European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - December 24, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 the stars and stripes wednesday december 24,1988 columns Jim Fain humanitarian impulse Only dormant not dead i was a boy during the de pression dirt poor and blithely unaware of it. My most joyous memories arc of depression christmases when i lapped riches so grand Only the poor can visualize them. In 1932, my Grandfather a Rural mail Carrier managed in scavenge for me a Small used printing press with hand set Type. He May have doomed me 10 new papering. If so i forgive him though maybe you can t. My a incr was a circuit Riding meth Odist preacher Wilh a paper salary of $1.400 a year of which he got almost nothing. His flocks were broke but kept us in food. When he went away to preach revival meetings for Eash i printed and peddled visiting cards to neighbors to buy food for my infant brother. I was begging but did t know it. We lived in a caring sharing Community and somehow christmases were fes Tive celebrating our common humanity. The beatific smile on a Black Man s face one Christmas eve when he had been Able to buy a marked Down doll for his daughter remains for me the purest sym Bol of the season. I have now across the ensuing half Cen Tury a son who is celebrating his first Christmas two Days Short of his birthday surrounded by Bounty and bathed in an intensity of love befitting the season but within a few blocks of him people sleep on sidewalk grates or in jammed shelters crowding Holiday Char lies for food. There were soup kitchens and bread lines in the depression i helped my father distribute red Cross flour every saturday but there was i difference. Now stretch Limos disgorge jewelled wealthy who mince past these burrowing Street people to enter restaurant where dinner for two with a bottle of wine goes for $200. It was a matter of Honor in South Georgia in 1933 to feed the hungry who came to the door As Long As he food lasted. They sometimes Cut Wood or did chores but that was mainly to ease their Pride. If there were any wealthy they were prudent enough to hide it. We cared about people and As the country began to emerge from its ordeal there was National concern that the fruits be justly shared. I Don t think this humanitarian impulse is destroyed but it is dormant. The Reagan Era has celebrated glib and greed not generosity. The year leading up to the depression were not that Dif Ferent. Social darwinism had a Vogue in Cool idec s Day too. Such cycles May simply be a part of Mankind s rhythm. The nation s heart remains Strong and caring. Some new trauma soon May ignite the communal compassion of this glorious pol ethnic society we Call America. Christ put such Loving brotherhood above All other Les sons and enshrined it in his Golden Rule. If there is a Christmas message transcending All others it is love for neighbor. Dunn bulted Tsy too i tort time sign in William of Buckley there s no really Good time to take a vacation my father about whom i have never Willen in the 25 years in which i have been writing this column endowed his 10 children with a great Deal tangible and intangible but what clings to the memory from the aph Ristic Pottage was this there is never a convenient time to take a he spoke As a Man who had been Busy with problems professional and personal from the time barely 21 years old when he replaced his own father prematurely dead As head of the family. Until the time when in his Early 70s he suffered a stroke he was never truly n rest if rest is defined As a period during which one does not experience pressure those Bur Dens that require response. So about the time he reached 40, he planned his vacations Selling fixed dates for them. They were never convenient in the sense that he could count on an abatement of pres sure happily coinciding with his planned vacation and they were inflexible. He d have proceeded with a planned Canoe trip one hour after the beginning of the last Days of Pompeii it is so with Many americans. How 10 reach for the most obvious example can it Ever be said of the president of the United states that he can schedule a fortnight without pressure they used to say in great Britain during the grisly years 1939 1941a country renowned for its tradition ally scheduled Leisure Lime that Britain takes its weekends in the country and hit Ler takes his countries in the grim stuff As one thinks Back on those sunday morning Blitzkrieg. For lesser Folk involved in political analysis and punditry it is Well lesser Strain. During the next 10 Days i do not expect an army helicopter to descend on me Between the islands of is. Lucia and Grenada to shout out to me thai the world cannot go one More Day without my counsel. Though come to think of ii during thai period there will be helicopters occupied on less fruitful business All adages can be strained into i credibility which is what gave Rise to the observation that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. And the next 10 Days May very Well be crucial to the Success or Lack of it of the Reagan administration thanks to the godawful mess we have got into. But one thinks in other directions in this Case less of vacations themselves than of the reasons for them. In our Case we Are setting out for a Christmas vacation. This gives one pause recognizing the reality of the mat Ter namely that Christmas is nowadays Adale in the Calendar around which one plans a Day or two or one week off duty. The excuse for inattention to the reason for it All is that Christmas has been around for so very Long it is unreasonable to think of it in any specific sense related to its genesis. Our society let s face it is Well informal about these things. Christ was bom 2,000 years ago Martin Luther King was born in this Cen Tury and his birthday became a National Holiday on what seems like the Day be fore yesterday. The morning mail brings me a letter from a Young Man who plans to celebrate Martin Luther King Day by visiting new York and asks for avuncular help about which Broadway show he might see what museum exhibits might be open and do i know of any Organ recitals scheduled that Day Martin Luther King is important to him for the same reason that Christmas is important to the kiddies they get presents on Christmas. On Martin Luther King s Day As on Colum bus birthday and Washington a and on veterans Day you get a Day off. You will gather that this vacation bound analyst prepared to leave Ron Ald Reagan Mikhail Gorbachev the Sierra club the democratic caucus and Anthony Lewis adrift for 10 Days with out the soft Landing parachutes they habitually find in this space feels a Spe Cial responsibility for his absence. 1 rely entirely on my father s adage about there never being a convenient Lime for a Vaca Tion and Promise on Christmas Day to Lake Lime from the Turkey and its stuffing to give thanks to the child born in Beth Lehem who gave us not Only vacation but for those we him a reason for believing. A Universal pro believe in
