The Underside of Corporate Personhood

There are “natural persons” among us who: can live forever; do not need air or water; possess neither a soul nor a moral compass; may own others like themselves; enjoy limited liability, cannot be jailed or put to death for their sins; value profit and growth but distain sustainability; are rich beyond most dreams; use their wealth, anonymously, to commandeer our political and legal systems; and exhibit behavioral patterns that psychologists describe as psychopathic. One can appreciate how Dr. Frankenstein must have felt when he realized the nature of the creature he had loosed on the world.

I. The Founders Distrusted Corporations
“We The People”…  Those first words of our Constitution signal its essence. It was created as a governing framework to “…establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty”.  The Founders seem to have had only us humans in mind when they wrote about people, but corporations have morphed into person-like forms, and  made us secondary in the process.

There is no mention of “corporation” or “company” in the Constitution. The word “business” occurs once, but only in reference of congress needing a “Quorum to do Business”. “Commerce” appears twice, both concerning the government’s power to “regulate Commerce”. “Person”  and “People” are found two dozen times. So how did corporations manage to become one of us?

I don’t think the framers had any intention of extending the same protections to corporations. After all, the American colonies, like others established around the world, were formed and governed by corporations, proxies of Imperial Europe. Years of experience had given the colonists little reason to trust their self-serving dominance. The Boston Tea Party, harbinger of the Revolution, had not only been a protest against the short-sighted policies of the British Crown, but a violence committed against the abuses of the East India Company. Thomas Jefferson, wary of corporate power, voiced his concern of the need for a bill of rights that included “freedom of commerce against monopolies“.

The Constitution reserved the powers for controlling corporations to the states. Many included strict corporate regulation in their own constitutions. Only state legislatures could issue corporate charters. They were quasi extensions of the state, granted for specific purposes, limited in operation to the issuing state, and constrained in the amount of capital they could raise. They were allowed neither to buy stock in other companies, nor own property unless needed to fulfill their charter. Shareholders were personally and individually responsible for debts incurred. Charters were granted for a set number of years, had to be renewed, and could be revoked.

Corporations were rare during the early years of the America union. Charters were granted to do the “people’s business”, to built roads and canals. Banks and insurance companies had to be chartered. Most businesses were not incorporated, but existed as sole owner and partnerships. That model proved adequate. By 1860 total American production rose to one of the highest in the world, second only to Great Britain. The system, by no means perfect, did work for nearly three-quarters of a century.

Railroads arose in the 1830’s. Charters were granted to the new form of transportation, and it grew swiftly over the next thirty years, replacing canals as a major form transportation. That was also when the charter system began to break down. Business boomed and railroads grew rich and powerful. They lobbied state legislatures for changes in the charter system, and people favored a fairer system. That started in the 1850’s, and accelerated after the Civil War. The original charter system was dismantled by 1880, replaced by a general incorporation process that was simple, easy to obtain and none-restrictive. The benign form of the corporate system was killed. Unwittingly, a virulent form was conceived.

II. Corporations Commandeer the Constitution

“Slavery is the legal fiction that a Person is Property. Corporate Personhood is the legal fiction that Property is a Person”. There is more irony in this quote than the truth it speaks; corporations gained personhood by commandeering the Constitutional Amendment that was meant to provide the rights-of-citizenship to former slaves.

The Fourteenth Amendment was passed in1868. In part it read, “...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Note that the Amendment refers to “any State” in its admonition. The amendment was directed toward the states, specifically the formal Rebel States. The federal government had little to do with regulating industries in the early days, leaving it to states and local governments.

Railroads counted among the richest and most powerful corporations to arise after the Civil War. With the adoption of the 14^th Amendment they became strident in their insistence that they were “persons” and should have equal protection of the law. Time and again their lawyers brought the argument to court, all because corporations had been referred to as “artificial persons” in the earliest charters. Time and again their cause went down in flames, but great wealth allowed them to play the Phoenix…and they had friends in high places.

In 1886 yet another case came before the Supreme Court, Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad. If not for a brief statement by Chief Justice Morrison Waite at the beginning, before argument commenced, the case would have been assigned, along with the many others like it, to the dust bin of irrelevance.

He remarked, “The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does”. The court‘s final decision, like the many cases before, did not include a ruling on the question of “corporate personhood”. The headnote (a summary of the decision) included Justice Waite’s statement, and that headnote seems to have launched our democracy on a path toward destruction.

It is yet a mystery as to why the Chief Justice made that statement. Speculation persists to this day. Several of the Supreme Court justices had been railroad attorneys - one Associate Justice, Stephan J. Field, was an unabashed supporter. Nearly every talented lawyer had worked for railroads in those days. The Court clerk, Bancroft Davis, who wrote the headnote, had also been a railroad attorney. That headnote subsequently set court precedent - corporations were “persons” as far as the Law was concerned.

