I never was much for charity. Oh, I pass coins to panhandlers now and then, but I never give at the office; there's something about that whole procedure that puts me off. A few dollars a week ticked from my check, it seems so removed, so bureaucratized. There's none of the warm feeling of superiority that direct contact with the object of one's charity usually returns. The way I see it, if I'm going to make a sacrifice I want to get something for it.
This doesn't reveal cynicism so much as an understanding of the true impulse behind most giving. And it doesn't mean I don't appreciate the value of a good deed now and then. I do. That's why I've signed up for the Potato Abstinence.
The opportunity to participate arrived in a fax from a gentleman in Linthicum named Conrad Jay Bladey, who teaches courses in Irish culture. He also directs a group of humanitarians who call themselves the Potato Abstinence Associates who want to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Irish Potato Famine, which he said was first reported in Irish newspapers on September 9, 1845.
The Linthicum potato people are asking those who want to keep the awareness of this historical catastrophe before the public mind to abstain from consuming potatoes and potato products on that date, next year. Mr. Bladey is excited. "It'll be a national event," he predicted. "Maybe even an international one."
Those who commit themselves to this sacrifice are also urged to go around collecting potatoes next September 9 for the hungry. The fax doesn't advise whether the hungry themselves should refrain from potatoes on that day, should they have some at hand, but I'm sure that will be clarified in further communiques from headquarters in Linthicum.
Some people might find all this mildly humorous. The editor who dropped Mr. Bladey's fax on my desk was chuckling. Since then all who've heard this enterprise described have smiled, sniggered or scratched their heads. A young Irish woman from County Cork said she thought the idea was crazy. She did admit she would never think of passing an entire day without indulging in the divine tuber, in some form or another. The withdrawal, she said, would be too much. Mr. Bladey expressed surprise and disbelief that anybody might suspect his big idea was a put-on.
All this raises a broader question: Is there a point when great tragedies of history become such that jokes can be made of them, sort of a statute of limitations on grief? Obviously, those near in time, with the victims still around, are off-limits. No one cracks wise about the Holocaust. Nor are there any jokes made of the massacre of the Armenians at the hands of the Turks early in the century. But then, consider the tragedy of the American Civil War. The character of the un-rehabilitated Confederate rebel (the Jubilation T. Cornpones with their cries of "Save your Confederate money, the South will rise again!") has been a comic device of movies and television for decades. Maybe at some juncture humor is allowed as an emollient on the wounds of history.
As for the Irish Famine, which predates the American fratricide, this I've never heard a joke about. Not here. Not in Eire. Not even in England. I don't think even the Monty Python crew, irreverent enough to get yucks from the Crucifixion, ever had a go at the famine. I don't know the reason for this, but I would not like to be a pioneer in this matter, so to speak.
Mr. Bladey, however, presses on, and one should give him the benefit of all doubts as to his seriousness of purpose. His calls for a thoughtful remembrance of the Irish holocaust should be heard. His warnings should be heeded that the fungus that laid waste the Irish potato crop of 1845 (which, he informs us, immigrated illegally to the island of Ireland from Mexico, by the way) is still at large, still virulent, and can strike again.
"If our potato crop failed," he asked, "where would we be?"
The finest minds in husbandry are at a loss.
Personally, I think the Potato Associates made the right decision in setting the day of abstinence almost a year from now. It allows us the room to ponder the significance of what we're about before action is required. It provides the fasters the necessary time to train for the shock of potato abstinence.
Being Irish, I'm supposed to be inclined toward the potato, but truth be told, I prefer pasta. That's why I've already commited myself to abstaining from both of these carbohydrates on September 9.
There are some people, I'm sure, who will never take this thing all that seriously. Maybe they just don't understand. It's a Hibernian thing.
Richard O'Mara is a writer for The Baltimore Sun.