The Gadsden Country Club had been a generational (at least four) paradigm for my family. After a little consideration I figured a monthly fee would be equivalent to a t.v. channel subscription. I could forego getting jipped by Comcast or Direct T.V., by spending my money adding: a sauna, a pool, and a men's locker room with four televisions. A 'no loose' trade off in my mind. What I didn't know was that I'd be signing up for a grand sociological science project and extreme personal growth, just two months after my April initiation. This was the first time I'd been a member on my own and not through my parents as I'd been as a kid. My money was paying for a real life, real time classroom.
Saturday, June 12th, was a good afternoon for me to wash myself clean from the sticky moisture I'd accumulated while hiking on a bucolic nature trail in Livingston, AL. The University of West Alabama offers one of the most magnificent in the state. Back home I debated whether or not I wanted to cool off at the country club pool. The pool itself, being lukewarm and most likely full of urine from children and drunk adults, was not to my liking. One magnificent dynamic about the Gadsden Country Club is that it's built on a natural spring. One that invigorates the pool at times and nourishes a sprinkler pad for children and adults who want cold water on a scorching Alabama day. My logic was I could get in the shower at home, it'd be more convenient. Yet, I'd figured the grime I'd gotten required a strong cold, pure spring bathing. So, I grabbed a bar of organic, Dr. Squatch, soap and made my way to the club.
Walking into the foyer at the pool members were required to sign in to confirm membership status. It was an amazingly quiet day as only 5 adults and 2 children were cooling off. Odd for early summer. Weeks prior I'd seen as many as 150 people. Adjacent to the glorious, spring water splash pad were Claire, may parent's neighbor, and the principal of a local elementary school called Eura Brown. I walked past them, got my bar of soap and let the cold purity of one of the state's most amazing springs wash off the subtropical grit of Western Alabama. Drying off I walked back out toward the foyer and was stopped by a lifeguard. She told me to wait on the general manager as they 'wanted to talk to me.' Knowing the snobbish, faux, proper culture of any country club; I knew what the discussion would probably be about. Of course, what I did not consider was that it could have legally been technically illegal to be detained from anyone but a police officer. Already getting 'worked up' it slipped my mind. A slobbish man in his mid twenties named Mike approached me with a c.b. radio in his hand and a power hungry rent- a - cop vibe to go with it. He was formally the club's head chef who's been given the general manager's job as a fill in while the club was looking for someone more permanent. The situation was already showing itself to be over his capabilities. Someone had called in a complain about my use of the sprinkler pad. Of course I had on a bathing suite and was not naked in a public, private setting in case your were wondering.
After arguing back and forth, I offered the suggestion we find the complaining party and discuss the matter with them. The GM declined. I knew I'd be much less resentful to the world around me if I was able to shift the locus of control internally instead of externally. It was time to discuss the matter with the complaining party head on to hold accountable their malicious, petty intrusion of my privacy for their lame entertainment to assuage their insecurities. During my back and forth with Mike, I noticed Claire and the elementary school principal looking in our direction laughing, goading each other physically as if they were playing some joke. It did not register at the time. With only a few people present, I knew I could find and hold the instigating party accountable by simply walking up to everyone and asking who made the call? Not many people in today's society would go full 'Clint Eastwood' on a KAREN. I knew bullies would fall apart and reveal themselves if they were squeezed hard enough. I was correct and lucky. The first party I approached, the two women who were laughing at the GM and I while we talked, were revealed to be behind the KAREN phone call to management. "Someone called country club management on me. I was trying to determine who it was." Claire, my parent's neighbor, visibly unnerved, yet with a smug expression spoke up: "You're not a member, but your dad is though." You should only take showers in the men's restroom. In her conceit, she did not know there were no showers in the men's restroom. She also did not know, I was in fact a member. As if it were any of her business anyway. In those few seconds it occurred to me I was having a conversation with an individual so entitled she felt like:
* It was her job to keep tabs on knowing who in my family were members of the local country club or not.
*It was a duty of hers to tell me where I could use facilities and how I could use em.'
*It was her obligation to weaponize staff against me as a way of disciplining me out of her own amusement and insecurities.
Of course she was too cowardly to confront me in person. In a moment's time all of these dynamics gelled. Reader, I wish I could tell you I handled the matter tactfully. In a way I fell apart like she did. I used language and personally critiqued her in ways that were crude and vindictive. My voice pitch was far louder than was civil and respectful. In short I lost my crap! No doubt, she should've been confronted, just not in such a guttural way. By now the general manager was helplessly watching the situation go down the tubes like his chances of getting the job permanently were. Some shouting ensued and about six people; Claire, the principal, her spouse, a life guard and a drunken, white trash, visitor wanting in on the conflict followed me to my car in the parking lot. Jerry Springer would've been so proud. The confrontation finally ended when I got into my car and drove home. Oh, so is life in small city Alabama. Where everyone either knows everyone's business or believes it's their right to. Their bad judgment was out. My bad judgement was out. In July, it was up to the club's board to discuss the incident. Discipline was uneven as I took the blame for much of the conflict. I was required to terminate my membership, even after my father, who was a 60 year member and stock holder testified of the real facts of what happened. Mike, the rent -a cop- general manager, had given some false testimony against me as had the opposing members of the conflict. My father had to clarify the truth in the July board meeting. Months before, a family friend got into a fist fight with another member over a card game. Of course he was only suspended for a month. Reader, when it comes to private clubs, rules and discipline can always be political and arbitrary.
