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.

Save Your Money for the Beach House

I suppose one could blame a lot of things – genetics, Irish ancestry, the lack of foresight of a childhood dentist who might have predicted crowding problems, four pregnancies draining one’s calcium, and a host of other old wives tales but the fact of the matter is I don’t have the best teeth. Yes, I visit the dentist a lot, every three months to be precise, for the last twenty years and I don’t seem to ever be able to complete treatment since by the time work gets done, it’s time for another exam and more procedures. At one point, friends were convinced I was having an affair with the dentist. 
While it might appear that I have a habit of outstaying my welcome once treatment ensues, more realistically, probably not, since my husband swears that we could have quite a beach house with what I have spent to retain all of my teeth over the years. That means there are a few dentists out there digging their feet into the sand on me. 
About eight months ago, in order to prevent a descent into poverty since I needed so much work, I began getting treatment at Columbia Dental School. There are other similar type opportunities in the area, NYU and UMDNJ come to mind, but Columbia was where I ended up. The upside is the cost is less than a third than of what private dentists tend to charge for the same services. My husband even received a free root canal because the senior to whom he was assigned needed to complete one more to graduate. They do not generally ask for payment until long after services are completed and you have the benefit of multiple dental professors and opinions on the best options for your situation. The downside is probably more obvious – a little harder to get to from the suburbs than pulling into your private dentist’s driveway and calm facility, additional waiting time while more senior dentists are required to sign-off on the student’s seemingly every move sometimes, and a very clinic type atmosphere where your pain or lack of tolerance thereof don’t seem to take the highest priority.
All in all though, there’s something endearing about developing a patient/doctor relationship with a humble and fresh, not quite full fledged dentist. My initial skepticism and fear at a dental student navigating a mouth with quite a bit of baggage has evolved into respect and fond affection. At the holidays, when he told me would be gone for three weeks because he was going back home to Korea to see his family, I found myself thinking of him around when his flight would be taking off as I would one of my own sons, and wishing for his safety. I imagined how happy and proud his family must be when he goes back home. As much as I liked and respected other dentists I have had, I don’t remember giving any of them any additional thought after I managed to flee the building. 
And the dental students text you – to make appointments, remind you of appointments, and to check on you post more serious procedures. I think I like the lack of formality and unpretentiousness of it all while receiving work I think is at good as if not superior to work I have had before. 
The bottom line, if you need dental work that is going to cost a whole lot more out of your pocket than you want or your insurance covers, consider helping to educate the next generation of dentists. And save your money for the beach house.

It's About More Than Bricks and Mortar

I was unusually late. When you are in education, punctuality is next to godliness. It was 7:59 when I made it. You are always conscious of time in a world where you live by the bell. I arrived for my monthly department meeting which was already in progress and as I joined my supervisor and two fellow guidance counselors I sat quickly, striving for normalcy despite a pale face and puffy eyes. Eyes have a tendency to look like that when you have definitively learned the day before that your only brother has probably no more than 48 hours to live. I didn't fly out to Chicago to be there as I had been there a couple of weeks prior. He was in a coma. Besides, somehow I felt he was already with me. My sister-in-law bravely held his hand as he entered the next world.

At the end of the meeting that I managed to mutter through, Carmela, my supervisor, asked me if I had a first period class. "Yes," I replied. "Good, I am going to observe you." A feeling of horror came over me as I realized it was my tenure year. I was in bad shape. I had come in because I now knew I would need to be out for several days and what would I do at home under these circumstances. I had planned on showing a video that morning, part of our curriculum, but driving to work I knew my introduction and post-discussion lead were bound to be weak. "It wouldn't be the best day, Carmela" "I just found out my brother is going to die." Kindly, she said, "Ok, we'll do it another time." The bell rang and I went to class. There is not much time for discussion in a school day, no matter the weightiness of life. I went to class and as any teacher knows, kids are amazingly perceptive. One look at me and in a room of eighth graders quite capable of giving any teacher a run for her money, there was not a comment out of turn for the entire period. I was grateful. Somehow, kids always know when something is wrong.

With all the talk of teacher evaluations, I often think of that morning. I think of a prior evaluation I had unannounced in a class clear across the other side of the building my first year. As a guidance counselor first, a student's problem can't always be cut short though I have teaching responsibilities. I came flying into my sixth period class with a tray of brownies I had promised them for completing a project and while taking attendance, my peripheral vision served me well as I quickly realized I was being observed. I gave one imploring look to a group of students whose minds and hearts had already left the school by May of 8th grade. Somehow, my lesson was spot on and so were they. Later, my supervisor told me they had no idea who she was while they were waiting for me and kept screaming that they hoped Mihovics was going to show up with the brownies.

A compassionate supervisor and the good Lord on my side and I did fine on my evaluations. I believe I am good at my job and I take my responsibilities seriously. But I often think of what if. In my 25 years in business prior to changing professions, I was judged through performance management evaluations. But I was judged on a year's worth of work that was concrete and specific and very often measurable. No one came unannounced to sit next to me three times during the year for forty minutes and judged whether I was able to produce Hemingway copy in the allotted time. While other departments and clients can impact one's ability to perform at maximum, they are at least adults. Your life and livelihood is not at the whim of 29 seven year olds, twelve year olds or seventeen year olds and dependent to a great extent on whether they want to be there, whether they are even there, their and their parents' respect for education... the list goes on and on. And in business, even if one did have a poor evaluation it was not published with the chance to live for eternity online, so that parents feel they are getting the raw deal if your evaluation is not the highest. Business is too smart to tell a client their account manager has one of the lower averages on the bell curve.