Justice Hugo Black observed that, of the cases in which the Court applied the fourteenth amendment during the first 50 years after Santa Clara, "less than one-half of 1 percent invoked it in protection of the Negro race, and more than 50 percent asked that its benefits be extended to corporations".

During those fifty years corporations won numerous Supreme Court decisions that granted them Bill of Rights protections: First Amendment guarantees of political speech, commercial speech, and negative free speech; Fourth Amendment safeguards against unreasonable regulatory searches; Fifth Amendment double jeopardy and liberty rights; and Sixth and Seventh Amendment entitlements to trial by jury. The virulence usurped the Constitution, and there was yet more to come.

III. Corporate Control of Government with Money

In the 1970’s corporations opened another front. This one was aimed directly at controlling legislation passed by Congress and state legislatures (see: Powell Memorandum). It has been a highly organized campaign propelled with money - lots of money. Cash flowed into the political system in unprecedented volumes creating and financing organizations whose aim were to influence government policy. The operation has been hugely successful.

The Business Roundtable, one of the earliest and most powerful, was formed in 1972, and made up of CEOs from several hundred of the largest corporations in America - big table laden with money. One of the Roundtable’s early victories was the defeat of The Labor Reform Bill backed by labor unions in 1978. The bill was expected to easily pass because both Houses and the Presidency were controlled by Democrats. Congress was confronted by an unparalleled lobbying effort. Defeat came as a devastating blow to labor, and its been down hill for unions ever since.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) arose in 1973. This operation is more subtle. It professes to be a nonpartisan provider of technical services to understaffed state legislators. In reality it is an association of over three hundred corporations that writes “model” legislation presented to several thousand state legislators who attend its sponsored meetings. Of course it goes without saying that these “nonpartisan” legislative “models” are anything but... Its recent endeavor, vote suppression in the guise of voter ID laws, has been passed in numerous Republican controlled State legislatures since 2010.

The Roundtable and ALEC are only two of the earliest associations. Billions of dollars fund many other corporate financed entities: Foundations, Think Tanks, Coalitions, Litigation Centers, PR agencies, Judicial Education Seminars, and K Street Lobbies. Phalanxes of lobbyists write “White Papers”, authoritative reports, to sway congress to “special interest” view points. Fifteen thousand K Street lobbyists are registered to push corporate agendas on Capitol Hill. That’s twenty-eight for each member of congress, and each lobbyist is supported by a gaggle of aides. For every public sector lobbyist in Washington there are a hundred speaking for Corporate America and the superrich.

Corporations also finance scores of front groups that pose as “grass roots” movements. Many public TV announcements are deceptive attempts to sway public opinion. The National Wetlands Coalition was sponsored by oil and gas companies and real estate developers to ease restrictions placed on wetlands. Consumer Alert fights government regulations on product safety. Keep America Beautiful, sponsored by the bottling industry, actively fights mandatory recycling legislation. The Center for Indoor Air Research was funded by the tobacco companies to mislead the public about the danger of tobacco smoke. American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity is an association of coal producers, utility companies, and railroads trying to convince us that the phrase “Clean Coal” isn’t really an oxymoron.

Huge sums flow into political action committees to finance campaigns and manipulate elections. Fund raisers add millions to politicians’ campaign chests insuring corporate access and the best democracy that money can buy. In 1976 the Supreme Court ruled that political money was equivalent to First Amendment free speech (Buckley v. Valeo), and the 2010 decision (Citizens United v. The Federal Elections Commission) freed corporations to pump unlimited funds, anonymously, into politics. So, as the old saying goes… “You ain’t seen nothin yet”.

Vast resources enable corporations to broadcast limitless “free speech” over the airwaves. No mortal voice of dissent can match the deafening output. Corporate media interject opinions from “talking heads”, “think tanks” add their “learned and wise” voices, and coalitions chime in on specific issues. We are immersed in corporate “white noise” to the relative exclusion of all others.

The forty year campaign has enabled corporations to achieve overwhelming influence in government. A revolving door, by which individuals move back-and-forth between government and corporate jobs further enhances their dominion. The lines separating government from corporate power have become so blurred its difficult to tell which is the dog and which is the tail or which is wagging which. The malignancy has captured the machinery of government.

IV. Corporate Pursuit of Deregulation

The early American corporation was an entity chartered for public good, to serve people. That intension has been inverted. In the present economy it is people who serve and are expendable. The only reason for a corporation’s existence is profit, and that which limits it is anathema. A guaranteed way to maximize profit is to externalize costs (pass them off to people, society, government or the environment). If modern corporate political activity can be distilled to its essence, it is the endeavor to squash regulation, and return to a “Gilded Age” where its possible to destroy competition, cut wages, disregard working conditions, inflate prices, and foul the environment - all in pursuit of profit.

An endless bombardment of anti-regulation noise emanates from the corporate world. TV infomercials and media “talking heads” amplify the often repeated message, effectively shaping public opinion by transmitting a continual stream of propaganda into homes.

