FLORIDA RACIAL VIOLENCE

The Ocoee Massacre

November 3, 1920, was a horrific day in Florida history. A deadly race riot started in the previously unremarkable little town of Ocoee on that Election Day in central Florida and quickly spread to the surrounding communities of Orlando, Apopka and Winter Garden. By the time order was restored, approximately 50 to 60 innocent black men, women, and children had been attacked and murdered by raging mobs of white racists. Perhaps as many as a dozen white men also died in the fierce but unequal struggle.

At this late date it is difficult to establish without doubt the exact sequence of the violent events or the precise nature of the precipitating incidents. Most, if not all, of those involved in the riot are no longer alive. For obvious reasons few active participants on either side talked about the riot publicly during their lifetimes. That situation is further complicated because a number of contemporaneous accounts were from people who claimed to be eyewitnesses but proved not credible as they were found to be elsewhere during the riot.

However, little disagreement exists about the basic facts of the Election Day Ocoee Massacre. Prior to November 2, 1920, Ocoee had not yet been officially incorporated, it was merely an urbanizing settlement of citrus growers and farmers and their families about 15 miles northwest of Orlando. The 1920 U.S. Census recorded the population of Ocoee at nearly a thousand inhabitants, 495 of them African-American.

Days after the smoke cleared on November 3, the black population had been reduced to between zero and two individuals, depending on the source cited. Ten years later, in 1930, the U.S. Census of Population still listed only two African-Americans as residing in Ocoee, which remained an all-white town for over 50 years. That single fact in itself should be enough to make people pause and wonder what the hell happened.

What happened on that early November night was that a minimum of two dozen black-owned homes were burned and two churches, a school and the Masonic Lodge were destroyed by an enraged mob of violent whites. The most important social institutions that supported the African-American community in Ocoee were eliminated in a single stroke that also cut down many of the people who were served by them. Immediately after the riot, unofficial newspaper accounts in neighboring white cities differed on the number of dead but at least one listed “seven known dead: two white, five black.” Later, more reliable reports, recorded black deaths as high as 50 to 60.

The Ocoee Massacre didn’t develop in a vacuum or without numerous pre-catastrophe tremors. In 1920, the national Republican Party was busy conducting an extensive voter registration drive throughout the South. Yep, That’s right. The Republican Party. Engaged in liberal type activities like struggling for racial equality by endorsing African American voter registration. Makes you think that all those neat little pigeon holes that we try to shove people and political movements into are too frequently shabby constructions and false characterizations. Republicans as liberals is a concept with which Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Rockefeller, and Jack Danforth would have been very comfortable but not George W. Bush, John Boehmer, or Michele Bachmann and many other famous 21st Century Republicans.

In the years prior to the riot, much of Orange County was politically dominated by conservative white Democrats known as Dixiecrats, for their support of the old South. Perhaps Readers remember how Strom Thurman ran for President on the Dixiecrat segregation platform, trumpeting in the news media about keeping the ‘niggras’ in their place. Look it up; it’s part of American history.

But in the City of Orlando, two leading Orange County Republicans were instrumental in encouraging blacks to register and, more importantly, to cast their votes. In those days of brutal racial bigotry, even registering to vote was a revolutionary act that took great courage and even a willingness to die. In 1920, Judge John Cheney, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, and attorney William O’Neal, another leading Republican, met with Julius “July” Perry and Moses Norman, both prominent black residents of Ocoee. Judge Cheney’s voter registration activities did not go unnoticed and he received several threatening letters from the local Ku Klux Klan. Needless to say, tension mounted in the town of Ocoee as Election Day approached. Julius Perry, later described by white citizens as “crazy” and as “trouble,” was also widely recognized in the white community as having encouraged other blacks to vote and to become “first-class” citizens. Shades of the 1950s and 1960s Civil Rights Movement.

In the months leading to the violence, it is believed that Norman and Perry were actively recruiting blacks living in Ocoee to register and were networking with other black activists around the State. Recent research by historian Paul Ortiz from the University of Florida indicates that at that time those political activities would have been commonplace for black Florida men of some substance. Ortiz lists nearby Ocala, Florida, as one of the central organizing points for black political empowerment training and education during the time preceding the riot. Those activities were directly aided by the national Republican Party and by locally prominent Republicans. Impossible to believe that could happen in today’s political climate.

For those of us who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s and witnessed the efforts of nationally prominent liberal politicians from both parties in support of black voter registration drives and civil rights efforts, that information may seem to be 180º off the mark. But it’s the straight truth. The American history of segregation and racial hatred is complex indeed. Not to mention disheartening as hell.

At the same time, racially bigoted groups like the Ku Klux Klan were keenly aware of Republican voter registration efforts. They issued overtly threatening and racist statements that were easy to play in the media of the time. It may be hard for us to imagine today but in the 1910s and 1920s judges, prosecutors, police officers, educators, newspaper editors, business owners, and other prominent whites openly belonged to the KKK and other racist organizations. It was a fact that was accepted by many whites throughout the South as the BEST way to control members of the black community. Hey, the South was solidly white Democratic and the various KKK organizations were strong supporters of conservative white Democrat candidates. The two organizations frequently worked hand in glove.

Alexander Ackerman, a white Republican attorney, wrote in a letter dated November 6, 1920, just days after the violence in Ocoee, that “every Democratic speaker and every Democratic newspaper in the State set up a howl that the election of a Republican President or Republican officers meant Negro domination, black heels on white necks, Negroes in office and a return to carpet bag days.”

Sort of takes your breath away. Not many of us are accustomed to thinking of Democrats as jack-booted, violent thugs in white robes and masks or of Republicans as staunch civil rights activists wearing white hats. But that is exactly what history records.

