Quiet Rockland's Hero, Whistleblower Gabe Bruno, SLAMS Nick Sabatini And Other FAA Criminals!

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/SharpSticks/UPDATE-FAA-inspectors-pounded-for-doing-their-job-50238552.html

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UPDATE: FAA Inspectors Pounded For Doing Their Job
By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Local Opinion Editor
07/09/09 12:05 AM EDT

A former FAA safety inspector has asked the Office of Special Counsel to refer a 2005 plane crash near Miami to the Department of Justice to file charges of criminal negligence, manslaughter and a coverup by officials in the Federal Aviation Administration.

Gabe Bruno says that at least one mechanic with phony certification worked on Chalks Ocean Airway’s 58-year-old Grumman G-73T Mallard, which lost a wing and crashed off the coast of Miami shortly after takeoff, killing all 20 people aboard. The mechanic was tested and licensed by Anthony St. George, who was convicted and sentenced to two and a half years in jail FAA for basically selling mechanics licenses without making sure they knew what they were doing.

In 2002, Bruno says, he instituted a retesting program for the 2,000 or so mechanics that were certified by St. George. “The failure rate for the 300 people we retested was between 75 and 80 percent”, he told me.

But former FAA assistant administrator Nicholas Sabatini

cancelled the program over Bruno’s strong objections. When retesting was finally reinstated, Bruno says, “it was a rubber-stamp sham, with nobody assigned to monitor the results”.

http://www.whistleblower.org/content/press_detail.cfm?press_id=1625

Three days after the Chalks accident, a mechanic certified by St. George failed the new “dumbed down” exam, and also failed a second exam – even after being given a month to study. “We would have had this guy out of the system three years before” if the FAA’s aviation safety standards were actually being enforced, Bruno pointed out. But in the FAA’s current “culture of non accountability”, mechanics with fraudulent licenses from St. George are still working on aircraft today, endangering the flying public. And since 2001, Bruno added, a “culture of cronyism” has pervaded the FAA, diminishing the agency’s effectiveness, compromising its ability to protect air passengers and violating the public trust.

“At one time, FAA was the gold standard in the world”, Bruno told me. “But for the past several years, there’s been a lot of disregard for the standards” of aviation safety. Worse, when conscientious FAA employees point out instances in which the agency is caught violating its own standards, they often face harsh retaliation from their own supervisors.

FAA is supposed to make sure that all aircraft meet stringent safety requirements. However, in the past few years, Bruno says, shutting down investigations and retaliating against the very people trying to protect the public has become “the normal way of doing business” at FAA.

Bruno, a 28-year employee and current head of the FAA Whistleblowers Alliance, says he was forced out of his job as a safety manager by Sabatini - who retired after he was caught making “misleading’ statements to Congress - after Bruno handled the merger between troubled Value Jet and Air Tran. “I delivered an operational airline in full compliance [with FAA standards], but FAA refused to approve the application”, Bruno told me. He believes he was forced out of his job because of Sabatini’s personal involvement in fast-tracking the FAA certification of Jet Blue – Air Tran’s major competitor on the East Coast.

“FAA was supposed to be cleaned out top to bottom”, Bruno says. “That hasn’t happened. FAA is supposed to be a safety agency, not a political agency, but their number one product now is office politics”. And many managers who compromised public safety in the past are still ensconced there.

Bruno cited the case of Christopher Monteleon, another FAA safety inspector who brought up pilot training problems and other serious safety concerns at Colgan Air – the subject of two Senate Aviation Subcommittee hearings in June - at least a year before the crash in Buffalo that killed 50 people.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/06042009/news/nationalnews/buffalo_crash_whistleblower_silenced_172543.htm

But instead of requiring Colgan to fix the problems he cited, Monteleon’s inspector credential were revoked, he was taken off the case, reassigned three times and is now on administrative leave. He reportedly is even barred from entering FAA or Dept. of Transportation headquarters in Washington even though, as Bruno points out, “everything he said would happen happened”.

“FAA inspectors who are trying to do their job are getting pounded”, Bruno says. Which should greatly alarm anybody who plans on boarding an airplane anytime soon.

Reader Comments
All comments on this page are subject to our Terms of Use and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Examiner or its staff.flyinsafe

Jul 9, 2009
Just the tip of the criminal iceburg at the FAA. Bruno is right on target. DOJ should be arresting FAA management instead of approving of their criminal behavior that is allowing unsafe operations. There are unqualified, unethical FAA employees that are abusing their authority and OSC has now become a rubber stamp for these criminals and the hazards that have resulted. Lets rebuild the FAA with some honest, qualified folks from the ground up.
Richard Wyeroski

Jul 9, 2009
As a former FAA inspector I can attest to the fact that FAA covers-up problems. I reported a serious runway incursion that could have killed 200 people. My reward for doing my job was intimidation and harassment from management. Report what we tell you to report is the norm.

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"Randy Babbitt" by Sinclair Lewis (1922): Chapter XXVII

American Literature

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Library » SINCLAIR LEWIS » BABBITT › now reading, CHAPTER XXVII
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CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVII

I

THE STRIKE WHICH TURNED ZENITH INTO TWO BELLIGERENT CAMPS; WHITE AND RED, BEGAN LATE IN SEPTEMBER WITH A WALK-OUT OF TELEPHONE GIRLS AND LINEMEN, IN PROTEST AGAINST A REDUCTION OF WAGES. The newly formed union of dairy-products workers went out, partly in sympathy and partly in demand for a forty-four hour week. They were followed by the truck-drivers’ union. Industry was tied up, and the whole city was nervous with talk of a trolley strike, a printers’ strike, a general strike. Furious citizens, trying to get telephone calls through strike-breaking girls, danced helplessly. Every truck that made its way from the factories to the freight-stations was guarded by a policeman, trying to look stoical beside the scab driver. A line of fifty trucks from the Zenith Steel and Machinery Company was attacked by strikers-rushing out from the sidewalk, pulling drivers from the seats, smashing carburetors and commutators, while telephone girls cheered from the walk, and small boys heaved bricks.

The National Guard was ordered out. Colonel Nixon, who in private life was Mr. Caleb Nixon, secretary of the Pullmore Tractor Company, put on a long khaki coat and stalked through crowds, a .44 automatic in hand. Even Babbitt’s friend, Clarence Drum the shoe merchant--a round and merry man who told stories at the Athletic Club, and who strangely resembled a Victorian pug-dog--was to be seen as a waddling but ferocious captain, with his belt tight about his comfortable little belly, and his round little mouth petulant as he piped to chattering groups on corners. “Move on there now! I can’t have any of this loitering!”

EVERY NEWSPAPER IN THE CITY, SAVE ONE, WAS AGAINST THE STRIKERS. When mobs raided the news-stands, at each was stationed a militiaman, a young, embarrassed citizen-soldier with eye-glasses, bookkeeper or grocery-clerk in private life, trying to look dangerous while small boys yelped, “Get onto de tin soldier!” and striking truck-drivers inquired tenderly, “Say, Joe, when I was fighting in France, was you in camp in the States or was you doing Swede exercises in the Y. M. C. A.? Be careful of that bayonet, now, or you’ll cut yourself!”

