By Edwin Cooney
I know I ought to be writing about something really significant such as the increasingly tense atmosphere in Washington, D.C. where President Obama and the GOP struggle with the upcoming August 1st debt limit deadline. Perhaps it would be more timely to write about the situations in Libya and Afghanistan, but I’ve chosen to write about a matter bigger than where it happened and its official significance.
At exactly 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 9th, 2011 at Yankee Stadium (wait a minute, all you nonbaseball fans, this is a human -- not a baseball -- issue!), Derek Jeter, Yankee Shortstop for the last16 years, became the first Yankee to get his 3,000th major league hit. In so doing, he became only the second player whose 3,000th hit was a home run -- the other player was Wade Boggs of the 1999 Tampa Bay Devil Rays. (Boggs spent eleven years with the Red Sox, five with the Yankees and two seasons with Tampa Bay.)
Of course, these days any ball hit into the stands belongs to the fan who catches it. Such wasn’t always the case into the 1930s in some stadiums. However, today it’s standard practice.
The increasing monetary value of historic sports memorabilia inevitably makes the fan a legitimate competitor in line with professional ballplayers, teams, and even the Baseball Hall of Fame for these items of otherwise limited use. This is important because competition means a new avenue of opportunity to strike it rich -- and what could be more important in Twenty-First Century America?
Within minutes of Derek Jeter’s historic hit/home run, a 23-year-old graduate of St. Lawrence University by the name of Christian Lopez, a salesman for Verizon who owes some 200,000 dollars in student loans and is, above all, a Yankee fan, became a New York celebrity just by dint of catching Jeter's ball. “Why?” you ask! Well, Mr. Lopez simply gave Derek Jeter the ball without asking to be paid for it.
What marvelous magnanimity that was, I thought to myself, through all of Saturday, Sunday, and most of Monday -- until I arrived that night at my favorite "watering hole." There I encountered three friends, I mean really sweet people, who were incredulous over what they labeled Christian Lopez’s “stupidity.” How, they demanded to know, could a man who makes maybe $50,000 a year as a salesman (and perhaps less than that) be so utterly stupid as to give that historic baseball, undoubtedly worth several hundred thousand dollars, back to a “multi-million dollar a year baseball player" who works (or plays -- take your pick) for a multi-billion dollar organization. (They didn’t say it, but they were probably thinking: what’s this country coming to?)
I became incredulous in return. What was wrong with that? I wondered. Their reply was that some time in his life, Christian Lopez will be in financial difficulty and he, by having merely given the baseball back to Derek Jeter (and, even worse, indirectly to those money-grubbing Yankees), would have “stupidly but rightfully ” earned his poverty.
I suspected, even though they protested to the contrary, that much of their argument had to do with their anti-Yankee sentiments. Still, the gauntlet had been thrown down and I was honor bound to take it up. Hence, I proceeded to defend Christian Lopez and, of course, Derek Jeter and the New York Yankees. It was a splendid evening of friendly verbal combat!
I suppose it is as American as “baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet” to make an industry out of magnanimity, but it is dangerous. Once we lose the energy to give, because we need to spend as much of our time, opportunity, and energy hoarding money, this society will have become truly decadent. Of course, earthquake, Tsunami, and refugee relief (to name only a few very worthy causes) should rightfully have national priority. Specifically, although I align myself politically and spiritually with the poor, I fear the day when a man can be too rich to be rewarded.
As things have turned out, Christian Lopez is being rewarded for his good deed. The Yankees have given him their gift of a stadium luxury box for the remainder of the season and into the post season, and will undoubtedly pay the taxes for him. The monetary value of this gift is about $32,000. The Topps baseball card company is making a baseball card with Christian Lopez’s picture on it. The Steiner Sports Memorabilia company will give young Lopez a cut of its sales of Derek Jeter 3,000th hit merchandise. Thus, gratitude and justice prevail in New York City and at Yankee Stadium although I'm sure it may be surprising to many.
Of course, what happens in Afghanistan, Libya and in Washington, D. C. is of much greater urgency than anything that takes place on a baseball diamond. If we were to lose our national generosity and magnanimity, would it be huge news? Still worse, would we even notice our loss?
Christian Lopez’s thoughtfulness, generosity and magnanimity have already paid huge dividends in New York City, a place most people regard as both cold and ruthless. That we are still generous and magnanimous is pretty big news, if you ask me! Best of all, it’s happy news!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, July 18, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
POLITICS, EGO AND HONOR—OUR FOUNDERS’ MOST LASTING LEGACY
By Edwin Cooney
Just like me, I’m guessing that you were raised to believe that America’s founding fathers were men of super wisdom and morality! Surely no one who founded this nation could be as immoral as Bill Clinton or Ted Kennedy. Yet, history records that 207 years ago today (July 11th, 1804 at Weehawken, New Jersey), the sitting Vice President of the United States, Aaron Burr, slew former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Wow! What role modeling did those two “founding fathers” provide that day?