Just days before the November election, a group of Klansmen marched through downtown Orlando in full regalia (500 strong according to the Orlando Morning Sentinel). Without any doubt the message of their march was simple and brutal. White Supremacy. But more chillingly it was a direct and unmistakable warning: No blacks should try to vote. Or else. In central Florida of the 1920s, the “or else” needed no clarification. Everyone could read the fiery writing on the wall. But, in that case, the Biblical phrase, Mene, Tikel, Peres, was translated, “You vote, nigger, you die.”

Land and social jealousy may be central to understanding some of the darker motivations for the Ocoee massacre. And they may also be keys to understanding why contemporary whites, especially Ocoee old timers, are so eager to dispute the claims of black wealth and economic standing. For example, July Perry’s prosperity is questioned even to this day by local whites who say he was just a grove overseer or manager. Which is almost certainly code for: Hey, What’s the big deal? Perry was just another nigger. I mean, even today we white folks can be subtle as a jack hammer. Yet in their research on City and County records, members of Democracy Forum discovered at least five separate tracts of land that were owned by July Perry in 1920. A substantial amount of investment that would have been impossible by a mere grove overseer.

It’s easy to imagine the linkage that may have occurred in the minds of Ocoee white racists. First, they start buying our land. Then, they get uppity and drive fancy cars up and down our streets. Now, they want to vote. Next thing you know, they’ll be fixing to marry our daughters and giving us thick-lipped, nappy-headed grandchildren. We gots to draw the line somewheres. Yes indeedy. Where’s them shotgun shells?

Like Perry, Moses Norman was a 51 year-old black male. Other members of the black community considered both Perry and Norman to be prosperous and successful businessmen. Norman is listed in the 1920 U.S. Census as a farmer and was described as such in the NAACP report to the U.S. Justice Department. He owned his own car, a convertible that was decked out by the standards of the day. A car would have been an exceptional item for anyone to own at that time, especially a black man. In articles published in the Crisis and the New Republic, the reporter Walter White wrote that Norman had previously refused offers of $10,000 or $1000 per acre for his orange grove, bean, and cucumber farm. Which would have been a very substantial amount of money in those days, well more than a year’s income for a very successful business executive.

Back to the story. It’s almost certain that Moses Norman, a registered voter who had paid his poll tax, attempted to vote that morning in Ocoee. But he was turned away by white election officials. Or was run off by white riff-raff and hangers-on. Or both. According to a credible newspaper account published shortly after the riot, Norman, (who was credited in the account as a prosperous black orange grove owner and the town’s most prominent black citizen), went to the polls in Ocoee on Election Day to exercise his constitutionally guaranteed rights at great personal risk given the nature of the well publicized KKK threats leveled against the black population. Zora Neale Hurston’s account suggests that after Norman was turned away, he drove to Orlando to consult John Cheney. According to Hurston, Cheney advised him to get the names of the people who weren’t allowed to vote and the names of those preventing them from voting.

If Norman returned to the polls on the advice of Cheney to collect names (which seems terribly naive now), that event certainly would have been viewed by whites as an overt physical confrontation. The Orlando Morning Sentinel described how a black man (the account fails to mention his identity) came back with a crowd and threatened those at the polls, “We will vote, by God,” he said and then went for his gun. In contrast, the Orlando Morning Star claimed that Norman started off waving a shotgun. In still another account, a document at the Orlando Historical Museum claimed that a group of white men from Winter Garden and not from Ocoee searched Norman’s car and found the weapon. Whatever happened, whites clearly felt threatened and angered by African-American residents who were determined to exercise their constitutional right to vote.

Whatever the true sequence of events it seems likely that Norman returned to the polls later that evening with a shotgun. An altercation ensued and Norman was pistol whipped by a number of the town’s racist white scumbags who had stationed themselves at the poll to prevent blacks from voting. Despite his injuries, Norman escaped with help from Reverend Edward Franks and went to the home of his friend, July Perry. Not coincidentally, Perry was also a land owner and probably had paid the poll tax and was also prepared to vote that Election Day.

After Norman was beaten at the polling place events become fairly difficult to track with much accuracy. What is certain is that Norman disappeared after going to Perry’s residence. Days later headlines as far away as Savannah, Georgia, proclaimed: “Moses Norman still not found.” For many years it was widely believed that Norman had been murdered by the KKK and buried in a secret grave outside Ocoee. In a surprising recent discovery, Allen Breed of the Associated Press uncovered information that indicated Norman had indeed survived the riot and fled in his car to New York City. According to Breed, Norman lived in New York for the rest of his life, working for the U.S. Post Office in the Harlem district until his death in 1949. It’s not known if he had children who survived him.

If the incident at the Ocoee polling place is obscured by time, violence, conflicting stories, and even by lies and deliberate cover ups, the scene at July Perry’s home is even more difficult to discern. According to the reporter, Walter White, and to writer Zora Neale Hurston, an enraged white mob, or a posse as reported in the Orlando Sentinel, or even the innocuous “few officials from Ocoee” (as some reports from white sources had it) then proceeded to search for Norman at Perry’s house. Hurston noted that “someone claimed to have seen Norman there.” A 1986 article published in the Sentinel reported that the FBI thought that Norman had returned to Perry’s house to plan an armed uprising. Yeah, right. The assertion that blacks were planning an armed uprising in 1920 seems absolutely ludicrous today. However it was precisely that type of fraudulent nonsense that fueled the massacres of blacks in such various cities throughout the country as Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898; East St. Louis, Illinois, in 1906; Atlanta, in 1906; and in the urban massacres of the red Summer of 1919. Stokley Carmichael was right: violence is as American as apple pie.

The Orlando Evening Reporter Star fanned the flames and the fears of an impending armed revolution by reporting that under questioning, Lucido Watkins, a 17-year-old black man who had earlier been driven out of a burning barn by a white mob, had given the names of 36 black men who had gathered in July Perry’s house. Furthermore, both the Sentinel and the Star reported that ammunition was supposedly found in the black churches and houses that had burned that night, further reinforcing white people’s perception that the African-American community was planning an armed uprising. It was the age-old white racist recipe at work: To get mob violence you start with rumor, add fear, mix with rage, and season with irrational hatred.

