What If There is No Promised Land?

It was a quiet week at the Fish and Golf Camp, our micro-chautauqua and adopted home on the Virginia Eastern Shore. The noises of the early summer activities were long gone. So too the humidity, the heat, and the Greenhead Flies. The cool quiet of the morning. The sun rising over the calm waters of Walter’s Cove and Burton’s Bay seen from the deck of The Burn. The distant sounds of waves breaking on the sands of Cedar Island just a mile or so to the east, and the nearer sounds of a flock of Black Skimmers.

And the smells! Oh, the smells of the sea all around. These were some of what hit the senses and brought the feelings of peace one wishes for the whole world as a child. At the same time, in this week, they brought with them a continuing emptiness and a yearning for a season that we've missed for two years now and that we were promised this year: the kids at play in the bay, the people and music that fill the Camp during July's Dunlin Bash, and the medal ceremony and presentation of the Emerald Cup, almost always to the All-Blacks. The ghosts of summers gone by were all around, and I couldn’t decide whether the tears welling up were of joys remembered or just of sadness for what's been lost.

The neighbors came by on Saturday for our annual 9/11 flag raising. The Dershams, Barry Lane and his two young girls, Jessie and Abigail, and Irene Lewin all stood around the flag pole with us on the driving range side of The Burn. We raised our hands over our hearts and sang God Bless America. A few more tears. Creigh Harris, who still owns the lot just north of the Camp, and his new girlfriend were going to come all the way from Kentucky. But their Mercedes hit a bump in the road somewhere near Huntington, West Virginia, and they got sidetracked. That can happen.

Irene’s dogs somehow knew to stop barking as Barry slowly raised the flag and then as voices raised up too. We usually hold hands as we sing, but with the virus, we're still not comfortable doing that. We then marched over to the bar under the house and had an outdoor version of our traditional doughnut breakfast for Jessie's birthday. You know it's not easy having a birthday on 9/11. When Jessie found out, when she was about ten, that her Mom gave birth to her after being induced a week past the birth due date, Jessie thought her parents had some kind of sick sense of humor. "You mean you took meds in order to have a 9/11 baby? Really?" "No. It wasn't like that at all, dear." She became sure of the sick humor a year later when she found out the Beatles had a song called Penny Lane. "Did you really not think of that when you named me Jessie Lane?"

After the doughnuts and the traditional Sprite Shirley Temples, we gave each other a double fist bump -- the closest we felt we could come to a hug -- and everyone went on their way. Barry, to take the girls to their soccer games; Irene to her real estate office in Onancock; and the Dershams just back home. Barry had some fields to plow and some “dirt work” across the county on the Bayside after the games. He asked us if we would bring the girls home from the soccer games. "Of course. Right after church." Barry and the Greenheads are our link to the past; his grandfather having bought a farm a mile or so up the road in the later part of the nineteenth century. He welcomed us here from the first day we arrived. It was the least we could do. And we loved his girls.

The start of the summer seems so long ago. Like most years at the Fish and Golf Camp, this summer started out with so much promise. The virus had all but disappeared on the Shore. The weather was spectacular. The County Board had figured out how to take all that Rescue Plan money the federal government came up with and share it across the needy, the schools, and many of the impacted businesses, especially the watermen whose shrimp, scallops and soft shell crabs lost their market as restaurants across the big cities of the Northeast closed. And the anticipation of the Great Reopening was palpably in the air. We were on the doorstep of the Promised Land after being shut in for so long.

Down at the Island House, a big reopening was planned for the July 4th weekend. At the Book Bin in Onley, the list of authors and readings was taking shape. And excitement started to build that the Fireman's Carnival in Wachapreague, which of course was cancelled in 2020, might take place this year. For a few weeks, the talk on the local Facebook page was all about the Carnival's clam, oyster and crab sandwiches -- which are a genuine treat -- the carousel, the tilt-a-whirl, and other carnival rides, and for the outdoor bingo game and movie under the stars on the last night of the festivities. You could taste it. You could feel it.

