Raising the Baton

by Herschensohn, Bruce;

  “It has?”

  “It has. Did you know she went to Rome?”

  “Yes, of course I know. I live with her. How do you know she went to Rome?”

  “I saw her at a restaurant there. Ran into each other. All by chance. Don’t worry. She’s a loyalist. I begged to see her later—that night. I met her at a restaurant and I begged to see her and she didn’t have anything to do with me. She seems to be a serious Catholic and I suppose she doesn’t want anything to do with a Hindu. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to see me. I accepted that and that was all there was. Want to give her a gift?” He opened up the middle drawer of his desk and produced a bronze medal of Pope Paul. “He gave it to me.”

  “He did? Pope Paul gave it to you?”

  “He told me to give it to Savannah.”

  “He did?”

  And Raj shoved the medal across his desk to Christopher who examined it carefully. “Yes, yes. Please give it to her.”

  “Does the Pope watch Gemstone?”

  “I didn’t ask him. We discussed religion. He is Catholic, you know.”

  “I assumed so.”

  “He saw you on a late-night television show. I did, too.”

  “He did? He watches late-night television?”

  “That’s when he saw you in the audience when you were pointed out. He didn’t like you when he saw you, you know.”

  “What do you mean? Why didn’t he like me?”

  “I don’t think he believes you’re Catholic.”

  “I don’t know when to believe you, Raj.”

  “You can believe me when I say I am loyal to those whom I give my word.”

  “Can I? You expect me to believe that?”

  “Yes, yes. I am loyal when it comes to India. I am loyal when it comes to the United States. I am loyal when it comes to getting out of the picture when it comes to Savannah. She is your girl. Not mine. I tried and failed, didn’t I? Once loyal, I will not break that loyalty. You tried and succeeded. In truth, my friend, I have never in my life done anything to a girl; to a woman, ever, without the sanction of that girl; that woman. Never. So this will have nothing to do with loyalty to you, Mister Straw; it has everything to do with loyalty to myself and to strangers.”

  Christopher stared at his host and said nothing. And that was because he didn’t know what to say.

  “Do you believe me, Mister Straw?”

  Cristopher was still slow to say anything. And, after a difficult longer silence he said very softly, “I heard what you did for India during the 1962 war. I know what you have done here for the Voice of America. You have proven those loyalties. Give me the coin—the Pope’s coin. I will give it to Savannah—from you—and I will tell her of our conversation.”

  “Good, good! But it is not a coin. It is a medal. And you should know that I was joking. The Pope didn’t give it to me. I bought it at a shop in Rome. So that’s the real truth and so what? I planned on giving it to her some day. This has turned out to be the day—the day to give it to her—through you. You deserve to give it to her, my friend. I not only believe in loyalty; I believe in what you Americans call ‘guts.’ India has guts and claimed independence; America has guts and has proved it before I was born and even many times in my lifetime. You have guts for believing in going to the moon and coming here to see me with a difficult mission to tell me to give up on Savannah. All three of you have guts; India, the U.S. and you. And so, then, I have guts too, as I am claiming, with honesty, that to my regret I have lost and you have won what you deserve to win: Savannah. There are four of us with guts now.” Once again Raj stood up and once again he extended his hand as he felt the meeting had been completed.

  And so did Christopher Straw. “Four of us then,” Christopher said still talking softly. “Thank you for including me in. I am, then, in good company including you.”

  “As your father would say—As the senior Mister Straw would say, ‘All important people.’”

  variations on a theme

  THEME THIRTY

  AS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN

  IT WAS THE EVENING of November the 22nd of 1968 and Raj’s office in the Old Post Office Building was filled with members of the National Press Club who came from their headquarters on 14th and “F” Street in North West D.C. to ask him one question:

  “Mr. Bahvnani, when you were on Barry Farber’s Radio Show last week, talking about Air India and Voice of America, Farber asked you when you felt that America changed—the changes that brought about these recent massive demonstrations against our policy in Vietnam; the sudden exalting of the kids called Yipees; the proliferation of the use of drugs of kids and adults, and the questioning of our involvement in the Cold War. There were all kinds and sorts of radical shouting and massive changes that were never envisioned before. And you answered that you have studied that question more than any other question about America and that you have the answer to all of that and you would be glad to answer that at an appropriate time. This morning Farber said today—this day—the fifth anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy you phoned Farber and told him it was an appropriate time because of the fifth anniversary and you said you would answer that question on his show. Barry is here from WOR-AM in New York. And not only is he here but so is his sound crew and so is all his equipment and technicians—and the same for many of the Washington Press Corps from right here in D.C. Will you explain what it is you have—‘discovered’ is the word—or ‘found out’—or ‘something’ that you believe?”

  Barry Farber with his microphone and technicians and equipment came forward through the crowd and the crowd formed an aisle-way for them to reach Raj.

