Column by Ken Hamilton —
My annual checkup indicates that I am in such good health that, at least for now, my doctor has taken me off blood pressure medicine.
It is clear that the most likely causative factor of my hypertension was the stress that I smilingly endured over many, many years. Having long ago given up what could be sadly considered chemical stress-relievers — alcohol, nicotine and recreation pharmaceuticals — humor was one of my only remaining stress antidotes. Now all I have to do is to exercise more, continue trimming off the pounds and thank a young sailor, whom I remember neither his face nor his name, who helped me to arrive at this moment.
It happened aboard the USS Farragut some 35 years ago as we plowed our way towards the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea. Upon receiving relief of my duties as the CIC watch supervisor, I had to hustle down to the messdeck, grab chow, shovel it into my face as quickly as possible and then head back up to CIC to take control of some aircraft for a scheduled anti-submarine warfare exercise.
Farragut’s messdeck had no reserved seating, so you sat at the hurricane tables wherever there was an open seat. This was in the 70s, and even though race plays heavily today, it played much more heavily then. I sat across from another young sailor, whom I had seen before, but was not familiar enough with him to know his name.
I threw my leg over the back of the chair and my tail hit the seat at the same time that my tray hit the table; and even before I looked into the face of the sailor who sat across from me, I had already reached for the salt shaker and had a sprinkle or two of it on my meal.
That’s when the sailor asked me, in a more demanding than curious voice, “What are you doing?”
With his question, I stopped shaking the salt and began to study his face, trying to figure out what he was talking about. “What do you mean” I asked.
Slowly and distinctly, he restated his question. “What are you doing?”
My eyes fell upon the rating badge on the left sleeve of his puny arm, and I was clearly the superior petty officer. “Was this man somehow challenging me,” I asked myself. “Clearly I out rank him and could easily beat the snot out of him, too.” Was he saying that because I was black that I shouldn’t be sitting at his table?
Of Farragut’s crew of 370 or so sailors, there couldn’t have been but two or three-dozen non-whites onboard. So, with the salt shaker still suspended at the end of my arm, I sternly asked him again, “What do you mean?”
The sailor smiled, looked me in the eye and asked, “Why are you putting salt on your food when you haven’t even tasted it yet?”
His observation puzzled me, and made me think hard about what I was doing. I hadn’t tasted the food, but had always put salt on it without tasting it — and it was good Navy chow. I sat the shaker down, tasted the food and found that it was to my liking, and I never again picked up a salt shaker without first tasting my food. In fact, from that day forward, I probably cut my table salt intake by 95 percent.
And so, two lessons in why old salts do what we do: we ought to know what the conditions really are before we take even routine actions; and two, we ought to always examine why we do what we thoughtlessly do.
I noticed that a lot of salt was needlessly sprinkled during this last election, and so I ask, “What are you doing?”
•••
In last week’s column, The graphics are clearly better, I ran a piece about the Highland Community Revitalization Committee doing a cleanup around the long-closed Niagara Community Center. HCRC’s president, ‘Shirley’ Hicks, stopped in front of the house and reminded me of some much needed information. “My name isn’t Shirley,” she said. “I’m Donna! You now have everyone calling me Shirley.”
Well, I ‘shirley’ apologize for the mistake, Donna; and I hope that this clears that up. But, keep up the good work and encourage your friends to keep reading my columns in this good newspaper.
Ken Hamilton is a Niagara Falls resident. Contact him at kenhamilton930@aol.com.
Ken Hamilton
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HAMILTON: Why do old salts do what we do
- Ken Hamilton
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HAMILTON: Dandelions, parades, broken poles and people
There are still those remnants of the fading bouquets of floral tributes that still hang at that base of a tree on city hall’s lawn. It is near where, last year, from his shiny silvery cart, Melvin Johnson sold hot dogs and sausages to both city employees and passerbys while his tiny white dog excitingly yelped at anyone that came near.
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HAMILTON: Civic ‘ParticipAction’ can work too
Back in the 1970s, our Neighbors to the North ran a national campaign called ParticipAction to encourage Canadians to get off their butts and do things for the sakes of their bodies.
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HAMILTON: Monuments, baths and depots are related
After five-years of hard work, the Niagara Falls Veterans Memorial Monument is finally rising from the both the ground at Hyde Park and the controversy from which it was born; and that controversy was in whether or not should the limited number of streets that a city has be renamed for the proud and brave men and women who gave their lives for the freedoms that we thusly have to do such; or should they be honored together with those whom they served.
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HAMILTON: How about just standing against bigotry?
The best time and place to stand with anyone against any kind of bigotry is in the morning and in the mirror.
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HAMILTON: O.J., Zimmerman and the imminent civil trial
What is to become of the unregistered Florida security guard George Zimmerman, now up on charges of second- degree murder for the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin?
That is up to the courts to decide. -
HAMILTON: Trayvon, Zimmerman, you and I: All Americans
Though it is subsiding, and its once roaring flames have all but died down, racism will always be with us — it is inherent in our human nature. But its glowing embers of hatred burn us the most when we pick them up with our hands and blow upon them with the chilling breath of notoriety.
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HAMILTON: Our past, not Niagara's, leads us to love city
Not everyone in Niagara Falls remembers its past, and not everyone who remembers its past shares either the same set of memories or remembers them in the same way that others do.
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HAMILTON: Black-on-black crime, crabs and melted butter
On the subject of black-on-black crime, an Army veteran from Washington D.C. said to me that we, as black people, have to work on this black-on-black crime issue. There is this “crab in the barrel mentality” that a lot of us have, especially the youngsters, and their attitudes toward life are a work in progress, he said.
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HAMILTON: Holy Moses, council, where're we going?
The leadership compass of our local elected bodies are spinning like the pinwheel of that little piggy in that GEICO commercial; and watching it with my one good eye is making me dizzy.
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HAMILTON: It ain't about fracking, it's about process
What people say is one thing, but the basis of their arguments is what is likely to concern me the most.
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