By Edwin Cooney
From the time I was very young, one of my most satisfying goals has been to achieve or obtain the rating of one hundred.
If I got that number on a school exam, I was in “fat city” for at least twenty-four hours. If my body temperature was one hundred, I got the day off from school. Should I possess that many pennies, that whole dollar meant I could purchase one hundred fireballs, twenty “Good and Plenty” candies or even better, twenty packs of baseball cards.
This week marks my one hundredth column since June 16th, 2005 when a gentleman named Dennis Holston from Harlem, New York invited me to contribute a weekly column to his website. Such occasions inevitably encourage most creative types to mark such occasions.
Hence, I’ve decided to mark my one hundredth column by interviewing the author of these columns—specifically—ME. That’s right, I’m going to interview myself. Since I sign these articles “RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, EDWIN COONEY,” I’m going to ask Edwin’s alter ego, Ed Cooney to interview Edwin Cooney. So, here it goes!
Ed: Welcome Edwin! Get as comfortable as you can, because you’re in for a pretty tough grilling! So first, what made you think you had anything particularly interesting to share with a readership?
Edwin: I didn’t really know whether or not I had anything particularly valuable to share with a “readership” as you put it, I only hoped I did. I went to college hoping to become a history teacher, but I didn’t really work hard enough, I suppose, to make that dream come true. Writing about the things I’ve learned about and observed is the closest I’ll ever get to teaching, so when Mr. Holston invited me to write a column for fun, his invitation was irresistible to me. My first column was posted to him on Friday, June 16th, 2005.
Ed: What do you hope to achieve on an ongoing basis as a columnist?
Edwin: I try to have each column achieve at least one of three attributes. Hopefully each column will entertain, inform, or stimulate the reader to create his or her own ideas from what I write.
Ed: I’ve read all of your columns and they don’t seem to be particularly practical. You don’t help people balance their checkbooks, lose weight, or improve their love life. So why should people take their valuable time to read anything you write?
Edwin: That’s a fair question, but it contains a wholly irrelevant word. There’s no should to it. Hopefully people don’t read what I write because they “should.” A lot of the things people should do are unpleasant and burdensome and people often resist those things. I’m not sure I’d write a column if I were required to unless I was committed to a more compelling obligation such as making a living. If I wrote because I was paid to write and because payment for my work kept food in my stomach, clothes on my back and a shelter over my head, my very worthiness to make money that way would come out of my skill, capacity and drive. I don’t write to instruct the reader. Rather, I write to interest and find common ground with the reader.
Ed: Back in 2005 you wrote a column denying the existence of common sense. Weren’t you being a bit picky by asserting that no sensible response is common to everyone?
Edwin: No, Ed, not at all. Pulling one’s hand quickly from a hot stove isn’t common sense, it’s instinctual self-survival. As I said in that column, there is such a thing as good sense, but there’s absolutely no such thing as “common sense” in my opinion. The phrase “common sense” is, it seems to me, primarily used to pressure other people to join the proponent of “common sense” into following that individual’s ideas or conclusions regarding what is good or sensible.
Ed: Yah, but doesn’t everyone possess good sense and if so, doesn’t that confirm the reality of common sense?
Edwin: Not at all. Everyone possesses the capacity for “good sense,” but everyone’s “good sense” is a little different. Some apply tact very well in tense situations. Other people’s “good sense” is shown in an individual’s coolness under pressure or creativity in problem solving. I still assert, Ed, that common sense is more of a manipulative phrase than it is anything approaching a useful human attribute.
Ed: Have you ever written anything you had to retract?
Edwin: Yes, indeed, Ed—big time. Back in September of 2005, I wrote a column I called “The phone call never made”. It was about Richard Nixon’s decision not to call Coretta Scott King during the 1960 presidential campaign when Dr. King was in jail due to a probation violation. It was a good analysis of the then current and now historical aspects of that decision. The only problem with it was that in the first sentence of the original piece I attributed the invention of the telephone to Thomas Edison instead of Alexander Graham Bell. That column definitely had to be rewritten and redistributed. So, it was!
Ed: What would you say has been the column best received by your readership?
Edwin: Oh, probably the column I wrote last year about this time concerning my experience meeting Mr. Daniel Nellis, the “blind man without hands”. Believe me, Ed, Dan Nellis is far more impressive personally than anything I wrote about him.
Ed: Have you ever lost a reader due to a political difference?
Edwin: Twice. And strangely enough, the unhappy reader is a member of my own family. He’s a very proud and intense political Conservative who regards me as being somewhere to the left of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev as he believes all American liberals are. I lost this gentleman twice: he tried a second time to read me, but my way of looking at things was just too painful for him, I suppose!