THERE WAS NO ONE IN ZENITH WHO TALKED OF ANYTHING BUT THE STRIKE, AND NO ONE WHO DID NOT TAKE SIDES. YOU WERE EITHER A COURAGEOUS FRIEND OF LABOR, OR YOU WERE A FEARLESS SUPPORTER OF THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY; AND IN EITHER CASE YOU WERE BELLIGERENT, AND READY TO DISOWN ANY FRIEND WHO DID NOT HATE THE ENEMY.

A condensed-milk plant was set afire--each side charged it to the other--and the city was hysterical.

And Babbitt chose this time to be publicly liberal.

He belonged to the sound, sane, right-thinking wing, and at first he agreed that the Crooked Agitators ought to be shot. He was sorry when his friend, Seneca Doane, defended arrested strikers, and he thought of going to Doane and explaining about these agitators, but when he read a broadside alleging that even on their former wages the telephone girls had been hungry, he was troubled. “All lies and fake figures”, he said, but in a doubtful croak.
For the Sunday after, the Chatham Road Presbyterian Church announced a sermon by Dr. John Jennison Drew on “How the Saviour Would End Strikes”. Babbitt had been negligent about church-going lately, but he went to the service, hopeful that Dr. Drew really did have the information as to what the divine powers thought about strikes. Beside Babbitt in the large, curving, glossy, velvet-upholstered pew was Chum Frink.

Frink whispered, “Hope the doc gives the strikers hell! Ordinarily, I don’t believe in a preacher butting into political matters--let him stick to straight religion and save souls, and not stir up a lot of discussion--but at a time like this, I do think he ought to stand right up and bawl out those plug-uglies to a fare-you-well!”

“Yes--well--” said Babbitt.

The Rev. Dr. Drew, his rustic bang flopping with the intensity of his poetic and sociologic ardor, trumpeted:

“During the untoward series of industrial dislocations which have--let us be courageous and admit it boldly--throttled the business life of our fair city these past days, there has been a great deal of loose talk about scientific prevention of scientific--SCIENTIFIC! Now, let me tell you that the most unscientific thing in the world is science! Take the attacks on the established fundamentals of the Christian creed which were so popular with the ‘scientists’ a generation ago. Oh, yes, they were mighty fellows, and great poo-bahs of criticism! They were going to destroy the church; they were going to prove the world was created and has been brought to its extraordinary level of morality and civilization by blind chance. Yet the church stands just as firmly to-day as ever, and the only answer a Christian pastor needs make to the long-haired opponents of his simple faith is just a pitying smile!

“And now these same ‘scientists’ want to replace the natural condition of free competition by crazy systems which, no matter by what high-sounding names they are called, are nothing but a despotic paternalism. Naturally, I’m not criticizing labor courts, injunctions against men proven to be striking unjustly, or those excellent unions in which the men and the boss get together. But I certainly am criticizing the systems in which the free and fluid motivation of independent labor is to be replaced by cooked-up wage-scales and minimum salaries and government commissions and labor federations and all that poppycock.

“WHAT IS NOT GENERALLY UNDERSTOOD IS THAT THIS WHOLE INDUSTRIAL MATTER ISN’T A QUESTION OF ECONOMICS. IT’S ESSENTIALLY AND ONLY A MATTER OF LOVE, AND OF THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION! IMAGINE A FACTORY--INSTEAD OF COMMITTEES OF WORKMEN ALIENATING THE BOSS, THE BOSS GOES AMONG THEM SMILING, AND THEY SMILE BACK, THE ELDER BROTHER AND THE YOUNGER. BROTHERS, THAT’S WHAT THEY MUST BE, LOVING BROTHERS, AND THEN STRIKES WOULD BE AS INCONCEIVABLE AS HATRED IN THE HOME!”

IT WAS AT THIS POINT THAT BABBITT MUTTERED, “OH, ROT!”

“Huh?” said Chum Frink.

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’s just as clear as mud. It doesn’t mean a darn thing”.
“Maybe, but--”

Frink looked at him doubtfully, through all the service kept glancing at him doubtfully, till Babbitt was nervous.

II

The strikers had announced a parade for Tuesday morning, but Colonel Nixon had forbidden it, the newspapers said. When Babbitt drove west from his office at ten that morning he saw a drove of shabby men heading toward the tangled, dirty district beyond Court House Square. He hated them, because they were poor, because they made him feel insecure “Damn loafers! Wouldn’t be common workmen if they had any pep”, he complained. He wondered if there was going to be a riot. He drove toward the starting-point of the parade, a triangle of limp and faded grass known as Moore Street Park, and halted his car.

The park and streets were buzzing with strikers, young men in blue denim shirts, old men with caps. Through them, keeping them stirred like a boiling pot, moved the militiamen. Babbitt could hear the soldiers’ monotonous orders: “Keep moving--move on, ‘bo--keep your feet warm!” Babbitt admired their stolid good temper. The crowd shouted, “Tin soldiers”, and “Dirty dogs--servants of the capitalists!” but the militiamen grinned and answered only, “Sure, that’s right. Keep moving, Billy!”

Babbitt thrilled over the citizen-soldiers, hated the scoundrels who were obstructing the pleasant ways of prosperity, admired Colonel Nixon’s striding contempt for the crowd; and as Captain Clarence Drum, that rather puffing shoe-dealer, came raging by, Babbitt respectfully clamored, “Great work, Captain! Don’t let ‘em march!” He watched the strikers filing from the park. Many of them bore posters with “They can’t stop our peacefully walking”. The militiamen tore away the posters, but the strikers fell in behind their leaders and straggled off, a thin unimpressive trickle between steel-glinting lines of soldiers. Babbitt saw with disappointment that there wasn’t going to be any violence, nothing interesting at all. Then he gasped.

Among the marchers, beside a bulky young workman, was Seneca Doane, smiling, content. In front of him was Professor Brockbank, head of the history department in the State University, an old man and white-bearded, known to come from a distinguished Massachusetts family.

“Why, gosh”, Babbitt marveled, “a swell like him in with the strikers? And good ole Senny Doane! They’re fools to get mixed up with this bunch. They’re parlor socialists! But they have got nerve. And nothing in it for them, not a cent! And--I don’t know ‘s ALL the strikers look like such tough nuts. Look just about like anybody else to me!”

The militiamen were turning the parade down a side street.

“They got just as much right to march as anybody else! They own the streets as much as Clarence Drum or the American Legion does!” Babbitt grumbled. “Of course, they’re--they’re a bad element, but--Oh, rats!”

At the Athletic Club, Babbitt was silent during lunch, while the others fretted, “I don’t know what the world’s coming to”, or solaced their spirits with “kidding”.

Captain Clarence Drum came swinging by, splendid in khaki.

“How’s it going, Captain?” inquired Vergil Gunch.

“Oh, we got ‘em stopped. We worked ‘em off on side streets and separated ‘em and they got discouraged and went home”.

“Fine work. No violence”.

“Fine work nothing!” groaned Mr. Drum. “If I had my way, there’d be a whole lot of violence, and I’d start it, and then the whole thing would be over. I don’t believe in standing back and wet-nursing these fellows and letting the disturbances drag on. I tell you these strikers are nothing in God’s world but a lot of bomb-throwing socialists and thugs, and the only way to handle ‘em is with a club! That’s what I’d do; beat up the whole lot of ‘em!”

Babbitt heard himself saying, “Oh, rats, Clarence, they look just about like you and me, and I certainly didn’t notice any bombs”.

