All posts by Steve Stern

The trouble with carrying a gun.

Americana, Around home

Gun-6567

According to AZ Family, a man accidentally shot himself in the leg while at a Wal-Mart store in Phoenix on Saturday.

My first reaction on reading this was, It serves the SOB right, but my second reaction was to remember a time when I carried a weapon (carry may not be the right word, the weapon was in my briefcase and I was carrying the briefcase, not the weapon). I was 33, married with a baby at home, and how I ended up carrying a weapon is one of my favorite stories.

We had sold a house to a guy named Bob Shimbari – I’ve changed the name a little for reasons that will become obvious – and Shimbari changed his mind and wanted his deposit back. The salesperson gave him the usual forms to fill out but he refused to do so. He just wanted his money. As I recall, it was 500 bucks on a, around, 40 thousand dollar home (we always called them homes, rather than houses). The salesperson bumped Shimbari to the Sales Manager who confirmed that he had to fill out the forms.

This was the early 70s and I was the Director of Operations for Shapell of Northern California, so the Sales Manager now bumped a pissed-off Shimbari to me. Shimbari said that he wanted his money back and I sweetly said Sure..long pause…just fill out the forms (I was a much bigger smart ass then, than I like to think I am now). Shimbari went nuts, telling me that he was going to kill me if I didn’t give him the $500. I told him that he had to fill out the form before I could give him the money and he hung up.

Maybe an hour later, he called back and told me he was going to wait in the parking lot, shoot you down, and then go to your house, I know where you live, and kill your wife and kids. The fact that he said kids, led me to believe that he really didn’t know where I lived or that I only had one kid, but still, it scared the hell out of me. I went to my boss, Sam Berland, and asked him what to do. Sam, who never panicked, who was always cool,  assured me that people make threats all the time and they don’t mean anything. If I didn’t believe him – Sam said – call the police and they will tell you the same thing.

I did call the police and they did tell me the same thing. With Sam’s calm assurance of my safety and now the police’s reassurance, I was starting to calm down. However, as I started to hang up, the cop told me I had to fill out a complaint form (hummm, what a pain in the neck and how ironic, fortunately I could fill out the form over the phone). The cop asked me the threatener’s name and I told him Shimbari. The cop then said – almost yelled – Shimbari!, Bob Shimbari? When I told him yes, the cop said I should be afraid, Very afraid.

It turned out Shimbari was the local bad boy, he owned several massage parlors and was known as a dangerous hothead. The cop said I should be very careful and, now, my panic reached a new level. I went back to Sam and, after some discussion – in which, among other things,  I stubbornly refused Sam’s suggestion that I give Shimbari back his money without the forms – Sam offered to loan me his Army issue Colt .45 automatic. I was pretty good with a .45 in the Army, so I said Yes.

The next day, I had Sam’s trusty .45 and, when Shimbari called to threaten me again, I dug in my heals. But, now that I had the gun, all kinds of real, practical questions came up. Did I load the gun? I don’t mean should I put a loaded clip in?, that was obviously Yes, but should I chamber a round?  Do I take the safety off if I have a chambered round? How do I carry the gun? I decided to put in a full clip, chamber a round, and half-cock the weapon (because I had heard stories of people dropping their fully cocked .45 and having it go off). I didn’t – and in California, I am glad to say – couldn’t carry the weapon around in my hand or in a holster, so I put it in my briefcase.

As I went out in the parking lot to get into my car, I realized the problem. The sun was bright, there were cars all over the parking lot, and anyone of them could hide a shooter. In my imagination, in the shimmering light, Shimbari is over by his car and he yells at me, Hey Asshole, I want my money! I put my briefcase down on the closest car hood, struggle it open – sweating in the heat, my hands almost slipping off of the shiny, brass, latches –   and take out the .45. The .45 is cool – it has been asleep in a briefcase in an air-conditioned office all morning – the safety is off, and it is easy to fully cock  the weapon. Now! I am ready to go.

But, if this whole thing were real, if it weren’t my imagination, if Shimbari had really been hiding behind that car, I am probably already dead.

Standing in the parking lot, looking at all those cars – I recognize that one, it’s Sam’s, that’s Dan’s, but where did that black Cadillac come from and is that somebody hiding behind it ? –  I could feel the sweat running down my sides from under my armpits, I could feel how exposed I was, how vulnerable. I began to realize that a gun in a briefcase is worthless and I thought about doing this for days (for weeks maybe, depending on how persistent Shimbari is). After, maybe 10 seconds, worth of thought, I went back into the office, filled out Shimbari’s forms for him and told the Salesperson to tell him the money was in the mail.

I gave the weapon back to Sam.

As an aside, there is a postscript to this story. Several years later, Sam and I started our own company, bas homes,  and the first contract our salesperson brought in was to Bob Shimbari. When the salesperson brought in the contract, I told her that I wouldn’t sign it. An hour later, Shimbari called me screaming that he was going to sue me for discrimination and I told him that the last time, he said he was going to kill me. There was a long pause and Shimbari said See, I’ve matured. End aside.

Nina Cassian

Uncategorized

Nina Cassian

I just read that Nina Cassian died. Until I read her full-page obit in The Economist, I had no idea who she was – or even that she existed – but, after reading a couple of samples, I am loving her poetry. She was Jewish Romanian (the Jewish part is cultural not religious and, for that matter – the Romanian part is technically, I guess – only until she was granted asylum in the US in 1985 after a friend of her’s was beaten to death because of one of her poems).