Ed: “How many readers do you have and how many of them respond to what you write?”
Edwin: Currently I have about one hundred twelve readers, but only about five of them respond regularly to what I write. My guess is that many of them read what I’ve written well after it has been distributed. People, after all, are busy and, while it’s tempting, I never press anyone to respond to what I write. Possessing some emotional investment in what I write, I’d of course like more feedback, but I consider myself lucky that one hundred and twelve separate souls are willing to even consider reading what I write. Most of my readers have requested to receive my columns, but a few family members simply got included on my earliest list without their permission and they’ve been gracious enough not to request removal from my readership. On the other hand, the only reader I’ve lost up to now is a family member. I suppose there’s some kind of justice in that.
Ed: Identify your greatest weakness and greatest strength as a columnist.
Edwin: My greatest weakness, I’ve been told, is that I sometimes put too much detail in my columns and that detail often obscures the point of what I write. I’ve also been told that my strength is my capacity for a rather unique perspective on many topics.
Ed: Okay Edwin, what do you hope lies ahead for your column?
Edwin: “I’d like to be regarded as perceptive and readable enough as a columnist to be widely syndicated and financially compensated for my work. However, whether or not that ever comes to pass, I intend to keep writing.
Ed: That’s fine, Edwin, keep writing. I’ll keep reading and serving as your conscience.
Edwin: You do that Ed, because next to a great editor, which I already possess in the person of my best friend Roe, a good conscience is what I need most!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, June 30, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
SOME NOTABLE TRAVELERS
By Edwin Cooney
Riding across country by train isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I like it. One might say that it’s even in my blood. Perhaps my love for train travel comes from my maternal grandfather who worked on the Delaware & Lackawanna railroad for much of his life. The steady drone of the engine accompanied by the clicking of steel wheels on steel ties is something I find both relaxing and comforting. There’s something almost mystical if not spiritual about the sound and continuum of the rail trail.
Seniors and persons with disabilities who ride today’s Amtrak between the west coast and Chicago have the option of riding in a special compartment which is located in the lower part of the doubled-decked cars which service such trains as the California Zephyr, the Coast Starlight, and the Super Chief.
It’s been my experience that passengers who sign up to ride in that portion of the train start the trip in their own isolation but, as the hours pass and the first night of a two, three or four day trip descends, they begin to exchange pleasantries and observations with one another. They may talk of the temperature aboard the car or the service being provided or not being provided by Amtrak personnel. Inevitably, as the dawn of the second day brings the sun, all are ready to at least begin bonding with those whom they’ve now spent a full night.
Valerie is a sixty-one-year-old lady who I’m sure is regarded as pleasant by her worst enemy—if indeed she could possibly ever have one. The mother of three boys, Valerie was on her way to Denver to urge her ailing mom to give up her place in an assisted living facility to come live with her in sunny California. My guess is that the number of people who own computers in this country far exceeds the number of people who would make such an offer even to mama—especially if they live with territorial spouses! Valerie lives with no spouse, but her love for her mother, even if by no means unique, was both obvious and deep.
I’d never met either a sheepherder or a gravedigger until I met Narce. Born in America of Basque parentage, Narce spoke with a considerable foreign accent, but he was both interested and concerned about the welfare of his fellow passengers. He overheard me tell someone else that I’d left my electric razor at home and the next morning offered me two of those handy disposable razors from his supply. Narce was on his way to join his brother, for whom he has much love and affection, for a vacation in the Colorado wilds.
My original reaction to another passenger, Mac (or “Choo-Choo” as he likes to be called), was a bit negative. Very early in the trip he was talking with someone about his crippled legs (he can both stand and walk, but it’s a painful struggle for him to do either) and asserted that though he had crippled legs he was “no cripple.” The thought occurred to me that this man’s impression of disability was not only arcane but harshly insensitive. I didn’t expect to like him much. However, as the hours passed and I learned of his love and appreciation for Americana, the railroad and for his family, I felt a considerable degree of empathy and appreciation for him. “Choo-Choo,” though a man well past seventy, was crossing the country to visit a daughter in Washington, D.C. From there he was going to see his brother in Oklahoma who he told us was in even worse physical shape. Furthermore, although he is retired from his job as a sugar processor in California, he keeps busy doing American Indian beadwork. He also spends much time at the old railroad that is part of the Crockett Historical Museum near his home. As his fellow passengers left the train he had a little gift for each of us that reflects his hobbies and interests. My gift was a pin of the Railroad Museum.
