Perhaps there’s some angle to this story that hasn’t been reported yet, some angle that will mean GOOD news for a change about air fares out of Columbia. But so far I’m not seeing any. In fact, this Charleston story doesn’t even mention that other city in the middle of the state:
Southwest Airlines has set a course for South Carolina.
The low-fare carrier said today it would launch service at both Charleston International and Greenville-Spartanburg International airports. The deal came after weeks of debate over proposed incentives to lure a discount airline. Southwest said it would offer the flights without any public assistance, aside from routine start-up help from Charleston International Airport.
The Dallas-based airline will start flights to and from South Carolina within the year. It will spend the next four or five months studying which cities to connect with the Palmetto State.
Officials estimate the airline will bring in 200,000 additional passengers annually.
Charleston’s cry for discount flights recently reached fever pitch in the wake of soaring rates after AirTran Airways’ December departure. Passengers watched as tickets to New York, for example, soared from a little more than $200 round-trip without a required overnight stay to nearly $800.
Adam Beam shares this bio of the new interim police chief released by the city of Columbia:
Col. Carl Burke
Interim Columbia Police Chief, Colonel C. E. Burke Colonel C.E. Burke, a native of Hopkins, graduated from Eau ClaireHigh School. He served in the Air Force before enlisting in the Columbia Police Department in 1979. He has risen throughout his career with The City of Columbia from a Beat Officer, on up through the ranks. He was promoted to Corporal in 1981, Sergeant in 1984, Lieutenant in 1986, Captain in 1991, Major in 2005 and Colonel in 2007. Burke is a graduate of the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy, the School of Justice Administration, Urban and Public Affairs at the University of Louisville, Southern Police Institute, V.I.P. Intelligence, at Glynco, Georgia, The F.B.I. National Academy at Quantico, Va., and the Tactical Training Center at Fort Jackson. He also has participated in additional law enforcement training and educational programs. He has received numerous awards of appreciation, including his nomination as one of the outstanding young men in law enforcement, Who’s Who in American Law Enforcement.
… and if we get yet another chief today, I’ll try to keep you posted…
Sometimes things actually do move swiftly in Colatown:
Embattled Columbia Police Chief Tandy Carter was fired this morning, following tensions with City Council over the handling of the April 21 car accident involving Columbia Mayor-elect Steve Benjamin.
Carter held a news conference at police headquarters just before noon today, insisting he acted within the scope of the law — and his personal code of ethics.
“I am a professional police chief,” Carter said. “I am not a puppet police chief.”
Well, now he’s not ANY kind of police chief.
I’m still sort of reeling over this. Tandy Carter was a good police chief. And then, in a situation in which it seemed OBVIOUS that the thing to do was bring in another agency, he dug in his heels and got all defensive. And I just don’t understand that.
I was thinking about it over the weekend, and wondering. When someone says, as I have since the start, that he should call in another agency on the Benjamin wreck, does he actually think that we’re saying we don’t trust him? That’s certainly not what I meant to say. I trusted him completely. But, not having been born yesterday, I clearly understood this as a situation in which lots of OTHER people wouldn’t trust him on it (you who read this blog regularly may have noticed that there are a few cynical people out there when it comes to their views of public officials). And there was no way he needed that heat, or Columbia needed the controversy.
The simple answer is NO, in the shoulda woulda coulda sense that things should not have come to this pass:
Columbia police chief’s job in jeopardy
Carter’s refusal to hand over crash probe to outside agency angers City Council
By ADAM BEAM and NOELLE PHILLIPS – [email protected][email protected]
Columbia Police Chief Tandy Carter, who has been staring down City Council over his decision to investigate Mayor-elect Steve Benjamin’s car accident, could lose his job next week.
Carter refused to hand over the investigation to an outside agency against the wishes of City Council, which is concerned about the public’s perception of special treatment. But the tipping point seems to be Carter’s request for a state attorney general’s opinion regarding what City Council can and cannot tell him to do.
“I just need to think about this whole situation on requesting an AG opinion on whether or not I have the authority to direct him to do something,” said city manager Steve Gantt, who under state law is the police chief’s supervisor. “I have to figure out what in the world he is thinking about and make a decision on what I think is in the long-term best interest for the city of Columbia.”…
But I wonder what choice Steve Gantt and City Council will have going forward. Gantt says he’s been asking the chief to request an outside review of the case for two weeks. Now, he’s going to tell him to do it.
