Jubilation

What do you call over 300 guests at a public park in a city neighborhood of Chicago, dancing side by side with a bride and groom, young kids, and a few scattered local homeless people?  Jubilation is a good start.

I just returned from my nephew Brendan and Kati's fabulous, innovative, spirited, emotional, joyous wedding, an event that probably won't be featured in Modern Bride, did not cost a lot of money and yet had an incredible sense of style, and in all likelihood caused much less fretting about what to wear than the average wedding.

It excluded no one and proved that when you invite hundreds of people with whom you have shared some kind of bond to witness one of the biggest and happiest decisions of your life, people take you up on the offer.  Especially when you do it on Facebook.  Move over expensive linen stock, written, addressed and mailed at least six weeks prior, because you have a formidable and modern competitor.  As a friend of mine recently commented after sitting for too long at the table near a DJ playing music too loud for her to understand or appreciate, "We need some new wedding traditions." Well, Brendan and Kati made some serious contributions in that area.   Think a huge picnic, anchored by a team of genuine friends, some on set-up detail, others on clean-up, all with great love, welcoming over hundreds of guests bringing food and drinks to supplement the bride and groom's, add in a phenomenal DJ, a great play list, a photo booth, a bouncy house and friends that seemed to truly delight in each other's company and you have an alternative to many of the traditional weddings to which we are all so accustomed.  Not that the latter has anything less to offer.  But no one is ever going to criticize the creation of another forum for allowing two people to say they are going to stick around each other, through thick and thin.

Thank you Brendan and Kati for a new tradition.  And much love.

One Riot, One Ranger

He calls himself the voice of the Hudson and if you were a river, you’d surely want him as your voice.  And you’d be really happy if he’d be your bodyguard as well.  It’s a passionate voice and while seemingly calm and controlled, one gets a feeling it might become loud at times, at least in affect, particularly when confronted with threats and callous disregard for a majestic body of water that often picks up the tab for greed, ignorance, lack of foresight, and a myriad of other human errors. 

I had the pleasure of spending three hours on the Hudson with John Lipscomb, Riverkeeper’s patrol boat captain recently, for a ride beginning in Ossining, extending down past the Tappan Zee, site of a relative potential riot, in a sense, as plans loom for new bridges that as Lipscomb claims, will have a detrimental effect on the river not seen since the last ice age. 

This journey allowed for a beautiful sighting of a nest of fish eagles, remarkable and awe inspiring for those of us on the small boat but to John Lipscomb, a guy whom undoubtedly gets the pleasure of this viewing every day, there is not a hint of complacency.  This nest is as revered as a baby in the arms of long-time infertile couple who just gave birth.  People who live close to rivers tend to be more mindful of them, their magnificence and purpose and power so much more visible and relevant.  Lipscomb does call Piermont, a close by river town in Rockland County home.  One gets the feeling that’s just because mail can’t be delivered to his real home.  On our route, every time Lipscomb sights an issue, even the slightest change or foreign object that he doesn’t like the looks of, his assistant captain types an email to the governing agency for an investigation.

On our journey, we pass the beauty and the atrocities and there’s an abundance of both.  The PCBs, perhaps the most well known environmental tragedy of the Hudson in the last century, caused by at the very least irresponsible behavior and arguably at times reckless dumping by General Electric, are pointed out as is the General Motors 96 acre contaminated riverfront site.  Indian Point, the ticking time bomb that the organization Riverkeeper has analyzed and sought to shut down for many years now, also looms in the distance.  But perhaps nothing has Lipscomb as currently concerned and outraged as the plans for the new Tappan Zee Bridge, or bridges as we learn, since the latest plan is to construct not one but two new six lane bridges in addition to tearing down the old one, in a process Lipscomb describes as just about as undemocratic as the way things are done in Moscow.  Despite the concerns expressed by Riverkeeper and other environmental groups, the towns of Nyack and Tarrytown, and scores of other citizens, plans are rolling full steam ahead for what Lipscomb considers to be the worst possible solution for the problems the Tappan Zee Bridge is experiencing.  The decision was rendered to not even consider working with the existing bridge to correct its problems, despite the fact that there has been absolutely no evidence found for the claim that the bridge was only built to last 50 years.  While Lipscomb acknowledges the need for a remedy to the current bridge’s plight, he is confused and outraged that more thought and time and consideration and consideration of other alternatives, have not gone into the initiative. The impact on the fish and overall health of the river, which along with the nearby towns in each side will be dramatically impacted by a project that will last for years and years and bring devastation to the health of the river and nearby communities, to him has not at all been adequately explored.

