Brick

Copy­right 2008 Ben S. Pollock

DATELINE MIRTHOLOGY — That would be me, a metaphor­i­cal den­tist, just for the morn­ing. Even though as a jour­nal­ist, ethics for­bids me from vol­un­teer­ing in pol­i­tics I have over the years taken on other tasks out­side the news­room. It’s a nice way to meet inter­est­ing peo­ple, and one actu­ally gets to be cre­ative and help oth­ers. I’ve been a stage­hand and musi­cian for ama­teur the­ater, played in com­mu­nity bands, been a web mas­ter for a cou­ple of groups. I’ve ush­ered and manned con­ces­sion stands at any num­ber of fundrais­ers and also big-name con­certs where such actions get you in free.

These have been fun, but there is a dark side. It might as well be pol­i­tics. I helped one week­end after­noon — 20 years ago but I’ll never for­get — at a vol­un­teer tele­mar­ket­ing event. The group was phon­ing to ask for dona­tions, very direct. I was at a low spot finan­cially and made my time my con­tri­bu­tion. In between calls these peo­ple would com­pare notes. Every­one knew every­one and would be unbe­liev­ably nasty that so-and-so only pledged X, when every­one knows the spouse made a killing on Y deal last month. Then the next vol­un­teer would top that with her report. All they knew was the couple’s pub­lic story or per­haps mere gos­sip. I grew up in a small city and learned from lis­ten­ing to com­pas­sion­ate grown-ups like my par­ents that you don’t know if some­one leases that fancy car, is in unbe­liev­able debt, is fak­ing a sta­ble mar­riage. These phon­ers were hos­tile, which was more pro­nounced as I recalled see­ing them act like dear friends to the peo­ple they jeered. I never vol­un­teered for this group again, nor ever gave them a nickel. But I have to sus­pect most groups I’ve helped over the years must have an ele­ment of this.

To give non-profits their due, some­times their lead­ers have to be diplo­mats. I know two fea­ture jour­nal­ists — give me an hour and I’ll think of oth­ers — who report or review com­mu­nity pro­duc­tions (from fine art to music to drama) but also act in their pro­duc­tions or edit their newslet­ters or ful­fill other tasks. Behind their backs the oth­ers are vocally resent­ful. I don’t believe the two I’m think­ing of have much clue how uni­ver­sally they’re despised. They must sus­pect but believe it’s only a few peo­ple and then it must be some­thing like pro­fes­sional jealousy.

My under­stand­ing of this is how I have come to rep­re­sent Crys­tal Britches in some pieces here. She doesn’t want love or peo­ple to change their minds about her nec­es­sar­ily. She just wants to be under­stood. As bril­liant as she is, she has failed to get empa­thy and has asked for help.

She is not like the other vol­un­teers I have men­tioned, who by being pla­cated with jobs or board spots offer good pub­lic­ity or free advice (yes, lawyers who freely draft incor­po­ra­tion papers or accoun­tants who com­plete IRS forms tend to become non-profits’ beloved mem­bers). Crys­tal Britches is wel­comed because she is loaded.

Crys­tal Britches serves on any num­ber of Ozarks orga­ni­za­tions because at unpre­dictable times she writes exceed­ingly gen­er­ous checks. Rogers-Bentonville have about six women and four men who are like this, and Fayetteville-Springdale have five women and three men whose eccen­tric­i­ties have to be ignored through forced grins, just to get a jack­pot from twice a year to once a decade.

Crys­tal Britches is her real name. Really. It’s on the Inter­net so it must be true. She also wears crys­tal britches so it’s her nick­name as well. You have seen her, but you may not have real­ized who she is. She’s either in her 60s and looks it, though trim and ath­letic, or in her 50s and spent too much of her teens and 20s in the sun. She stays fit by walk­ing nearly every­where. For dis­tances she rides a motor scooter. She wears shorts even late into the fall and starts again too early in the late win­ter — like today. The mus­cle tone is admirable but the skin? Well, you’d have to be her age to admire her legs, I guess.

She wears plas­tic rain suits dur­ing inclement weather, vinyl pon­cho on top and clear pants below. You see her at the Fayet­teville Farm­ers Mar­ket, where the ven­dors all know her. She shows up at the Wal­ton Arts Cen­ter box office 15 min­utes before cur­tain to buy returned tick­ets. You never see her at any of North­west Arkansas’ 38 annual ben­e­fit dances — maybe she sends them anony­mous cashier’s checks — though gen­tle­men of her acquain­tance know she’s won regional awards in com­pet­i­tive ball­room dancing.

There’s more to say — as she’s asked me to ghost for her — but I’ll leave details for future sto­ries from the Chron­i­cles of Crys­tal Britches. –30–