Remembrances of things past

In space-time it is 2 miles and 40 years from Occupy Wall Street and I am a junior in high school and Nixon has invaded Cambodia and college kids are dead in Ohio and Mississippi and there is a big protest in Union Square and the crowd near me is shaped by cyclone fencing and vertical 4 x 8 sheets of plywood because the streets are torn up for a big subway renovation and a man who looks my father's age but is in blue jeans and a work shirt steps onto the podium as he is introduced.  Joseph Heller.  I need to tell my friends that Heller is the author of "Catch-22," even though most of them claim to have read the novel.  Heller mostly says expected things about Vietnam and Nixon.  None of it survives in my memory until he refers to South Vietnam's leaders as, "Those bastards, Thieu and Ky."  The word was a surprise.  "Bastards" was, in 1970, hard unexpected language to utter in prepared public speech by a middle-aged man of letters no matter his attire nor the content of his great novel.

Then, the follow-up that anchors the strong memory bridge across these 40 years where the crowd images and tone of voice and Heller's head turning toward his right are forever alive, "I call them bastards," he added, "Not because I hate them, but because they are illegitimate." 


I am not donating money for pizza today.  Instead, this is my gift to the brave ones in lower Manhattan.  Think Martin Luther King, jr.  Think Gandhi.  Non-violence is the only effective path to change.  But, you can still call the opposition, "Bastards."  Not out of hate, but because they are illegitimate.