Serendipity or Not-So-Great Expectations

As you will read below, I've had some trouble sleeping recently. I've been putting a fair amount of pressure on myself over a briefing to members of our armed forces. Rightly so, I believed.

Last night, when I finally got to sleep, I slept very well. I woke up around 8:30 in the morning from a dream which might disturb any normal human, though I was not bothered by it. I dreamt I was in a massive plane crash. I sh*t you not. The reason it didn't bother me is that I got up and walked away from the crash. I had heard about what airplanes mean in the context of dreams, but I couldn't remember.

Having shaved the previous night, I showered, put on slacks, jacket and tie, and combed some gel through my hair. And off I went to work. Arriving, I slipped and fell over on the wheelchair ramp to the front door. It was wet from the rain. I didn't get too wet, but I was more than slightly annoyed. So it's gonna be this kind of day, is it?

I came in and the first thing I did was check an online encyclopedia for dream interpretation. Apparently, a plane crash is a symbol of expectations being too high. Interesting. Clearly, this is how God and better angels tell us mere mortals to chill the f**k out. The encyclopedia seemed to recommend lowering expectations to avoid crashing from a soaring height. Hot damn, I do love symbolism. Immediately, I gave the talking points one last run-through and vowed that that would be my last reading of it until the actual briefing.

When I arrived at the armory, my boss was waiting. The rain had lightened to a mist, and the skies to a silvery grey. The temperature had risen as well. There was even what felt like a slightly warm breeze. It reminded me of a rainy day at the beach.

Greg and I stood in the lobby, talking mostly with each other, but also with an NCO about when we would get up and do our thing. When the Lt. Colonel came through the front door, a voice boomed "ten-hut!" But as quickly and easily as the room snapped to attention, he casually waved off with a "No, no. As you were. Carry on."

Further inside was another room. It was large like a warehouse, with cinder block walls and a concrete floor. The walls were painted, the un-tiled floor had a dull polish to it, and there were bulletin boards with various information for education and other benefits. Gear was stacked up at one end by a mobile basketball hoop. At the front were two tables on either side of a podium. Facing them were several folding tables, lined up in columns like a cafeteria. Only older men, visiting veterans, sat down. But surrounding the room in a large, disorganized horse shoe were young men and women in pixelated fatigues. The Colonel thanked us for coming. The First Sergeant introduced us. And I stepped up to the podium, taking the folded talking points from inside my breast jacket pocket.

I instinctively dropped my voice down to a guttural, lower register in my throat, and raised my voice. "Can everybody hear me alright?"

I expected a few nods and perhaps one or two shouts of "Yeah, you're fine." So needless to say, I was proudly shocked when, in unison, the room responded with a resounding, booming grunt of "Hoo-uh!"

Jesus! "Wow," I said. "Now that's what I call a response."

In just a few minutes, I went through the talking points and gave the soldiers all the information that I could about how the Red Cross can help their families during their deployment overseas. I spoke loud and clear, trying to keep a good pace without rushing through it. I feel I did that. Then I got to the end.

"That's pretty much it," I said, turning over the last page. The First Sergeant stepped forward, into my peripheral vision, presumably to relieve me. But I wasn't done talking. I had carefully prepared this statement and, God help me, I was going to express my thoughts. "I just want to say this in conclusion," and he stepped back again.

"The American Red Cross is known for doing a lot of other things; disaster services, blood services, health and safety training. But this work, service to the armed forces, is really at the root and the heart of our organization. The first president of the American Red Cross was a woman named Clara Barton. She began working to help soldiers and their families as far back as the Civil War. We've been doing this for a long time, and we're proud to continue this work." I paused long enough to take a deep breath, when I began to feel the subtle sting of tears gathering in my sinuses. "We support our troops. We honor the service and sacrifice of you and your families... God speed. And thank you."

I had kept it together. Stepping back, the First Sergeant took my hand and shook it, thanking me again. The room applauded. As I took my place again, standing next to Greg, he just nodded and said "Top notch." And I felt damn good.

