WAS HIS VOTE WORTH IT?

I campaigned for Tony Trout. It was the first and only time I campaigned for a local candidate. I sent emails and signed petitions. I wrote him letters of encouragement throughout his rocky runs and runoffs.

Being outside his district, I could not vote for him, but I spoke, wrote, and cajoled about his worthiness and the necessity of his victory. Tony had become, even for the right-minded, the quintessential single-issue candidate. What we knew about him was that his vote would ensure that the birthday of Dr. King would be celebrated in Greenville County.

His opponent, Steve Selby, saw everything wrong, we said, and maybe weren’t far from mistaken. Little is it known, but I spent two hours in the smoke-cloying Denny’s lobbying him on the holiday issue, to no avail. His argument, as you would expect, was built around how decent people knew that Dr. King was a “womanizing communist,” as though more than a few of his own role-models were not unreconstructed sinners.

By the way, our conversation ended with him pronouncing, “Marc, I’ll miss you in heaven.” In a moment of rare genius, I responded, “Frankly, Steve, I’ve seen enough of you here on earth.”
But yes, we said, Tony was OK. Some of us knew that his motives may have been less than kosher, but for the vast majority of us, motives did not matter. We lauded him for his guts and one promise of progressivism. We got our holiday . . . and we got our Tony Trout.

Tony turned out to be the creep, after all. We snuck him into office on a single issue. Save the Dr. King issue, at least Steve Selby wasn’t a cowardly crook. Choke on the words as I may, Steve was a real straight arrow, a law-enforcement official and family man who was whistle-clean. In all, Steve may have represented by as man of ill-begotten attitude, but all be told he was honest.

How close must the ends be to the means to justify them? Reducing it to the absurd, remember the canard, that “At least he (Hitler) could get the trains to run on time.” Tony Trout is not Hitler, God forbid, but did one issue, however noble, justify not even to do a sniff-test to assess his politics, positions, and most of all, his ethical posture? Worse yet, discovering the negative, would it have even mattered? I count myself among the latter, and in retrospect, I am not proud.

This remains the dilemma: Had we to do it over again, would we have chosen the moral rectitude of a Steve Selby over a morally-bankrupt one-trick-pony? More succinctly, did one vote of a sneak and a scoundrel justify his ascent to civic leadership? Yet more succinctly, what would Dr. King have done?

I don’t know. I don’t know. If you think you do, I’ll miss you in heaven.

I AM ORDAINED A HIGH PRIEST (REVISED)

I wonder whether Aaron the biblical High Priest perpetually had second-degree burns over his hands from frying up sacrifices in olive oil. Better yet, am I ordained a High Priest because of all the times I sear myself while I attempt to cook with scorching olive oil? If so, then last week I was anointed with that holy unguent and declared High Priest by a congregation of ten burly, very gentile gentiles.

The scenario: One of my Bar Mitzvah students, Jacob, is a little more eccentric than most 13-year-olds. He reviews his portion of the service with gusto only after he has spent an hour with me in the kitchen. On that momentous day, we were planning to make beef-barley soup. We were about to sauté onions in EVOO (“Extra Virgin Olive Oil,” for you who don’t watch that cutesy parakeet, Rachael Ray, chirping about it along with her dog food. Jealous? Moi?)

In an instant, flames leapt from the pot. Shoving Jacob out of the way (a good instinct), I stuck my hand in the fire (a bad instinct) and burned it to what I was sure what be a charcoal crisp. Miraculously, I escaped with only two half-inch burns.

Being a denizen of the upper middle class, our house is equipped with the biggest and most hypersensitive alarm system, which instantly alerts the fire department every time I fry an egg.

I had already well doused the fire and sufficiently attended to my burns, when a police captain banged on the front door. He apparently handled these matters because he was so anemic that he couldn’t save my labradoodle Minnie from a titmouse. I calmly told him that no other emergency services were required.

Too late. The fire department had already snaked its way down our narrow lane with its hook-and-ladder. Out of the truck leapt six sumo firefighters, oxygen tanks strapped to their backs, insisting on inspecting the house. They spied the minor burns on my hand and announced that they were obliged to have EMS come to check me out. “Not necessary,” I protested.

But, shortly thereafter, three EMTs arrived in their ambulance. They were required by law, they said, to examine me. Before I knew it, they were taking my blood pressure. Then they discovered the scar on my chest from my pacemaker. Jackpot. They demanded that I lie down and let them take an EKG – all for two half-inch burns.

By then, our kitchen was overrun by a ten men and women of emergency crews, a quorum for worship. Law required that I be taken to the hospital, they said.

So off I go in a gurney to the ER, where I was once again meticulously examined, and then waited an hour to have salve schmered on my gaping wounds. The EMTs, firefighters, and cops stood by watchfully.

Jacob, of course, was petrified. His mother had arrived to pick him up. As I was being wheeled out on the stretcher, mother and son dutifully followed behind, offering me reassurance and asking me whom they should call. An audience of curious neighbors, God bless them, gathered outside. By the time my Linda returned from the office and picked me up from the ER, our doorstep was laden with aluminum pans full of meatloaf, fried chicken, the ubiquitous tuna salad, and brownies, all gifts of goodwill from the Bob Jones families surrounding us.

Can you comprehend the significance of that momentous occasion? I had been twice anointed High Priest, once by olive oil, then by life-saving unction, in the presence of my motley, burly congregation of ten weary caregivers.

Will I burn myself again? Of course. Just that this time, I will have disconnected my fire alarm. Will my intrepid Jacob return? Of course. But only after I promise we continue our culinary adventures only if we make something innocent, like fruit salad.

No! No! Watch out for that Santoku! It might slip and cut your . . . oh, nooooo . . .