Tales from the Attic: I quit

Written in the 1970s, with the author subsequently and fortunately ignoring his own arguments.

MY DEAR CHAIRPERSON, I quit. I don't say that with petulance, in bitterness or even while going under for the third time beneath a wave of indifference. I believe in the cause of our committee, admire your skillful leadership of it and appreciate the need for the active participation of citizens in all matters affecting their well-being.

There are, instead, what they call personal reasons for my departure. For one thing, I am getting a bit worried about my health. Let me cite a few sentences from the report of my last physical, which I intercepted en route from my doctor to his files: "Patient appears to be in generally good physical health except for a severe redness of the left ear and bruises on left shoulder apparently due to clamping a telephone receiver between these two points for long hours. This also suggests the cause of the leftward tilt of the head and patient's tendency to play with an imaginary cord in ordinary conversation. A crease line on his back matches the upper contour of the standard folding chair and he reports that the scar tissue above each knee comes from repeatedly attempting to tilt back in same but failing to clear the table in front of him.

“His major complaints, however, appear to be non-physical.  Patient reports an inability to carry out the simplest task without an agenda, frequently awakes in the middle of the night screaming "point of order," and believes that most people in the world are out to approve the minutes of the last meeting without giving him a chance to amend them. Several times during my examination of him, he demanded to know if there were a quorum present and when I asked him if he thought it would be wise to ' consult a psychiatrist, he said he would have to consult 'the task force' and report back to me at our next meeting. He added that it might be an important enough question to hold over for the annual meeting when the general membership would be present. . ."

Now, to tell you the truth, I don't remember having said these things. But my physical took place the morning after our last meeting, which you will recall was highlighted by Joanne B. leading a walkout by residents of the 340O block of Willard Street, with Richard S. reading his entire thirteen page report on the tree replacement issue into the record, a 1:24 a.m. adjournment, and a man whom none of us knew, dressed in clerical garb save his red tennis shoes, demanding that we cease this silliness and turn to Christ. I had wild dreams that night that somehow revolved around trees growing red canvas crosses, and confess to you, but not to my doctor, that I arose and ate something during the night.

Under the circumstances, I may have said those things. In any case, I have certainly felt them from time to time and the feeling has come with such rapidly increasing frequency that I have come to the conclusion that I best lay off this committee business for awhile.

There was a time when I greeted the morning like Rabbit in Winnie the Pooh: "It was just the day for Organizing Something, or for Writing a Notice Signed Rabbit, or for Seeing What Everybody Thought About It." Since you have only known me for a relatively few years, you may have thought this an inherent part of my nature. Not true. My Rabbit days only go back a decade or so.

Even when I became editor of a neighborhood newspaper I steadfastly refused to join any neighborhood organization, arguing that I had to remain objective, whatever that was. But in the sixties, you will recall, the ghost of Joe Hill arose again, telling us not to mourn but organize.  Slowly, like millions of other Americans, I began to let myself belong.

At first I was careful enough.  Doing some press work for the local SNCC chapter, going to meetings of the Emergency Recreation Committee for Capital East, helping to organize my neighbors into the Northeast People Progressive Association, one of the dozens of block clubs being established in our area by that new breed of hyperactive adult, the community organizer. I never did fully understand what the community organizers of the anti-poverty program were up to but I was willing to accept the possibility that if we formed enough block clubs we could vote poverty out of office. Besides it was effective, if tedious, way to get grass seed for our sidewalk tree islands.

You can well imagine what happened next. On one occasion, I found myself getting a field promotion, leaping from the trenches of the general citizenry onto the board of directors without ever having attended a meeting of the organization. In a matter of less than two years I had left the warmth of apathy and had become a typical member of that proto-typical organization I dreamed up late one night in a brief moment of reflection. I called it Neighbors Energetically  Joining Everything Remotely Constructive - or NE-JERC for short. As casually as a dropped quarter, I had rolled through the grate and into the pit of committeedom, there to rest where you found me. I've tried it all ways, I've been the token conservative on radical committees; the token radical on conservative committees; a responsible and quiet hard-working member; a noisy, disruptive one. I've been on committees as autocratic as a sheikdom and ones that have engaged in the purest form of anarchy. I have sat on committees with time limits on their meetings and committees that greeted the dawn. I've been on committees that wouldn't go to the bathroom before discussing the ideological implications involved and committees that would build a bathroom before discussing where the money would come from.

During one of the early school board races I was even a member of a committee of six people that, like a fraudulent Russian prince, was accepted as an important institution simply because we acted as though we were. The press, never discovering our true nature, quoted us liberally.

