HOLDING SOMEONE’S HAND!

Monday, October 19th, 2026

Baton Rouge , Louisiana

 HOLDING SOMEONE’S HAND!

I’ve always looked upon myself as a hand holder. Of course, holding the hand of a loved one. As someone in politics, I’m sure I have shaken thousands of hands over the years. The Beatles urged us many years ago, singing: “I wanna hold your hand.”

I always loved to sing Neil Diamond’s best-known song, Sweet Caroline. His words say:       

Hands
Touchin’ hands
Reachin’ out
Touchin’ me, touchin’ you.

(As a sidenote, the first time I heard Neil Diamond perform was quite a day. I got married at noon, went to see Tulane beat LSU, and went to a late Neil Diamond concert at the LSU Assembly Center.)

Holding someone’s hand is one of the simplest, yet most powerful, ways to express affection, love, and human connection. Sometimes, a hand can say what words cannot. Covid changed all that for many of us. We started fist bumping or just waving. People were reluctant to hold someone’s hand because of what proved to be an unfounded worry about infection.

I always have looked forward to the priest or preacher telling their flock: “Peace be with you.” We would turn to one another and shake our neighbors’ hands. It seems like we’ve drifted away from the special symbol of taking a hand close by us. I’m here to advocate we take up this tradition again.

I believe all of us need connection. A hand, held with tenderness, can help someone feel valued, accepted, and remembered. It reminds us that we are part of one another’s lives. So now, when I go to church on Sunday, I’m making it a point of holding the hand of those seated around me. During the stressful world we live in today, it seems like a small gesture, but an important thing to do.

There is something quite special about holding another person’s hand. You don’t have to solve their problems, entertain them, or explain their feelings. You simply have to be present.

A hand can say: I am here. You matter to me. You don’t have to face this alone. For this moment, let us share the world together.

Author Roger Rosenblatt puts it this way: “You pray with your hands. You sign language with your hands. Some read the lines in your hands as predictive of your life. Approval is indicated by a show of hands. To celebrate you give a high five. Extend your hand towards a baby and it will cling to a finger.”

And sometimes, holding someone’s hand is also a way of saying, I don’t know how much time we have, but I want you to know that you are special to me. Perhaps the most important thing about holding someone’s hand is for a few moments, two people are reminded that, despite all the independence we cherish, none of us is meant to go through life entirely alone.

From those of us who follow the teachings in both the Old and New Testaments the “laying on of hands” has special significance. Jesus Christ used his hands to heal the sick and bless small children. I was named after the Apostle James.  He prescribes using the hands to anoint with oil on the forehead, which I do each week when taking communion.

In the book of Genesis, Jacob (Israel) placed his hands on the heads of Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, to pass down a patriarchal blessing and assign their future inheritance.

OK, I know I’m an old guy and certainly have missed a number of friends who passed away before me. But it’s still not too late for me to make special connections with all my old and new friends. And shaking hands, even holding a hand for a bit longer than normal, seems like a really nice gesture in this crazy world we live in today. So if you pass me on the street, see me in a restaurant, or sit close to me in church, be aware of the fact that I’ve become a renewed hand holder. I’m OK with that, and I hope you are too.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. Several quotes were used from AI. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

 

 

 

  

IT STILL SHOULD BE COLUMBUS DAY!

October 12th, 2026

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

It was Christopher Columbus’s day with a big celebration at the White House by President Trump. Trump’s Columbus Day proclamation declares Oct. 12 as Columbus Day and praises the Italian explorer’s “valor, adventure, and ingenuity.”

Many are opposed to honoring Columbus and have changed the celebration date to something called Indigenous Peoples Day. That’s right. We changed the name, and now we are supposed to celebrate those Indian tribes Columbus encountered on his discovery of the Americas, a number of which were cannibals. So let’s give a one hand clap for all those indigenous groups that ate, raped and massacred numerous  explorers coming to  the new world.

OK, OK, Columbus was a brutal voyager.  But all sides were pretty much so back in that day. Actually, Columbus himself was a fairly unimportant character as to why there is a national day named for him to begin with. And would you believe that like so many other major events that affected the development of America, the idea of Columbus Day all began in Louisiana.

Columbus Day becoming a national holiday was essentially an accident.  Here’s what actually happened. After the Civil War (that by the way was kicked off at Fort Sumter by Louisiana Brig. Gen. P.G.T Beauregard and his  Confederate forces), there was widespread immigration into the United States. Large numbers of Italians flocked to New Orleans, the  cosmopolitan city of the south.  These new immigrants worked for low wages and kept to themselves along with maintaining the Italian language, strong family ties, and a resilient Catholic faith. They were resented by many New Orleanians already living there.

With all these new immigrants from a number of countries, crime took a strong increase. We’ve all seen “The Godfather.” (If you haven’t, you probably ought to quit reading this as you won’t understand.). The “Mafioso” culture of the Italians grew dramatically for their own protection.  This didn’t sit well with all the other locals.

