It’s a Mistake to Believe That Life Can Be Free of Errors
The year being half over, it’s time for me to add up my errors so far, and see whether I am within my quota of only two a year.
I have already been accused of making several more than two, but, as you will see, my critics are as often wrong as I am.
For example, reader William B. (Pink) Pinkerton of Pico Rivera chides me for defending my use of ken in a Scrabble game as a “Scotch word” meaning know .
“There are only two things that I know of that are properly called Scotch,” he says. “They are whiskey and tape.”
Webster’s New World Dictionary defines Scotch as a contraction of Scottish, meaning “of Scotland, its people, or their language or culture.” It also lists Scotch broth, Scotch egg, Scotch grain, Scotch-Irish, Scotch pine and Scotch verdict.
Al Halpern of Anaheim questions my report of seeing thousands of cows in a stockyard beside Interstate 5. “The last half-dozen times I drove to San Jose past those ‘cows,’ ” he says, “they were bulls !”
Actually, I wasn’t close enough to tell whether they were cows or bulls, but I suspect they were probably steers.
In any case, Webster’s notes that in the West a cow is “a domestic bovine animal, whether a steer, bull, cow or calf: usually used in plural.” This is the West, Al.
A truly embarrassing lapse, however, is pointed out by James L. Wilkinson of North Hollywood and Jere Stuart French of Claremont. I placed Errol Flynn among the heroic trio in “Gunga Din,” along with sidekicks Cary Grant and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and replacing Victor McLaglen.
I am an aficionado of “Gunga Din.” I have seen it perhaps five times. My lapse is not only inexcusable, but also inexplicable. Perhaps Flynn was on my mind because he remains the definitive Robin Hood, despite two recent attempts by others to usurp the role. So does Victor McLaglen remain the irreplaceable Sgt. McChesney.
As an aside, French notes that “Gunga Din” is his kind of cult movie--”a kind of morality play in which the good and bad guys are clearly separated yet really mirror images of one another.” For example, he says, Eduardo Cianelli and his Kali cutthroats are not the real enemy. “They are just the other team on the field.” The truly dangerous enemy, he says, is Fairbanks’ fiancee, Joan Fontaine--fresh, starched and proper. “They know the real peril when they see it. (She) represents The End of Life as We Know It.”
Several readers have complained about my statement that the Japanese-American internees at Manzanar in World War II, having lost their lands, homes and businesses, had been betrayed by their own government.
Critics point out that in 1942, when the relocation was undertaken, Pearl Harbor was fresh in our minds; the West Coast was seen as vulnerable to attack; the fear of espionage or sabotage was reasonable, and the danger of anti-Japanese violence was real.
Of all those dangers I think the last was the most likely. The Zoot Suit riots of 1943 suggest how bloody it might have been if servicemen, on leave in Los Angeles, had invaded Little Tokyo looking for some Japanese to bash. We will never know.
I suggested recently on Earl Warren’s 100th birthday that he might be the man of the century for his work in civil rights law as Supreme Court justice. But some readers refuse to forgive him his endorsement of the relocation.
Several readers argued that Warren was not only a participant in the relocation, but the ringleader. True; and he later called it his worst mistake.
Robert B. Wolcott Jr. of Glendale recalls that he was in UCLA in 1942; that fear of invasion was widespread and his Nisei friends feared violence against Japanese. It is easy for people who weren’t there to be outraged by the relocation, he points out.
“The relocation was one thing. The seizure of the property and the businesses these Japanese-Americans had to leave behind is the real tawdry story here. . . . I saw what happened to those Westside truck farms and the downtown business enterprises and it was a sickening sight. . . .”
Robert M. Garrick, a retired rear admiral, notes that many internees have received $20,000 payments as compensation. “I think of the 1,500 officers and men whose bodies still are in the bowels of the USS Arizona.”
It is impossible today to recall the fears, emotions and realities of 1942. All things considered, I think the relocation was understandable, but not just. In any case, my remark was an opinion, not an error. Spelling the Shubert Theatre as Schubert--that was an error. And it fills my quota.