  “Thank you, Raj. It’s up to you, Raj Bhavnani,” Barry Farber said. “I wanted this on my show and I am glad to have you back on this microphone. You are a man of your word to me. You delve into all kinds of national and international issues and this is surely one of them. The great unanswered question among so many is when and why did America change?”

  “Let me begin this way, Barry: On the day before the assassination of President Kennedy; on its yesterday of Thursday, November the 21st of 1963, things were different: On November the 21st of 1963, members of the Green Berets were known to be heroic. The same heroism was widely held for those in any branch of the U.S. military fighting for retaining the independence of South Vietnam and other friends under siege. No one called our military ‘suckers.’ The term of ‘suckers’ was applied after Friday, November the 22nd.

  “On November the 21st of 1963, in great urban centers of the United States, although there were some vagrants who were walking the streets and there were hobos riding in freight cars of trains, there were not large districts of homeless people living in cardboard boxes or without any shelter at all. The districts of homeless in cardboard boxes came after Friday, November the 22nd.

  “On November the 21st of 1963, other than signs saying ‘Post No Bills’ on walls and fences and only occasional personal messages, there was no graffiti on public and private property. The proliferation of such graffiti came after Friday, November the 22nd.

  “On November the 21st of 1963, profanities were whispered from male to male and female to female rather than being a part of common mixed vocabularies and communications. Such public vocabulary and communications came after Friday, November the 22nd.

  “On November the 21st of 1963, violent crime resulted in headlines rather than considered to be events of such frequency that they more often would make the middle pages of newspapers. That news became more frequently non-news after Friday, November the 22nd.

  “On November the 21st of 1963, teenage pregnancies were rare rather than widespread. That truly massive increase among teen-aged girls came after Friday, November the 22nd.

  “On November the 21st of 1963, public parks were marvelous refuges to be visited at any time and not forbidden at night. The practice of staying away from parks at night became justifiaby common after Friday, November the 22nd.

  �
��On November the 21st of 1963, drive-by shootings committed by members of gangs were unknown rather than becoming an urban disease. That practice among gangs became contagious after Friday, November the 22nd.

  “On November the 21st of 1963, playgrounds at schools were not places of risk with guards, nor were there locks installed on the fences around their perimeters. Such guards and barriers on and around public schools came after Friday, November the 22nd.

  “On November the 21st of 1963, the taking of illegal drugs had not become an epidemic. That wide-spreading arrived after Friday, November the 22nd.

  “All of those ways of life were turned upside down from what they had been on the 21st. That was before the youngest elected President with a beautiful and talented First Lady and beautiful and talented children, and with great financial wealth, and most of all, known to be the most important political leader in the world, was dead in one unexpected instant at 12:30 in the Dallas afternoon of Friday, the 22nd. If President Kennedy, of all people, could suddenly be dead then a kind of immortality usually held by the young was upheld no more. And so the young of that time wanted to do the prohibited quickly while they were still alive because their lives could end tomorrow—even today. To many of them, their times would be spent with no moral restrictions, no religious direction, no code of ethics and so many of their elders did not know how to handle all this. To a great amount of the young the word, ‘self’ meant ‘all that is important’ with the guiding objective to do ‘what feels good.’ The common became to choose bad company—to choose the ignorant—to choose to listen to neighboring youth that knew and lived as the foulest of their population. In short, the common became to choose the worst as friends. And that’s when the youth became accurately known as the ‘Now Generation’ with that phrase of self-centered living becoming a late November prevalence that would last a long time.

  “But what if Oswald’s bullets hit nothing other than the white posts of the pergola structure above the grassy knoll of Dealey Plaza? So many things would then have been different than they became, and so many things would continue to be more like that week’s Thursday rather than that week’s Friday. Things would be as they were. That is because of something commonly known in India: every life rests heavily on its times. In India we know that we are our times, and our times are us. And so in your nation many lives after November the 22nd of 1963 became lives vastly different than they would have been the day before—on November’s fourth Thursday.

  “Countless lives changed that would have been as they were if Oswald had missed.”

  THEME THIRTY-ONE

  “TRANQUILITY BASE HERE”

  THIRTY YEARS BACK when Christopher Straw was seven years old, his teacher was critical of his belief that he had something in common with Christopher Columbus. As some incidents in early life become long-lasting unanswered questions, through the years Christopher Straw often wondered who was right and who was wrong: him or Mrs. Zambroski. He always settled on being right with Mrs. Zambroski being wrong. But he never gave up asking the question to himself over and over again when he had nothing better to do.

  That, however, was rather minimal compared to the question asked without sufficient answer that human beings and probably all living things have asked through the years that life has existed on this planet. Of course living things looked upward at the night sky and wondered at its blackness that went to every horizon, acting as an infinite and unexplained roof over them with, of all things, a yellow ball or circle or some round thing that seemed to carry itself from one edge of the sky to another and with a repeating cycle of changing its position slightly from one night to another and often changing its shape all the way to complete invisibility and then, little by little on forthcoming nights, coming back into view. It was the moon, and finally having a name for it did not explain its mystery. Scientists did, however, find out some pertinent things about it and explained their observations as technology and study increased, but consistently there was the passion of Man to go to the moon and walk on its surface and come back home to tell others what it was doing all this time up there.