Meanwhile, Chief Carter is asking the state attorney general to rule on whether his bosses can tell him what to do. Which is really, really weird.
Yes, I know that Columbia’s system of government diffuses and confuses the lines of accountability, but this is just too wild.
I hate that we may be about to lose a good police chief over this — and by most accounts, he has been a good chief at a time when Columbia needed one — but his behavior in this case has puzzled me from the start.
Mind you, I am sympathetic to his insistence on letting the duly sworn cops with jurisdiction in the case do their jobs. Normally, I say the same thing: When Congress starts calling for a special prosecutor, I always wish they’d let the FBI or whoever just investigate and be the professionals they are. But this case was especially sensitive. It happened to the soon-to-be mayor with whom Chief Carter was publicly disagreeing just a week before.
I could see myself saying, “Dammit, I know I’m a professional who can do his job with integrity, and I don’t care what anyone says.” But there are larger things than the professional pride of the police — such as the good of the city. And the good of the city required that any whiff of doubt about interest in this case be eliminated from the start.
And that didn’t happen. And the chief dug in. And the chief ignored the wishes of his bosses for two weeks. Why, I don’t know. But I also don’t know how they can sit still for it.
How will we know when Innovista is succeeding? Well, to begin with, we won’t be at the point where we can call it a complete success for many years, at best. But along the way, there will be signs.
Some of them will be big, such as the new baseball park and the Moore School moving to the geographic area that is central to the Innovista movement. Or the eventual construction of the waterfront park that makes the area more inviting. Most important will be the development of high-tech start-ups that you won’t even be aware of at first, but that will grow and feed off each other as the dynamic starts working.
But there will also be other less obvious signs. Here’s one small, but definite, sign that jumped out at me in recent days…
Have you heard the radio ads for Thirsty Fellow Pizzeria and Pub? The part that jumps out at me is when this eatery/watering hole announces that it can be found in USC’s Innovista. I’m never in a position to take notes when I hear it, but here’s what the Thirsty Fellow says on its website:
Owners Willie Durkin, Chuck Belcher, Dean Weinberger and Terry Davis want you to join the Thirsty Fellow family. Located in the USC Innovista area, we have a comfortable atmosphere, a great menu, a full bar and plenty of televisions. Open for lunch, dinner, late night and Sunday brunch, put Thirsty Fellow on your “to do” list.
“Located in the USC Innovista area.” Whether you take that as a boast — a desire to be associated with the idea of the Innovista — or merely as an acceptable way of giving directions (thereby suggesting that everyone knows where the Innovista is), this is a small-but-telling sign of the concept moving forward, taking hold in the marketplace.
Let me say that again: In the marketplace. You know, that place where Gov. Sanford and the Policy Council don’t want USC to go messin’, the place where they believe, with all the fervor of their secular anti-gummint religion, it is doomed to fail.
And yet, the place where, in this tiny way, it is taking hold…
Don Herriott speaks about Innovista to Columbia Rotary Club recently.
Had breakfast this morning with Don Herriott, USC’s new honcho for Innovista – a guy with a tough job cut out for him.
Innovista has always been a huge challenge. So many things have to go right for it to work – not specific things, not necessarily things you can plan in advance. So much of what will make Innovista work will involve players yet unknown, engaged in activities yet unenvisioned. And those who seek to make it happen, to encourage this process along, have to keep the vision of what Innovista can be in front of so many, fostering and growing the idea.
Under the best of circumstances, you have to overcome a lot. You have to sell the idea of Columbia as a place to live and work to established researchers, to students, to investors, to entrepreneurs, to developers, to so many, so that you can draw in the people who will be at the core of the process – while at the same time keeping all the local incumbent players (business, political, civic) energized and encouraged to keep doing their part to keep the whole thing moving in the right direction.
That’s much tougher to do when there are setbacks, such as the mess that has ensued from entanglements with problematic partners, and buildings that have become a focal point to the extent that many people erroneously think those buildings ARE Innovista.