A balance between government regulation and corporate activity is obviously needed in a functioning system, but it is the “Big Lie” that government regulations are strangling business. Corporations simply don’t want to pay the full cost of doing business in the modern world and the financial sector is the biggest player.

It has spent millions to successfully nullify banking regulations, some enacted in the aftermath of the Great Depression. The Glass-Steagal Act of 1933 was passed to guard against the repeat abuses that brought the economy down in 1929. Congress effectively scuttled safe-guards by 2000 enabling banks to gamble with derivatives, credit default swaps, and other risky financial instruments that contributed to the Great Recession presently afflicting people.

The financial sector’s share of the Gross Domestic Product has dramatically increased over the last decades. That gain is not from productive investment, but from an extractive process conducted by speculators, arbitrageurs, and corporate raiders who do not create wealth, but extract and concentrate existing wealth. Other investors and society are the losers.

Bankers currently battle the potential effectiveness of the newly established Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. The bureau was formed to shield people from the predatory practices of the industry, requiring it to write contracts in plain, understandable English for example. The bankers say the Bureau doesn’t have enough congressional oversight, it will be bad for business, hurt the economy, or the consumer, …or something. They aren’t able to provide a convincing argument, but that doesn’t matter. Their lobbyists are busy in Washington, and have paid handsomely to get the attention of Congress, and successfully delayed the Senate confirmation of a head for eighteen months. The financial sector will continue trying to emasculate the bureau. Congress could provide a fair deal to the people by making it difficult for the moneyed interests to continue gaming the system, but the outcome isn’t certain.

Fracking, a process that dislodges natural gas from shale rock, has generated extensive activity in several states. The process involves pumping millions of gallons of water, under high pressure, into the rock strata - water no longer available for farming or drinking. The solution is 98 percent water, but the other 2 percent amounts to millions of pounds of chemicals, some toxic, and industrial secrecy surrounds the exact composition. Some residents are making fortunes leasing drilling rights, but others complain of ground water contamination (faucets catch on fire), poor air quality, noise, health issues, and a curious up-tick of earthquakes. The EPA gave its blessing in 2004, but is looking at it again. The gas companies say that it will alleviate our energy needs, and boost the economy. That’s probably correct, but what costs will corporations divert to the public and the environment in the process? Their coalitions say its perfectly safe, but we’ve been told things like that before.

Energy companies, think tanks, and associations wage a disinformation campaign over scientific evidence warning of climatic change. They follow the tactics tobacco companies used earlier in a long-running effort to discredit studies revealing the health hazards of smoking. Slick “public service” ads touting the corporate agenda enter American homes via the ubiquitous television. Many sponsors have innocuous names, like Americans for Prosperity, another of those front groups, this one belonging to Koch Industries, big in the oil industry, repeatedly fined for environmental violations, and one of the big backers of climate denial.

If regulations are likened to a democracy’s antibodies, then the corporate malignancy is destroying the immune system. Recent history is replete with examples of enormous costs being passed on (i.e. externalized) to people or society or the environment as a result of deregulation and/or lax regulation - the Fukushima Nuclear plant disaster, The Deep Water Horizon Spill, and The Great Recession to name three recent ones.

V. Modern Corporate Colonialism

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) were created in 1944 to integrate the world‘s economies into one global market, a process known today as “Globalization“. In many ways this “Free market” economy has been a great success. Corporations and a relative few wealthy individuals have done fine. Poor countries and most of the world’s people have faired less well.

The Bank and IMF are mandated to provide loans to poor countries, stabilize exchange rates, do research, offer advise, and facilitate an international payment system. But the economically powerful nations are the ones who run the show and choose the leadership - who happen to be corporate executives. They therefore have a systemic bias in favor of rich countries and multinational corporations.

Policies, set unilaterally and in secret, have resulted in mounting criticism. Strategies required poor countries to abandon traditional economic structures and adopt western practices so raw materials could be supplied to the industrialized nations. Small farmers were displaced by estate sized agribusiness. Other export industries, logging and mining, caused environmental devastation due to poorly regulated operations.

The Bank demands draconian restructuring as a debt crises continues to overwhelm the Third World. Sharp cuts in social services are considered necessary so the impoverished governments can continue making interest payments on balances they will never repay. The net effect on indigenous people has been the disruption of their social fabric and fracturing of communities.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in 1994 by Canada, United States and Mexico in a major step toward removing trade barriers. “Globalization” and “Free Trade” became the catchwords in the run-up to Senate ratification. Corporations and their political shills praised it, assuring skeptics that all was for the best. But those guarantees proved hollow as thousands of our factories have since been closed, dismantled, and shipped to Mexico, India or China, or elsewhere.


The World Trade Organization (WTO) was created in 1995 to manage the global economy and arbitrate trade disputes between countries. The arbitration panel, staffed by multi-nation corporate personnel, is the most powerful legislative and judicial body in the world. They are the unelected whose decisions go unchallenged because of treaties entered upon by the United States and 186 other countries. The panel, unaccountable to the people, can nominally overrule national laws by laying heavy sanctions against noncompliant countries. Their actions have generated anger. Large, sometimes violent, demonstrations occur wherever they conduct meetings (Seattle in 1999).

