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The Best of Year One
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Mar. 8th, 2006 @ 10:02 am
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On Saturday, March 18, this blog will be one year old.
Looking back through the archives, I can't believe how much I've written. I decided to put together a "Best of Year One" and marked my favorite posts with a "Best of Year One" tag. Problem is, I like everything, so it's not all that much of an edit.
You can link to it all with the tag here. The tricky part is that when you get to the bottom of a page of these, you have to go looking in the left hand column for the "previous page" under "Navigation". Once you've mastered that, the rest should be easy. Have fun. I did.
-The Judge
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Memories
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Mar. 3rd, 2006 @ 09:27 pm
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The object of the wake was a genuine American original who made it to 87 and who had been one of my big supporters when I ran for mayor in my head-strong youth. I probably hadn't seen him in fifteen years or more, though I would bump into one or another of his kids from time to time. The funeral home rocked with his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
One of the daughters approached me with delight. I had seen this reaction before. When you are a Family Court Judge, there is only one function that gives you and others any kind of happiness: the adoption of children. Many, many times people have stopped me in stores or on the street or coming out of church to re-introduce me to the fast-growing youngsters I had made permanent parts of their families. Nearly always the child will politely shake my hand while the parent beams. So it was here. With a wave she pointed out her nearly-twelve twins: a pretty young lady with a sweet smile, and her handsome brother, a lad in a stroller of sorts, still physically and mentally disabled as he had been when I first saw him when he was no bigger than a melon. Mom bragged about how he had defied all expectations and could now say a few words. She couldn't have been happier. Dad sat with him, chatting and paying attention to his every noise.
I went over and said hello to Dad, and sat with the boy, introduced myself, and told him how I remembered when he was the size of the little baby across the room.
What I wanted to tell him was how much joy he had brought into the world, but I think he understood that in his own way.
There isn't much of Family Court that I recall happily, but those adoption highlights are gifts that keep on giving, and it doesn't take much of that kind of reward to make a fellow shove the rest into a nearly-forgotten compartment of the brain.
Fond memories.
God bless them all.
*******************
"Your honor, I object to this petition. The Department of Social Services has ridiculously over-stated their case. They've painted a picture of my client as if he's some kind of monster. That just isn't fair."
I stood up. I could barely keep my composure. "Judge," I said, "if 10% of what we've learned in this investigation is true, this man is one of the worst monsters who has ever lived."
The third grader shifted continuously at her desk. The teacher became increasingly annoyed, finally telling her to sit back in her chair.
"I can't. It hurts."
A trip to the school nurse revealed the black and blue marks on her back, still showing the clear outline of the two by four that had been used to convince her it was time to go to sleep.
Later we learned of the near-ritual sexual molestation of the girl and her three younger siblings by their father, a convicted child molester who had done time in state prison for that crime. All had been beaten mercilessly and the mother seemed completely indifferent. The family had moved from county to county ahead of the Social Services investigators.
We convinced the judge, my predecessor, to remove the children. Permanently. The older girl became one of those difficult to place kids. When she hit puberty the repressed rage kicked in. I don't know what happened to her after that. She'd be in her twenties now.
But in the deepness of the night, when memories have nothing to hold them back, I see her still.
She won't let me forget.
*******************
The mother was pregnant when the case started. When she gave birth, the Department, mercifully, took immediate emergency custody.
Twins.
A girl and a tiny little disabled boy.
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One of His Fans
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Mar. 1st, 2006 @ 08:56 pm
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In my last post I mentioned my wonderful trip to the Church of Our Saviour in New York (Park Avenue at 38th Street for those of you, including my children, who might be in the area). I was delighted to receive an e-note from Father George Rutler, the Pastor, who said, "You are most welcome anytime here, at what I like to think of as a village church in the midst of the big city."
I thought that was cute, but the more I reflected, the more I realized the truth in that short sentence. The church, though beautifully decorated, is on the small side and intimate. The congregation, though metropolitan, seemed friendly and there was an easy familiarity among many whom I suppose to be regulars. I certainly felt right at home. There was no sensation of being enveloped as sometimes happens in the great cathedrals. Sure, a village church. I've been to a few of those.
When the children were smaller we often took them camping in the summer in the southern Adirondacks. There were a couple of small village churches we attended and I always felt a sense of great faith abounding in the simple surroundings. We also got remarkably good preaching. It was especially remarkable because both churches were on the far fringes of their respective dioceses, Albany and Ogdensburg.
One of them we hit four summers in a row and I heard four of the ten best homilies I'd ever experienced from a simple unassuming priest of no obvious greatness. Yet, he somehow managed to startle with an old message newly told and I remember thinking that if I could only come there six more times he'd probably capture every spot in my top ten.
Most of what he said has faded away now with the passing years. If only I had blogged it. There is one story he told, however, that has stuck, and may be not a bad one for the beginning of Lent.
Back in the early days of the Civil Rights movement, an African-American preacher approached a famous white lawyer who had been sympathetic to the cause and asked him to take the lead publically on some matter. Whatever it was, it created a great risk to the lawyer professionally. He was reluctant to get involved.