In contrast to the rumor that 36 men were hiding in Perry’s house, Zora Neale Hurston later collected information that established that Perry was alone that night with his wife and daughter when their house was stormed by a large mob of armed white bigots. Either Perry, or his wife, shot a Sam T. Salisbury as he attempted to force his way through Perry’s front door. Moments later, in the turmoil as the mob assaulted his home, Perry turned to shoot a man breaking into the back door and by accident hit his daughter, Coretha, in the arm. In 1986, the Orlando Sentinel interviewed Coretha Perry and included a picture of her pointing to the scar on her arm.

Most accounts agree that at least two white men died in the initial violence at the Perry house: Leo Borgard from Winter Garden and Elmer McDaniel, residence unattributed. Some accounts even suggest they were killed by “friendly fire” in the wild melee of shots that had been exchanged. As it turned out, Sam Salisbury, one of the first mob participants to reach Perry’s house, was only wounded. His daughter later stated that he had remained inside their home the rest of that night to tend to his injuries. Sounds like a good alibi, doesn’t it?

According to Hurston, there was a lull in the riot as some white men pursued African Americans who had hidden in the nearby swamps while others went to recruit armed reinforcements from neighboring towns. At that time, Perry, whose arm had been “shot away” in the action, either hid or tried to escape the mob hysteria. He was eventually found and hauled to the Orlando Jail. In an account written by Walter White, the next day the Sheriff willingly turned over the jail keys to the enraged mob of rednecks. Perry was forcibly removed from his cell, tied to the back of a car, and dragged through town. Although one account by a black witness had Perry being lynched in Ocoee before reaching Orlando, another account by a white witness stated that Perry was first taken to Orlando General Hospital and then to the Jail, which the mob stormed at 3:30 am. In any case, Perry appears to have been lynched in downtown Orlando near present day Lake Concord and the former Cheney home. Most accounts agree that July Perry was hanged from a utility pole on the road approaching John Cheney’s house, almost certainly as a brutal warning to Cheney to discontinue his efforts to help African-Americans register to vote. And also to warn local blacks in Orlando against trying to vote ever again. One newspaper in Chicago reported that a sign hung from Perry’s body read: “This is what we do to niggers who try to vote.”

An autopsy revealed that Perry’s body was riddled with bullets. Other members of Perry’s family, including his wife, Stella, and their daughter, Coretha, were able to escape and made their way safely to Tampa.

The mob then surrounded black neighborhoods in Ocoee and put them to the torch, burning over 30 homes and two churches, and tried to force the men, women, and children who were desperately trying to escape back into the flames. At least 40 people died in that senseless slaughter. The mob violence quickly spread to the surrounding cities and all blacks living in the area were forced from their homes and fled for their lives. Nearly a week went by as several hundred deputized Klansmen controlled the City, not allowing people to enter or exit without special permission. The land that had been owned by the black citizens who had fled for their lives was publicly sold for the incredibly low price of $1.50 an acre. And it is unquestionable that black Americans would not re-inhabit the City in any numbers until 1981, 61 years after the riot. And that for many years after the race riot, no blacks were permitted to live in the nearby cities of Orlando, Apopka, or Winter Garden.

July Perry is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in downtown Orlando, where he lies in an unmarked grave. In an ironical twist of circumstance, his assailant, Sam Salisbury, is buried in the same Cemetery some 100 yards from Perry’s gravesite. Salisbury’s grave is marked by a beautiful tombstone and is flanked by the graves of other family members. Perry’s grave site is just a patch of grass without a stone or marker. Cemetery records simply designated the plot as “Sect. K, Lot 40, Space F.” What a contrast, in life and in death.

That ghastly incident, and a similar massacre at the village of Rosewood, marked a state of brutal racial hatred and mindless violence in Florida that today we find reprehensible, horrifying, and beyond comprehension. But if we refuse to document and come to terms with our history, no matter how sordid, no matter how cowardly, no matter how violent, we are condemned to repeat it. And that’s why the Ocoee Riot is included in these pages. Because it is part of Florida’s history that must never be forgotten or dismissed as too horrible for polite society or for rational discussion.

Rosewood Massacre

Rosewood was a small, stable, racially and socially homogenous, self-sufficient black community. It was located in west-central Florida, on the edge of the cypress swamps on State Route 24 near Cedar Key. It had a thriving all-black population of at least 120. That is, until New Year’s Day, 1923. On that terrible day, Fanny Taylor, a white woman in the nearby predominantly white town of Sumner, ran out of her house screaming hysterically. She had been beaten rather badly and claimed that a black man had assaulted her. Although the beating was genuine it had been administered by her white lover not by the traditionally dreaded black rapist. The specter of the “Dangerous Other” so hated by whites in the South (and in the North, if truth be told). Fanny had lied so that her husband wouldn’t learn of her affair and beat the shit out of her himself.

Fanny’s accusations, the news that a black convict had recently escaped from a local chain gang, and Sumner residents’ long-simmering resentment of the more prosperous Rosewood combined to create the critical mass that erupted in a horrific explosion of bigotry and violent racism. The enraged whites formed a posse, led by none other than the County Sheriff, and marched three miles to the town of Rosewood, ostensibly in search of the escaped convict. And proceeded to wreck havoc on everyone and everything in their path.

By the end of the week, between 70 and 150 blacks, depending on whose account you accept, in the immediate area had been viciously murdered by the mob from Sumner. The blacks who had miraculously escaped the slaughter immediately fled the area. What was beyond all debate was that the village of Rosewood had been completely destroyed and burned to the ground for no reason other than racial hatred. After a go-through-the-motions only grand jury investigation resulted in no indictments, the Rosewood massacre was quickly forgotten by whites living in the area and by the State at large. Which had closed its official eyes and ears to the murders and tried its best to ignore them. What little remained of the once-prosperous all-black community was quickly forgotten and overgrown by vegetation. Out of sight, out of mind.