Fifty-one corporations count among the hundred top economies of the world. The combined sales of the two-hundred largest corporations equal more than 28% of World Gross Domestic Product, but employ less than one percent of the world‘s work force. The corporate work force is a body that continues to shrink, blue collar workers made up earlier cuts, management counts among the latest. Innovations in computer and robotic technology may eventually position corporations where they no longer need humans. Who then will buy their products?

The present global economy, dominated by multi-national corporations, resembles the imperial colonial system of yesteryear in that it extracts wealth from the “colonies” and concentrates it in the hands of a relative few. It may be less brutal than its forebear, but human depravation still follows in its wake.

Fifty years ago the middle class was a robust segment of the U.S. population. The economy boomed with a plethora of good paying jobs, and wealth was more evenly distributed than at any time in history. The middle class is now shrinking, and the populace begins to mirror the “haves and have-nots” of the third-world. Instead of other nations catching up to us, we are joining them. The virulence has metastasized.

GO TO: Movetoamend.org

The Hungry Men

I took a job at Graves Sheet Metal Company in Kokomo in June of 1966 after teaching the previous year at Smithville School in southern Indiana. The educational experience convinced me that I wanted nothing to do with that profession. So, at twenty-six years of age I found my life void of any immediate life goals, and decided to go adventuring in Europe. I applied for passport and a bought ships passage to Bilbao, Spain, and then took a job at Graves to make a little money before taking off in the fall.

The passport that was never used.

Bill Graves hired me to clean up the shop which was littered with scrap metal piled high behind and around various cutting machines. He had no janitorial service, and debris was threatening to envelop the place. The sheet metal workers’ union wage was to high to employ them for janitorial work, so I became the all-purpose handy-man hired to accomplish whatever odd job that might arise.

A small part of the building was occupied by a roofing firm, but the sheet metal business took up most of the space. The shop was housed in an old building, long and narrow, with a big overhead door at each end. There was an open loft on each side piled high, a segment of it stored sheet metal parts that had been fabricated but not used. The loft was a dust choking place to work on hot summer days, so I was thankful when that particular task came to completion. It took me several weeks to clean and organize the place.

Bill had six or eight journeymen working for him. They were a highly skilled bunch who produced duct work for heating and cooling systems, and also installed them. Most of the contracts were for work done for newly constructed buildings. I liked his crew right away, but I‘m not certain how they looked upon me, a college graduate, ex-teacher, grubbing around in attics, unloading sheet metal, and doing odd jobs. Journeymen went through rigorous training that used a lot of math in design of pieces they make. I was talking math with one of them and he ask me to calculate the square root of a number. I was almost finished when he stopped me and said he just wanted to know if I could really do it.

On one slow day I worked on a safe that sat in the office. It was a big heavy one standing three feet high, but useless because the door could not be shut and the mechanism was jammed. I played around with it, figured what was wrong, got it working, and changed the combination. That impressed everybody, and I was fairly well accepted after that. After all, I could do something practical.

Once I finished the job I expected to be let go, but Graves assigned me to work with Dutch Coady, his father-in-law. The work was more enjoyable after that as I got to go around town with Dutch who ran errands and delivered materials to work sites. Since he was the boss’s son-in-law he had more latitude and many of his errands could be better described as “government jobs”, that’s how he characterized them.

Dutch was an accomplished poker player, a reformed alcoholic, and active in the AA. From him I received advice in card playing and an eye opening introduction to the world of Alcoholics Anonymous. He was a jovial guy who seemed to know half the city residents. We often met people on the street who he would stop and talk to. Upon finishing, as we turned to walk away, he would say, his thumb jerking back toward the individual, “He’s an alcoholic”. “He” might be a lawyer on one occasion or a doctor the next. I began to wonder if half the people in town might not be alcoholics.

I accompanied him to several AA meetings, and when he went on “government jobs”, like taking a bottle to someone on a bender. Once he had me climb a long flight of stairs with him when he delivered booze and cigarettes to a couple in a run down apartment. I remember the guy wore a sweaty T-shirt and the woman stood in her petty coat - both strung out.  Dutch said there was no use trying to keep booze from anyone still bent on pursuing the addiction. They were going to drink one way or another, and it was safer to just take a bottle to them. He said they might consider quitting when they hit bottom, but nothing was certain about alcoholism.

Once when were on lunch break, just outside of the café, guy hit us up for money to get something to eat. Dutch invited him in telling him he‘d pop for lunch. The guy made some excuse about having a weak stomach and needed a special diet. To my surprise Dutch turned and headed on to the café. Inside he said, “If the son-of-a-bitch asked for money for a drink I‘d have given in to him“.

