by Tom Blair
As an old and tired man Roger Williams journeyed to Plymouth to plead against slavery of the Indians. His words were of no weight. Arguing against Williams, the governor of Plymouth, Josiah Winslow, ruled that “Native men, women and children joined in the uprising against the colony and were guilty of many notorious killings and should be condemned to perpetual slavery.” Josiah Winslow was the son of Edward and Susanna Winslow, two of the English settlers who arrived on the Mayflower and who were embraced by my grandfather, Massasoit.
To spare me and my son from slavery, Williams offered to pay three times our worth to the officials of Plymouth. But they remembered his banishment from their colony. We were to be sent away. On a fall evening Williams came to the stockade that held me. When I first met Williams I was a boy becoming a man. This day, with ropes of iron around my legs, I was neither a boy nor a man. We spoke for a long time, mostly of good memories, of our work to the Language of America, and of his friend, my grandfather, Massasoit. Then he spoke of other things. It was with heavy heart that he couldn’t keep his pledge to Massasoit and Canonicus. A pledge that the white man would live in peace with the Indians. As he departed, he handed a package and spoke the words, “matta niccattuppummin”; words that caused much humor over thirty years ago. In the package, dried deer meat for my son and me.
Your history books tell of the Mayflower. Nothing is written of the Seaflower. In 1620 the Mayflower sailed to our land with English as passengers. In 1676 the Seaflower sailed from our land with Indians as cargo. I and my son were cargo. A long journey, a hard journey. Before the Seaflower touched land many went to meet the Spirits. My son was one.
My journey ended in a far away land, a different land, a land of more water than earth. Here I lived and did my master’s tasks. As the sun began to set on my life I had much time to think. Why the English were now in our land, while the Indian was in a strange land as a slave. Was the Indian weak, was the Indian not clever, was this the intent of Nature? All these questions I considered. After much time I came to understand. The Indian saw the white man as himself. As a dog might see a wolf. But a wolf is not a dog. A white man is not an Indian.
What made the white man different, not much. They worked, they slept, they loved their children. But there was a difference. Their want was not a certainty. Their want was greater than whatever they possessed. A farmer with two cornfields wanted three. A settler with one cow wanted another. Their wants were the distance of their vision, not their reach. This caused a stirring, a discontentment, a willingness to sacrifice themselves and others to move closer to their wants. Wants that always outpaced them no matter how mightily they struggled.
Was the Indian’s contentment wrong when measured against the settlers’ always wanting more? I thought not. The white man’s hunger to take more made them as a locust in a field, moving quickly forward and devouring the grasses. I came to believe that the settlers would surely move from our lands to the lands of other Indian nations. They would not relent until all before them was theirs. Their nation would be greater than all the Indian nations together. But the white man may have another war to fight. An enemy stronger than the Indian. The Indian waited, then fought the settlers and were defeated. A new enemy of the white man is waiting. This enemy is nature. The white man takes what he wants from nature, just as he took from the Indian. But nature is stronger than the white man. It will not lose when it attacks.
Taubot mequaun nemêan,
Nananawtunu
Alice’s Husband (Tom)
Americans suffered the Great Depression of the 1930s, sacrificed during the 1940s in order to claim victory over Germany and Japan, and entered the 1950s with the confidence that they were citizens of the Greatest Country the world had ever seen. As the calendar pages were turned over during the 1960s, 1970s, and into the 1980s, the majority of Americans strutted with a confidence. For the first time in America’s life there was a feeling of being “the chosen one.” Ford had launched the Mustang, NASA had landed men on the moon, and color TVs nested in most homes.
This American confidence was coupled with a middle class that rode a wave of economic expansion. An expansion that resulted in higher and higher disposable family incomes, thus creating a vast pool of millions of new consumers. Consumers who responded to the seductive calls of Madison Avenue, “You deserve the best, drive a Buick home today.” Materialism and instant gratification became the twin altars for many American consumers. Stories of Lewis and Clark were replaced by the recounting of Gates’s and Jobs’s successes. Making money transformed from being a by-product of a company to being the product of many companies.
