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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 17, 2017)
VIEWPOINTS Saturday, June 17, 2017 East Oregonian Page 5A Hail Cesar — the janitor matador I worked with Cesar Romero … not the one who acted with Tyrone Power, Burl Ives or Rod Serling, and not the guy who played The Joker to Adam West’s Batman on television. The Cesar Romero with whom I worked was a janitor, a green card custodian two years out of Nicaragua. We buffed floors, cleaned toilets, fixed faucets, painted, filled water coolers, emptied the trash and washed the windows together in Glide Memorial Church, a seven-story building situated in the heart of the Tenderloin, San Francisco. The Tenderloin has always been a rasty part of Baghdad by the Bay. At the time Cesar and I performed our custodial magic, the district was becoming a landing spot for Vietnamese folks, ten city blocks in transition from a haven for street hookers, soup kitchens and sex toy shops to a home for Asian versions of the same. Glide Church is still pastored by the Reverend Cecil Williams, a true community leader, whose down-in-the-trenches approach to racism, poverty and gender are influenced by Glide’s proximity to the trenches. In those days, his service featured a gospel choir accompanied by a full rock and roll band, with a light show projected on the wall behind the pulpit where most sanctuaries feature a crucifix. He wasn’t a hell and brimstone preacher, but it was definitely hot times on any Sunday morning. The church occupied only half of the big old building. The remainder was leased to various service agencies like the Gray Panthers, and the San Francisco Food Bank. The offices held about 300 folks who required occasional janitorial attention. Janitors are invisible, like prep cooks. Nobody knows who chopped all the cilantro and ancho chiles, shredded the pork, built the sauce, or steamed the tortas in your designer sopitas at your favorite restaurant. So, too, a banking firm takes credit for the perfect paint job or tile work on its building, but the workers who daily polish the brass, wash the barf off the walls, and pumice the urinals remain un-named. Cesar bucked the trend of invisibility by adopting a matador’s approach to custodial work. He dressed in crisp forest green J.C. Penny’s gabardine uniforms, short sleeves pressed and cuffed to match his pants, squeaky black shoes fit for a general, wavy hair moussed into place, with a matching mustache. Hanging from his right rear pocket was a red utility rag, folded into thirds lengthwise. Clipped to his belt were twice the number of keys required to operate the building. Cesar was walking wind chimes. Half an hour before quitting time on one Thursday afternoon we got a panic call from the third floor. A mouse had been spotted. Cesar said something to himself in Spanish, reached into a gray toolbox, pulled out a foot-long bladed screwdriver, and motioned for me to accompany him on the safari. In the elevator he stood tapping his foot to a silent tune. Room 319 was in a tizzy. Four women We got a panic call from the third floor: A mouse had been spotted. The battle of Dak To I t’s hard to get nostalgic of morale builders, some about war, but reading soldiers and I loaded up a The New York Times of 3/4-ton 4x4 M37 Dodge May 26, I came across a truck. front page article “David With our load of food and Goliath in Vietnam” and Cokes and Christmas by Neil Sheehan, a former packages we headed out to correspondent for The Times some sandbag hoochs where and writer about the Vietnam GI patrols camped providing Tom War. some security and intel on Hebert Abruptly, old memories North Vietamese movements. Comment kicked in. Because about So, after a couple three hours two-thirds of the way into chewing the fat with the guys the piece, this stopped me cold: “The while distributing our stuff I returned ‘hill fights,’ as they were called, to the airstrip to catch my flight unfolded through 1967 as General back to Saigon. Oops! Plane had left Giap lured General Westmoreland without me. However, another plane into one battle after another. The was leaving soon for Pleiku Air Base most gruesome occurred in late from where I could catch another November 1967 near the outpost flight into Saigon. The plane was a of Dak To in northern Kon Tum C-123 cargo aircraft, a smallish two Province in the Central Highlands.” engine freighter that could fly and My sudden interest arose from the land most anywhere. fact that on the morning of December With its rear cargo door down, 7, 1967 on a U.S. Air Force DC-3 I loaded in, cinched my seat belt I landed at the airstrip at Dak To. and with a few GIs we took off At the time I was director of USO enjoying the air-conditioned view Saigon. A veteran of more than 18 because the pilot had left the ramp months of service establishing USO down. But climbing