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Love among the ruins: RELATED: Got a comment? Make it here.
An unholy trinity of sewage spills Three sewage spills over a two-year period. Three. All of them caused by sewage lines that backed up into the church. All of them could have been prevented by the installation of an industry standard flapper valve at a nearby sewage lift station, a type of flapper valve that, in fact, was installed at every other sewage lift station in town except the one near the city's only predominantly black-congregated church. The third and final sewage spill not only backed up thousands of gallons of sewage into the church, it also flooded the city's drinking water plant, a fire station and then-utilities director John Lane's office building.
An indignity that should never be visited upon a white
man But even there is a tale of woeful clusterflaps. The city had ordered and dutifully stored away a flapper valve designed for the purpose. The problem was that the valve that had been ordered after the first sewage backup (and that had been collecting dust in a warehouse during the second and third visitation) was the wrong valve. The official story by the city is still that only 500 gallons of sewage hit the church in that final third spill. In the days following the spill, I was at the church photographing the damage. The baptismal fount had been filled with sewage, this had then overflowed into the church leaving water marks some four or five inches high. The baptismal fount alone holds about 500 gallons. If more than 500 gallons spilled in the church, this would kick in a whole new set of rules on reporting to the DEP and to the EPA, rules that the city didn't follow on this spill. So, ultimately, there couldn't have been more than 500 gallons because we all know that the city follows all the rules. So did the city deliberately flood the church with sewage? Well, not exactly. But, and here's the rub, the city did deliberately neglect to protect the church from such an event with full knowledge that withholding such a standard protection would eventually result in repeated sewage floods. The church was set up for the third spill either by deliberate or idiotic neglect. Only John Lane knows which. Did I mention that the city has made several offers over the years to buy the church and it's land? No? Ah well. I should have. Because the city actually has made several such offers over the years. That's called motive. Reverend James Mitchell doesn't want to hear it. As the head pastor of Union Missionary, since the passing away of his mentor, Reverend J.C. Sims, Mitchell has taken a conciliatory stance full of Christian forgiveness. The new reverend finds my anger about the situation puzzling and disconcerting. "It's all in God's timing, John, you have to understand that," Mitchell said to me the day before the reopening ceremonies. Forgive me, Rev, but I remain dubious.
I'm a politician, so I don't read scripture Lessee, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter -- all three of these guys could (and often did) pop off an appropriate Bible quote without even having to think about it. I don't even want to talk about John Ashcroft. Countless southern governors and congressmen have peppered their speeches with Bible passages throughout the history of the south. Down here, south of the Manson-Nixon line*, the Bible is so interwoven into political thoughtspeak that the pairing of the two ideologies is as natural and remarkable as grass growing in front of a house. When the Bible and politics mix, it's as newsworthy as a dog biting a man. Calamaras' opening remark was the equivalent of a man biting a dog. This was a total disconnect, not only from the audience at hand but from historic and national political realities. It was truly bizarre, very unpolitic and just plain incredibly dumb. This was followed by typical municipal revisionism: Calamaras went on to talk about the wonderful partnership that existed between the church and the city in the wake of the floods. Union Missionary was allowed to hold their services at city hall, for instance. Yeah, OK. Actually, the city was looking out for the church. For once. As a glowing example, it should be noted that city hall was not visited by any sewage backups during the entire time that Union Missionary was holding their Sunday services in the city's conference room.
It's a white thing, you wouldn't understand Calamaras couldn't remember the name. Sims, someone told him. Calamaras went on to describe the excitement that went on with this "old time black" service. Puzzled faces in the crowd started looking at each other: Where is this hombre going with this story? Sensing some discord, Calamaras tried to bring the story home. "But there were some white people there," Calamaras told the crowd in a reassuring voice, as though the whole thing was something near to wrong and the presence of white people made it OK.
I was still choking back laughter from the earlier quote about politicians not reading scripture, but this new twist wasn't funny. It was weird and getting downright scary. The mayor was on the verge of engendering some serious hostility. You do not want to piss off a choir full of church women, not on their home ground and not after having exiled them for two years because you can't figure out how to plumb a simple valve. This robed choir was dead center in front of Hizzoner, easily within grabbing range. I was standing in the very back of the crowd next to the Herald-Trib's Paul Quinlan. I took a couple of steps backwards. I had no idea where Calamaras was going with this story but this was already too weird for me and there were a couple of possible avenues at this point that the mayor could walk down that would lead to serious ugliness. I wanted to be as far away as possible lest someone might later accuse me of inciting a melee. Calamaras described an altar call at the end of the service that he had attended in terms that made it clear that he had never seen an altar call before. He stated he sat in the back row as the preacher called for anyone who wanted to accept Jesus to come to the front of the altar. Calamaras stated he held back for a time and then finally came forward. He stated that he was immediately surrounded by a group of five or six men who placed their hands on his shoulders and prayed over him. Sims looked into his eyes and said, "Mr. Mayor, I never thought you would come forward." Calamaras stated he responded, "Neither did I."
I had an encounter with Christ The mayor went on and mumbled a bit and then stopped dead for what seemed like an eternity. He clearly had wandered into this tale without thinking about it and he was now lost, trying to find an ending. He stared at some fixed point in front of him, not seeing the gathered crowd before him. He looked empty and drained, childlike, sad and embarrassed, all at the same time. The crowd was dead silent. That was not necessarily a good sign -- this crowd is used to being noisy at revelatory moments, usually shouting back at such spoken confessional statements with calls of "Tell it, brother" and "Amen!" Nobody was urging Calamaras to "tell it, brother." Not a single shout of "amen" was heard. Just a long, pregnant silence. Finally, Calamaras spoke into the microphone in almost a faint whisper: "I've never told that story to anyone before. I don't know why I'm telling it now." The mayor stood there for a moment, still looking for an ending. He couldn't find one, so he sat back down. Ya know.......? ......... ......... Eh, nevermind. I'm going to return to my seat now.
John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times. |
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As I watched the grand opening
ceremonies for the rebuilding of the Union Missionary Baptist Church on this
past Saturday, I was
filled with mixed emotions. On the one hand, it was great to see the church take
a stand and show that they meant business, that they were keeping their little
plot of land smack in the center of one of the city's most contentious future
development areas. Juxtaposed against my feelings of happiness for the church
were my feelings of disgust at the lengths the city had gone to get the church
out of the way and the overall denial of the basic facts that had led to the
church's closure and ultimately to this reopening.
"I'm a politician, so I don't read scripture,"
Calamaras stated in his opening remarks to the grand reopening crowd. This
unexpectedly hilarious
