In the last episode, we examined the uplifting words that Frederick Douglass used to describe what it was like to be around Abraham Lincoln, when he simply said that there was safety in his atmosphere.  In this episode, as well as in the next one, we're going to take a look at two instances in my life when I came face to face with what it was like to be in someone's presence who truly had safety in his atmosphere. They were both quite powerful in somewhat different ways. The first one began at the end of the summer of 1965 when I had just begun eleventh grade in high school. It was time to get ready for school as well as for the upcoming 76ers season. As you may know, my father was the founder as well as the General Manager of the team, and he was stepping up his efforts to try to find a player named Wally Jones who played for the Baltimore Bullets. The talented guard hadn't shown up for training camp, and nobody had any idea where he was. The papers said he had legal problems and that they were getting worse. My father opened up talks with Baltimore about a possible trade. Wally would be a tremendous addition to the team. Besides being a star player, he was also a Philadelphia hometown hero, having gone to Overbrook High School, and as well as Villanova University. As he was negotiating on the trade, my dad asked Vince Miller to get involved. Vince was Wilt Chamberlain's closest friend. They had grown up together, actually in the same neighborhood as Wally, and all three of them had gone to Overbrook.   Vince was a popular figure throughout the city and was extremely well-connected. He'd also become very tight with my father and although he wasn't officially with the team's organization, he was around a lot. There were rumors that my father was grooming him to take a position in the front office soon, and then maybe someday, take over the top spot. Vince went to work, but after ten days, there was still no news. Even so, my father decided to roll the dice and on September 22, 1965, he made a trade with the Bullets and secured the rights to Wally Jones, who was still missing. The move hit the newspapers pretty hard and they were all critical of the trade. According to them, Jones's life was in shambles and he was now an actual fugitive from justice. Nobody knew if he was still in the country or even if he was still alive, for that matter. Finally, Vince got some news. He told my father he thought he knew where Jones was hiding and might be able to get a message to him. My father said to tell Wally that he had looked into his legal problems and was certain he could take care of them all. He wanted Wally to get in touch with him as soon as possible. Everything would be alright once he let my father go to work for him. The word went out.  Then, the following Saturday, as I was having our usual after-synagogue lunch with my parents, our front doorbell rang. I got up to get it. When I opened the door, a disheveled twentysomething black guy was standing there with a small suitcase in his hand. He looked like a bum. "Is this Ike Richman's house?" he asked me. "Yeah," I said, mildly apprehensive. "Is he here? My name's Wally Jones. I heard he might be able to help me." I couldn't believe my eyes. This was such a major development that had seemingly come out of nowhere. "Sure," I said. "Hold on a second." I went and told my father, who dropped everything and came right to the door. "Hello, Mr. Richman," Wally said, extending his hand. "I'm not sure if I—" "Wally, great to see you," my father said, shaking his hand. "I'm so glad you came. Good choice! Come on in!" They looked at each other for a brief moment. "Now, listen," my father said, getting right to the point. "I know all about your situation. I've looked into it thoroughly, and it's really not all that bad. We can definitely take care of it." Wally looked surprised as if things had gotten off to a much rosier start than he had hoped. "Come on back, and let's have a talk," my father said, putting his hand on Wally's shoulder. He led him down the hallway toward his office. I heard the door close, and that always meant business. From his tone, I knew immediately that everything was going to be all right. I'd seen this kind of thing all my life. People would come to him in trouble and they would leave relieved. My father had a great reputation as a brilliant problem solver, with a real genius for finding creative solutions that worked for everyone. He was also an astute judge of character, with wit, charm and an intelligent sense of humor thrown into the mix. He was known for his soft touch. He would put people at ease, and then appeal to their better natures. And most importantly, they felt safe with him. He had an unmistakable aura of power and authority, and intuitively, you knew you could trust him. If you had a serious problem, he was definitely the guy you wanted to see. I had been planning to go out that afternoon to play ball with some friends, but I decided to wait until the meeting with Wally was over. This was a huge deal. Stories about him had dominated the news for weeks. Everybody knew if we got him, it would be a major coup. And at that moment, there were only three people in the whole world who knew what was going on, and I was one of them. I wasn't going anywhere. I had some homework to do over the weekend, so I got my papers together and set myself up at the kitchen table. I could see the door to my father's office from there. I took out my psychology homework. It was the first lesson of the year, and we were