In his recent book “Vendetta,” Richard Gambino describes the situation this way. Hatred for Italian immigrants practically became official city policy as the mayor said on the record to reporters, “Italians in New Orleans lacked honor, truth, pride, religion, or any other quality that goes to make a good citizen.”  These immigrants from Italy  took the brunt of widespread killings as Italians were lynched in the streets and hung on lamp posts. 

Tragically, half of the country shared this sentiment coming out of the Crescent City. The Washington Post described the lynching as “the people’s justice, swift and sure, visited upon those whom juries in New Orleans had neglected to punish.”  Tensions  grew between the U.S and Italy.  Some in  Washington even talked of war between the two countries.

Thank goodness for President Benjamin Harrison, who most of us have never even heard of. He was outraged as to what was happening in New Orleans and put together a federal fund for those families of Italian victims who were lynched. His efforts were not popular in Congress and there was even an attempt to censure President Harrison over what he had done.

Harrison then noticed that the 400^th anniversary of the Columbus landing in the New World would take place on October 21, 1892.  So he argued this would be a good beginning point for healing.  

 

So it was New Orleans, not Columbus, that was the emphasis to have this national holiday. A way to honor Italians after the terrible violence that took place to so many of its citizens in the Crescent city. The name of Columbus was almost a fluke. It could have been any significant Italian.  (Humm! Let’s see. Leonardo de Vinci, Michaelangelo, Frank Sinatra, Pavarotti How about even Tony Bennett day?)

 There are more than 6000 locations named for  Columbus throughout the U.S., including Columbus, Ohio, Columbus, Georgia, Columbus, Illinois, and Columbus, Arkansas to name a few. We also have the District of Columbia as our nation’s capital, the Columbia river, British Columbia and Columbus Circle in Manhattan. So do we now change all these thousands of names?

 

We have torn down monuments, wiped clean certain history books and now we are ignoring historical events by suppression.  And before we consider more wiping of our history clean, it might be a good idea to see just what the real story is behind the historical event.

Oh, and by the way, my personal choice to honor Italians would be Sophia Loren Day.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

 

 

 

 

AMERICA NEEDS MORE HEROES!

Monday, October 5^th, 2026

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

AMERICA NEEDS MORE HEROES!

Psychologist Carl Jung wrote that we are born to need heroes. Having a hero in our lives nurtures us, gives us hope, lifts us up, gives us reasons to dream and be inspired. Every kid has a special champion they admire and look up to. I was no exception. Early on they were sports superstars.

I went to high school in St. Louis before my folks moved to Louisiana. Baseball and basketball stars were my early idols as a kid growing up cheering for the St. Louis Cardinals
professional baseball team and the basketball Hawks. I attended Busch Stadium on a May Sunday afternoon when Stan the Man Musial hit five home runs in a double header. What a magic day that has never been repeated in baseball. I never stopped admiring and cheering on the guy who was considered the greatest baseball player of his day.

I could list several other special sports moments and superstars I look up to. But at the top of my list was, in my opinion, the greatest basketball star who ever played the game. He grew up in Baton Rouge and set records galore both at LSU and in the N.B.A. No, not Pistol Pete Maravich. Sure, he was spectacular on the court and was as good a scorer as they came. But my hero, then and now, was and is Bob Pettit.  He died last week at the age of 93.

Bob Pettit’s rise to one of the all-time greats began at Baton Rouge High back in the early 1950s. He couldn’t even make the squad in his freshman and sophomore years, but then he blossomed to lead his high school team to the state championship and gain a scholarship to LSU. And then did he blossom, becoming a two-time All American, averaging 28 points a game in his career. His No. 50 jersey has been retired forever and hangs at the P. Mac on the LSU campus.

Then Pettit joined the St. Louis Hawks and was an NBA all-star in all 11 seasons he played. I
constantly badgered my Dad to take me to the St. Louis Arena to watch Pettit play. And after the game when I went home, I headed for the basketball goal on our garage to shoot for hours and try to imitate Bob Pettit on our driveway court.

Let me tell you how captivating the Hawks and Pettit were to our community. The Hawks and the Boston Celtics, with star Bill Russell, were playing for the NBA championship on a Saturday afternoon back in 1958. I was competing in the Missouri district track meet and was about to run in the high hurdle finals. But the meet was halted for the large crowd in attendance to listen over the loudspeakers to the final minutes of the Hawks-Celtics game. Pettit hit the winning basket in the final seconds, scoring 50 points for the contest. Yes, I won the race, but the highlight of the day was Bob Pettit’s super performance.

I had hoped to be a college star like Pettit and was lucky enough to be recruited by legendary North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith. But a superstar was not on the radar for me, and I stayed on the track in college. When I ended up in Louisiana, what a treat it was to meet and get to know my hero, Bob Pettit. He became a successful banker down in
Jefferson Parish and was always available over the years with advice and political support. He was looked on as a gentleman in both business and sports.

 A statue of Bob was unveiled on the LSU campus right outside the basketball center. He had one of the great jump shots in the game, and his statute shows him in the same pose that allowed him to be the first NBA player to score 20,000 points.

When it comes to national politics, the nation rarely excels. But in college sports, the Bayou State has created many superstars. And at the top of the list is my personal longtime hero, Bob Pettit. We sure could use many more just like him.

*******

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.