And, for the first time in American history, the focus of many parents moved from one single well-defined objective to another: “My kids will have it better than me” became “I can own one of those, too.”
This is the story of Alice’s Husband, and his striving for greater and greater financial rewards at the expense … at the risk … of what he held most dear.
IN THE CORNER OF OUR LIVING ROOM SAT THE TV, BLACK-AND-white for most of my childhood. Later an RCA color TV arrived for Mother’s birthday; she wanted to see, perhaps adore, Dean Martin in color. But back to black-and-white. In the early fifties there were three channels: CBS, NBC, and ABC. For the first few years they only broadcast in the afternoon and at night; no morning TV. A family favorite was Wild Kingdom with Marlin Perkins and his sidekick. In early TV most everyone had a sidekick: the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Captain Video and the Ranger, and Sky King and his perky niece Penny.
Perkins’s weekly travels on Wild Kingdom took him and his companion to exotic lands. Of course I was growing up in Des Moines, so most places qualified as exotic. Episode after episode Perkins, in his obligatory safari jacket with cameras purring, would stalk the most elusive of animals. During one of his quests for the rarest of God’s creatures, Perkins was flown to a clearing far from civilization. Once the plane landed on a just-cleared dirt strip, natives moved from the darkness of the forest, slowly circled the aircraft, hesitantly drew near, reached out, touched it, and sprang backward. Having never seen a plane before, it was a winged god to them.
I encountered my first winged god in the calm of an early evening in Teterboro, New Jersey. The plane was one of many, clustered together, having brought their warlords to pay homage to the ministers of Wall Street gospel at Morgan, Goldman, Merrill, and Hutton. These were corporate aircraft, not winged Greyhound buses for the masses. Only the anointed titans of industry ascended their stairs into cabins of plush New Zealand wool carpets, polished cherrywood, and finely stitched Italian leathers. In the security of his royal coach, the prince of commerce sipped a mixed drink in Baccarat while considering a selection of poached salmon, Dover sole, or filet mignon, offered by a stunning young woman whose professional destiny was linked to a single objective: The warlord should be a content warlord.
That evening in Teterboro I was not a warlord, I was a road warrior. Delta, United, American, TWA, Braniff—all had hosted me in their battle-worn DC-9s and 727s, thrusting me to my next meeting of imagined importance. Always with me the unwashed multitudes: businessmen with zombie stares and haggard mothers cradling unweaned babies.
My epiphany that warm evening in Teterboro was the midwife to the birth of a new personal goal. I coveted a winged chariot of luxury. Not a second home in the Hamptons or Telluride; not a Harry Winston ten-carat VS-1 diamond in an Asscher cut for Alice; not a Fine Arts Building at my alma mater with my name chiseled in stone above the entrance. No, I lusted for one of these magnificent, opulent time machines to serve me and no one else; poised to rush my body and soul to wherever my whim beckoned. But let’s rewind forty or so years.
Back in Des Moines, Iowa, where much family time was consumed sitting around watching Father Knows Best, Ozzie and Harriet, and half a score of other happy, benign shows homogenized to offend no one. Dad comfortable in his chair, Mom on the sofa next to the far table lamp in case she wanted to browse through Life magaz
ine or Ladies’ Home Journal. As kids my sister Barbara and I would sit Indian-style on the floor to watch TV. As teenagers we assumed a more leisurely posture, lying prone with head propped on an arm. The best way to describe my growing-up days is to tell you that Father Knows Best could have been a documentary of our home life in Windsor Heights. Every day but Saturday Dad wore a suit. When he arrived home from work or church, Dad would remove his jacket and dutifully hang it in the hall closet. Only on particularly hot summer days would his tie disappear. Mom, Dorothy, never wore shorts or even a pantsuit. A few times I saw her in a robe, and occasionally a bathing suit during our two weeks at the lake. Otherwise her uniform consisted of a dress or a skirt and blouse.
