IT MAY NOT BE EASY -- BUT IT’LL CERTAINLY BE WONDERFUL!

By Edwin Cooney

One of the most difficult aspects of life is the prospect and the process of moving on.  It’s bitter and sweet, unnerving and rewarding, and, like almost everything else we do that’s really worthwhile, even risky.

The last time I moved on, Jimmy Carter, a white southerner, was president, AT&T was still the largest telecommunications company in America, microwave ovens were both new and expensive, cigarettes still sold for under a dollar a pack and could be smoked almost everywhere, and only large corporations and organizations had computers. 

The year was 1979 and, while I wasn’t young exactly, the future appeared to stretch way beyond what I’d experienced in the then thirty-three years of my existence.  I was newly married with only the eldest of my two lads having been born.  Job prospects seemed to have dried up sufficiently in the Northeast to justify my exploring a tempting opportunity opening up on the West Coast.  So, out I came.

By so doing, I saddened some close friends, as well as many in both my family and in my wife's with the inevitable absence of their new grandson.  I risked the possibility that my new job wouldn’t last and I’d be stuck in a part of the country far from home and seemingly destitute when it came to the comforts of emotional support.  Still, a job offer was something to pursue so to California I came.

Of course, all of us are the sum and substance of our environment. It is that environment that usually dictates our capacity for well-being. Having lived much of my life on the fringes of the family experience, my environment made it easier for me to move on than for my wife.  She, of course, came with me and, as things turned out, was ultimately happier with the move to California than I.  Within a year of our move, the job I came west for was gone.  My California friendships were all in their infancy.  Our families were missing their “beautiful baby boy.”  I was increasingly concerned over the frequency of California earthquakes and a seemingly growing climate of shrinking employment prospects here in “the Golden State.”  Time moved on, however, and slowly, ever so slowly, things began to change.

My family changed with the birth of my second lad.  A few years later, sadly, my wife and I divorced and we passed through the agonies that parents experience as they raise willful children while seeking to put their individual lives back together.  Incredibly, through these often baffling and even painful changes, a powerful phenomenon was occurring that I barely recognized.  I was making friends -- really wonderful friends!

Nearly thirty-four years have passed since that bleak spring of 1979 in the northeast.  Some of those thirty-four California years have been painful.  Increasingly, however, life has become both more comfortable and rewarding.  My friendships have been growing in numbers and even in intensity.  My individual friends are a really diverse lot.  Some of my friends are politically conservative and others are politically liberal.  Some are Christians -- as am I -- and some are agnostics and even atheists.  Two of my very close friends are Buddhists.  Some have money and others have damned little.  Some believe that logic matters most while others believe that love is our most valuable resource.

So, here it is February of 2013.  The future for me is most likely shorter than is the past.  Barack Obama, a black man, is president in his second term.  AT&T no longer reigns supreme. Cigarettes cost nearly ten bucks a pack and you can hardly smoke them anywhere.  (Something is wrong about that, but since I only occasionally “bum” a cigarette these days, it hardly matters!)  One can buy a microwave for under a hundred dollars.  Most everyone, even me, has a home computer or two.  Now, like thirty-four years ago, I’m about to move on!

My new home will be Liverpool, New York, a little town north of Syracuse. It is approximately half way between Binghamton, where I was born, and Batavia, where I lived during much of my youth.  The hardest part about moving on is the physical separation I’ll experience from my sons and from my friends.  My sons and I are permanently linked by the bond of love, the source of which I believe is God.  My friends will need more continuous care since we are linked primarily by intellectual and emotional bonds.

Thirty-four years ago the prospect of professional advancement drew me to California.  This year an even more compelling force beckons me home.  In less than two weeks, Saturday, March 9^th, 2013, I’ll have the honor to marry my sweetheart Marsha here in Alameda at the home of friends.

The foundation of our mutual love is, of course, a friendship that defies simple description.  It’s an experience that’s deeper than any I’ve ever known or even hoped to know.  To know Marsha is to experience the joy of wanting to belong and to serve.  To love Marsha is to happily surrender to the loving guidance of a very wise, warm and lovely lady.