It wasn’t until 1983 that the terrible legacy of the massacre was revealed to the general public when investigative reporter Gary Moore of the St. Petersburg Times stepped up to the plate. After speaking with several survivors he wrote their story and it was published in the paper. His article was later followed by a segment on CBS-TV’s 60 Minutes and by a documentary on The Discovery Channel. Then another twelve years went by filled with intensive political haggling and legal wrangling as a restitution claim for the survivors was introduced in the Florida State Legislature and wound its agonizing way through the labyrinthine legislative process. But finally, on May 4, 1994, the Legislature voted to officially recognize the horrible injustice of the Rosewood massacre and pay a token $2 million reparation to the survivors and their families. What’s the old saw? Justice delayed is justice denied. What better illustration is there than what happened to the innocent residents of Rosewood?

At the end of summer 2003, I traveled southwest from Gainesville on State Route 24. I was looking for a State monument that documented what happened in that terrible January week of 1923. To my sorrow, I found nothing. No plaque, no marker, no nothing.

The Florida Division of Historical Resources has a formal program which recognizes historic resources in Florida. The program is called Florida Historical Markers. As this program is applied to Levy County, the State has officially honored the visit of John Muir, noted naturalist and conservation leader, to Cedar Key and the terminus of the Atlantic to Gulf Railroad, also in Cedar Key. However, it ignores the deaths of more than 100 innocent black people at the hands of a mob of white racists. As a test, just imagine what the situation would be today if the residents of Rosewood had been white and those of the Sumner mob had been black. Imagine the State’s response. Now imagine that there would be no monument commemorating that slaughter of innocent white people. Yeah, right. Okay, enough of that foolishness. You have to remember that, from the State’s historical point of view, they were only dead niggers.

According to the State of Florida, marker prices range from $1,440 to $1,600, varying on cost of materials, location where the marker would be shipped and length of text. The Rosewood dead are thought so little of that the State is today unwilling to spend about $2,000 for an historic marker to inform the traveling public about the Rosewood massacre. It is a textbook example of the care and concern that Florida has historically devoted to its African-American population. The State’s failure to acknowledge the massacre of innocents by whites who were given complete immunity from prosecution is appalling and constitutes an outrageous display of prejudice and indifference.

Contra Jack

This is as good a place as any to relate several vignettes about my older brother. Practical jokes have always been a part of my life since I was a kid and many of those precious moments have been at the expense of Jack. There’s a reason for that, of course. Very early on I realized that one easy way to get Jack’s goat was to attack his personal and highly structured sense of order and propriety. Jack was a very persnickety kind of guy. He wanted things just so. His clothes, his food, his books and papers. Everything. You know the type, fastidious to a tee. Well, as far as I was concerned that was the fatal chink in his armor, one that I exploited many the time. Here’s an example.

One day when I was in my early teens, as Bill and I were about to make our favorite summer time drink, Kool-Aid, I had the urge to bedevil Jack. All I had to do was take two sufficiently different flavors and mix them together to get a new taste sensation. We then took a tall glass filled with ice and the mixture to Jack and told him that it was a new flavor, Fruit Punch, or some such name. He took the glass and cautiously tasted it before giving his approval. We waited a few minutes while he took several drinks, setting the hook as it were. Letting him settle into the idea of liking it. He smiled and said that he liked it and we should buy it again next week.

When Mom came into the room I told her that Jack really liked the new Kool-Aid flavor we got at the A&P grocery store. With a puzzled look she said she didn’t remember buying any new flavors on our last shopping trip. Immediately Jack frowned, smelling the proverbial rat. Bill and I laughed gleefully and ‘fessed up. We made the “flavor” by mixing two together; it wasn’t “real.” Jack stomped into the kitchen and threw the Kool-Aid into the sink.

“I knew it,” he said irritably, “that stuff tasted terrible. I knew it wasn’t real. I was just playing along with you guys.” Of course Bill and I hooted and razzed him unmercifully the rest of the day, offering to refill his glass with the new flavor every time he came into the kitchen.


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When Jack started college at SLU he picked the pre-med/pre-dent program. He thought dentistry was exactly what he wanted to do with his life. Naturally, with all the math and science requirements, the program was quite difficult. Equally naturally, Jack was up to the challenge intellectually. He was a very bright guy and totally focused on succeeding, unlike his grasshopper brother who just wanted to play and drink. Jack studied constantly, beating the books every night. And did very well in his classes. Many the day he would abandon the Arts Lounge to study in the library.

One morning I was at the SLU main library doing research for a term paper and felt the urge to take a dump. While I was sitting on the toilet completing the dirty deed, someone came into the john and occupied the next stall. When the guy dropped his pants and sat down I looked under the partition and noticed his shoes looked just like Jack’s. I leaned over a little more and thought that I recognized the socks as well. It certainly looked like one of ours. And the pants also had a familiar look. It had to be Jack.

Without hesitation I finished the paper work part of the job, then reached under the partition, grabbed the guy’s ankle and pulled hard, nearly yanking him off the pot.

“Hey, Goddammit,” he yelled in a mixture of surprise and outrage. Naturally, I was so hysterical I couldn’t stand up. It was Jack and he was royally pissed-off. After finishing taking a crap he wouldn’t even talk to me outside the john. He angrily told me that it wasn’t funny, that I was just an immature clown. And he stalked off in quite a huff. Hey, I still think it was hysterical. Imagine sitting down to take a shit in the library and an unknown stranger reaches under the stall and grabs your leg. Fuck yes it was funny


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I’m jumping ahead quite a few years for this next vignette but, what the hell, it’s about Jack and another practical joke. Our grandparents celebrated their 50 wedding anniversary with a party for their relatives at our house. Dozens of people came to wish them well. Dozens of the extended Ernst family. Most of our mother’s Cundiff relatives. Jack and his wife, Eileen, were there as were Bill and his girlfriend, Lottie, and my wife, Sandy. It was a big crowd.

