THE PRICE OF TOLERANCE?

 By (c) Russ Barnes

In the aftermath of 9/11, sectarian vandals defaced the Southern Maryland Islamic Center in Prince Frederick.  You see, the pendulum still swings in Maryland today between the two extremes -- of tolerance on the one hand and intolerant sectarianism on the other -- very much the way it did in colonial times.

In the months after 9/11, following the best tradition of Maryland, Trinity Church in Historic St. Mary's City reached out and invited the congregation of the Islamic Center to its church functions. And the Islamic Center returned the invitation with graciousness and a meal that was a delicious Middle Eastern feast, accompanied by heartful conversation.

ETERNAL VIGILANCE

Regarding this oscillation between tolerance and intolerance, my guide, Pete Himmelheber observed, "In colonial Maryland, religious tolerance and intolerance acted like a see-saw." Which is still the case in present day Maryland -- bringing to mind Thomas Jefferson's assertion that "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance."

Because of this "see-saw" of tolerance and intolerance, the religious saga and sites of Southern Maryland are not merely antiquarian. Maryland's saga brings living history right up against current public policy.

THE ISSUES

For the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), the issues raised by the Southern Maryland experiment in religious freedom are more than just public policy. Finding resolution for those same old issues of colonial Maryland -- still unresolved in so much of the world today is considered essential by the USCIRF to the security of the United States and to peace world-wide.

THREAT

Tad Stahnke is Policy Director for USCIRF. His commission's job is to identify problem areas around the world where religious rights are being violated. One of the areas Stahnke uses for illustration is the Maluku Islands in the late '90s where Christians and Muslims have perpetrated violence and destruction largely because of the great degree of isolation between the two groups. Stahnke observes that such pockets of intolerance are an immediate and dangerous threat to the world community.

"Religious intolerance results from a mixture of things -- and that mixture differs in different places," explains Stahnke. "But there are common denominators: intolerance and fear propagated by governments for their own gain, ideology unencumbered by practical necessities, ethnic chauvinism and segregation, localized conflicts over land and use of resources."

Stahnke believes that outside political and economic pressure can help eliminate intolerance, but that local leadership always needs to be encouraged. And somehow there need to be factors that make a region with religious strife ripe for change.

AS PLAIN AS A SOUTHERN MARYLAND SOYBEAN FIELD

Pete Himmelheber explains some of the factors which made the old colony of Maryland ripe for working toward religious tolerance. He simply calls these factors "practical reasons for people to get along." His list is as plain as a Southern Maryland soybean field:

* No established religion to provide favorites.

* Living conditions that allow little choice of who your neighbor will be. In early
Maryland, most arrivals were indentured servants and slaves. Most of these had no
choice as to their master and hence their living arrangements. Freeholders were granted land that was available and so also usually had no choice of neighbors.

* Everyone must be in a position to depend on all the expertise, manufacturing, goods, and labor resources offered in the community regardless of who happens to be offering them. In Maryland, everyone was raising one crop: tobacco. To be successful, one used the only labor, agents, and ship captains available.

* There has to be a perception that there isn't any place else where it would be that much better to go. So then one might least as well try to work it all out right here.

As in Maryland, other colonies were also having their internecine problems.

SPIRITUAL ENERGY LIKE A NUCLEAR REACTOR

For all the see-saw precariousness of the religious tolerance experiment in colonial Maryland, with its many pragmatic motivations, there was also a truly spiritual dimension to its on-going provisional success. One might even call it spiritual power.  And that power is felt even now when one is in the presence of the religious sites in the Southern Maryland of today.

You feel. being here, "Something happened. There is a spirit -- maybe hovering ghosts -- who know something.  They are telling us something about what they know. "

Maybe the spiritual dimension one feels in Southern Maryland is best summed up in the words of Sister Doroda, describing her first experience of the Mount Carmel Monastery, Port Tobacco,  when she says, "The first time I walked into this monastery, it was like walking through a nuclear reactor cooler room. You couldn't hear it. You couldn't see it. But you knew there was tremendous energy here."

