The Fever

“You’ve got to be in it to win it!”
 

I was leaving the office for the day.  That was my colleague’s parting shot.  On the table was a potential $500 million (and growing) Powerball payout.  “Get your ticket, man!”  This, from someone whose judgment I trust, most of the time.  I actually paused and thought about it.  Score one for peer pressure.  And, I suppose {ahem} for greed.

By the time I got to my car, the thought had vanished.  I wasn’t going to be “in it.”  I was going to hold onto my two bucks.

One in 176 million.  Those were the odds.  I heard some statistics wonk on the radio equate that to the likelihood of having twenty-two grandchildren who are all female.  According to CNN, the odds of dying from a lightning strike are one in three million.  Odds of being struck by lightning in the course of an 80 year lifetime, one in 10,000.
 
I’m a risk-averse guy.  I brush and floss.  I brush WITH floss.  I wear my seatbelt at all times.  I’m wearing it right now, sitting at my desk.  Because you never know.

Powerball?  Not so much.

So I drove home, with that familiar, warm feeling of mild superiority enveloping my spirit.  I was wise.  I was thrifty.  I was prudent.  I used my turn signals.

Over dinner, my wife told me that she’d entered her workplace Powerball pool.  Once again, that tiny greed-voice whispered: maybe I was “in it” after all!  There was a nanosecond of something that felt a little like relief.  Then my True Self reappeared, with its litany of questions: how many others were in the pool (as though splitting 500 million dollars with a handful of elementary school teachers was really going to create a hardship?)  Who collected the money, and can we trust that person?  Interesting side note there, the individual who actually did collect the money was the brother of a notorious murderer {true story…  curiously, this is the only detail of this blog post that is not tongue-in-cheek; go figure.} 
 
In the end, none of it mattered.  The next day, we didn’t get to tell anyone to shove anything, anywhere.  Probably just as well; just imagine the taxes.       

 

 

 

Dear Old Dad

 

                                                               Arthur W. Gould, 1900-1973

I was working in temporary office quarters, in a swanky high-rise office building in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood.  It was early; I was, as is still my custom, among the first to arrive at the office.  The elevator doors closed.  I glanced up and noticed a man in a suit, staring at me.  I blinked.  He blinked.  I’d seen this guy before, but where?

I snapped back into reality.  I was alone in the elevator.  The man staring back at me was my own reflection in the mirror-surfaced elevator door.  Of course, I’d known this all along.  But there had been something unsettling about my split-second inner reaction as the doors closed and I caught the visual.  It was as though, in that fragmentary moment, I was seeing someone else.   

I connected the dots that evening at home, when I saw the framed photograph on my dresser: a very old, black-and-white, studio portrait of a businessman in a suit.  My father, at about age forty – roughly the same age as I was. 

I’d known my father only as a much older man.  He had become a father very late in life.  I was his only child.  We had a close, albeit too brief, relationship.  He taught me the fundamentals – knowing right from wrong, being honest above all else.  The life lessons I’d learned from Dad were conveyed less often by words than by the example he set.  His was a high bar to clear.

Although he didn’t achieve extraordinary wealth or fame, my father led a remarkable life – one that would be literally impossible to recreate in modern times.  He was of a different era.  He was, as are we all, a creature of his times. 

I am thinking of my father because this week marks what would have been his 112^th birthday.  That’s not a typo – my father was born at the turn of the 20^th century, November 21^st, 1900.  President William McKinley was in office.  Before my father’s first birthday, McKinley would be assassinated and his Vice-President, Teddy Roosevelt, would assume the presidency. 

As a young boy, Dad lived on a farm.  There was no electricity, no running water.  He had a pet goat (I have a picture of this, somewhere.)  His formal education ended after the eighth grade.  These were not markers of a poverty-stricken background; they were simply facts of life, at that time, in that place.

Following in my grandfather’s footsteps, Dad went off to work on the railroad.  It was a “good job.”  He started at the bottom, as a “fireman,” shoveling coal into the giant steam engines.  Over time, he worked his way up to conductor – walking the aisles of the passenger cars, checking tickets.  There he came to know a regular passenger named Mr. Murphy – the inventor of the “Murphy Bed,” the popularity of which had made him quite wealthy.  Mr. Murphy took a liking to the young man.  Somehow, through their conversations, he convinced him that there were greater opportunities, and more money to be made in construction.  Dad took a correspondence course to learn the basics of carpentry, and became a carpenter.   