studying the basic human emotions of fear and safety. The assignment was to describe two recent times when you felt real fear, and then explain what happened that made you feel safe again. The teacher was a super creative guy who a few years later ended up becoming an intellectual hippie. As a prompt, he had given us the statement Frederick Douglass had made when he was asked what it was like to be around Abraham Lincoln and he replied with elegant simplicity, "There was safety in his atmosphere." It was the first time I had ever heard it and I found the idea to be comforting as well as intriguing. This was actually going to be a fairly easy assignment for me because the two major brushes I'd had with fear were fairly recent and still very fresh in my mind. The first was at the beginning of that summer when one of my friends and I were driving to a Phillies baseball game. It was early evening, and we were in his family's small convertible, just the two of us. The weather was warm, and we had a few more hours of daylight, so we put the top down. We drove down Broad Street, and when we got to North Philadelphia, we started noticing that there were far more people on the sidewalks than usual.  Most of them were black, and they were all walking south, the same direction we were driving. As we drove on the size of the crowd kept getting larger and larger. It started to get unnerving because of the recent racial unrest in the country. It was still the early days of the civil rights movement and severe racial tension had become rampant in several major cities and Philadelphia was one of them. The very neighborhood we were driving through had been the scene of major riot a few months earlier where three hundred people were hospitalized. As a sign of the times, only two months later, the massive Watts riots broke out in Los Angeles and over thirty people were killed. As we drove on the crowds kept getting thicker and thicker. And I kept getting more and more nervous. Generally, I don't trust big crowds. I had been going to professional basketball games all my life with regular attendance of 10,000 people and I knew how quickly things can get out of hand. It can get ugly in a flash, turning the crowd into a mob. And once it starts, it's almost impossible to stop. Traffic had slowed to a crawl and people were everywhere. We had no idea what was going on, but we did know one thing. We were completely exposed—two white, affluent suburban teens sitting in an opened convertible, surrounded by a huge throng of black people. Under the wrong circumstances, we would be sitting ducks. But at the same time, we noticed something rather unusual. People were everywhere, but it was extremely quiet. In fact, it was almost silent. We were driving down Broad Street, which is a bustling six-lane avenue that runs the entire length of the city, and I don't think I even heard a horn honk. As we headed south, I noticed that a large, famous church on the left side of the street seemed to be the focus of the crowd. Everyone was walking toward it.  Once we finally got close enough where I could see what was really going on, all of my anxiety immediately vanished and I knew without question that we were safe. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was standing on the church's front landing, and everyone was staring at him. He wasn't giving a speech or anything. There wasn't even a microphone or podium. He was just standing there, standing for what he stood for. And everyone else was standing along with him. The moment was filled with unity, commitment, and nobility and it was absolutely obvious that nothing bad was going to happen. King had been touring the country, trying to cool everybody out, and had been on a two-day visit to the city. He had just spoken in the church. There wasn't nearly enough room for everyone, so after he finished, he came out to be with the people who couldn't get in.  By a wonderful twist of fate, we just happened to be driving by at that exact moment and got to witness it first-hand. As I sat at the kitchen table, I jotted down some quick notes for the essay. The profoundly moving event had only happened a few months earlier and had left an indelible impression on my memory. We all know that people can have a tremendous effect on each other. But here, just one person had brought out the best in thousands, just by the presence of his immense moral authority. The enormous group of people had become one unified force, and in a very small way, as we crept on by, we were a part of it.  My fear had been that the crowd could have turned angry, putting us in grave danger.  But the opposite had happened. As Dr. King stood there, having his silent communion with the thousand people who had enveloped him, to say there was safety in his atmosphere would be putting it mildly. The nobility of the human spirit is truly inspiring.          As I sat at the kitchen table, I finished making my notes and looked over at the door to my father's office. It was still closed. I decided to use the bathroom. It shared a wall with the office, so maybe I could hear what was going on in there. When I went in, I heard my father and Wally talking but I couldn't make out their words. Still, from their muffled voices, it was obvious they were into some pretty heavy stuff. Well, that's the end of this episode. We'll pick up the story again in the next one. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened and let's get together in the next one.

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