I don't pretend to know all the answers. I believe in accountability also. But I do know that talk that teaching is the only profession with tenure is completely false. Police, firemen and all civil servants operate through seniority. I know that ignoring all the other characteristics of American society - our fascination with technology for hours of recreational use, hours and hours of time spent watching TV, an unwillingness and lack of desire to read anything more than sound bytes is misguided. And I know that with the constant degradation of teachers by some government leaders and some in the public, with salary reductions through requests for astronomical amounts toward health care, in a profession with no upward mobility, in an environment that no longer offers the slow and steady guarantee of good benefits and security as a tradeoff for perks and bonuses and diverse experiences, that the best and brightest may not join this profession in the near future.

Sometimes, when we have nothing left to cling to in order to account for things, we go for the bricks and mortar. While it is an honor and a choice to occupy bricks and mortar for 180 days every year, it seems it might be time to stop blaming the professionals inside the bricks and mortar and have intelligent, comprehensive and realistic discussions about the big picture and what goes on outside those buildings as well. It's not all about us.

Back When They Thought We Were Mary Poppins

My friend Noreen loves to tell a story from 30 years ago. She and another mutual friend were out a bar in lower Manhattan when they started up a conversation with a pair of guys from Wall Street. After some initial innocuous chitchat, the inevitable “so what do you do for a living” question arose and the two males learned that Noreen was a New York City kindergarten teacher and Joan, an ER nurse in a city hospital. Well, that just made for a barrel of laughs for the evening for them as they nicknamed the two of them Mary Poppins and Florence Nightingale respectively, and asked when the bar departure time was to assure the shelter would still take them in for the night since surely they couldn’t afford apartments on the salaries they were making. Needless to say their condescending attitudes didn’t make for any potential matches made from heaven and they parted ways for the night. But it is a conversation Noreen has never forgotten. “I often wonder if those guys ever got laid off when the going got bad and if they are some of the people so inclined to begrudge the security and slow and steady increases and pension accumulation teachers like me have been able to sustain over the years.” “I knew I would never be rich but I did ok for myself and have always loved my job and was willing to survive meager wages in the beginning in exchange for a rewarding career that I was intended for. “ “I live to teach, “ she added. 

She loves to tell that story and I have always love to hear it because it seems so pertinent to the environment in the country for the last couple of years related to education. Though improved scores, increased literacy, a greater mastery of Math and love of Science are all viable and in fact noble goals, I can never help but feel that many of the cries in the general public for eliminating tenure and improved evaluations and accusations about union’s callousness toward education improvement to protect the concerns of teachers are a bit ill spirited in their origin.

I say that because thirty years ago teachers and nurses were not making great wages, and in fact many of their salaries were substandard. Gradually, over the years, there was an increased cognizance of the fact that to secure and retain quality professionals, a certain wage is necessary and to its credit over time, the New York City teaching scale provided an extremely competitive salary and a chance for teachers to enjoy a solidly middle class lifestyle. But when the economy soured, and so many more highly paid professionals started losing their jobs and their bonuses and their matching 401(k) plans, all of a sudden, a teaching job with its perception of security and its decent salary and its promised pension at the end, was the envy of many. A professor I once had for a Criminal Justice class as an undergraduate, once told the class, “The persecuted persecute” in reference to a concern for the mental health and ideal longevity for corrections officers in tough prisons, before the job starts affecting their personal lives. I am not convinced it’s a coincidence that the unrelenting attention on education has correlated with the downturn in the economy. A better education system is wonderful and I can see how in this increasingly competitive global society in which we live more necessary but graduates from Harvard have had trouble getting jobs in recent years so it is not likely we can blame all the supposedly bad teachers out there for all of our economic woes.

I know that a lot of things have changed in 30 years, I know public pensions have been difficult to support iuu8and I know all of the reasons why people find tenure antiquated. I understand that nothing could be more important than the education of our young. And that people may abhor the idea that a poor or non-functioning teacher keeps a job. There are not many professions left with tenure although they are significant in numbers served since police and fireman and all civil servants operate through seniority. But the fact is, at least in my experience having been in business, where everyone is judged under a performance plan and now in education, where you are graded on evaluations, teachers do not operate, conduct themselves or act with callous disregard about the way they are rated because they feel, “there’s nothing they can do to us.” On the contrary, they take the same personal pride in the ratings they receive as any other professional. As a guidance counselor, I have seen teachers receive evaluations they were not comfortable with in great distress upon hearing the news and with the same determination to improve as I saw when it happened to business professionals. We get rated. We get reprimanded. We are subject to if not formal, informal evaluations by peers if we fall short in any way. It only takes not doing right by a student to make a teacher make another teacher feel inferior in a heartbeat. 

Personally, I have been rated and evaluated most of my professional life so it does matter one way or the other really in that I still have a motivation to do my job as well as possible from both an ethical and practical perspective. Yet, the fact remains that tenure has always been a nice job attraction as a tradeoff for a job which while rewarding can be much less diversified than many other careers, offers the ability to make a living but significantly restricts earning potential for many professionals whose education may have allowed them to earn much more, which requires a godly amount of patience, virtually no glamour, no bonuses, no unexpected big promotions, no trips, no frequent mileage points. 

But that’s ok as the vast majority of teachers in their positions now wouldn’t have it any other way as they love what they do and they are good at it. I am not sure so sure future graduates will have the luxury of feeling the same way with the turbulent waters created now. 

When all of the attacks, first among people in the public through letters to editors and loud voices at NYC and other Board of Ed meetings began a couple of years ago, I remember one fellow teacher putting it all very simply, “If they are so resentful that we have benefits no one else does, why didn’t they become teachers?’ At the time, I thought we couldn’t just position things like that and we had to defend ourselves. Now, I am not so sure she didn’t nail the crux of the matter right there.