I learned something there. Since there was no hunger in America the only people on the streets to ask for money were alcoholics. Offer to buy them a meal. They won’t accept an invitation because they just want a drink. I never dreamed there were people who might really be hungry.

I’ve never been hungry, at least I’ve never known the gnawing emptiness that goes on for days or weeks. Mine was always of the pleasant kind with anticipation of a meal to be forthcoming. I wasn’t aware of anybody being hungry in this country as a cornucopia seemed to lie all around us, but events set me straight on a winter days in January of 1967.

Summer came to an end. Friends gave me a going- away party at which they presented me with a leather passport wallet, which I still have. But my adventure to Europe was postponed due to a war in Vietnam, and the fact that I had a record thirteen deferments granted by the local Draft Board. I made the mistake of asking the board if it was okay if I sailed for Europe. They said no, and I learned that there are times you don’t ask questions, do it and ask later. So in early winter I moved to Chicago to try my fortune in the “Big City”.

Life is faster in a big town. I once read of a study that determined people walked faster in big towns, that their speed of perambulating is directly proportional to the size of the city - the bigger, the faster they walk. I was from a relatively small city and it took a while to adapt, so my pace was slower and I often made eye contact with those coming toward me. I didn’t realize it for a time, but that behavior made me a target. People approached me to ask for money to get something to eat. It happened more often than I would have expected.

Thinking they were just drunks wanting a drink I’d answer as Gus would. If I were close to a restaurant, I’d invite them to a meal. To my surprise too many accepted. Usually I bought them a hotdog or a hamburger, but one old man stands out in my memory. Tall and thin, he was wearing a long overcoat and a mariner’s sock hat, his wrinkled skin as black as ancestors of slave ships not many generations before.

He ask me in front of an upscale cafeteria in the Near North. I told him I wouldn’t give him money, but I’d take him in for a meal. He accepted. We went in and I gave him a tray and told him to go on and pick what he wanted. The man humbly took it and went down the line selecting a healthy amount. I paid and we found a small table for two. I sat opposite him for a short while, now wishing I’d talked to him, but I’ve always been cautiously aware of the fine line that can exist between friendly curiosity and the nosy invasion of a person’s privacy.

I remember he was slathering butter on a bun when I decided it was time to go. I stood and put out my hand to shake his as I said goodbye. He surprised me by grabbing it with both of his and pressing it to his cheek; his eyes closed. It was emotionally moving to experience such gratitude. Embarrassed, I jerked it from his grasp and said, “Don’t do that”. I took my leave and turning away, noticed a woman at the opposite  table looking at me with an enigmatic smile.

I became like a big city person after that. I walked fast, kept my eyes trained on the sidewalk and never made eye contact. I couldn’t afford to feed all the people that were hungry.

The Old Photo in the Attic

Every time I returned to my boyhood home in Kokomo to visit Mom and Dad I would eventually find myself in the attic rummaging to see what treasure had previously escaped me, or been added.

It was a “cold attic”, meaning the temperature approximated the outside - cold in winter and like a sauna in summer. Insulation showed between rafters, so it was important to watch ones step. A few areas had been covered with boards, and that is where most of the stuff had been stored.

Many of the items were stimulants to memories of things gone by, like the box packed years ago with the first curtains to hang in our bedroom in 1950. They were of leafless trees, black skeletal trunks against a white background, cold and stark - an accurate interpretation of an Indiana winter.

There was the stand-alone floor model ash tray, an “art deco” model with a gaudy red body trimmed in flashy chrome. Don and I had given it to Mom for Christmas in about 1951.The top surface, a circular flying saucer shape with space on the outer edge to set drinks, sat on a conical pedestal with a chrome base. In the center, under a chrome plated handle, were chrome plated grooves for holding cigarettes around the edges of a chrome platted trap-door with a chrome plated button. Push the button, and the door opened to drop ashes and butts into a tray hidden below. For a lot of years it was an out-of-date piece of junk in the attic. Today it would be a sought-after collector item.

I made yet another trip to the attic in about 1992. Back in a corner, hidden behind some boxes, sat a large framed picture turned against the wall. I pulled it out to see a photo of a man sitting with his arm resting on a pedestal and a woman standing beside him. They were staring out toward me, but focused a bit to one side. He wore a beard, striped pants, black coat and vest; she stood in a floor length print dress that had an odd repeating design that suggested zodiac symbols. I guessed the photo to have been taken more than a hundred years before, possibly in about 1880.

My first thought was that it had been something Dad bought at one of the auctions he frequented, and it had been put in the attic and forgotten. He died in 1985 and Mom probably didn’t ventured up there any more. I took it down and showed it to her. She said it was a photo that our cousin, Jake, had brought back to Kokomo years ago. Jake died the year after Dad and the few personal items he left were up there in the attic, most of them in a old trunk.