At the end of our journey that day, I was more informed.  More understanding of the need to donate as small a gift as $20.00 to support Riverkeeper, an organization that does not accept any government funding.  And inspired to be in the company of a man who gets to work day in and day out protecting the love of his life.  

In the old west, there was one ranger in charge of a riot.  In Lipscomb, there you got it.  But you won’t hear John claim, “Hell, ain’t I enough,” as in the old story from which the phrase “One Riot, One Ranger” was supposedly coined.  John Lipscomb would love all the help he can get to save the river.  

Always Something New Under the Sun...And it Wasn't Greed

When I was 23, I worked in a financial services corporation and thought I had the best job in the world.  I continued to think so for at least 18 more years.  During my first interview, fresh out of college, I remember being asked if I read the Wall Street Journal on a daily basis. I am not sure I had ever even seen the Wall Street Journal at that point in my life so I fumbled through the response and still got the job. Today, a lacklustre response to that question would probably stop one at the security guard.   I traveled to Paris, Vienna, Budapest. Ireland, Puerto Rico and Mexico on MetLife. I visited at least 15 states enjoying a range of experiences from golf resorts in Hyannis up on the Cape, to Boca Raton and Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona to  farmland in Valley, Nebraska.   I used to spend weeks at a time in St. Louis with an older Jewish man with only one real eye, who shared stories of his days at Horace Mann and other tales of life as a Jewish kid growing up in New York including fond tales about his wife and two sons of whom he thought the world.    He was the video producer for our scripts and seemed as foreign a person as possible to me at the time to have to spend weeks at a time with in a different city.   Once, when I went to check into the hotel where we both were supposed to stay, he had jokingly left a note , the writing which was in full view, for the clerk at  the front desk to hand me when I checked in saying simply, "Does your husband know?"  I was mortified.  He grew on me and one of my fondest memories today is the two of us sampling pecan pie in every restaurant in St. Louis as we'd search for which one had nailed the perfect recipe.   I once stayed in a villa not knowing that George Bush and Elton John were staying on the property simultaneously.   I got to produce retirement videos and plaques on the company's dime and got to see executive men break down with emotion in response on my watch.   It was a great combination.  I participated in forming some of the original products and services of managed care that we know today such as PPOs and utilization review before MetLife exited the medical business. And I am just touching the surface.  It would take a multitude of pages to describe all the experiences, almost all of which remain etched in my memory with some humor or recognition of growth or character or friendship building representing what I experienced while there.   A day in the office was peppered with trips down to the nearest local Greek coffeee shop for a toasted bialy in the morning and cups of that infamous coffee now imortalized through the blue and white "We are happy to serve you" ceramic cups you can buy online.   I always sum up that typical time as a period where I jumped up at the crack of dawn, despite not having to when I had flexible hours, and commuted with my husband to work down the FDR, every day seeing the sunrise, not so much because I had to, or because sunrises are worth seeing, but I think more because every single day of going into corporate life at that point held something new under the sun.  And I didn't want to miss it a minute of it.