A signer and promoter of the new Constitution -- and one of the authors of the Federalist Papers -- Alexander Hamilton was a high achiever. Between 1789 and 1795, Hamilton as our first treasury secretary established American currency, devised an effective plan to settle young America’s war debt (crucial to our international credibility), and created the first Bank of the United States. Following his 1795 departure from government, Hamilton was a high-powered New York lawyer and an accomplished politician. As long as he lived, he would regard himself above any president as the head of the Federalist Party. To that end, he oversaw a network of newspapers and pamphleteers that trashed the personal and political reputations of anyone, whether Federalist or Democratic-Republican, who displeased him.
Aaron Burr was a remarkable politician and perhaps the most progressive thinker of his time. He believed that women were absolutely equal to men and should have equal status. He also promoted the equality of the working man and woman. Burr drew his political power from the laborers, merchants, and businessmen rather than from the aristocracy. The most prominent social club in New York was the Sons of St. Tammany and Aaron Burr helped turn that social club into Tammany Hall, the most formidable political machine in New York for the next century and a half. As a budding politician, Aaron Burr faced three powerful political entities in both New York City and throughout the state. They were the Schuyler/Hamilton family (Hamilton had married Senator Philip Schuyler's daughter Elizabeth in 1780), the Livingston family, and the Clinton family which would remain powerful into the mid-nineteenth century.
Aaron Burr committed two blunders that ultimately led him to Weehawken. In 1791, he defeated Philip Schuyler (Alexander Hamilton’s father-in-law) for one of New York’s seats in the United States Senate. Second, he successfully aligned New York’s Democratic-Republican party with the Virginia aristocracy and thus carried New York State for Thomas Jefferson in 1800. That ultimately broke the back of Hamilton’s Federalist Party both in New York State and nationally.
We think these days of Thomas Jefferson mostly as the author of the Declaration of Independence. Throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries he was thought of as a politician. If Virginia was going to remain the state that produced presidents, New York State’s politicians needed to be controllable. This became increasingly evident when Aaron Burr, Jefferson’s vice presidential running mate, tied Jefferson with 73 votes in the Electoral College in 1800. Unless Vice President Burr was sufficiently weakened in his home state, he could be a threat when Secretary of State James Madison, Jefferson’s friend, decided to run for the presidency. Jefferson knew that Alexander Hamilton, who hated Burr more than he did anyone else, would surely help defang Aaron Burr.
As time moved on, Burr found that his influence in the administration was weakening. By late 1803, Burr knew that President Jefferson was likely to pick George Clinton, New York’s veteran but aging governor, to succeed him as vice president. Burr decided to run in the April 1804 gubernatorial election. With Alexander Hamilton’s help, Burr lost by the biggest margin ever.
The ultimate insult came during that campaign. After a political dinner in Albany, New York, Dr. Charles Cooper in a letter to Philip Schuyler quoted Alexander Hamilton as asserting that Aaron Burr was both a dangerous and personally despicable man. (Cooper had the letter published in an Albany paper to assure voters that Alexander Hamilton would not let Morgan Lewis, the Democratic-Republican gubernatorial candidate, lose to Aaron Burr.) To be described as dangerous was one thing, but to be described as “despicable” had -- in early American culture -- an overtone of private sexual depravity. In other words, Vice President Aaron Burr’s honor was at question. Thus, the Code Duello was the only pathway to restoring one’s honor.
After Burr failed to get Hamilton to modify what he had asserted, Burr issued his challenge to a duel. Under the Code Duello, Hamilton picked the weapons and Aaron Burr arrived on the site of the duel first. The time was shortly before 7 a.m. on that hot and muggy Tuesday morning.
No one who witnessed the duel was sure who fired first. Some say Hamilton did and that Burr had a physical reaction to the shot which struck a cedar branch about 12 feet high and about halfway between the two combatants. Burr’s shot struck Hamilton about two inches above his right hip: the ball passed through Hamilton’s liver and lodged in his spine. It was reported that Vice President Burr did express regrets to the fallen Hamilton as he left the scene and headed back across the Hudson to New York City.
Alexander Hamilton, paralyzed and in great pain, lived until about 2 p.m. on Wednesday, July 12th, 1804. Burr’s life was spared, but both his honor and his political career were fatally tarnished. Alexander Hamilton’s life was over, but his fame became greater than his honor.
Yes, indeed, ego and honor live with us yet, legacies of our nature and institutionalized by America’s founding generation. It’s a little strange, isn’t it, that we still believe, despite George Washington’s stern warning, that our ego and honor can be healthfully nourished by politicians? You can speak for yourself, but I’d STILL rather be led by a politician than by a king!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Just like me, I’m guessing that you were raised to believe that America’s founding fathers were men of super wisdom and morality! Surely no one who founded this nation could be as immoral as Bill Clinton or Ted Kennedy. Yet, history records that 207 years ago today (July 11th, 1804 at Weehawken, New Jersey), the sitting Vice President of the United States, Aaron Burr, slew former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Wow! What role modeling did those two “founding fathers” provide that day?