Our life together may not always be easy, but it will certainly be wonderful!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE PEOPLE OF PRESIDENT’S DAY

By Edwin Cooney

Since I’ve never been much of a scholar, my interest in the American presidency has been almost as much a fascination about the men who’ve occupied that office as it has been about the institution, its powers, or the history it has created.  So, on this day (popularly known as Presidents Day -- although it’s still officially Washington’s Birthday), I thought I’d offer you a glimpse of some of our presidents as people rather than as politicians, leaders, or statesmen.

Baby notes—-Although William Howard Taft was our heaviest president at 330 pounds while in office, I’ve found no president heavier as a baby than Richard Nixon, born Thursday, January 9^th, 1913.  (Nor have I found any mention of President Taft’s birth weight.)  Baby Richard, described by Hannah Nixon’s midwife nurse Henrietta Shockney as a “roly-poly, good-natured baby,” weighed in at a healthy eleven pounds. Lyndon Baines Johnson (born Thursday, August 27^th, 1908) went unnamed for the first three months of his life.  Rebecca Baines Johnson named her eldest son after W. C. Linden, a lawyer and family friend.  She altered the spelling of Linden’s name "L I N D E N" to "L Y N D O N" and gave Baby Lyndon her maiden name for his middle name. Warren Gamaliel Harding (born Thursday, November 2^nd, 1865) was named after Warren Gamaliel Bancroft, a Methodist chaplain in the Wisconsin State Prison.  Phoebe Harding wanted to name her son Winfield but deferred to George Harding’s wishes in the matter.  However, she often called Warren "Winnie" as a child.  Ulysses S. Grant (born Saturday, April 27^th, 1822) was named Hiram Ulysses Grant by his mother Hannah Simpson Grant.  His name was accidentally written as "Ulysses Simpson Grant" by the congressman who recommended him to West Point.  However, his initials, H. U. G., which were printed on his trunk that arrived at West Point, embarrassed young Grant even more.  Hence, he took his mother’s maiden name for his middle name and called himself U.S. Grant.  U.S. soon became “Uncle Sam” and many of his friends from then on often referred to him simply as Sam.  Gerald Rudolph Ford was born Leslie R. King, Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska on Monday, July 14^th, 1913 to Leslie and Dorothy King.  Within a year, Dorothy took little Leslie back to her native Grand Rapids, Michigan from where she divorced King for abuse and cruelty.  Around 1916, she married Gerald R. Ford, who owned a paint store. Jerry Ford, Sr. legally adopted young Leslie and renamed him Gerald R. Ford, Jr.  Jerry and Dorothy Ford told the lad of his paternity when he was about 12 years old and he was once visited by Leslie King while working at a restaurant in Grand Rapids.

Boyhood and education—FDR (born Monday, January 30^th, 1882) was the only child of James and Sarah (Sally) Delano Roosevelt.  Young Franklin was pampered by his parents throughout his boyhood.  For the first six years of his life, he was dressed in dresses and kilts and wore his hair in long blonde locks.  Andrew Johnson (born Thursday, December 29^th, 1808) became fatherless at age three. At age fourteen, he was apprenticed by his mother Mary McDonough Johnson to James Selby, a tailor. Eventually, he and his older brother William ran away from Selby who put an ad in a local newspaper offering a reward of ten dollars to anyone who would return both brothers or only Andrew.  Andrew eventually returned to Raleigh, North Carolina and drove his mother and stepfather to Greeneville, Tennessee where, at seventeen, he opened a successful tailor business.  If the boyhoods of Franklin Roosevelt and Andrew Johnson could be labeled pampered, the boyhood of James K. Polk was downright brutal.  A sickly child who dwelt amidst the raw discomforts of rural Tennessee, Polk suffered from gallstones. The pain was so great that they had to be removed.  At age seventeen, Polk was sent to Danville, Kentucky where Dr. Ephraim McDowell, a doctor who had performed the first successful ovariotomy only a few years earlier, removed young Polk’s gallstones.  This was before the discovery of the need for sterilized instruments and the use of ether.  The only anesthetic available was liquor to dull the immense pain young Polk would invariably suffer.  The slender frail lad obviously survived the operation to become president, but died at age 53 just three months and eleven days after leaving the presidency in 1849.

