FIRST, A (PARTIAL!) PAUSE FROM THE UNENDING AND UNENVIABLE TASK of responding to those folks who feel that denying reality (climate change) often enough and cleverly or vehemently enough will release us all from the heavy burdens of that future reality.

I want to acknowledge a debt (of reader pleasure) to two outstanding columnists, Carolyn Plath and Matt Talbot.

I find Carolyn’s pieces an absolute delight. It is inevitably a pleasurable stroll with words and images. It surely takes a very gifted writer to bring that off as she does.

When our columns are on the same page, it’s as if Benicia’s readers were faced with a choice between the pleasures of such a stroll and mucking through the agonies of a form of verbal civil war! I greatly fear the fate of my words confronted with such a contrast!

Second, Matt Talbot. He combines a rich background of experience and a probing, penetrating mind with a deep sense of compassion and the capacity to meld these together in a very powerful style.

Should this be remotely regarded as any form of competition, I readily concede to both, with my thanks for the pleasure and thought, both lighthearted and profound, they provide. Thank you!

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LEST ONE THINK THAT THESE FEELINGS will reshape and reform my tendencies and writing, disappointment awaits! I remain chained to a form of demanding obligation. The truth may not set us free, but surely it will help us face and deal with social and financial inequities and political and climate realities before all avenues are closed. I remain fixed on fighting to keep them open. (I leave it to the reader to use whatever adjective he chooses to place before “fixed”: doggedly, compassionately, blindly, brilliantly? I had to toss in that last in obviously vain hope!)

I thought here to cut into the flow of this piece and take you on a short trip back in time. Along with all else, I realized that I have come upon an unusual connection. My column will be published and read on April 13, a date of some considerable consequence in the life of one Jerome Page. And life is surely the proper term! I have written of this before, but the day continues to resonate in my consciousness and will undoubtedly do so as long as that consciousness exists.

Forgive me the repetition!

On April 13, just 69 years ago, I was called to a tense combat situation in the Hartz Mountains, where one of my company squads was pinned down under fire from hardcore German troops holding out in that redoubt. It was a short jeep ride and a crawl to the rise of a hill for a view of the situation. Already, two of my men were down in a stream, shot and in danger of drowning if not already dead, with the rest of the squad pinned down on the slope above. I thought their only hope would be for me to run down and at least turn their faces out of the water, then cut fast for a bridge abutment about 50 to 60 feet downstream. In the act of turning the first man face up, I was shot in the upper thigh, unfortunately ripping through my femoral artery.

I went down, found my leg was useless and after considerable confusion as I awaited the final killing shot, began to try to move to that abutment. It required rolling with my wounded leg bashing against rocks with every turn. It was something of an eternity, but I reached the bridge and crawled behind the concrete abutment. Somehow one of the men and the medic were able to reach me and stem the bleeding and load me on the jeep. Again it was my incredible luck that there was a mobile field hospital unit within a relatively short drive; they had me on the operating table immediately. The second piece of incredible luck was that there was a skilled vascular surgeon on duty who had been doing experimental work and research with just such surgery. The short story was that I became one of the rare lucky victims of that type of wound who not only survived but whose leg was saved.

Sadly my two men died, and that was hard to accept. But I was surely, personally, incredibly lucky on that day — and the question arises, what have I done with that gift?

I really have no clear answer to that question. I can only hope that occasionally I have lived up to that great obligation. I certainly have felt it.

What is clear at this moment is that I continue to share with all of you a heavy responsibility to the young and to their progeny for the world they inherit, that we have a pivotal role in what lies ahead.

The stakes in this climate crisis are greater than any we have previously confronted. We have to get it right. If I appear dogged and obsessed it is because the consequences for humans are that crucial. Clever twists and politically oriented commentary that evade considering the realities of the huge body of relevant research constitute a shallow — and ultimately very dangerous — game.

As to inequality in our society, in my opinion we are confronted in our land on this day and the tomorrows that follow with a very heavy burden.

The recent Supreme Court decision that further frees wealth to control politics and decision-making in this land, McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, is a huge shock. Our country and political system were already reeling from the incredible Citizens United decision and its shifting of immense additional political power to the wealthy and to the corporate world. To be confronted with this further gift of power and influence to both is truly a remarkable and a disastrous prospect. A bought republic is not a healthy republic.

The role played by the very clever, intelligent and conservative (more accurately reactionary!) Antonin Scalia in shaping this court is clear. But there is surely some kind of classic irony in the role of Clarence Thomas, who plays a silent second to every Scalia lead.

The man who fiercely played the race card in his appointment process when confronted with his own bizarre behavior with female subordinates has managed quite smoothly and remarkably, in both private and public life, to erase all connection to both that chapter and his race. And none in the land will suffer more from these Supreme Court decisions than minorities.

In a related note, I call your attention to a Think Progress piece of Jan. 20, 2011 by Lee Fang. It referred to a secret meeting (Wall Street, oil industry, Chamber of Commerce, et al.) in June 2010 organized by David and Charles Koch. Ah, yes, the Kochs!

Focus was upon how these individuals could take advantage of the Citizens United decision and coordinate the funding of electoral fronts. The memo published also revealed that (coincidentally!) Justices Thomas and Scalia were featured speakers at previous Koch fundraisers.

So fitting; so matched, that entire lot; so blessed with success — and so dangerous their enterprise to the health of our democracy.

And so it goes in this marriage of oil, power and justices, while dramatically absent anything remotely resembling justice.

But, for this moment, away from this world of turmoil and the corruptions of financial power: To each and every one of you, may you have minimal difficulty in shifting, at least for this moment, from my concerns to your planning for a wonderful and joyous Easter, which lies just ahead!

Jerome Page is a Benicia resident.