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A Time For Patriots

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A Time for Patriots — by David Eugene Perry When I was a boy, I would give tours of the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond. I sat in front of the TV with my cassette player and recorded the audio to Walter Cronkite’s “Bicentennial Minutes” in 1976. My mother and grandmother fed my wide eyes and horizons by traipsing through enough Revolutionary and Civil War and Native American sites in the Commonwealth to generate blisters and a bookshelf groaning with books and curators’ addresses. As a child, I was a precocious patriot. My first letter to the editor was in defense of Betty Ford’s 60 Minutes interview in August 1975 in which she candidly discussed topics such as premarital sex, marijuana use, abortion rights, and her own breast cancer battle. I called those who opposed her openness as “shallow minded.” The editor of the Richmond Times Dispatch called my mother (who didn’t know I had submitted something to the paper) to inquire: “Are you sure a 13 year old wrote this?” “Yes.” I’m...
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SS United States: Eternal

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At 10 years old I touched the SS United States and she touched me back. In 1972, my Pop pulled up our boat between “America’s Flagship” and the aircraft carrier “John F. Kennedy” both berthed near their birthplace, Newport News Virginia.   We had driven the hour and a half from our home in Richmond to cast our poles in the Chesapeake Bay: a not uncommon trip.  My father knew schools of fish gathered around large hulls. In those pre 9/11 days, pulling up our modest Glasspar between the largest American-built vessels was not challenged.  As I recall, my father caught a bunch.  I caught ship fever. I was hooked more than our cooler full of perch. From July 3, 1952 on her maiden voyage to November 14, 1969 when she was withdrawn from service, SS United States was the Blue Riband holder for fastest liner crossing of the Atlantic, a record held to the present day and never to be challenged. The mid century modern masterpiece of legendary naval architect William Francis Gibbs, who made the ...
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The Little Big One

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At 5:04pm on Tuesday, October 17, 1989 I was in the box office of San Francisco Opera. The weather was lovely. The World Series was about to start. The performance that night was “Idomeneo” – a work about a king who sacrifices his daughter to appease Neptune, the god of earthquakes and oceans. My first quake had been a few months before, dubbed “The Great Taco Bell Earthquake” as it took place while I was having lunch with a colleague from the Opera. It was a 2. something. I watched the street sign on Van Ness sway slightly. My co-worker shrugged. “Happens all the time.” I was thrilled. Now I was really a San Franciscan! The weeks before Loma Prieta, as those who were here may remember, were replete with small but noticeable tremblors – not unlike those of the past week: a 3.1 here, a 4.2 here – once, more than three in a row overnight. That morning, a lot of shaker refugees were huddled earlier-than-usual on the Castro Muni platform having given up any attempts at sleep ...
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A Column in Miracles

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“You’ll learn more from people with whom you disagree than from those with whom you agree.” Such was the sage advice given to a recently graduated young man in the first days of his first adult job. The young man was me. The sage, my mentor and much-missed best friend, Anthony Turney. At the time, Anthony was “the big boss” — Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. I was a lowly clerk typist (GS 750 or something...) working for — gasp! — the Republican “friend of Ronnie & Nancy”, Marvin Liebman.  Upon learning this — Yella’ Dog Democrat Son of the South that I was, and am — I indignantly announced to Anthony that “I need to quit!” “You’ll learn more from people with whom you disagree than from those with whom you agree.” Anthony and I had become close quickly: he, perhaps the logical morphing of wise father and kindly big brother I so missed, and only sporadically ever had; me (perhaps) the son or parishioner that Anthony never had / would have dec...
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A Memorial Day Tribute

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Today, as we do every Memorial Day, Alfredo and I put out our flag in honor of those who died serving under it. This poem is in their honor. Ours, They Died — by David Perry And so they died in life someone’s  son husband  lover  brother  friend  Fighting for someone’s life in  distant lands  or just next door in life someone’s daughter  wife  lover  sister  friend  Fighting for someone’s life in — our name — for fighting  in life  someone’s life in fighting in — our name — will end. And so they died  in life someone’s  soldiers  — ours — Let grateful bugles wail in eternal taps to  known and unknown graves.
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April’s Fools

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April’s Fools In July 1936, General Francisco Franco led a military coup against the duly elected Second Spanish Republic. The resulting Spanish Civil War left over a million dead, destroyed the infrastructure of Spain and ended with Franco’s victory 80 years ago today: April 1, 1939.  What followed was 36 years of a fascist dictatorship under “El Caudillo.” The ghosts of Franco still haunt Spain, not unlike the miasma of the U.S. Civil War that still tortures our body politic in America. However, here in Spain, they have moved on quicker: a Spanish trait to “get over it” or as the Spanish phrase says  “barrer debajo de la alfombra” — sweep it under the rug and just pretend there's nothing there.  Here in my husband's hometown of Santander once stood the country’s last statue of the dictator: quietly relegated to a museum warehouse over 10 years ago. 150 years after the fall of Richmond, the equestrian monolith of “Lee” still bestrides the Confederate-heavy...
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I Remember Mama

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I Remember Mama Forty years ago today, my mother died. She was 57. Forty years hence, I am the same age. "If only we can get through February," my Great Aunt Margaret used to say: all drawling Virginia, ironic wisdom. "It's the longest month." The hardest snows. The coldest nights. The most painful memories. In my family, it always seemed to be that the most trying times were squeezed into 28 or 29 days. 1979 was a case in point: the culmination of my mother's two-year struggle with cancer. I remember around my 15th birthday getting the news.  “They found something on my shoulder," my mother said -  breezily telling me with a smile to ward off teenage worries. I can't recall exactly where I was when she told me, but I remember her demeanor: we'll take care of this. We were probably in the kitchen, or maybe in her car where she was teaching me to drive. Wherever we were, she wanted to make sure that I wouldn't worry. ...
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