It’s made far harder when the political leader with the state’s bulliest pulpit is absolutely opposed to what you are doing, and wants you to fail. And when he is supported by a well-funded chorus of naysayers. And make no mistake: Mark Sanford and the S.C. Policy Council, to name but one of his cheerleaders, don’t merely object to the decisions that have been made in the name of the Innovista. Their problem isn’t the overemphasis on hydrogen, or the investment in “spec” buildings. They are opposed to the VERY IDEA of the university and local and state government being engaged in trying to build the local and state economy. No matter what was done in the name of Innovista, they would be against it – especially if it looked as though it might succeed.
The thing I like about what Don Herriott’s trying to do is get everyone refocused on what Innovista has been from the start. It’s not a building or set of buildings, it’s not a specific grid of city blocks, it’s not just hydrogen (much less the much-derided, but much hyped, electric cars). It’s about sparking and sustaining a dynamic that leads to the creation of high-paying, new-economy jobs so that Columbia and South Carolina – instead of being behind every curve – will actually be well-positioned in the “New Normal” economy of the 21st century.
It’s a movement, a concept, a vision. Like the Vista before it, a lot of people will have to believe in it, and invest in it in many ways over a course of years and decades, for it to achieve its potential. And like the Vista, it’s a goal that neither government nor the private sector can make happen alone.
Don’s a little frustrated that when he has good news to tell – such as the fact that some high-tech companies associated with Innovista are moving into the Wilbur Smith building – it gets played like this: “A major tenant planned for USC’s struggling research campus, Innovista, is instead moving into a downtown Columbia office tower several blocks away.” That lede was based on the fact that these companies had planned to be in an Innovista building that didn’t get built as planned. So instead of just withering away or going to another city, another state, they’re locating as close as they can so that they can still be a part of the Innovista movement – which should be great news. But it didn’t play that way. It played as a “coup” for Matt Kennell’s City Center Partnership, and a loss for Innovista – as though they were in competition, instead of dependent on each others’ success.
Yes, as Innovista moves forward and succeeds, the vacuum of that territory between Assembly Street and the river will naturally fill with Innovista-related people, structures and activity. That gaping void of pure potential in the heart of an urban center is one of the great advantages Innovista will have over other research centers around the country. As Mr. Herriott says, “Silicon Valley doesn’t have a street where it begins and ends.” The idea that the Wilbur Smith building, two blocks from the heart of the USC campus one way and three from the Vista proper in the other, is not a part of this movement, this dynamic that he is trying to foster, is absurd.
But a lot of people don’t understand that. And that’s bad because local folks need to understand when Innovista is moving forward in order for it to be able to continue moving forward.
For that reason, one big challenge Don Herriott doesn’t really need – that of renewing and maintaining the local buy-in that Innovista enjoyed when the concept was first unveiled – is as big as any other.
I know a lot of you out there aren’t cheering for him to succeed. But I am. And I hope at some point you will too. Because the stakes for Columbia are enormous, and making Innovista work is an all-hands-on-deck job for this community.
Just to give y’all something to discuss while I’m tinkering around under the hood of the blog, how about this for a topic:
Columbia City Council members Wednesday publicly questioned the police department’s decision to investigate Mayor-elect Steve Benjamin’s April 21 car accident, characterizing it as “a series of … horrible decisions.”
“We are wearing our credibility out,” Councilman Kirkman Finlay said. “My personal opinion? It’s disheartening.”
Council members said city residents are complaining, loudly, about the need for an outside agency to investigate. Benjamin, too, asked for an outside investigation, on the day of the accident that seriously injured the other driver but left him unhurt….
“I believe the credibility of the city and the investigation is at stake,” [Mayor Bob] Coble wrote. “Clearly there is a conflict with the City Police investigating the Mayor-elect just as if it were the Mayor. It would seem we have an obligation to avoid the appearance of a conflict as well.”…
Wednesday, reacting to what they said was public pressure, council members were ready to enact a new policy that would require the police department to turn over any investigations involving the Columbia city manager, assistant city managers, council members or council members-elect. Councilwoman Belinda Gergel, who proposed the policy, also wanted to include in the resolution language that would ask the Highway Patrol to take over the Benjamin accident investigation.
“It would help remove a cloud of uncertainty in the eyes of our citizens and residents,” Gergel said….
