OutTakes
by Edd Merritt

If I’d Had a Hammer...

There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware . . .
Buffalo Springfield

Stephen Stills wrote “For What It’s Worth” in the mid sixties. I heard it first when I was off the coast of Vietnam and fell for it instantly. Its immediacy was my immediacy. The battle lines being drawn were mine. The paranoia that strikes deep, the fear fostered by the military that if you do step out of line, the man will come and take you away, was real to me. My ship’s “sky pilot” kept us close in his sights.
Over the years what’s happening here may have become clearer, but not necessarily better. I was reminded of it recently when, again, I experienced the sour taste of 1960s paranoia.
Someone with oak leaves and bars on his shoulders wasn’t the cause this time, but it was a gun-toting representative of the state nonetheless, and he made his position apparent right from the start.
To set the stage – Beth and I were driving back from a week on Martha’s Vineyard. We’d been visiting her parents along with our son, his wife and our grandchildren from Providence, plus family up from Florida. Four kids three years and under. It was a mob scene made fun.
We were heading north on Interstate 495. Coming over the crest of a slight rise I noticed a police car off on the shoulder, lights flashing. I started to slow down, making the mistake of not immediately pulling into the center lane. The cop was walking back to his vehicle from another car. By then I’d blown my chance for his civility.
When I had drawn to within 75 yards of him, the officer began waving like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, pointing for me to get further to the left.
Mistake number two – I took an unnecessary peek in my rearview mirror to see if any cars were coming. As a result, when I passed him I wasn’t as far out as he wanted me. I had slowed enough to let the car he had pulled over get into the right-hand lane ahead of me, a feat I figured was pretty good since it had just begun its journey as I approached.
I continued on only to discover that the cop was after me with lights still flashing. Needless to say, I joined what would soon become a small gathering on the shoulder.
Then the saga really began.
Coming around to the passenger side of our car, he positioned himself close enough to the window so that I could see him only from belly to neck.
Beth rolled down the window, and he bellowed, “Massachusetts State Police, gimme your license and registration!”
Without drawing a breath, he continued to rant that I hadn’t gotten into the center lane when he directed me, that I’d gone straight ahead at a high rate of speed – but didn’t say I was speeding – and capped it with a line that sent my bile into overdrive, “I guess that’s the Vermont way – ha, ha.” If this was supposed to be his attempt at humor, a slug is funnier. Had I the law behind me and tire iron in hand – oh, never mind.
He pivoted and headed back to his vehicle, reappearing after a period of time in which I could have unfrozen, cooked and eaten a three-course meal.
Handing my wife a $100 citation, he said something to her that could very well be judged sexist and took off to flag down two more cars. I don’t know whether bias played any role in his actions, but none of the three cars he stopped had Massachusetts plates.
His timing struck a responsive chord with me, though. Here was an official representing his state. I had just finished a week of making exorbitant contributions to the Massachusetts economy on the Vineyard. If I could get from Vermont to my grand kids in Rhode Island without passing through there, I’d do it, Red Sox Nation be damned.
I had recently read a very poignant column in the August 1 New York Times by Bob Herbert saying anger has its place. He pointed out that it had taken less than six minutes from phone call to handcuffing and arresting of black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates because a neighbor thought he was breaking into his own dwelling. If that doesn’t justify anger, Herbert wasn’t sure what would.
Professor Gates and I stay in the same town on the Island, Oak Bluffs – a community with a long history of multiculturalism that makes it for me the most engaging spot there. I walk past Professor Gates’ house regularly. It is bright white, by the way.
I began to wonder what the cop was expressing. What was the context? Had he leapt at an opportunity to display society’s growing acceptance of punitive actions? Or, was he trying to cover his own concerns through increased bluster? I hope it was the latter. I can forgive one man’s meat, but I don’t want to revert to a military culture – the expectation of command and obey sucks, as far as I’m concerned.
Then again, he, too, may have been responding to the anniversary of Woodstock – Piggy now, as then.
Regardless, maybe it’s time to follow Mr. Stills’ admonition that something is happening here -- to ask, “What’s that sound?” and once more, let’s look at what’s going down.
Oh, by the way, Thomas Naylor, in forming a Second Republic, I vote not to include Massachusetts.
That’s it from me – for what it’s worth.