LINKS:

St. Mary's County Maryland Historical Society,  http://home.md.metrocast.net/~smchs

St. Mary's County Maryland Travel and Tourism,  http://www.visitstmarysmd.com/tourismtemplate2.asp?content=indexcontent.asp

Calvert County Maryland Visitor Guide,  http://www.co.cal.md.us/visitors

Charles County Maryland Economic Development & Tourism, http://www.thenationsbackyard.com

St. Mary's College,  http://www.smcm.edu

THE BEAUTY PARLOR SALON: HUNTING FOR HOGS

By © Joe Heidlemeier

Guest Writer to the blog

Another long weekend in the brush. This weekend, my friend, hosted a hunter that entered a contest in Cuero, Texas for the largest hog.

He chose to hunt with bow and arrow. I, personally do not like bow hunting. Long story to that one which I will explain later.  I think it's a cruel way to hunt an animal. 

So, hunter shows up, anxious, anticipating the hunt.

We are going to the "John Wayne" stand. Named because I hunt there with an old lever action rifle. Always lots of wild pigs on scene. He, my friend, sorts his gear, and we put him in a tree stand about 20 yards away.  This is from where the pigs feed at night. Pick him, my friend, up at 11:00 p.m., and he’s not seen anything, but has heard hogs all around him.

So, next evening, we put him in another stand "The Beauty Parlor Stand", named because it has a chair in it from an old salon.  Comfy! He again is in a ladder stand against a tree, 20 yards.  Away from the feed.  Again, no pigs.

What do WE do wrong? Nothing. Next day, after the hunter is gone, we have pictures, and the pigs are happy again.

Guess he, my friend, was making noise, smelled funny, or just went to sleep.

Watching the super bowl game now, eating brisket and barbecued wild piggy. Good beer. Got to go to my school in the morning for a long week of work. Then my old best friend, Gary, is coming to hunt with me.

Still Loco,

Joe

THE SEE-SAW OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN MARYLAND.

How Tolerance Makes Life Abundant

By © Russ Barnes

Separately, I visited the recently built Southern Maryland Islamic Center in Prince Frederick -- which in the past few years has experienced vandalism based on discrimination and bigotry -- and the Shiloh Methodist Church, a prominent Afro-American community in Charles County.

These two religious sites show the on-going difficulty of keeping religious freedom.  More on that in a later post.

From this pleasing round of rich historical sites, one begins to gain an insight into what causes religious strife -- even war, the kind of sectarian violence that plagues us today in Iraq and around the world -- and how that strife can, under certain hard-won conditions, be alleviated.

A thumbnail sketch of what happened in the colonial Maryland province is instructive in comprehending how religious tolerance grows anywhere and at any time. Maryland enacted the Toleration Act, legislation that politically passed in 1649. The enactment was designed to protect Roman Catholics emigrating from Europe. 

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE

Additionally, Lord Baltimore and the other Calverts, who were the founders of the Maryland colony, needed to attract population for the purpose of economic development -- including the growing of tobacco, which had more reliable liquidity than did printed currency at that time. And so the Toleration Act was also of immense benefit to the Calverts in attracting immigrants from other sects to populate Maryland and its growing economy.

The components, advanced by the Toleration Act, of idealism, economics, and pragmatic cooperation were in evidence at Christ Episcopal Church, "the church of the ashes," at Chaptico. 

When the church was built, Chaptico was the second largest port town in Maryland. From the appearance of its architecture and grounds, it seems likely that Christ Church, Anglican, may well have reached out to, and welcomed, the Roman Catholic community which surrounded it.

Himmelheber (my guide -- see previous blog post) pointed out that the church's pews are separated by one central aisle -- a design which allows for liturgical processions familiar to Catholics. Other Anglican churches (such as St. Andrews, California) in Maryland frustrated processionals by placing two aisles off-center in the sanctuary.

FEMININE IMAGE

In addition, the magnificent stained glass window over the high altar at Christ Church (which you need to visit) portrays a feminine biblical theme more prevalent in Roman Catholic churches: the Annunciation of Mary, Mother of Jesus.  And in the church cemetery, there is a venerable gravestone with the name of a single Catholic, surrounded by those memorializing Anglicans.