Her poetry reflects that kind of Eastern European, Jewish, humor that has so informed the last 30 years of American humor (think Jerry Seinfeld or Andrei Codrescu if you listen to NPR). Typical of Cassian’s humor, and the O’Henry type twists she seems to favor, is Please Give This Seat to an Elderly or Disabled Person, a poem displayed in New York City subways by the Poetry in Motion program.

I stood during the entire journey
nobody offered me a seat
although I was at least a hundred years older than anyone else on board,
although the signs of at least three major afflictions
were visible on me:
Pride, Loneliness, and Art.

What drew my attention to her is a poem she wrote before her exile. It is a poem that I can definitely relate to. While it reflects on a meeting with the Romanian dictator, Ceausescu, it sums up what I think we all feel after a political argument that has gone nowhere.

With rational syllables
I try to clear up the occult mind
and promiscuous violence.
My linguistic protest has no power
The enemy is illiterate.

The world is a richer place because of Nina Cassian and our country, in particular, is a richer place because of Eastern European immigrants. Growing up, I was taught that the center of  Europe and by extension, the center of history was somewhere between England and France.  OK, Spain and Germany were players part of the time and it all started in Italy, but Eastern Europe was half way down the civilization ladder to Czarist Russia with its serfs. Lately I have began to think that I was taught the wrong European view. Eastern Europe was a huge influence on what we call Western civilization. I have been reading Tony Judt and reading about Oppenheimer and all the Eastern European scientists that have made our new – sometimes very scary – world.

We worship England and France, but – over the last sixty or seventy years – Eastern Europe may have had the biggest influence.

Happy Memorial Day and Thanks for your service

Americana

Memorial Day-0379

Yesterday, I watched the beginning of the Indianapolis 500 and I was appalled – maybe putoff would be a better word – by the opening ceremonies. They seemed so saccharinly patriotic – including a patriotic blessing of the race – to me and I kept getting hung up on the fact that the most flagrant flag wavers seemed like the kind of people who send kids into battle, not lead them.

I feel a little bit that way when I hear someone say Thanks for your service. Often, I am the only Veteran in the group and  Thanks for your service to a Vet – not said to me, my service was watching sunsets from a hill in Korea – has just felt hypocritical. But, after turning off the TV, I started thinking about it and concluded that Thanks for your service is the same thing as saying I’m glad you are going into the meatgrinder and it’s not me or mine. Then it makes sense. The hypocrisy drops away, all that is left is the real gratitude that somebody else is caring that burden.

So, to all the Vets out there, Thanks for your service.

It ain’t terrorism if the non-terrorist uses a gun or isn’t a Muslim

Americana, Religion

Asswipe Miller

This morning I woke up to a New York Times headline of Drive-By Attack Leaves 7 Dead in ‘Work of a Madman’.  The Times went on to say Seven people were killed and another seven injured on Friday night in a bloody drive-by shooting on the crowded streets of a small college town near Santa Barbara, as what police described as a mentally disturbed gunman methodically opened fire in a 10-minute spasm of terror. Of course he was mentally disturbed, he killed people at random; that could be one of the definitions of mentally disturbed.

A month, or so, ago, an old white man named Glenn Miller, killed three people at random. He was trying to kill Jews only because they were Jewish. The killing of people because they are all identifiable – preferably self-identifiable as well –  as a distinct group, is terrorism. Group isn’t the right word, but either is race or religion – maybe an identifiable other is the right way to put it – but terrorism is the right word. When Timothy  McVeigh killed 168 people on that April morning in 1995, only because they happened to be in Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, it was an act of terrorism.

When Miller, 73 and the founder of a Ku Klux Klan group called the White Patriot Party, killed people with a gun nobody said he did it because he is white and nobody called it an act of terrorism. McVeigh was a Roman Catholic and a Gulf War veteran. Nobody says that McVeigh’s behavior typifies Catholic behavior. When a Christian kills 168 people, he does not do it because he is a Christian, he does it because he is fucked up.

When two Muslim boys blow up a bomb, killing people in Boston, it is also terrorism. But they did not do it because they were Muslim, like McVeigh they did it because they were fucked up. It was no more about Islam than McVeigh was about Christianity.

 

Mathew Brady’s picture of General U. S. Grant and the new American Hero

Americana, War, What's a man?

This is a very much modified copy of a post I made in 2009. I am reposting it now because, 150 years ago, the Army of The Potomac was in the middle of what is now known as The Overland Campaign. Grant  and Lee had battled to a draw in The Wilderness on May 5th through the 7th, 1864. This is where the Army of The Potomac learned that Grant was a different kind of general and they were going to become a different kind of Army.

Up until now, the Army of The Potomac would move south, fight the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, and win lose or draw – sadly, it was often lose – retreat to rebuild and re-provision for the next battle. This time, when Grant pulled his troops out of the battle-line, it was not to retreat, but to move further south to attack again at Spotsylvania Court House (May 8–21), then again and again. This was total war. Grant had said I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer, and he meant it.

Grant had come to do a job and he did it. The picture below shows just that.

This is a new kind of portrait and Grant was a new kind of general. The picture was probably taken during the Overland Campaign just after the battle of Cold Harbor. Grant is not the patrician hero, Grant, like Lincoln, was a mid-westerner. A common man. In this picture, he is tired, his eyes are sad, his boots are muddy. This is probably Matthew Bradley’s most famous photo. Not only because of it’s informality, but because it is so penetrating. I have read that a good portrait is an artifact of a relationship. This is a portrait of a real man, the dynamic new kind of American from the West.

Grant was the new American hero. The quiet man just doing his job. John Wayne. Gary Cooper in High Noon.  No braggadocio flourishes, just quietly getting the job done.