Dave, who is hobbled by a bad hip and a bad ankle--on opposite sides of his anatomy--still gamely performs his job as a mover of heavy equipment. When a municipality in Colorado purchases a fire engine or a dump truck, it’s Dave’s job to drive that piece of equipment to its destination. Perhaps his cheery disposition throughout the trip is a product of his road experience, but I like to think it’s simply something with which he was born. Dave was bound for his Elkhart, Indiana home from where he would begin another road adventure.
While it’s indeed possible to have ridden with an even more remarkable group of people, it’s equally true that any one of these people I’ve mentioned in these paragraphs would enhance any group of which they may at any time be a part.
I spent a total of fifty-seven hours aboard Train Number Six that traveled between Oakland, California and Chicago, Illinois. If the train ride was the essential backdrop of this most pleasant theater, the people I met were the stars.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Riding across country by train isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I like it. One might say that it’s even in my blood. Perhaps my love for train travel comes from my maternal grandfather who worked on the Delaware & Lackawanna railroad for much of his life. The steady drone of the engine accompanied by the clicking of steel wheels on steel ties is something I find both relaxing and comforting. There’s something almost mystical if not spiritual about the sound and continuum of the rail trail.
Seniors and persons with disabilities who ride today’s Amtrak between the west coast and Chicago have the option of riding in a special compartment which is located in the lower part of the doubled-decked cars which service such trains as the California Zephyr, the Coast Starlight, and the Super Chief.
It’s been my experience that passengers who sign up to ride in that portion of the train start the trip in their own isolation but, as the hours pass and the first night of a two, three or four day trip descends, they begin to exchange pleasantries and observations with one another. They may talk of the temperature aboard the car or the service being provided or not being provided by Amtrak personnel. Inevitably, as the dawn of the second day brings the sun, all are ready to at least begin bonding with those whom they’ve now spent a full night.
Valerie is a sixty-one-year-old lady who I’m sure is regarded as pleasant by her worst enemy—if indeed she could possibly ever have one. The mother of three boys, Valerie was on her way to Denver to urge her ailing mom to give up her place in an assisted living facility to come live with her in sunny California. My guess is that the number of people who own computers in this country far exceeds the number of people who would make such an offer even to mama—especially if they live with territorial spouses! Valerie lives with no spouse, but her love for her mother, even if by no means unique, was both obvious and deep.
I’d never met either a sheepherder or a gravedigger until I met Narce. Born in America of Basque parentage, Narce spoke with a considerable foreign accent, but he was both interested and concerned about the welfare of his fellow passengers. He overheard me tell someone else that I’d left my electric razor at home and the next morning offered me two of those handy disposable razors from his supply. Narce was on his way to join his brother, for whom he has much love and affection, for a vacation in the Colorado wilds.
My original reaction to another passenger, Mac (or “Choo-Choo” as he likes to be called), was a bit negative. Very early in the trip he was talking with someone about his crippled legs (he can both stand and walk, but it’s a painful struggle for him to do either) and asserted that though he had crippled legs he was “no cripple.” The thought occurred to me that this man’s impression of disability was not only arcane but harshly insensitive. I didn’t expect to like him much. However, as the hours passed and I learned of his love and appreciation for Americana, the railroad and for his family, I felt a considerable degree of empathy and appreciation for him. “Choo-Choo,” though a man well past seventy, was crossing the country to visit a daughter in Washington, D.C. From there he was going to see his brother in Oklahoma who he told us was in even worse physical shape. Furthermore, although he is retired from his job as a sugar processor in California, he keeps busy doing American Indian beadwork. He also spends much time at the old railroad that is part of the Crockett Historical Museum near his home. As his fellow passengers left the train he had a little gift for each of us that reflects his hobbies and interests. My gift was a pin of the Railroad Museum.
Dave, who is hobbled by a bad hip and a bad ankle--on opposite sides of his anatomy--still gamely performs his job as a mover of heavy equipment. When a municipality in Colorado purchases a fire engine or a dump truck, it’s Dave’s job to drive that piece of equipment to its destination. Perhaps his cheery disposition throughout the trip is a product of his road experience, but I like to think it’s simply something with which he was born. Dave was bound for his Elkhart, Indiana home from where he would begin another road adventure.
While it’s indeed possible to have ridden with an even more remarkable group of people, it’s equally true that any one of these people I’ve mentioned in these paragraphs would enhance any group of which they may at any time be a part.
I spent a total of fifty-seven hours aboard Train Number Six that traveled between Oakland, California and Chicago, Illinois. If the train ride was the essential backdrop of this most pleasant theater, the people I met were the stars.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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