"Jake" Jacobs, c. 1930, Connersville, IN

Jake had always been close to his Aunt Della (Jacobs) Frank, my grandmother. I think he was the only child of a fragmented family of grandma's older brother, and she "adopted" him. She came to live with Mom and Dad before I was born, and he followed her to Kokomo shortly after the war. Born William Thomas Jacobs in 1903, he was twenty years younger than grandma, and the same age as her oldest son. He grew up near them in Catawba, Kentucky.

He and his wife, Babe, stayed in Kokomo for a year or two and moved to Toledo, Ohio. They were eventually divorced and Jake showed back up in Kokomo in 1951. He got a job at the Stellite factory shortly after arriving, worked there till retirement and lived in Kokomo the rest of his life.

Jake was a eccentric character who stood only five feet tall, wore bib over-alls most of his life and expressed himself in a flow of colorful language, much of it with a blue tint. He rented a single room for many years just eight blocks west of us on Sycamore Street, and frequently stopped by the house. I never saw much of him after Grandma suffered a stroke. That was in 1958, right after my high school graduation, and ten years before she died. Mom said she’d see him from time to time after that. I don’t remember the last time I was with Jake, but he was fairly old and wrinkled.

The old photo Jake brought back from Kentucky was of my Great grandparents, Charles and Julia Jacobs, It measured about 16 by 24 inches. The bottom had some water damage, but the rest was okay. I took it out of the frame and packed it back to Alaska where a photo shop produced a useable image. I salvaged something for posterity, and it was also a great find because I had just become interested in genealogy. The photo is the only one I have of direct ancestors who died before I was born.

A Brief Encounter

I bartended at the Moose Lodge for several years while I was going to college. My work station was usually at the service bar, a small cubicle looking out onto the ball room and stage. There were no bar stools, no customers, just four or five waitresses calling out a constant stream of drink orders. The compact bar had everything within reach: booze bottles on rear shelves, beers in the front coolers, clean glasses on the bar top, and ice in the hole. One other guy joined me in the limited space as we turned out one drink after another. The fast paced action made for a lot of fun.

I worked with a couple guys over those summers, either Art or Wayne. They were both Moose members, fifteen or twenty years older than me, and worked to pick up a few dollars on weekends. Both were fun to work with as our activity often resembled a choreographed dance. Maybe the band music helped set the tempo, and much of the enjoyment came from our coordinated action.

We served a variety of drinks. I might grab two beers with each hand, pop the caps and set them on the tray, while the other would be making a grasshopper and I’d hand him a needed bottle of Crème de Mint. I’d start a martini. He’d mix a seven and seven, then I’d reach for the sweet vermouth to make a Manhattan, then a whiskey sour…and so on. We worked well together and I think the two enjoyed the harmonized dance as much as I did.

The weekends saw a lot of action at the Moose. A local band performed each Friday and Saturday, and the spacious dance floor was always full. Sometimes all the waitresses would be shouting orders at us at the same time. There were few lulls during the evenings, and closing time at twelve or one was always welcome.

I would be a bit weary, but having been injected with adrenalin by the evening’s action, was not prepared to go home. We’d draw our pay, ten or twelve bucks for the night ($2 per hour) and put a receipt in the till. The vigor of youth was running through my veins, so I usually joined others heading off to a local establishment to relax and unwind.

One night, near the end of the summer, some people brought in a woman who had worked as a waitress at the Moose the year before. Mom and Dad had told me her story. She was in a fiery auto accident the previous summer, had been burned over most of her body, and hospitalized for months. Several described the young women as having been pretty and popular before the accident dealt her a sad fate. I’d never met her, so the only memory I have is of a burned out hulk. She was a human wreck, likely unrecognizable by those who had known her before. Most of her face had been spared the flames, but her voice was effected, and I think much of her body was scar tissue. Both legs were trapped in braces, and she shuffled, each leg swinging awkwardly forward as she managed a hobbling walk on crutches.

That was back in 1963. Nearly half a century has passed. I didn’t know much about her. I never knew her age, maybe thirty. She was tall, maybe 5’ 9”. I knew nothing about her past, where she was born and grew up, or who her family might have been. I no longer even remember her name.

She came by the lodge on two or three occasions, and one night joined a small group after closing. We went to a bar with music and a dance floor. Art, my bartending partner, and his wife were her friends. He plodded me to ask her to dance. I did so as a courtesy and was surprised she accepted.

Our dance was more of a balancing act than a slow two-step. She had neither the coordination nor strength to do more than teeter back and forth. I noticed a young man smirking at our presence, looking us up-and-down in a manner that signaled his attitude of superiority. I could have challenged him, but I was wise enough, even then, to realize that his attitude was more his problem than ours.

I drove her home that night, stopping in front of a small house in a nice neighborhood. She open the door on the passenger side and asked me if I‘d come in, and then said something like, “You won’t be sorry!”.

I was at a loss. I was being propositioned, and had no idea how to deal with it. I made some lame excuse of it being late and I was tired. A slight pause followed and then, in a plaintive voice she said, "Well, I won’t beg”. She closed the door and shuffled up the walk and disappeared into the house. I never saw her again. Mom said she died the following year.