Driving back to the office, the breeze was still warm, the mist still fell, and I was listening to "Black Water" by the Doobie Brothers, playing on the radio. But just as the song ended, John Mellencamp's "Pink Houses" began with that unmistakable first strum of an acoustic guitar.

And I listened to that repetitive phrase in the chorus; "Ain't that America." For just a moment, the clouds parted, the rain stopped falling, and the sun shone blindingly bright through a crack in the sky, onto the fields, farms, and wooded hills. And I listened to the next verse.

There's a young man in a t-shirt

Listenin' to a rock n' roll station.

He's got greasy hair, greasy smile.

He says "Lord, this must be my destination."

End of Hiatus

As you can tell from the date, it's been a while since my last posting here. Things have been kind of slow; one of the many lulls I have encountered thus far in an ocean of "hurry up and wait." But what can I tell you? When it rains, it pours.

A couple of weeks ago, my supervisor, the Director of Emergency Services for the Heart of Tennessee Chapter of the American Red Cross, resigned. His boss has asked me to put my name forward as a successor.

Thinking of the future, the opportunities, and the possible changes that might be coming down the pike are just a couple of things that have been weighing on my mind... Only a few of the reasons I had trouble sleeping last night... The other is this.

In the coming weeks, the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment of the Tennessee National Guard will be shipping out to Iraq. They are one of the largest units in the Tennessee National Guard, if not the largest. Tomorrow, I'll be speaking to them about the ways in which the Red Cross will be there to support them and their families while they are gone. It's what we call a "Know us before you need us" briefing.

In a nutshell, I tell them that The Red Cross will be able to communicate messages from their families to their commanders in the event of an emergency at home; that way, their commanders will be able to make an informed decision about whether or not to arrange for emergency leave for that service member. We will also help to coordinate emergency financial aide for their families in the event that they need it. Then, of course, I tell them how it all works.

But the idea of simply being involved in the process of seeing these brave men and women off into battle, as well as my role in that process, has caused my mind some unrest... I've also been thinking a great deal about my late Pop-Pop, a Navy veteran from WWII. I loved him and admired him, and I miss him to this day. I've been thinking what it might have been like just before he shipped out at the young age of seventeen... Thoughts keep springing up in my head like hops in a pint of beer.

I wish it were my place to tell them how proud I am of them. I wish I could share with them the truly high esteem in which I hold them all. But it's not my place to tell them that I wish wars were unnecessary. And to share with them my desperate hope that nothing goes wrong at home while they are serving our Country overseas would only magnify the emotionality of the whole situation.

So I think all I'll tell them is this:

"The American Red Cross was founded with this very cause in mind; service to our armed forces. The very first president of the American Red Cross, Clara Barton, began doing this work with soldiers and their families as far back as the Civil War. We've been doing it for a very long time, and it is our honor to serve those that serve us. We support our troops. And we honor the sacrifices that members of the armed forces, and their families, make on our behalf... God speed."

First Activation: Flooding in Christiana

This past Thursday morning, at about ten minutes to eleven, I was working at my desk when I noticed a new email from Greg King, the CEO of the Heart of Tennessee Chapter of the American Red Cross. "We have some flooding in South Rutherford County. Please head to Murfreesboro to assist."

I quickly packed up my laptop, grabbed a bottle of water and a can of Sun Drop from the fridge, and left the office. After stopping at home to change trousers and put on some boots, and a quick stop at the gas station to fill up, I headed north on I-24, directly to the Murfreesboro office. Forty five minutes flat. Greg was waiting with Lee Doherty, a DAT Captain (Disaster Action Team). I was immediately loaded up with food and water, and dispatched to a local school, where I was told we would be setting up a shelter.

Arriving at Christiana Elementary, I met Kiel Hargrove (emergency services director) who told me we'd be setting up shelter at a church down the road - Crossway Baptist. We hadn't yet signed agreement with Crossway, so as others were handling certain preparations, I was tasked with drawing up the shelter agreement papers, getting them signed, and then performing a walk-through to note any existing damages to the building before we put it into use as a shelter.