out of Dak Clubs on Marine Corps combat bases To, all of a sudden, through the in the northern sectors of the country, still-open ramp, we could see some I knew something of the trials and tracer shells heading our way and tribulations of war. figured we were about to catch some But, let me be clear, I never had rounds. However, the pilot also to move under fire which is what a saw the tracers and hauled back on soldier or Marine must do. I was at his joystick and the plane tipped Dak To because I had been following skyward flying as close to vertical the terrible battle that had taken as it could get. So, us passengers place the previous month and figured got this unusual view of Dak To that at an isolated outpost like Dak framed in the open air ramp. After To, the remaining troops would be a few seconds the plane leveled feeding on old C rations and there out and headed for Pleiku, whew! was a little something USO could do And happily, at the Pleiku airstrip I to help. caught a ride with a couple of guys But first, to secure the necessary in an unusual airplane. Introducing permission and logistics, I met with myself “Hi, I’m Tom Hebert and I my liaison at the headquarters of the sure appreciate your help. One man U.S. Military Assistance Command said, “Hi!, I’m Jim and this here is at Tan Son Nhut Air Base outside John.” Jim and John, huh? Hmmm. of town. With approvals in hand, I Immediately I knew they and their asked staff at the snack bar (then the plane were CIA. But another couple world’s largest) to prepare a bunch hours of good talk and some laughs of meals to put in individual plastic and I was home with an amazing containers together with several day behind me. Behind until May crates of Coca-Cola and a few boxes 26, 2017. Dak To and the war? The of Christmas gifts that folks at home Times: “Two hundred and eighty- had sent to USOs in Vietnam. seven of these Airborne troopers When my flight schedule came and infantrymen from the Fourth through I drove out to the air base Division died. More than 1,000 were and loaded everything into the DC-3, wounded. And as always, when an older but reliable transport plane, the fight was over, the Vietnamese and soon I was on my way to Dak disappeared to fight another day.” ■ To. After a five-minute visit with Tom Hebert is a writer and public Brigadier General John R. Deane policy consultant living on the of the 173rd Airborne Brigade who Umatilla Indian Reservation. much appreciated our little shipment and two men were huddled against the windowed side of the room, pointing toward a desk that sat out in the middle. Could we hurry and do something? They had deadlines. Nothing could be done with a filthy mouse scurrying around the place. The creature had been last seen in the lower right-hand side of the desk. Cesar held the screwdriver in his left hand and carefully pulled the red rag from his hind pocket as we approached the infestation. Sure enough, inside the file cabinet portion there was a little gray city mouse kicked back on his haunches and nibbling on the corner of a Ritz Cracker it had mined from a month’s worth of leftover lunches, including two undisturbed York’s Peppermint Patties. Cesar dropped to his knees and gently employed the tip of the screwdriver to flip the cracker from the mouse’s paws. It eyed us for a moment like “Hey dudes, I’m on your side of this question,” then nimbly leapt up into the catacombs behind the sliding drawers and hingeworks. Gone. Cesar never missed a beat. He swapped ends with the screwdriver and proceeded to pound the handle on sandwich bags and paper cups and Kleenex boxes, drumming on the guts of the metal desk, setting up an unholy racket for half a minute before whipping out the red rag and diving almost entirely into the desk. When he emerged, he held the rag tightly at shoulder level with the screwdriver poised above it like a sword. The office workers thanked us, almost applauded as — head thrown back — Cesar marched triumphantly from the room with the trophy. In the elevator he opened the rag and produced two Peppermint Patties, handing one to me. J.D. S mith FROM THE HEADWATERS OF DRY CREEK Fifteen minutes later we got another call from 319, saying that they had discovered yet another mouse, but we needn’t bother coming up because, following Cesar’s example, they had squished it with the bottom of a metal wastebasket, wrapped the corpse in paper towels and flushed it down the toilet. ■ J.D. Smith is an accomplished writer and jack-of-all-trades. He lives in Athena. Hanging out with a concealed weapon T he pistol arrives at my house in a to go. So the next day, I traded it for an padded tote, the size you’d pack a antelope rifle. It wasn’t a big deal. There picnic lunch in. It’s a 9mm Glock was no “episode.” I just thought I’d feel 26, a “sub-compact” concealable semi- safer with the Ruger gone, and I was