I yet wonder if she asked me in because she was trying to find a reason to go on living, but I lacked adequate experience in that side of life, and wasn’t willing or able to help. I’ve often pondered what my response would have been had she ask for such a favor before misfortune befell her. Or would she even have bothered? In a way I was as prejudice as the smirking jerk on the dance floor. Maybe, if I’d known her before, or if I had been older and wiser, then maybe I could have offered a benevolence.

Part 7 - Hazel's Last Years

Mom lived three more years. I was on my way for a visit in the spring of 1997 when I received a phone call upon getting into Los Angeles. It was Don. He told me that Jodi Spiegel, Ellie’s middle child from her first marriage, had died suddenly of a brain tumor. She had been having severe headaches for weeks. Don had helped raise Jodi and her two sisters since she was eight years old. They were still at the hospital, in shock, and not sure they would be able to pick me up as planned. I told them not to worry, I’d find my way, but they managed, and were waiting when I deplaned in San Diego.

 I stayed with Mom at her one-bedroom apartment. Her rental was in a small retirement community of four two-story buildings that enclosed a beautifully landscaped courtyard - rather charming. There were gates at each corner, one lead conveniently to a strip mall and grocery. Don and Ellie lived only a couple miles away.

The clan gathered at Don and Ellie’s place each evening during those sad days. The core group included more than a dozen people: Ellie’s surviving daughters, Stephanie and Susan, along with their families, her first husband, Jerry Spiegel, and Don‘s sons, Lee and Dennis Buckingham, who flew in from Indiana. They planned a memorial service for Jodi at Dog Beach in San Diego, a favorite of Jodi as she had often taken her dog there. It was an entertainment to see the dogs frolicking in the waves, seemingly with
out a care in the world. A pavilion was pitched on the beach, and the service consisted of friends and family taking turns telling remembrances of events that they had shared with Jodi.

 One evening, as I was helping Mom into the car to take her back to her apartment she let me know she would be interested in trying some pot. This was a bit of a surprise. She had been a smoker all her adult life, but never showed the lease interest in the stuff of Reefer Madness. She had, no doubt, smelled the characteristic aroma of the weed wafting through the group that night, and I suspect her dormant curiosity became aroused. Maybe she had always been curious, but the opportunity had never presented itself at a convenient time. But she was in California now, land of liberalism, so why not join in. Besides, what did it matter at that stage of her life. I told her I would see if someone could help her.

Jerry Spiegel was known to be a connoisseur, and the next evening he presented Mom with a joint. She immediately took a puff, inhaled deeply and started coughing. She coughed for several minutes, loud and hurtful hacks, with big tears rolling down her cheeks. She never finished her joint, never got to experience a marijuana high. Most everybody smiled sheepishly, and I think all felt sorry for her, though the sympathy might have followed different paths of reasoning.

Mom never got into the California niche, once admitting to me of feeling overwhelmed by the move, and not able to make herself get involved. She was depressed and withdrawn.

There were plenty of activities at the senior complex. Don said they passed the community room on one occasion where a number of residents were playing cards and kibitzing. It looked like a lot of fun, but they were on their way to dinner, and didn’t stop. He regretted not taking her in as it was a perfect opportunity to introduce her to the new neighbors as Mom was not the type to boldly go in on her own.

Mom stayed in the apartment for a little over a year before Don moved her into a care facility. She had a series of small strokes that robbed her of short-term memory. Don was devoted in his caretaking, going over every day to spend time with her. I visited a last time a few months before she died, and took our newly adopted boy, John. We visited at the hospice. Mom was confined to a wheel chair. We strolled with her out the walk around the facility. She stopped to ask about the name of a flower along the path‘s edge. Don said she asked that same question every day. Mom died a month later on May 5th, 1999, four and a half months short of 86.

Part 6 - Hazel's Life Without Her Friend Bob

Bob had a stroke the next year and was confined to a nursing home. I visited Mom right after the stroke. Mom was busy; she had a mission. She went to the nursing home every day, brought clean cloths, and stayed with him till evening. She was devoted. They had become very close over the years. Bob sat in a chair resting his head on a table with his face turned to one side. He was helpless, wasn’t enjoying life, and had run his trapline for the last time. He lifted his head off the table only one time. He made the effort to look at me and attest that it sucked, and then laid his head down again. Bob died a month or so later.

Mom was alone and very much lost again. She got sick and brother Don took a bus from San Diego, getting to Kokomo in time to put her in the hospital. When she improved he loaded her in her car and drove back to California. I flew in and we had a conference as to what should be done. It was evident that Mom, at nearly eighty-three, could no longer live by herself. We decided she would sell the house and move to California to be near Don and Ellie.