In case you’re wondering about a comment by Kathryn way down back on this post (comment No. 36, I believe), she’s responding to something I wrote on Twitter earlier today:
Driving in Columbia today, I wondered: Do they issue you a “COEXIST” bumper sticker when you move to Shandon?
And to save you having to look, KB said:
They do indeed issue a COEXIST bumper sticker at closing when you buy a Shandon house. Do you get the Confederate flag one when you buy your house in Lexington County or does that cost extra?
You’ll note how that drips with Shandonista scorn. For that matter, my daughter responded thusly on Facebook:
Yeah, but mine’s not on my car since I don’t use fossil fuels, I just stuck it next to my LGBT rainbow and my peace sign on my reusable organic cotton grocery bag.
As a Lexington Countian, let me reply that indeed I do have a Confederate flag. It was given to me by John Courson. It once flew over the State House. But it ain’t a-gonna fly there no more.
Oh, and my wife noted something about Shandon to me just this evening. They might have a lot of nice things we don’t have (such as sidewalks), but there’s one thing they have that we can do without — big ol’ honkin’ cat-sized rats (I added the modifiers) running down the street trying to escape the overburdened sewer system.
First, I really should have mentioned this sooner, but I just remembered that I’m going to give blood at the Red Cross at 5 p.m. today, and the need is sufficiently great that they asked me to “bring a friend” if I could.
So far, the people I’ve mentioned it to in person have not stepped forward — which is par for the course, and besides, it was relatively short notice for them, too.
But in case any of y’all can drop everything and come join me, please do. You might not be able to do exactly what I plan to do (if my iron is high enough), which is give double red cells, but I’m pretty sure they’ll take whole blood from a walk-in.
And if you can’t make it today, how about tomorrow, or some other time soon? I’ll be glad to help you set it up, or you can call (803) 251-6000. The need is great, particularly now, according to a piece I saw last week in The Wall Street Journal:
A number of blood centers are reporting an unusual drop in collections because too many potential donors are sick with the H1N1 virus, or swine flu. Some blood drives in high schools and corporate offices have had to be scaled back or canceled because of high levels of absenteeism.
Another problem: Some centers say a growing number of donors are calling a day or two after giving blood to say they’ve come down with flu-like symptoms, forcing the centers to dispose of the blood as part of government regulations. Researchers in a government-funded study are testing samples of these donors’ blood for viremia, the medical term for virus in the blood.
That’s nationally. Here in the Midlands, we always have a shortage, because, well, we don’t give as much as we should in this community. So come on out and help, if you can.
Apparently not. I was gone, to Maryland and back, from Friday morning to Monday afternoon, and it doesn’t seem that much happened around here while I was away — hence my mostly hard-news-free posts yesterday. I see that the boys are giving Elise Partin a hard time in Cayce, but that doesn’t seem surprising somehow. Just disappointing.
Rummaging through the papers for recycling, I couldn’t find the Sunday front page, so I might have missed something.
I’m talking South Carolina news here. I caught the House passage of a health care bill, which happened up where I was. (I gave Charlie Pope a call Saturday morning — y’all remember Charlie — and he was having to work that day because of it.)
Anyway, if I missed anything, here’s a good time to bring it up…
By the way, I should add to my Daniel Schorr diatribe that I love NPR. If I could only listen to one radio station, that would be my choice. That doesn’t mean I have to be crazy about everything I hear on it…
Which reminds me that I was talking radio with a friend today about favorite radio stations. The radio spectrum is so broad that I hesitate to try to create a Top Five list, since there could be a station I haven’t ever heard that would be my favorite if I did hear it. But what I can to is provide a list of the six buttons pre-programmed on FM1 in my truck. I’d be interested to hear what y’all like as well — maybe I’ll do some reprogramming:
S.C. ETV Radio, 88.1 — Or sometimes, 91.3, but the one out of Sumter has more news, which is mainly what I listen for. I like classical music, but NPR is just so well done. The material is better organized and presented than any almost print medium in this country, which is saying something for radio.
WUSC, 90.5 — One of my kids was once a DJ at the station, and I keep it programmed for when I want to hear something really unique.
Steve FM, 96.7 — Yeah, the station ID messages can be really grating — that tedious “we’re deliberately sounding unprofessional” tone — but the song selections are pretty good about 50 percent of the time.