Dad drove his Chevrolet Bel Air to and from work, arriving back between 5:30 and 5:45. We immediately sat down to a meal that took my mother hours to prepare. Beef, ham, pork chops, lamb chops, anything with a heartbeat we ate. Potatoes, mashed or baked, and a variety of vegetables; most often our revered State Vegetable, corn. Two or three times a week Mom would bake rolls, keeping them hot in the oven until the sound of the Bel Air crunching driveway gravel. Dad never discussed business at the dinner table. Most of the conversation, or perhaps interrogation, centered on school. Since my sister was brighter than me, his inquisition focused on yours truly. While I never made the honor roll, my grades weren’t embarrassingly mediocre; they were pleasantly mediocre. Dinner was not overly lengthy because Dad needed to nest himself in his maroon leatherette recliner and soak in Douglas Edwards and, later, Uncle Walter—Walter Cronkite. We viewed the world through the window of these two gentlemen. One knew they were telling the truth, “And that’s the way it is.”
I started off by telling you about Wild Kingdom. More precisely, it was Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Probably another reason I remember the TV series so well is that Mutual of Omaha was Dad’s competitor. Actually, a competitor of the company that employed Dad. Headquartered in Des Moines, Dad’s firm, Bankers Life, sold insurance products. Later I learned that both of these companies were outliers to the insurance industry mecca and epicenter, Hartford.
My growing-up days were easy, just like Bud’s on Father Knows Best. I got my bike when I was eight and my BB gun when I was ten. Joined the Cub Scouts, where Mom was a Den Mother. Learned my oaths and motto, “Do your best,” and over time Mom, with much ceremony, sewed my tiger, wolf, and bear badges on the pocket of my blue Cub Scout shirt. With the awarding of my Webelos (“We’ll Be Loyal Scouts”) rank, I moved on to the Boy Scouts.
Boy Scouts was more challenging; one had to earn a variety of merit badges before moving up the organizational chart. Dad had made Eagle, the top rung. I peaked at Second Class. My enthusiasm for mastering the seemingly quaint skills—need to know how to build a fish dam—to earn merit badges waned as Betty’s breasts bloomed. Betty being Bud’s older sister on Father Knows Best. Thankfully, my education as a Boy Scout didn’t cease. On a piss-freezing night in December, huddled inside a tent that provided meager shelter next to the Christmas tree lot sponsored by my troop, I was introduced to a new friend for life, cigarettes. The next year at summer camp, more education. An Explorer Scout—this being one up from Boy Scout—in charge of our care and feeding provided knowledge not represented by merit badges. Back in the sixties we didn’t have sex education in Des Moines schools. I’m not sure we even had sex back in the sixties in Des Moines. Every kid was probably adopted from out of town. They definitely didn’t have sex on TV; Lucy and Desi had separate beds. Maybe little Ricky was adopted too. Anyway, this Explorer Scout had a bunch of wide-eyed guys sitting around a campfire taking mental notes: “Girls do what?”
It was right after the Explorer Scouts’ ad hoc sex education class that I figured that I needed to change my name to have a chance at snagging a date; told my parents I was Tom, not Tommy. Didn’t really help, only after my acne was in full retreat was I able to steal my first kiss.
As I was sneaking up on my senior year of high school, Dad started to brief me on college. Brief me, as in he knew exactly what I should do. Off to the University of Iowa, where I would earn a business degree back-loaded with statistics and actuarial science. Immediately upon removing my cap and gown, I would submit a job application to Bankers Life. Dad’s belief about education and career reflected self-confirming logic. This had been his professional path, and he was happy.
If a company could be a religion, the Bankers Life headquarters at 711 High Street was a cathedral. Our Moses was Edward Temple, whose deeds were spoken of in reverent tones by employees. On May 1, 1879, a date no less significant than July 4 to many in Des Moines, Temple formed Bankers Life; always more than fair to its policyholders and Republican conservative in its finances.
While other insurance companies floundered and defaulted during the Great Depression, Bankers Life remained pure of purpose and resolute in its obligations. Only later, as I began to forage through the business wilderness, did I learn the differences between a mutual company, as was Bankers Life, and a for-profit stock company. The essence of a mutual company was to serve its policyholders. Profits were only generated to be added to reserves, thus allowing the company to provide more protection at a modest cost to the Ozzies and Harriets of the world. Every decision at Bankers Life pivoted on what was best for the policyholder versus how to maximize profits. Likewise with the employees: All were treated with benevolence. The competent were given raises, the incompetent were given slightly smaller raises and a watch when they retired.