Drum complained, “Oh, you didn’t, eh? Well, maybe you’d like to take charge of the strike! Just tell Colonel Nixon what innocents the strikers are! He’d be glad to hear about it!” Drum strode on, while all the table stared at Babbitt.

“What’s the idea? Do you want us to give those hell-hounds love and kisses, or what?” said Orville Jones.

“Do you defend a lot of hoodlums that are trying to take the bread and butter away from our families?” raged Professor Pumphrey.

Vergil Gunch intimidatingly said nothing. He put on sternness like a mask; his jaw was hard, his bristly short hair seemed cruel, his silence was a ferocious thunder. While the others assured Babbitt that they must have misunderstood him, Gunch looked as though he had understood only too well. Like a robed judge he listened to Babbitt’s stammering:

“No, sure; course they’re a bunch of toughs. But I just mean--Strikes me it’s bad policy to talk about clubbing ‘em. Cabe Nixon doesn’t. He’s got the fine Italian hand. And that’s why he’s colonel. Clarence Drum is jealous of him”.
“Well”, said Professor Pumphrey, “you hurt Clarence’s feelings, George. He’s been out there all morning getting hot and dusty, and no wonder he wants to beat the tar out of those sons of guns!”

Gunch said nothing, and watched; and Babbitt knew that he was being watched.

III

As he was leaving the club Babbitt heard Chum Frink protesting to Gunch, “--don’t know what’s got into him. Last Sunday Doc Drew preached a corking sermon about decency in business and Babbitt kicked about that, too. Near ‘s I can figure out--”

Babbitt was vaguely frightened.

IV

He saw a crowd listening to a man who was talking from the rostrum of a kitchen-chair. He stopped his car. From newspaper pictures he knew that the speaker must be the notorious freelance preacher, Beecher Ingram, of whom Seneca Doane had spoken. Ingram was a gaunt man with flamboyant hair, weather-beaten cheeks, and worried eyes. He was pleading:

“--if those telephone girls can hold out, living on one meal a day, doing their own washing, starving and smiling, you big hulking men ought to be able--”

Babbitt saw that from the sidewalk Vergil Gunch was watching him. In vague disquiet he started the car and mechanically drove on, while Gunch’s hostile eyes seemed to follow him all the way.

V

“There’s a lot of these fellows”, Babbitt was complaining to his wife, “that think if workmen go on strike they’re a regular bunch of fiends. Now, of course, it’s a fight between sound business and the destructive element, and we got to lick the stuffin’s out of ‘em when they challenge us, but doggoned if I see why we can’t fight like gentlemen and not go calling ‘em dirty dogs and saying they ought to be shot down”.

“Why, George”, she said placidly, “I thought you always insisted that all strikers ought to be put in jail”.

“I never did! Well, I mean--Some of ‘em, of course. Irresponsible leaders. But I mean a fellow ought to be broad-minded and liberal about things like--”

“But dearie, I thought you always said these so-called ‘liberal’ people were the worst of--”

“Rats! Woman never can understand the different definitions of a word. Depends on how you mean it. And it don’t pay to be too cocksure about anything. Now, these strikers: Honest, they’re not such bad people. Just foolish. They don’t understand the complications of merchandizing and profit, the way we business men do, but sometimes I think they’re about like the rest of us, and no more hogs for wages than we are for profits”.

“George! If people were to hear you talk like that--of course I KNOW you; I remember what a wild crazy boy you were; I know you don’t mean a word you say--but if people that didn’t understand you were to hear you talking, they’d think you were a regular socialist!”

“What do I care what anybody thinks? And let me tell you right now--I want you to distinctly understand I never was a wild crazy kid, and when I say a thing, I mean it, and I stand by it and--Honest, do you think people would think I was too liberal if I just said the strikers were decent?”

“Of course they would. But don’t worry, dear; I know you don’t mean a word of it. Time to trot up to bed now. Have you enough covers for to-night?”

On the sleeping-porch he puzzled, “She doesn’t understand me. Hardly understand myself. Why can’t I take things easy, way I used to?

“Wish I could go out to Senny Doane’s house and talk things over with him. No! Suppose Verg Gunch saw me going in there!

“Wish I knew some really smart woman, and nice, that would see what I’m trying to get at, and let me talk to her and--I wonder if Myra’s right? Could the fellows think I’ve gone nutty just because I’m broad-minded and liberal? Way Verg looked at me--”
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"Randy Babbitt" by Sinclair Lewis (1922): Chapter XXVI

home authors books short stories SHORT STORY OF THE DAY children’s section store

Library » SINCLAIR LEWIS » BABBITT › now reading, CHAPTER XXVI
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CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVI

I

As he walked through the train, looking for familiar faces, he saw only one person whom he knew, and that was Seneca Doane, the lawyer who, after the blessings of being in Babbitt’s own class at college and of becoming a corporation-counsel, had turned crank, had headed farmer-labor tickets and fraternized with admitted socialists. Though he was in rebellion, naturally Babbitt did not care to be seen talking with such a fanatic, but in all the Pullmans he could find no other acquaintance, and reluctantly he halted. Seneca Doane was a slight, thin-haired man, rather like Chum Frink except that he hadn’t Frink’s grin. He was reading a book called “The Way of All Flesh”. It looked religious to Babbitt, and he wondered if Doane could possibly have been converted and turned decent and patriotic.

“WHY, HELLO, DOANE”, HE SAID.

DOANE LOOKED UP. HIS VOICE WAS CURIOUSLY KIND. “OH! HOW DO, BABBITT”.

“BEEN AWAY, EH?”

“YES, I’VE BEEN IN WASHINGTON”.

“WASHINGTON, EH? HOW’S THE OLD GOVERNMENT MAKING OUT?”

“IT’S--WON’T YOU SIT DOWN?”

“Thanks. Don’t care if I do. Well, well! Been quite a while since I’ve had a good chance to talk to you, Doane. I was, uh--Sorry you didn’t turn up at the last class-dinner”.

“Oh-thanks”.

“How’s the unions coming? Going to run for mayor again?” Doane seemed restless. He was fingering the pages of his book. He said “I might” as though it didn’t mean anything in particular, and he smiled.

Babbitt liked that smile, and hunted for conversation: “Saw a bang-up cabaret in New York: the ‘Good-Morning Cutie’ bunch at the Hotel Minton”.

“Yes, they’re pretty girls. I danced there one evening”.

“Oh. Like dancing?”

“Naturally. I like dancing and pretty women and good food better than anything else in the world. Most men do”.

“But gosh, Doane, I thought you fellows wanted to take all the good eats and everything away from us”.

“No. Not at all. What I’d like to see is the meetings of the Garment Workers held at the Ritz, with a dance afterward. Isn’t that reasonable?”

“Yuh, might be good idea, all right. Well--Shame I haven’t seen more of you, recent years. Oh, say, hope you haven’t held it against me, my bucking you as mayor, going on the stump for Prout. You see, I’m an organization Republican, and I kind of felt--”
“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t fight me. I have no doubt you’re good for the Organization. I remember--in college you were an unusually liberal, sensitive chap. I can still recall your saying to me that you were going to be a lawyer, and take the cases of the poor for nothing, and fight the rich. And I remember I said I was going to be one of the rich myself, and buy paintings and live at Newport. I’m sure you inspired us all”.

