Driving Miss Liberty
by John Adams

On March 21st 2009, as is the case moment to moment and day to day, the conniving twin sisters, whom we know as Fate and Destiny were busy orchestrating some of their finest work.  Collected within an ordinary car were three neatly dressed men; accompanying them was someone they could not rid themselves of, even if they wanted to. Entranced with the rhythmic droning of the cars engine, they made their way through the labyrinthine maze of faded asphalt and fast food chains, escaping at least for a few hours, their winter citadel. Not one of the inhabitants of the 50,000 cars the men likely passed, turned their heads as they might, were they to have come upon a stretch limousine or other such boastful car. Their conversations were not recorded and yet it doesn’t really matter, as the men themselves would argue. 

One of the men had an obligation to fulfill when he arrived at their destination. He was well prepared; he took his commitments with a joyful seriousness all too uncommon in today’s world. Their destination was a beautiful building. It was small but stately, made of hand-formed bricks and carved stone. The second floor balcony was adorned with ornate wrought iron with a sculpture of an eagle lording overhead. The men first observed, and then followed, the funneling vortex of people. The red, white and blue bunting which was strewn in succession on the balcony seemed to wave to the bustling throng as they made their way through the mahogany door exquisitely carved by an anonymous long-ago hand. Just inside the door to the left, the men could not help but notice a massive bell fitted onto an equally massive wooden yoke. 

This was no ordinary bell. Its’ twin was the Liberty Bell at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Having been cast from the very same mould as the original, it shared all the markings of its’ twin but one; the crack.  The richly grained yoke which held the bell was just as extraordinary. It was made from the last surviving Liberty Tree where the Sons of Liberty met in protestation of British policies which would stir a revolution. The tree was a 600 year old tulip poplar which, despite the efforts of the people of Maryland, fell prey to the winds of hurricane Floyd in the last year of the last century. The bell was on loan and would only be there for a while longer and one of the men would have the honor of ringing it. Few in attendance had ever met the man who was to fulfill his obligation by speaking to them. This was evidenced by the fact that as the crowd milled about tending to whatever occupation stirred them, the man passed through them in complete anonymity on his way to the bare wood stool which awaited him. The cacophony of the crowd reduced to a murmur and finally to silence as William Potter, the host of the event prepared his introduction. It was warm and infused with an endless train of deserved honor and respect.

Finally, the man took the stage, shuffled his eyes, and began the story he had told many times. As with each telling before, he held his audience ever at the ready for his next word or expression. The audience from time to time would reveal a polite frustration when his tone would thin and become inaudible. But they would press on and so would he. His talk would alternate between the serious and the light-hearted almost in the rhythm of a roller coaster that would slowly inch and inch upward, only to then plummet downward spiraling to and fro. He spoke for about an hour and then gathered his mind and body to the point where it was obvious to all that he was through - but said nothing. He stared into the crowd as if he had fixed himself on a point a thousand yards away. Still, he said nothing. A few keen eyes among the crowd grew worried as the man’s legs became more hindrance than help. His arms dropped to his side as all expression slowly retired from his face. 

A man in the second row trained in such things recognized the signs before him and leaped to assist the man who just moments before was the very personification of life. The troubled man yawned and yawned like that of a lion stripped of his roar, his brain desperately seeking substance in every draw. 

He was aided to the edge of the stage and was gently sat down by the doctor. The doctor searched and prodded, probed and plotted to find answers, quickly but calmly. The disappearing color returned to his face in the exact reverse that it went out as the man slowly made it to his feet under the watchful eyes of the physician and the stilted throng who had come to see him. The thousand yard stare he had once held became five hundred, then two hundred, then one hundred until both he and his teetering brain had captured the ground in front of him. With a warm smile and an inquisitive mind he searched the crowd as he formed his lips to speak. He had been out for at least twenty minutes since the ordeal began and the paramedics who had been called right away were still in route. But to him it had been mere seconds … “are there any questions?” he asked. His fertile mind had saved his place for him as if it had seized the second hand on the clock and told it not to move. 

The gathered crowd had lots of questions but their minds had remained in continuous motion and were more attuned to the sound of the sirens which pierced the afternoon air than burdening a gallant soul with an inquisition which by now seemed self indulgent. 

The gurney was transformed into its mobile state as it was rolled its way to the speaker, now flushed with the same color he had when he first walked into the hall. A man and a woman both well practiced in their art unpacked their workshop instantly and began attaching various devices to the accommodating man. The doctor, having not left his side assisted in the various fact finding incursions. To the relief of those standing among the machines employed to diagnose tragedy, their speaker had eluded it. In fact, he had grown impatient of being the patient and informed the paramedics that he would not be joining them on their ride back. He had an obligation to fulfill and he wasn’t through. One of the paramedics assembled their myriad implements as the other produced a paper for the man to sign. He did so and the dedicated crew made their way to the ambulance with the empty gurney in tow.   

The crowd, most of which had stayed, were relieved to know that the speaker had survived his brush with the other side and were taken aback when he insisted on talking to each of them – one by one. The doctor and the paramedics agreed that it was most likely a Transient Ischemic Attack (T.I.A.), a mini stroke which may last minutes or hours. Any stoke of course, should not be taken lightly and no one in the room did- but one. He motioned for the people to come forward and they did so. Two more hours would pass before the man could be dragged through the same carved portal that he had entered three and a half hours before.  

One got the feeling that if he had died right there he would have been okay with it. There was a spirit about him; a muse that seemed to envelope the area in which he stood.  It was both comforting and awesome at the same time. But not awesome in the way an adolescent uses the word to describe everything from a skateboard to a video game. Awesome, as in seeing the majesty of the Grand Canyon for the first time or witnessing the birth of a premature child who by the grace of God, somehow survives. Or surviving a stroke and having the fortitude to finish the work you are in - that kind of awesome.   

The sun was waning in the sky as the man waved goodbye to the remaining crowd. He then turned and walk down the few steps toward the car that would take him home. The faithful still inside were exhausted from the ordeal as their emotions were taken on a ride they probably thought they weren’t tall enough to get on. They were right. Only a few are. This man was, still is, and shall forever be. So were his companions in the car which brought him to his now rendered obligation. One of the passengers was James Starnes who was the Navigator and Officer of the Day onboard the USS Missouri when the Japanese Empire surrendered to the Allies thus ending World War II. The second passenger was Ken Myers who piloted an LST in the Pacific; the vulnerable craft which delivered Marines to the island beaches under withering cascades of bombs and machine gun fire. The speaker and part time patient was none other than Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, the navigator on the Enola Gay who released the world’s first atomic bomb over Japan. He did this not knowing whether he would survive to know if his deed had brought the horrible war to an end or not.  

The unknown one, who the men could not rid themselves of, and who accompanied them on their trip that day, was not unknown at all – not to them at least. This ever-present passenger is always with them. She is the ethereal part of Thomas Jefferson’s Trinity – the immutable ideal which is book-ended by two others so-named life & the pursuit of happiness.  Her name is Liberty – “Miss Liberty”. She is the faithful muse that always follows men like these. She speaks to them, and they to us, if we’ll listen. She speaks to them in the melodic cadence of Jessica Tandy in the movie “Driving Miss Daisy”.  If you listen closely you can hear her say…

“Boys …you’re my best friend.” 

John Adams

(Image taken from: nps.gov)