My father was an actuary. “Stimulating job” being the antonym to “actuary.” Trends, loss rates, standard deviations, outliers, a sea of numbers washed across his desk. Dad’s bible was the writings of Pascal and Halley. Like a scientist examining slides under a microscope, Dad studied and extrapolated death rates, accident rates, trends of diseases and illnesses, and shifts in demographics. If the average family size went from his projected 3.26 to 3.29, Bankers Life’s costs increased 1%, wiping out 50% of their expected reserves. No matter how he struggled to make his projections better than precise, they were only as good as the random occurrences of the country—the essence of this notion being confirmed in April 1978, when the birth rate in Manhattan spiked 30% nine months after the city’s total power failure and blackout. Likewise with the AIDS epidemic. Dad’s polished projections for the West Coast were not even a second cousin to reality.
My many Cs with a few Bs and As in high school effortlessly became many Cs with a few Ds and Fs at the home of the Hawkeyes. Feeling no embarrassment, my bottom-feeder college grades were Dad’s burden, not mine. I was Mad Magazine’s freckle-faced Alfred E. Neuman: “What, me worry?” My smartass, ungrateful-for-the-tuition-that-was-paid-on-my-behalf response was, “Dad, I’m pacing myself, I don’t want to peak too soon.”
With the purchase of a well-used ’57 Chevy convertible, one fender of a color not as the others, my unrecorded college social grades improved mightily. I cruised into my junior year with the top down and a smile of impending fulfillment. The need to park with the top up was not necessarily weather dependent.
By my senior year events ten thousand miles from our tree-studded campus displaced sex as the number-one dorm banter. Vietnam, or more precisely, the draft, topped the collegiate topic pyramid. Draft avoidance became an advanced course unto itself. Surrogate PhDs of the subject lectured on hardship and educational deferments, National Guard service (defending Iowa City against the commie hordes), and less traditional strategies: an extended holiday in Canada or the application of lipstick and eyeliner. Assuming that drag would not be my best look, I targeted Air Force OCS. While contemplating a hot Texas summer at Lackland Air Force Base, the Selective Service Powers smiled upon me and I was dealt the Ace of Spades of draft status, 4A; I was inoculated against forced service. Of course I could have enlisted, but why? Most thought Vietnam was of no consequence, should we be bothered … and most important, my mother began once again to smile. Mom’s younger brother had been killed in WWII, and for mo
st of my senior year she had been masking a dark foreboding about Vietnam.
ABIGAIL, 1776: To me a small tax was a just tax, and loyal we should be to the king that granted our lands. But Charles was as the Patriots. He felt conflict was necessary, a belief shaped by a fear that to state otherwise would be a sign of his unwillingness to sacrifice. For my dear Charles the hard decision was the right decision. It did not matter that I believed otherwise, Charles was the man of the house, he and his friend John Dotson would fight the Redcoats. Even though I was told it was only for three months it pained me to know Charles would be in harm’s way. In the year to come the pain twisted inside me as the husbands of other women claimed they could not serve. Claimed they were needed on their farms and in their shops.
It is a certitude, the sun rises in the east. It was with no less a certitude that after graduation my application for employment at Bankers Life rose to the top of the pile. July 11, 1966 was my first day of employment. My boss was Mr. Hurd; later I learned that he had once worked for my father. The first two months at Bankers Life were spent reading, punctuated with more reading. Bankers Life underwriting manuals, the company’s Dead Sea Scrolls, set forth all the truths, policies, and procedures that governed the actuarial department. Stacked high in a corner of my cube were bound volumes of actuarial tables. Pick any person, tell me an age, tell me their sex, tell me the county they lived in, and after fifteen minutes of computations I confidently knew that their life expectancy was another 35.5 years. These tables didn’t tell me whether a person was going to be happy or sad, whether they enjoyed Italian food or jazz, or whether they had a cute sister, but I did know that on average they were going to live 35.5 more years. Not raw material for great conversation over a Friday night beer.