*   *   *   *   *

My Country ‘Tis of Thee….

Friends, Americans, country-persons, I come to thee with (I hope), impertinence and profundity to expound on four subjects that, in my mind, are in some important (enigmatic?) way interrelated: 1. Existentialism; 2. Abraham Lincoln; 3. Jean Shepherd; 4. Our Current National Dilemma.

*   *   *   *   *

1.

EXISTENTIALISM

I’m not an expert on existentialism, but I’ve read, heard, and contemplated it a bit. (And for decades I had a hard-bound copy of J. P. Sartre’s over 800-page opus, Being and Nothingness. I admit to never getting around to reading it.) But I’ve read a lot of existentialism’s American adherent, Norman Mailer.

These days one reads and hears from considered experts, such phrases as: “Facing an existential threat.” I believe they mostly misunderstand and trivialize the word, seeming to use it as a synonym for “very serious.” That is not what it means.

Merriam Webster Dictionary: “Existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad….”

On a website: “The belief is that people are searching to find out who and what they are throughout life as they make choices based on their experiences, beliefs, and outlook. And personal choices become unique without the necessity of an objective form of truth. An existentialist believes that a person should be forced to choose and be responsible without the help of laws, ethnic rules, or traditions….

For me, an existential situation is one in which the individual encounters a conflict within one’s beliefs and very soul, a potential corruption of moral compass—one’s ethical essence as a human being. Often there is a conflict regarding two or more: truth, honor, courage, practicality, convenience, politics, money.

*   *   *   *   *

2.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Cropped photo:

a purported image of Lincoln, bareheaded,

about to give his “Gettysburg Address.”

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

In our parochial, Judeo-Christian sense, slavery debased our idealistic national moral ideals. It was a sickness in our national soul. The decision of presidential-hopeful Lincoln: hold the immoral nation together or at some point, take a chance by declaring that slaves must be freed–a civil war might ensue. A crisis in which many individual citizens had to make a difficult, sometimes conflicting choice between easy immorality and more difficult morality—an existential crisis.

*   *   *   *   *

3.

JEAN PARKER SHEPHERD

Slightly cropped, iconic, F. W. McDarrah Photo

A true part of himself: his broadcast persona, in its close observation and self-examination, exemplified and promoted listeners’ potential for self-actualization—to advance our ever-evolving human selves in the fields of observation, careful deliberation, and truth-telling.

This wondrous, multi-faceted country of ours that Jean Shepherd loved with all its seemingly irreconcilable differences and inexplicable essence, is especially evident in the short-circuited masterpiece that was part of his radio-career-long legacy–nearly two-dozen episodes of TV’s Jean Shepherd’s America.

Yet, in the parts of himself he held secret (because it didn’t conform to his idea of a free-spirited individual?), he withheld the very fact of his having female companions and four consecutive wives, (regarding at least two of whom he committed adultery.) And there are his two children–whom he went so far as to deny their existence. Besides, it’s said there were unwarranted times he was a very unpleasant fellow.

A true story it’s said, is that when Shepherd was about the age of high-school graduation his father told him that he was abandoning his family to run off with the much younger blond secretary at the office. Shepherd’s TV producer Fred Barzyk, who quoted Shepherd as saying that he was his father’s son, said about Shep: “There was an arrested childhood there that I still think comes from his father’s [leaving the family] that really destroyed him. He needed to get it out. If you believe like I do, every artist has some really major handicap that forces them to throw all their energy into another direction so that they can get everything out.”

His WOR General Manager, Herb Saltzman told me, “If I had to give you one summation of him as I saw him—a deeply unhappy guy…Once you broke him down and got him to relax, you would hear it….”

Broadcaster, Larry Josephson, who had known Shep for decades, told me, “…I was disappointed because he didn’t live up to his image—but most people don’t. One of my rules—and most people’s rules—you don’t want to meet your hero. They very rarely live up to your image of them.”

Did this deep and fundamental wound so unalterably cause this lifelong flaw? Did it cause him to be what he was—the sometimes ugly, the good, the great, the unique genius of him? Some Shepherd enthusiasts don’t want to hear about it—despite his having said, “I mean, anyone who looks at life with a cold, unprejudiced agate eye of truth must realize that life is basically in extremely bad taste.”

It’s the undeniable, fundamental enigma I can’t fully incorporate into my understanding. I don’t understand. I don’t understand. It seems, indeed, an existential conundrum. I do not understand. In those senses he debased his moral compass, and, because of the many ways he entertained and encouraged our better/higher selves, we enthusiasts have to live with it.

U. S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins told me: “I had to get my Shepherd fix. He actually made you feel that you weren’t alone….I think he had the best influence on my sensibility. And I think it helped me kind of pursue that sense of being different, being an individual.” On a Shepherd website, its “Tribute Message Boards” contains six large volumes full of important, positive reactions to Shepherd: remembrances, anecdotes, and thanks from Shepherd enthusiasts regarding the individual good deeds he did for them. Some through listening on the radio and some from direct contact with him. One fan of his remembers how she was trying to survive adolescence and that through listening to him, Shepherd gave her a sense that she belonged to a sympathetic group who understood him as she did. She comments, “He saved my life.”

If we denied all honor and enthusiasm for all those artists, writers (and especially politicians), who have ever grievously failed our ideals of perfection, we’d have few if any heroes left–and therein lies the existential conundrum.

Dear fellow fatheads, it is a Shepherd enigma I incorporate into my intense enthusiasm.

*   *   *   *   *

4.

0UR CURRENT NATIONAL DILEMMA

“This wondrous, multi-faceted country of ours.”

The crisis for some: secure your political job and avoid being “primary-ed,” or honor America’s ideals and act on your conscience.

*   *   *   *   *

Folks, for me, all of the foregoing are

conundrums and existential threats.

As some might say of our national past

and our present circumstances,

“God help us all.”

____________________________________________________