"I implore you, as a follower of Christ, to do the right and just thing!" begged the preacher.
"I'm a follower of Christ, too," said the lawyer, "but that doesn't mean I'm willing to be crucified!"
"If you're not willing to follow Him to Calvary," said the preacher quietly, "you're not one of His followers.
"You're just one of His fans."
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It is Good for Us to Be Here
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Feb. 26th, 2006 @ 11:54 pm
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After a week by ourselves with Louisa off in Ireland with Anna and Peter, Mary and I finished off with a lovely weekend in New York City, hosted affably and skillfully by our son Bob who even picked up the tab for dinner Saturday night at his favorite Japanese eatery in the Union Square area.
From his apartment in Jackson Heights I plotted out the options for Sunday Mass, based on a poll of friends more familiar with the local liturgical scene than I. We ended up at the Church of Our Saviour on Park Avenue at 38th Street. The Pastor is Father George Rutler, whom I have seen many times on EWTN. He is in the top tier of the finest homilists in the English-speaking world and today he didn't disappoint.
There is a side altar dedicated to St. Thomas More, one of my heroes and the patron saint of lawyers. I wanted to go over there and quietly sing the Ballad of High Noon for All Seasons, but alas, there wasn't enough time before Mass and the opportunity never presented itself again.
"This isn't gonna be all in Latin, is it?" Mary asked. She is that much younger than me that she has no recollection of the sublime beauty of the Tridentine Mass. "No, of course not," I replied without telling her that my second choice was the Tridentine Mass at St. Agnes which was even closer to Grand Central than this church, and at the same hour.
*****************
"Something old, something new." Father Rutler may have been in the midst of his brief history of Time, but he might just as well have been talking about the liturgy itself. For a Novus Ordo Mass, there was little evidence that the old order had passed much. Six candles, incense, sprinkling of the congregation with holy water, triple bell-ringing at the Consecration, and glorious Gregorian Chant sung by a magnificent choir whose voices filled the church. It seemed like dozens, but I think there were only about four of them, in wonderous harmonies, accompanied by a most-accomplished organist. First rate all the way.
When they did occasionally break into English, it was the good stuff, like Holy God We Praise Thy Name. (No Gift of Finest Wheat or that calliope number Sing a New Song.) I never really understood why we abandoned Gloria in Excelsis Deo for the flat English translation. Hearing it again today, I would find it difficult to believe that anyone would not understand its meaning. And the Sanctus! To me, as an altar boy, that chant always sounded like the clink of censors and the tinkling of altar bells. It was in word and sound a brief glimpse of the Beatific Vision itself. It all came back to me today.
Fill the heavens with sweet accord
Holy! Holy! Holy Lord!
It really doesn't matter that they don't write hymns like that anymore. 'Cause we've still got 'em!
******************
The first thing I noticed on entering the church was the long line at the confessional. This is something you don't see much anymore. The congregation was largely youthful, something we don't see at all at home, the demographics being what they are. It was most encouraging.
As I say, Father Rutler is an extraordinarily gifted preacher. My hearing has been steadily deteriorating in recent years, and it is harder and harder for me to place myself in an assembly where I can get much out of what's being said. I tried to capture each of the words today, and repeat them to myself as he went along. I felt, in the end, reassured, revitalized. Refreshed.
New York City is such a paradox. It is crawling with sin, sin of the worst kind, lost souls,drugs and alcoholism, diminishment and despair.
Yet in the midst of it all are these islands of hope and confidence, oases of grace and blessings in abundance. It is the surest sign that He wasn't kidding when He said, "I will be with you always."
*********************
High above the sanctuary of the church there is written this legend: "LORD, IT IS GOOD FOR US TO BE HERE."
Amen.
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Dreamtown, USA
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Feb. 16th, 2006 @ 09:27 pm
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Back in the summer of 1973, shortly after I graduated from college, I plopped down a hundred and fifty bucks and grabbed myself a Greyhound Ameripass, good for thirty days of unlimited travel across the United States and Canada. I figured that this might end up being the last care-free summer of my life. I called it early retirement. Like, why wait until you're too old to enjoy it? I've never regretted the decision for a minute, even though I missed a couple of job interviews and would not have full-time gainful employment until I finished law school six years later.
There was no particular rhyme or reason to my itinerary. Sometimes I just took the next bus out and headed wherever it was headed. I had a hundred adventures, even travelling with people I met on the way for several days at a time. I had a big suitcase and very early regretted not having a big backpack instead, like the night I was looking for a flat place to sleep on the side of Mt. Rushmore beneath the highway (there wasn't one), and more particularly the next morning when I dragged that thing back up to the road, emerging with a great view of Washington's profile and several gallons of sweat.
From there it was hitch-hike time (no buses in that part of SD), passing by herds of buffalo, touring the Wind Cave National Park ("Now many of you may be familiar with the the terms stalagMITES and stalacTITES. We don't have any of those. If you suffer from claustrophobia, perhaps the Wind Cave is not for you") and ending up in Hot Springs, South Dakota.
Now, this has got to be just about one of the goofiest excuses for a community in all of America.
I loved every minute of it.