  That curiosity lasted from the beginning of life on earth to 1969 A.D. with the Apollo 11 launch from Cape Kennedy (Canaveral) in Florida on July the 16th of 1969, with a landing on the moon on July the 20th with Commander Neil Armstrong saying the words “Houston? Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed.”

  The voice from Mission Operations Control Room Two of the Manned Spacecraft Center Houston answered: “Roger, Tranquility! We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again! Thanks a lot.”

  Neil Armstrong responded with, “Okay, I’m going to step off the LEM now.” (Originally the LEM was called the Lunar Excursion Module and then called Lunar Module). He stepped off the Lunar Excursion Module and then he said, “That’s one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.”

  That was not only heard by the world but accompanied by the sight of his footprint being implanted on the surface of the moon which was being transmitted by live television and seen by an estimated 530 million people on earth.

  Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin then came off the Lunar Module and became the second man on the moon. Command Module Pilot Michael Collins was simultaneously staying in the Command and Service (CSM) Module in the Columbia craft that was launched with the Lunar Module attached and then to be docked with the Lunar Module when the period of time for Armstrong and Aldrin would be done and the ride home would begin. After all, the pledge that President Kennedy gave was: “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.” The decade was still not yet out and with the safe return included within that decade, the objective was achieved in full two Presidents later by President Nixon keeping President Kennedy’s time-limit given some nine years earlier on May the 25th of 1961.

  The plaque that boarded from the Cape and left on the moon read, “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July, 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.” This was followed by the engraved signatures of Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., and President Richard Nixon, President United States of America. [The Cape had been renamed from Cape Canaveral to Cape Kennedy by President Johnson’s directive as he had misinterpreted Mrs. Kennedy’s request after the assassination of President Kennedy when she wanted it to be the name of the Space Center; not trading away the approximate 400-year-old name of Cape Canaveral as a geographical entity. It was to be changed back to Cape Canaveral in 1973 and the originally intended Space Center was to be named after President Kennedy.]

  Christopher Straw was among those who had “turned blue” in Houston waiting for the Lunar Module to land on the surface of the moon and, with the others he cheered and teared with joy at the words, “Houston? Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed,” and, in short time, the statement, “That’s one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.”

  Anna could not be with Chris in Houston’s Mission Control. Instead she watched it all on television at NBC Studios in Burbank intentionally from a vacant Green Room adjoining a shooting stage. She was all alone watching a man walk on the moon for the first time since the world began.

  That vacancy of any other person in the room with Anna did not prevent her from talking out loud. With a smile she said, “I understand how God gets such good reviews!”

  She did not mean for anyone on earth to hear her and she was successful at that. Like Scott Carpenter before her, she had a different audience.

  THEME THIRTY-TWO

  “THE INVITATION”

  RAJ BHAVNANI WAS GIVEN THE TASK of going to New York periodically for his broadcasts so as to record interviews with government officials who were in New York for one event or another and also to interview those leaders from India and from currently news-making countries at the United Nations.

  He did it b
ecause it was part of the radio broadcasts for which he was the host. But, as much as he liked leisurely walking in New York City, he was not fond of the time and devices to get there and back which included the taxi-ride with frequency from his office at the Old Post Office Building to Washington National Airport to the shuttle-flight from Washington, D.C. to New York’s LaGuardia Airport then a taxi to Midtown Manhattan then back to LaGuardia Airport for a shuttle returning to Washington National to a taxi back to the Old Post Office Building that all became a mentally painful nuisance.

  In addition, Raj had been spoiled. When he stayed overnight in Manhattan he wanted to stay at the Algonquin Hotel like old times but the Voice of America placed him at the Americana or at the City Squire when the Americana was filled. Besides that, his office in New York didn’t have the luxury of his D.C. office. It did, however, have a massive view of New York City from looking north toward Central Park through one window and a lot of Midtown looking east through a narrow window, and a large south view window looking all the way far into downtown.

  Happily, he was permitted to bring or send for his D.C. unfriendly secretary, Mrs. Rhonda Erickson, to New York when particular trips indicated a need for secretarial work for him to be done there.

  “Erik? Erik?” he would yell out because the intercom in the RCA Building’s “loaning office” was too complex for him to comprehend. “Erik?!”

  “Yes, Mr. Bhavnani?”

  “Where’s that invitation you told me about?”

  “I’ll bring it right in.”

  And, in very little time, she came in as she quickly scanned what was written on it. She stood straight in perfect posture across from him at his desk with both her arms extended holding a large card of some sort. “It says kindly respond by March 26, 1973, Mr. Bhavnani. That’s next Monday.”