A Truth Unclaimed is But a Lie

Dear Boo and Bubble,

After Captain’s foray into politics, I have great admiration and empathy for anyone who will offer to run for office.  In some cases, I don’t agree with their solutions to problems or their overall political stands, but that doesn’t diminish the sacrifices made in the name of public service. 

Much in our experience was positive, but there were times when such nastiness reared its ugly head, that I had doubts about the sanity of it all.  Some people (a very few) seem to find sport in the personal destruction of those who win an election.  With a great degree of stealth, they employ methods to undermine the credibility and character of the person.  The overwhelming favorite in tactic is the old-fashioned lie which seems to have the capacity to appear to be the truth if repeated enough.

Right after Captain was elected, I started getting phone calls at the house.  This raspy, breathy male voice on the other end of the line would say – “Mrs. Tally, did you know that your husband is running around on you?” The first couple of times it happened, I just hung up, but the person was very persistent and this was way before any type of caller-ID or answering machine, so I had no way of knowing who might be calling. I knew what he said wasn’t true and when I told Captain what was going on, we just laughed.  (He reassured me that if he ever did have an affair with somebody else, I’d be the first to know because he’d be so excited, he’d rush right home to tell me!)

Soon, I tired of the irritation and decided to take a different approach and engage the man.  The next time he called, the conversation went like this:

“Mrs. Tally, did you know that your husband is running around on you?”

“Oh really…..tell me more.”

Thinking that maybe he might be getting through to me, he continued:

“Well, I can certainly give you some names if you’d like.”

“Okay….sure…but the only name I’m really interested in is yours.  What is your name?”

There was silence, but I could still hear him breathing over the phone.  And so, I said –

“Let me tell you my rule.  If you won’t tell me who you are, then you aren’t telling the

truth.  And that makes you a liar.  I don’t believe liars and I’m sure nobody else does either.”

He hung up …… and I never heard from him again.

No One To Bury Me

Dear Boo and Bubble,

It’s quite concerning to me just how polarizing and personal politics has become today.  It seems anymore that the margin of space allowed for movement on issues has narrowed almost to the point of a clogged artery.  Most everyone assumes that if you’re against their position, you must be against them…..and, once you’re against them, you can never be with them regardless of the issue. 

In the time that Captain served in the South Carolina legislature, this was not the prevailing atmosphere.  He always described it this way – “One day, you’d be going nose to nose with another representative, yelling and arguing over how to fry chicken……the next day, the two of you were arm in arm promoting the proper amount of mayonnaise in potato salad.  Whoever was your adversary in the first case would be your cohort in the second.  It was never personal.”  Issues didn’t stick like fly paper to either the person or the party – an essential element in getting things done, in forging compromises to create workable legislation.

However, sometimes one did have to work the rules of the House in order to buy time to gain consensus on issues.  Captain became knowledgeable about the rules - and quite adept at maneuvering them to his benefit, especially when the matter at hand would have a specific derogatory effect on some of his constituents. There is no better example of this than the maddening stall he created in 1985 as the law governing funeral homes in the state began its precarious descent into sunset - which means if nothing is passed to replace it, the law ceases to exist. 

Before he arrived, legislation had been passed to oversee the funeral business in the state.  Among its provisions was a requirement that anyone working in certain capacities in a funeral home must have a high school diploma or a GED equivalent.  At the time of its passage, there were many employees of funeral homes across the state who could not meet the requirement.  Rather than grandfather these folks into the law, the crafters of the legislation decided to give them a grace period by which they could take the GED exam in order to comply.

One of the funeral homes in Gaffney, Shuford-Hatcher, had two gentlemen as employees who had worked there for almost 40 years.  They were morticians in every sense of the word - knew the business backwards and forwards - how to usher - how to drive hearses - how to dress the dead – how to sell caskets and, yes - how to embalm.  There was only one hitch – neither one had graduated from high school and, unless they completed their GED equivalents, Shuford-Hatcher would be in violation of the law and subject to all of the fines imposed, including having to fire them.

Mr. Hatcher came to Captain at his law office in Gaffney to discuss the situation.  He explained that the two men were only a couple of years shy of retirement.  As a practical matter, in his mind, it didn’t make much sense for them to have to do what was required to study for, take and pass the GED.  They were two of his key assistants and perfectly proficient at their jobs – had been for years before the law was passed. He asked if there were any way Captain might be able to assist in the situation.  Captain reassured him that when he returned to Columbia, he would check into it.