WXRY, the Independent Alternative, 99.3 — The best of the largely contemporary formats locally, near as I can make out.
WWNQ, Flashback 94.3 — Oldies, pure and simple. (This station used to have a format that played Country classics, and for a C/W format was pretty listenable, but a year or so ago they went to mainstream oldies.)
WTCB 106.7 — Occasionally, when there’s no music on the other commercial stations, I switch to this one — and will sometimes stay for a song or two, if they’re playing 80s stuff. (Not my era, but I turn to different stations for different things.)
By the way, those are not actually in order of preference — those are the assigned buttons. You’ll note that No. 5 is out of order. That’s because it replaced a station that replaced another station that DID fit between 99.3 and 106.7.
Of course, about half the time I’m listening to a CD instead — often something I’ve burned from one of my old vinyl albums.
And while blogging, I often listen to Pandora. Two current favorite “stations:” My Erik Satie and Solomon Burke stations. (I threw that in so that the Barrys out there could not sneer at my mundane radio tastes.)
Last night I attended the 8th annual meeting of the City Center Partnership in downtown Columbia. It was the best sort of meeting, as Matt Kennell et al. kept the actual meeting part — in the auditorium at the Columbia Museum of Art — very short, and then we all adjourned to the Gotham Bagel Cafe across the street.
As for the purpose of the meeting, there’s a lot of new energy and optimism in the city center, what with the Nickelodeon having just moved there and Mast General Store on the way. So there was a true celebratory atmosphere.
With four members on their way home from China, one under the weather and a sixth with a scheduling conflict, Richland County Council couldn’t hold its regular meeting Tuesday.
Chairman Paul Livingston said he couldn’t remember another instance in his 19 years on the council when a meeting was canceled because not enough members showed up.
Absent were Joyce Dickerson, Norman Jackson, Damon Jeter and Gwendolyn Davis Kennedy. They went on a nine-day trip to China with the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce.
Councilman Jim Manning called in sick and Kelvin Washington had to work, Livingston said.
“I know folks can sometimes have a legitimate reason for not attending,” the chairman said, “but, still, it’s embarrassing not to have a quorum.”
After waiting about 20 minutes, he canceled the meeting. The 211-page agenda listed 40 items of business.
For years, I’ve been telling Steve Morrison that he should run for office. Every time I hear him speak to a community group, I am struck by his quiet conviction, by the fact that he deeply cares about people, particularly the dispossessed (such as the kids in poor, rural school districts, on whose behalf he has led a long, long pro bono quest through the state’s courts).
But he always sloughed it off, modestly, thereby completing the picture of the quintessential Guy Who Ought to Run for Office But Never Does.
“If I run, I will be running … to stand for visionary leadership over divisiveness, big-picture interests over pedestrian politics, solid management over risky alternatives and unity over racial discord.”
However, the interesting thing about this situation is that if he does run, he will bring not unity but a sword — one that will messily slice apart the set of people likely to vote for long-declared candidate Steve Benjamin.
You see what would happen, don’t you? If he runs, he and Mr. Benjamin will split the all-important People Who Will Vote for a Guy Named Steve vote. (OK, no more bogus Long-Winded Terms in Capital Letters — at least until the next post.)
Seriously, though, Morrison would likely draw from the same sources — heavily black precincts and Shandon — that Benjamin has been almost surely been counting on ever since Bob Coble dropped out. In other words, for those of you who prefer partisan terms (even in a race that should be blessedly free of such), the Democrats.
This means a likely win for Kirkman Finlay III. Which you might think is a good thing, but if you don’t, then you’ve got to look on a development that splits the Steve vote with some concern. You might say to them, “Hey, the essence of democracy is a wide-open selection, and anyone willing to run should be encouraged to do so, especially when it’s a good guy like Steve Morrison.” Which would be the Civics 101 thing to say. But there is a truth universally acknowledge in politics, that a single man in possession of a good fortune… no wait… wrong cliche. What I meant was, there is a truth universally acknowledged in politics, which is that once a guy with whom you might be expected to agree on a lot of things puts in a lot of time and money on the campaign trail, if you announce against him, it’s personal — as in, you’ve got a beef with the guy. Or you’re carrying water for the other guy. Or something.