So when I read David Brook's recent column in the New York Times, "The Service Patch" where he touches upon the disenchantment by a good portion of young people with service and production capitalism -- in other words the many companies and jobs so many of us have always held and still do, because community service has instead "become a patch for morality, "  it gave me pause for thought about many sentiments that have been creeping up in my mind and many others the last decade or so and why that is.  In other words, how, when and why did the very companies where so many of us grow up, (and of course where many still work) which provided remarkable experiences, raises, bonuses, great benefits and perhaps most importantly, a damn good reason to get up in the morning, get so battered and shunned by so many young people, Occupy movement types or not, there are many who feel as Brooks says, that the thinking today is that the only way to live an excellent life these days is to make sure you are doing community servive type work since if it is "the sort of work Bono celebrates, you must be a good person."

Now Brooks is making a larger point in the column about character and how and where it is built and how deep moral yearnings can be achieved in all walks of life from Wall Street to community service and how choosing one over the another doesn't necessarily guarantee the type of person you will become.  And I think he couldn't be more right on that one.
But it all got me wondering about the point where healthy, susutainable success seemed to cross the line of excessive greed, at least  in the eyes of many.  David Brooks is a conservative.  I am not. But I never miss his column because to me he is one of the few analytical individuals more respresentative of politics as it used to me.  Consider both sides.  Compliment the other guy when he has a good idea.  Advocate things that make sense.  Recognize when there is smoke, there probably is some sort of fire, albeit to what extent.
Seems to me that whatever side you are on for regulation on Wall Street, and to whatever extent you do or don't buy into the fact that greed began permeating our companies, particularly in the financial services sector, seems like it is time for everyone to start preventing the fires in the first place.   Wherever one stands on the issue of federal regulation, seems like when we learn things like how much risk was played down at JP Morgan Chase and that with over 40 examiners from the Federal reserve Bank embedded in the bank, none were in the offices in London and New York that may have policed things more carefully, some change in philosophy might be helpful.

Recognizing all the free enterprise that got us where we are today or at least where we were before things deteriorated, seems like we have to start putting aside activity like "JP Morgan screaming bloody murder about not needing regulators hovering, espcecially in their London office" and recognizing that corporations, and even particularly financial services corporations, brought America to great prosperity. But American corporations did not always have the reputation of being greedy and heartless and disconnected from living a virtuous life. That's not a fair reputation.  But at times you can see how it got founded.
I am now in a new profession, and what being a Guidance Counselor has verified for me over the last seven years is that when two people are telling a story, the truth really does, almost always,  lie somewhere in the middle.  Often, it's right down the middle.  Sometimes, it's closer to one side than the other.  But it's always somewhere in the middle.

And all I know is that wherever my own kids or other young people end up in choosing careers, good for them if they pick non-profits and community activism if that's what they want.   We do need young people fighting poverty and ending disease.   But we also need those same excellent young people in our corporations and down on Wall Street.  And I wouldn't want any of them to not have the chance of working for a corporation that made you want to get up at sunrise and not miss a moment of what was new under the sun just because of unnecessary greed.

Feels Like Home

Always, she could be the earth mother.  The one lost children might go to.  Young girls would want to put down their suitcases and root there.  Old friends would regret losing touch and want to reconnect.  If you were missing your mother, her presence would help ease the loss.  Like loons to a lake, you are drawn.  She is home.  She would like to be remembered like that.  When the time comes, she will be. 

“Dad, she’s sending me to a convent.”  That’s the text, intended to cause alarm, that my daughter Shana sent my husband when during her absence while studying abroad in Ireland, I, unbeknownst to her, signed her up for “Charity in the City”, a two-week intense outreach program in New York City run by the Sisters of Charity.   Shana has a Peace Studies minor and I thought the experience would benefit her in her work some day.  She was barely home from Ireland for a couple of days when she somewhat reluctantly had to pack her next set of bags and head over to Yonkers where Sr. Mary Lou McGrath lives.  The reluctance probably didn’t even get a chance to enter the front door as she found out pretty quickly that you could still be home when you leave home.  All you need is someone who makes it so. 