The sanctuary had at least two hundred seats that needed to be unlocked from each other and stacked against the wall. And then, before I knew it, it was time to head to McDonalds to pick up a hundred and fifty double cheeseburgers and fries. After dropping some off at the church for the staff and evacuees to eat, I headed to Christiana Middle school to give the rest to the first responders.

Pulling up in a Red Cross van, I was looked at with some puzzlement. But when I got out and said "You guys want some food?" the smiles and shouts began. Firefighters, river rescuers and others came out of the woodwork and surrounded the Rubbermaid chest that contained the food, and the stack of bottled water cases next to it.

"We sure are hungry. Food ain't passed these lips all day." It was five o'clock in the evening.

At 9 pm, the shelter still hadn't taken in any evacuees that would stay the night. I was sent home, and I drove back to Tullahoma.

I arrived the next day (Friday) to learn that a homeless man had been sleeping on the pavement in front of the church when their doors had opened that morning. The man was let into the shelter, where he slept for several hours.

No one else had made use of the shelter. Our job was now to await more expected rain to see if the floods would recur. While waiting, volunteers went out into the area in teams of two and three to perform damage assessments, as a precursor to determining how much financial assistance, if any, they would receive from the red cross.

At noon, I drove to Subway and picked up 40 subs, also stopping at Kroger's groceries for a few bags of ice and some soda. I returned to the shelter with the food. Our sleeping "client" was awake and he ate as well.

It wasn't long before I drove up to Nashville to collect 35 "cleanup kits." These are boxes with brooms, mops, buckets, bleach, etc. On the drive back, I was stopped in traffic due to a "blasting incident" on I-24. The gridlock was miles long. Friday afternoon rush hour. Perfect time to be "blasting" along side the interstate. Don't you think? The on-and-off showers weren't making for much safer road conditions, either.

After some creative re-routing, I made it back to the shelter. The Red Cross staff was there still, though the shelter was officially closed. The cleanup kits remained in the back of the van, which stayed parked in the church lot until the next morning, when more volunteers would come back to drive around and distribute the kits to families whose homes had been damaged in the flood.

At 6 pm, I and five others were the last of the Red Cross personnel to leave the Crossway Baptist Church and head home.

Thank God we weren't much needed. But thank God we were ready anyway.

Remarks on 9-11

“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” (Psalms 30:5)

Times are clearly grave when an entire Nation asks itself for days and weeks on end “When can we smile again? When will it be okay to laugh? When will we stop crying?”

There isn’t one among us who doesn’t remember where we were and what we were doing on the morning of September 11th, 2001, when we learned our Country was under attack. When, after the initial shock and disbelief, we rushed to the nearest radio or television set, we bore witness to true horror. In the immediate aftermath, all Americans, and people the world over, from all walks of life felt uncertainty, anger, fear, and sadness for the murder of innocent Americans. For the bravery and sacrifice of the first responders, who gave their lives so that their countrymen might live - the tragedy of their loss is surpassed only by the measure of their heroism. As we remember and honor them today, we remember that verse from America the Beautiful:

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life.

“United we stand” was the phrase that became the antidote to our sadness – the bittersweet medicine of unity in the face of adversity, and the realization that all of our previous differences were small when compared to the pride in knowing that we are all Americans; knowing that, in order to make it through, we had to stay together, and we would help one another. The examples are innumerable:

Firemen, policemen, and paramedics who always look after each other in the face of danger, and whose families stayed together and prayed together for the safe return of their loved ones, continued to support and comfort each other throughout all uncertainty. Volunteer grief counselors, some of whom had lost loved ones years before in the Oklahoma City bombing, came to console the families of all those who had lost their lives. Blood donors, financial contributors, doctors, soldiers, all responded to the Nation’s needs. Throughout the entire United States, the richest and poorest among us stood in line and stayed on hold in our eagerness to help.

We didn’t do this because we were following somebody’s orders. And we didn’t do it out of some sense of guilt. Rather we did it out of selfless instinct – for the sake of humanity - knowing “I am my brother’s keeper.”