A signer and promoter of the new Constitution -- and one of the authors of the Federalist Papers -- Alexander Hamilton was a high achiever. Between 1789 and 1795, Hamilton as our first treasury secretary established American currency, devised an effective plan to settle young America’s war debt (crucial to our international credibility), and created the first Bank of the United States. Following his 1795 departure from government, Hamilton was a high-powered New York lawyer and an accomplished politician. As long as he lived, he would regard himself above any president as the head of the Federalist Party. To that end, he oversaw a network of newspapers and pamphleteers that trashed the personal and political reputations of anyone, whether Federalist or Democratic-Republican, who displeased him.
Aaron Burr was a remarkable politician and perhaps the most progressive thinker of his time. He believed that women were absolutely equal to men and should have equal status. He also promoted the equality of the working man and woman. Burr drew his political power from the laborers, merchants, and businessmen rather than from the aristocracy. The most prominent social club in New York was the Sons of St. Tammany and Aaron Burr helped turn that social club into Tammany Hall, the most formidable political machine in New York for the next century and a half. As a budding politician, Aaron Burr faced three powerful political entities in both New York City and throughout the state. They were the Schuyler/Hamilton family (Hamilton had married Senator Philip Schuyler's daughter Elizabeth in 1780), the Livingston family, and the Clinton family which would remain powerful into the mid-nineteenth century.
Aaron Burr committed two blunders that ultimately led him to Weehawken. In 1791, he defeated Philip Schuyler (Alexander Hamilton’s father-in-law) for one of New York’s seats in the United States Senate. Second, he successfully aligned New York’s Democratic-Republican party with the Virginia aristocracy and thus carried New York State for Thomas Jefferson in 1800. That ultimately broke the back of Hamilton’s Federalist Party both in New York State and nationally.
We think these days of Thomas Jefferson mostly as the author of the Declaration of Independence. Throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries he was thought of as a politician. If Virginia was going to remain the state that produced presidents, New York State’s politicians needed to be controllable. This became increasingly evident when Aaron Burr, Jefferson’s vice presidential running mate, tied Jefferson with 73 votes in the Electoral College in 1800. Unless Vice President Burr was sufficiently weakened in his home state, he could be a threat when Secretary of State James Madison, Jefferson’s friend, decided to run for the presidency. Jefferson knew that Alexander Hamilton, who hated Burr more than he did anyone else, would surely help defang Aaron Burr.
As time moved on, Burr found that his influence in the administration was weakening. By late 1803, Burr knew that President Jefferson was likely to pick George Clinton, New York’s veteran but aging governor, to succeed him as vice president. Burr decided to run in the April 1804 gubernatorial election. With Alexander Hamilton’s help, Burr lost by the biggest margin ever.
The ultimate insult came during that campaign. After a political dinner in Albany, New York, Dr. Charles Cooper in a letter to Philip Schuyler quoted Alexander Hamilton as asserting that Aaron Burr was both a dangerous and personally despicable man. (Cooper had the letter published in an Albany paper to assure voters that Alexander Hamilton would not let Morgan Lewis, the Democratic-Republican gubernatorial candidate, lose to Aaron Burr.) To be described as dangerous was one thing, but to be described as “despicable” had -- in early American culture -- an overtone of private sexual depravity. In other words, Vice President Aaron Burr’s honor was at question. Thus, the Code Duello was the only pathway to restoring one’s honor.
After Burr failed to get Hamilton to modify what he had asserted, Burr issued his challenge to a duel. Under the Code Duello, Hamilton picked the weapons and Aaron Burr arrived on the site of the duel first. The time was shortly before 7 a.m. on that hot and muggy Tuesday morning.
No one who witnessed the duel was sure who fired first. Some say Hamilton did and that Burr had a physical reaction to the shot which struck a cedar branch about 12 feet high and about halfway between the two combatants. Burr’s shot struck Hamilton about two inches above his right hip: the ball passed through Hamilton’s liver and lodged in his spine. It was reported that Vice President Burr did express regrets to the fallen Hamilton as he left the scene and headed back across the Hudson to New York City.
Alexander Hamilton, paralyzed and in great pain, lived until about 2 p.m. on Wednesday, July 12th, 1804. Burr’s life was spared, but both his honor and his political career were fatally tarnished. Alexander Hamilton’s life was over, but his fame became greater than his honor.
Yes, indeed, ego and honor live with us yet, legacies of our nature and institutionalized by America’s founding generation. It’s a little strange, isn’t it, that we still believe, despite George Washington’s stern warning, that our ego and honor can be healthfully nourished by politicians? You can speak for yourself, but I’d STILL rather be led by a politician than by a king!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, July 4, 2011
INDEPENDENCE—-DOES IT SPELL FREEDOM?