right. automatic. Diminutive, hammerless and The presidential election, for some made of polymer, to my eye, it’s a true reason, renewed my interest in self-defense, exotic. It’s accompanied by two clips and a and I grew curious about my friend’s box of 115 grain ammo, missing one round. concealable. I think, How about that? I zip the tote back The 9mm Glock is the world’s most Fred up, squirrel it away in my desk. Haefele popular handgun, and I wondered what all This Glock belongs to a friend. After the fuss was all about. I headed out to the Comment suffering a major depressive “episode,” as gun range to find out. he called it, he’s made me the weapon’s With its ultra-light weight, shortened custodian in perpetuity. Beyond keeping it out barrel and bobbed grip, the Glock felt both flighty of his hands, I’m not sure of my responsibilities: and hyper. In fact, the pistol felt downright goosey Is there registration protocol to observe? What and emphatically void of any character at all, happens if he abruptly changes his mind? Is it OK Western or otherwise. In the right hands, it’s for me to shoot this gun? probably a terrific gun, but the pistol flat-out gave For all its Western bravado, or maybe because me the yips. While I’ve fired more powerful guns of it, Montana’s suicide rate is twice the national with considerable accuracy, with the Glock I barely average: 24 per 100,000, compared to 12 per hit the paper. 100,000 nationwide. Meanwhile, Missoula County, A week later, I told my friend, Scott, about my where I live, has the highest suicide rate in the experience shooting the Glock. state, up an incredible 70 percent from last year. “Get rid of it,” he said without hesitation. Two-thirds of these deaths were “gun assisted.” “Really? Why’s that?” Few gun owners want to hear these stats, but the “It’s a bad horse and you two got crossways. 2012 FBI Supplemental Homicide Report states Don’t screw around.” that the ratio nationwide of gun deaths by suicide “I shouldn’t just learn to shoot it?” compared to self-defense gun deaths is almost 40 “Get rid of it,” he repeated. to one. It was sound enough advice, but of course it’s As a hunter, I own two rifles and a shotgun. not my pistol. For the sake of confidentiality, I I’ve not kept a handgun for 20 years. It was just didn’t tell Scott the gun’s history. I certainly haven’t coincidence that I had one at all: A tradesman told him about the rifles I garage-stashed for friend had offered me a pistol in exchange for another friend, three years ago. Scott might get the felling a large tree for him. The gun was a Ruger idea that most of the people I know are disturbed. “Security Six.” I agreed to the trade on a whim: I’m starting to think that might be right. While With my 12 gauge, aught-six and 30-30, a big-bore it’s flattering that my friends have this much faith revolver made a classic Western ensemble. in me, it presumes I have discretionary sense that The Ruger came in handy just once, when my I simply don’t possess. For example: How do I wife and I attended the Miles City bucking horse decide that it’s OK for the owner to take back sale. We stayed at an especially nasty motel. As we his guns? More pressing, by what standard do I unlocked our door, our shirtless neighbor popped tell him he’s not OK? And what if I ever have an out, chugging an IceHouse beer. “episode” myself and need to get rid of my own “Lucky you!” he giggled. You get the room next guns? What kind of guy takes custodianship of to me!” I walked to my pickup, brought the Ruger what’s clearly an arsenal of despair? inside and slept peacefully. Maybe our neighbor ■ was harmless, maybe not. I certainly felt safer; let’s Fred Haefele is a contributor to Writers on leave it at that. the Range, the opinion service of High Country But a few years later, after a troubled night of News. The author of “Rebuilding the Indian and my own, I understood clearly that the Ruger had Extremophilia,” he lives in Montana. Quick takes Rainbows meet in EO No! They gathered near Woodland, Washington a few years back and left a horrible disgusting mess. We can’t afford to clean up the mess after they leave. — Shannon Clark Ternes Please do not just infringe on these people’s rights to use public land because you don’t understand why they do it. It’s actually a very positive experi- ence. I live in Eastern Oregon and hopefully I will get to attend this year’s gathering. They also harm irreplaceable archaeological and cultural resources. They should pay to have their event at a fairgrounds or somewhere privately owned. It’s not fair to the taxpayers for them to come in and trash out national forests. — Kristy McPherson — Holly Shea Barrick One of the great lessons of the Twitter age is that much can be summed up in just a few words. Here are some of this week’s takes. Tweet yours @Tim_Trainor or email editor@eastoregonian.com. Keep them to 140 characters.
