I've always liked quiet. And, like most people, I've experienced the world's madness. "Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness" (Wipf and Stock Publishers, Jan. 2017) distills 47 years of experiencing stillness and madness as a campus minister and Presbyterian pastor (IL, WI, NY, OH, and MN), poverty criminal law firm executive director, and social commentator. Our cat Lady Barclay reminds me to calm down and be much more still than I would be without her.
“Would you like to see Walter?” asked the funeral director to the 19 year-old college student who’d just arrived at the funeral home.
“Walter who?”
“Walter Fraser,” said Mr. Gibson, who only an hour before had recruited the 19 year-old to ask whether he owned a dark suit, and could he serve in a pinch as the greeter for the visitation the night before funeral. The staff person who normally welcomed people at the front door had called in sick at the last moment. Because the Gibsons, Stewarts, and Frasers were friends and members of the same church, Mr. Gibson turned in desperation to the inexperienced 19 year-old as the greeter’s substitute.
So far as I had known before arriving at the funeral home, Walter wasn’t dead. Mr. Fraser was a highly respected member of the community, and the father of my friend ‘Fuzzy’ Fraser, the star offensive guard on the Marple-Newtown High School football team. Last I knew, Mr. Fraser was as healthy as my father and Mr. Gibson. Mr. Fraser wasn’t supposed to die.
Suddenly “Mr. Fraser” – a man of great dignity and stature – was “Walter”.
“Would you like to see Walter?”
Stunned by Mr. Fraser’s death, I said, “No thanks,” before realizing my refusal was a kind of insult to Mr. Gibson’s work and skill. After the Masons had finished their private ritual of white gloves and strange prayers pretending that Walter was not really dead, Mr. Gibson led me into the viewing room where the guests would see Walter in his open casket.
My family wasn’t into open caskets. When you die you’re dead; you’re gone. A painted corpse, though it may console some of the survivors — “Doesn’t he look good!” they say, or “He looks so peaceful” or “Didn’t they do a nice job” — serves, as Jessica Mitford and other critics of American funeral practices have said, as a denial of death.
Seeing the previously presumed-to-be-alive Mr. Fraser laid out in a casket as ‘Walter’ came as a shock to the senses that underlined the responsibility to offer a friendly greeting at the door, all dressed up, like Walter, in a dark blue suit.
“Would you like to see Walter?”
“Walter who?” remained the question after I left the Gibson Funeral Home. Who was Walter? Was he Mr. Fraser? Or just Walter, all dressed up, like the rest of us, with no place to go, as naked as the day he was born? I’d like to see him again to ask what he can tell me that I don’t yet know.
— Gordon C. Stewart, GeorgetownLake, MT, July 8, 2015
At the age of three, I wanted to be the Sawgus Man.
Driving up the steep, winding road to Signal Mountain in Grand Teton National Park, the scent of fresh cut pine trees reaches my nostrils. Within a nanosecond I’m no longer in Wyoming, and I’m not almost 73. I’m a three-year-old back in South Paris, Maine, shoveling sawdust into the coal bin of my grandparents’ big house on Main Street.
During World War II there was no coal for heating in Maine. Sawdust from the pine trees took its place. When the Sawdust Man delivered the sawdust in his big dump truck, I went out with a small shovel to “help” him fill the coal bin with the sawdust. I loved the smell and the Sawdust Man was my hero.
Seventy years later, the aroma of sawdust transports me back to the times with Sawgus Man. Nothing then or now is as sweet as the scent of a fallen pine tree. Scents and memories are as intimately connected as time and eternity.
– Gordon C. Stewart, Jackson, Wyoming, July 2, 2015.
Her eyes would glint below grey hair,
she’d lift the book so we could see
the Fine Art illustration. Her
gold wedding ring was a ruby,
even though her spouse ran a bank.
“A diamond seems so cold,” she’d say.
The Matisse to her point she’d link:
her Bible lesson for Sunday.