“Well.... Well.... I’ve always aimed to be liberal”. Babbitt was enormously shy and proud and self-conscious; he tried to look like the boy he had been a quarter-century ago, and he shone upon his old friend Seneca Doane as he rumbled, “Trouble with a lot of these fellows, even the live wires and some of ‘em that think they’re forward-looking, is they aren’t broad-minded and liberal. Now, I always believe in giving the other fellow a chance, and listening to his ideas”.

“That’s fine”.

“Tell you how I figure it: A little opposition is good for all of us, so a fellow, especially if he’s a business man and engaged in doing the work of the world, ought to be liberal”.

“Yes--”

“I always say a fellow ought to have Vision and Ideals. I guess some of the fellows in my business think I’m pretty visionary, but I just let ‘em think what they want to and go right on--same as you do.... By golly, this is nice to have a chance to sit and visit and kind of, you might say, brush up on our ideals”.

“BUT OF COURSE WE VISIONARIES DO RATHER GET BEATEN. DOESN’T IT BOTHER YOU?”

“Not a bit! Nobody can dictate to me what I think!”

“You’re the man I want to help me. I want you to talk to some of the business men and try to make them a little more liberal in their attitude toward poor Beecher Ingram”.

“Ingram? But, why, he’s this nut preacher that got kicked out of the Congregationalist Church, isn’t he, and preaches free love and sedition?”

This, Doane explained, was indeed the general conception of Beecher Ingram, but he himself saw Beecher Ingram as a priest of the brotherhood of man, of which Babbitt was notoriously an upholder. So would Babbitt keep his acquaintances from hounding Ingram and his forlorn little church?

“You bet! I’ll call down any of the boys I hear getting funny about Ingram”, Babbitt said affectionately to his dear friend Doane.

Doane warmed up and became reminiscent. He spoke of student days in Germany, of lobbying for single tax in Washington, of international labor conferences. He mentioned his friends, Lord Wycombe, Colonel Wedgwood, Professor Piccoli. Babbitt had always supposed that Doane associated only with the I. W. W., but now he nodded gravely, as one who knew Lord Wycombes by the score, and he got in two references to Sir Gerald Doak. He felt daring and idealistic and cosmopolitan.

Suddenly, in his new spiritual grandeur, he was sorry for Zilla Riesling, and understood her as these ordinary fellows at the Boosters’ Club never could.

II

Five hours after he had arrived in Zenith and told his wife how hot it was in New York, he went to call on Zilla. He was buzzing with ideas and forgiveness. He’d get Paul released; he’d do things, vague but highly benevolent things, for Zilla; he’d be as generous as his friend Seneca Doane.

He had not seen Zilla since Paul had shot her, and he still pictured her as buxom, high-colored, lively, and a little blowsy. As he drove up to her boarding-house, in a depressing back street below the wholesale district, he stopped in discomfort. At an upper window, leaning on her elbow, was a woman with the features of Zilla, but she was bloodless and aged, like a yellowed wad of old paper crumpled into wrinkles. Where Zilla had bounced and jiggled, this woman was dreadfully still.

He waited half an hour before she came into the boarding-house parlor. Fifty times he opened the book of photographs of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, fifty times he looked at the picture of the Court of Honor.

He was startled to find Zilla in the room. She wore a black streaky gown which she had tried to brighten with a girdle of crimson ribbon. The ribbon had been torn and patiently mended. He noted this carefully, because he did not wish to look at her shoulders. One shoulder was lower than the other; one arm she carried in contorted fashion, as though it were paralyzed; and behind a high collar of cheap lace there was a gouge in the anemic neck which had once been shining and softly plump.
“Yes?” she said.

“Well, well, old Zilla! By golly, it’s good to see you again!”

“He can send his messages through a lawyer”.

“Why, rats, Zilla, I didn’t come just because of him. Came as an old friend”.

“You waited long enough!”

“Well, you know how it is. Figured you wouldn’t want to see a friend of his for quite some time and--Sit down, honey! Let’s be sensible. We’ve all of us done a bunch of things that we hadn’t ought to, but maybe we can sort of start over again. Honest, Zilla, I’d like to do something to make you both happy. Know what I thought to-day? Mind you, Paul doesn’t know a thing about this--doesn’t know I was going to come see you. I got to thinking: Zilla’s a fine? big-hearted woman, and she’ll understand that, uh, Paul’s had his lesson now. Why wouldn’t it be a fine idea if you asked the governor to pardon him? Believe he would, if it came from you. No! Wait! Just think how good you’d feel if you were generous”.

“Yes, I wish to be generous”. She was sitting primly, speaking icily. “FOR THAT REASON I WISH TO KEEP HIM IN PRISON, AS AN EXAMPLE TO EVIL-DOERS. I’ve gotten religion, George, since the terrible thing that man did to me. Sometimes I used to be unkind, and I wished for worldly pleasures, for dancing and the theater. But when I was in the hospital the pastor of the Pentecostal Communion Faith used to come to see me, and he showed me, right from the prophecies written in the Word of God, that the Day of Judgment is coming and all the members of the older churches are going straight to eternal damnation, because they only do lip-service and swallow the world, the flesh, and the devil--”

For fifteen wild minutes she talked, pouring out admonitions to flee the wrath to come, and her face flushed, her dead voice recaptured something of the shrill energy of the old Zilla. She wound up with a furious:

“IT’S THE BLESSING OF GOD HIMSELF THAT PAUL SHOULD BE IN PRISON NOW, and torn and humbled by punishment, so that he may yet save his soul, and so other wicked men, these horrible chasers after women and lust, may have an example”.

Babbitt had itched and twisted. As in church he dared not move during the sermon so now he felt that he must seem attentive, though her screeching denunciations flew past him like carrion birds.

He sought to be calm and brotherly:

“Yes, I know, Zilla. But gosh, it certainly is the essence of religion to be charitable, isn’t it? Let me tell you how I figure it: What we need in the world is liberalism, liberality, if we’re going to get anywhere. I’ve always believed in being broad-minded and liberal--”

“YOU? LIBERAL?” IT WAS VERY MUCH THE OLD ZILLA. “WHY, GEORGE BABBITT, YOU’RE ABOUT AS BROAD-MINDED AND LIBERAL AS A RAZOR-BLADE!”

“Oh, I am, am I! Well, just let me tell you, just--let me--tell--you, I’m as by golly liberal as you are religious, anyway! YOU RELIGIOUS!”

“I am so! Our pastor says I sustain him in the faith!”

“I’ll bet you do! With Paul’s money! But just to show you how liberal I am, I’m going to send a check for ten bucks to this Beecher Ingram, because a lot of fellows are saying the poor cuss preaches sedition and free love, and they’re trying to run him out of town”.

“And they’re right! They ought to run him out of town! Why, he preaches--if you can call it preaching--in a theater, in the House of Satan! You don’t know what it is to find God, to find peace, to behold the snares that the devil spreads out for our feet. Oh, I’m so glad to see the mysterious purposes of God in having Paul harm me and stop my wickedness--and Paul’s getting his, good and plenty, for the cruel things he did to me, and I hope he DIES in prison!”

BABBITT WAS UP, HAT IN HAND, GROWLING, “WELL, IF THAT’S WHAT YOU CALL BEING AT PEACE, FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE JUST WARN ME BEFORE YOU GO TO WAR, WILL YOU?”