We have not forgotten. And we will never forget. Today, on this solemn occasion, we pay tribute to those who lost their lives, and who made the ultimate sacrifice to save their fellow man. And while we mourn their loss, let us also remember the ways in which we helped each other to heal. Let us celebrate our own resilience, our common humanity and compassion, and our pride as Americans in knowing that, though the towers fell, though the walls crumbled, and though many souls perished, still, united we stand.

Eight years have now passed since that fateful morning and, as a matter of course, much has changed around us. But we, nevertheless, hold fast to the principle that we are one Nation under God, and we are indivisible. Today, despite all the pain and anger that has marked the road we’ve traveled, we are stronger for it. There is more in life that we hold dear and there is less that we take for granted. Our faith is renewed, and the burning light within us - the spirit of the American ideal - has not been, and never will be extinguished.

As the song says:

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.

Ain't It Funny How Time Slips Away

It's been almost a month since my last post. Sorry it's been so long, but I've been keeping myself busy. Here's a few highlights of what I've been up to:

• Renewed two shelter agreements with the Moore County School System.
• Got bit by a tick and started a two-week cycle of antibiotics.
• Started eating better and getting more exercise. More on this in a minute.
• Renewed strategic partnership with Duck River Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Organization. (Unfortunately for us, an obvious and convenient acronym has yet to be designated.)
• Got a story published in the Tullahoma News about Red Cross' need for more volunteers.
• Bought ads in four local papers repeating need for upcoming courses and advertising upcoming training classes. n the south will tell you that the common diet down here isn't exactly healthy. They'r

About the diet and exercise... Anybody who's lived here been introduced to the idea of the "meat and threes." (A diner where any dish is a meat and choice of three sides.) They're big on desserts. And a lot of foods down here are fried. Now it is all perfectly delicious. (Especially fried alligator tail. It's a delicious white meat - like turkey. Add some hot sauce and you got yourself a real tasty treat.) But it got to the point where I started noticing my face getting wider and my shorts getting tighter, and my gut starting to get in the way of tying my shoes. So a few weeks ago, I put myself on a regiment of fruit or salad for lunch. About three pounds of mixed fruit, melon, and berries at Krogers (local grocer) runs about eight dollars and lasts around three meals. Also drinking more milk and less soda pop.

I've also been hiking more often. My favorite spot is called Old Stone Fort.I've been hiking the rivers and the wood trails a lot. The route I've been taking most often is about three and a half miles. For those of you who don't know what it is, I've copied this from the TN State Parks Site:

The Old Stone Fort is a 2000 year-old American Indian ceremonial site. It consists of mounds and walls that combine with cliffs and rivers to form an enclosure measuring 1-1/4 miles around. The 50-acre hilltop enclosure mound site is believed to have served as a central ceremonial gathering place for some 500 years. It has been identified as, perhaps, the most spectacularly sited sacred area of its period in the United States and the largest and most complex hilltop enclosure in the south. Settlers tended to name such enclosures “forts.”

The spectacular setting occurs where two rivers drop off the plateau of the Highland Rim in Middle Tennessee and plunge to the level of the Central Basin of Tennessee. As the forks of the Duck River cut down from the plateau level they isolate a promontory between them before they join. This promontory was further set apart by the construction of long, wall-like mounds during the Woodland prehistoric period.

At the narrow neck of land between the two rivers there is a set of parallel mound walls oriented to within one degree of the summer solstice sunrise. It was typical of ancient societies to recognize this significant farthest north sunrise and to hold reenactments of creation myths at such times. Mound sites such as the 50-acre Old Stone Fort provided modified landscapes for ceremonies that may have represented in some way the culture’s concept of their place in the cosmos and a separation of the sacred and mundane or pure and impure. (End Copied Text.)

I, Brian Burke Toll of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania have made another magnificent discovery about Old Stone Fort and the origins and reasons for its importance.

Maybe Things Are Looking Up

I have a severe shortage of volunteers. We generally don't need many at all - only very rarely do we need to put out calls. But I recently learned that Tullahoma will be taking in around three hundred evacuees in the event of another Gulf Coast hurricane. The Coffee County Emergency Management Agency will be running the shelter and relief operations. Red Cross will be staffing it. That's me.