Hot Springs is the cultural capital of the Black Hills
That's what they advertise, and who can argue? "There are over 4,250 friendly people." I didn't meet all of them, but the ones I came across certainly met the description. They had a local museum, which seemed worth a look. Thing was, I recognized most everything in it as having a twin in Des Nichols' house on McCleary Avenue, even down to the same kitchen table.
The really big attraction was (and is) "The Plunge" as the locals call it. Or, more formally, the Evans Plunge. Here we are in this drive all day to get there or get out of no-place and holy crap they've got this giant indoor swimming pool with a gravel bottom feeding off 87 degree mineral water. They had tarzan ropes (can't be too many plaintiffs' lawyers out there) so you could act just like you would have at the old swimmin' hole when your parents weren't watching. And the slide! That must be why they call it The Plunge, 'cause you climb way, way up on this ladder and (this was about the only rule in the place) you lie on your stomach with your arms outstretched like Superman and drop head first, picking up speed as you go along and then FLY across the top of the water for about a mile or so before settling into that warm, bouyant, wonderful spring.
Heaven.
The bus out of town didn't leave until 2 in the morning, so after The Plunge closed for the evening we had to wait at the taxi office , which I think was actually this guy's living room. I remember sitting on his couch watching Seven Brides for Seven Brothers until about 11:30, which is when a different bus pulls into a nearby town and the only cab in the region has to go over there and pick up the folks coming on to Hot Springs. So the cab guy apologizes, but we have to fend for ourselves for an hour or so till he gets back. The routine is to send the bus people over to the police station to kill time, since they're open 24/7 whereas everyone else in Hot Springs is peacefully resting up for the morrow.
The policeman at the desk buzzed us right in. I think the only other cop on duty was the one who showed up a few minutes later with the town drunk who, appropriately, was placed in the drunk tank which they had to hose down every time he threw up. They weren't treating him badly, though. More like George Bailey bringing Uncle Billy home one more time. The desk guy shook his head with a baffled look. "What would make somebody drink that much?"
And I thought, "This would be a nice place to live."
I went back to the cab stand and boarded the next bus out.
I've never set eyes on Hot Springs, South Dakota from that day in July of 1973 to this.
But in my dreams . . . .
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He's Tanned, He's Rested, He's Ready
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Feb. 15th, 2006 @ 08:36 pm
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(Whittier, CA) Former President Richard Nixon emerged from Hell today to announce his plans to run for Governor of California in the 2006 election.
He amused reporters by displaying a "Kick Me" sign on his ass.
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Oh, The Humanity!
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Feb. 14th, 2006 @ 07:32 pm
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By God, now they've gone too far!
(Somewhere in Islamofascistaland) American icon Ronald McDonald, against overwhelming odds, bravely fought off an attack by a roving band of Islamo-Fascist thugs yesterday who, upon seeing his red hair, apparently mistook him for a Danish cartoon.
McDonald remained calm throughout the ordeal, and even managed a smile. Notwithstanding the beating, he demonstrated abject contempt for his persecutors by continuing to display the sole of his rather large shoe.
Through a spokesman, Mayor McCheese expressed outrage, but was otherwise too overcome with emotion to comment.
McDonald was treated at a local hospital with a special sauce and released.
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Gilboa
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Feb. 10th, 2006 @ 09:11 am
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Say, I hope my New York City readers enjoyed their coffee and convenient flushes this morning. A lot of that water comes from about seventy miles south of me, the Gilboa Reservoir. That multi-billion gallon man-made lake is formed by the damming of the upper reaches of the Schoharie Creek.
Most of you have probably never heard of the Schoharie Creek, because it flows north, away from you, through the broad farm lands of the Schoharie Valley, then down through a long chute before plunging into the Mohawk River near the Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, NY. The combined waters then sweep east past Amsterdam and Schenectady and eventually cascade over the Cohoes falls where they join the Hudson River and head south. I assume you know about the Hudson.
The dam holding back the Gilboa Reservoir is falling apart. You probably haven't heard about that, though your city Department of Environmental Protection declared its repair a top priority back in 1997.
There has been some discussion about it up this way, however. For several months we have been working on contingency plans and pouring over old studies and examining worst-case scenarios. If the dam goes, you people might have to open up your valves a little wider on some of your other water sources. The villages of Middleburgh and Schoharie (which once had an entire David Letterman show devoted to it) and numerous other hamlets and crossroads would be wiped out. Seventy miles downstream, we're luckier. We'll get four or five hours advance warning (well, they originally said eleven, but who knows?). By that time we should see some houses and churches and schools and farm stands floating by.
When the wall of water crashes into the Mohawk, there will be no room for the regular river, so that will back up twelve miles or so, which ought to take care of Randall and Yosts and Fultonville and Fonda. And the main line of the old New York Central (I forget what they call it these days) and the New York State Thruway. (Back in the 90's a non-dam-related flood destroyed five bridges over the Schoharie, including the Thruway bridge. Ten cars plunged over the edge before an alert stroller stopped traffic.) Taking the big turn at Fort Hunter might slow things down some, and then our mini-sunami will start rinsing West Main Street and Carmichael and Division Streets and Guy Park Avenue. Sir William Johnson's family homes which have been around since before the Revolution should get damp. The original plan suggested the first floor of St. Mary's Hospital might be under water, but hey, a lot of this is speculation.
