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NORTH COAST TIMES EAGLE, OCTO/NO VO 2002
WE HAVE THE POWER TO SAY‘NO!’
BY LINDA O’BRIEN
ANDREW DAVID
THE GHOST OF MR. RUCKMAN
BY MICHAEL EVANS-HUTCH
The ghost of Mr. Ruckman has been haunting me since
September 11. He was my 6th and 7th grade teacher. He died
over 20 years ago. He had polio as a child, and although he wore
a left shoe elevated by several inches, he still walked with a limp
so pronounced he swayed 'rom side to side and appeared to be
dangerously close to toppling either port or starboard.
In class he was a stoic, unsmiling taskmaster, quietly
moving through the room clad in his ever-present suit, carefully
observing each of us as we labored on yet another writing assign
ment. He wasn't mean. I don’t remember ever seeing him angry.
He was simply intense. He took education very, very seriously.
He was a completely different person when we would encounter
him on a sidewalk in our town of 5,000. Outside of the classroom
his eyes twinkled, he smiled, joked. He would take the time to
stop and ask you how you were doing. And he looked at you. Not
through you, over you, off to one side, as most adults appeared
to do. Mr. Ruckman would stand on the sidewalk, eyes aglow,
and really want to know how you were doing.
Mr. Ruckman’s requirement that his students write a
daily evaluation made him unpopular with the kids. Every day,
precisely at 3 p.m., we would pull out the three-ring binder
dedicated to the evaluation sheets and record one thing we had
learned that day. Each subject had three columns: date, subject,
and a one-paragraph synopsis of the most important thing we
learned that day. No one was permitted to speak. Mr. Ruckman
positioned himself in a chair, leaned the chair back against
the wall and closed his eyes. He seemed asleep, or at least
completely at peace. We considered that patently unfair. It was
3 o’clock, our daily parole was scheduled for precisely 3:15, and
there he sat, apparently napping. Our release was conditioned
upon handing him our evaluation, like an 8x10 ticket to the real
world. Only then could we quietly leave the remaining students
to mentally grope for one significant yet elusive fact as we raced
down the stairs, to peddle down Jackson Street on the Raleigh.
The biggest problem with the evaluations was that Mr.
Ruckman actually read them, thought about each one, and
commented — in red ink Sometimes that dreaded "REDO"
would be scrawled across it. On those occasions we had to both
redo the unacceptable entry and write one for that day. There
were horror stories of some students in years past still being in
his classroom at dinnertime and after. This was very serious
business for Mr. Ruckman. I clearly recall on one particular
day writing that I learned Indian tribes across the United States
were so different that it was almost like they were from different
cultures. I got it back the next day. “Define ’culture” was written
in red ink, diagonally across the entry. His comment included a
parenthetical element,“(do not use a dictionary or Encyclopedia).“
As I mentioned, Mr Ruckman’s ghost has been haunting
me since September 11. His vision blossomed in my mind at the
slightest provocation: sudden silence in a crowded room, seeing
two persons greet each other warmly on a street. I see him
perched on his wooden chair, tilted back against the wall, eyes
closed, breathing deeply. But I know he is patiently waiting for
me to write what I learned from September 11.
The first time this vision projected itself in my mind, I
mentally wrote, “We have been negligent permitting evil people
to run about. We need to find them and kill them.’ I thought
about the response for weeks, watched the news, cheered on
the kids in uniform. Finally, one night, lying awake, thinking
about something completely unrelated, I saw the red ink
scrawled across the evaluation: “If we kill them, mustn’t we
also be prepared to kill their children, their brothers, their
sisters? Won’t they seek revenge?" And, to add insult to injury,
Mr. Ruckman hovering in my midnight bedroom added a
parenthetical element: “(Please define evil' person — do not
use any theological texts, or dogma marketed to the masses.)”
I decided to ignore the parenthetical element. It was a
trick question. Even if I tried to answer it, I wouldn’t get out of
his classroom in this lifetime But his main question bothered
me, mainly because he was right I had learned from bitter
experience that violence does nothing, ever, but beget violence;
that violence is the ultimate confession of failure.
Mr Ruckman’s ghost became progressively more
insistent. He started showing up in cafes, concerts, my office.
He wasn’t smiling. He really wanted an answer. He demanded
an answer. Right there in the righthand column of the evaluation
sheet he wanted me to tell him what I learned from September
11.1 tried placating him with little ditties I knew down deep
were trivial non-answers: “Let’s send them food.” “Let's be more
responsible and live more simply — no more SUV gas guzzlers."
“Organized religion is politicized spiritually and potentially a
great danger to the oneness in Christ."