III
Vast is the power of cities to reclaim the wanderer. More than mountains or the shore-devouring sea, a city retains its character, imperturbable, cynical, holding behind apparent changes its essential purpose. Though Babbitt had deserted his family and dwelt with Joe Paradise in the wilderness, though he had become a liberal, though he had been quite sure, on the night before he reached Zenith, that neither he nor the city would be the same again, ten days after his return he could not believe that he had ever been away. Nor was it at all evident to his acquaintances that there was a new George F. Babbitt, save that he was more irritable under the incessant chaffing at the Athletic Club, and once, when Vergil Gunch observed that Seneca Doane ought to be hanged, Babbitt snorted, “Oh, rats, he’s not so bad”.

At home he grunted “Eh?” across the newspaper to his commentatory wife, and was delighted by Tinka’s new red tam o’shanter, and announced, “No class to that corrugated iron garage. Have to build me a nice frame one”.

Verona and Kenneth Escott appeared really to be engaged. In his newspaper Escott had conducted a pure-food crusade against commission-houses. As a result he had been given an excellent job in a commission-house, and he was making a salary on which he could marry, and denouncing irresponsible reporters who wrote stories criticizing commission-houses without knowing what they were talking about.

This September Ted had entered the State University as a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. The university was at Mohalis only fifteen miles from Zenith, and Ted often came down for the week-end. Babbitt was worried. Ted was “going in for” everything but books. He had tried to “make” the football team as a light half-back, he was looking forward to the basket-ball season, he was on the committee for the Freshman Hop, and (as a Zenithite, an aristocrat among the yokels) he was being “rushed” by two fraternities. But of his studies Babbitt could learn nothing save a mumbled, “Oh, gosh, these old stiffs of teachers just give you a lot of junk about literature and economics”.

One week-end Ted proposed, “Say, Dad, why can’t I transfer over from the College to the School of Engineering and take mechanical engineering? You always holler that I never study, but honest, I would study there”.

“No, the Engineering School hasn’t got the standing the College has”, fretted Babbitt.

“I’d like to know how it hasn’t! The Engineers can play on any of the teams!”

There was much explanation of the “dollars-and-cents value of being known as a college man when you go into the law”, and a truly oratorical account of the lawyer’s life. Before he was through with it, Babbitt had Ted a United States Senator.

Among the great lawyers whom he mentioned was Seneca Doane.

“But, gee whiz”, Ted marveled, “I thought you always said this Doane was a reg’lar nut!”

“That’s no way to speak of a great man! Doane’s always been a good friend of mine--fact I helped him in college--I started him out and you might say inspired him. Just because he’s sympathetic with the aims of Labor, a lot of chumps that lack liberality and broad-mindedness think he’s a crank, but let me tell you there’s mighty few of ‘em that rake in the fees he does, and he’s a friend of some of the strongest; most conservative men in the world--like Lord Wycombe, this, uh, this big English nobleman that’s so well known. And you now, which would you rather do: be in with a lot of greasy mechanics and laboring-men, or chum up to a real fellow like Lord Wycombe, and get invited to his house for parties?”

“Well--gosh”, sighed Ted.

THE NEXT WEEK-END HE CAME IN JOYOUSLY WITH, “SAY, DAD, WHY COULDN’T I TAKE MINING ENGINEERING INSTEAD OF THE ACADEMIC COURSE? You talk about standing--maybe there isn’t much in mechanical engineering, but the Miners, gee, they got seven out of eleven in the new elections to Nu Tau Tau!”
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Randy Babbitt's FAA E-Mail Address And Contact Information - Confirmed!

From our Quiet Rockland friend Debra Fried:

Dear John:

Randy.Babbitt@faa.gov

is Randy Babbitt's correct e-mail address at FAA. The fax number for Randy Babbitt at FAA is:

1-202-267-5047

Below is what is going into mailboxes of Rockland County residents this week. Best,
Debra

- - - - -

Dear Neighbor,

Did you hear the planes on July 5th?
We did! Flying all day long over our homes, from morning to night.

This is what the FAA’s NY/NJ/PHL (New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia) Airspace Redesign is about. It can, and will, only get worse. Their ill-conceived plan to send 200 to 600 planes a day
over our heads is only just now being put into effect.

As you probably know, County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef and Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Attorney General, are committed to appealing the recent decision by the D.C. Circuit Court. The initial ruling of the D.C. Circuit let the FAA's plan stand. Yet a long list of representatives in NY, NJ, CT, DE and PA continue to oppose the FAA's plan.

But the FAA also needs to hear from us. The community needs to stand together and put pressure on the new acting head of the FAA, Randy Babbitt. Please take action. Give a few minutes of your time to send an e-mail to Randy Babbitt at one or more of the addresses below:

Randy.Babbitt@faa.gov

Randy.Babbitt@OliverWyman.com

rbabbitt@eclatconsulting.com

Randy Babbitt's fax number at FAA:

1-202-267-5047

Postal mail:

J. Randolph Babbitt – Office of the Administrator
Orville Wright Bldg. (FOB10A)
Routing Code AOA–001, Room #1015
FAA National Headquarters
800 Independence Ave., SW
Washington, DC 20591 USA

*And please feel free to copy this flyer and distribute it if you wish.
- - - - -

Debra, thank you for the above. The contact points which Quiet Rockland has been using for Randy Babbitt, are as follows:
VIA E-MAIL:

Randolph.babbitt@faa.gov

Randy.Babbitt@faa.gov

Drop-out@faa.gov

and U.S. MAIL

J. Randolph (Randy) Babbitt, Administrator
Office of the Administrator
U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT)
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
Orville Wright Building (FOB10A)
Routing Code AOA-001, Room #1015
FAA National Headquarters
800 Independence Ave., SW
Washington, DC 20591 USA

VIA E-MAIL:

Randy.Babbitt@OliverWyman.com

and U.S. MAIL
J. Randolph (Randy) Babbitt
c/o Oliver Wyman
10780 Parkridge Boulevard, Suite 75
Reston, VA 20191 USA

VIA E-MAIL:

rbabbitt@eclatconsulting.com

FAX: 1-703-773-3119, and U.S. MAIL
J. Randolph (Randy) Babbitt, President
Eclat Consulting, Inc.
10780 Parkridge Boulevard, Suite 75
Reston, Virginia 20191 USA
VIA U.S. MAIL
J. Randolph (Randy) Babbitt
1923 Lakeport Way
Reston, VA 20191 USA

Traveling East: Quiet Rockland Is Grateful For The Leadership Of Westchester NY County Executive, Honorable Andrew J. Spano

Here in the State of New York, our friend and colleague to the East,Westchester County Executive Andrew J. Spano, has been a consistent and very public opponent of the FAA’s awful “NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign”, from the earliest days.

That same opposition continues.
At:
http://www.westchestergov.com/transportation

you will find Westchester County’s June 22, 2006 Press Release and letter of opposition, to FAA.
At the link:
http://www.westchestergov.com/postcard/

you will find a draft template postcard facilitating citizen comment to FAA regarding the Redesign. At this same link you will also find a copy of a Harris Miller Miller & Hanson Inc. (HMMH) June 8, 2006 Memorandum, funded by Westchester County, analyzing the FAA DEIS and identifying its serious flaws.

