Fourth Lake, Chapter 12

While having her coffee on Sunday morning, August 4, 1974, Judy recalled the fabulous night before she spent with Phil.  When she finally got out of the lake, she quickly grabbed her clothes laying on the deck and scurried into the cottage, with her husband close behind.  Once inside behind locked doors, the two of them let their imaginations run wild.  Judy slept well and woke up snuggling next to her husband.

For some strange, unexplainable reason, Judy started to feel a kind of an urge to go to church this Sunday morning.  Growing up in Queens, her parents had never been very religious.  The family was nominally Christian and celebrated Christmas and Easter.  She remembered going to church services a few times on Christmas Eve, but never on a regular basis nor at the same church.  Judy believed in Jesus Christ, in God, but it was not a big, important deal for her.  Or to Phil, either.  They were raising their children the same way.

“Say, Phil, let’s go to church today.

“What?  Are you serious?”

“Yeah.  I think it would be nice to go to that white church on the other side of Fourth Lake we rode to in the canoe.  I think I would feel kind of serene being there.  I’m sure there’s a service this morning.”

“You’re not suggesting we go in a canoe, are you?”

“No, silly, in our car.”

So Judy and Phil got in their car and headed around towards the white church on the other side of Fourth Lake.  They passed through Inlet and then followed the road towards Eagle Bay.  There was almost no traffic.  However, there was one stop sign in Eagle Bay.  After they came to a complete stop, a car, a big black Cadillac, turned right from a side street and drove past them back toward Inlet.  When it passed, Judy turned and looked at Phil who was driving their car.  At that very instant, she got a quick look at the driver of the other car.  At first, it didn’t register in her mind.  But then when she turned back to look straight ahead, it hit her.  It was the same man she saw in Billy’s Restaurant in Old Forge on Friday... she thought.  It was somebody she knew, but couldn’t remember whom it was.  Judy quickly turned around to look back, but the car was too far away to see anything.

“Did you see that car we just passed?”  she asked.

“What car?”

“The car that...oh, never mind.”

As they arrived at the white church on the lake, a number of others had arrived as well.  The service was just about to begin.  It was perfect timing.  Pure luck on the part of Phil and Judy.

They sat on a bench near the rear of the small, beautiful old church.  Besides the ritual prayers from the Bible, the minister, a short, thin man in his 60s, talked about love: love of God, love of nature, love of our fellow man.  It was a beautiful service which lasted about an hour.  Judy was right.  The service did relax her.  When it was over, the minister walked to the front door of the church to greet everybody as they left.  When it was their turn, Judy introduced herself and Phil and commented on how much they had enjoyed the service.  The minister realized they were new to the church and was very welcoming.  He said he hoped they would come again.  The three of them made small talk until Judy excused themselves so the minister could talk to the next couple in line.

Before returning to their car, at Judy’s request they walked to the shore line to gaze out over Fourth Lake.  It wasn’t too far away from where they had landed a few days earlier in their rented canoe.  They chatted a little about that day, what they each remembered.  Again, they had a good view of Dollar Island, this time from ground level.  Judy started rolling around in her head a plan for them to get there.  A week from today, the 11th, they would have to leave their cottage to pick up their two daughters at gymnastics camp and then drive back home to Little Neck.  To Judy, time was running out on this, perhaps the final adventure of her trip to Fourth Lake.      

Christmas

Growing up as a Jew in America, Christmas was a strange time for me.  All my friends were Christians who happily celebrated Christmas.  It seemed to be a wonderful holiday.  People exchanged gifts.  People were nicer to each other than at any other time of the year.  Christmas was part of the culture of my country.  Bing Crosby sang, “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.”  There were movies about Christmas like “It Was a Wonderful Life,” with James Stewart and “A Miracle on Thirty-Fourth Street,” with Maureen O’Hara.  It was a federal holiday (a day off from school) in a country that ascribed to the separation of church and state.

However, at the house where I grew up, Christmas was forbidden.  No Christmas presents.  No Christmas tree.  Santa Claus didn’t exist.  We were Jews who didn’t recognize that the birth of the baby Jesus had led, according to Christians, to the arrival of the Messiah.  I was taught to be always on guard to avoid being tricked into converting to Christianity.  The conflict between inside and outside of my house confused me.  In those days, there was an added problem as our public school engaged in Christmas rituals.  I remember singing the Christmas Carol, “Silent Night, Holy Night,” along with my classmates. 