The literal version of what Sr. Mary Lou calls home is a beautiful house more than 150 years old whose very scent reeks of the past.   A friend of mine said it best at a later date when she and I would actually have the chance to visit, “This place has great bones.”   But for the “Charity in the City” weeks, Shana would find that in exchange for an intense, emotional and meaningful experience with four other college age students of varying backgrounds whose main commonality was immediate acceptance of each other for whom or where they were, as they performed soup kitchen and homeless shelter work, visited babies in hospitals, and toiled in organic gardening, Shana learned that charity in the city was way too limiting of a term.  It’s hard to do charity in the city without taking it back to the country when you get back home. 

You may wonder how one ends up devoting a life to complete and selfless service, compassion, love and humility.  I had the opportunity to serve as a personal historian this week to Sr. Mary Lou for the “Celebrate Wisdom” project in which I am engaged.  So think this which I just learned:  when she was a young girl, she used to sit with her father on their porch in Elmhurst, New York where he would encourage her to stare up at the sky and determine how small they seemed in relation to the world and the people out there and ponder what was their meaning and place in the universe.  How lucky for her.  Most people don’t have philosophers for parents.   These talks and experiences inspired a lifelong desire for her to always know what was happening worldwide and know her place in the universe and the value of every life she encountered.  How lucky for us.

Since then she has spent years studying and serving, as a teacher in elementary schools in Manhattan, as a principal, as an auxiliary police officer in the early 70s when the lower east side was a dangerous place, in Guyana, in Nigeria and now at the College of Mt. St. Vincent where she is an ESL instructor and mentor for many young people, one of the many hats she still wears.  She is very home with the Hispanic community back from her days at St. Brigid’s on the lower east side.  I am sure they are as at home with her.  After all, she is home. 

She shared many stories but one in particular stood out.  Back in the parish in which she grew up in Queens, more than 60 years ago, whenever someone would die, the rectory would be notified immediately and certain members of the parish would be called out to come to the rectory.  Bells would toll and everyone in the area would know that someone died.   People matter.  Lives matter.  We showed that back then.  Sr. Mary Lou has never stopped showing it, after all these years. 

So amidst any negative memories of nuns who were mean and unforgiving many moons ago, amidst all the scandals the Catholic church has been involved in the last few decades which have, understandably turned many away….amidst the perception, again, understandable, that the Church focuses on the wrong things or is out of touch with the lives and concerns of Catholics and indeed, of others in the world, amidst any perception that its relevance has been greatly diminished in today’s society, one might want to take pause.  One person can make a big difference in altering that perception, particularly when she arrives in the form of a Sr. Mary Lou.  Snowy egrets could probably stand statuesque knowing she is their refuge.  Maybe that can change a human opinion.  Even just one. 

The Sisters of Charity who are nestled in this house in Yonkers and nurtured by their earth mother, Sr. Mary Lou McGrath know they are a dying breed.  They do not expect the institution to last for all that much longer, as many of the sisters grow old and die.  A look back at history reveals that few institutions of this type have lasted more than two centuries.  For Sisters of Charity, there is no retirement date.  They are expected to work until the last day their health allows.  Young women willing to take the same vows are not replacing them.  But that’s ok with them.  All they hope is to pass along some of their compassion to anyone in the secular world who will carry at least a portion of that torch into the future. 

I am not yet sure where this “Celebrate Wisdom” journey will take us, practically and financially.  But one thing I do know.  It sure feels like home.  