Our plans call for evacuating 3,500 people or so to high ground. Our bus garage will require scuba gear, so we're moving the buses. No hope for the sewage treatment plant. The river bridge will probably survive, though it won't lead anywhere. We'll be sending some fire trucks and police cars to the south side for the duration. There won't be any power or hardly any form of communication for a while. The top of the flood wall protecting the south side will be six feet under. Several thousand homes and businesses and such will be destroyed.
Then the waters will recede here and move on to Schenectady where they might do some real damage.
Have a nice day.
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High Noon for All Seasons
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Jan. 30th, 2006 @ 10:28 pm
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Dawn Eden, having discovered A Man for All Seasons, the movie, and also having discovered that it was directed by Fred Zinnemann who also directed that other great film about one man standing alone and risking everything, High Noon, took it upon herself to challenge me to write a theme song for A Man for All Seasons using the melody from The Ballad of High Noon.
So, here it is.
High Noon for All Seasons
Do not forsake me good King Henry
For this divorcing “Nay”.
Do not forsake me good King Henry-
Wait! Hold that blade!
I am your good and faithful servant,
So full of wit and not a bore,
I don’t know why it’s so unnervin’
To call your wedding
No more than bedding
And say your Anne Boleyn’s a whore.
What is this thing called Church of England?
Protestant/Catholic doctrine minglin’
Look at those people lining up,
Signing that oath.
I made a vow to Higher Power,
Now I am waiting in the Tower.
Look at that axe man standing tall-
What if my top part should leave me?
Do not foresake me good King Henry,
Just ‘cause I take my cues from Rome.
In school I wish I’d had more mem’ry
And learned ebonics
Instead of phonics
To say that I beheading home.
Let it swing, let it swing.
Let it swing, let it swing!
 
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A Gift of Life
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Jan. 24th, 2006 @ 10:19 pm
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A year and a little bit after Roe v. Wade, when I was 22, footloose and fancy free, the phone rang. At the other end was a 17 year old high school junior of my acquaintance. She had a problem. Would I meet her right away?
***********
She had found herself in "a family way" as her mother so quaintly put it later. The pressure put on her had been strong to "fix it". (Not from the boy. He was right there supporting her.) After all, she was a bright young lass, certainly college material, and her future was boundless, except for that one little thing.
They had a plan. They were borrowing his parents' car (I later learned that he hadn't quite cleared it with them) and would drive to Maryland, the closest state that allowed young people of their age to marry without parental permission (and, as I recalled from a line in Guys and Dolls, no blood test). They got to the point quickly. They needed some cash.
I wasn't crazy about the plan, but they were determined and I couldn't turn my back on them. I made a 10 p.m. stop at the home of some folks in the Right to Life movement who raided the cookie jar for seventy-five bucks. The next morning I met the kids at the bank and matched the total.
I'll never forget the look on her face just before she hugged me goodbye, so full of life and hope and eager expectation. They had no plans to return. I figured this was forever.
I was young enough to buy into this foolish caper, but old enough to know that there would be some hurt here, no matter what. I stayed out quite late that night, every once in a while driving by her parents' house, they who had always been good to me. Each time I passed, the lights were burning brightly, all the way to dawn. I never stopped. I never told them that she was alright.
****************
Three days later they were back in town, married, and living with his parents. She returned to school, finishing up her junior and senior year together so that they would both be high school graduates before the baby came. I did a lot of substitute teaching at the time and ended up having both of them in class. She got him through.
She called again in September, that same eager voice, to tell me to come on down to the hospital and meet my goddaughter.
******************
I'd like to say that they all lived happily ever after. They didn't, but then, who does? The marriage lasted far longer than I would have guessed, but ended. My goddaughter got bounced between them and over several states. She finally settled for good with her mother when she was seventeen. I had long since lost track of all of them. Her grandfather stopped me one day and said my little one was having trouble, and gave me her address. I wrote to her and told her much of the story I just told you. Fortunately, two out of the three eventually grew to maturity.
My goddaughter moved back north for a while where I got to know her again, then south, then north and before she went south again she met a nice young man who asked her to marry him. She asked the Godfather to do one of the readings at her wedding.
- Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, is not pompous, it is not inflated,
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- it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
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- it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
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- It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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- Love never fails.
***********
Her mother never made it to college, but managed to make a life for herself and to excel at everything she attempted. Still she sacrificed a whole lot when the alternative was so awfully easy.
In the process she gave herself a most wondrous gift.
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One More for the Gipper
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Jan. 20th, 2006 @ 08:45 am
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Twenty five years ago today we began to make the world new again when Ronald Reagan took the oath of office as President of the United States for the first time.
As I've written elsewhere, my first contact came in 1964 when Dad tossed me a local phone directory and had me call every "K" to remind them that Ronald Reagan would be giving an important speech that night. It turned out to be "The Speech".