By Edwin Cooney
Of course, today’s a day for parades, picnics, baseball and tall “cold ones” to fit all tastes. After all, it’s the Fourth of July. It’s Independence Day and for most Americans independence and freedom are one in the same.
Why shouldn’t they be? After all, you and I were born and reared in freedom, so independence from Great Britain meant we were free from “British tyranny.” Everyone knows that since independence frees a people from tyranny or colonialism, independence means freedom -- does it not?
Of course, you and I are indeed free to come up with any conclusion we choose, but it’s important to note that Britain, with all her faults, was at that time the freest nation in the world. She would become even freer over the next two centuries even with her monarchy. Even more to the point, Britain, as a result of our rebellion, would become a much more effective empire builder to the point that it is said that “the sun never set on British soil.” A hundred years after the loss of her “American subjects,” British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli proclaimed his queen--Queen Victoria--“Empress of India.”
Eleven uncertain years would pass between 1776, when Thomas Jefferson would so eloquently declare our independence, and 1787, when Jefferson’s friend James Madison would guide the passage of the Constitution of the United States through a contentious four month long convention. It was the Constitution that would make America a republic constructed to guarantee and advance the freedom of the individual.
Even as the Continental Congress declared our independence from Britain and authorized the establishment of a Continental Army that would so valiantly fight for that independence, there was no requirement that the states furnish the necessary funding to purchase materials and pay for the services of its farmer soldiers. This caused considerable discontent between the Army and the Congress. (Ironically, Benedict Arnold could commit treason in violation of military law, but nothing compelled the states to financially support the War for Independence).
Even after the war, a number of Revolutionary War leaders toyed with the idea of establishing an American monarchy. In May 1782, General Lewis Nicola, in a personal letter to George Washington, strongly suggested that he should become America’s George the First. Washington angrily rejected the idea which brought about a profuse apology from General Nicola.
As late as 1786, either Continental Congress President Nathaniel Gorham or Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who had fought alongside Washington beginning in 1778, suggested to Alexander Hamilton that an invitation be extended to Prince Heinrich of Prussia to become America’s Henry the First. (Prince Heinrich was the younger brother of Frederick the Great whom Adolf Hitler would later proclaim to have been Germany’s greatest leader).
Shocking as the idea of an American monarchy may be to you and me, it must be remembered that a number of American generals, including George Washington, had fought under the names of British kings. Furthermore, late eighteenth century America utilized several institutions with which a truly free country would blush to be associated.
These included indentured servitude, state-sponsored churches, debtor’s prisons, and slavery. Not even the passage of the Constitution ended any of these anti-democratic social institutions.
Ironically, as Abraham Lincoln liked to point out, the Declaration of Independence, even more than the Constitution, was the guarantor of the people’s freedom. However, the document that gave us birth was a declaration not a law. It expressed our intentions more than it reflected who we were at the time of its publication. Its contention that “all men are created equal,” reflected spiritual values rather than the legal standing of the individual. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used to refer to the Declaration of Independence as America’s “promissory note.”
The current fate of a number of African nations, once the colonial possessions of European powers, illustrates the starkest testimony that independence doesn’t automatically spell freedom. What independence does do is to provide the richest opportunity for freedom to flourish.
Yes, indeed! Today’s the Fourth of July -- Independence Day. It’s a perfect opportunity to parade, cheer, and to picnic... and to be glad that opportunity spells F.R.E.E.D.O.M.
What say you?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Of course, today’s a day for parades, picnics, baseball and tall “cold ones” to fit all tastes. After all, it’s the Fourth of July. It’s Independence Day and for most Americans independence and freedom are one in the same.
Why shouldn’t they be? After all, you and I were born and reared in freedom, so independence from Great Britain meant we were free from “British tyranny.” Everyone knows that since independence frees a people from tyranny or colonialism, independence means freedom -- does it not?
Of course, you and I are indeed free to come up with any conclusion we choose, but it’s important to note that Britain, with all her faults, was at that time the freest nation in the world. She would become even freer over the next two centuries even with her monarchy. Even more to the point, Britain, as a result of our rebellion, would become a much more effective empire builder to the point that it is said that “the sun never set on British soil.” A hundred years after the loss of her “American subjects,” British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli proclaimed his queen--Queen Victoria--“Empress of India.”
Eleven uncertain years would pass between 1776, when Thomas Jefferson would so eloquently declare our independence, and 1787, when Jefferson’s friend James Madison would guide the passage of the Constitution of the United States through a contentious four month long convention. It was the Constitution that would make America a republic constructed to guarantee and advance the freedom of the individual.