So what really happened? How did such an event shed light on the notion of false Southern chivalry. What did it show about how people, who have a healthy amount of self respect and inner locus of control, are perceived by others not as self - actualized...........................................my opponents, the bystanders and the club's board had a role for me to play that day and during the weeks afterward. The role of the 'disciplined, humiliated and defeated. While they played the winner and the conqueror. They wanted the puppy dog, that would be disciplined. Would whimper, tuck it's tail and slink off. Instead, they got the Wolf and lost their junk as they couldn't handle the situation. They expected me to be illegally detained and humiliated by the staff they weaponized against me. They expected me to be voiceless and compliant for the next time I used the facility. The board wanted to play the chivalrous role of protecting the false construct of white, southern femininity. A mode of thinking which has gotten so many people of color arrested or killed needlessly. A mode of consideration that leaves women in the South feeling incapable of doing anything fantastic while absolving them of any responsibility if they do anything malignant.
One day after I was forced to terminate my membership, I doxed the instigating party on a public site, since the club never really held them accountable as far as discipline. The board members went nuts and requested me to take down my review identifying the woman who started the whole incident. How entitled and cowardly can people be? Ironically, no one seemed to have a problem with the opposing party reporting the incident on social media or through gossip laden phone calls hours after it took place. People in my family where informed by a guy in my church named Bo. Of course Bo, never took the time to tell me directly. He had to spread it through the grapevine of other family members.
The first Saturday in August had me checking my emails while sitting in Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, CA. while awaiting flight to Dallas/Ft. Worth International. One came up from the Gadsden Country Club with a monthly billing statement. THE NERVE! Had these jerk-offs not known I was no longer a member? It was amusing how gossip could spread about the wrong way. I had done enough to get people to want me to forfeit my membership. I guess that gossip fell short when it came time to collect bills. Feeling some new found energy I considered jogging all the way to Texas, grabbing a beer at DFW and then jogging the rest of the way back home to Alabama. Days later back in Alabama 'rent - a-cop' manager, Mike, tried to get me to pay a trumped up false balance of $300 + on my way out the door. With a stern response he was informed never to address me on the matter again. I have not heard from him since!
During October my parents in protest also resigned their membership from the 'Club. A place that was in our family for four generations. A place where my father had proposed marriage to my mother. I place where my brother and I and our friends had countless childhood memories. A place where my late grandfather was once the president. A place that will always be in my heart no matter what a few bad apples did. A place that taught me the most amazing lesson on June 12th, 2021. That being, there is absolutely nothing more valuable than standing your ground and believing in yourself when you feel you are correct. Yet, owning up to your mistakes when you make them. That there are 'bad script writers' out there who have a role they want you to play and you need to be savage and rewrite that script as soon as they want you to read it.
*PROLOGUE:
My account of the incident is still in public forum. In mid October 2021, a board member named Roger, an accoutant in town, attempted to hide from me when I tried to speak to him at his office in person, after the board sent me a threatening letter concerning legal action if I ever found myself on Club property. They send me certified mail trying to force me to read their threat. I acted like I didn't review it and took the letter to the board member's office mentioned above. When I asked to speak to him he would not come out and address me. Under the impression I did not read it, he forced Mike to send me an e-mail. I replied sarcastically. Of course in the letter were instructions to go to Mike, the interim GM and not face them directly for any dispute of its contents. In mid November I saw where someone had complained enough to get Google to remove my public review. Of course I put it back up a week or so after the fact. The story is more bizarre when filling in periphery accounts. Claire's mother, Janice, stalked me in her car on a dead end road on Country Club Mt. the July after the incident. I identified her by reviewing facebook photos of her's on her daughter's Facebook page. Also, a stroke of luck caused me to run across the car she burrowed to follow me sitting in her driveway around New Year's Day. About the time of the stalking incident on Mistletoe Hollow, a neigbor of Janice's named Nanda, a self promoting and socially awkward hotel owner in Gadsden, sent a friend request on Facebook. I hardly ever get them and was suspicious from the outset. Acting strangly she gave off a vibe that made me more suspicious. In December I asked her if she knew of the stalking incident that happened on Country Club Mt. She quickly defriended me and I blocked her. Putting things together she had a close friend or either family member who had the same surname who lived on the street where I was stalked by Claire's mother. Reviewing the facts, I realized Claire's mother had more than likely gotten word out about my tiff with her daughter in June. Nanda, her neighbor, had placed it on herself to monitor me on Facebook. A network of phone calls between Janice, Nanda and the friend of Nanda's who lived on Mistletoe Hollow, got Janice to locate me while walking my dog weeks after the pool incident. Only in February after I visited Janice's husband at his office, did things finally settle down. Of course he did not come out of his office to face me as Roger had not. I had to leave photo evidence with him locating the streets in which she followed me for 10 minutes. I always hoped Nanda, was not a board member as well. She had a track record of being on several boards across town. I began to wonder if she was on the Country Club's board as well. My parent's neighbor, Claire, mostly sits at home on top of the hill facing my parent's front door hardly having any visitors. I lost some things, yet feel like I won the war. Reader, there will be times in life where you will have a choice about your role in the grand play of life. Make sure it's compassionate but also savage when needed.
J.C.B.