National Review kept us updated on Reagan over the next few years and I ate it all up hungrily. "You know, Abraham Lincoln was shot by an actor," said Governor Pat Brown to the little black child in a famous tv commercial. The more things change.
My rooting remained on the sidelines until 1976 when Dave Pietrusza and I scooted up to New Hampshire for a couple of days and followed Reagan around. I got to talk to him, had my picture taken with him, and shook his hand several times in several locations. I was even interviewed by Dutch television.
A strategic decision had been made by his campaign not to challenge the independent slate of delegates in New York. That detail must have been kept from Reagan, because he told us to go ahead and run. The powers put the kibosh on that later.
It was a lesson unfortunately learned, and four years later we put together a full slate in New York, myself included, and we carried all but six delegate slots in the state. You can't imagine the feeling of sharing a platform with that great, warm, wonderful man.
We went to Detroit, mixed with the great and mighty and otherwise famous. Tom Brokaw was a jerk, Harry Reasoner seemed zoned out, but Bob Schieffer and Hugh Sidey gave us their full attention. I actually hung quite a bit with Al D'Amato, who was challenging Jacob Javits in a primary for the Senate that year and so was not being well received by the "officials".
Mary and I attended a reception for Reagan, and I gave up my delegate pass to an alternate so we could sit together in the balcony for the acceptance speech.
Births of two of our children kept us away from his two inaugurations, and I didn't set eyes on Reagan again until his last day in office. I drove through the night, arriving in Washington about 6 a.m.
I found a nice spot on the parade route where the presidential limo slows down to make a turn. The President-elect, George H.W. Bush, spotted me in the crowd, waved, grabbed Reagan's arm and pointed to me, and they both waved together.
I was holding up a sign.
It said, "Thanks, Ron! For Securing the Blessings of Liberty."
Twenty-three years later Dave and I flew down to Washington and waited in line at the Capitol for eight hours in the hot sun to tell him again.
*********************
Some time . . . when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys - tell them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper. I don't know where I'll be then, . . .. but I'll know about it, and I'll be happy.
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Who Dropped the Tali-bomb?
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Jan. 18th, 2006 @ 09:46 pm
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News item:
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani intelligence sources on Thursday identified three of four al Qaeda members believed to have been killed by a U.S. airstrike last week, though they have yet to recover the bodies.One of the dead was said to be Abdul Rehman Al-Misri al Maghribi, a son-in-law of al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri. Another was Midhat Murfi al Sayid Omer, an expert in explosives and poisons who carried a $5 million U.S. reward on his head. The third man named was Abu Obaidah al Misri, al Qaeda's chief of operations in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province.
"Who dropped the Tali-bomb in Midhat Murfi's chowder?"
Zawahri was pissed, so he hollered all the louder.
"Why it seems they got all three,
"The al-Misri's company,
"And Midhat Murfi's innards are all out-er!"
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The Way We Were
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Jan. 10th, 2006 @ 09:00 am
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"But this was back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was a time of turmoil at colleges and universities. And I saw some very smart people and very privileged people behaving irresponsibly."
-Samuel Alito 1/9/2006
You youngsters can have no idea what it was like to be a conservative Republican on a college campus in that era. I entered the university in the fall of 1969, when the radical left was still hepped up from the thrill of the 1968 Chicago convention riots and enthralled by the example of Mao's Cultural Revolution.
Now, I was not on a major Ivy League type campus, just a state university. But the Reds were well-organized if not overly-competent. There were a couple of feeble attempts that were more farcical than practical, like breaking down a snow fence around a small plot that was being planted with trees and benches and hijacking it as "People's Park" for no obvious purpose since that was the intended use of the space anyway. Then there was the poor guy standing on the small fountain during the October, 1969 Student Moratorium (we were supposed to cut classes and denounce all the usual suspects) who tried to deliver a stem-winder with all the passion of George Goebel talking about Spooky Old Alice. "Am I calling for revolution?" (Glances at his note card.) "Maybe."
But, as the year went on, things got more tense. By Spring we had the Kent State shootings and the radicals used that as an opportunity to firebomb one of the dormitories. (Actually the imperialist "Flag Room" where the flags of all nations hung multiculturally.) It wasn't a game anymore. Several times we exited the dorms in the middle of the night. Students tooked turns on 24-hour fire watch.
As in China, the leaders were demanding that the colleges be closed. Anyone who refused to cooperate was denounced and terrorized. Final exams were forbidden.
A group of us risked their ire by showing up for our Roman History final. About twenty minutes into it, we heard loud noises in the hall and a group of thugs burst in and filled the back and side of the classroom (accompanied by a newspaper photographer.) The leader got several of them to start thumping their fists in unison against the blackboard. He began talking about how this was the sound of the jackbooted nazis who were running the university and compelling us against our will to take exams.
Professor Hans Pohlsander rose from his desk and pointed a finger at him. "DON'T TELL ME ABOUT THE NAZIS! I was in school in Germany when they were in power and I know what they were like. You know what they were like? THEY WERE EXACTLY LIKE YOU! YOU ARE THE NAZIS!"