Well, Captain found out pretty quickly that the funeral home lobby was one of the most powerful in the state.  The tentacles of the association that represented its interest proliferated in every nook and cranny since each community – large or small - had at least one home.   The legislation to re-authorize the law (including its provision requiring the high school diploma or equivalent) had made it out of all committees and was now on the floor of the house for passage. Captain knew that the clock was ticking on the law.  If he could just find a way to delay the vote, he might be able to leverage the untenable possibility of the sunset in order negotiate a compromise on behalf of his constituents.  He seized upon an idea that might work.

The rules of the House allowed for legislation to be placed on one of two calendars – uncontested and contested (which required the objection of at least three legislators).  Bills worked their way up the respective calendars until the top, at which time the Speaker of the House would call for votes.  There was a quirk in the system, however.  If a bill on the uncontested calendar became contested before it reached the top, it would be moved to the bottom of the contested calendar……and vice versa….if the objecting legislators removed their objection before the bill reached the top of the contested calendar, it went to the bottom of the uncontested one.

The re-authorization of the funeral home law arrived out of committee in the House and was placed on the uncontested calendar.  Captain watched very closely as it made its way up the ladder for consideration and a vote.  As it approached the top, he arranged for two other representatives to file an objection – which moved it to the bottom of the contested calendar.  He again monitored its progress and, at the right moment, coordinated for the objections to be removed – putting the bill back at the bottom of the uncontested.

At first, his maneuvers went undetected by the funeral home association.  However, as several weeks passed and the bill had not yet made it to the House floor for a vote and the sunset deadline loomed, their president John Dunbar took note.  He made inquiry of the Speaker as to why things were held up.  The Speaker looked into it and found that Captain was the culprit.

A letter went out from the association alerting every funeral home director in the entire state that “Representative John Tally of House District #30 was single-handedly about to deliver a death knell to the funeral home industry as it was known in the state by his obstructive tactics……that if something weren’t done quickly, all laws governing the business of funerals would cease to exist.  If you, or anyone of your acquaintance, know Mr. Tally, you must contact him immediately and ask him to desist in order to preserve the greater good.”  (Or words to that effect!)

Your great, great Uncle John Oliver Kendrick, was a mortician with Wood Mortuary in Greer, SC, and received this missive.  Of course, he knew Captain since I was his niece and we were married.  (At times, when John Oliver was either delivering or gathering a body in Gaffney, he would swing by and see Captain at his law office.  This always created a ruckus because he would be driving a hearse.  The phone at home would ring off the wall with people wanting to know if Captain had died.)  John Oliver called Granddaddy Schaefer and inquired as to “what in the hell” Captain was up to that he had the funeral home directors of the entire state so upset.  Granddaddy said he didn’t know, but he’d find out. 

When Granddaddy called Captain, the explanation was quite simple – “just doing some constituent service.” When Captain told Granddaddy the story about the two men at Shuford-Hatcher, it made perfect sense to him.  He reported it to John Oliver with the suggestion that the association might consider listening to Representative Tally and working out a compromise. 

In the end, that’s exactly what happened.  By knowing how the House operated, Captain was able to get the attention of the funeral home association and compel them to listen.  The two men at Shuford-Hatcher were grandfathered into the law and allowed to continue to work until their retirement.  There was no sunset and everybody went back to burying the dead……which was a great relief to me.  For a while there, if something had happened to Captain, there was only one funeral home that we could use – Shuford-Hatcher.  Nobody else would have had him.

Perspective

Dear Boo and Bubble,

Captain always defines his time in the South Carolina legislature as a great learning experience.  Aside from the mechanics of operation (committee workings; processes for constructing and passing legislation; rules; seniority), he found the exercise of debate fascinating because it always introduced the element of perspective into every issue. 

Perspective is a tricky thing.  We all have a big funnel through which we process our culture, experiences, beliefs, prejudices and perceptions.  When these personal components spill through the spout of the funnel, it’s like a prism that reflects our world and opinions.  It is our perspective. No matter how close our circumstances might be to that of others, every funnel is different - some vastly, some only by degrees – but, different.  The resulting prisms cause us to view any given subject with such diversity that it’s hard to believe we could be looking at the same picture, reading the same words, hearing the same song.