We students would set our alarms,
and even though we’d stayed out late
the night before, her wit, her charms
with words, her humor, made us wait
Steve (Shoemaker) and Alexander Sharp, ordained clergy advocates for the medical use of marijuana, wrote a guest commentary published by the News-Gazette to set the record straight on medical marijuana. Click Weeding Out Editorial Inaccuraciesto read their critique of editorial’s mischaracterizations of the Journal of the American Medical Association study of the medical use of cannabis.
Walking into the library this morning I noticed a pickup truck with a Confederate flag decal on the back window of the cab. The hackles went up on the back of my neck. The urge to scratch the decal from the window momentarily crossed my righteous mind until I took note of something else.
The pickup truck with the Confederate Flag decal
The truck was old and in poor repair. Its bed was messy, filled with a random collection of stuff. This was not a 2015 GMC Canyon or Cadillac Escalade EXT. It belonged, I surmised, to a poor white guy or woman, or a poor white couple hanging on by their fingernails to what little they have.
Anaconda, MT is a fascinating place to live for a month. Once the world center of copper mining, the city of 9,300 residents today is living with great resilience on this side of the mine’s closing in 1987 and the SuperFund clean up that continues into the present.
There is great pride here in their history and in their capacity for survival beyond the abandoned mine shaft and silent smelter stack that still stands proudly, preserved by Anacondans who opposed its demolition by Anaconda Copper’s successor, ARCO. The stack is the oldest smelter stack in the world, large enough for the Washington Monument to fit inside it.
Miners are a sturdy lot. So are their descendants. The closer a visitor draws to the heartbeat of knowledge, persistence, and compassion in Anaconda — the Hearst Free Library — the more one respects and appreciates the town once built by corporate America and left to fend for itself when its usefulness had ended.
Class is the issue in America. But as soon as class comes into play, race becomes the easier target. When the company owners whose workers produce wealth throw away a town the way we throw away paper towels, racial differentiation produces the scapegoat for poverty. A young white man enters an historic black church, sits down for the Bible study for an hour, considers not pulling the trigger because they seemed like “nice people” and blows nine people away. A poor man’s pickup with a Confederate flag decal is parked down the street from the Hearst Free Library in Anaconda, Montana. What that flag stands for can, and does, show up anywhere in America.
Verse — Tour Guides in 1962 at the Mansion of the late Col. Robert R. McCormick, former Editor/Publisher of the Chicago Tribune
We said “Cantigny” like “Cubs-Wrigley.”
“Can-TIG-knee,” after all, was west of
Chicago, and we Midwestern guys
from Wheaton College were the best of
hires, for boss, Mrs. J, knew we would
not steal Colonel McCormick’s books or
swords, silver, furniture or liquor,
since we were honest Christian boys.
She was from Europe, Austria, and
knew France would shudder if the town would
hear how we mispronounced “CAHN-tee-neigh.”
The Colonel fought a battle there, or
so we were told originally by
wise Mrs. J. But foolishly, she
let us pass all the information
on to the other guides, and as we
played “telephone” the tales would then grow
until our Colonel was the hero…
(“And after Fox Hunts, he was always pleased
to set buns on the porch and cut the cheese.”)
Our home for four weeks is 14 miles west of Anaconda, Montana. Last Friday evening we go to Barclay II for dinner (the restaurant, not the dog).
Like lots of things in these parts, exterior facades count for little. Barclay II doesn’t look like much from the outside but it has a great reputation for steak and seafood. Behind the scruffy door is an upscale restaurant.
The proprietor, Tammy, comes to the table to greet us. We ask what they’re known for. “The tenderloin is the most popular,” she says. “I see from the menu it comes with crab legs. Are they Snow Crab or King Crab?” I’m not so big on Snow Crab; I love King Crab. She answers, “King Crab.”
When the wait person comes to take our orders, I order the tenderloin “between medium-rare and medium”. The waitress notes exactly what I say. When she returns, the tenderloin is precisely as requested. In downtown Minneapolis, Murray’s Steak House is famous for its Silver Butter Knife Steak, so named because you can cut it with a butter knife. Murray’s is good. Barclay’s, in downtown Anaconda, is better. The tender-est, most flavor-ful steak I’ve every eaten anywhere in the world.