The girl sitting across from me turned around and said, "Will you people get out of here? We're taking this exam because we want to take it!"
I wish I could report on something brave or heroic that I said or did. I hope I at least made a face, but I frankly don't remember doing even that.
The Nazis left. After a short while, Professor Pohlsander thanked everyone for remaining and told us to take the exams with us, consider it an open book test, and return them to his office by Thursday.
The gutless university closed and we never did take the rest of our exams.
If Sam Alito has memories like that, I'll be mighty happy to see him on the Supreme Court.
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My Little Girl
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Jan. 6th, 2006 @ 08:59 am
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Long time readers of this blog (and old friends) will recognize the lovely young lady in the picture that accompanies these blog entries as my beloved daughter Anna, a source of endless happiness for me these past twenty-five years.
It was quite a ride her mother and I had in the year leading up to her birth. I had just started working for a law firm in Albany and on January 10, 1980 I was admitted to the bar. On the way back from the ceremony Mary and I stopped to look at a house on Manning Boulevard that was to become Anna's first home.
Later that month I was tramping in sub-zero temperatures in suburban Albany gathering petition signatures to put my name on the ballot as a candidate for delegate to the Republican National Convention as part of an "insurgent" slate supporting that upstart from California Ronald Reagan.
We won.
In July, with my now pregnant wife, we soujourned to Detroit. Anna came in real close proximity to greatness when her mother kissed the future President of the United States.
************
The low-lights followed. Mary's 78 year old dad was not doing well, needing monthly blood transfusions. On December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, I returned to the office after attending Mass at Old St. Mary's in downtown Albany just in time to have a letter handed to me terminating my employment with four weeks notice.
And there I was with a house, a mortgage, a very pregnant wife and not a clue as to what I could do next. I had taken some civil service tests, but found I had been stricken from the list when I had declared my unavailability because of my other job. Some previous offers were no longer available.
After receiving the notice, the first thing I did was wander back the couple of blocks to Old St. Mary's, now empty, where I knelt and prayed a desperate kind of prayer. While lost in my grief the door to the sacristy opened and into the church walked Msgr. O'Malley, the very priest who thirty-one years earlier had baptized my brother Jay when he was stationed in Troy. He saw me and when I looked up, he smiled.
That's all. Just smiled.
And I felt peace.
************
Three weeks later Herb died suddenly on a Sunday morning. We got there too late.
The funeral was two days later. We were startled and delighted to see my sister Dale at the Mass. She hadn't been home since she married and moved to California a year and a half earlier.
This all took place in my last week at the old job. Lacking other options, I decided to hang up my shingle in the old home town of Amsterdam. We had quite a bit of my dad's old office furniture, and some out-dated books to put on the shelves for appearance. On Monday, January 5, 1981 I opened for business.
That evening at Mom's we celebrated Dale's birthday, number 28. [btw: happy belated birthday, sis]. After dessert, Mary asked to go home. Her back was bothering her.
On the ride to Albany she would periodically mention the back pain. When we got home it began to dawn on me that these complaints were coming at regular intervals. I took out the old pocket watch and confirmed my suspicions.
At about 2:30 a.m. we called the doctor who advised us to cruise over to St. Peter's at about 8 a.m. Later I decided we should go a little earlier, which is good because when the doctor arrived in the delivery room at 7:30 he took one look and said, "I'd better scrub up!"
At 7:43 on January 6, 1981 the doctor announced, "It's a girl!" and I said, "Are you sure?" and he said, "I've witnessed several of these, Mr. Going. Quite sure."
I cut the cord and gave Anna her first bath.
I can't describe the joy.
I looked down at her sweet, beautiful, innocent face and burst into song, a passage from the Carousel Soliloquy, the same song my friend John Raitt introduced.
My little girl
Pink and white
As peaches and cream is she
My little girl
Is half again as bright
As girls are meant to be!
Dozens of boys pursue her
Many a likely lad does what he can to woo her
From her faithful dad
She has a few
Pink and white young fellers of two or three
But my little girl
Gets hungry ev'ry night and she comes home to me!
We danced to the same song at her wedding.
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I, Damon
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Dec. 26th, 2005 @ 10:24 am
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Is resistance futile?
Has the Yankee Borg assimilated Johnny Damon?
There can be no greater contrast in styles than the 2003-05 Red Sox and the 2003-05 Yankees. The former were composed of rugged individualists, each exploring the limits of his own identity and skills, joined in a raucous voluntary union with minimal direction; the latter equally talented individuals who completely surrendered their identities to become part of the Yankee collective, its perpetual mission to seek out All-Stars and assimilate them, governed by the ultimate Borg Queen George Steinbrenner.
There are many in Red Sox Nation who are showing signs of despair.
But wait . . . . Suppose that the transfer of Johnny Damon to the Yankees is NOT the most collossal management blunder of all time. For the sake of argument, let us suspend our belief in the utter stupidity and recklessness of the Front Office. Suppose, just suppose, that this is a move of pure genius.
I need hardly explain if you've gotten this far that in Star Trek, The Next Generation "The Borg" was a collectivist society wandering the universe and converting by conquest whole peoples. Individuality was crushed and each became a drone controlled completely by the collective.
