Rogue Columnist

Rethinking Obama

Of the hundreds of columns I’ve written on this site since its inception in 2008, many were about the 44th president of the United States. A long seven years have passed since he left office, years that saw the rise of Donald Trump, his stunning and contested win of the presidency, the pandemic, and so much more. Most of the time, I miss "No Drama Obama," his pragmatic and steady hand at the helm of the republic. Other times, I wonder about the many meanings and consequences of the man and his times.

He was elected with 53% of the popular vote and 68% of the Electoral College, a strong showing considering the close elections of recent years. He came into office on a swell of revulsion of George W. Bush's carelessness in allowing 9/11, endless wars and policies of rendition and torture in black sites. He triumphed over Republican John McCain, who not only had the baggage of the Bush years but showed the lack of judgment in picking the half-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. And with the goodwill of a nation that had elected its first African-American president.

Obama was an intellectual, a rarity in politics, especially for a president. Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, maybe just maybe John F. Kennedy fit this mold. But Obama wore it lightly. He enjoyed playing hoops, snuck a cigarette, and spoke with empathy and sincerity (a striking contrast from the cold and insecure Wilson). Obama wasn't merely book smart but street smart, too. He was blessed with good instincts, as with his insistence on continuity and calm, rather than being the Angry Black Man. It didn't endear him to the left, but overall served him and the nation well.

Snake removal

If you follow the online Regional Dispatch Center maintained by the Phoenix Fire Department, you'll frequently see calls labeled "snake removal," especially in north Scottsdale. As I understand it, firefighters respond to the tony manses Slightly North of Bell (SNOB) to pull rattlesnakes out of pools, away from doors, or their expensively xeriscaped  properties.

The Regional Dispatch Center isn't as inclusive at Seattle's Real Time 911, and it usually consists of calls to automobile collisions (962s) — often involving pedestrians, bicycles, and motorcycles — as well as mountain rescues of idiots hiking up mountains in mid-day high summer. But the call for snake removal seems especially apt for our moment.

As the wealthy Anglo subdivisions have pushed ever deeper into the desert, they've destroyed and disrupted the habitat of the creatures that live there. It's no surprise, then, that  a diamondback — not a baseball player — suns himself on a championship golf course or gives a new meaning to the "water hazard."

When I was growing up in what's now the Willo Historic Neighborhood north of downtown Phoenix, we never saw snakes. Believe me, we looked! As a teenager, friends and I would hike around Arizona with a varmint gun at the ready, but never saw a rattler, much less a deadly coral snake or Gila monster. For one thing, I knew to walk with a heavy tread so the snake could feel me coming. DDT had killed off the scorpions and black widow spiders. They've made a big comeback, especially on the ever-expanding fringes. And snakes? Call the fire department.

 

Class in Phoenix

When I was growing up in the 1960s, my mother told me Phoenix was a much less class-conscious city than those back east. Consider Boston, where it was said, "The home of the bean and the cod, Where Lowells speak only to Cabots, And Cabots speak only to God." Phoenix was more of a meritocracy. In the 1960s, Phoenix was largely a middle-class Anglo city.

Merit she had in abundance: A piano prodigy from the age of four, studied at the Eastman Conservatory, was a concert pianist — all before I came along. But we didn’t have money and things were always tight. Still, she and my grandmother raised me in a middle class neighborhood north of downtown, in the house on Cypress Street (above), long before this became one of Phoenix's first historic districts.

And what she said was true. Our across the street neighbors and friends were wealthy, heirs to the Fred Harvey fortune, but they never put on airs. From the rich children in Palmcroft to the poor ones near Roosevelt Street, we all attended public school at Kenilworth.