Even as the Continental Congress declared our independence from Britain and authorized the establishment of a Continental Army that would so valiantly fight for that independence, there was no requirement that the states furnish the necessary funding to purchase materials and pay for the services of its farmer soldiers. This caused considerable discontent between the Army and the Congress. (Ironically, Benedict Arnold could commit treason in violation of military law, but nothing compelled the states to financially support the War for Independence).
Even after the war, a number of Revolutionary War leaders toyed with the idea of establishing an American monarchy. In May 1782, General Lewis Nicola, in a personal letter to George Washington, strongly suggested that he should become America’s George the First. Washington angrily rejected the idea which brought about a profuse apology from General Nicola.
As late as 1786, either Continental Congress President Nathaniel Gorham or Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who had fought alongside Washington beginning in 1778, suggested to Alexander Hamilton that an invitation be extended to Prince Heinrich of Prussia to become America’s Henry the First. (Prince Heinrich was the younger brother of Frederick the Great whom Adolf Hitler would later proclaim to have been Germany’s greatest leader).
Shocking as the idea of an American monarchy may be to you and me, it must be remembered that a number of American generals, including George Washington, had fought under the names of British kings. Furthermore, late eighteenth century America utilized several institutions with which a truly free country would blush to be associated.
These included indentured servitude, state-sponsored churches, debtor’s prisons, and slavery. Not even the passage of the Constitution ended any of these anti-democratic social institutions.
Ironically, as Abraham Lincoln liked to point out, the Declaration of Independence, even more than the Constitution, was the guarantor of the people’s freedom. However, the document that gave us birth was a declaration not a law. It expressed our intentions more than it reflected who we were at the time of its publication. Its contention that “all men are created equal,” reflected spiritual values rather than the legal standing of the individual. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used to refer to the Declaration of Independence as America’s “promissory note.”
The current fate of a number of African nations, once the colonial possessions of European powers, illustrates the starkest testimony that independence doesn’t automatically spell freedom. What independence does do is to provide the richest opportunity for freedom to flourish.
Yes, indeed! Today’s the Fourth of July -- Independence Day. It’s a perfect opportunity to parade, cheer, and to picnic... and to be glad that opportunity spells F.R.E.E.D.O.M.
What say you?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, June 27, 2011
WHAT INCREDIBLE PEOPLE!
By Edwin Cooney
Every June, for the last five years, I’ve taken the train east to treat myself to some of the most incredible folks I know. They consist of family, friends, and some whom I invariably meet for the first time.
This year I decided to fly rather than take the train. Air travel is every bit as awe-inspiring as travel by rail. Perhaps future generations won’t even think of this, but there’s an anticipatory feeling as your jet speeds along the runway and finally, effortlessly -- it seems -- glides into the air with all of that weight on its slender wings. As I headed northward from Oakland toward Seattle and then aboard another aircraft eastward toward Chicago‘s busy and even treacherous O’Hare Airport, I realized how magnificently we are insolated from the technical feats performed by the professionals who provide safe air travel. It’s all so clean, smooth, and precise!
As American Eagle Airlines flight 4213, bound for Buffalo, sat on O’Hare’s tarmac, a thunder and lightening storm burst upon Chicago with an intensity that stopped all airport activity outside of the bustling terminal. “We could fly in the storm as planes are struck by lightening everyday,” insisted Jenny, the young flight assistant based out of Phoenix. “The problem is that members of the crew who load the bags and supplies onto the aircraft aren’t allowed to work on the tarmac during thunder and lightening storms. Then, of course, there’s that little problem of the fueling truck…” She certainly needed to say no more about that!
Two and a half hours would pass before American Eagle flight 4213 finally headed toward Buffalo, New York and my friend Bob.
Bob is an exceedingly warm, generous man who likes to keep his genuinely caring nature a secret. Bob lives his warm generosity, leaving it to you to discover it all by yourself. Although extremely efficient and businesslike in almost everything he does, his "all business" manner takes a back seat to his love for his family, his friends, his God and his country. He doesn’t want you to talk too much about it, but he’s a man of genuine patience and considerable tolerance. Every year he meets and escorts me about Western New York with the solicitude of a guardian.
The main event of my first four days was our annual New York State School for the Blind Alumni Association reunion. During these days, old friends and acquaintances recall their youth within the cloistered grounds of that institution we call NYSSB. Like all “families,” there is the intimacy of familiarity with all of its degrees of misunderstanding and affection. Each year, we learn of one another’s struggles and successes at school and after leaving school.
Most dramatically this year, there was David who first attended school a year or so after I entered NYSSB. David struggled through both institutional and parental mistreatment well into adulthood. He overcame such mistreatment through his capacity for deep spirituality and is now President of the Board of Directors of the Self Advocacy Association of New York State. SANYS -- a non-profit organization -- advocates for the dignity and the aspirations for those most readily shunned by society through no fault of their own. Despite his trials, David, now a professional, seeks to bring out the best in everyone he meets.