Right before we were about to eat Bill and I went into the bathroom to wash our hands. As I returned the soap to the holder I noticed a grayish green scum at the bottom. My wicked mind immediately conceived a gross plot. I eagerly scrapped up a little of the partly dry soap scum with a fingernail and rolled it into a tight ball. Knowing my perverse nature well, Bill was watching me closely and asked what I was doing. I placed the nasty looking ball on the tip of my little finger and positioned the finger carefully along the outside of my nostril, wiggling it to simulate a booger hunt. Then pulled the finger away in a motion that should look like I was retracting it from within my nose and held the dark green ball up for him to see.

“How about it?” I asked. “Think Jack will fall for it?” Oh yes, it was a truly brilliant way to get Jack’s goat.

Barely able to control our glee, we returned to the living room and found Jack in conversation with our Uncle Frank, Mom’s brother. By that time I was laughing so hard inside that I could hardly keep a straight face. I stood to one side of Uncle Frank so he couldn’t see what was happening and went into my act. Holding my head so Jack could only see my profile, I pretended to insert the finger up my nose and hunt for a booger that was bothering me. The expression on Jack’s face was priceless. He was absolutely aghast that I would stoop to such a low act in public.

But when I pulled the putative booger from my nostril his face contorted into a mask of utter revulsion as he exclaimed, “Oh, my God, that’s disgusting.”

I held out my pseudo booger-afixed little finger, inspected it for a brief moment before reaching out and slowly wiping it onto Jack’s bare upper arm. His face contorted in rage as he went ballistic, first trying unsuccessfully to swat the pseudo booger from his arm. Naturally, being soap, it stuck there. Then he took  a tremendous swing at me. Laughing hysterically, I dodged away, avoiding his punch as I tried to tell him that it was only soap.

Bill jumped in and grabbed Jack’s arms as did Uncle Frank. Bill told all the people who were by that time watching the fracas that was just a practical joke. We had used soap scum. It wasn’t a real booger. Jack was incensed, enraged, choleric, apoplectic. All of the above. He refused to be mollified and stomped away in high dungeon. He eventually calmed down but it was quite a while later. Naturally, behind his back, that incident also became part of the Ernst family lore, especially between Bill and me.

Dead Zone

Dead Zone                In ecology, a relatively lifeless or hypoxic area in an ocean or sea that is devoid of or deficient in oxygen that results from an ecological chain reaction that is most likely precipitated by fertilizers, animal and human organic wastes, and runoff from land areas drained by one or more rivers and tributaries. These extensive areas that are typically devoid of higher forms of life (they do support bacteria and certain algae and thus are not completely “dead”) are thought to start with farmers using chemical fertilizers to provide nutrients to stimulate and maximize crop growth. But when rain water carries excess nutrients as run-off from the fields and into drainage basins and from there into rivers and the oceans, the excessive concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus over-fertilize microscopic aquatic plant life, causing phytoplankton and algae to proliferate into massive blooms. When the phytoplankton die they fall to the sea bottom and are digested by microorganisms; that process removes oxygen from the water and creates low-oxygen or hypoxic zones. One of the world’s biggest, worst, and most persistent dead zone is in the Black Sea and extends over an area of about 5,000 square miles. The largest dead zone in the U.S. is a broad area of the Louisiana continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico, extending across more than 8,000 square miles (projected at 8,800 sq. mi. in the summer of 2008), with seasonally-depleted oxygen levels (hypoxia) that begin in late spring, reach a maximum in midsummer, and disappear in the fall. This hypoxic or anoxic zone has formed in the middle of what had been the most important commercial and recreational fisheries in the coterminous United States and currently threatens the entire Gulf fishing economy.

Real World Examples: Approximately 400 dead zones are found around the world and range in size from small sections of coastal bays and estuaries to large sea beds of 30,000 square miles or more. Most but not all of those areas are found in temperate waters. They are concentrated off the eastern and southern coasts of the United States and in the seas of Europe, including the Mediterranean. Others have appeared off the coasts of Australia, Brazil, China, Japan, and New Zealand. The world’s largest dead zone is located in Northern Europe’s Baltic Sea and has in the past decade extended across 27,000 square miles. Author’s Note: Louisiana’s Dead Zone was discovered and documented in the mid-1980s by Nancy Rabalais and other marine scientists at Louisiana State University, who have been studying it since. It should be noted that dead zones are not necessarily permanent features. Between 1991 and 2001 the Black Sea dead zone shrank drastically and nearly disappeared after fertilizers became too expensive for farmers after the collapse of the Soviet Union and centrally planned agriculture in Eastern and Central Europe.

Real World Problem: Many if not most marine scientists have recently come to believe that dead zones, red tides, and other algal blooms are closely related through human agency. The purported connection is runoff from modern activities that is feeding an explosion of primitive life forms. An example, other than red tide, is the venomous fireweed, Lyngbya majuscule, a strain of primitive cyanobacteria, the type of simple life that flourished nearly three billion years ago. Outbreaks in Australia have decimated the fishing industry in certain areas as anyone contacting the weed can be affected by burns, blisters, painfully inflamed skin, and swelling of internal organs. That example is but one instance of a struggle in the world’s oceans of which many are unaware, that advanced life forms (fish, corals and marine mammals) are fighting for survival while primitive forms (algae, bacteria and jellyfish) are thriving. It is a scenario characterized by many marine scientists as “evolution in reverse,” as if life in the oceans is returning to a primeval state of many millions of years ago. Although a single cause has not been identified, most scientists point to myriad environmental changes that have altered the basic ocean chemistry by putting too many nutrients into the water — especially nitrogen but also carbon, iron, and phosphorous. The list of culprits includes large-scale agriculture, feedlots, sewage outfalls, inadequately treated sewage, leaking septic tanks, industrial spills and emissions, and residential lawn fertilizers. At the same time, over-fishing, the destruction of coastal wetlands and estuarine habitat, and the degradation of other ocean environments (such as warmer water) have stressed the more advanced organisms, weakening them, and making them more vulnerable to attack from many sides, including from the primitive life forms. The very real fear of marine biologists is that uncontrolled human actions will transform the ocean into a microbial soup.