After my bar mitzvah in 1958, I became less and less of an observant Jew.    I was especially mortified when I read the Old Testament story of how God asked Abraham, the first Jew, to kill his son, Isaac.  It was a test of how devoted Abraham was to God, who thankfully stopped Abraham at the last second.  After all, it was only a test.  I hate to say out loud what I would have said to someone who asked me to kill my son as a test of my faith in God.  However, I did make sure that my children received at least a minimal Jewish education, my son a circumcision, and both had a bar/bat mitzvah.  I also became less and less a believer in the existence of God.  As Voltaire said, “If God didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”

From a study of religion, I have sensed a difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament of the Bible.  The God of the Old seemed to be of fire and brimstone, full of fury.  When the Hebrews arrived in Israel forty years after fleeing Egypt, there were people already there, the Canaanites.  The God of the Old Testament ordered that the Jews should eliminate, by the sword, every living thing within the walled city of Jericho.  These Canaanites had not attempted any armed aggression against the Jews.  What did they do to deserve this violent death?  Unfortunately for them, they were occupying land God had promised to the Jewish people.

The God of the New Testament seemed to be more about love.  Love thy neighbor.  Love thy enemy.  Turn the other cheek.  My favorite quote is from John 8:7, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone.”  I love that message.

This coming Friday, December 25, millions around the world will celebrate Christmas.  To one and all, especially my wife, Cristina, Merry Christmas and Feliz Natal.      

Muslims Coming to America

The famous quote from Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor reads, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door."  Except now, many American people and politicians are advocating a caveat: no Muslims need apply.

Why is that?  Because of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and other terrorist groups that act out violently against the American people and claim to speak in the name of Islam.  We will never forget September the 11th, the Boston Marathon, Fort Hood, and the recent event in San Bernardino, California, among others.  These American people and politicians believe, as the Islamic State also believes, that there is a war going on between Islam and the West.  Therefore, according to their belief system, all Muslims are the enemy.  Therefore, we should keep them all out of our country.

In order to support such an idea, Donald Trump, a Republican candidate for president, recently invoked, as a precedent, the decision of Franklin Delano Roosevelt during World War II to place tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry in concentration camps.  This inspite of the fact that not one single act of sabotage was committed against the USA by any one of these American citizens.  This decision was one of the most shameful enacted by any US president.  But, Donald Trump seems to like it.

This anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim hysteria is not a new circumstance in the history of the United States.  One hundred years ago, more or less, it was the Italian immigrants that greatly concerned some American people and politicians.  A number of such immigrants were violent anarchists (for example, Sacco and Vanzetti) and gangsters (for example, Al Capone).  They were responsible for the murders of many Americans.  As a result, there were a number of protests against the Italian immigrant.  Should the US government have used these violent acts as an excuse to bar all Italians from entering our country?  I'm glad we didn't.  Yesterday was the 100th birthday of Frank Sinatra, a son of Italian immigrants.

In 1891, nine Italian immigrants were tried for the murder of the New Orleans Police Chief.  In spite of the fact that they were found not guilty in a state court of law, a mob dragged them from their jail cells and lynched them.  A newspaper editorial the next day stated that the "Lynch law was the only course open to the people of New Orleans."  In 1911, the governor of Louisiana stated that Italians were, "filthier (than Blacks), in (their) habits, lawless, and treacherous."  It's difficult today to imagine such blatant anti-Italian prejudice so openly expressed.

In 1924, US Congressman Grant Hudson said, "Now, what do we find in all our large cities?  Entire sections containing a population incapable of understanding our institutions, with no comprehension of our national ideals, and for the most part incapable of speaking the English language.  Foreign language information service gives evidence that many southern Europeans resent as an unjust discrimation the quota laws and represent America as showing race hatred."  Hudson, of course, believed that America needed to protect itself from a foreign enemy.

Let us Americans act, not out of fear and hate, but with reason and compassion towards the current flow of Muslim immigrants who are, after all, only part of the same continuous flow of immigrants who have been coming to our shores since the beginning of our nation.  I believe, like the Italian before them, that nearly all of such Muslim immigrants merely want what America offers, a land of opportunity and the freedoms guaranteed in our Bill of Rights.  A good example is Abdulfattah Jandali, an immigrant from Syria, who is the biological father of Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, Inc.                  

Hombre

In English, the Spanish word, “hombre,” means “man.”   The 1967 Western movie, Hombre, was directed by Martin Ritt and starred Paul Newman, Frederick March, Richard Boone, Martin Balsam, and Diane Cilento.  I consider it to be one of the best Westerns, in the same category as High Noon (Gary Cooper), Shane (Alan Ladd), The Searchers (John Wayne), The Ox-Bow Incident (Henry Fonda), and Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood).  Perhaps the title derives from whether the protaganist fulfills someone’s definition of what it means to act like a man.

Newman (the protaganist) portrays a white man, John Russell, who was raised by and lives with Apaches on their reservation in Arizona.  When his biological father dies, he inherits a boarding house.  Russell decides to sell it and use the proceeds to buy some horses which would improve the quality of life of his chosen people.  To do this, he finds himself travelling on a stagecoach with six other passengers, Dr. Favor (March) and his wife, Cicero Grimes (Boone), Jessie (Cilento – the former caretaker of the boarding house Russell inherited and sold), and a young couple.  Balsam portrays the stagecoach driver, Henry Mendez.

