The Tuskegee Airmen finally were officially recognized yesterday for their contribution both to WWII and to American civil rights. The gap between their contributions and their recognition is so enormous I imagine most everyone has forgotten what they did and the personal courage necessary to do what they did.
I worked with Tuskegee Airman Spann Watson
for several years in Washington back in the 1980s. He told me all those stories about the Airmen. He flew missions in North Africa, Italy, the Mediterranean. He was part of the Freeman Field Mutiny
where Watson was talked into attempting to integrate the officers’ club by his friend Coleman Young. He and his unit were exiled to Kentucky after this attempt failed. The picture shows officers that participated in the incident waiting for transport to their new post. In this Deep South post Watson — a decorated combat pilot — could not walk into the bar at a downtown hotel because he was black but the German POWs being held at this post could. Imagine, our Jim Crow laws in 1945 were so absolute that they prevented a decorated combat pilot from having a drink in an American hotel bar but German POWs, because they were white, were welcome.
Of course, if the political stars were aligned differently this act of recognition by the White House would not have happened. Some would have known about the contribution made by the Tuskegee Airmen but most Americans would never know. These aging veterans (Spann is over 90 now) would have died without the recognition they all thought they deserved. They could have waited forever to be found or, as Young says in his poem,
immaculate, bereft, deserving to be found.
Sleep Cycle — from Skid by Dean Young
We cannot push ourselves away
from this quiet, even in our sprees
of inattention, the departing passengers
stubbing out their smokes, arrivees in tears,
lots of cellophane, the rumpus over parking.
Wind scrapes leaves across the road,
first flashes of snow, it is dark then
it’s really dark. Forgive me for not
writing for so long, I’ve been
right beside you, one of the vaguer
divinities blocking your way with its need
to confess all its botched attempts at love,
what started the whole mess. I love this place,
its absurd use of balustrade, the chairs
that dig into the spine, motorcyclists
propping their drunk girlfriends in the sun,
men playing timed chess with themselves,
the guarantees and warnings that entice us
to the brink of what they warn about.
But we can do no more than pass through
these rooms and their sudden chills
where once a plea was entered almost
unintentionally that seemed at last
to reveal ourselves to ourselves,
immaculate, bereft, deserving to be found.
Just south of the Arabian Peninsula and east of Somalia.
We’ve been painting our place up in the mountains for the last five days. Almost looks like a painting now, doesn’t it?
Well, OK, this isn’t what it looks like. Here is the Zen version of our painting 
Contemplating complementary colors over a glass a wine. But what we did instead was climb up and down steep ladders, 
pose provocatively with a paint brush, 
and look at the snow still in the mountains outside our window. 
, finches, 
hairy woodpeckers, 
and several less interesting birds. Must have gone through 10 pounds of birdseed. Winter stirs up a powerful appetite.
Put this many cars in two lanes and this was the slowdown we experienced on I-95 in South Carolina.