When I talk to Steve (Morrison), I’m going to ask him about these things, and whether they matter, or should matter. I wasn’t going to post until I HAD talked to Steve, but I needed to go ahead and post something, it having been two days since I read the news.
I was sort of proud of my sunset pictures from the last night of the fair, what with the fact that I didn’t even have a real camera with me. This morning, I was almost as impressed by the sunrise that I saw coming in towards town on Sunset Blvd. in West Columbia.
Not quite as colorful as the fair pics, and I was a little disappointed that the Blackberry didn’t quite capture the light exactly as I was seeing it, but I thought I’d share it anyway.
Remember when I mentioned running into Valerie Bauerlein (formerly of The State, currently of The Wall Street Journal) recently? She was having breakfast at a neighboring table with Tim Rogers, interviewing him for a story on longtime letter writer Clif Judy’s sadly successful campaign to close the Sheds to rehearsing bands.
I told her that sounded like a candidate for the page one feature read in her paper. She said that was what she and her editor hoped for. You know the story I mean — it’s generally at the center of the bottom of the front page. It’s almost always a great read, an excellent example of why the WSJ has long held the reputation of the best-written paper in the country (they told me that in J-school in the 70s, and it’s still true). According to Valerie, this story is called the “A-hed.”
Well, today Valerie’s story made the A-hed. (Although in this case, they ran it on the right-hand side rather than the middle.) So congrats to Valerie.
As for the story itself, here’s an excerpt:
COLUMBIA, S.C. — It looks like any other block of garage-sized metal storage units. But Sumter Street Self-Storage has long been the heart of this city’s rock ‘n’ roll scene.
Located on an industrial strip at the edge of the University of South Carolina, “The Sheds” are legend to local rockers — college kids with guitars, gray-beards still nursing band fantasies and hard-core professional musicians who have been cranking up their amps inside the units most nights for two decades.
It was in one of the 139 bays of The Sheds that hometown favorites Hootie & the Blowfish wrote and practiced hits like “Hold My Hand” and “Only Wanna Be With You.” Those songs, included on the 1994 Grammy-winning album “Cracked Rear View,” sold 16 million copies.
But thanks to a nearly two-year campaign by a local activist named Clif Judy, the music at “the Sheds” is coming to an end…
To me, it’s sad about the Sheds; two of my sons have been in bands that rehearsed there. First, complaints to police helped shut down the legendary punk club “2758;” now the Sheds. What are kids supposed to do?
At Rotary yesterday, at the beginning of the Q-and-A session with our speaker, I got a look from blog regular KBFenner (on this blog, we’ve definitely got anything that happens at the Columbia Rotary covered) that seemed to say “Are you going to ask a question, or what?”
But I don’t ask questions in those settings. One reason is habit. As a longtime newspaperman, I always felt like I could ask this or any other source any question I might have at some other time. I felt like Q-and-A periods should be left to the laypeople who didn’t have such opportunities.
Maybe I should change that habit now that I no longer have such opportunities — or no longer have them without trying, anyway. But I still feel like if I really WANT to ask a newsmaker a question, I can get it answered without taking up precious Rotary time.
There’s another reason I don’t ask questions: I tend to ask quirky questions that in such a setting might not be taken the right way. In an hour-long conversation, you can give a quirky question context (although I certainly embarrassed Cindi a few times, I’m sure), but when you raise your hand in a big group and stand to ask it, there’s no way to make it come out right.
For instance… Monday, our speaker was Brig. Gen. Bradley W. May, commanding officer of Fort Jackson. He was, as all such officers have been in my experience, a really impressive guy. Good command presence, cool, calm and collected even in the adverse circumstances of being subjected to civilians’ questions. The kind of guy whom you meet and think, “Why can’t this guy be our congressman?” Or something like that. (And the answer is, because guys like this don’t run.) Not everyone who is or has been an officer in the U.S. military is like this (ex-Marine Rob Miller, for instance, lacks that presence, as does reservist Joe Wilson), but people who rise to this level generally (no pun intended) are.
Anyway, people were asking all sorts of questions, none of which was anything I would have asked. They were either things I felt I already knew the answer to, or things that I wasn’t wondering about. What I WAS wondering about was this: How come soldiers come to Rotary in their BDUs?