The Anglicans, who represented 70 percent of early Maryland’s population (Quakers made up about 13 percent, Catholics 15 percent, and the rest were from various Protestant sects) were problematic to the Act of Toleration. The Anglican ecclesiastic and political model was based on a church-state.

With the ascension of WIlliam and Mary to the English throne just after 1688, the Maryland legislative assembly passed three acts establishing Anglicanism in the colony requiring members of other sects to pay taxes for Anglican churches and politically disenfranchising the other sects. 

The disestablishment of the Anglican Church occurred in 1776 -- inspired in part by Maryland's original and pragmatic Toleration Act.  At the Jesuit-built Brick Chapel (now under reconstruction) at Historic St. Mary's City, one finds in its archeological ruins evidence of the sectarian vandalism which damaged religious buildings of several kinds during the period. 

(More next week. Would you like to comment?  Many will appreciate your thoughts.  Next week:  What does religious tolerance suggest to you?  We have an expert in thinking about that.  You may hear from him.)

LINKS:

St. Mary's County Maryland Historical Society,  http://home.md.metrocast.net/~smchs

St. Mary's County Maryland Travel and Tourism,  http://www.visitstmarysmd.com/tourismtemplate2.asp?content=indexcontent.asp

Calvert County Maryland Visitor Guide,  http://www.co.cal.md.us/visitors

Charles County Maryland Economic Development & Tourism, http://www.thenationsbackyard.com

St. Mary's College,  http://www.smcm.edu

HOW MARYLAND BECAME THE SEAT OF RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE:

Maryland's Contribution to Not Getting Burned at the Stake, and to the Origins of the U. S. Constitution's First Amendment

© Russ Barnes 2010. Photo and text.

ST. MARY’S CITY, Maryland, January 30, 2010. "Do you remember the European background out of which the early settlers came to Maryland shores?" asks Pete Himmelheber, my guide and historian of the St. Mary's County Historical Society.  

"Back in Europe, people got burned at the stake for what they believed.  It was different here in Maryland.”


Why was it different?

BEAUTY AND SOUL

Maryland's history of religious tolerance becomes clear to anyone who visits St. Mary’s, Calvert, or Charles County, Maryland.  Himmelheber and others host heritage tours in this unique region.


The implications of this special Maryland area are contemporary given what we know, unfortunately, about religious conflict round the world.

“Tours of this region reveal beauty and soul.  And they also show our American heritage of religious freedom founded, largely, because of the way the state of Maryland started out,” Himmelheber tells me.

"In those days, kings persecuted whole other religious sects to preserve their own power and treasure" he explains.  Great numbers of those seeking to escape this religious persecution fled from Europe on two ships, The Ark and The Dove, and became the first settlers of what is now Historic St. Mary's City.

Given the intensity of the catastrophic religious conflicts in our contemporary  world, and their effects upon us all -- everybody -- the implications of what was achieved early on in Maryland state, three centuries ago, bear great significance.

As you will later come to understand, the achievement was "no piece of cake." So with that in mind, let's continue the story of how religious freedom evolved and continues, to evolve, in Maryland.

Soon after the The Ark and The Dove landed, other ships began landing at such places as St. Clement's Island.  “The settlers all came from different sects -- Anglicans, Puritans, Catholics, Quakers.  So the whole kettle of fish started all over again right here on the shores of the Potomac, Patuxent, and the Chesapeake.  Close by St. Mary’s City," says Himmelheber.

 A HIDDEN CHURCH

Himmelheber is a superb guide to these religious sites.  We pass through forests, fields, streams, and marshes of the region.  "See that steeple over there off to the left?" he points as we pass through Morganza in St. Mary's County.  "That's St. Joseph's Church. Roman Catholic.  When it was first built -- before 1700 -- it was deep down in that very valley, right over there.  Now, why do you think anyone would build a church in a valley rather than on top of a hill?" 

"They wanted to hide the church?" I queried. 