Faith

     I don't remember what she got on the test.  It was of small significance really.  What mattered is the lesson learned that day that has stayed with me for over forty years since and still counting.
We are in 6th grade I think,  maybe 7th, definitely middle school years, and we were students at Blessed Sacrament grammar school in the Bronx.  We were taken to Church during a period of the day and when we got back to class, a graded test was being returned to all of us that had caused a lot of angst.   We were kneeling on the plush carpet at the altar and Nora seemed to be praying particularly hard.  "Come, on, they're calling us, we have to go," I remember saying, but she wouldn't budge.  "I have to say extra prayers before we get the test back, " she whispered.  Knowing, the grade marked in red was already on the batch of tests we had already seen the nun take out of her worn leather briefcase and place almost ominously on her desk, I couldn't for the life of me imagine why she was praying so fervently now.  "It's too late Nora, the grades are already in," I said,  knowing that a grade back then was marked by sheer and utter permanence, no matter what story or plea a student could concoct.  "You should have been praying like this for wisdom before you took the test.  What good is it now?"  She looked at me steady and strong and said, "But that doesn't matter.  I don't know what I got yet.  It's still in God's hands."
     I never forgot that day, my first elementary lesson in the concept of fate and free will, which would be presented once again, on a formal level, by Irish Christian brothers in college a decade later.  And through many life lessons in the years ahead.  As someone who up until that point always felt the need to bring sense and logic and orderly thinking into prayer requests, I was floored by Nora's faith.  I have been for many years since.
     Over ten years ago, Nora was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  Non-cancerous but malignant and her prognosis was scary.  There was a chance surgery could curtail it but there was also the chance it would continue to wreck havoc.  She went to see what was just a handful of doctors in the country at some of the finest medical institutions that were willing to operate.  She chose one and over ten years later, besides some relatively minor side-effects, she works and leads a full, rewarding life.  The testament that is to the surgeon and research facility that worked on her case aside, what is just as miraculous is the positive outcome achieved through the fervent prayers, healing masses and constant devotion she has always and continues to pay to the Catholic Church and her religion.
     So, this Easter, while reflecting upon the origin of my own faith, and the awe-inspiring Holy Thursday
nightly service, and the feet washing, and the somber, quiet time at Good Friday services, followed by obvious jubilation on Easter Sunday that I was fortunate enough to experience and be awed at my entire childhood, I sill give credit to one of my oldest and dearest friends.  She nailed what faith meant a long time ago.  I'm grateful she has given me the chance to go along for that ride.

No Mint Julep Is Worth This

It was eight years ago this year that we went to the Kentucky Derby.  It was a gift to my mother for what was at the time, her upcoming 75th birthday, and a dear friend of mine, her nearly ninety year old grandfather, my cousin and aunt joined in on what was the culmination of a lifelong dream for several of us.  We have photos in splendid hats, memories of mint juleps, and the sense of contentment that comes from actually setting out to do something that many people talk about but never quite get to.  

Prior to relatively recently, I always loved horse racing, but particularly the Derby.  For weeks ahead, I'd read the sports section of all the major newspapers to seek out opinions on the favorite and not so favorites.  I'd pay particular attention to the human-interest stories.  The unlikely horses that had accomplished some remarkable feat, the hard luck tales of the owners, the stories on the jockeys and who they liked to ride and why, and I'd come up with an intelligent hunch on horses that were quite likely to at least show.  I very seldom went with the straight favorite, always preferring some hint of character or spirit that would come across in a horse.  Most of the horses I'd pick to show, preferring to get maximum mileage out of my buck and helping to ensure that'd I'd at least have some payout on Derby day.  I prided myself on not being labeled an amateur by the slew of professional betters who always occupied every OTB before they went defunct, knowing how to fill out a form in a cinch and being able to proceed right to the counter without hesitation.  I very seldom didn't have a winner.  

But that's all over now.  The New York Times has run articles for several years now outlining the fact that the US has the loosest medication policies of all countries active in the horse racing industry.  England, Ireland and Hong Kong have warned their American counterparts that they race horses that shouldn't be racing.   They disclosed the likelihood of how often, if there was a possible remedy to mask a horse's injuries, that many trainers in America would find a way to illegally pump a slew of drugs into them.  Somehow, you can't beat American ingenuity when it comes to mangling horses and maiming jockeys.  I gradually weaned myself off an infatuation with the sport, finding it hard to garner enthusiasm for an American tradition now so tarnished.  But the absolute kicker was the eye-brow-raising front page, extensive story published in the Times this past Sunday.  I am sure there are differing viewpoints, claims of exaggeration, and perhaps valid suggestions on how to reform the industry from those in it, but for now, evidence that 24 horses get euthanized a week as a result of horse races gone awry, that recently in New Mexico, there were nine that horses died and jockeys injured in a 13 day period, and that bodies of one of the most majestic animals on earth are being dumped next to old toilets in junkyards, was enough to make me eternally lose any infatuation for the sport. 