This early and vocal opposition by County Executive Spano and Westchester County continued, with additional HMMH analyses (also attached below); public statements of opposition throughout the FAA’s so-called “environmental review” of the NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign; attendance by Westchester County representatives at two FAA public meetings on the proposal; opposition letters to Westchester County’s Congressional delegation; and cooperation with the GAO in its review of the FAA’s NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign plan. This extensive opposition work by the County Executive has been cited by knowledgeable Westchester County residents, elected officials, and others, as having been very helpful in opposition to the FAA’s foul Redesign proposal overall.

In his July 16, 2007 letter to the FAA, Westchester County Executive Andy Spano said:

“This new [FAA] flight plan would have unacceptable impacts on Westchester. We have taken many steps over the past eight years to mitigate aircraft noise and this proposal would only take us backward”. (A copy of the complete letter is also attached below).
That statement continues to reflect Andy Spano’s opinion, and the position of the Westchester County Executive.

Quiet Rockland again thanks our friend Westchester County Executive Andy Spano, for his forceful actions and leadership. We also thank Mr. Robert Funicello, Westchester County’s Environmental Project Director; Westchester County Legislator John Nonna – and Mr. Spano’s, Mr. Funicello’s, and Mr. Nonna's respective colleagues and staffs.

Together we will shine the light upon, and beat, the FAA.
June 23, 2006
Spano Calls FAA Proposal To Re-Route Aircraft Using Westchester County Airport Unacceptable And A Potential Security Risk

Flights Over Indian Point And Noise In Residential Areas, Are Main Concerns

TELL THE FAA WHAT YOU THINK BY SENDING AN EMAIL

A proposal from the FAA to reroute planes taking off from the Westchester County NY Airport is unacceptable not only because hundreds of thousands of people would be affected by noise, but also because of the “significant” security risk of planes flying directly over the Indian Point nuclear power plant facility in Buchanan, according to County Executive Andy Spano.

In a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration, Spano said he had “grave concerns” about the adequacy and content of a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) and urged the agency to return to the drawing-board and prepare a supplemental DEIS that addresses and clarifies all relevant issues. To do otherwise, he said, would make any FAA action invalid.

The Spano Administration has prided itself on having a “good neighbor policy” for the airport, which means the county has taken many steps over the last eight years, often working with the FAA and with the airlines, to mitigate aircraft noise around the airport.

“Precipitous reassignment of air traffic without the legally required level of review is unacceptable and could undo decades of hard work and good will”, Spano said in his letter to the FAA’s Steve Kelley. A copy of the letter was also sent to Westchester’s federal delegation.

Spano said the following communities would be affected adversely by new noise patterns if the FAA proposal is adopted: Rye Brook, Hawthorne, Pleasantville, Briarcliff, Croton, Ossining, Buchanan, Peekskill, Yonkers, Scarsdale, and Hastings-on-Hudson.

He added, “Incredibly, it appears that many of the aircraft departing HPN [the Westchester County Airport] will now be routed directly over the nuclear power plan at Indian Point, a possibility we view as a significant security risk that is not acceptable and must be avoided”.
Board of Legislators Majority Leader Martin Rogowsky concurred, saying, “The FAA cannot proceed with the preparation of a Final EIS based on this document. This draft is flawed to the point that any decisions based on it will only invite legal challenges. The FAA would be doing the right thing by using our comments, and the comments of others, as the basis for preparing a supplemental draft EIS that more adequately presents the data necessary for reasonable people to use as the basis for offering comments”.

The County Executive attached to his letter to the FAA a detailed analysis of the proposed flight plans, prepared by the County’s airport noise consultants. He also provided the FAA with a summary of the County’s ongoing efforts to abate noise from the airport since 1998.

Among the steps:

The County has installed permanent noise monitors and expanded its “noise office” into a full environmental department.

The County has worked with local governments and residents to make sure that the noise monitors provide comprehensive geographic coverage.

The County’s noise-abatement program is ongoing, with millions of dollars in airport revenues spent to identify, evaluate avoid and mitigate any noise problems.

The County will soon unveil a website from which the public will be able to send “electronic postcards” to the FAA on the matter.

TEXT OF THE LETTER FROM COUNTY EXECUTIVE SPANO TO STEVE KELLEY
June 22, 2006

Mr. Steve Kelley, FAA-NAR
c/o Ram Nagendran
12005 Sunrise Valley Drive, C3.02
Reston, VA 20191

Dear Mr. Kelley:

I am writing as the Chief Elected Official of Westchester County to state my great concern over both the content and the adequacy of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) regarding the New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia Metropolitan Area Airspace Redesign.

As you are aware, the primary purpose of the DEIS under the National Environmental Policy Act is to provide interested and affected parties adequate information upon which to fairly evaluate and make informed comments about a proposed action. As it concerns the potential noise impacts on hundreds of thousands of interested and affected people in Westchester, this draft utterly fails to achieve that goal.

For that reason I have no alternative other than to strongly oppose the recommended “2011 Integrated Airspace Alternative Variation with Integrated Control Complex (ICC)”, and to urge you to prepare a Supplemental DEIS clarifying the relevant issues. Implementing the alternative without the supplemental DEIS would violate your own procedures and thus make your action invalid.

As both the area government and the sponsor of the Westchester County Airport, Westchester has a long history of cooperative effort with the aviation industry and the FAA to minimize noise impacts of air traffic. The extensive noise monitoring effort managed by the airport and the airport-sponsored noise abatement procedure program are evidence of that commitment. The data provided by the monitoring system and the continued reduction of the airport’s noise contours testify to its success.

Now, precipitous reassignment of air traffic without the legally required level of review is unacceptable and could undo decades of hard work and good will.

Our analysis of the limited data indicates that the proposed re-direction of aircraft leaving the County Airport will have significant impact on a portion of the Village of Rye Brook and on the corridor of communities beginning at Hawthorne and running northeast through Pleasantville, Briarcliff, Ossining, Croton, Buchanan and parts of the City of Peekskill. It will have potentially significant impacts on the City of Yonkers, Scarsdale, and Hastings-on-Hudson.

Incredibly, it appears that many of the aircraft departing HPN will now be routed directly over the nuclear power plant at Indian Point, a possibility we view as a significant security risk that is not acceptable and must be avoided.

Because of our grave concern, I directed the firm of Harris Miller Miller & Hanson, airport noise consultants, to review the DEIS. Enclosed is their memorandum identifying in detail the deficiencies of the DEIS with regard to our community. I have also enclosed for your information a brief description of the County’s historical and ongoing commitment to noise abatement. They deserve your serious review and appropriate follow up action in the form of a Supplemental Statement.

I look forward to your prompt reply.

Sincerely,

Andrew J. Spano
County Executive
http://www.westchestergov.com/

*****************************************************************

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 18, 2007

SPANO CRITICIZES FAA PROPOSAL TO RE-ROUTE AIRCRAFT USING COUNTY AIRPORT

Says Plans Is Unacceptable; Noise In Residential Areas A Main Concern

County Executive Andy Spano has notified the Federal Aviation Administration that its latest proposal to reroute planes operating at the Westchester County NY Airport is still unacceptable and must be changed.

In a letter to the FAA, Spano says that the proposed reassignment of air traffic “could undo decades of hard work, public understanding, and good will, and is unacceptable”. A copy of the letter was also sent to Westchester’s federal delegation.

