I finished reading In Cold Blood by Truman Capote the other day. I was really pleased with how good the book was. I had never read anything by Capote, and frankly before picking it up, didn’t think I would find his writing to my tastes. Of course, you can’t judge a book by its cover, but it’s also true that you can’t judge a book by what you think you may know about its author. I expected the writing to be lofty and condescending. I expected Capote to find small town living quaint and endearing. I expected his view of the horrific quadruple murder of the Clutter family to show sympathy for the killers. I expected not to like this book.

When I saw it on the shelf at Barnes and Noble, obviously reprinted due to the two recent movies made about Capote, I hesitated to pick it up. However, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to read a few pages to see if my bias was warranted. What I read seemed interesting, so I bought the book and brought it home, and when I finished The Collectors I started in. From the first page, I was drawn into the story which held my fascination right through until the conclusion. I found the writing to be approachable and detached. Capote didn’t write himself, the author, into the story. Instead, he reports the crime from the original plan all the way through to the execution of the killers, laying the cold, hard facts bare for the reader to interpret. I was glued to each page.

I don’t typically read true crime novels, so I don’t have much to compare to this novel; however, I find it hard to believe that there are many others on its level. By detailing the lives of the two murderers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, we feel some compassion for the two men who are destined to meet their fate at the end of a noose, but Capote never lets us forget the victims. Mr. Herb Clutter, Mrs. Bonnie Clutter, their daughter, 16-year-old Nancy Clutter, and her brother, 15-year-old Kenyon Clutter all met their fates on November 15, 1959. A single shotgun blast to the face. Herb Clutter had first had his throat slit before being shot at point blank range. He gurgled his last breaths while Kenyon lay bound and gagged in the next room, awaiting his own death. The killers moved from room to room, killing each of the Clutters in an inexplicably savage act and for shallow reasons at best.

Throughout the novel, Capote demonstrates the effect the murders had on the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, and its larger neighbor, Garden City. The four shotgun blasts destroyed the peaceful tranquility of Holcomb and put its residents on edge as they began to suspect one another. The crime appeared so deliberate, that most were convinced that an old grudge against Herb Clutter had surfaced within their community and sought out revenge for some past slight. No one envisioned that the killers would have driven so far to kill the Clutter family, who although quite rich for their town, kept little of value in their home. Few, the killers included, were capable of understanding what drives men to kill. Capote certainly presents enough evidence to suggest some possibilities, but leaves it to us to form any conclusions.

"Well, he wasn’t the worst young man I ever saw. That night, after I’d gone to bed, I said as much to my husband. But Wendle snorted. Wendle was one of the first on the scene after the crime was discovered. He said he wished I’d been out at the Clutter place when they found the bodies. Then I could’ve judged for myself hust how gentle Mr. Smith was. Him and his friend Hickock. He said they’d cut out your heart and never bat an eye. There was no denying it - not with four people dead. And I lay awake wondering if either one was bothered by it - the thought of those four graves.”
Mrs. Josephine Meier, wife of Undersheriff Wendle Meier

Whew!  I have been sick lately and am just this week catching up on a lot of projects.  I haven’t posted much this month at all.

I finished reading Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin this week.  I had never read it in school and got interested in it after watching a TV show, Black. White., on FX last year.  The story details the real experiences of the author who used medication, sun lamps, and dye to experience life as a black American.  In the South.  In 1959.  Before the Civil Rights Act.  Before desegregation.  It’s the rare kind of book that not only examines history carefully, but actually made history while it was being written and again after it was published.  It’s fortunate that Griffin is so capable of articulating his thoughts and feelings as both spectator and participant during the month he spent on his project and the months and years later during his subsequent role in the civil rights scene.

It’s awful to think of how recent segregation was and how far we’ve come along, yet how far we still have to go.  Although I’ve certainly thought about race relations and civil rights as we know them today, I had never really given significant time to study them in the past outside of the classroom.  And even in the classroom, I was too young to comprehend how recent and painful some of the things that occurred as recently as the 1960’s.  To me as a young man, even the disco era was deep past.  Now that I’m older and my circle of friends has expanded to include some guys who had graduated high school years before this book was even written, I have a greater appreciation for how recent these times were.  And Griffin helps to explain how tragic the problem is.  I won’t go into some of my thoughts on the issues Griffin raises because I think his book does it best; however, there was one particular section that caught my attention and I wanted to share:

"I thought of Maritain’s conclusion that the only solution to the problems of man is the return of charity (in the old embracing sense of caritas, not in the stingy literal sense it has assumed in our language and in our days) and metaphysics.  Or, more simply, the maxim of St. Augustine: ‘Love, and then do what you will.’ To live in a world where men do not love, where they cheat and are callous, is to sink into a preoccupation with death, and to see the futility of anything except virtue.”
John Howard Griffin from Black Like Me

Some of the things I would like to talk about and what I do have an opinion on, was how this book made me feel.  First off, I felt ashamed and embarassed that I never really thought too deeply about how things were.  I mean, I knew there were bathrooms and water fountains for “Whites Only,” but I never gave much thought to what that really meant.  I guess I just figured everywhere there were two bathrooms and two water fountains, one for whites and one for blacks.  Maybe if it was a busy place, they’d have four bathrooms: men and women of both races.  Kind of like how I figured it was when they the forced blacks in the South to sit on the back of the bus; they just divided the bus in two and everyone got a ride.  What could I have been thinking if anything at all?

Griffin details what it was like when the only bathrooms available were for whites only.  Whenever black folks went out they would have to always know where all the closest bathrooms were and even then they’d have to walk miles to get to one.  Even stores where blacks were welcome to patronize would turn people away.  A family could spend all their money in a store but still not be able to get a a drink or sandwich at its lunch counter.  How hard it must have been for mothers to take their children out and not have a place for them to go.  How humiliating and demeaning it must have been for a grown man to be always told when and where he can use the toilet, a right Griffin accurately identifies as something people readily gave their livestock or pets.  Griffin even details a stop-over on a long distance bus ride where the driver won’t let the black passengers off the bus at all.  It’s a despicable act by a cruel man, but more despicable is that it was considered acceptable by-and-large.  It’s embarrassing to think how petty and small people could have been.  Racism doesn’t just demean the intended target, but it demans the offender.

I’m glad some things have improved.  I hope they continue to do so.  Hopefully some day, along with chapters like this civil rights era, all of racism is considered history.

"The players in this drama of frustration and indignity are not commas or semicolons in a legislative thesis; they are people, human beings, citizens of the United States of America.”
Roy Wilkins

Teaching can be a difficult task, whether teaching as a profession, training an employee or colleague on a new skill, or simply helping your children with their homework.  Sometimes I get frustrated when I can’t explain something that is so clear in my mind but is so clouded in the mind of the person I’m trying to help.  Fortunately, there is a great tool for becoming a better instructor on the FAA web site, oddly enough.  The manual is titled, Aviation Instructor’s Handbook and is free to download, having already been paid for with taxpayer money through the U.S. Department of Transportation.  Although intended for flight instructors, the manual has almost nothing to do with flight and instead discusses learning theory, human behavior, teaching methods, constructive criticism, and the planning of instructional acitivities.  It’s a comprehensive yet succinct manual covering these topics in just over 150 pages.  It’s an excellent read for anyone interested in becoming an effective teacher.

http://www.faa.gov/library/manuals/aviation/