The Big Bluff: An Oyster Bay Story

Related imageOn my way back from Florida I stopped in Garden City, New York. It was getting late in the day. We checked into a local motel. My wife was exhausted since it had been a long day of traveling with a ton of traffic. She had no interest in going back out for another twenty mile round trip that I proposed.

I wanted to see the tomb of Teddy Roosevelt which is located in Oyster Bay in the Youngs Memorial Cemetary which was about ten miles away. So off I went and soon found myself walking up the twenty-six steps to the top of a hill, the twenty-six representing that he was the twenty-sixth president of the United States. Standing at the gate to a ten foot high wrought iron fence that enclosed his burial area I could see that his headstone was relatively simple bearing only his and his wife’s name.

I walked up a pathway that brought me closer to it. I stood there paying my respects to him and calling to mind the short story by Leon Tolstoy about How Much Land Does A Man Require. Darkness was closing in and a little chill seemed to come with it. My head was bent down in thought when I sensed someone near me. “Another visitor?” I thought but like the slight chill that came with the darkness I felt a much deeper one inside me. I don’t know why — the unexpected arrival in the graveyard in the enclosing night perhaps.

I blessed myself. I don’t know why. I was not praying. Was it to gin up my courage to look up to see who was there? Was it to pretend I had been praying? Whatever reason I did and was about to turn when I felt a hand on my shoulder. The touch was as light as a feather but it almost caused my knees to buckle. “What do you think?” the voice said.

I looked. Standing there was a young woman very tall and slim draped in folds of a white diaphanous material flowing from her shoulders to the ground. I smiled confusedly and nodded. Keeping her hand there she repeated the question. I answered, “what did I think about President Roosevelt?”

Her soft voice replied, “no, about whether he was confused about what TR said.?” I said nothing for a moment because of my confusion. She seeing that said: “he said speak softly and carry a big stick.” I nodded. She went on, “he speaks loudly and carries a twig.”  She took her hand from my shoulder, in her other hand she had a rose which she put on top of the headstone, she then walked, it seemed like she floated, back out the gate without waiting for an answer.

It was a very strange experience. I left immediately after her. I wanted to catch up with her to speak some more. I wanted to learn something about her. She had disappeared into the night even though it seemed there was no place for her to have gone. As you may imagine I had a lot to think about in my trip back to the motel even wondering whether that young lady appeared at all or was I in such deep thought that I may have imagined it. I one point I pulled over to go back to see if the rose was on top of the headstone but because it was so late and so dark I too was so tired I decided not to. I wish I had.

I had no doubt of one thing. Whether real or imagined I knew who she was referring to. I also knew that the leaders of other countries would also know what she said. What it augurs for our future I have no idea but in my experience growing up I knew once a loud mouth was shown to have no courage he was quickly shut up and lost big.

13 Comments

  1. Matt: I’m shocked and embarrassed. Shocked that he’s been in prison so long and embarrassed that I was way off on this essential fact.

    • Dan:

      Don’t be embarrassed. Few follow the story or care. And, right now with the mentally challenged guy in the Oval Office there are more important matters to worry about.

  2. Glorious Leader is busy creating a totalitarian police state, and, no one is watching. AG Sessions is going to fill the prisons back up. He’s getting tough. Minorities can expect savage attention from the G. That leaves little hope to the folks at the base of the social pyramid. Trump’s ascension to power has illuminated the inherent social contradictions of bourgeois society. Once camouflaged by political rhetoric, racial, and, sectarian, hatreds, have exposed themselves in the raw. GL needs no stinking fig leaf. His fascist nature is fully evident. Perhaps, we’ll be rid of him by July Fourth. One can only hope.

    All praise to the antifas! All power to the dialectic!

  3. Presidents do not have to fire cabinet members. It is traditional that they sign a letter of resignation upon appointment. ( I don’t know if this is still the case.)

    Richardson knew he would be fired and I don’t recall him fighting it, nor Rucklehouse.
    Bork as Solicitor General enthusiastically did Nixon’s bidding and fired Cox.

    The Connollys have labored against J. Connolly’s treatment from day 1.

  4. Connolly was framed in Boston also. A very corrupt judge gave him a ten year sentence when the jury convicted him only on the minor charges. His trivial offenses merited a few months at the most. His imprisonment is a total travesty. He ran into three very dishonest judges in Boston and Florida. None followed the law. All three should be in jail for abuse of power.