Although he would never have used these words, Dad “reinvented himself,” in today’s parlance, several times throughout his life.  He spent many years working in the building trades, ultimately as a self-employed general contractor.  Although it’s a detail lost to history, I can identify several of “his” houses that still dot the landscape in North Jersey. 

My father witnessed the rise of the automobile and the telephone, two world wars, and the Great Depression.  At the time he sat for the photograph on my bureau, he was married, soon to be divorced, the owner of a small business  - a coal and lumber company that bore his name.  In the years that followed, he became a real estate investor and banker.  He indulged his lifelong love of horses and boats.  At one point, he acquired a sizable cabin cruiser by negotiating it into a real estate deal (it had belonged to the seller.)  He remarried and, at 59, became a father. 

 When I was a very young child, we moved into Dad’s dream house.  He had designed it, and oversaw its construction.  It was a “gentleman’s farm” in what was then a rural area of Orange County, New York.  We had acreage, a barn, a corral and a track.  There were horses for riding, and Shetland ponies as pets.  Both of my parents were at home most of the time.  It was an idyllic lifestyle, of sorts, but sadly, it was not to last.

The symptoms were sporadic, strange, and progressively worse.  There was no conventional diagnosis.  Exploratory spinal surgery was recommended.  A well-renowned New York City neurosurgeon performed the operation.  It failed, massively.  Dad returned home, paralyzed from the waist down, in excruciating, unrelenting pain. 

The seven years that followed were a poor substitute for a childhood, but during my father’s remaining time on this earth, he taught me more than many people learn in a lifetime:  determination, humility, resilience, pride.  Counter to what the doctors had predicted, he eventually did walk again, albeit with two canes, slowly, and always in great pain.  Through sheer force of will, he re-established something approaching a normal life.  Only we, his family, were privy to his daily struggle with pain and ongoing medical complications. In my eyes, his most significant legacy was this: he never complained.  Even on days when his body betrayed him most, he managed a smile.     

The farm boy with the eighth grade education had, by the end of his life, been named Chairman of the Board of Directors of a bank.  This is the man I remember – intelligent and well spoken, with never a hint of arrogance or self-pity.  I’ve spent my life in the shadow of his achievements.  When I was a younger man, full of piss and vinegar, I believed that one day I would emerge from that void.  But the days have grown short, and I now realize that that will not happen.  He was the better man.  I am left to honor his memory with mere words; and so, I shall.

Happy birthday, Dad.  And thanks.

Dear Mr. President

Dear Mr. President,

Congratulations on winning a second term in office.  I hope you enjoyed your night of celebration, and I’m glad to see you getting back to work today.  I hope the rest of the country does the same. 

I voted for you enthusiastically in 2008 and, like many others, I’ve suffered a major case of Obama Buyers’ Remorse since you took office.  Yesterday, after having seriously considered not voting at all (save for my local senate race and ballot questions,) in the end I cast my vote for you.  But my vote this time represented a very different level of endorsement than that of 2008.  Honestly, it was closer to a “hold my nose and pull the lever” vote.  You’ve done a lot of good things in the past four years, but you’ve also failed miserably to live up to the promise of “hope and change” that swept you into office to begin with.  Your second term does not arrive with an overwhelming majority nor a clear mandate; in reality, I think there are lots of people like me who went to the polls specifically to vote against Romney, versus voting for you.

Tonight, Mr. President, I am viewing you much like a recalcitrant teenaged son, who has gotten into some kind of trouble.  He’s my kid; I love him, so I’ve bailed him out, but now we’re in the car, riding home, and he’s going to get a tongue-lashing.

 You know you’ve screwed up on the economy.  I don’t need to tell you that; plenty of others already have.  You need to fix it.  Spending more of my money does not constitute fixing it.  Yes, you inherited a mess from George W. Bush.  Absolutely.   And, as Bill Clinton has pointed out, no president would have been able to “fix” the economy within four years.  I get it.  But your multi-stimulus-program, wealth-redistribution spending spree is yours and yours alone.  Those are (rather, were) my dollars, dammit!  If I had wanted to invest them in some doomed-to-bankruptcy “green energy” initiative, I’d have done so without your help. 