Hundreds of thousands of people could be affected by noise if the routes are changed – but exactly who and to what extent remains unclear, Spano said. This is because the FAA failed to release detailed information needed to fully understand and comment upon the noise impacts until May 9, 2007, two days before the comment period closed. The County’s consultants have advised the County that they will need another month to evaluate the voluminous data that the county was just given.

In his letter, the County Executive complains that the FAA is focused on comparing its first plan to its second plan – as opposed to comparing the latest plan to current practices.

The Spano Administration has prided itself on having a “good neighbor policy” for its airport, which means the county has taken many steps over the last eight years, often working with the FAA and with the airlines, to mitigate aircraft noise around the airport.

In his letter to the FAA, Spano said he continued to have “grave concerns” about the adequacy and content of a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) on the airspace redesign and again urged the agency to return to the drawing board and prepare a supplemental DEIS that addresses and clarifies all relevant issues. He also requested an extension of the comment period – something the FAA has so far failed to do. “To not issue a supplemental DEIS and to not extend the comment period is disgraceful”, he said.

The County Executive attached to his letter a detailed analysis of the Noise Mitigation Report, prepared by the County’s airport noise consultants. But the County’s noise consultants in two days could not review the voluminous noise data released only at the last minute by the FAA.

Last summer Spano first expressed “great concern over both the content and the adequacy” of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) regarding the FAA’s New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia Metropolitan Area Airspace Redesign. At that time he urged the FAA to release all the information regarding noise impacts necessary for informed public comment and thereafter to issue a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) to allow meaningful public input.

In April 2007 the FAA, issued a Noise Mitigation Report for the New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia Metropolitan Area Airspace Redesign project and announced it was proposing the “2001 Integrated Airspace Mitigated Preferred Alternative Variation with Integrated Control Complex (ICC)” as its preferred alternative. It allowed one month – until May 11, 2007 – for public comment. It has indicated it will not issue a Supplemental DEIS.

"Randy Babbitt" by Sinclair Lewis (1922): Chapter XXV

American Literature

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CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXV

I

HE awoke to stretch cheerfully as he listened to the sparrows, then to remember that everything was wrong; that he was determined to go astray, and not in the least enjoying the process. WHY, HE WONDERED, SHOULD HE BE IN REBELLION? WHAT WAS IT ALL ABOUT? “Why not be sensible; stop all this idiotic running around, and enjoy himself with his family, his business, the fellows at the club?” What was he getting out of rebellion? Misery and shame--the shame of being treated as an offensive small boy by a ragamuffin like Ida Putiak! And yet--Always he came back to “And yet”. Whatever the misery, he could not regain contentment with a world which, once doubted, became absurd.

ONLY, HE ASSURED HIMSELF, HE WAS “THROUGH WITH THIS CHASING AFTER GIRLS”.
By noontime he was not so sure even of that. If in Miss McGoun, Louetta Swanson, and Ida he had failed to find the lady kind and lovely, it did not prove that she did not exist. He was hunted by the ancient thought that somewhere must exist the not impossible she who would understand him, value him, and make him happy.

II

Mrs. Babbitt returned in August.

On her previous absences he had missed her reassuring buzz and of her arrival he had made a fete. Now, though he dared not hurt her by letting a hint of it appear in his letters, he was sorry that she was coming before he had found himself, and he was embarrassed by the need of meeting her and looking joyful.

He loitered down to the station; he studied the summer-resort posters, lest he have to speak to acquaintances and expose his uneasiness. But he was well trained. When the train clanked in he was out on the cement platform, peering into the chair-cars, and as he saw her in the line of passengers moving toward the vestibule he waved his hat. At the door he embraced her, and announced, “Well, well, well, well, by golly, you look fine, you look fine”. Then he was aware of Tinka. Here was something, this child with her absurd little nose and lively eyes, that loved him, believed him great, and as he clasped her, lifted and held her till she squealed, he was for the moment come back to his old steady self.

Tinka sat beside him in the car, with one hand on the steering-wheel, pretending to help him drive, and he shouted back to his wife, “I’ll bet the kid will be the best chuffer in the family! She holds the wheel like an old professional!”

All the while he was dreading the moment when he would be alone with his wife and she would patiently expect him to be ardent.
III

There was about the house an unofficial theory that he was to take his vacation alone, to spend a week or ten days in Catawba, but he was nagged by the memory that a year ago he had been with Paul in Maine. He saw himself returning; finding peace there, and the presence of Paul, in a life primitive and heroic. Like a shock came the thought that he actually could go. Only, he couldn’t, really; he couldn’t leave his business, and “Myra would think it sort of funny, his going way off there alone. Course he’d decided to do whatever he darned pleased, from now on, but still--to go way off to Maine!”

He went, after lengthy meditations.

With his wife, since it was inconceivable to explain that he was going to seek Paul’s spirit in the wilderness, he frugally employed the lie prepared over a year ago and scarcely used at all. He said that he had to see a man in New York on business. He could not have explained even to himself why he drew from the bank several hundred dollars more than he needed, nor why he kissed Tinka so tenderly, and cried, “God bless you, baby!” From the train he waved to her till she was but a scarlet spot beside the brown bulkier presence of Mrs. Babbitt, at the end of a steel and cement aisle ending in vast barred gates. With melancholy he looked back at the last suburb of Zenith.

All the way north he pictured the Maine guides: simple and strong and daring, jolly as they played stud-poker in their unceiled shack, wise in woodcraft as they tramped the forest and shot the rapids. He particularly remembered Joe Paradise, half Yankee, half Indian. If he could but take up a backwoods claim with a man like Joe, work hard with his hands, be free and noisy in a flannel shirt, and never come back to this dull decency!

Or, like a trapper in a Northern Canada movie, plunge through the forest, make camp in the Rockies, a grim and wordless caveman! Why not? He COULD do it! There’d be enough money at home for the family to live on till Verona was married and Ted self-supporting. Old Henry T. would look out for them. Honestly! Why NOT? Really LIVE--

He longed for it, admitted that he longed for it, then almost believed that he was going lo do it. Whenever common sense snorted, “Nonsense! Folks don’t run away from decent families and partners; just simply don’t do it, that’s all!” then Babbitt answered pleadingly, “Well, it wouldn’t take any more nerve than for Paul to go to jail and--Lord, how I’d’ like to do it! Moccasins-six-gun-frontier town-gamblers--sleep under the stars--be a regular man, with he-men like Joe Paradise--gosh!”

So he came to Maine, again stood on the wharf before the camp-hotel, again spat heroically into the delicate and shivering water, while the pines rustled, the mountains glowed, and a trout leaped and fell in a sliding circle. He hurried to the guides’ shack as to his real home, his real friends, long missed. They would be glad to see him. They would stand up and shout? “Why, here’s Mr. Babbitt! He ain’t one of these ordinary sports! He’s a real guy!”

In their boarded and rather littered cabin the guides sat about the greasy table playing stud-poker with greasy cards: half a dozen wrinkled men in old trousers and easy old felt hats. They glanced up and nodded. Joe Paradise, the swart aging man with the big mustache, grunted, “How do. Back again?”

Silence, except for the clatter of chips.

Babbitt stood beside them, very lonely. He hinted, after a period of highly concentrated playing, “Guess I might take a hand, Joe”.
“Sure. Sit in. How many chips you want? Let’s see; you were here with your wife, last year, wa’n’t you?” said Joe Paradise.