Fun Stuff: The Dead Zone is not to be confused with Stephen King’s novel sporting the same name. Daffynition: The Dead Zone at colleges across the U.S. is the last several rows of students in many large lecture halls.

“Good” Drivers

“Come on, Kimmie. You want the car we have to leave now. I’m not waiting all day. Traffic already sucks.”

“I’m right here, Dad.” She rolled her eyes in the manner of teenagers across America, shouldering her enormous back pack. And out the back door they went.

He backed out of the rear entry garage, and, sporting a tight grin, put it in drive. It was time for the daily rat race, the opportunity to prove himself behind the wheel. By the time he reached the end of the driveway the car had accelerated to 15 mph. As he checked the street for oncoming traffic he suddenly realized a school bus was almost on top on them. His first and only reaction was to hit the gas, squealing out of the driveway in front of the bus so he wouldn’t have to stop and wait when it picked up kids. Looking in his rear-view mirror at the incensed expression on the bus driver’s face, he chuckled at his deviousness. With that clever maneuver he had shaved a couple precious minutes off the daily commute. He was pumped; the race had just started and he was already kicking ass. Thirty seconds later, while fumbling for a cigarette, he rolled through a subdivision stop sign where a swarm of young children awaited the school bus.

When they reached the intersection of their subdivision street with the five-lane artery, he quickly glanced to his left at the huge slug of traffic rolling down the hill toward them like an out of control freight train, instantly calculating the distance and speed of the lead cars. He could just barely make it. So he pulled out in front of the mass of cars but with the elegant panache of the victor he failed to accelerate with the alacrity needed to stay ahead of the pack.

“Dad,” Kimme said, weary beyond her years. “Step on it. The cars are piling up behind you.”

“Yeah? So what?” he replied. “I’m in this lane. Let ‘em deal with it.”

A few minutes later, as cars behind him pulled over onto the shoulder, he cursed their drivers for idiocy. But when realized an EMS vehicle was passing in the left lane, its siren and horn blasting at 99.9 decibels, he immediately whipped behind it to take advantage of the suddenly clear lane. He raised a clenched fist, congratulating himself on another fantastic move. Man, he was hot today.

As the ambulance turned left into a subdivision, he decided it was time to get into the right lane. After a quick estimate told him he could slip into the car length and a half distance separating the vehicles on his right, he simply eased into the open space. When the driver behind him protested by laying on his horn he looked in the mirror and yelled, “Up yours, pal. I got my blinker on.”

He looked back to the road in time to see the light in front of him had turned yellow and instantly gunned it through the intersection, triumphant that he was able to beat the light. With no cops in sight. Yeah! Another score for the big guy.

On the outer road paralleling the Interstate that had a posted speed limit of 45 mph, he hit a respectable 65 mph, pleased he was at least keeping up with traffic on the freeway. No way was he going to slow down and lose time. No sir. He hit the entry ramp with the skill of a Jeff Gordon wanna-be and accelerated to 83 mph while flashing his lights on and off to get the slow-moving idiot half a car length in front of him to move over. A moment later, he took his eyes off the road and frowned at the terrified victim cowering in the passenger seat.

“What’s your problem?” he asked impatiently, irritated with all back seat drivers. Even ones too terrified to open their mouths.

He picked up the cell phone on the first ring, listened for a moment, and told his business partner he would be in the office in less than five minutes. While listening to what was on today’s work schedule he took one last long drink of coffee, weaving through four lanes of high-speed traffic with only his knee on the wheel with the precision and concentration of a seasoned daily commuter.

When they finally came to a screeching halt in the office parking lot, he exclaimed, “Damn! I’m already exhausted. The road’s full of idiots who don’t know how to drive. One of these days I’m going to write a book.”

He grabbed the briefcase from the back seat and told his daughter, “Be sure you’re back here at 5:00. And drive safely. There’s a lot of crazies on the road.”

*     *     *

We’ve all seen every one of the above driving maneuvers and worse during our daily commutes to and from work. Performed by male and female drivers alike. Each and every one of whom is convinced that she or he is a “good” driver. Question is: What’s the matter with us? Can we be so stupid to think that every day we can commit egregious errors of judgment behind the wheel and still be “good” drivers? As if being a “good” driver is an entitlement, not a skill you have to earn.

There are simple surrogate measure that will tell you if you have the critical characteristics that would help you to be a good driver. First, did you ever play at a high level of competence in any competitive sport from secondary school through college? Or, failing that, were you acknowledged as an excellent athlete in any physical endeavor by people who know the sport well? Or, even if you never played competitive sports, do you have excellent coordination and superior concentration skills? Because that’s what we’re talking about. Good athletes, like good drivers, have fast reaction times, great eye to hand and eye to foot coordination, first-class judgment under pressure, and superb powers of concentration. But how many people who consider themselves “good” drivers have those characteristics?

It could be that one of the great false universals operating in today’s world is that everyone is a good driver. Of course, that’s what nearly every driver thinks. That she/he possesses better than average driving skills. In fact, only one person has admitted in my presence that she was not a good driver. Actually, she was a dangerous driver but at least she realized it and acted accordingly by letting her friends drive whenever possible.

So, the questions I’d like to poise are: what makes a good driver and how many of those animals are out there?

First, let’s define that elusive term, good. Good means having positive or desirable qualities. It also means better than average.