Now you see, there’s no way that would have been taken right. It would have been seen as disrespectful. And I would never want to communicate disrespect, because I deeply respect and admire Gen. May and the soldiers who accompanied him, and am as grateful as all get-out for their service.
But I DO wonder about the fatigues. I mean, fewer and fewer Rotarians are wearing suits, but for the most part, it’s a business dress kind of thing. Now I know Gen. May meant no disrespect to us whatsoever; I’ve grown accustomed to soldiers dressing this way — as though they’re going into combat, or about to police the area for cigarette butts, rather than sitting behind a desk all day or going to business meetings. It’s official; it’s accepted. This is the way they dress.
What I wonder about is WHY they dress that way when they’re not in the field. They didn’t used to. I grew up in the military, so I grew up with dress codes. I know that within my lifetime, a soldier couldn’t leave the post without being in his Class As. It was all about spit and polish. Can’t let those civilian pukes see you looking sloppy, and so forth.
And while I was never in the military myself (the general on Monday referred to the fact that only 3 out of 10 Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 are qualified to serve in the military; I was one of the 7), it touched me. Here’s an anecdote from my youth that I related in a column back in 2001:
One balmy night in Hawaii 30 years ago, I drove up to the sub base gate of Pearl Harbor Navy base.
I was in high school and still an inexperienced driver, and I forgot something: I didn’t click off my headlights so the guard could see the sticker that would assure him this ’58 Oldsmobile was cleared to enter. Not realizing this, I failed to understand the guard’s gesture that I douse the lights, at which point he proceeded to get my attention as only a Marine sergeant could do.
Fully understanding his command to halt, I did so and started rolling down the window. He leaned in to demand some ID, but then stopped, and gave me a stare that made me feel like a boot who had called his rifle a “gun.” In a voice like Doomsday, he demanded to know, “Are you out of uniform, sailor?”
In an instant, all of the following ran through my mind:
I was wearing a Navy-issue denim work shirt, the kind sailors wore to swab decks (not what they wore on liberty). It was in my closet, and I had put it on without thinking.
I had recently gotten my hair cut — not to Marine standards, but short enough to look to Marine eyes like a particularly sloppy sailor.
Over the shirt, I was wearing a maroon jacket that was, to say the least, decidedly non-regulation.
I had no right to wear that shirt. The sergeant had instantaneously enlightened me on this point. Though I had grown up in the Navy, I was still a member of that lowest of all categories of humanity — a civilian.
Could they throw you in the brig for just looking like a sailor out of uniform? The sergeant sure looked like he had that authority — and the inclination.
Despite appearances, there was nothing routine about entering a U.S. Navy installation. This facility was guarded by the U.S. Marine Corps, and I had to be prepared at all times to give an account of myself.
“But … but … I’m a dependent, Sarge,” I finally managed to explain as I dug my ID out of my wallet. After examining the card carefully, the gyrene waved me in, still eyeing me like the worm that I was.
A dependent. Some excuse. I drove away wishing I had been a sailor out of uniform. He would have put me on report, but I would have been less embarrassed…
Sometime between 1971 and the present — maybe about the same time that Army officers started addressing sergeants as “sar’unt” (which, as near as I can tell, they picked up from Dale Dye), all that went away. You could still see Marines dressed like that sentry — impossibly crisp shortsleeved khaki shirt with the collar open to reveal a T-shirt, dress blues pants, etc. — on recruiting duty. But soldiers, right up to commanding generals, dressed like they were on the front.
I’m not sure when it changed. The 80s, or earlier.
The funny thing is, they still HAVE the Class As. In fact, a soldier who spoke to Rotary two years ago wore his. I don’t know why the regulations would require him to wear his while speaking to Rotary, but not other soldiers under similar circumstances (I’m assuming there’s a regulation involved, of course). Not only that, but they have those blue dress uniforms that look like they’re in the Union Army circa 1863, which are pretty sharp.
But enough about the Army. Let’s talk about something I theoretically understand — appropriate civilian attire. Recently, I’ve had it impressed upon me that I am among the few, the proud, who still wear a coat and tie every day. I do this even though I’m unemployed. In fact, I do it particularly because I’m unemployed. People with secure (they think) jobs can afford to look like slobs; I have to look like I’m constantly being interviewed. That’s the way I think of it, anyway.