You need to address the crisis that is our national debt.  Oh, I know, those nasty Republicans have blocked your efforts with their “no tax increases” stance.  Yes, there’s plenty of blame to lay on them as well.  If I see them in the sandbox doing that to you again, I’m going to knock their heads together.  But you know what?  They have a point.  They – and you – just need to back off from your polarized, ideological positions, and learn to play nice in that sandbox.  I agree with your stated position that we need to aim for a “balanced approach” to fixing the economy.  But a “balanced approach” is not 90% tax hikes and 10% spending cuts.  And let’s keep in mind that the accelerated pace of spending that you have put in motion needs to be throttled back before we even start talking about a “balanced approach.” You need to take aim at those way-out-of-control entitlements, and especially entitlements that are enjoyed by people with no earthly, justifiable right to be “entitled” to anything. 

You need to finish what you’ve started, and get the rest of our troops back home from places they never should have been, and out of harm’s way.  Kudos to you for hunting down Bin Laden, and for the progress you’ve made toward withdrawal, but you should have finished long ago.  Someone will almost assuredly die in service to our country in some god-forsaken middle eastern country that doesn’t want us there to begin with, whether tomorrow, next week, or next month; and there’s just no excuse for that.  Bring them home now.

 You need to refine, repackage, and sell Obamacare.  Seldom have I seen such a fundamentally good idea be so badly miscommunicated and thus so wildly unpopular.  You need to simplify the Affordable Care Act.  Contrary to Mitt Romney’s wildly exaggerated claim that it runs to 2400 pages, it does encompass 906 (not that I claim to have read it.)  It doesn’t need to be that complex.  You need to be able to explain to people that insurance is, pure and simple, a risk sharing mechanism.  The more broadly you spread the risk, the more affordable the insurance becomes.  This is true for any property, casualty, life, or health insurance program, and I speak with some authority here, having spent 30 years in the insurance industry.  Mandatory insurance is not Socialism.  It is not unconstitutional.  Nobody balks at the notion of mandatory automobile liability insurance for individuals, or Workers’ Compensation insurance for businesses.  Those are understood.  Obamacare, for whatever reason, is not.  You need to fix that, or you’ll be wasting time, energy, and (my) money defending / refining / arguing its finer points for the next four years.

You need to deal with immigration.  Not band-aid, finger-in-the-dyke “Dream Act” amnesty measures, but reasoned, rational, broad-based, and enforceable immigration reform.  You need to understand that many Americans are offended by the notion that we extend benefits, driving privileges, public education, all manner of taxpayer-funded services to people who have no right whatsoever to be in this country.  We cannot afford to continue down that path.  I already hear the howls of protest: “But we’re a nation of immigrants; my {father/grandmother/whatever} came here from {wherever}. ”  True.  Mine did too.  But they did so without benefit of handouts.  They learned our language.  They worked like dogs at any job they could find.  They obtained “sponsors.”  They followed the rules of the times.  They studied for the exam and became citizens.  They were responsible.  They contributed.  “But the rules are unreasonable.”  Ah, now there’s a valid argument.  They absolutely are.  Country-specific waiting lists are out of control.  The whole crazy-quilt system of visas, green cards, “diversity lotteries” and what-have-you is broken.  We lack a coherent immigration policy.  THAT is the problem to be solved.  You’re up.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you need to cease and desist from your divisive, “us vs. them” class rhetoric.   It’s extraordinarily ironic that a president who claims to be a “uniter, not a divider” has, in four years, cleaved a chasm between the self-perceived “haves” and “have-nots” in our society.  Your unrelenting rhetoric about “millionaires paying their share” has drawn battle lines between groups of people who, most likely, would otherwise not have even regarded themselves as groups.  Look in the mirror – you’ll see a millionaire staring back.  You (as well as Mr. Romney, and all of your followers and handlers) have played fast and loose with terminology.  Who, exactly, is the “middle class” in your world view?  Whoever they (we) are, they are going to be screwed if you and your Republican colleagues in the legislative branch fail to reach an actionable compromise to address the looming “fiscal cliff.”