Comparative ages—Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest president inaugurated, succeeding to the presidency upon the death of William McKinley on Saturday, September 14^th, 1901.  He was only 42 years, 322 days old.  John F. Kennedy was the youngest elected president to be inaugurated.  He was 43 years, 236 days when he was inaugurated on Friday, January 20^th, 1961.  The oldest president inaugurated was Ronald Wilson Reagan.  He was 69 years, 349 days old on Tuesday, January 20^th, 1981, his inauguration day.

Education—Nine presidents, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland and Harry Truman, had no college education.  By way of comparison, tally up the number of presidents who attended Harvard: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.  Surprisingly, the non-scholars win by a score of 9 to 8!

Extramarital affairs—James A. Garfield, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Bill Clinton were known to have been involved in extramarital activities.

Handsome presidents—"Handsome" relies totally on perception, but it’s generally agreed that the following ten men were the most handsome chief executives: Warren Harding, Franklin Pierce, Millard Fillmore, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Franklin Roosevelt, James Garfield, Chester Arthur, George H. W. Bush, and Gerald Ford who posed as a model for a men’s magazine in 1941. Queen Victoria, after getting a good look at Millard Fillmore, declared that he was the handsomest man she’d ever seen. Barbara Bush, who was of course perfectly objective, publicly insisted on numerous occasions that her husband was the handsomest man she’d ever laid eyes on.

Presidential pocket books—Our top three greatest presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, were far from being paupers, but Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and Andrew Jackson died in debt.  FDR’s estate was valued at around two million dollars.  Abraham Lincoln left a

modest $111,000 estate.  George Washington’s estate was valued at about $500,000.  Keep in mind, however, that six figure sums were far more valuable in those years than they are today.  For all his modesty, Harry Truman left an estate of about $500,000. Calvin Coolidge, a man who lived very simply, died leaving an estate worth about $700,000.  Even more remarkable is the fact that when the Coolidges left the White House on Monday, March 4^th, 1929, they moved into a duplex they’d been renting since around 1904.  Silent Cal used to sit out on his porch every night with his wife Grace as he puffed a big black cigar and read the newspaper.  Finally, in 1931, the Coolidges moved into a home they called "The Beaches" which gave them a little more privacy.

Of course, you know as well as I do that the forty-three men who’ve served as our president are people just like you and me.  Their lives are filled with the same hopes, fears, good and bad feelings, surprises, ironies, wonders, desires, strengths and weaknesses with which we all live.

One of my least favorite presidents despite all his accomplishments is Woodrow Wilson.  His apparent sense of moral superiority and his native racism are ongoing irritants to me.  However, there is a delightful anecdote about him that almost makes me like him despite myself.  Wilson was a man of slight build, but his face was long and bedecked on each side with rather prominent ears.  He had a long jaw which meant a lot of space between his chin and his thin lips.  “I have kind of a horse face,” he once observed.  This limerick which he recited so often that people assumed he had written, makes me want to love him:

“As for beauty I am not a star.

Others are more handsome by far.

But my face, I don’t mind it, for I am behind it.

It’s the people down in front that I jar!”

This President’s Day offering is less about information and more about entertainment.  However, if these comparisons and stories, in some small way, humanize the world’s most awesome and powerful office, my mission is complete.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

VALENTINE'S DAY -- IT’S THE AMERICAN WAY!

By Edwin Cooney

In case you’ve forgotten, this Thursday is Valentine’s Day.  Yah, I know that millions of people -- especially unhappy and unconnected macho types -- see Valentine’s Day as a “namby-pamby" lovesick day, or pretty close to being the silliest day of the year! 

Not me, I like Valentine’s Day.  To me, it’s inclusive without being intrusive.  It’s about wishes and can be about some pretty special “dishes” -- if you know what I mean!  I insist that Valentine’s Day is one of the most “all American” days on the calendar, even more so than Patriot’s Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, or Veteran’s Day.  Okay, I’ll explain.