Perhaps there are so many shitty drivers out there that even the poor ones start to look good in their own eyes. I mean, when was the last time you got on an Interstate highway and drove the speed limit without being passed by nearly every car on the roadway? Or tried to maintain a safe interval between you and the car in front of you without 35 idiots cutting in and braking as soon as they were in your lane? Or while traveling at 65 MPH in the center lane and didn’t have some blithering fool about 14 inches from your rear bumper who wanted you to get out of her/his way? The truth is people drive terribly today and we all know it. But the finger of blame is always pointed at other drivers. Always.

We drive too fast, too close, don’t pay attention, take foolish risks, drink coffee and other fluids, talk on cell phones, put on make-up, and send text messages while behind the wheel. But uniformly we think of ourselves as good drivers. It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Considerably fewer good drivers are on the road now than at any time in my life. Part of the problem is the general state of extreme narcissism that characterizes a frightening portion of our population. Me me me is their mantra. Second, everyone is in a terrific hurry. Whatever it is it must be done now and that includes driving from here to there at a high rate of speed. A third part is that young women have liberated themselves to the extent that they now drive just as badly as young male assholes. And in my eyes that’s not an achievement we should celebrate.

In many ways driving is a lot like athletics. How many people have played organized sports at any level and succeeded to the point that they could be judged as better than average in that sport. Having watched hundreds of high school and university events in which my children played I can testify that many of the kids in high school sports and most of those at the college level have good to superior levels of athletic talents. They exhibit varying levels of expertise in executing events that demand coordination and quick reflexes. But most of the students attending those schools are non-athletes with decreased levels of success in sinking a 3-point basket, spiking a volleyball down the line, jumping the high hurdles, holing a 28-foot putt, hitting a breaking ball in baseball/softball, or negotiating a slalom course, etc.

If most young people at the peak of their physical talents have difficulty walking and farting with any degree of coordination (that analogy is taken directly from LBJ’s characterization of Gerry Ford), why then do they automatically become “good” drivers as soon as they climb behind the wheel? And why do they stay “good” drivers throughout their lives?

It’s something to think about when you get behind the wheel and tail-gate the car in front of you at 78 mph and wonder when the old fool is going to get the fuck out of your way. Not even aware that at 78 mph (114 feet per second) a vehicle cannot be stopped in less than 320 feet. Average human perception time while driving is the three-quarters of a second it takes to recognize a dangerous situation ahead and realize you have to brake. Average human reaction time after that is another three-quarters of a second it takes to move your foot to the brake pedal. When you combine perception and reaction times, a full 171 feet will pass before your car even begins to slow from 78 mph. From the time you perceive a situation requiring braking until the time your car comes to a complete stop, a total of about 4.5 seconds will elapse. During that time your car will travel a total of more than 320 feet, and perhaps a good deal more if your perception time is slow because you were talking to your friends, or listening to your tunes, or checking your smart phone to see who just called. Or if your brakes and tires are less than in perfect condition.

So, what do you think a driver’s chance of avoiding a severe accident if he or she is tailgating at 78 mph (or even 60 mph and 88 feet per second) and the vehicle in front suddenly brakes because a deer ran in front of the car or another driver veered into the lane? Duh.

Fist Fight

Another story from the Dairy. In 1962-63, Tom F. was in his mid-teens. Tall and gangly, his long brown hair was seldom combed and always seemed to hang in his eyes. I loved his dry sense of humor, which made him seem so much older than he was. Although he could be very nice, polite, and intelligent, Tom was a young man filled with contradiction. He was a superb bowler and used to win quite a bit of money from unsuspecting strangers who thought they could easily out score such a skinny kid.

But the dark side of his personality threatened to wipe out all the good. Tom’s frequently violent temper and “don’t give a shit” attitude got him suspended almost regularly from high school for fighting and general insubordination. One day, after being conspicuously absent from the neighborhood for a week, he showed up at the Dairy with a very black eye and chipped front tooth. When I expressed surprise at his appearance, he sheepishly laughed and said he had been arrested and spent the week in the juvenile lock-up, where he got into a fight with a bigger boy and got his ass kicked.

One summer night after work, Tom asked if I could drive him to the Tower movie theater on Grand and Florissant on my way home. Of course I agreed. It was right on the way home. As we drove north on Grand Boulevard, Tom suddenly asked me to pull over for a minute. When I did he jumped out of the car and, before I could say a word, picked up a large metal trash container that was on the sidewalk and heaved it through the front plate glass window of a small TV repair shop.

The noise was loud enough to wake the dead and startled the crap out of me. Tom calmly got back into the car as if nothing unusual happened. Naturally, I speed away as fast as my car could go, praying no one had had the time to write down my license plate. When I angrily demanded to know what the fuck was going on, he told me his mother paid the guy who owned the store to repair her TV. But after she got the set back it was still broken. The store owner had refused to either return her money or make good the repair. So Tom, on the spur of the moment, decided that a little home-spun retributive justice of his own was appropriate.

The only real fist fight I ever had as an adult was very indirectly linked to Tom. One summer night after work, I swung by Faith Hospital to pick up my brother, Bill, who was working there at night cleaning floors, as Jack and I had done years before. All three of us got the jobs as a result of our relationship with the girls who lived on our street, whose father, Frank, was the Hospital Administrator.

While driving west on Natural Bridge Road, a car suddenly cut over, nearly hitting the front my car. Naturally, I jumped on the horn to register my protest. The guy in the car ahead stuck his middle finger out the window and stepped on his brakes, as if trying to get me to hit him from behind. Filled with the righteous piss and vinegar of youth, I sped ahead of him and pulled the same stunt, only I really did stand on the brakes, not just tap them lightly a few times as he had. The guy behind nearly smashed into us. I could see him screaming at me in the rear view mirror. Bill and I gave him the old horse laugh as he drove next to us, shouting unintelligible threats.