Don took Mom back to Indiana, and in three months we met again to clear her house, arrange shipping for what she wanted to keep, and put the rest up for auction. The attic and basement were full of fifty years of living. We found curtains stored in the attic that had hung in our bedroom in the 1950’s. Grandma Frank died in 1968, but her clothes were still hanging in a stand-alone closet in the basement. We rented one of those big trash containers, the type you see at construction sites, had it set at the back of driveway, and the proceeded to fill it.

Most of the stuff was in the attic. I’d go up, rummage around till I found something interesting, and bring it down to the driveway. Sometimes we’d decide it should go into the trash bin. If it passed muster Don would clean it (often washing it with the garden hose), and store it in the garage.

The auction was held on Sunday, September 29, 1996. The auctioneer lined tables along the length of the driveway, and filled them with smaller items. Larger things were carried from the garage when their turn came. Lots of people showed up to buy lots of interesting artifacts. One of the last things auctioned was Bob’s car, a late model Chrysler. Mom had driven it to the nursing home everyday after his stroke, and he indicated that he wanted her to have it. We got the title out realized that Bob had never signed it over to her. I handed it to the auctioneer, he looked at it a moment, took out his pen and forged Bob’s name on it. The auction was a complete success.
GO TO: Part 7 - Hazel's Last Years

Part 5 - Hazel and Friend Bob Visit Alaska

Mom and Bob Eschelman at Portage Glacier, Alaska, 1993 

Mom believed mightily in fate. What was to be, would be, so when a direction was set she generally followed course. I think this was the result of her having been the youngest sibling in a family of three older brothers. She never got the chance to be the lead dog while growing up, and since Dad was older by a year and a half the situation continued into their marriage. 

Bob, Mom and Mary at Garage Sale in Anchorage, Ak, 1993

In 1992 Mom and Bob planned a trip to visit Don and Ellie in California by car, and then to fly up to Alaska to see us. I think she had misgivings about the road trip; probably because of Bob’s drinking. She called when they were about to head west. She seemed subdued, and when we hung up she said “goodbye” in a tone of such finality that I wondered if she thought she might be speaking to me for the last time. They made the trip without incident.

Mom and Bob at neighbors for a Salmon Bake

In August they flew into Anchorage. Mary and I waited for them to deplane at the gate. The passengers filed out, and we stood there as the last trickled by. Then Mom came out trailed by a flight attendant shoving Bob in a Wheel chair. He suddenly rose from the chair, tripped on the foot rest, and fell flat on his face. He was drunker than a skunk, and Mom was beside herself with anger and embarrassment. We got him back in the chair. The attendant informed me that if I didn’t take responsibility she would have to turn him over to airport security. I was tempered to decline the option, but agreed to see after him. It seems Bob had bought two bottles of Absolute Vodka just before departing the Minneapolis Airport. Mom hide them in her purse on boarding, and Bob preceded to have a four thousand mile party.

Mom and Bob in boat returning to Cabin, 1993

I no longer recall how we got to the baggage claim on the lower level, but we soon found the designated carrousel with weary travelers crowded in front of a conveyor laded with rotating baggage. Mom recognized her bags, but couldn’t identify Bob’s so I maneuvered him in behind the first row of people. He spotted his sliding down the shoot, and bolted out of the chair, dived past the people in front and landed on the conveyor belt. He lay there clutching his suitcase in triumph as the conveyor transported him toward the exit. I hesitated for a moment but then extracted him and his luggage before they disappeared behind the curtain.

Bob and Mom at Window all Day

We took Bob to the house, filled him with coffee, and put him to bed. He slept on a fold-out couch in the recreation room, a large open area downstairs. A big wood stove stood near the couch/bed. I pulled the curtains to darken the room. It was August but daylight still lingered long into evenings That proved to be a mistake, because Bob got up in the middle of the night needing to take a potty break. In the alcoholic infused confusion he tripped, fell over the stove, bruised a rib and skinned his nose. He was quite a sight for the next week, but continued to smile in that uncomplaining way even though we limited him to beer for the rest of the stay.

Bob and Mom at window at night

I took them to the cabin in Seldovia for a week. Mostly I remember them sitting at the table before the big picture window, Bob on the left, Mom on the right. They would sit there for hours with heads turned toward the window, chins propped on a hands supported by elbows on the table. The tide would flow from high to low in six hours, sometimes with as much as a twenty-seven foot change in level. The high tide flooded the cove climbing up the banks to where tips of tree limbs dipped into the ocean’s surface. Then it would drain exposing the sea floor with mud flats extending out for hundreds of feet from the shore. They could never get enough of watching it.

Bob, Mom, Joe and Mary at Farewell Celebration, 1993

Mary had planned a garage sale on our return. Those events were always more like parties at our house. It was a big success, lots of friends showed up to meet the soon to be departing couple. Mount Spur blew its top the day before they were to fly home. Volcanic ash covered everything and their departure was delayed for a couple days. Bob seemed more anxious about the interruption, and was more eager to depart than we were to see him go. Things ended fairly well as it was hard to stay mad at Bob.
GO TO: Part 6 - Hazel's Life Without Her Friend Bob