The more we share, the stronger our tapestry becomes

The more we share, the stronger our tapestry becomes

My confidence in the American people has been renewed, all in a single day.

It happened when I acted on an invitation to speak at the Punta Gorda Kiwanis Club. In a moment of weakness months ago, a time I was still young and impetuous, I’d said, “Yes.” So I went, a man clothed in the skanky patchwork hide of doubt — about the times, about my money, about my obligations, about anything I could dredge up.

My attitude stunk.

I tore myself away from the old oaks and scrub, from the company of cats, dogs, goats, horses and chickens, from a chock-full kitchen, a roof that doesn’t leak, an air conditioner that works and a big front deck that needs no repair.

No sane person would ever want to leave such a retreat, even if he was also burdened with a couple of roosters that crow at 3 a.m. rather than waiting for dawn, the way alcoholics drink at noon rather than waiting for cocktail hour. It’s always dawn somewhere. Ireland maybe, or France or Greece or Hong Kong.

Club members had gathered upstairs near midday to eat lunch and listen to me talk about journalism (Is it dead? No. Is it the enemy of the people? Hell, no.) at a big place called Laishley’s Crab House: a lot of high ceilings and wood. A lot of tables and chairs scattered through a few big rooms with a big view. A bar in the middle the size of the Santa Maria de la Consolación.

Ponce de Leon used that boat as one of three to reach La Florida in 1513, probably sailing right past the big view where we gathered while several captains of the Big Noon Pour were using the bar to reach La Inebriation.

But not the members of the Kiwanis Club, who were bent on benevolence and bonhomie.

Their attitudes do not stink. Instead, they gather regularly to enjoy each other’s company and do some good in the community. They raise money for children and perform other worthy tasks that serve only one purpose: to make things better.

They could just sit at the bar; I probably would. But they don’t. They share their conversation and merriment, their stories, their good will and greenback (the idea seems to be if everybody gives a little, together they can do a lot). They also pledge to hang in there and support the effort, and each other.

Unexpected a gift though it was, their experiences and stories moved me. They wore them like comfortable old clothes that refuse to wear out, instead taking on character and utility as they age. Frank Desguin, who writes a memorable history column for the Charlotte Sun, had the audacity to invite me — but his whole family is audacious, including his dad, L. Vic Desguin, who arrived from Oneida, New York, to attend the meeting. But that was in 1936, when he was 10 and his own father came south to run a movie theater in town.

Frank’s wife, Teresa, was there, too, with his brother and a nephew — she once helped Frank get through the trauma of breast cancer his grandmother and mother had endured before he did. On July 4th for the 30th consecutive time, he planned to swim the 1.5-mile-wide Peace River in the “Freedom Swim.”

As I met them, I began to realize I wasn’t just sitting in the restaurant, I was sitting in, and becoming part of, a storied, breathing American tapestry.

A man who heard me make the arguable claim that my 11th generation grandfather had helped jump-start a free press when he founded Rhode Island in 1636 said he used to walk past Roger Williams every day when he lived there — gramps is mounted on a pedestal in Providence, apparently.

The club president for the year spent much of his life up near the Delaware Water Gap in one of the most beautiful spots in the eastern United States.

“Yes, it is,” he acknowledged gently, when I pointed this out. “But it SNOWS there. I worked in it. Nothing else needs to be said.”

The tallest member was a Marine Corps combat veteran of Vietnam who’d been born on the Marine base at Quantico, Va. I’ve known a lot of people who were born again there, more or less — the Marine

Corps is a kind of secular religion, as it turns out — but only one born there. As a small boy, he actually knew Lewis Burwell Puller, who used to babysit him, he said.

Puller did a little more in life than babysit; he also retired from the Marine Corps in 1955 as a lieutenant general, the most decorated marine in American history and a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War.

The other stories flowed one into another: a woman reporting back to an office for work for the first time in a long while, and loving it.

A man who joined his wife in mounting and riding (at a walk, he said) a saddled horse — they’re in their early 80s.

A man who announced that he’d kept the news to himself for eight months, but he was going through a divorce, the process was nearly over, and he felt good about it.

A young woman who said she’d be leaving at 4 p.m. the next day after work and driving to Illinois, to see family, before driving back, with one companion. All nonstop. “It’s 22 hours,” she said brightly. “It’ll be fun!” She’ll be OK, I thought, glad she’d mentioned it. She’s threaded into us, now.

The more we share, the stronger our tapestry becomes. ¦

This commentary was originally published in July 2021.

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