I groped, clawed, rummaged through my middleaged
mind for the right answer, the answer that would get me out
of the classroom. It just wasn't there. I didn't have a clue what
I learned from those horrific murders, from the dedication
required for a protracted, complex conspiracy From a hatred
so intense that it became self-sustaining, necessitating no
future insult or injury to erupt into violence directed toward an
undefined group — a group not defined by race, culture, social-
economic status, or religion.
I struggled, and found no answer. One Saturday, shortly
after the echoes of the 4th of July celebration became silent,
I was sitting at my computer, and there he was. Comfortably
perched in his tilted chair, eyes closed. Waiting, I had had it.
I didn't know the answer! I was tired of the vision, of the ghost.
It wasn’t a curious phenomenon any longer It had gone on so
long, it was beginning to disturb me, make me question my
perception of reality. I paused for a moment as these thoughts
bounced around my cranium, and then I turned back to the
keyboard, and in complete, total frustration, I wrote:
“I don't know! I don’t know enough about the rest of the
world to answer your damn question! I’ve been too busy with my
world, my work, my marriage, my church, my hobbies to go
learn about how others live, or think, or feel. I can’t answer your
stupid question without leaving my known world behind!"
The ghost of Mr Ruckman visited me for the last time
that night between dreams about sailboats and fishing tackle
In the dream, he opened his eyes, lowered the front legs of the
chair back to the floor, slowly stood and limped out of the room
holding what appeared to be my typewritten note
He was smiling as he left the classroom I had never
seen him smile in the classroom before
Michael Evans-Hatch wrote this for Spirit of Grace, the
newsletter of Grace Episcopal Church in Astoria
There are many of us who know, in spite of the skewed
polls, the fear mongering, the slanted reports, the lack of support
from Congress, and the refusal of the media to question All of it
is meant to deny us the power of knowing But the amazing thing
is, we know anyway It’s been greatly helped by the Internet, but
that doesn’t entirely explain it. Ask a tentative, “What do you
think about what’s going on in the country,” and you’ll probably
find you’re surrounded by people who are outraged For many
the knowing started on September 11 itself, where it sat in the
gut like a stone and could serve no purpose, since it couldn’t
be shared or verified, but could only raise nausea and make us
feel isolated and despairing. The power we have, unspoken, not
even needing words to share it with each other, is evident. The
implications are enormous.
So why, why, are we letting Bush prepare to do the
unthinkable and unnecessary in Iraq?
From all sides experts say that there are better ways
to deal with the potential danger of Hussein. There is a total
absence of present threat from him, far less from his people.
But many thousands of them will die in any form of this war
Bush is pushing, whether it involves "precision” bombing or
200,000 troops. For the first time, the only rationale we’ll have
for their deaths is our fear of a possibility. Blind yourself, the
seduction goes, and I’ll save you from your greatest fears
Surely there’s a sickening dissonance inside us at the distance
between the facts and this relentless push for war. But many
appear willing to wait and see, the fear of another deadly assault
just edging out the knowledge that this war is desperately
immoral. If we continue, the trade-off will be that thousands
more innocents will die. Then perhaps the sickness will rise
to our throats, and we ll have to own what we re now refusing
to know.
We’ve placed a lot of sacrifices on the altar to fear
lately. Over two centuries of freedom from snooping and
paranoia. The lives of hundreds of immigrants locked up in
secret for months. The privacy and peace of mind of thousands
of others rounded up and questioned by authorities with initials
for names who don't have to give a reason. The deaths of
hundreds of Afghan civilians. This particular god is very hungry,
insatiable.
It's been said that Bush is acting as if he doesn’t need
the approval of Congress, or our allies or us. And it’s true, he
doesn’t, as long as we keep giving our power to him. It’s a
classic setup: a frightening event, power handed to one who
seems able to save us, and the possibility of other frightening
events are held continually over our heads until power becomes
an abuse of power. The abuser seems much more powerful than
he is, all out of proportion to reality, and we come to believe
we’re powerless, feeding the cycle of increasing abuse, until,
desperate and exhausted, we face the worst fear: that no one’s
going to save us but us.
The worst of what has been done since 9/11 has been
to try to deny us knowledge, and it has failed miserably. If, as
some fear, something devastating happens to provide a convin
cing rationale for war on Iraq this fall, many, perhaps most of us
are going to be looking past the great and terrifying face on the
screen to the man frantically pulling levers behind a curtain. It
would be good to make that clear right now
We were thrust into the mythical hero’s journey on
September 11. The way out, the hero discovers, is always
rediscovering the power that was always there This may be the
knowledge we must turn and look upon: that we've become too
afraid of our own government to challenge what it is doing. We
know now. We do. It is done and will be done in our name. We
must own it now, and say no
Linda O 'Brien is a freelance writer who lives in
Bethesda, Maryland. Her article was reprinted by Common
Dreams News Center
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