We, at the Camp, had gotten off to a late start, but we decided to plan our micro-chautauqua program after all, as the end of the pandemic came so clearly into view. A seminar on Living an Authentic Life. Readings from the poems of Emily Dickinson. A lecture on financing a new small business. And to headline The Bash, First Road North, a band of aging rockers from across the Bay in Clarendon, who play Todd Rundgren and Dave Matthews and anything else your heart desires. The last show they put on around the Shore, down in Nassawadox, included incredible renditions of Mr. Bojangles, with both organ and guitar solos that were, according to Barry's cousin, Pip, "epic" and made half the audience weep; and of Springsteen's The Rising, with a guest appearance by the choir of the Saint Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church of Melfa.

Come on up for the rising

Come on up, lay your hands in mine

Come on up for the rising

Come on up for the rising tonight

It was a joyous moment not to be missed and not to be forgotten for those blessed to be there.

But then everything changed again; the pandemic didn't end. A new variant altered all the plans. The number of positive tests on the Shore and around the country began to rise. The Riverside Hospital ICU started to fill, and Mrs. Johnny Hart (of the Bloxom Harts) soon started emailing all her friends that everyone needed to hunker down. A week later, the Chincoteague Pony Swim was cancelled. The two glorious weeks of maskless churchgoing came to an end. More cancellations. Worries about the school year. And then news of hurricanes from the south, and fires from the west, and dead marines from Afghanistan. And with all of it, of course, recriminations. We stayed in with the kids and with the neighbors for the last few weeks of summer. The promise that so lifted our spirits was gone.

* * *

In church, the biblical text that Pastor Oliver and Cantor Blum read was from Deuteronomy, Chapter 34: Moses' song to the Israelites as he neared his death. The pastor told us how Moses gave his blessing and admonition to the Jewish people, who were destined for the Promised Land. Moses would not make it, but the Promised Land would be delivered to the People of Israel.

Pastor Oliver then reminded us that the text was also the foundation of Dr. King's last speech in Memphis, just before his own death. It also spoke of the Promised Land. Cantor Blum read much of the speech aloud --

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live – a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I 'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

I knew that this wasn't the first time King had talked about a promise that was unfulfilled. I Googled the I Have A Dream speech during the hymns. There was a picture of King in front of the Lincoln Memorial --

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

We picked up Barry's girls from the soccer games and marveled at their spirit. They put on their masks in our car without complaint and shared their joy of the here and now. After we delivered them to their grandfather, we went home, and I lay down for a nap. When I woke up, the women's singles final from the U.S. Open was on TV. And there, on the screen, were two teenagers, not too much older than Jessie and Abigail, who, two weeks earlier, no one had ever heard of. They played with a lightness and a joy that was simply exhilarating. For some reason, I found myself thinking of the young marines and corpsmen who died in Afghanistan just a few weeks back trying to save Afghan refugees. Their pictures in the paper were also full of life and joy, purpose and promise. And of the young men and women who died on 9/11 and in the wars our country fought over the next twenty years, they too were full of promise and commitment.

My wife saw me and asked why I was crying. "What happened to the Promised Land," I asked. She snapped right back, "you old fool." Then she walked across the room to a drawer in the kitchen. She pulled out a note from one of her students. She handed it to me to read.

As I reflect on my past few years of school today, I just wanted to send you an extra note of thanks. As a new student and because of the pandemic, I didn't quite have the same opportunities to prove myself to all in school. But unlike some others I had met at school, you had great faith in me and provided tremendous support and encouragement. I'm so grateful for my time in your class and so thankful to have had you as a mentor throughout.

"There's your promised land. It is the young; and in the present. It is a blessing to be around them; to nurture them; to love them. Now. With them, you can see and be part of the future, too." And with that, she pulled me, the old and the aging, away from the ghosts and the dreams, and to the life and fight right in front of me.