A few blocks later, at the last minute I turned right onto Goodfellow Boulevard, fully expecting the guy to miss the turn and drive on, effectively terminating the confrontation. No such luck. He made an illegal U-turn past the intersection and in a few seconds was right behind us, flashing his bright lights and screaming curses out the window, demanding that I pull over. A wild-eyed, crazed maniac. That’s when I knew real trouble was staring me in the face. And screaming.

I wasn’t about to lead someone like that to our house and let him know where we lived. So I turned left a block or two south of our street and pulled to the side of the road, half expecting him to drive on. His car skidded to a stop right behind my car. As he climbed out I realized I could be in a world of hurt. He was one big son of a bitch. Broad-shouldered, slim-waisted, about 6’2”, he had to out-weigh me by a minimum of thirty pounds. Oh shit, I thought. Trouble with a capital T.

After yelling at each other with typical macho bravado for a minute or two I realized that harsh words would not be the end of that situation. I started to take off the light golf jacket I was wearing over my tee-shirt so he couldn’t pull it over my head, as I had seen happen in a number of other fights, and beat the shit out of me. Before I could get it all the way off he smashed a fist the size of a rock-hard grapefruit into the side of my head. That’s when I realized I was in very deep shit indeed. My ear was ringing and my whole head hurt like hell. Luckily, I was able to dance away and throw the coat to the ground before he could thump me again.

The rest of the fight is somewhat of a daze. We hit each other quite a few times, both of us landing solid blows to the head and body. After the second or third solid shot to the general vicinity of my jaw I knew it was only a short time before I would be on my ass. The guy had a punch like a pile-driver. Although I was a lot quicker and got a lot more punches in, he was much stronger. The only things going for me were speed and agility. I was able to hit him two or three times for each of his but they didn’t seem to slow him down in the slightest. He kept coming as if I wasn’t there.

All the while Bill was jumping around behind him, swinging a tire iron he had taken from our trunk. I don’t think he ever hit the guy but he certainly distracted him a bit. Which was probably why I was still on my feet and half-way healthy.

That’s when I decided to change tactics before being knocked into next week or the hospital ward. I feinted with a straight right to his jaw and immediately brought a roundhouse left hook from my heels, leaning into it as hard as I could. It was certainly the hardest and luckiest punch I would ever throw in my life. It landed squarely on the side of his right forehead above his eye. He immediately screamed and dropped on his knees, holding his hands to his face. Blood squirted between his fingers and ran down his forearms in a bright red stream. In panic, worried I had ruptured his eye itself, I grabbed one hand and pulled it away from his face so I could see the wound. The ugly cut ran from below the outside corner of his eye curving up into the brow and continuing almost to the bridge of his nose. To my relief, it was a very deep and nasty cut but nothing terribly serious.

Just then he angrily pulled his hand away and snarled up at me. “I better never see you around here or I’ll really kick your ass.”

I couldn’t believe it. The guy was on his knees, blood running from his eyebrow as if from a faucet, and he had the nerve to threaten me. In my pumped up, elevated testosterone state I wasn’t about to take that shit. Making a fist, I punched him hard right on the cut. He screamed again, fell to the ground, and rolled onto his side. Not so gently, I nudged him with my foot.

“Hey, cocksucker. Next time I see you again I’m gonna hurt you bad. You hear me, motherfucker?” And kicked him square in the ribs to make sure he did. Not hard enough to injure him but certainly hard enough to get his attention. I wasn’t into being a mean prick.

Not wanting to stick around and wait for the cops to show up, Bill and I hopped into the car and drove two blocks home. I walked in the house still agitated and pumped full of adrenaline. When Mom saw the blood splattered all over my previously white tee-shirt her eyes nearly bulged out of her head. But I told her it was the other guy’s and went to the bathroom to clean up and change.

My left ear was hot and so swollen and painful I could hardly pull the damn tee-shirt over my head. I had to put ice cubes on the ear for an hour before the swelling subsided. In the meantime, Bill was as high as a kite. He ran around the house telling Mom and Dad about the fight, demonstrating how I did this and that. It was touching to see how proud he was of me.

Not quite a week later Bill and I were on the way home after working at the Dairy and stopped at Katz Drug Store in Pine Lawn to pick up one of Dad’s prescriptions. As I parked the car and started to get out who should be climbing into his car two spaces away but the guy I had the fight with. A large surgical pressure bandage wound around his head. He had obviously seen a doctor and probably had a fair number of stitches. Not wanting to look like a big pussy, I gave him as hard a stare as I could muster and held my breath, waiting to see what he would do. My blood pressure must have spiked into the stratosphere.

In that anxiety-laden moment, the guy’s eyes widened as he recognized me. But then he looked away, hurriedly got into his car, and drove away without another glance. What a tremendous relief! I wasn’t up to a second physical confrontation with a brute like that. I knew without question that the next time we fought he would kick my ass. So I determined to make sure there would be no next time by giving him the death stare.

Several days later, Tom F. came in the Dairy and told me a story about a good friend of his. The guy was a genuine hard ass, mean to the core, one of the toughest street fighters he knew. One night about a week before, his friend had been robbed at gunpoint. His entire paycheck was stolen. Just after that, on his way to his girlfriend’s house in Normandy, he had an argument with two guys in a car and got into a fight somewhere off Goodfellow. He got beat up so bad he had to go to the hospital.

When my eyes widened in disbelief, Tom asked me what was wrong. I asked him if the guy was walking around with a big pressure-type dressing on his stitches. He acknowledged that he did. So I told him the story from my point of view, naturally omitting the details that would make me look like a pussy or just plain lucky. He couldn’t believe it. He told me that his friend had beaten a couple guys in bar fights so bad they wound up in the hospital. He was one scary dude. I told Tom that as far as I was concerned it was a closed case and that was that. Which was when I truly understood how close I had come to being hurt badly. And determined never again to engage in insults on the roadway.

The story must have gotten around the Dairy neighborhood because for a couple weeks all the kids regarded me with fresh respect. It wasn’t a week after that things returned to normal.