Some of these committees were more effective than they deserved, many less than they could have been.  But regardless of the degree of militancy, method of organization, or personalities involved, certain immutable principles followed them from meeting to meeting. Among these principles were the following:

• The longer a committee is in existence, the less it does. The best committees are those with "Emergency," "Ad Hoc',  ' Temporary" or "Crisis" in their title. They are formed out of anger or need, seldom get around to writing by-laws and have a vigor that can only come from the presumption of victory and thus early obsolescence .

• The better organized a committee is the more time it will spend remaining so and the less time it will spend doing what it was established to do.

• The harder one works on a committee, the less others will do and the more you will be asked to do. This is also true of the whole committee, since committees basically serve the function of making the world safe for apathy. Those who advocate town meeting democracy fail to realize that the vast majority of Americans fully understand that without representative government they would have no one to do it for them, a totally untenable situation.

• The primary source of committee members is other committees. Therefore, if you wish to stay off committees, stay off the first one.

• The more people on a committee have in common the more time they will spend arguing about it. If you are careful to add one obstructionist to your committee, it will unite all the others.  They will quickly move the agenda and you'll be home for the eleven o'clock news.

• For shorter meetings either serve no liquids or serve coffee and beer and clog the toilet.

• The minute anyone suggests that the committee do something, appoint that person to head a subcommittee on the matter. Most will plead sickness in the family but a few will actually take up the cause.

• When it comes to that point in the meeting to look for volunteers, volunteer early for some totally trivial or enjoyable task. Stand right up and say, "I'll be glad to call the weather bureau to see what the long range forecast is for our rally," and that will leave everyone else with the job of finding speakers, setting up loudspeakers, calling the press and corralling an appropriately angry crowd.

• Never serve as a token member of any committee unless you can occasionally field a majority. Otherwise the committee will continue to do wrong and won't even feel guilty about it.

 • The following are acceptable excuses for not going to a meeting: My mother died (even chair people have mothers). I have to go to another meeting where a very close vote is expected,  but will try to come later (chair people always have schedule conflicts.). I have to stay late at the office (even chair people have jobs.)

• The following are not valid excuses for not going to a meeting: J want to see the 14th chapter of "The Pallisers" on TV (demonstrates questionable social values). I don't have a babysitter (demonstrates sloth). My wife and I had a fight over all the meetings I go to so I think I'll stay home (demonstrates putting the nuclear family above the general welfare of the community). My car won't start (someone will pick you up and then leave early without telling you). I don't feel good (with all the grave problems we face in our society you're not supposed to feel good) .

• Finally, there is a minority within the minority of committeedom made up of people who belong to committees not to croak in a public bog, nor to take out hostilities, nor to get themselves nominated, but because they believe that the only way crummy things can be made better is for people to get together and do something about it. They work hard, make even the most contentious committee function, and are the reason committees do worthwhile things from time to time. In the old days we called them saints; today they are more often called corresponding secretaries.. But even with these principles firmly in the mind, it is the rare person who can survive, as I have, ten years on the committee circuit. We committee members are like flight controllers, over the hill five years after we first apply for the job. As the fellow said, - the mind can only absorb what the seat can endure. I find myself squirming more and absorbing less.

Before I went on vacation I promised to write a letter to a key city official reflecting the views of our neighborhood commission on a crucial matter. Two weeks later the letter was unwritten and try as I might I could not recall our position.

So I'm going to take a break  I have already resigned from several committees. I retire from the neighborhood commission at the end of this year and as assistant den leader of Den One, Pack 595 as soon as I can. I shall refuse all offers to become the indentured servant of any political candidates by serving on their campaign committees or promising "to help-out in precinct 27". I will decline all nominations and refuse all elections.

Please do not consider me irresponsible or Indifferent. I just would like to lay the ghost of Joe Hill to rest for a while to explore what I trust is a vast field between hyperactivity and civic catatonia. I will stuff your envelopes if I have time and I will work the polls on election day for any friend or otherwise worthy candidate.! will even come to some of your meetings. But do not presume from these acts that I am back on your phone list.

Besides, there are others. In my neighborhood alone I estimate there are 1500 able citizens who have not yet served on any committee and more who have never served on yours. A list of registered voters is attached so you won't feel I am deserting you completely. I may come back out of anger or boredom or because somebody grabs me at a weak moment and .says, 'It really won't take much time." But don't count on it. For the interim, just consider me tabled until time uncertain. Hearing no further business, I rule myself out of order and move to adjourn.