"Right you are!" Himmelheber affirms.  "You see, Lord Baltimore, who was Catholic, received a royal charter from Charles I in 1632 for the proprietary colony of Maryland.  Baltimore was personally committed to, and promoted what he called 'freedom of conscience.'  His hope was to establish tolerance within the Maryland colony as a way of protecting Catholics from the persecution they experienced in England." As it turned out, his work did more than even that.

We explore the Sir Christopher Wren-inspired Christ Episcopal Church in Chaptico; the Brick Chapel, built by the Jesuits in 1667, closed by Royal decree in 1704, and now under reconstruction.  Our itinerary includes visits to religious sites in all three Southern Maryland Counties: Calvert, Charles, and St. Mary's.  The list here is abbreviated (see links below). 

CHAPEL OF EASE

We go on to visit Trinity Episcopal Church (pictured above) one of the first churches in the American republic, overlooking a bluff fast by the St. Mary's River, then travel a brief distance down the road to the town of Ridge to see its "chapel of ease," St. Mary's Chapel.  "A chapel of ease (sometimes "chapel-of-ease') is a church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently."

Want to follow this Southern Maryland story?  Check in next week for next installment.


Some of the places we visit:  We next explore St. Andrews Church in California not far from Sotterly Plantation; Our Lady Star of the Sea at Solomons Island, the oldest Catholic Church in Calvert County; the Mount Carmel Monastery at La Plata, the first monastery for women in the U.S.; St. Ignatius Church and Thomas Manor House high upon a hill at Chapel Point, Port Tobacco; and Christ Church, Port Tobacco Parish, at La Plata which, in 1904, was dismantled stone by stone in Port Tobacco and moved from there by ox cart to La Plata. 


You will see some peaceful looking places.  And you will experience some high drama.

[To be continued.  Check in next week for more of the story about religious freedom germinating in Southern Maryland]


LINKS:

St. Mary's County Maryland Historical Society,  http://home.md.metrocast.net/~smchs

St. Mary's County Maryland Travel and Tourism,  http://www.visitstmarysmd.com/tourismtemplate2.asp?content=indexcontent.asp

Calvert County Maryland Visitor Guide,  http://www.co.cal.md.us/visitors

Charles County Maryland Economic Development & Tourism, http://www.thenationsbackyard.com

St. Mary's College,  http://www.smcm.edu

HUCK AND JIM SAIL TO FREEDOM

UNFORGETTABLE DIGNITY

By © Russ Barnes

Years ago I was an executive for the Delta Queen Steamboat Company.  We operated paddlewheel steamboat cruises on the Mississippi River system throughout heartland America.  One of my colleagues, Dr. Don Deming of Newport, Kentucky once said to me, “We don’t sail to Paris.  We sail to Caruthersville, Missouri."

So this post is going to be a "looking back" travel story.

Days on the Mississippi conjure up the presence of Mark Twain.  Of Huck and Jim floating down the river on a raft.  Huckleberry Finn is one of the monumental pieces in the world of travel literature -- in the class of such greats as Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver’s Travels.

One morning recently I woke up and read an astounding article in the New York Times by David Brooks and what he calls “the White Messiah fable” -- a provocative review of James Cameron's film, Avatar.

Brooks’ makes the point that there is a hackneyed plot in American film and fiction in which the white hero, as he ventures into the wilderness in search of fame and futune, encounters the poor, but spiritually superior, pure, and attractive, “natives."  He finds himself enamored of these people, and begins to disparage his own corrupt technological society. He soon emerges as "the white messiah" -- leading the native peoples, as Brooks points out, "on a righteous crusade against his own rotten civilization."

Aspects of this fable: The top dog must be white.  The simple, natural man must be admired.  Fictionally.  But the superior one rules in reality.  And it is a tricky superiority based on sentimentality and a false, flawed concern for the simple, indigenous native.

I understand this complex situation in several ways.  One time is when I was in first grade in Uniontown, Pennsylvania.  I was a member of a Cub Scout pack. Catherine, our pack leader, said we were going to go out and help the poor.  We arrived with cans of food at shacks out in the country.  One was made of cardboard.  Among the numerous children in one shack we visited, shockingly to me, was my one of my classmates in the first grade.  We gave the food like nice little boys.