Musical entertainment is always a big part of our alumni weekends. We have our stars -- Sukosh, Joe and Pastor Charlie -- whose talents stand out with special brilliance. There are those, however, whose talents grow on you over the years. Two such are Richard and his wife Gayle who, along with blindness, suffer from substantial hearing loss. Yet, he on the trumpet and she on the guitar provide a special kind of entertainment. Their double disability only serves to magnify their talent. Even more impressive is their spontaneous good nature that inevitably draws both respect and genuine affection to them.
Also, there is my buddy Paul whose sunny disposition and generosity makes you enjoy every second of every minute of every hour of his companionship. We were roomies this year and we will be again next year unless one of us finds that special lady to dominate our time.
Next, there is Ken. I’d never met a “Hall of Famer,” until my friend Ken Meyer was recently elected to the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Ken loves to entertain and he’s superb at it.
My “brother” Chet and his wife “Lady Linda” are a combination of love, depth, and candor and are thus invaluable to those lucky enough to be close to them. Chet both challenges and acknowledges you with genuine and generous intensity. As a friend, he’s a real keeper!
Then there is Helen, the wife of our late and much beloved orchestra teacher, who is not only a magnificent musician in her own right but a wonderfully sensitive Braille transcriber and mapmaker. Although forever saddened by the loss of her husband, it is impressive that she has had the energy to play the viola for the Genesee County Orchestra (which they both helped found in 1947) well into her eighties. Even more wonderful is the supporting love and encouragement she offers to those she holds dear …even me!
Dr. Wayne, a man I shall cherish forever, has lent me his encouragement for nearly forty years now. (Don’t tell him I mentioned the number of years!) Our annual luncheons are always a delight. We discuss old acquaintances, current events and, of course, politics. I’m grateful for his good health, which allows his wisdom to flow.
I spent time with the members of my sort-of adopted family. Edith, the lady I often called “Mother,” who lived to be 100 years and 10 months old and died last October 1st, was for me its heart. I met with Sharon, Edith’s daughter, who is sweet, considerate, and gentle just like her mother. Next, there’s Ann -- Edith’s niece -- who often tries to hide her deep concern for others behind a teasing manner. Then, there’s Gordon -- Edith’s nephew -- whose mild manner and willingness to listen, compels people to want to always be close to him.
My final five days were spent with my best friend Roe who, in addition to editing these weekly musings, concerns herself with the comfort of others more than just about anyone else I know. To describe her as precious is an understatement. Her husband Mark cares and shares as does his wife.
Finally, it was time to board the first of three separate aircrafts run by Delta and head westward to California. The cool interior of each plane masked the hot airport runways, to say nothing of the high mountains and turbulent weather it skirted as we crossed the rivers, the plains and the highest of the Rockies. On the way, there was Maureen and her sister Beth, Stacy and Amy who provided pleasant conversation thus breaking the inevitable boredom of cross country travel, however sanitized and comfortable.
Like each of you, I’ve known lifelong personal failures and disappointments, each for which I must bear some responsibility! However, every year I’m reminded once again of the quality of the friends I have tried to describe here to you, however inadequately. To know them is to be blessed. They are even more magnificent than I’ve portrayed them.
William Butler Yeats once put it this way: “Think where man's glory most begins and ends, And say my glory was I had such friends.”
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, June 20, 2011
FATHER’S DAY--NOT AS LOVELY, BUT JUST AS NICE AS MOTHER’S DAY
By Edwin Cooney
The history of Mother’s Day is the story of white and red carnations and sentimental tears. It’s the story of states, anxious to get in on the ground floor of the celebration of mother love, rapidly endorsing Mother’s Day. Additionally, it’s the story of the effort of Anna M. Jarvis, the founder, who wanted to stop its increasing commercialization.
Father’s Day was also initiated in love, but it took a more circuitous path to full acceptance. Initially celebrated in Fairmont, West Virginia, not far from Grafton, West Virginia (the home of Mother’s Day), Father’s Day was originally designed to celebrate the 210 lives lost in the December 6th, 1907 mining disaster in nearby Monongah, West Virginia. The date scheduled for the first Father’s Day celebration was July 5th, 1908. Mrs. Grace Golden Clayton, the actual founder of Father’s Day, wanted the first celebration to be as close to the birthday of her late father as possible. That occasion was obviously swallowed up by the simultaneous Mother’s Day movement out of nearby Grafton. Fairmont’s inaugural celebration of Father’s Day was lost to posterity until 1972.
Two years later, Sonora Dodd of Spokane, Washington spearheaded a more successful national Father’s Day movement to celebrate her dad and all other dads. In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson went to Spokane to celebrate Father’s Day. A bill for the national recognition of Father’s Day was introduced into Congress, but defeated out of fear that it might become a commercial venture. The same thing happened a second time in 1916. By the time of Congress's second rejection of Father’s Day, forty-five states had already passed Mother’s Day into state law.