  5. 1. Four days ago Pat Buchanan said this on Verney & Co. “…Trump is very courageous. The guy was just pounded. Worse even than Nixon, worse than Reagan, and he kept coming back, day, after day, after day. Whatever you say about Trump he’s got grit…”

    2. Additionally, the firing of Comey was wholly within the Constitutional authority of the President and fully lawful. As said, acting FBI Director McCabe has testified that the firing had and will have no impact on the Russia investigation and that neither Trump nor any one in his administration has ever tried to interfere with that investigation.

    Claims that Trump has acted “above the law” are bogus! He has acted fully within his constitutional and statutory powers. (I’ll spare you citations to numerous judges and law professors who understand this.)

    3. All this is reminiscent of Sally Yates who boasted that some federal judges (ex., 9th Circuit) had agreed with her that Trump’s travel ban from several Muslim countries was unconstitutional, while ignoring Judge Gorton in Massachusetts who found it constitutional. Yates forgot that it’s her job to represent her client, not to decide the ultimate constitutionality of every issue before her. She’s a government lawyer, not a judge. Comey, too, forgot he was an investigator, not a prosecutor. Both deserved to be fired. Even Trump, in his interview with Lester Holt, insisted on a “strong” investigation into Russian interference in the Russian election, and said he wanted “to get to the bottom” of any alleged interference.

    4. I agree with DanC that John Connolly should be freed; he never should have been imprisoned in Florida in the first place; a grave travesty of justice, predicated on serial killers’ lies (testimony exchanged for leniency); and a grotesquely distorted interpretation of Florida’s “murder by gun” statute! Overzealous prosecutors and intellectually dishonest judges.

  6. I heard he carried a toothpick, but what do I know?

    Off topic: John Connolly is still in prison while others, including the loathsome John Morris, walk free. Connolly is coming up on 10 years behind bars, more than enough time to cover any sins he may have committed in the FBI. Connolly should be released as soon as possible.

    I have decided to appoint myself chairman of the Liberal Democrats to Free John Connolly Committee. I know. I know. You’re thinking this isn’t a good way to attract members. But here’s the thing: It’s the rightness of the cause that counts, not the number of members. Connolly deserves to be free today.

  7. S. Johnson said the grimmest dictatorship is the dictatorship of the prevailing orthodoxy. Isn’t that what Trump is confronting? The resistance to change is substantial. He is facing the Four Horsemen of liberalism, The media, academia, the bureaucracy and the Democrat party. The American people voted for change yet the unelected are attempting to frustrate it. 2. If one is in charge of the biggest economy and the largest military in the world how is that considered a Twig? Castro may be holding a twig in Cuba but POTUS isn’t.

  8. What is the erosive power of a gentle rain?

    http://soilerosion.net/water_erosion.html

  9. Matt:
    I give you an “A” for creative writing for a good Poe-ish ghost story, but . . .

    Your evidence that Trump’s “a coward” is that he didn’t fire Comey “face to face”? In 1993 Bill Clinton didn’t fire Bill Sessions face to face; in 2017 Trump emailed and sent a hand-delivered letter; Bill Clinton telephoned but probably would have emailed, but he didn’t know how! Clinton’s first email was in 1998; he only sent 2 while in the White House.

    Your evidence that Trump unlike Clinton or Obama is “a big mouth” is . . .?

    Your Ghost said, “He speaks loudly but carries a twig” Tell that to Syria! Tell it to the Keystone & Dakota Access Pipeline folks! NAFTA (he’ll renogotiate)! etc., etc.,. . . unlike a bigmouth, Trump follows through on his promises; he backs up his words (his boasts) with actions. He said he’d appoint a conservative SJC justice; he did. etc, etc. He promised to repeal and replace Obamacare; he’s doing his best in face of an obstructionist Congress; he’s trying to get his tax-cut plan through; he’s not backing away from building the wall. He’s been in office less than 4 months! China has opened its markets to American beef after the US was locked out of the world’s largest market for 13 years and cattlemen throughout the US are ecstatic and grateful to Trump. Many are grateful to Trump for his constructive deeds. If we can get the leftist obstructionists in D.C. out of the way, he’ll accomplish much more in strengthening American, stimulating the economy, downsizing government, cutting red-tape, and shifting the balance of power in favor of we the people and against socialistic big government.

  10. Nice companion piece to yesterday’s CNN piece by Fareed Zakaria. Whether you’re for Trump or against him, it certainly is food for thought when someone points out (with many lawyers in agreement, supposedly) that the President is above the law.