A few days later, back at school, we were lining up at the water fountain.  There was my classmate -- the one to whose family we cubs had given food.  I offered to let him take my place in line in front of me.  I will never forget the look on his face as he declined the privilege.  He refused to be seen as a victim.  I’ll never forget his rebuke to me and his unforgettable dignity.

Civil War times.  Abolitionists in the North rally to stamp out slavery in the South.

Along comes Mark Twain from Missouri -- living and socializing in New England.  And so you get a book, Huckleberry Finn.  The two protagonists, Jim and Huck, travel.  Down river toward Cairo, Illinois, where the Ohio meets the Mississippi, the gateway, in those days, to freedom.

This is not a transcendental type of story.  It's down and dirty.

There, you find, in the story, you have an Afro-American man, Jim.  He is not idealized.  He is as real as any of us.  No matter where we come from, from wherever we started out.  Jim is superstitious, sometimes wrongheaded, and often in error.  Like all of us.  But he is also human and warm as Huck finds out.  Like all of us.

Huck is the white orphan son of an alcoholic father and a mother long-gone.  He is no crusader.  He feels guilty about helping a “nigger” come from slavery and find his freedom.  But his honestly warm and real human feeling for the man, Jim -- a feeling Huck gets back by a considerable amount -- earned for Mark Twain the title, in one critic’s famous phrase, “the Lincoln of our literature.”

No condescension either way.  Huck’s heart response to Jim was to no victim, but to a real human being.  Like Huck "to his own self." 


LINKS: 
-- David Brooks, "The Messiah Complex," New York Times, January 10, 2010; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/opinion/08brooks.html.
-- Nori Muster, for information on steamboats and the Mississippi; http://steamboat.com.
-- Quick outline of Huckleberry Finn characters at http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/The-Adventures-of-Huckleberry-Finn-Critical-Essays-Characterization-in-The-Adventures-of-Huckleberry-Finn-Pap-versus-Jim.id-20,pageNum-459.html.

FRIENDS IN WINTER

OUTDOOR GUIDE DOES DUTY IN GOLIAD --

ALSO A STOP IN JUNCTION, TEXAS

By (c) Joe Heidlemeier

My friend called me up Thursday. "Joe, it's gonna freeze, and I need help on the ranch. Can you come?"  Of course. My friend is 76, and we have been "podners" for over 30 years. Friday it's 20 degrees and I prepare to leave my warm house for the trip to Goliad. Old truck "Silver" idles in the driveway, waiting for another road trip. Full of all our things. Tools. Nails, screws, wire, and rope. My old rifle. Good whiskey for the cold evenings.

Friday is cold and gloomy. We check all the buildings, shutting off water, and getting ready for the next day. We are going to the other ranch to repair some hunting blinds for a February hunt sold to a group from Florida. Friday night is freezing. I'm staying in the old camp-house, sleeping on the couch. I have an electric heater and an old wool blanket that was my father's. Sleep with my clothes on. I can see my breath in the house.

Saturday morning we gather our things and drive a few miles to the other ranch. Takes about four hours to put everything in place. Cold. Windy. We get back to camp, and JoRae has eggs, biscuits, bacon and gravy ready. We have whiskey in our coffee. The rest of the day we spend putting out feed for the wildlife and checking equipment. That evening we have hot beans, rice and sausage.

Cold and tired, we go to sleep again.

Sunday is even colder. I get up at first light, make coffee, and feed the feral cats who gather at the door.  My friend shows up shortly and we make the rounds, breaking water in the troughs so the cattle can get a drink. We get back to the little house and JoRae again has breakfast ready.

We eat, plan our next adventure, and I go back out to my faithful Silver for the ride home. Halfway out of the ranch, gravel crunching under Silver's big tires, I stop, get out in the still frosty air, and say “Goodbye” to my beloved brush.

Still Loco Joe after all these years.