Dr. Favor is the government Indian Agent for the reservation where Russell lives and works for the police.  However, dressed as a white man for a change, Dr. Favor and his wife do not recognize Russell.  When he reveals his identity, they don’t want him riding inside the coach with them, preferring that he ride on top with Mendez.  None of the other passengers objects to this prejudicial treatment. 

Unknown to Russell and some of the others, the Favors are running away with the money they stole from the Apaches which had been allocated by the Federal government.  However, that fact was not unknown to Grimes who has organized a gang to steal the stolen money from the Favors.  When Grimes’s four associates hold up the stagecoach, the five of them take the money and Favor’s wife as a hostage.  However, with a hidden gun, Russell kills two of the gang, recovers the money that he intends to return to the Apaches, but not Favor’s wife, carefully guarded by Grimes.  Russell flees from the three outlaws along with Dr. Favor, Jessie, Mendez, and the young couple.

Grimes and his remaining two associates trail after Russell and company to steal back the money.  They offer to exchange Favor’s wife for it.  However, Russell knows that, once an exchange is made, Grimes will kill them all.  Thus, they have nothing to gain by accepting his offer.  To pressure Russell and the others, Grimes places the woman out in the open in the hot sun, tied down, pleading for her husband to help her.  Dr. Favor hears her cries, but does nothing.  Nobody does anything until Jessie, who expresses a sense of common morality, goads Russell into making an attempt to save the woman, at the risk of his own life.  He must prove if he is the hombre or not.

I read a story on the Internet that six years later (1973), Newman tried to persuade Boone to join him in the making of the very successful film, The Sting, to play Doyle Lonnegan, the crime boss.   The director, George Roy Hill, wanted him as well.  Boone turned them down apparently because of script concerns and the part went to Robert Shaw.    

There is a scene midway through Hombre, before the stagecoach holdup takes place, when Grimes (Boone) confronts Mendez (Balsam) in a hostile manner about why he has changed the route of the trip.  The change was made at the suggestion of Dr. Favor because he suspected they were going to be robbed along the original route.  A good guess!  Grimes was angry about the change because it affected his plans for the robbery.  It had already been established at this point of the movie that Grimes is the villain.  Earlier, he threatens to kill a man if he does not give him his ticket for the stagecoach.  On the other hand, Mendez is shown to be honest and hard working.

Nine years earlier, in 1958, the same two actors, Richard Boone and Martin Balsam, were in a similar situation, face to face, in a dramatic scene, except under opposite  circumstances.  It was the first episode of the second season of the very successful and popular TV series, Have Gun Will Travel.  Boone portrays Paladin, the tough, sophisticated and highly-principled man for hire.  Balsam is the guest star for this episode called “The Manhunter.”  (He returned to Have Gun Will Travel two years later, in Season 4, episode 5, “Saturday Night,” as a corrupt lawman.) 

Balsam’s character, Charlie Dawes, seeks revenge against Paladin because he killed his brother.  Dawes’ brother, accused of murder, had run away from the law.  The family of the murder victim hired Paladin to find him and bring him in to stand trial.  Paladin finds the brother, but kills him in self defense.  Paladin brings the body of the brother back to his home town for burial.  Charlie can not accept his brother’s death.  In the climactic scene of this episode, it is Paladin, the hero, facing Dawes, the villain, the reversal of their roles in Hombre.  I must never forget they are actors playing a role.

Boone and Balsam were both born in the second half of the second decade of the Twentieth Century.  Boone was born in Los Angeles and Balsam in New York City.  Both of their mothers were Jewish.  Another thing they had in common was a desire to study acting.  Boone used the G.I. Bill after World War II to enter the Actors Studio in New York City.  Balsam, also a veteran, studied first at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School (also in New York City) before later transfering to the Actors Studio, as well.  Therefore, it is very likely that Boone and Balsam knew each other during that time in the late 1940s.

Boone made his movie debut with the 1951 World War II picture, Halls of Montezuma, with Richard Widmark.  Balsam appeared in the 1954 acclaimed film, On the Waterfront, with Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint.  Karl Malden, another student at the Actors Studio, was in both films.

I greatly admire actors.  It is uncanny to me how they can preform in a story as someone they are not, to be able to emote, to be able to convince you that for the moment they are who they pretend to be.  I especially admire actors such as Boone and Balsam, who can move back and forth and play different types of characters.  For example, Cary Grant and John Wayne could never be the bad guys.  Their images were always the same and they wanted to keep it that way.  On the other hand, actors like Robert Mitchum (1962) and Robert De Niro (1991) could portray both good guy and bad guy.  The two actually played the same character, Max Cady, a villain, in two different film versions of the same story, Cape Fear.