That was all of Babbitt’s welcome to the old home.

He played for half an hour before he spoke again. His head was reeking with the smoke of pipes and cheap cigars, and he was weary of pairs and four-flushes, resentful of the way in which they ignored him. He flung at Joe:

“Working now?”

“Nope”.

“Like to guide me for a few days?”

“Well, jus’ soon. I ain’t engaged till next week”.

Only thus did Joe recognize the friendship Babbitt was offering him. Babbitt paid up his losses and left the shack rather childishly. Joe raised his head from the coils of smoke like a seal rising from surf, grunted, “I’ll come ‘round t’morrow”, and dived down to his three aces.

Neither in his voiceless cabin, fragrant with planks of new-cut pine, nor along the lake, nor in the sunset clouds which presently eddied behind the lavender-misted mountains, could Babbitt find the spirit of Paul as a reassuring presence. He was so lonely that after supper he stopped to talk with an ancient old lady, a gasping and steadily discoursing old lady, by the stove in the hotel-office. He told her of Ted’s presumable future triumphs in the State University and of Tinka’s remarkable vocabulary till he was homesick for the home he had left forever.
Through the darkness, through that Northern pine-walled silence, he blundered down to the lake-front and found a canoe. There were no paddles in it but with a board, sitting awkwardly amidships and poking at the water rather than paddling, he made his way far out on the lake. The lights of the hotel and the cottages became yellow dots, a cluster of glow-worms at the base of Sachem Mountain. Larger and ever more imperturbable was the mountain in the star-filtered darkness, and the lake a limitless pavement of black marble. He was dwarfed and dumb and a little awed, but that insignificance freed him from the pomposities of being Mr. George F. Babbitt of Zenith; saddened and freed his heart. Now he was conscious of the presence of Paul, fancied him (rescued from prison, from Zilla and the brisk exactitudes of the tar-roofing business) playing his violin at the end of the canoe. He vowed, “I will go on! I’ll never go back! Now that Paul’s out of it, I don’t want to see any of those damn people again! I was a fool to get sore because Joe Paradise didn’t jump up and hug me. He’s one of these woodsmen; too wise to go yelping and talking your arm off like a cityman. But get him back in the mountains, out on the trail--! That’s real living!”

IV

Joe reported at Babbitt’s cabin at nine the next morning. Babbitt greeted him as a fellow caveman:

“Well, Joe, how d’ you feel about hitting the trail, and getting away from these darn soft summerites and these women and all?”

“All right, Mr. Babbitt”.

“What do you say we go over to Box Car Pond--they tell me the shack there isn’t being used--and camp out?”

“Well, all right, Mr. Babbitt, but it’s nearer to Skowtuit Pond, and you can get just about as good fishing there”.

“No, I want to get into the real wilds”.

“Well, all right”.

“We’ll put the old packs on our backs and get into the woods and really hike”.

“I think maybe it would be easier to go by water, through Lake Chogue. We can go all the way by motor boat--flat-bottom boat with an Evinrude”.

“No, sir! Bust up the quiet with a chugging motor? Not on your life! You just throw a pair of socks in the old pack, and tell ‘em what you want for eats. I’ll be ready soon ‘s you are”.

“Most of the sports go by boat, Mr. Babbitt. It’s a long walk.

“Look here, Joe: are you objecting to walking?”

“Oh, no, I guess I can do it. But I haven’t tramped that far for sixteen years. Most of the sports go by boat. But I can do it if you say so--I guess”. Joe walked away in sadness.

Babbitt had recovered from his touchy wrath before Joe returned. He pictured him as warming up and telling the most entertaining stories. But Joe had not yet warmed up when they took the trail. He persistently kept behind Babbitt, and however much his shoulders ached from the pack, however sorely he panted, Babbitt could hear his guide panting equally. But the trail was satisfying: a path brown with pine-needles and rough with roots, among the balsams, the ferns, the sudden groves of white birch. He became credulous again, and rejoiced in sweating. When he stopped to rest he chuckled, “Guess we’re hitting it up pretty good for a couple o’ old birds, eh?”

“Uh-huh”, admitted Joe.
“This is a mighty pretty place. Look, you can see the lake down through the trees. I tell you, Joe, you don’t appreciate how lucky you are to live in woods like this, instead of a city with trolleys grinding and typewriters clacking and people bothering the life out of you all the time! I wish I knew the woods like you do. Say, what’s the name of that little red flower?”

Rubbing his back, Joe regarded the flower resentfully “Well, some folks call it one thing and some calls it another I always just call it Pink Flower”.

Babbitt blessedly ceased thinking as tramping turned into blind plodding. He was submerged in weariness. His plump legs seemed to go on by themselves, without guidance, and he mechanically wiped away the sweat which stung his eyes. He was too tired to be consciously glad as, after a sun-scourged mile of corduroy tote-road through a swamp where flies hovered over a hot waste of brush, they reached the cool shore of Box Car Pond. When he lifted the pack from his back he staggered from the change in balance, and for a moment could not stand erect. He lay beneath an ample-bosomed maple tree near the guest-shack, and joyously felt sleep running through his veins.

He awoke toward dusk, to find Joe efficiently cooking bacon and eggs and flapjacks for supper, and his admiration of the woodsman returned. He sat on a stump and felt virile.

“Joe, what would you do if you had a lot of money? Would you stick to guiding, or would you take a claim ‘way back in the woods and be independent of people?”

For the first time Joe brightened. He chewed his cud a second, and bubbled, “I’ve often thought of that! If I had the money, I’d go down to Tinker’s Falls and open a swell shoe store”.

After supper Joe proposed a game of stud-poker but Babbitt refused with brevity, and Joe contentedly went to bed at eight. Babbitt sat on the stump, facing the dark pond, slapping mosquitos. Save the snoring guide, there was no other human being within ten miles. He was lonelier than he had ever been in his life. Then he was in Zenith.

He was worrying as to whether Miss McGoun wasn’t paying too much for carbon paper. He was at once resenting and missing the persistent teasing at the Roughnecks’ Table. He was wondering what Zilla Riesling was doing now. He was wondering whether, after the summer’s maturity of being a garageman, Ted would “get busy” in the university. He was thinking of his wife. “If she would only--if she wouldn’t be so darn satisfied with just settling down--No! I won’t! I won’t go back! I’ll be fifty in three years. Sixty in thirteen years. I’m going to have some fun before it’s too late. I don’t care! I will!”

He thought of Ida Putiak, of Louetta Swanson, of that nice widow--what was her name?--Tanis Judique?--the one for whom he’d found the flat. He was enmeshed in imaginary conversations. Then:

“Gee, I can’t seem to get away from thinking about folks!”

THUS IT CAME TO HIM MERELY TO RUN AWAY WAS FOLLY, BECAUSE HE COULD NEVER RUN AWAY FROM HIMSELF.

That moment he started for Zenith. In his journey there was no appearance of flight, but he was fleeing, and four days afterward he was on the Zenith train. He knew that he was slinking back not because it was what he longed to do but because it was all he could do. He scanned again his discovery that he could never run away from Zenith and family and office, because in his own brain he bore the office and the family and every street and disquiet and illusion of Zenith.

“BUT I’M GOING TO--OH, I’M GOING TO START SOMETHING!” HE VOWED, AND HE TRIED TO MAKE IT VALIANT.
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