I sat down the other day with John Riley, former Emergency Management Director for the City of Tullahoma. My main concern was recruitment. After yet another scolding for the state of affairs and the, shall we say "distance" between the Tri-County area and the Heart of Tennessee Chapter in Murphreesboro, he agreed to help me. Basically, he said that many local organizations had already abandoned the Red Cross and had begun disaster aide organizations and partnerships on their own terms. A few Baptist churches in Franklin County, for example, had organized themselves. "We don't like the way we've been treated by your people in Murphreesboro. And now a lot of people here don't feel they need the Red Cross. We can do it ourselves. So why should we help you?"

I had several counters but began with this: "I know there's a tradition of pride and self-reliance around here, and I think people taking initiatives like this are good. Taking steps to help people is good. But people know the Red Cross. All over the world, we're the first organization they think of when they need help. We're not going to turn them away and say 'Sorry, you need to go down to Winchester to the Baptist Church'. That's the first thing."

"Secondly," I said "it's not about helping me. I have a roof over my head. It's about helping your neighbors, here in middle Tennessee, and elsewhere. If there's another Katrina, this town will be taking in two to three hundred evacuees from the Gulf States. They're coming to Tullahoma, John. Should they be denied our help? Because FEMA won't agree to house them at the First Baptist Church of Winchester. They'll be housed at the National Guard Armory and the only people allowed through that gate will be Red Cross staff. Why? Because we've been doing this for a long time and they know who we are. It's not so much that we need your help, John. The people we're trying to help need your help."

John scratched his head. "I'll help you. I'll set-up some meetings," he said. This was a pledge he had made before but had yet to pay off. "What you need most is publicity. You need to draw the people in on a large scale." Really? I hadn't thought of that. "But you need to give the papers a reason to print your story."

Two hours after John left, Alan Lendley - the Coffee County Emergency Management Director - came to the office to pay a call. The topic of discussion was local shelter operations for a Gulf State evacuation. I told Alan that we would do our best to get the people he needed to staff shelters, but that the Red Cross needed his public support. He gave me permission to give our story to the press and to provide his name as a contact for an interview. Before the day was out, we had an appointment to perform a shelter survey of the barracks at the National Guard base on East Carroll Street in Tullahoma.

That was two days ago. Yesterday, Alan, myself, and Kiel Hargrove (our Emergency Response Director from Murphreesboro) toured the barracks and performed a shelter survey. The Emergency Management Agency of Coffee County will be in charge in the event that the shelter is activated, and it seems all is ready to go. Except my end, the Red Cross end: supplying the people to staff the shelter.

When I got back to my office, after lunch, I called Brian Justice of the Tullahoma News and pitched him the story. He said it looks good and that he'd be following up with me, Kiel, and Alan, and that he'd like a photo. Hopefully, this story can be a rallying point, a helpful tool in recruiting.

If we don't get the volunteers we need, chances are that the town may not even care. But it will make all the difference to to those who need their help, who will have lost so much through a horrific act of God. To give assistance to those who need it most is a good deed - it is honorable. To help provide some sense of security to those who have lost their home is something that one can be very proud of.

I hope the story gets published and that it inspires the reaction that I intend from the public.

The Outsider

When I first decided to head south, to the small town of Tullahoma, TN, people warned me that I shouldn't expect too much in the way of "southern hospitality." Southerners are self-reliant, self-sufficient, and they don't like yankees coming down here to help them as if there's something that they can't do for themselves. Of course, the accent (or lack thereof, depending) is a dead give-away.

The uncertainty that local of this small southern town have about me as a northerner is compounded by the somewhat shakey history of this local Red Cross office. Most of the details are inconsequential, but the long and short of it is this: Until last year, this office, serving Moore, Franklin, and Coffee Counties was self-contained as its own chapter of the American Red Cross - the Treis County Chapter. Last year, the board of directors of the Treis County Chapter voluntarily relinquished their charter because they had spent themselves into debt. The Treis County Chapter was subsequently merged into the Heart of Tennessee Chapter, operated out of Murphreesboro - a town about a forty five minute drive north of Tullahoma. The assets were absorbed, the debt was paid down, and the staff and board of the Treis chapter were dissolved.