MUSING ON THE WAY HOME

I was writing a kind of book in my head on the way back to Austin. Thinking about what I have done.  What I will do. The miracle of this weekend.  Me spending time with my 76 year old friend, and us acting the same as we were 30 years ago.

I'm young again.

Driving the old Ford, trying to figure out what my cold, tired self is going to make for dinner for my sweet wife this evening.

Going back again Friday. I wouldn't trade what I have done in my life for anything. I have trouble paying the bills, but I am rich.

Oh, dinner?  That’ll be wild boar tenderloin, beans, and salad. How Texas is that?

I'M THAT GUY NOW

Years ago, I stopped in a barbecue place somewhere around Junction. I was guiding on a ranch in Sonora and was on my way home. The truck next to mine looked like it had never been cleaned out, and the guy who got out was grizzled and worn. My truck was neatly organized, and I had on my nice Camo that we guides were supposed to wear. I wondered -- where is this guy from? Now I know. He was what I was going to become. Now I know what all his piles of stuff were for. I have a first aid kit that would serve well in a small war. Spare everything. The other guides started calling my truck, Silver, "The Wal-Mart truck" because I carried so much stuff.

Wish I could see that guy again. Now I know he was a guide, and either on his way home, or to another ranch.

Now I am that guy.

NOTE:  The guest writer is Joe Heidlemeier.  He is an outdoorsman, a guide to hunting and the Texas wilderness, and assistant to the facilities manager for Trinity Episcopal School in Austin, Texas.  He lives with his “bride,” Karen Alexander, and their wonder-pup, Buddy, in Austin.  Joe often uses a phrase sometimes found in these posts: “Life is good in the brush.TM”  Joe owns the trademark to that phrase.  He also owns the copyright to the photo in this post.  Joe may be reached at jhknives@austin.rr.com and also on Facebook. -- RB

FAMILIES AND FRIENDS GET-AWAY TO VIRGINIA TO GATHER PEACE, VIM AND VIGOR

By (c) Russ Barnes


IN THE NEW YEAR


VIRGINIA. December 23, 2009. Lodging isn’t always just glamor. There are inexpensive, quiet, rustic Virginia getaways this winter after the New Year to foster good family relationships or to gather one’s wits, bearings, and vitality for the the coming year. Here are a few places worthy for a familiar group’s consideration:


The Cabins at Crabtree Falls (http://www.crabtreefalls.com) in Nelson County features cabins and cottages, fully equipped, accommodates up to eight people.


In Luray/Page County, the luxury cabins of Appalachian Adventure Lodging (http://www.appalachian-adventures.com). These three bedroom sites are built for comfort, with fireplaces and hot tubs. Enjoy the natural setting just outside Shenandoah National Park and also nearby Luray Caverns.


Like A-Frames? They are cedar constructed. Growling Bear (http://www.rentbear.com/) in Massanutten. They make up part of a resort complex in Bath County. Three bedrooms, three baths, and two stone fireplaces. Ski, golf, hike, and fish. Snow board. The whole family will find something engaging here.


Gather the family and friends in a Great Room. At 3200 feet. Socialize at high altitude. Mountain Laurel Lodge (http://www.warmspringscottages.com), in Bath County. Views for over 50 miles across the Alleghenies and Shenandoah valleys. Beamed cathedral ceilings and a fireplace to relax for conversation, board games, and a hot drink of each’s choice.


Don’t forget Virginia is on the sea. Makes for a serene winter retreat. Sandbridge (http://www.sandbridgebeachva.com/), just south of Virginia Beach, is the place for family and friends to gather. Take your ease. Listen to the waves. You may even see a whale surface during the winter months.


Then there is the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia, the largest bay in the United States, outstripping San Francisco Bay in shoreline mileage. Try Bay Creek Resort and Club (http://www.baycreek.net/) in Cape Charles here. Along the Virginia tributaries, you and your family may find recovered indigenous seafood going back centuries. The fish are place-specific such as branch oysters which are ecologically unique to the brackish waters. You decide which waters you want to visit. Shell fish are best and the plumpest in winter.


Many more wintering places in Virginia. For more information about winter places for family and friends in Virginia, contact http://www.Virginia.org.