I'm grateful to have gone to the Derby once in my life, albeit naively, if only to spend some time with cherished friends and family.  But I think I'm most grateful there was no tragic horse accident at the Derby we attended.  Right now, the practices of many in this industry seem indefensible.  As Gloria proclaims before her fateful end in "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?", it's time to get off this merry go round, before the endings get even worse for  both the jockeys and horses.   

Leo The Painter....And What Goldman Sachs Might Learn From Him

After reading the New York Times op-ed column today about the alleged lack of integrity and greed at Goldman Sachs these days, I couldn’t help but think of Leo the painter who happened to just finish a job at our house yesterday.  Might seem like a strange juxtaposition but not really.  It always goes back to the type of person you’d want in your lifeboat. 

Every now and then, you come across a rare find.  This time, our find was in the form of a tall, handsome man with clear blue eyes and a Polish accent, strong and solid, controlled and dependable.  A school custodian by trade, an old neighbor of ours and co-worker of his introduced him to us as the best quality, and most cost effective painter one could ever find.  “He’s meticulous John, paints clean as a whistle and you can’t beat the price, ” he told my husband.  We used him several times in our old house and for a few rooms in the one we are now, but with exorbitant college expenses at this point in life, limited the painting to the rooms most desperately calling out.  When we realized the hallway was starting to look really shabby, we gave him a call.   The latest job we solicited him for?  Two levels of hallway, and a 25-foot ceiling, working around oak chair rail and trim throughout. Leo’s fee this time around – a whopping $350.00.

Those of you who have paid for painters recently might make some assumptions about Leo, based on that price.  You might imagine that he is a simple guy, or he doesn’t know prices, or he lacks confidence in the valuable service he offers.  Or as a long shot, you might fantasize that he’s independently wealthy and just waits by the phone excitedly longing for opportunities to paint rooms of houses because he finds it so utterly satisfying as opposed to spending his millions at fine restaurants, casinos or paradise islands. 

The fact is Leo is just an honest, good man with a superb work ethic, discipline and a world view that suggests maximizing his profit is less important to him than providing a service he knows people value.   He makes money when he walks away and to him it’s money that is over and above the wages he relies upon for him family.  He’d rather feel good about the appreciation and pleasure demonstrated as a result of his work and his price than make big bucks.  For what he lacks in greed, he makes up for in worldliness. He talks about world affairs, how Poland is faring in these turbulent economic times when he makes his annual visit every summer with his wife and two sons, the state of our public schools, what cars are made best and have the longest shelf life, plumbing, the list goes on and on.  He is selective about who he does work for so it is an honor to me than he comes eagerly every time I call, no matter what the job.  I recommended him to an unmarried friend at work who had just bought a condo.  Not only is he her painter.  He is now the handyman she can always count on.  Most recently, she had problems with her front door lock and within a half hour he was at her house, rectifying her problem in a heartbeat.  She is a good person and that’s enough for Leo. 

So when I read about today’s scathing article written by an executive (ex) director at Goldman Sachs detailing how it seemed that “a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all,” and that the easiest path to leadership was “persuading clients to invest in products that the company really wanted to get rid of” I couldn’t help but contrast this type of corporate culture to a man like Leo’s own moral code.  If everyone were like Leo, we wouldn’t have to worry about regulating Wall Street.  Sad fact is the Leos of the world are becoming more and more of a rarity.  So wherever we end up on the regulation issue, and defending all the players in the free market as honest abs who don't need to be regulated,  here’s the thing – I know who’d I’d want in my life boat, any day.