Gun control hearings began in the Senate today. Gabby Giffords led off, speaking briefly before her speech impairment became so evident she had to stop. Her speech was undoubtedly meant to be short. A little later,Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association testified, giving much the same speech he has been giving for the last weeks, months, and years.
It was all so predictable that I switched it off, and am looking at an old BBC production of "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" as I write this.
The hearings made me think of a story Bill Russell told in his autobiography, Second Wind, subtitled "The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man." Russell was for a decade the center on the Boston Celtics, who won NBA titles almost all the years he was with them. He went on to coach the Celtics and the Seattle SuperSonics. This is my memory of one of his stories.
Russell was born in Louisiana, I guess about 1932. His mother worked as a secretary and his father did, I think, manual labor. This father was a big powerful man, known to Bill and his brother as "Mister Charlie." Charles Russell was strong enough and in love enough to meet his wife coming home from work a mile or so from their house and carry her, along with Bill and his brother, the rest of the way home.
One day, Mister Charlie was driving his car with the two boys, and pulled into the local gas station for a fill-up. In those days there was no self-service. The customer was expected to wait for an attendant to fill the tank. There was a white customer being helped and Charlie Russell sat and waited his turn. Before the white customer was done, another car pulled in behind him, also driven by a white man. Ignoring the Russells, the attendant filled the later arrival's tank. Then the process was repeated while Mister Charlie was ignored and his anger built. Finally, he climbed out of the car, took an idle gas hose, and began filling his tank himself.
The attendant approached and angrily demanded that Mister Charlie stop what he was doing. "Don't ever do anything like that again, boy," he exclaimed.
Now, Mister Charlie was in his thirties, married, a father twice over, employed, taking care of his family. By any reasonable measure, he had left boyhood behind and was a man. But in 1930's Louisiana, any white man would call a black man "boy" as a way of humiliating him, and reminding him about segregation and white supremacy.
Mister Charlie walked around to the back of his car and grabbed a tire iron from the trunk, then advanced on the pump jockey, who fled around the side of the gas station with Mister Charlie in pursuit. A few seconds later, Charles Russell returned alone.
The two boys in the car were ecstatic. "Ha ha, Mister Charlie showed him, he won't do us that way anymore!" they shouted to each other.
Charles Russell put the tire iron back and began trembling uncontrollably. After a short time he pulled himself together enough to tell the boys, "Here's a lesson for you. Don't ever lose your temper. I could have ended that man's life and ruined my own, because I lost my temper."
As they pulled away from the station, Bill happened to glance in the front window and saw a shotgun leaning against it. If the attendant had run in there instead of around back, it might have been Mister Charlie's life that ended that day.
And I'm repeating this story today as a way of reminding all my good readers that whatever comes of the gun hearings, we must all do much much more to counsel each other that a gun, or even a tire iron, is lethal and we must drive home the point about keeping our tempers.
(A few years later, Mrs. Russell's boss began making advances towards her, and as big and strong as Mister Charlie was, he couldn't risk confronting the man. Instead, he moved the family to California, where Bill grew up.)
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