We met up with friends on Allen Street for some arts festing last Thursday afternoon. We were between downpours, which meant it was hot and humid. The benches in the shade were occupied. The benches in the sun had vacancies. A couple of us grabbed a seat while, on stage, Richard Sleigh and Jerry Zolten addressed the age-old question: Can a blue boy play the whites?
We lasted a song’s length before the heat drove us to the shadows cast by the storefronts on the west side of the street. I didn’t mind standing, but before long, a couple of attendees picked up the bench we’d been sitting on and moved it from sun to shade. We looked at each other, aghast at our own passivity: Why didn’t we think of that?
A characterological crisis ensued. Were we the sort of people who mindlessly accept the configurations of things exactly as we find them? Or do we say, hey, we can change that? (Sylvester the Cat’s version: “Are we men or are we mice?” Were we like the kitty who responds, “I like cheese?”)
The sociopolitical implications seemed enormous. Ideally, one heeds “The Serenity Prayer.” You know: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
In other words, some benches are moveable. So move ‘em. (In the case of the current Supreme Court, it’s worth trying to move the bench to an Antarctic ice shelf.)
Some benches are bolted down. Don’t knock yourself out.
In practice, some noble souls struggle ceaselessly with the bolted-down benches of entrenched power and ignorance, while most of us park our carcasses on the bench instead of trying to move it (good luck moving it while you’re sitting on it!).
In the column-writing class I teach at Penn State, my students notice (especially when I point it out to them) that America’s opinion writers have been straining against various national insanities – guns, obscene military spending, cruel and unusual punishments, climate change denial, tolerance of influence-buying in politics, etc., for decades. Yet the benches do not budge. So why bother?
At which point I remind them of all the benches that have budged over the past half century or so, not because some superorganic “arc of the moral universe…bends toward justice,” as Martin Luther King, Jr., said, but because King and his followers and the followers of his followers pushed and pushed some more and kept pushing. They moved the bench.
Yes, people get tired of pushing. Some are so tired from all the pushing around they daily endure that they haven’t the strength to push back. And some people feel, justifiably, when it comes to unequal treatment, that they shouldn’t have to push at all.
There’s a lot to be said for accepting the things you can’t do anything about. The alternative is frustration, bitterness and “exercises in futility,” as my dad would put it.
But some of us need reminding (Dad: “a good, swift kick in the pants”) that there are plenty of benches that can be dislodged – with bolt cutters, if need be. And when I say some of us, I include myself.
My symptoms: When my toes poke through my socks, it doesn’t immediately occur to me that I can go out and buy new ones. I must first experience a mild wave of self-pity. Ah me, I’ll now have to go about with holes in my socks.
And were a meteorite to crash-land in my living room, I’m pretty sure I would walk around it for a while before I realized I could remove the rock and repair the roof.
I have detoured around too many meteorites, I’m sorry to say.
All things do not come to those who wait. In the case of Richard and Jerry’s terrific set on the Allen Street stage, the normal festival churn did free up seats for all of us in the shade after a bit. But that did not stop “Move the Bench” from becoming an instant hyperlocal meme – and by hyperlocal, I mean among me and my four companions.
In the interest of spreading the word, we got excited about emblazoning T-shirts, buttons, bumper stickers and coffee mugs with our new rallying cry.
What we did next, though, was head over to the parklet, where we had immediate luck finding a shady picnic table on which to eat our food court suppers while listening to the Zeropoint Big Band.
Did the earth stop spinning? It did not. Soon its spin left us exposed to the sun. But so inspired were we by that show of initiative on Allen Street, that we all got up and moved our table back into the shade. It was a heavy lift.
So, as placeholder for those T-shirts and bumper stickers, I leave you with this note to self: Move the bench. Even if it’s heavy. Even if you like cheese.