Then along comes Hugh Borg, in the episode I, Borg, who, by accident, becomes separated from the collective and nurtured by the Enterprise crew. Eventually, he begins to think of himself as "I" and voluntarily returns to the Borg to change their ways. Once the Borg drones start thinking as individuals, their whole evil system breaks down and the universe is saved for another week or two.
So, WHAT IF the Red Sox deliberately sent Johnny Damon, the ultimate "I", the ultimate Individual, the ultimate IDIOT to infiltrate the Yankee Borg and ultimately weaken and destroy them? How long can the Evil Empire resist his infectious style? How long before Steinbrenner must suspend the entire team for growing chin hair?
Off season.
The time of dreams.
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Letter to the Editor
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Dec. 22nd, 2005 @ 01:06 am
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Editor
Recorder
1 Venner Rd
Amsterdam, NY 12010
Dear Editor:
Well, I see where Senator Kennedy has opined that the true meaning of Christmas involves passing a law to raise the minimum wage. I suppose that is part of what Mary Lyford was talking about when she attacked Bill O'Reilly, humbly I'm sure, in her December 21 letter to the editor, figuring he didn't really get the Christmas thing.
Now, I didn't read the O'Reilly piece in question and I haven't actually seen his tv show in some time since the tv that gets the Fox News Channel is in one room, and the tv that doesn't is the one closest to my easy chair, but I gather that the often caustic Mr. Bill (a close friend of my late friend Joe Spencer of Amsterdam) was probably castigating liberals who knee-jerk about Christmas the same way they knee-jerk about, oh, for example, anything good said about our country, or our armed forces, or judicial candidates who question the existence of a constitutional right to chop up unborn babies. I think I can see why Mrs. Lyford might be offended.
But, I must say, I just don't get it. Why do liberal intellectuals feel threatened by Christmas? Most of their core constituencies don't. Certainly African-Americans, Hispanics and blue collar labor unionists are among the most Christmas-loving people around.
Sure, I appreciate that some of the overly-educated consider the whole Christmas tale a myth, but so what? As myths go, it's a pretty good one. We're not talking about monsters and vengeance and people eating their children and stuff like that. We're talking about a story that has the Creator of the Universe looking down at this tiny spec of a planet that's filled with worthless and ungrateful people unworthy of His attention, let alone affection, and deciding to become one of us. Not as conqueror or king, but as a helpless infant in a smelly old stable relying on mere humans for his help and support. Then He grows up and teaches us how to act with charity toward one another and if that isn't enough offers Himself up as the supreme sacrifice for the sins of all mankind.
I happen to believe all that, but even if I didn't it would still seem pretty wonderful to me. And I think I would understand why commemorating the moment when the Word became Flesh would be pretty important to most people, and I would hope I would have the good sense to know that when folks said "Merry Christmas" they would be saying something to me that is at once both terribly friendly and awesomely profound.
Robert N. Going
14 George Street
Amsterdam, NY 12010
(the writer is an Amsterdam attorney, former talk show host, and regular opinionator at The Judge Report, http://www.livejournal.com/users/rgoing/)
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Cheap Visionless Bastards
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Dec. 18th, 2005 @ 10:58 am
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My Apollo 8 story brought back some other memories and so I've decided to tag on a Christmas bonus for my faithful readers: an excerpt from my unpublished novel The Evil Has Landed. Except for the name changes and the setup for the flashback, this part of the story is true.
( Read more... )
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Christmas, 1968
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Dec. 18th, 2005 @ 01:15 am
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It was a pretty horrible time for our family, that Christmas of my senior year. Dad had suffered a heart attack six months earlier. At 46, he had been back in the hospital again. Signs were already pointing to a need to repeat the mitral valve surgery similar to the 1961 episode.
Worse, before he came home this time his stay at St. Mary's overlapped with his mother. Gramma had severe arthritis and the swelling and pain required a brief hospital visit. Routine. Until she came down with pneumonia.
Somewhere around Christmas Eve they told us she wasn't going to make it. Her second husband, Grampa Nichols, sat on a bench in the hall and wept uncontrollably. He had dated my widowed grandmother for thirteen years before she finally accepted his proposal in 1949. He would be helpless without her.
We took a break from the death watch and came home Christmas Eve. Grampa was with us, and Aunt Marie, my father's only sibling, and Uncle Ed. We all walked around like zombies. All the usual rollicking cheer of opening presents was replaced by quiet numbness.
We had an old black and white television in the back room, equipped with rabbit ears. Somebody turned it on. The picture wasn't very good.
But it was a close-up picture of the moon.
Very black and white. Stark. Desolate.
Taken from the window of Apollo 8, we were seeing on live television the same view as these first humans.
The voices started crackling through the ether.
William Anders: "For all the people on Earth the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you". "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. ["Genesis!" Aunt Marie whispered.]
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness."
Jim Lovell: "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."
Frank Borman: "And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good."
"And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you - all of you on the good Earth."
And, in spite of everything else that was happening, that became, I think, the most wonderful moment of my life.
The broadcast.