Friday, I had lunch with Jim Foster (of the state Department of Ed, formerly of The State) at Longhorn Steakhouse (that’s what I was doing while some of y’all were freaking out over the multiple e-mails). As we sat down, he said, “Why are you dressed like that?” I brushed off the question, because there was nothing remarkable about the way I was dressed: starched shirt, bow tie, jacket. But he persisted: No really, why are you dressed like that?
Well, I said… I always dress like this. Doesn’t everybody? Well, obviously HE didn’t. Neither did anyone at the surrounding tables. Finally, when someone walked in wearing a suit, I almost pointed him out.
Then yesterday, I dropped in on Bob McAlister over at the offices of his consulting business. You know, the former chief of staff to the late Gov. Carroll Campbell. A guy with pictures of himself with George W. Bush, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Jack Kemp and other GOP luminaries all over the office. He was wearing a rumpled blue sport shirt (untucked, I believe) that looked like he’d gotten if from L.L. Bean about 15 years ago. He had taken off his shoes — no, excuse me, his bedroom slippers, which had also seen better days.
He said he didn’t wear a tie except under the most exceptional circumstances. It was easier, and he saved a lot on dry cleaning. He said when he was about to go to a business meeting in D.C. recently, he was told to ditch the coat and tie so he wouldn’t stand out. With some trepidation he did, only to be relieved that he had. We discussed it for awhile, and agreed that in other parts of the country, the phenomenon is more advanced than here. We’re slower to change. I mentioned to him how offended I’d get when Knight Ridder executives would come visit the paper in the years after the corporate move to California — here would be these guys who make a million dollars a year meeting with us, and we’d all be in coats and ties (the men, anyway; the women wearing some distaff equivalent), and they’d be wearing unbuttoned shirts with no ties. Yeah, right, like you guys are all Bill Gates or something just because your office is close to Silicon Valley. I hated it.
At the advertising agency where I’m hanging out (and where I’m typing this), no one but me wears a tie most days. Not exactly Mad Men.
At the Capital City Club, the rules were relaxed over the summer to allow gentlemen to have lunch in the main dining room without jackets. Ties haven’t been required for some time. These must be the end days. Next thing you know, we’ll have dogs and cats living together…
So today, I succumbed to the pressure. For the first time this season I donned my black camel-hair jacket, with white dress shirt and hounds-tooth slacks — but didn’t put on a tie. I felt like I was going skinny-dipping in public or something, but hey, if this is the style.
Then, as soon as I got downtown, I stepped onto an elevator, three other guys got on with me — and they were all dressed in suits and ties. They would have put Don Draper to shame. And I looked at my reflection in the mirrored door, and I looked like I’d just gotten out of bed or something. I wanted to ask myself, “Mister, are you out of uniform?…”
That’s it. Soon as I get home, I’m putting on a tie. I might sleep in it.
Do you pick up pennies? I do, and this morning I struck a bonanza (not the one with Hoss, though).
I was plugging the meter with quarters when I dropped one. As I bent to pick it up, I remember having read or heard someone saying that, with inflation, it’s not worth the trouble. Well, it is to me. For that matter, I still pick up pennies. I like to say to myself, as I straighten back up, “And all the day you’ll have good luck.” It’s just, I don’t know, a little gesture of faith in life, an optimistic way to look at things. Bright penny, bright outlook. It pleases me.
Well, today, not 10 seconds after I picked up my own quarter, over across the street I came upon another quarter on the sidewalk — a 2007 with Montana on the back (why does “Montana on the back” ring a bell? Oh, yeah — Montana Wildhack). So I picked it up and put it in my left pants pocket, where it couldn’t get mixed up with the ordinary coins for spending.
Twenty-five days good luck. This could not have come at a better time for me. I resolve to make the most of them.
It occurred to me that I’d have even better luck it I gave it away, but no panhandlers came up to me. When one does, I’ll give it to him or her. Of course, I’ll have to hope it’s not one of those picky panhandlers who turns his nose up at a dollar. Maybe if I explain that it’s a lucky quarter… ah, but I can see the look of withering contempt now…
No, no… it’s a positive vision of the future that we’re embracing here. Bright quarter. Bright immediate future. This is great…