© Russ Barnes 2009. Bethesda, Maryland. All rights reserved. May be re-printed with permission. russ@bonmeasure.org

A HAWAIIAN BIG ISLAND JUKE-JOINT THAT SAILS

BIG ISLAND, HAWAII. December 13, 2009. I’ve always liked frequenting juke-joints, a southern hyphenated term and a southern phenomenon -- especially along the Mississippi River and its tributaries.

Once I worked with Penny Rotheiser in New Orleans. She was promotion director for the Phil Donahue Show based at that time in Chicago. Being born and raised in the Northern suburbs of Chicago, she had never visited a Juke-Joint. Penny begged me to escort her to a New Orleans Juke-Joint.

I said, “I’m not sure you’re the type who would enjoy it.”

She persevered and I relented and took her on a Friday night to a particularly nasty, avaricious, and enjoyable “fish fry.”

Penny was stunned silent at the spectacle. As we walked back to our hotel, she said, “I really loved it. Thank you for showing me something wonderful my Jewish mother never knew anything about.“ She later inscribed those exact two sentences in a book she sent to me that Donahue wrote. Donahue also signed the book, “For Russ, my fellow river rat.”

But one of the greatest joints I ever frequented was, oddly enough, a floating one in Hawaii in 1990 after I first moved to Washington.

My “girl” friend at the time was Sharon Strover, a tenured professor at the University of Texas, a Stanford PhD, and a good-looking blond from Appleton, Wisconsin, a soulmate, a love. Although I bought a chess set once and beat her on our first game together, and so she refused to play me again.

Anyway she and I met up on the Kona Coast, the Big Island. Now Sharon got it in her head that we should take this late night boat cruise out into the Pacific Ocean. I thought, “Well, it would be kind of romantic to go to sea in Hawaii.? But I didn’t have any idea what was in store for me.

The bell rings for boarding, the whistle blows three times, the signal for casting off. We are ushered into this hall with stage and dance floor. A musical band of native Hawaiians promptly begins to smoke and rock. A group of stunning Polynesian women come out and begin to dance the hula in grass skirts.

What impressed me was the tender humor, actually a sort of kind humor and tolerance for the human condition, that was expressed by means of the seduction of their dance.

Well, it wasn’t any more than two minutes after they started dancing, that one of the hula dancers motioned toward me, beckoning me to come up on stage. I thought, “Jeez, I haven’t been on this boat for more than five minutes, haven’t even seen the ocean yet, and I’m about to be made a spectacle of.

But when a beauty calls, do you refuse?

I went up on stage to become a fool along with the rest of humanity. The other hula dancers left the stage and only the beckoning women stayed. She began to unbutton my shirt. She leaned very close and whispered in my ear,

“Where you from?”

“Washington, DC,” I answered.

“So far away,” she protested. She continued to undress me. She whispered very tenderly, pausing momentarily, looking me straight with her twinkling dark eyes,

“Is this okay?”

“Yes, it’s okay.”

She undressed me down to my drawers which isn’t such a bizarre outfit in Hawaii -- pretty much like wearing a bathing suit. Screams of pleasure from the audience -- whistling, hooting, howling, etc. Then she teaches me the hula. It’s different moves for men than for women. Much absurd and bombastic pounding of the chest and thighs as the women rotates their hips and move their hands all in that seductive, sensitive, tender and humorous way.

The ordeal ended, and then a bunch of Polynesian men came out, dressed pretty much as I’d been, and a poor woman from somewhere in Iowa had to go though the same experience with one of those hula guys.

Next day, I traveled to the City of Refuge on Hawaii’s big island, fast by the Kona coast. That place is no juke-joint. Dedicated to several “pagan” gods, it also reflects a concept and places described in the Hebrew Bible. If you commit a crime, intentionally or unintentionally, and if you can swim, walk, fly, or canoe to the City of Refuge, you are protected by the priesthood from revenge. I found the place serene. The atmosphere is quiet and holy.

Copyright (c) Russ Barnes 2009. Bethesda Maryland.