THE WORST-HAIRCUT EVER
The next morning we’re again in downtown Anaconda in The Coffee Corral coffee shop when Kay reminds me I need a haircut before stepping into the pulpit the next morning at St. Timothy’s Memorial Chapel where I’m privileged to preach the next three weeks. It’s Saturday.
I leave Kay in search of the barber shop. The barber pole is not spinning; the sign on the door posts the hours: Monday-Friday. It’s closed. Next door is a beauty salon. I really need a haircut. I go in to the scene of six women seated in a semicircle having their nails done.
“Good morning,” I say, “Do you do men?” Several of the woman roar with laughter. “I mean…do you cut men’s hair?” Again they laugh. “My wife says I need a haircut; wadda ya all think?” Three of them nod Yes; three nod No. The stylist answers Yes and says she can do me at 1:00.
I return at 1:00. The stylist and I exchange a few pleasantries, ignoring the young bridesmaid who’s all dressed for an afternoon wedding, waiting to have her hair done. I take a seat in the stylist’s chair. She asks me what I want. I answer, just “a trim,” meaning leave it the way it is but take maybe a quarter of an inch, at most. I tell her that once I take out my hearing aids I won’t be able to hear a thing. She smiles, laughs, and says, “No problem. That’s great!” I take it she’s not a big talker, or maybe, God for bid, she doesn’t like men.
I set the hearing aids on the counter. She asks a question I can’t hear. As hearing-impaired people often do when we can’t hear something, I smile and nod my head. I should have reached for the hearing aids.
Within seconds I’m back in Vince’s Barber Shop in Broomall, Pennsylvania at the age of five. Vince’s old electric clippers are shearing the sides of my head like a sheep shearer shears wool from a sheep. At age 72 I don’t have much left, but I’m told I have beautiful hair, even if it’s white. The clippers are clipping; the hair is flying in one-inch clumps. This is not a trim! I’m being led to the slaughter. I close my eyes, as though in prayer, pretending it’s not as bad as I expect.
I should have prayed!
Mortimer Snerd and Edgar Bergen
She finishes “the trim” with scissors and holds up the mirror to show me her handiwork. I pretend I’m an actor, looking at the unrecognizable head staring back at me. It’s Mortimer Snerd, ventriloquest Edgar Bergen’s dummy who made me laugh as a kid, and, as Mortimer often did, I smile a stupid smile, and say, “Yup”. There is nothing else to do.
ALWAYS CARRY CASH
“How much do I owe you?” “Ten dollars,” she says. “Do you take American Express?” “No,” she says, “we only take cash.”
Oops! I take out my wallet. No cash. I go into my pockets and find three one crumpled dollar bills. She agrees to let me go up the street to the coffee shop where Kay is using the internet. “I’ll be back,” I say, assuring her I’m not skipping town. I don’t tell her that her haircut is only worth three dollars.
Kay also has no cash. But she remembers the cylinder of quarters she keeps in the Prius. We count them out, 38 quarters, just enough with my three ones to cover the cost and leave a $1.50 tip, and return to the Beauty Salon.
She’s doing the hair of the teenage girl dressed in her bridesmaid uniform. I think of bridesmaids’ dresses as uniforms ‘cause, like Army recruits, the poor bridesmaids have to wear what their recruiter makes them wear. There is no freedom on wedding day. I just hope the poor soul sitting in the stylist’s chair doesn’t open her eyes to see Mortimer staring back from her bridesmaid uniform.
LESSONS FOR LIFE
Thirteen (13) little hours offered the best and the worst, the joys and, as the old hymn “Beneath the Cross of Jesus” puts it, “the burdens of the day.”
I’ll take back to Minneapolis three life lessons learned in Anaconda:
Pay no attention to the exterior appearance of anything, especially a restaurant. It may hide the best tenderloin steak you’ve ever tasted anywhere.
Carry cash!
If you’re a guy who ventures into a beauty salon next door to the closed barber shop and some women laugh loudly when you ask if they do men, run for your life. You may turn into Mortimer Snerd!
“Yup!” Life is like that. I smile and remember the tenderloin. Kay tells me my hair will grow out again.
Views from the Edge 