In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge issued a resolution in support of a Father’s Day celebration but stopped short of having it introduced as an act of Congress. "Ole man" — that’s how Coolidge privately referred to his male friends including members of his cabinet and his congressional colleagues — Calvin was too smart to trust Congress with such an important idea as Father’s Day!
During the revenue--starved 1930's, the Menswear Retailers Association established a committee on the promotion of Father’s Day. The committee's name was changed in 1938 to the National Father’s Day Council.
Unlike Anna M. Jarvis, the founder of Mother’s Day, Father’s Day founder Sonora Dodd didn’t at all object to the commercialization of Father’s Day! Hence, shirts, ties, handkerchiefs, and hats sold almost as fast as flowers. Good cigars probably weren’t far behind!
In 1957, Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, one of the lovelier members of the United States Senate, scolded her colleagues and everyone else for having short shrifted American fathers during the past forty years of Mother’s Day celebrating.
In 1966, Lyndon B. Johnson, the modern daddy of all good things, signed a resolution making Father’s Day the third Sunday in June.
Not to be outdone, another good politician by the name of Richard Milhous Nixon who in 1972 was seeking a second term as President, signed the bill into law designating the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. Thus it might legitimately be observed that Father’s Day was, to a considerable degree, the brainchild of smart politicians and practical businessmen with that essential touch of “daughter love” thrown in to give it respectability!
As stated above, most of the state legislatures were agreeing to honor mama’s love while Congress twice rejected the idea of honoring father. Might it be that mothers as loving nurturers elicit a stronger emotional reaction -- especially by male state legislators -- than practical and often demanding, busy fathers? Since commercialization of both motherhood and fatherhood was inevitable, shouldn't we face the rather uncomfortable realization that our most sincere sentiments are most powerfully expressed by the willing sacrifice of our most powerful possession: our money?
Inevitably, some parents are more worthy of their children’s adoration than others, but since our sons and daughters freely withhold or proffer their love, our individual or collective worthiness of that love is legitimately and properly beyond our say-so. Thus, we may accept that honor with those seemingly opposite feelings of humility and satisfaction.
I know, as surely as I live and breathe, that others have done more and done better by their children than I have by my two lads, but I can without the slightest doubt tell you this:
If you’re a man, the highest honor you’ll ever receive is when someone calls you Dad!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, June 13, 2011
A BAFFLING ENCOUNTER!
By Edwin Cooney
Okay, here’s how it happened. I was purposefully strolling, cane methodically working, down the street the other night when a lady came along. As she passed me she said, in a rather clipped matter-of-fact tone of voice -- not at all condescending -- “you’re on Santa Clara Avenue headed toward Park Street.” She seemed to be a middle-aged lady, not an old lady, and the air was pungent with her cigarette smoke, but that didn’t put me off. However, I found her assumption that I needed that information offensive.
Now I’ve been offended before by people inquiring of me in something of a piteous tone: “Can I help you? Do you know where you’re going?” Most of the time I reply with something like: “No, thank you, I’m fine” and move on. However, this lady really got under my skin or as some might put it, “got on my last good nerve” so I responded:
“Ma'am,” I said, “do you really believe I don’t know that?”
By that time, she was about 10 feet behind me so I had to turn around to address her back. Her response was, “Well, I just wanted to be helpful!”
Obviously baffled by each other’s perception of that exchange, we proceeded on our way.
I guess I hope that she promptly forgot the conversation. As for me however, thoughts came thick and fast. Immediately, I chided myself for not simply saying “Thank you very much.” That would have been the mannerly way to handle it. I could hear Edith, the lady I often called mother, saying to me: “Ed, did you have to be rude even if you considered that she was being rude or ignorant?”
Of course, my answer to that would have been, “I suppose not, but shouldn’t some people, especially seemingly intelligent folks, be called on their ignorance?” After all, I could have responded more sarcastically than I did if I had asked “Ma'am, can you tell me what city I’m in? Have I left Boston?”
Some years ago, my former wife was walking from her apartment a few blocks away from mine to spend the day with me. As she strolled along she heard a teenager observe, “I’ll bet that poor blind lady doesn’t even know what day it is!”
When she told me of that encounter, I said: “You should have responded—“I do, too, know what day it is, it’s Thursday!” Actually, it was really Saturday.
To that knowledgeable and conscientious lady I encountered the other night, it was somehow believable that I might be wandering the street without a purpose or a clue. Therefore, she would be a good citizen and tell me where I was headed, even if I didn’t know where I intended to go.
To me, it’s inconceivable that anyone, blind or sighted, disabled or not, would be out and about without a plan or a way to get from point A to point B.
To me, that lady was outrageous in what I considered her ignorance. To her, I must have seemed foolish to be out in the dark perhaps not realizing where I’d been or comprehending where I was going. Therefore, from a conceptual standpoint, we were both outrageous to one another.