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Eugene McCarthy, RIP
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Dec. 10th, 2005 @ 11:19 pm
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Former Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy has died at the age of 89. Back in 1968, when I was a junior in High School, he ran a quixotic campaign for president, challenging Lyndon Johnson in the early primaries. At a time when the really scummy look was becoming popular, "Keep Clean with Gene" was the slogan of his student volunteers.
He is often credited with having driven Johnson from the presidency. I don't believe he ever actually won a primary, but he beat the expectations game. He was on the ballot in New Hampshire and Johnson wasn't. Johnson's 55% of the vote came on write-ins. Still, McCarthy's 45% was astonishing. In April he finished strong in Wisconsin as well.
His success proved to be his undoing. Bobby Kennedy, suddenly realizing that Johnson was vulnerable, hastily announced his own candidacy, probably four years ahead of his previous game plan.
In an amazing week or so in April of 1968, Johnson got hammered in Wisconsin, Martin Luther King was assassinated (with the accompanying riots in numerous cities), Johnson announced the beginning of the Paris Peace Talks, and oh, by the way, I've decided not to seek or accept a renomination.
The whole game changed overnight. McCarthy now had to face not only another anti-war liberal in Kennedy, but also a traditional liberal and fellow Minnesotan, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. If enough wasn't already happening, Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed right after winning the California Primary in June.
While there was some talk of drafting 36 year old Ted Kennedy, who had given a stunning and emotional eulogy at his brother's funeral, McCarthy was really the only one left to carry the anti-war banner at the Chicago convention. The less-than-clean rioting demonstrators disrupted the affair and split the party wide open. The old pro-American wing never recovered. Their last gasp was Humphrey's nomination. The hate-America-first crowd took over for good in 1972, but their nominee was George McGovern, not McCarthy, for just as quickly as McCarthy rose, he faded away.
Eight years after his brief fame, as Spring ended in a year when Ronald Reagan still had a chance to dethrone President Ford at the Republican Convention, McCarthy gave the baccalaureate address the night before my brother Tim's graduation from RPI. At the reception afterwards, I noticed him just standing around, alone. I slipped my Reagan button into my pocket and went over to chat.
He was kind, gracious, witty, unassuming. I liked him.
Unlike many of the wackos who followed him, I think McCarthy was a sincere man, who opposed the Vietnam War for honorable reasons. There weren't too many guys like him, and way too many of the John Kerry types. It's sad that ultimately his legacy is wrapped up in his political progeny.
Rest in Peace, Senator. You never would have had my vote, but you earned my respect.
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Television: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
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Dec. 8th, 2005 @ 09:14 am
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I managed to arrange my schedule over the last week to watch three adults and I forget how many kids play John Paul II on the dueling docudramas from ABC and CBS.
The two hour ABC version aired last Thursday was necessarily rushed, devoting only one hour to the 26 1/2 year papacy. The parts about his young years were quite excellent and moving, and the rest had its moments, but there were at least three occasions when they took broad literary license to imagine conversations between the pope and variously his assassin, Gen. Jaruszelski and Archbishop Romero, which also supposed the unlikely circumstance that John Paul II would be confessing his sin of having opposed liberation theology. Also, the Pope segments were too low-key, capturing the words but failing to capture the dynamism of the young pope and his tumultuous first return to Poland.
Not so with the CBS version airing Sunday and Wednesday, which clearly relied on much of the Pope's own memoirs and had far superior production values. While the childhood years were glossed over (I may paste on that part from the other version), the Nazi years and his priesthood and bishopric were well touched upon, and Jon Voight's performance in part 2 was quite outstanding.
Having read Weigel's biography, I can see how it would really take a year-long miniseries to truly capture all the drama and importance of this great man's life and teachings, but for the time allotted I must give CBS applause for an outstanding and faithful effort.
***************
Unfortunately, due to the football-delayed Sunday schedule I was forced to endure what is truly one of the most grueling hours on tv today, that incredibly bad Cold Case show, where, on the night when they were presenting the champion of the Culture of Life, they produce an episode in which a high school couple conceives a child, but the wicked and obviously crazed school nurse shows fetal pictures to and otherwise talks the guy out of financing an abortion. The cops naturally greet this story with horror and disgust. I flipped it off and read a book when the nurse became the chief suspect in the lad's murder.
****************
Then on Tuesday, Law and Order, SVU, lately the best written of the three regular series, turned itself over entirely to the gay/lesbian/wacko lobby with a plot and dialogue so preposterous that I hesitate to even attempt to summarize it. There were many kickers, but probably the worst was when the grandparents of the girl with two mommies find naked photographs of the little girl with the lesbian partner stroking her thighs. With the help of their lawyer, they commence a custody battle, after which they are, naturally, charged with felony hate crimes.
But, not to worry. They cut a deal and testify against their lawyer, who is also charged, since he was the one who fed them phony statistics about kids growing up in gay homes, when ALL of the studies show how wonderful it really is.
Not since Mission to Moscow have I seen such an unadulterated propaganda piece.
I think, however, that this was such an act of desperation that it must mean that we are actually winning the culture wars.
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