On the march. OK, on the Rally. . .Immigration Reform

Life isn't fair. The world is not a just place.

Efforts to explain the unfairness of it all just lead you into a ridiculous place. I'm reminded of the TV preachers who stated that the tragedy of 9-11-01 came about because of America's tolerance for its LGBTs.

Really? I can only conclude that the god these "evangelists" claim to represent has not the slightest acquaintance with the God I worship. You know - the God about whom we say "God is love." "God so loved the world, that he sent his Son into. . ." She doesn't work like that a'tall a'tall.

Life isn't fair. Elie Wiesel, in Night, describes the hanging of a boy in a Nazi camp. It really doesn't matter how old the boy was - 8? 10? He was hanged beside two adults. The two adults died rather quickly because of their weight. The boy, being slight, strangled to death, slowly.

Why? Where's the justice?

I write all of this fully aware that the circumstances of life have done me favors, not injustices. I wasn't born a Jewish kid in 1930s Europe. I wasn't in the Towers. I'm Anglo (well, I look it; I'm not all Caucasian, although that's not obvious), from an intact, marvelous family right in the middle of the middle class. I've been blessed with good health for most of my life. I married a great wife, and into a great (and great BIG) family. None of my kids has been locked up, and they have become productive citizens in their own right. I have a faith that sustains me, and I have been able to walk away from faith that did not. Life's been good to me.

Still, maybe because I have been so blessed - and because, I hope, I have open eyes and an open heart - I am very aware that not everyone is so lucky. Why do any children die of cancer, and why to parents have to bury their kids and grandkids? Why debilitating illness, for anyone? Why is it that this lucky, lucky guy has a mentally challenged daughter, and two autistic nephews? Great kids, and I love them dearly, but, still, I can't explain. I know, I know - sin, right? I don't know the answer, but the God I believe in doesn't do that. And don't tell me that line that "God must have needed another angel." Horsebleep. God could have made one if She needed one. Leave the kids alone.

Life isn't fair, and I can't change that. In AA we say a prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

I can't make life fair. But I can - I can - work like crazy to make my little corner of this earth a more fair, just place.

Thus, the rally.

In February we had a rally in downtown Davenport for immigration reform. It was by the Irish Memorial - a monument to another group that faced terrible challenges in the immigrant experience. The opening speaker was a young lady. Her family came to the United States when she was three. She has never thought of herself as anything but American, and there was no reason she should have UNTIL. . .

Until she got to the age when all the other kids got a driver's license, and she couldn't.

Until she tried to get a job, but needed a Social Security number and, well. . .good luck with that.

And the message got through, time and time again: You're different. You're inferior. Go back to the shadows - you belong there.

And the God I believe in - the God who became man and was crucified - weeps for her. And us.

On June 29 I will be joining others, not in an illusion that all will be well and just, but only to work on our little corner. We'll be at Schwiebert Park, in Rock Island, from 10-11. How many will there be? We don't know. 20? 1000? Those of us who can will wear white t-shirts as a sign of unity.

I have a hard time beginning to grasp the courage it took for that young lady to speak out as she did. And I do not want to let her down.

Please join us.

The Mississippi and Mother Nature

It has been a while, hasn't it? For a while my computer was on the blink, then I was, then I was busy again. (Last one was really no excuse. I've been that way all the time, for some time.)

I usually take a walk by the Mississippi River. Heck, you could come with, if you're in the area. I leave my workplace at about 2:30 and return about 3:00. The route is pretty unvarying - down LeClaire Park and back. The River - and if you're from these parts you can capitalize that; there aren't any other real rivers - has been a part of my life and my soul since I was a kid.

The River is in flood now. That's not unusual. What is unusual is that this is the second time this year that it has been in flood. On the Illinois side of the River there have been efforts in Rock Island to put up a floodwall, but sooner or later, somewhere or other, the Mississippi will do exactly what it wants to do. There have been efforts by the Corps of Engineers to channel the River. Fuhgeddaboud it. In the eternal battle between human ingenuity and the Mississippi River, the River wins. Every. Single. Time.

Down south they've been a little smarter about this. The system of spillways is a concession to physics and fluid flow being what they are, and at New Orleans the River's channel is cut so wide and deep that our biggest floods don't have much impact down there. (A Category 3 hurricane, however. . .)

A building I walk by used to be a hot dog shack. It's been closed for years. On a corner of the building there are markers, showing what the high-water marks were for some of the great historic floods. A good two feet above any of the other markers, and fully three inches above my head there's a marker that just says "65". The shack is probably 50-75 feet from the shore, and there's a slope going down to the shore. So, 50 feet from shore the water was over six feet deep.

I remember the '65 flood. We'd moved from Davenport to East Moline a little over a year earlier. Our family drove over to see what we could see. What we saw - lots and lots of water.

The Mississippi wins. Every time.

'93 was pretty impressive, too, but the Mississippi River flood that's referred to as The Great Flood was the flood of 1927. It affected the lower Mississippi more than the upper Mississippi. There were torrential rains for much of the winter of '26-'27, and the flood reached a level of force such that levees all down the River were breaking. (The Mississippi wins - but you knew that.) The floods peaked in April, '27, and two months passed before it had subsided. At one point, 36 of Arkansas' 75 counties were flooded, some to a depth of 30 feet. 6600 square miles - underwater. It spawned cultural changes. It was the setting for Faulkner's Old Man (Old Man was a nickname for the Mississippi.) You should read it, assuming that it wasn't ruined for you in the class in which you had to read it.

Back to The River tomorrow. Meantime, thanks for hanging out.