The problem was, we didn’t know each other. She knew me a tad better than I knew her. She saw me as a blind man with what that often implies. I picked up on her cigarette smoking. Actually, her directions were as clipped as an air traffic controller’s might be. Perhaps she’s worked for NASA guiding astronauts. Perhaps she’s a police or taxi dispatcher. Sadly, or perhaps not so sadly, we just don’t really know one another.
Try this idea on for size. Can you imagine what it might be like to meet you? That’s right -- you! Are you sure that you come across to others as you perceive? How often are you misunderstood? Have you ever been pleasantly surprised that someone liked you better than you thought they did following your first meeting? Are you always aware whether others find you pleasant or hard to take? Of course, how you come across to someone else has a lot to do with that person. Still, it’s highly likely that in several ways our self-perception differs markedly with other people’s perception of us.
If the idea of meeting yourself brings about feelings of ambiguity, join the club.
If you are absolutely sure that the world sees you precisely as you see you, you are even more outrageous than she or me! Congratulations!!!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, June 6, 2011
FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM—WHEN AND WHEN NOT?
By Edwin Cooney
Today marks the sixty-seventh anniversary of D-Day, June 6th, 1944. On that day, the most powerful elements of the world’s "good people" attacked the fortress of the most powerful elements of the world’s "bad people." The day of the Normandy Invasion was truly part of a four year fight for freedom. The most significant instrument of the success of that undertaking was Dwight David (Ike) Eisenhower’s “regular soldier.” Ike’s regular soldier wasn’t a graduate of West Point or Annapolis. He was usually a shopkeeper, a mechanic, a teacher or even a preacher. War wasn’t his profession; it was only a temporary obsession.
At least twice a year, on Memorial and Veteran’s Days, Americans are practically commanded by veteran’s groups (which invariably include the President and some high-powered influential military bigwigs) to celebrate the fallen soldier who gave his life for our freedom.
It can be argued, however, that our freedom has really only been at stake twice in the past 236 years. Even at that, the Revolutionary War, which gave us our freedom, almost didn’t happen.
The shot from Concord or Lexington that was heard around the world was fired sometime around midnight on Wednesday, April 19, 1775. That shot was in response to Massachusetts Colonial Governor Thomas Gage’s determination to capture arms that were being protected by Sam Adams and John Hancock somewhere near Concord. A day or two later, a proposal from the King’s Prime Minister, Lord North, reached the colonies. It offered to negotiate a fair tax policy, separately, with each one of the thirteen colonial legislatures. Sadly, for the fate of 25,000 Americans, the Parliament’s practical temperance was no match for Governor Gage’s aggression and the colonists' war fever would intensify.
No historian would assert that the War of 1812 (which also almost didn’t happen but did due to the late arrival of a British concession), the Mexican, the Civil War, the Spanish American war or even World War I was fought for the sake of liberty. (As for the 1836 Battle of the Alamo, those brave Texans were fighting in part for their freedom to keep black men in chains which was forbidden by the Mexican government and the moral principles of the Roman Catholic Church.)
World War II, the most necessary war since we gained our independence, had its antecedent in World War I, which was really a family feud between Queen Victoria’s grandchildren. After all, did America’s freedom really depend on whether Britain’s George V or Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II won “the war to end all wars?” The defeated Kaiser didn’t even go to jail for his aggression. He lost his throne (which had to be pretty galling), but his exile in Holland wasn’t a physical hardship even if it was something of a social come down.
Of course, we’re told that each war has lessons. How relevant are those lessons toward the prevention of future wars? Didn’t our greed for “manifest destiny,” the force behind the Mexican War, ultimately guarantee the Civil War? Did the 2,446 American soldiers who died during the short Spanish-American War die for our freedom or for the expansion of our foreign market?
The Minuteman of the Revolutionary War was a volunteer, as were many who fought the War of 1812, the Mexican, the Civil and the Spanish-American wars. However, by the time World War I (the war which was to make the world "safe for democracy") came along, the government was drafting men under penalty of law should they choose to resist. Hence, the valiant heroes of America’s most legitimate war were largely drafted. Their individual freedom was at stake if they refused to fight for our freedom.
Along with the United Nations, the threat of Soviet Communism, and atomic death, the gifts of World War II included a lesson -- a real gem -- supposedly applicable for all time to come: “never appease a dictator." Hence, peace through strength is the key to real world peace. So, we sacrificed some 58,000 American soldiers fighting Ho Chi Minh --who was not only a dictator, but a Communist dictator. Was that war ultimately for our national security or for our international prestige?
As I see it, men and women become soldiers because their political leaders have failed to protect them. It’s that simple. We’re most fortunate that Ike’s “regular soldier” did indeed love his country! He only became a soldier because two generations of American and other international leaders let him down.
So, let’s remember our wounded and our fallen, not for the soldiers they were required to become, but for the truly great and generous neighbors God originally intended them to be.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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