In the legislative environment, Captain describes perspective this way.  A bill would come up for debate.  The advocates for its passage would take the podium and expound on the virtues, admonishing legislators to vote for it because failure to do so would create unimaginable consequences to the constituents they served.  By the time they finished, Captain would say to himself “I have to support this bill.  It’s like motherhood and apple pie.  Who can vote against it?”

Then the foes would arise, excoriating the precepts on which the legislation was founded, defining its weaknesses and shortcomings.  When they had their say, Captain would scratch his head.  “I can’t support this bill.  It would do away with motherhood and apple pie.  Who can vote for it?”

Now how can people perceive “motherhood” and “apple pie” as anything other than what they are?  It would be one of perspective’s slyest maneuvers - take something unarguable and confound the heck out of it!

The hardest thing for me about perspective is getting over my own in order to understand someone else’s.  I guess that’s why honest debate is important, yet it seems we are losing the art of it in our society.  (Last night, the first of many “debates” for the 2016 political season aired on television.  I put the word in quotation marks because what transpired hardly fits the classic definition.)  We can all learn from different perspectives and it shouldn’t require relinquishing our own to do so.  They must, however, be rooted in some basis of reality…….but, then again, everybody’s reality is different!

Timing Is Everything

Dear Boo and Bubble,

They say "Timing is Everything" and, as you get older, you'll find that many outcomes in your life boil down to just that.....timing. It's even more so in politics. Many a politician has been elected or defeated because of the timing of events. This is particularly true when the passage of laws result in sweeping changes. A natural gestation period of reaction occurs when there is significant change.... before people have the opportunity to absorb the benefits. During this period, those elected officials who initiated the change become vulnerable to the reaction and opponents seize the opportunity to ride its crest into office.

This phenomenon is exactly what happened to Captain as he sought re-election for his House seat in 1985. The debate over the Education Improvement Act raged so fiercely in the House of Representatives that the legislative session was extended beyond its regular adjournment date at the beginning of June. This created quite a problem because in normal election years, incumbents would have the summer to campaign in the Democratic or Republican primaries held around Labor Day and before the general elections in November. But, Captain was a floor leader for the legislation and he could not leave Columbia to come home. He was once again opposed by Donna Moss, the woman whom he had defeated before. In his absence, she not only combed the district unabated shoring up votes, but also took every opportunity to criticize Captain's support of the EIA and its one-penny hike in the sales tax.

Captain even had to miss his one major fundraiser, a dinner at Limestone College where he was to be the featured speaker. Instead, he had to enlist Nick Theodore, a state Senator from Greenville, to stand in for him The Senate had already concluded its work on the EIA with a positive vote and was waiting for the House to finish deliberating. When the House finally completed and passed its version of the bill, Captain still had to assist in the work of the conference committee between the two chambers before things were over. By the time the EIA passed into law, the process had dragged on well into the summer and Captain only a few weeks remaining to campaign before the primary vote.

Over the years, Captain has remarked that had the primary been six months to a year later, he would have won convincingly. But, as timing dictated, we were in the period of reaction to the EIA. It would take several months for the law to even go into effect and consequently the air of speculation and suspicion overwhelmed any truth about its real impact because that was yet to be felt. Captain advocated very hard for the law, trying to explain that for every dollar sent to Columbia in sales tax, the district would receive two dollars in support of educational improvement. He found opposition from all quarters, even within the teaching community as many were unsure about the testing and evaluation components of the law. It was political purgatory......the timing was rotten. As he had predicted on that day driving home from the meeting with Governor Riley, his support of the EIA would cost him the election.

When the various parts of the law began to take effect in the coming months, approval for it increased. Many parents who had place their children in private schools began to readmit them due to a renewed trust in the level of commitment on the part of the state to upgrading public education. Innovation, creativity, accountability and inclusion were hallmarks of the EIA, as well as a dedicated funding source.

There is a phrase - "A leader needs to be out in front of his constituents, but not so far that they mistake him for the enemy." I am reminded of Captain every time I hear this. He had the capacity to grasp the risks of his leadership in a crucial time and understood the consequences that he might suffer. In this case, timing made him the enemy........a little more time would have made him a very good friend.

(Captain was one of many who lost elections because of the EIA.  After Governor Riley left office, the whole political landscape changed in South Carolina and a new contingent arrived to direct the state.  Without the original stewards of the law, the dismantlement of the EIA soon began.  I have no idea what is left, if anything.......other than the one-cent increase in the sales tax that, more than likely, resides in the General Fund.)