Your work is cut out for you, Mr. President.  You have the intellect, the character, and the compassion to get the job done.  You need to harness all of these, put aside your ego, and work with others – any and all others who can help you – to make that happen.  I believe the country is ready to rally behind you. 

I wish you the best of luck.

Sandy

“This is like déjà vu all over again” --- Yogi Berra

It’s Friday evening.  We are approaching the end of what has felt like the Week From Hell.  Hurricane Sandy has cut a swath through our lives.  As I write this, I’m watching still more footage of the devastation.  ‘Dateline’ is reporting from Staten Island.  Lives have been destroyed – literally, ended; as well as figuratively, cut to the quick, left with nothing.  I watch this from the comfort of my home in New England.  Save for a few moments without electricity earlier this week, we have been spared.  For this I am grateful, and feeling somehow guilty.

I feel guilty because I spent much of this week focused on my own, personal challenges, unrelated to the hurricane.  Absent context, I’d be writing about those.  It really was a rough week.  But there is, in fact, a much larger context.  Earlier this evening, Mayor Bloomberg made the wise decision to cancel the New York City Marathon, in deference to the larger context of death, destruction, and far greater need for scarce city resources.  I will follow his lead.

I am a Jersey Kid, born and bred.  I say that with pride.  The first of my ancestors to settle in New Jersey arrived in the late 1600s. There is a street in my hometown named after my mother.  The home in which I spent most of my childhood had a front porch from which one could see the city skyline, with the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center as prominent landmarks.  Although I’ve spent my entire adult life living elsewhere, New Jersey will always, on some level, be home.  So, while we have all watched in horror this week as news reports have shown us the flooded homes, the shredded boardwalks, the darkened city skyline, I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut.  Or at least punched in the gut just a little harder than my Massachusetts and New Hampshire friends and neighbors who have no connections to the area. 

The video footage of the Jersey Shore devastation was especially hard to watch.  So many wonderful memories were made there.  It’s where I learned to swim.  It’s where I proposed to my wife (a native Bostonian.)  It’s one of a handful of places I’ve daydreamed of moving to in retirement someday – no slight intended to my beloved Cape Cod, also on the Short List.

At some point this week, it occurred to me that I’d seen this film before.  Or maybe it was an earlier director’s cut.  The television is still on, and I am still writing.  Now the news is telling me that Governor Christie has announced mandatory gas rationing, using an “odd /even license plate number” approach.  It is 1974.  The country is reeling from the “Arab Oil Embargo.”  I’ve seen this before.

Earlier this evening, there was a benefit concert for Sandy victims.  Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Joel and others performed amidst photos of the hurricane devastation and pleas for donations.  It is 1985.  The “We Are The World” benefit concert, featuring the likes of Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, Cyndi Lauper, and yes, Bruce Springsteen AND Billy Joel take the stage.  I’ve seen this before.

My most poignant déjà vu moment came midweek, when President Obama toured New Jersey with Governor Christie.  The two men put aside their vast political differences and joined forces to get help to the hurricane victims, stat.  In that moment, it was clear to me, and, I think, clear to all but the most cynical of political animals that their motives were sincere, their cooperation genuine.  The political climate in our nation has been so toxic for so long that the contrast was striking. 

I had seen us all pull together at least once before, on September 11^th, 2001.  On that most horrible of days, and for a while afterward, our differences didn’t matter.  There were no racial or class differences.  There were no political parties.  There was only us, all of us, Americans, with tiny American flags duct-taped to our car radio antennas. 

I do not romanticize that dark chapter in our history.  It was without question the single most traumatic event I can remember.  Yet somehow, from the ashes of an absolute disaster, we came together.  We were united.  I caught a glimpse, a glimmer of that unity this week.  It’s still there, in the deep recesses of our collective consciousness.  Let’s try and find it again.  The past decade has seen more than its share of mean-spirited and ultimately pointless animosity.  We’ll never get to “Kumbaya” on issues that divide us.  But we can do better than we have in the recent past.  We proved it to each other this week, whether we realized it or not.

To the people of New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and all of the other places still experiencing the pain of Hurricane Sandy, Godspeed.