First, and perhaps foremost in practical minds, Valentine’s Day is a good business day.  Keep in mind President Calvin Coolidge’s observation that “the business of America is business!”  Although Valentine's Day had its origins in Pagan Rome, it forever took on an American flavor about 163 years ago when young Esther Howland of Worcester, Massachusetts advertised her cards in the Daily Spy, a New England newspaper.  She had gotten the idea a couple of years earlier when she had received a Valentine card from a friend in Britain.  Believing that she could more effectively and attractively reproduce the card she’d received, she made a sample of a Valentine for the catalogue distributed to other outlet stores by her father’s bookstore.  She hoped for 200 orders of the card by other stores, but got over 5000. When Esther Howland died in 1904 at age 76, she was a very wealthy lady although, ironically, since Valentine’s Day does primarily celebrate romance, Miss Howland died a maiden.  Inevitably, there came candy and flowers and Valentine’s Day was off and running in America.

Next, let’s turn to what Valentine’s Day markets.  Valentine’s Day promotes "love," of course, with an emphasis on romantic love.  Still, the expression of romantic love has no monopoly on Valentine’s Day.  I’ve received expressions of love on Valentine’s Day lots of times, but generally from dear friends, most of whom are married.  I have received a Valentine gift or two from a lover, but only once or twice throughout sixty plus years of Valentine's Days.  In fact, the best Valentine I recall receiving was on Thursday, February 14^th, 1957.  The card was in the shape of a dump truck and written on the side of it was, “Here’s a load of Love for you.”  There was nothing at all romantic about that card as it was sent to me by the only brother I ever had.  His name was Danny Baker and even though he was a foster brother, I love him still across the veil of years.

What does romantic love often result in?  That’s right: babies.  Of course, babies preceded Valentine’s Day, but as more was generally considered "better" in America, institutional romance made America better yet!

As for flowers, through photosynthesis, flowers produce oxygen, which comedian
Shelley Berman once observed, “…we’re all waiting around for like vultures!”   Candy creates markets for farmers who grow cocoa beans, sugarcane, nuts, raisins, and so on. Hence, the benefactors of Valentine’s Day grow ever larger.

No, I’m not going to write about what candy too often produces. That wouldn’t be either right or fair.  After all, this commentary has nothing whatsoever to do with calories or exercise -- nor should it.

As for Memorial Day, and the Fourth of July, young people had to sacrifice their lives on the battlefield in order to make them as worthwhile as they are.  All one has to do in order to make Valentine’s Day worthwhile is to enjoy good old American indulgence.  Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day may be equal to Valentine's Day, but they hardly surpass it in that special combination of revenue and emotional intensity that’s so typically American.

The emotions expressed on St. Valentine’s Day can be unpredictable. On Thursday, February 14th, 1929, gangster Al Capone expressed his feelings toward seven members and associates of the Bugs Moran Irish gang who patrolled the north side of Chicago when he allegedly had them gunned down in a garage at 2122 North Clark Street in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. The occasion came to be known as "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre." Scarfaced Al’s "leaden valentines" lifted the earthly cares from the shoulders of Peter and Frank Gusenberg, Albert Kachellek, Reinhardt Schwimmer, Adam Heyer, Albert Weinschenk, and John May.  St.Valentine’s Day gunplay was just as American as the valentines exchanged by lovers on that very day.

You and I, of course, prefer to think of Valentines Day our own way -- the romantic way!

Ah! Having things our own way as we celebrate Valentine’s Day couldn't be anything other than the American way!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY

WHAT? THE FAULT ISN’T IN OUR STARS, BUT IN OURSELVES?

By Edwin Cooney

I know, “something’s wrong with practically everyone else except thee and me and sometimes I even wonder about thee,” but surely the fault in 2013 America can’t be ours as much as it is that of our entertainment and sports stars.

