told me that having a lot of friends is not necessarily the best thing in the world. He told me that having one or two that you can love, trust, someone who cares and shares from the heart, is about all one needs. I think he was right.

I had such a friend. His name was Carl and he was from that land of windmills and dykes and tulips and clogs - Holland. I can say "Holland" now, but in his presence, it always had to be the Netherlands, or "Nayderlont", as he so musically pronounced it.

Carl passed several years ago, but recently my daughter revived my love and respect for this painter and artist. She had visited Amsterdam, and in that city of canals and one "built upon dodgy foundations both literally with sand, wood, and gravel laid upon one another to build the ever sinking architecture" as she put it. "I wanted to see it through his eyes." In her own recollections, she helped me recall my friendship with this ballet-loving Dutchman.

Each Saturday morning, weather and social schedules permitting, Carl and I had breakfast together. He and I almost always had the same thing: eggs Benedict and whole wheat toast for him; American omelet and white toast for me.

Carl was an ancient, full of wisdom and experience. I was almost 20 years his junior, yet I remained engrossed by tales of his boyhood in his native Holland, his adventures in the Dutch underground, and his constant efforts to keep his painting alive as a meaningful part of his life.

Carl and I talked about the old days and compared them to how we lived today. We shared our lives as if we were lending each other our favorite books, eliciting views and opinions. I never fail to admire and cherish this man who still showed great vitality after so many years. Yet, he called me "smart as a vip" in his delightful accent, because I programed his VCR or fix the lock on his back door that only needed some oil.

Every Saturday, Robert and I had lunch together. Robert was no more than a child at the time, full of innocence and pep. He is my son. Robert did not have a favorite eating place; we could go anywhere - to a fast food place, an established restaurant, or a drive-through. Robert talked about his favorite fire truck books, how he liked snow, and what he was going to do later on in the day. Talking about next month, next year, or even next Wednesday was beyond Robert. His was the world of the moment, the immediate. Life was much too exciting to think about what it could be, or what it once was.

Meeting with these two, a young child, probing his world with eyes and ears, and Carl, with years of kindly "been there done that" was uniquely stimulating. I considered myself very fortunate as I swung between their two worlds, mixing maturity with the unadorned, wisdom with guilelessness, and venerability with the unexplored. Aside from their differences in age and experience, they had much in common. Both had a wonderful sense of humor. Both chose their words carefully. Both had a sparkle in them as they relate their own images of life.

This kind of recipe is powerful against all kinds of assaults by the world of mediocrity and the commonplace. Both gave me a sense of the future and the past. Carl is my future -- one not mired in worn and archaic bearings, but of continued enlightenment. Through him, I experience the wisdom of his past, and I delight in his vitality.

Robert also represents the future, for obvious reasons. I also saw,and still see my past in his young bright eyes, in his eagerness to explore new horizons. Carl talked about mixing new colors; Robert dragged me out at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning to crack ice in the puddles on the dirt road. Carl mapped out his designs on foolscap; Robert traced his in the frost on the window pane.

Breakfast with Carl and Robert, had no age, no education, or the lack of interfering with the way of these two individuals enjoyed each other's company. I watched them and was filled with affection.

My being with the two of them gives rise to the thought that this is what families, or communities, should be like. Carl teaches me principles and learning. Robert teaches me trust and aspiration.

Between these two friends, I reveled in two worlds, taking from each the very best to maintain and build my own.

 ©  Roy H. Barnacle  2013

The Literary Fruits Of an Ordinary Life

Roy Barnacle


'When are we going to see your next essay?'' In the past when friends and erstwhile fans, or even my impatient editor,  asked me that question, I usually paused, wondering what I should  give for an answer. I find it difficult to laud any  great literary triumphs (achieved) or tragedies (overcome), or that manifest great progress or betterment for myself and my fellow man.  I have led a fairly ordinary life, with ordinary aims and ordinary achievements. (Is that an oxymoron?)

When I finally told this truth to friends, they pooh-pooh my anguish with great love and affection. One dear friend reminded me of something I told them many years ago when we were discussing what makes a true writer. I said I thought a real writer could be told to write on ''thimbles'' or ''the color blue'' or ''sardines'' and he or she would dispense 800 words on such subjects, not with ease perhaps, but with a probable amount of skill and expertise.

I have never actually felt that I was writing for the ages or to change the world. I also never wrote to gain fame or wealth. (''Never write to pay a bill, or to be sure you never will....'' wrote one famous bard.)

It was something else. Feelings, perhaps? Or a longing to just tell one single solitary soul that there is hope and expectation of goodness in a growing world of distrust and melancholy? Perhaps I am too emotional, or might be, to be too practical in my writing. Too practicaL to write about gun culture, child abuse, political ineptitude or financial corruption. My emotions might tell me to melt the guns, castrate the child abusers, burn city hall down, and demand financial restitution at 54%.

I miss my father very much. I find my eyes moisten at children singing and at friendships that ask nothing in return but the friendship itself. I regret things I have said and things I have never said. I have discovered that seeking the ultimate is an eternal task, but at the same time, life's a cinch, by the inch.

If, as is said, in every man's writings lies the character of the writer, then indeed I continue to struggle to find those threads that are woven with who I really am. I have raised two familys, survived two divorces, and declared a traitor for leaving the land of my birth, for a spiritual re-birth in another..

I have sought, in the words of Mr. Chips, ''to be brave and strong and true. And to fill the world with love my whole life through.'' Perhaps my ''experiences'' can be called ''blessings.''

Surely, there must be something to write about that.

© Copyright 2001 Roy H. Barnacle. All rights reserved.

Conspire, Aspire, Inspire, Perspire, Church Spire.

I was at  keyboard of my PC, struggling to squeeze out my secrets, the keys inside that unlocked  my thoughts of loyalty, kindness, affection, courage, justice and the routes of those highways to contentment and comfort, triumph and distinction, reward and reward recognition. Why is it such a struggle to know or think we know, the truth about ourselves and of those we know and once knew. My neighbor, Kent, across the street, has just pushed open the front door, calling out if anyone was at home. I sighed, wondering if I would ever put words on paper, to start, to travel, to finish.

Kent,  was returning a tape rule, borrowed well before Christmas, or was it Thanksgiving. We are the kind of neighbors that do not keep track of our borrowings and lendings.

"What are you writing about this time?" he said.

This time? This was 2012, and on my computer screen was an article I started in the bright summer days of 2001. I was still at it, but I did not tell him that. I prefer my friends and neighbors to think that I sit down every day, full of inspiration and exaltation, streaming the words out across the page, perfection itself, with no need of spellchecking, thesaurus or grammar check.

"Give me a subject. . ."  I would challenge them at dinner parties,    ",. . .and I will have an essay on it by the morning."  Fortunately for me, few followed up.

People ask me what I write about, the subjects, those arenas  of play and performance that the world displays with us as participants and actors reading the lines and coming to center stage.  I want to sound grand and intellectual, positive and tell them that I write about truth and justice; peace and harmony, and honor and morality.  I always want to say that I produce easy essays on life, love and liberty, but more often end up telling them that my last essay was on utility poles, or the history of string, 

What I did not tell Kent, was that I had been thinking of my father, causing,  just before he entered, some very wet eyes. I had been listening to Judy Collins sing one of her songs; My Father. In it, she sings of her father's promise, to take them to France and sail on the Seine. Fathers are like that; hopelessly romantic, starry-eyed, and promise their children the world.

        The cruelest remark I ever heard about somebody's father was, in answer to "What did your father do?" the reply "He failed."  I don't know if my father failed at anything, because I never knew his dreams or longings. I do know that he cared for us, put food on the table, came home every night, and sighed very heavily and glared around the dinner table if we made a noise during the nightly radio newscast, or the soccer scores every Saturday night.. Not once did he promise to take us to France.

Ms. Collins sings of her father's promises and dreams for his daughters; of his intents if not his consummation and completion of them. What, I wonder, were my fathers intents? Did he intend that his sons and daughter go to college?   Was it in his list of goals to have us becomes highly successful men, important in the community, admired by friend and foe alike?   Was, instead, his designs for his children a little more simple; be kind to others, think before you act, read, understand, love?

Thirty years after he passed, I still miss my father very much. Not his physical presence, but those moments that I never had; to talk with him, tell him of my own hopes and dreams for my children and what I had done with and in my life. I do not seek my father through medium and manipulation, but through those qualities that have been more dream than reality in the time since my father passed away. Dreams become realities when you stop the dreaming and start to establish those once dreamlike qualities as building blocks and anchors in your life to building your own dreams for your children.

Knowing the pitfalls and traps of my own relationship with my father, I can, hopefully,better guide and govern my own children's journey to adulthood of success and the accomplishment of their own dreams --  and realities. As my teenage daughter keeps reminding me, "Dad, it's a different world than when you were my age."  She does not want to hear me say that from age to age, there are qualities and values that are both needed and necessary people of all ages; qualities of good friendship, selflessness, generosity, sacrifice for the common good, mercy, faith hope and charity. Parents are nearly always neophytes in their children's world, and it behooves any parent to learn how to survive in it. Trying to know what my father's world was, and how he survived it, helps me understand my children's hopes and dreams, and my own. Perhaps, just perhaps, there is no such thing as perfection in this world, but I know there are those, for I have met them -- those who always know there is always something else that can be done to improve things. The people, of which I believe my father was one, who aver that they may never make anything or anyone, perfect, but the solutions are for the moment optimum, not perfect.

There was no college cash, no social or politician nepotism, no club tie communication for me from my father. But there was a watchfulness that, what his son did have, would be protected, defended and left unstirred, un-interfered with,  for that son to take with him in his own world to exercise and establish.

I would hope that my four children would, in time, look back and feel as positive about me as I do about my father, despite his "failures" and his heavy dining room sighs. I, like my father, and as Ms. Collins sang, "work on his dreams like boats we knew we would sail in time."

©  Roy Barnacle 2012  All Rights Reserved

Essay block

After describing my self as a writer to a friend,  a writer in the grip of a 10-year writer's block, I was asked the following questions..

 What do you think is the cause for this block, and how do you hope to address it? Or are you resigned to waiting for your muse to wake up and return?

Answer: Hmmm, my version of writers block is not that I cannot write, but that I cannot write the stuff I use to write, or would like to write. I do write every day,  but its mostly on my autobio and my journal. My writing is based, (but not driven by) more upon my emotions than my intellect or reason. I supposed therefore, that depression or anxiety would interere with my inspiration or creativity where my ability to put honest pen to paper.
  My writing, as with other of my individual reflections, is driven by love,sometimes philosophically, or spiritual, sexual or inquiry, and so on.
  Muse is, for me, more verb than noun, and I am not much into astrology.(In such, I am an Aquarian!) If my muse was Polyhymnia perhaps Melpomene has taken her place.


2. If you could accomplish only one thing during the rest of your life, what would it be?
Answer:  Oh boy, I have a life list of goals and dreams I'd like to accomplish. I am loath to say things like "Go snorkeling in the Maldives" or "Have an essay published on the op-ed page of the New York Times"  On the other hand, I am too much of a realist to list "Find a cure for cancer" or "Abolish World Hunger" and so on.
  I have a very strong faith of God's existence.I would like to understand God further and in that, my accomplishment might be viewed as selfish rather than philanthropic. I strongly beleive that values and acts of real accomplishment, are driven by spiritual values than education or circumstances.
  On a more secular and perhaps pragmatic level, my goal might be to become the writer I want to be, and though my writings, help lift ordinary people above the day to day existence of life.
Philanthropic.

3. What do you think are the three best traits you have to offer a partner?

Answer: Love, commitment and an open hand. (Not necesarily in that order.)  I offer a quote from one of my own articles: ""Love and commitment are one. Commitment without love becomes a necessary task, a duty, perhaps, efficient but lacking in warmth and real communication. Love without commitment is too fragile, easily swept away by the weakest attack upon it. It is the commitment to love itself, and thereby in a way,  immortality, that preserves both. Committed love is part of an eternal dialogue between ourselves and immortality.""
 The open hand is a sign and symbol of trust, honesty and friendship.

 Maybe I should change my avocation to "essayist".  Essy block sounds more professional.
(The article written outside of my writers block!! )


©  Roy Barnacle 2012  All Rights Reserved

 A proclamation
by Roy H. Barnacle

The building had stood there for as long as I could remember, which wasn't very long. My parents spoke of it fondly, and of their own memories about it. My father, in his love of exploration and investigation of his beloved city, spoke warmly of it and eventually, even I captured the spirit of the building and of the locality in which it stood.  Then, in one day, it was gone. It was unceremoniously destroyed. It went not with intent or meaning, but as a random act of terror and horror, imposed not by renewal or design, but with a hate and fear of what it stood for.
    This was not the tall, magnificent towers of the World Trade Center, but of a small church in the City of London, during the night of May 10th, 1941. It, and many another structures like it, stood as part of the history of my town. It's own history was long; Built in 1382, rebuilt in 1683 and 1817, then obliterated in a single night of terror bombing by our enemy. Much of London's structure and way of life was both destroyed and changed forever in those dark days when Britain stood alone against what was perceived as an enemy intent on destroying civilization as we in Britain knew it.
    This is  where London began as a Roman colonial town around AD 50. Beginning on September 7, 1940, much of it was obliterated and for a total of 57 consecutive nights, London was bombed. The terror bombing of London was designed to break the spirit of the British people in a way that would leave them destitute, spiritually impoverished, morally bankrupt and socially wrecked.
    On September 11th , 2001, another enemy of our way of life acted in an obscene and repugnant act, designed to test American mettle and to prove that evil has precedence over good, hate over love, deception over sincerity and the lie over truth. It shall not stand. As Secretary of State, Colin Powell reminded us, buildings can be destroyed and people murdered, but the spiritual and moral concepts that make this nation will endure and bear stronger for the onslaught. It's a question of resolve. The  British people had a firmness that enabled them to keep their eye on victory.
    It has been said that various agencies, departments and a large portion of the population were lethargic and lackadaisical about what happened overseas. Perhaps. The conflict in the minds of Americans is to allow others the freedom to act, and at the same time to ensure that those acts are not against the common good. The American today is not much different from the Londoner of 1940.  If you push a decent people too far, they will have to push back. Sooner or later, there  is a point of no return.
    I have been asked how I survived World War II. I do not recall any heroics or tragedies surrounding me.  I was dug out from under the staircase of my own bombed house in London. My father, who was a policeman, went missing for six days, surviving somewhere in the cauldron of hell that was created by German bombers in London's docklands. I was sent from the city to 'surrogate' parents in Wales. In none of this, do I ever recall anyone expressing a climate of fear. My father's thought at the time, recounted many times later, was to the Nazi's: "You do your worse, and we will do our best." This can be equally applied to each and every American who enjoys and defends his freedoms.
    I do not lessen the horror of what happened in New York, Washington and in the skies over America. Everyone innocent that lost his or her life gave that life as much for America and our way of life as much as any soldier, sailor or airman. It is the sense of normalcy that the fanatic wants to destroy. The freedom to travel on business or to visit loved ones or to explore and enjoy is normal for Americans and others around the world. It is commonplace  for us to enjoy the fruits of our labor without despotic control, or to have our creativity used to destroy and demolish. Those that do not enjoy such normalcy find it easier to eliminate such freedoms than to exercise them.
           The American people must and will do the same. In the words of Prime Minister Churchill at Britain's darkest hour:
        "We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man . . . which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and . . . common law,  find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence."  Another commentator opined that this was not an attack on America per se, but on civilization, on decency, on a way of life that has, as it's ultimate goal, the loosing of all mankind from the disorders of social want, political and religious persecution, injustice and oppression of the human spirit.
    When my mother heard of the destruction of this small church in London during those dark days, she cried. She recounted to me later that she felt the whole world was coming to an end. She was less concerned about Nazi troops marching up the High Street, than she was that a large hole had been left in our lives that could never be replaced. The church was never rebuilt, but the bells were saved and finally sent to America as part of an outpouring of gratitude by Britain to their American allies.
    There must be an American resolve, a US version of a stiff upper lip, if you will. A lip that trembles not in fear, but in indignation and outrage. I am sure that there were moments in my parents thought that all that they enjoyed and worked for would be swept away forever, and  that nothing would every be the same again. But those qualities that lie deep in some and are carried on the shoulders of others must and will endure.
    We can go go forward from this moment, not in revenge or retaliation,  although that may be necessary and justified. We will go forward with those qualities and ideas that were written over twohundred years ago. When we intone our allegiance to the flag or to the Constitution we are pledging our allegiance to the idea that .all men are created equal, not all Americans, all Palestinians, all Mongolians, but all men. This makes the United States not a country, a political system or social structure, but an idea. America is an idea in the mind of man and it is the idea that bombs, terrorists or fanatics cannot destroy.

©  Roy Barnacle 2002  All Rights Reserved