I can imagine that this experience must have been painful for many in this community. It is a magnificent office, rich in history, and has been very well maintained. To be essentially stripped of it must have been more than just a black eye. And so, particularly with respect to the Red Cross office in Tullahoma, Tennessee, many seem to have an uneasiness if not a downright intolerance for outsiders.

For some reason, I thought that this "outsider" syndrome might not apply to me. I thought that I needed only be respectful to be welcomed - if not only tolerated. But, in the words of Sister Aloicious "I have doubts."

I form agreements with local organizations for shelter facilities, meals, and other supplies for disaster victims - which we, in the Red Cross refer to as "clients." Instead of relying on large supplies such as Wal Mart, I wanted to focus on local companies especially. So, two to three weeks ago, I arranged a meeting with the president of a wholesale grocery company based here, in Tullahoma. I showed up at the appointed time. The company president did not. I was amicable in offering my understanding. I know from experience that schedule mix-ups are a fact of life. I gladly offered to reschedule. I left some paperwork and my card with his staff.

This past Monday, I still hadn't heard back, so I called again and left a message. As of right now, I still haven't heard back. Now it is the middle of summer, after all, and just after Independence Day weekend. So I haven't surrendered hope. But doubt has begun to creep in about the will of some to cooperate.

I hope that my reasons for doubt in this particular case turn out to be nothing more than the result of some kind of neurosis. However, while some things may be mistaken for an unwillingness to help, in other cases there is no mistaking plain hostility.

I have formed a relationship with a very wealthy, powerful, well-connected, well-reputed local man. I'll call him Hank. Hank keeps me informed about many of the dealings that happen in local business, politics, etc. He has many friends, one of whom is a woman who, let's say, was very active in the operations of the former Treis County Chapter of the Red Cross - I'll call her Jan. Hank offered to arrange a meeting between us. Thinking that this was a wonderful opportunity to learn from those who have gone before, I told him I gratefully accepted.

The day of the meeting arrived. Everybody seemed in good spirits. When we finally sat down, Jan brought out a big axe and began to grind away with me as her proverbial stone. "I have little to no respect for the Heart of Tennessee Chapter," she began. Something inside me told me to get up and walk out right then. For the next ninety minutes, she kept grinding away at every incident and occurrence that had happened in the past, before the Treis Chapter began to have its problems.

I was disrespected. My friends were disrespected. We never got the credit and recognition we deserved. They treated us like trash. Several times I tried to guide the discussion a la Mark McGuire in Congress. "I'm not here to talk about the past. I'm here to talk about how to best move forward." Inevitably, it kept drifting back to people and things I knew nothing about, in times when I had never heard of Tullahoma. And of course, it was all about her - Jan - not about the Red Cross and how the local organization might be rebuilt.

Finally, after an hour and a half of wasted time, having given up on progress entirely, I began to rise, smiling, looking at my watch. I excused myself with "I have a conference call back at the office and I need to grab lunch still." It was all a big waste of time. You can bet that, even after the initial urge to get up and leave, I had that impulse several more times throughout the meeting. But Hank had gone out of his way to try to help me. Couple that with the fact that he is not the kind of guy I want to piss off anyway. My ass was planted in that chair, my eyes were wide, my hands were folded for the whole meeting.

Hank, however, was pleasant enough to call me up a couple of days ago to follow up. "Did you get any help at all out of the meeting?"

I knew he would respect candor. "No, actually. Not really." I think he had anticipated that answer. After all, he had sat in that meeting, too. I told him that I had walked in thinking I would be offered guidance and advice, but instead I sat and listened as bodies were dug up and axes were guided. I told him that I had no intention of pursuing the relationship with Jan any further.

Hank was very gracious. We met that afternoon at the pub and he bought me a drink.

Obstacles are rising slowly and solidly, like boulders through the surface of a melting glacier. Course correction will be required as initial signs of progress seem to hold little hope for achievement. Who knows how things will turn out? I don't. But time will tell.