Since this is being  written before Super Bowl XLVII was played yesterday in New Orleans (or if you prefer, “The Big Easy”), I don't know whether Baltimore Ravens’ inside linebacker Ray Lewis was able to ignite another shining star in his personal football milky way.  What makes that really matter to so many is that Ray Lewis is not only rich and famous as a brilliant Hall of Fame bound football player, but in the eyes of two families, he’s a murderer.

About this time thirteen years ago, Ray Anthony Lewis, a native of Bartow, Florida, was indicted on murder and aggravated assault charges in Atlanta, Georgia.

The stabbing deaths of Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar took place outside the Cobalt Lounge, an Atlanta nightclub, in the midst of a fight between companions of Ray Lewis and the companions of Baker and Lollar who were celebrating the thirty-fourth Super Bowl victory of the St. Louis Rams over the Tennessee Titans.  The trial that followed resulted in the acquittal of Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting even though Ray Lewis turned state’s evidence and testified against them.

Lewis, who is ending a brilliant career in the 2013 Super Bowl in the eyes of his coach John Harbaugh, his teammates, and Baltimore Ravens fans, is both a football icon and a Christian gentleman.  In the eyes of the Baker and Lollar families, he’s not only a murderer but also an example of our society’s willingness to overlook both wrongdoing and evil in favor of Sunday afternoon sports entertainment.

While it certainly doesn’t hurt us to know about this terrible incident and to sympathize with the families of Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar, it also begs for perspective.  Who was twenty-four-year-old Ray Lewis back in 2000?  Was he little more than a talented well-paid thug or was he genuinely trying to break up a fight between two rowdy gangs?  Who were Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar besides the hopeful barber and artist depicted by the two families?  If one of my lads were involved in a fight between two groups or gangs, I’d want to know what he was doing associating with the types who would indulge in that sort of a melee!  The answer to these questions might be enlightening, but the articles I’ve seen about this sad thirteen year old incident don’t tell us much.

There is ample testimony as to who Ray Lewis is today and most of those testimonials point to Ray Lewis’s charity work and his dedication to his country, his family, to the needy and to God.  Of course, Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar have no new accomplishments since they’ve been gone for thirteen years now. We know them only through the painful yet loving memories of their families.

The heart-rending feelings of the Baker and Lollar families are certainly very, very understandable.  However, I think that the rest of us who had no connection to either the stabbing or the subsequent trial proceedings can be forgiven if we allow ourselves to just enjoy the football game. I like to speculate as much as the next guy, but it seems to me that some of the fuss that’s being exercised in the wake of this rather ironic situation is evidence of unnecessary self-flagellation.

Of course, we live in a materialistic, self-indulgent society that would rather spend money on entertainment than charity, but the truth is that plenty of money gets spent on both.  As the Baltimore Ravens square off against the San Francisco Forty-Niners, you can be sure that there are sinners on both sides of the ball.  (As for "Saints" on either side, we’ll just have to settle for the fact that the two teams are playing on the home field of the unsaintly New Orleans Saints who were Super Bowl champions themselves just three years ago.)  Here’s another truth: men and women with far more at stake (usually money) than you and I are the ones who decide who has talent enough to participate on sports teams, in rock bands and orchestras, in plays and movies, as well as in politics.

Former Yankee outfielder Mickey (“Mick the Quick") Rivers had it right when he once observed in his rather crude but quaint way:  "Ain't no sense worrying: If you have no control over something, ain't no sense worrying about it -- you have no control over it anyway. If you do have control, why worry? So either way, there ain't no sense worrying."

Two observations: I agree with Mick the Quick. Second, his real name is John Milton Rivers just like the 17^th Century English poet!  Can you believe it?

When William Shakespeare had Cassius proclaim to Brutus in his play "Julius Caesar” “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves…” he was referring to stars in the Milky Way.  To worry about the purity of Ray Lewis is to worry about the stars that we’ve partially created.  Still, if we spend time worrying or indulging in agony about things over which we have little or no control then “the fault, John and Susie Q Citizen, truly is not in our stars but in ourselves."

Whether Lewis’s Ravens win or lose may well depend on Ray Lewis’s football prowess, but I’m guessing it will have nothing to do with his soul!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY