But sometimes, even an excellent therapist can only do so much. Sometimes medication can do only so much. Sometimes electro-shock therapy fails. And then there are those who will try none of these remedies or, having tried them, stop trying. Which brings us back to the question posed in the title of this essay: can you permanently prevent the suicide of a person committed to it, especially someone whose life is largely behind him?

This query is brought to mind by watching a 2008 American movie of understated eloquence called Goodbye Solo, directed by Ramin Bahrani, and starring Souléymane Sy Savané and Red West. You might recognize Red West, a boyhood friend of Elvis who worked as his body-guard and as a stunt man before he became a character actor.

Seventy-two-years-old at the time the film was released, West has the visage of a man who has lived through everything, paid for each act of recklessness with a line on his face, and suffered more heartache than any 10 of us. He plays a character called William. Solo is his African émigré cab driver in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The proposition William offers the cabbie is simple: agree to take him to the top of Blowing Rock mountain in several days for $1000. He never states why, but the cabbie and the audience know it is to jump off and kill himself.

They are strangers, but Solo comes from a place where human relationships count for a lot. Moreover, he is an optimistic man, set on improving life for himself and his family. He hopes to become a flight attendant. Solo believes that he can alter his circumstances and that life will take-off for him, not come to the crashing end that William, twice solo’s age, envisions for himself. The cab driver does his best to connect with this old man; to engage him socially, to make friends, to have good times, to bring him into his own modest home; to inject William with some of his optimism about life.

We never find out much about William’s background, although he appears to have no significant social contact and no work to fill his time or give it meaning. There are hints of what life has done to him, or what he has done to himself, but Solo cannot discover much more than William wants him to know. It becomes clear that William’s suicidal intention has been well thought-out; that his plan is not impulsive.

William is not unappreciative of Solo’s efforts, not so fully out of touch with life that he has stopped caring about what happens to certain others. Nor does he dismiss the beauty of nature, if one can conclude that fact by his choice of Blowing Rock as the place of his demise: the last thing he will see (if he follows through with his plan) is the staggering magnificence of the vista beyond the mountain (see the top photo). After all, he could instead blow his brains out in his motel room.

In effect, Goodbye Solo puts a question to us: what is one to do when a long life — a rough life — has simply become too much? When one is care-worn, broken-down, and deadened, but not yet dead? When the beauty of nature and a child’s smile no longer compensate? When the kindness of strangers — their caring and concern — either isn’t enough or is too frightening because it portends only more vulnerability and loss if one allows them in?

Data from the American Association of Suicidology suggest that these are not idle concerns. Although the elderly made up only 12.5% of the population as of 2007, they accounted for 15.7% of all suicides. Moreover, men over 65 were more than seven times as likely to kill themselves than were women of the same age, and this difference grew as they aged.

Lest you become too depressed in reading this essay, you might wish to know a remarkable story that describes how a willingness to play out the hand you are dealt can be a far better choice than to “fold” and leave the game too early: “In Defeat Defiance:” Suicide and the Danger of Giving Up Too Soon. Therapists are sworn enemies of suicide and hopelessness, of course. Religion and loved ones try to silence such thoughts, as well.

But, especially for some elderly men, the questions are persistent. Can you stop a person like William — as old as William — determined to commit suicide? Can Solo? Should Solo?

Watch the movie.

—

Special thanks to my friend Bernie for recommending this film. The first image is of Blowing Rock by Ken Thomas, sourced from Wikimedia Commons. The second photo comes from the movie, Goodbye Solo, left to right, Red West and Souléymane Sy Savané.

Jorie Stein and Craig Carter

Welcome to all of you, friends and family. It is wonderful that you are here to celebrate Jorie and Craig’s new life. Aleta and I are very grateful. Some of you go back a very long way with us, from even before the time that, as my dad used to say, “Jorie was a twinkle in my eye.”

And now Jorie is an intelligent, accomplished, and beautiful young woman; a person of striking integrity and independence, with a good heart. We couldn’t be more proud of her.

Everyone expects to fall in love once in life, with the person they marry. But as my wife likes to say, no one is quite prepared for the fact that they will fall in love for a second time when their first child is born.

Aleta and I are enormously grateful to Donna and Steve Carter, and not only for last night’s lovely rehearsal dinner. If it weren’t for their part in making Craig the bright, honorable, and talented man that he is, there would be no wedding today. So, thank you, Donna and Steve.

That, of course, brings me to Craig. Aleta and I know that if we had hand-picked someone for Jorie to fall in love with, we couldn’t have done a better job than she did. A couple of years ago Craig and I were driving together and we got to talking about baseball and basketball. For some reason the conversation seemed familiar to me. Of course, I talk sports with people all the time, but it wasn’t familiar in that way.

It took me a few seconds before I realized that it reminded me of some of the conversations that I used to have with my dad. Of course, now I was in the “dad” role. It felt good, as that part of my relationship with my father always felt, good and comforting. In that moment I was enormously grateful, to my dad and to Craig, who is now my son-in-law, and to Jorie, whose good judgment brought Craig into our lives. I never missed having a son because I have two wonderful daughters, but now, thanks to Craig, I do know what I missed; and now that I know what I missed, I don’t have to miss it! Call me lucky.

That car ride with Craig reminds me of something else. I remember the day that we took Jorie to Champaign/Urbana to the Illini Towers dorm, to begin her college education at the University of Illinois. We thought we would be clever about it, so we woke up very early that Saturday morning and drove fast so that we would be among the first to get into the building and unloaded. But we were outfoxed by several hundred people, who had gotten up earlier and driven faster and were already way ahead of us in line to use the couple of elevators and the small number of carts to get their child moved in.

It was a long, hot, late summer day. And as we stood in line  waiting, I had the same feeling I mentioned about my car ride with Craig — that feeling of familiarity, as if I had done this before. Of course, I had never moved Jorie into any new place, so I couldn’t easily figure it out.

As the morning changed to afternoon (and we were still waiting), I thought back to the day that Jorie was born. At 1:00 AM, that is to say, in the dead of night, Jorie gave the signal and we were off to the hospital. And that too was a long day as we waited for the labor to progress. Finally, at 9:34 PM, over 20 hours later, Jorie arrived in this new world. And I realized that the long day of waiting for her to be born was what the long day of waiting at Illini Towers reminded me of.

The only difference was that on that day at the hospital we were waiting to say hello to her, and on the day at Illini Towers we were waiting to say goodbye.

I suppose that today could be a little like that — a bittersweet parting of the kind that Shakespeare described in Romeo & Juliet, a “sweet sorrow.” But the truth is that our family has gotten bigger and better by one, and that we couldn’t love Jorie and Craig more or feel luckier than we do today.

Please join me in a toast to Jorie and Craig.

Although I’m not Irish, I’ve always thought that the Irish have most of the best toasts:

Jorie and Craig,

“May the road rise to meet you, and may the wind always be at your back.”

My wife recently asked me if an acquaintance — someone with a disastrous relationship history — will be having a “destination wedding.” My answer? “Only if the destination is divorce court.”

As you might know, a “destination wedding” is one that requires travel by virtually everyone invited. It doesn’t happen in the home city of the bride or groom, or in the town where their parents live. The “destination” is on a beach, on top of a mountain, or ideally, on a beach that has a mountain top within easy walking distance. The place is glamorous and glorious, like the vacation sites where TV programs such as The Bachelor are filmed. It is “once-in-a-lifetime” dazzling and costs more than most people make in their three most lucrative years of employment — combined. Of course, it also requires the guests to spend a fortune if they wish to attend.

The question is, what must the “interested parties” consider? I’m talking about the engaged couple and their parents. Choice of venue is only one item on the agenda. Among the other decisions, they must determine whom to invite, how many, who will pay for it all, how much (if anything) can parents afford, and whether the people with the “deep pockets” are willing to go over-budget. There are a thousand details about hotel arrangements, music, dancing, menu, the wedding cake, flowers, and party favors. Nor can one forget the religious elements, colors, the wedding dress, the order and scheduling of events. Attention must be paid to booking the perfect honeymoon suite, local transportation for people coming from out-of-town, night-before dinners, and morning-after breakfasts; even table cloths.

Then there are the things that kill your friendships. Who will be the best man/maid of honor? Who will be in the wedding party? How will I tell those who expect to participate that they got squeezed out? My head hurts just thinking about all this and I’m not even involved in such decisions any more.

Since I have two married daughters, I must have put on two weddings. I’m a little fuzzy on this point. To be more precise, my wife and daughters put on the weddings, once my wife and I agreed on how much we’d be willing to spend. I then became blind and deaf to the process and the incredible amount of “wedding talk” that went on until the event was over. Those conversations continued beyond all reason. Less time was spent by the World War II Allied Forces in planning the D-Day invasion of Western Europe. Less time was spent building the Great Wall of China. I shut out as much as I could in order to preserve my sanity, keep my eyes from glazing over, and prevent saliva from dribbling out of my mouth. I would have been rendered insensible had I paid attention. Talk to me about psychology, politics, classical music, baseball, visual art, history, fiction, the economy or just about anything else, but please, please, please allow me to leave the room when you start the “wedding talk.”

Although the largest amount of time is spent discussing the details I mentioned, there are other less explicit and material considerations. I’m referring to the questions of values and priorities. For example, does it matter more to you that your close friend is at the big event or that the big event is on a big beach in Big Sur, California and your friend is back in Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts, 3000 miles away, bawling buckets of tears?

Then there is the moral question: how do you deal with the notion that you could retire the National Debt if you made out your check to the federal government rather than the florist? Yes, I get the part about it being your special day, the day you will remember for ever and ever, and that will happen (you hope) only once in your life. Still, as my mother used to say years ago when I didn’t finish eating everything on my plate at dinner, “How can you not eat? People are starving in India!”

It eventually occurred to me that my eating wasn’t going to feed anyone else, and that some of the Indians might have preferred to skip a meal than eat my mom’s concoctions, but I do think that the ridiculous excess of a six-figure wedding is a little unseemly. Have you thought about putting some of the money toward a charity? Really. Today, by the way, Indian mothers probably tell their dinner-disinterested children who are pushing away a plate full of tandoori chicken, “How can you not eat? People are starving in the USA!”

My effort to escape the wedding planning did not, in fact, include every element of the nuptials. There was a single portion of the extravaganza about which I didn’t zone out. It was the sole item I wanted to think about and work on. It was the one thing that was mine alone: the speech by the father of the bride.

Now, I’ve been told that I’m a good public speaker. I work at it. But I have never put as much effort into any other speech preparation as I did for the orations given at each of my daughters’ weddings. Although it didn’t equal the D-Day planners in time spent, it was pretty close. I had the necessary soliloquy ready months before the date, maybe even a year. And I memorized and rehearsed; and rehearsed; and rehearsed. Why? Because it was a wonderfully special day that required just the right words and, in each case, I didn’t know if I could get through the performance without breaking down. For the nuptials of my first-born this was particularly hard. Even when I practiced it on the morning of the day itself, my voice still cracked and tears got in the way. This was not a problem except that the performer is supposed to allow the audience to have the feelings, and this is a whole lot easier if you can actually finish what you’d like to say.

But when the moment came, it all worked. My advice to dads or moms who choose to speak? Spend more time on this than anything else. As for the rest, be as generous as you can without cleaning out your retirement savings. But also realize that the fate of the free world doesn’t hang on spending tons of money. It’s probably long past time that you teach your child and his/her intended the value of a dollar, and that their love for each other is more important than having a Golden Calf in the middle of the banquet hall. Don’t show-off to your family and friends how successful you are by putting Kate Middleton’s wedding to shame. There are lots of people who have great weddings on flat and modest grounds, indoors, in some location that isn’t half-way across the world. Your children’s friends will be grateful and the bride and groom will be happy that they were there.

In my next blog post, I’ll tell you exactly what I said in the speech I gave at my first born’s wedding. For now, you can read the one that I gave on my second child’s big day: A Wedding Toast.

—

The top photo is The Kennedys by Toni Frissell (The Kennedy-Bouvier Wedding), September 12, 1953, downloaded by trialsanderrors. The second image is the painting Bride and Groom by Modigliani, 1915/1916. Both are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

This story is about true love and nausea. Not a typical combination. And no, I’m not talking about butterflies in your stomach when you fall in love “at first sight.” My topic is something else entirely. More like, what would you do for love?

If you believe in love and enjoy love stories, you should read on. But, if any discussion of queasiness leading to vomit makes you sick, then you probably should go back to reading War and Peace, which I’m sure you were doing just before you landed on my web log.

I suppose I might call this post, “How my wife and I survived England and Denmark,” or at least a couple of bad meals we had there many years ago. But I don’t want to cause an international incident here, and I happen to like the Brits and the Danes, so I’ll stick with the fact that the story leads back to what people are willing to do for each other when they are happily married. Be patient.

The tale starts in Denmark; Copenhagen to be exact. We’d just had a lunch of smorgasbord at a recommended restaurant. Smorgasbord is a buffet of hot and cold dishes, cooked vegetables and salad, pickled fish, and things like that. The sumptuous repast was at a culinary establishment on the famous Copenhagen pedestrian shopping street known as Strøget: tons of stores and restaurants, lots of fun, and no vehicular traffic. We finished the meal feeling great and started to walk, perhaps for three or four blocks. Then it hit me without warning. But unlike what happened to me, I will give you a flashing yellow alert: there is still time to bail out on the story. I won’t hold it against you.

My stomach is actually pretty strong. I probably haven’t vomited in decades. Maybe even back to the day in question. But there was no anticipatory alarm here like the “two-minute warning” in American style football before the end of the game, no signal that something bad was going to happen with enough lead time to easily remedy the situation. I could feel only the kind of rumbling that occurs in horror movies just before the monster leaps out of the swamp.

A quick decision was required. While I might have tried to go into the nearest shop, I’d then have to explain my situation and attempt to persuade someone to let me use the W/C (water closet) or as those of us in the USA call it, the washroom. There was the possibility that language would be a problem, since I didn’t speak Danish. By then the stopper would have popped out of the volcano. So I did the only thing that made sense. I ran as fast as I could back down the Strøget to the restaurant we’d just visited, and to the W/C whose location I knew precisely.

You’ve probably read stories about people who have done incredible things to save the life of a child. Little old ladies who find the strength to lift cars — that sort of thing. Under pressure it is sometimes remarkable what a human being can do. Put another way, the stage was now set in the middle of Copenhagen for a triumph of the human spirit!

Back in the day I was a reasonably fast runner, not for distance, but for speed on a short track. But this was not just any day, this was probably the greatest day of my modest athletic career. I ran with some combination of frenzy and desperation, leaping over small (very small) children, dodging couples holding hands, maneuvering around the slow-walkers. I think I created some sort of vacuum, with paper and tiny objects being swept into my wake as if they were following me down the street, just hoping to catch up, or attached to me by invisible strings. Passers-by noticed me and some were sufficiently astonished by my pace that they stopped to applaud. Even to this day I am certain that I set a record in the 800 meter run. Unfortunately no judge was there to testify to my achievement, stop-watch in hand.

I did make it to the W/C in time. Thank God no one occupied it. I felt spent afterward, as if the life had been sucked out of me. How I dragged myself off my knees I don’t remember. But I do recall that my wife had caught up to me by now, sitting down beside me on the sidewalk just outside the restaurant and putting her right arm around my shoulder. And, in the way only a woman can do, made it all better, leaning into me, stroking my hair, even though I was probably not at my most fragrant. We just sat there for a bit, as she tenderly ministered to me until I had a little strength again. Really something. Something, to my great good fortune, that I’ve been the beneficiary of, in my wife’s loving hands, too many times to count.

But relationships demand reciprocity and it isn’t always enough just to say thank you and buy your beloved some candy. The chance came sooner than you might think, days later on our European vacation. London was the location, at a time when British culinary art wasn’t thought to be very artistic. A restaurant again. Another vomit story.

Once more, the guide-book promised a lunch that would be both enjoyable and reasonably priced. It was steak and kidney pie for Aleta, an old English specialty, followed by some sort of pudding for desert. I had something different. We enjoyed the afternoon touring the Tower of London, then back to our room. Apparently, the pie-pudding combination had taken on the shape of a giant basketball being heaved down the elevator shaft of my wife’s digestive system. It was some time before dinner that it bounced off the bottom and rushed back up. Aleta assumed a fetal position on the bed, complaining of a stomach ache. And then, in a split-second, she dashed from the bed to the sink that was in the middle of our cheap, W/C free compartment; lowered her head and filled the basin with the half-digested meal. The love-of-my-life turned back slowly and staggered the couple of steps to the bed, plopping down into a heap; feeling better, it’s true, but certainly not her best; relieved by the release of the toxic stew that had been inside of her.

There was only one problem. A kind of big problem. The steak and kidney pie, the pudding, or whatever these things had become, were resting comfortably in the basin, just waiting there. Smelling awful, they had taken on a yellow color that was not their original hue. The drain was too small for the curds to pass. Clearly, I’d failed to read the fine print in the hotel’s brochure: “Cesspool available at no extra charge.” Something needed to be done.

I suppose that I could have tried to summon the management of the place we were staying in, but that would have meant waiting and watching while they fashioned an on-the-spot remedy. Aleta was in no state to be disturbed. Besides, the staff wouldn’t have offered any different solution than the one that occurred to me, unless they had some sort of scooping utensil to ladle the foul-smelling goop into a bucket. That sight might have made my wife feel worse. No, there was really only one thing to do.

No gloves were handy, so I simply reached into the basin with both hands, past my wrists, up to my forearms, and started to crush the vomit curds. The drain was tiny, so some serious massaging was required. In time the job was done. I rinsed the wash bowl, soaped my hands, and sat down. We didn’t go out that night. Aleta felt much better in the morning and life went on.

Pretty romantic stuff, right? Yet couples are bonded by just such experiences. They are remembered, usually with a laugh, and take the shape of markers along the journey that partners make on life’s uneven road. A life together is a bit like walking down a book-bounded corridor in a library, where each volume contains the description of only a single moment in your time together. In a funny way, these incidents become more than incidental, enriching your marriage and telling you what you mean to each other; transforming you, if you are lucky, into who you want to be and informing you, once again, who you want to be with.

By coincidence, Mother’s Day is this weekend, and my wife is a mother to our two wonderful children. Mother’s Day focuses on relationships, not only of the parent-child kind. There will be lots of children (and husbands) bringing mums to their mums and wives, lots of greeting cards sent, lots of hugs and kisses. Our kids will shower Aleta with affection on the day itself and she deserves every bit of it.

But, my dearest, as you revel in your children’s attention, I’d like you to ask yourself one question: has anyone else ever been willing to crush vomit for you?

Sweetie Pie, I just wanted to say, perhaps in a kind of yucky way, that I love you.

As the old saying goes, the proof is in the pudding. Literally.

—

This blog was inspired by blogger Daniel Wall, in particular his amusing story This is Really Gross: You Probably Shouldn’t Read It! I have borrowed one stylistic feature of that essay, not to mention a crucial aspect of the topic. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Daniel. I hope that you approve!

—

The first photo is The Red Arrows Cupid Formation at the Bournemouth Air Show 2009 by D. Everett. The Runner by Jason Goodger follows it. Both are sourced from Wikimedia Commons. The final photo is my wife Aleta, taken by a secret admirer (really) when she was in college. It simply showed up in her mail box one day, with no explanation. Lucky for me, the admirer didn’t make himself known.

Most of you now know that the Zeolites, our 1963/64 high school park district softball team, had a reunion on January 1, 2000. But there were just a few people who knew about it from the start. The adjacent lunch table in Chicago’s Mather High School cafeteria included female friends who’d been told of our plan back in 1963, the year that the idea was hatched: to meet on the front steps of the Museum of Science and Industry in 37 years time. That group included Carolyn and Cathy Bell, Olivia Wasserman, and Judy Maloff.

We got back in touch with them in late 1999 as the reunion day approached, and later let them know that the Culligan Corporation was giving us a grant of $2000 to create something called the Zeolite Scholarship Fund. Some of them even sent us money in support of the project. But, before too long I got an email out of the blue from a man who probably had never heard of the Zeolites and whom I hadn’t seen since 1965. He’d been told about our college scholarship philanthropy for graduating Mather seniors by Carolyn Bell and contacted me to ask if he could help. Soon thereafter we received a very large check from him, one of many that were to follow. To date, he has contributed nearly $5000 to the Zeolite Scholarship Fund, making him our third largest individual contributor. The two guys ahead of him, as you might expect, are Zeolites.

In the 12 years of our existence, that is the only time we received money from someone we didn’t solicit and whom we hadn’t told what we were doing; someone who just happened to hear about us and thought giving money to the project was a good idea. That someone is Jim Lustig, and the story I’ve just related tells you as much as you need to know about the behavioral definition of the word generosity.

Of course, Jim is a University of Chicago Medical School graduate and a highly respected pediatrician. I could tell you much more about his professional accomplishments* — about the recognition he has earned, what he has written and what he has done — but our attachment to Jim is more personal than that. At least four members of the Zeolite Scholarship Committee have gone to him with our own medical concerns or seeking advice about a loved one. Jim is always there, always helpful. Sue Leff Ginsburg will tell you a little bit about her contact with Jim. Then I will say a few more words.

Left to right: Barbara Orloff Litt, Pat McAvoy, Sue Leff Ginsburg, Jan Kozin Gordon, and Joan Lustig

Sue Leff Ginsburg:

In 2006, when our high school graduating class had its first “mini-reunion” dinner at Via Veneto, I was sitting next to Gerry telling the story of my new granddaughter, who was a preemie (premature birth) and wouldn’t eat. My daughter and son-in-law could not find a doctor here who could help and they were so worried and frustrated.  Gerry suggested I ask Jim’s advice, as he was a pediatrician. Now, I knew Jim in high school, he was an acquaintance. So I made my way to his table and started picking his brain. In his very calming, comforting tone, he informed me of the Milwaukee Children’s Hospital and their eating clinic.  My daughter, with Jim’s direction, was able to find doctors who not only had dealt with this before, but had a proven plan to solve it.  Not only did Jim calm two worried parents and a crazed grandmother, but in the process, I made two wonderful friends in Jim and Joan, Jim’s wife.

Thank you, Sue. All of us who have consulted Jim have had the kind of experience Sue just described. To me, Jim is the embodiment of the best qualities of a physician as they were represented on TV and in the movies back when we were growing up in the 1950s and 1960s: someone who is very smart, someone who is very experienced, someone who is calmly reassuring — quietly confident; someone who you know will do everything that is required to make sure that things turn out well.

Jim is the guy you want in your corner. He is the guy you want on your team, whether it is your softball team, your scholarship team, or your medical team. In a difficult moment, he is the person you want by your side any day and every day, any week and every week, any season and every season.

And so, Jim, we have an engraving for you. It reads as follows:

JIM LUSTIG

“A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS”

FROM THE MATHER CLASS OF 1964/65 AND THE ZEOLITES

MAY 4, 2012

But there’s more, as they say on TV. Last year some of you will recall that I gave you a short German history lesson, or at least, a history of the Zeolites in German class at Mather High School. Jim was there in German class, along with most of the Zeolites, and people like Bob Ferencz and Michael Kaplan. As I said last year, after four years of German study we’d learned, perhaps, only 10 words; and seven of those words were swear words! But happily, one of those words has to do with Jim! No, not one of the swear words.

The word is “lustig,” which means cheerful or jolly. Now, my guess is, that it is not every day, Jim, when someone comes up to you, slaps you on the back, and says, “You know, Jim, you are a ‘jolly good fellow.’” But, today isn’t every day and we are about to do just that. So, all of you, please join me in paying tribute to our good friend Jim, by singing, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

—

The top photo is Jim Lustig. In the second photo, left to right, are Barbara Orloff Litt, Pat McAvoy, Sue Leff Ginsburg, Jan Kozin Gordon, and Joan Lustig (Jim’s wife). These pictures were taken at the Mather High School Class of 1964/65 “Mini-Reunion” Dinner at Sabatino’s Restaurant on May 4, 2012. They come to the Zeolite Scholarship Fund courtesy of Michael Kaplan. *The final photo is sourced from the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, where Jim is the Program Director, Asthma/Allergy. He is also Professor of Pediatrics (Allergy/Immunology), Medical College of Wisconsin and Member, Children’s Specialty Group.

It is perhaps inevitable that we hand the family flag to our children, sometimes even before they are born, hoping that the little ones will wave it for all to see and admire. We want them to be something special. We want them to cure cancer, make money, be gorgeous, become famous, produce equally singular grandchildren — all of that and more. Somehow — in there somewhere — we think happiness is to be found and will be theirs. That notion is implied, not stated. It assumes that all those achievements and acquisitions will automatically lead to that blessed state of well-being, or at least not diminish their chances of getting there.

As we, the parents, get older though, I think that our hopes and dreams for our kids sometimes change. Perhaps it is, in part, because we have now had many chances to see our offspring hurt — to see them really unhappy. Broken hearts, dashed prospects, defeats on the field of play that we call life. Perhaps we begin to wonder if ACHIEVEMENT is worth the cost, if luck is just possibly more important than talent, if physical beauty is as crucial as we used to think it was. Perhaps we come to realize that no one can “have it all” and that choices have to be made in any life about which baskets will hold our eggs, those fragile parts of us that can be so easily cracked.

Philip Larkin’s poem Born Yesterday gets to the heart of this matter. Written in 1954, it was dedicated to little Sally Amis, the new child of his friends Hilary and Kingsley Amis. He first talks about those things that others are likely to wish for her: things like perfect love and beauty, worthy enough for certain, but not especially likely. And, indeed, he hopes that she can have those things. But then he changes course, knowing that she probably won’t be that lucky.

Larkin suggests that she could do worse than be ordinary. He implies that the qualities that make one different from others — he calls these qualities “uncustomary” — can complicate your life, even if they are remarkable or special, including great talent or beauty. His birthday wish for her is therefore a bit shocking: “In fact, may you be dull –/If that is what a skilled,/Vigilant, flexible,/Unemphasised, enthralled/Catching of happiness is called.” To me, what he is getting at here is that the ultimate gift for any of us is to have a kind of openness to life, the capacity to experience each day with the wonderment of a child who was, as the title suggests, Born Yesterday. The idea is to discover (or rediscover) that wide-eyed watchfulness that just about all newborns have, that makes the world enthralling. Happiness, in this context, is something to be “caught” almost randomly, not achieved or the result of hard work, but a matter of attitude toward the world and the ability to see it afresh and let the passing moments dazzle you.

If he is right, then most of us and most of our children don’t have to be great heroes or heroines, athletes or leaders, Nobel Prize winners or creative geniuses or supermodels. Happiness might just be in reach, if only one can stretch out one’s arm to catch it.

Here is the poem:

Tightly-folded bud,
I have wished you something
None of the others would:
Not the usual stuff
About being beautiful,
Or running off a spring
Of innocence and love -
They will all wish you that,
And should it prove possible,
Well, you’re a lucky girl.

But if it shouldn’t, then
May you be ordinary;
Have, like other women,
An average of talents:
Not ugly, not good-looking,
Nothing uncustomary
To pull you off your balance,
That, unworkable itself,
Stops all the rest from working.
In fact, may you be dull -
If that is what a skilled,
Vigilant, flexible,
Unemphasised, enthralled
Catching of happiness is called.

—

The photos are of my children when they were small: Jorie and Carly Stein, respectively.

The Brooklyn Dodgers won the 1955 World Series thanks to the MVP performance of an unheralded 23 year-old pitcher named Johnny Podres. That winter I had a chance to meet him. He was scheduled to make a weekend appearance at the Peter Pan restaurant in West Rogers Park, Chicago. I couldn’t wait.

My dad drove me there and I could see the line in the eatery, all eager young boys, some older than my nine years, some younger. And there he was, seated at a table in front of the long line, observable at a distance through the restaurant’s large pane glass window. A genuine baseball player in the flesh. A real World Series hero.

But there was only one problem.

I couldn’t get myself out of the car. I froze. I was intimidated. My dad did his best to persuade me and I certainly had enough time to muster the courage to go in. Podres wasn’t going anywhere fast. But neither was I. I was fastened to the seat at a time before seat belts.

I cannot tell you what exactly I was afraid of. I don’t remember what I was thinking. All I know was that I was terrified, all too shy, and eventually my dad drove me home.

I was reminded of this story recently when a high school friend asked me if I remembered Johnny Podres appearance at the Peter Pan. He had the courage to go in. In fact, I suspect it simply wasn’t in his nature to even to be scared of it.

Within a very few years, however, I became an eager autograph collector, brazenly approaching my heroes (probably only 10 years or so older than I was at the time) as they emerged from their locker room or outside the ball park, usually Wrigley Field. I nearly got trampled trying to get Willie Mays’s signature. He simply bulled his way through the crowd of boys who were hoping to have a less physical kind of contact. But young men like Ernie Banks and Ron Santo would sign and sign and sign until everyone had a turn and a treasured keepsake.

In the summer of 1960, when I was in eighth grade, my Jamieson School friend Joel and I went to Comiskey Park to see the White Sox play the Yankees. My uncle Sam had gotten us great box seat tickets and we were eager to get some autographs before the game.

We noticed several kids bunched on the stadium side of the infield wall, all getting the popular Sox outfielder Minnie Minoso to sign their scorecards. Soon, Joel and I observed that there seemed to be a man in charge — a man who had a camera hanging by a strap around his neck. We joined in the crowd milling about the pale hose star, even getting into a picture that was taken.

The adult leader didn’t take too long before persuading various other Sox players to come over to the same group of boys about our age, making autograph collecting easier than usual. Normally one had to call to a player from the stands, requesting him to take pen in hand and ink that day’s score book. From that point we did our best to blend in with the others, getting as many autographs as we could.

Curious, I asked one of the boys in the group who they were. It turned out that the kids were there on an excursion from South Bend, Indiana. All of them were newspaper boys who had won the Comiskey Park adventure for doing their deliveries and collections reliably and well. That was why, of course, the photographer/chaperone of the group had taken a picture of all of us with Minnie, for eventual publication in the very same daily paper.

Joel and I wondered how we would get a copy of the photo. “We’ll figure it out,” I said. “Just be sure you don’t say anything to that guy,” as I motioned toward the adult overseer.

We were standing a bit apart from the group, not wanting them to hear our plotting, when the same man called to us, “Hey, you two, come over here!”

At first I wondered if he’d figured out that we didn’t belong. But instead he told us he was going to try to get our photo with Mickey Mantle! We watched with heady anticipation as he talked to the Yankee great and future Hall-of-Famer. But Mantle shrugged him off. He seemed more intent on watching the other Yankees take batting practice and waiting for his own turn to hit.

Next he approached Bill “Moose” Skowron, the Yankee’s heavy-hitting first baseman. I’d always thought that “Moose,” a popular Chicago native who would eventually play for the White Sox, was called by that nickname because he was so powerfully built, unusually square-shouldered and intimidating in physique. But, it turns out that his childhood friends called him “Moose” after Benito Mussolini, who Skowron resembled a bit, especially in the 1930s when the young Skowron started to wear his hair in the crew-cut style that made him look even more like the Italian dictator.

Skowron would end his playing career with 211 regular season home runs and a .293 batting average in eight World Series appearances that led to five World Championships. He was also elected to the American League All-Star team on six occasions.

The “Moose” walked with our benefactor behind the home plate batting cage toward the place where we were standing — on the stadium side of the barrier to the field. Skowron smiled and said hello, then turned and sat himself on the flat top of the low brick partition as he faced the gigantic center field “exploding” scoreboard that Bill Veeck, the Sox owner, had installed only that year — the first of its kind.

The photographer stood with his back toward that same scoreboard and motioned us to get on either side of the ball player, as close as we could to “Moose” while remaining in the stands. Then the 29 year-old athlete leaned back a bit, put his arms around us and the photo was taken.

Skowron said goodbye and quickly returned to his pre-game routine. But we were in trouble. Joel couldn’t restrain himself and blurted out the question I had feared, “Say, how do we get to see these pictures?”

As the saying goes, if looks could kill two 13 year-olds would have expired behind home plate at Comiskey Park.

“Aren’t you… don’t you belong… you’re newspaper delivery boys, right?”

“Uh, uh, uh…”

“Oh, s**t, f***k, you little a*s h***s, you sons of b*****s.”

I think there might have been another dozen or so swear words, some of which I never heard before and haven’t heard since. By now it is kind of a blur. And so ended any hope of ever getting our hands on a picture of the two of us with Bill Skowron.

Fortunately, my dad was able to track down the South Bend newspaper and did, in fact, find the group photo with Minnie Minoso in which we can be easily recognized. Only one problem. The caption identifies Joel as Steve Carpenter and me as Claude Fitzgerald. Or something like that.

—

I wrote the above in May, 2011 and for some reason set it aside. But the story was on my mind, and I told it to a recent acquaintance, a neatly bearded, fine older gentleman named Abe. He’d mentioned that he was a friend of the “Moose,” who apparently continues to live in the Chicago area.

Stories are funny things. Sometimes you think a narrative is finished when in fact it isn’t. Something else happens to someone involved in the tale that adds an important twist to it, changing its meaning. So it was with this story.

To my surprise, a few months after I’d related the yarn to Abe, he said that he told the story to “Moose” and asked him if he would sign a photo of himself in his playing days, inscribed to me. With that Abe handed me the image (below) featuring the young “Moose” and a few words to me in his still steady hand. It was an act of unexpected kindness from both of these men, something that made my day.

Thus, the story did not end with my disappointment at the failed opportunity to get my hands on a photo with a baseball hero, but with me receiving a picture after all; one that, because of the way it happened, means more to me than the half-century old version possibly could have.

I guess it just goes to show that (if you are willing to wait 51 years) you can have just about anything you want in life.

I have reposted this essay as a tribute to Bill “Moose” Skowron, whose death was reported today. He was 81.

—-

The top photo is “Moose” in his days with the Yankees, along with Bobby Richardson, Tony Kubek, and Clete Boyer, the Yankee starting infield. The second photo is of the scoreboard at Old Comiskey Park by Baseball Bugs sourced from Wikimedia Commons. The final photo is of  Bill “Moose” Skowron at old Comiskey Park in his days with the White Sox.

Is saying that you are sorry the same thing as making an apology? Indeed, many of us have said “I’m sorry for your loss” too often to keep track: to relatives, friends, business associates, and acquaintances. Were we trying to apologize or attempting to provide a consoling message? Were we admitting guilt for what happened or expressing sympathy?

The answer should be easy. When we say that we are “sorry for the loss” we are voicing concern and attempting to comfort, not taking responsibility for the death. Unless, that is, we specify that we caused the demise of the loved one. But ordinarily, we are communicating that we are sad that it happened, not culpable.

When a person is, in fact, blameworthy, he has not necessarily done something terrible. Accidents do happen and sometimes injuries are very small. But, surely the most difficult apology to make must be to acknowledge one’s part in the death of a child. I bring this up because George Zimmerman, the man whose gun shot killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin following a conflict with him in February, is widely reported to have “apologized” to Martin’s family when he said the following in court at a bond hearing:

I wanted to say I am sorry for the loss of your son. I did not know how old he was. I thought he was a little bit younger than I am, and I did not know if he was armed or not.

Yet, whatever his intention, Zimmerman did not actually apologize. Leaving aside the legal wisdom of making such a statement in court, I’d like to discuss what would have been required for Zimmerman to apologize rather than simply express sympathy, which is what he accomplished.

According to Aaron Lazare’s book On Apology, one must:

1. Acknowledge the harm that you inflicted — for example, “I broke your toy” or “I shoplifted the purse” or “I shot and killed your loved one.”
2. Say that you are sorry for what you have personally done, admit that you should not have done it, and express remorse; not simply that you are sorry that a loss occurred.
3. Attempt to compensate the injured party or parties in some way. In the case of public humiliation caused by a cruel joke, for example, it would be appropriate (although perhaps impractical) for you to make a public admission of your foolishness in front of the same people who were present when you embarrassed the other person. Similarly, if you broke his window, you would need to repair or replace it, or get someone else to do this.
4. You must do your very best to make sure that your behavior isn’t repeated.

Simply saying “I’m sorry” isn’t enough. Nor is it sufficient to state, “I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you,” a turn-of-phrase we hear from public figures, but one that is absolutely inadequate. According to Lazare, it is crucial that the transgressor be precise in admitting what exactly he did that caused harm, making no excuses that diminish his responsibility. This is the same sort of thing that happens in court, when, after a plea bargain, the accused admits exactly what he did without justifying it, and recounts the consequences that followed from that behavior. In legal terms it is called “allocution.”

Although George Zimmerman didn’t apologize to Trayvon Martin’s family, he did try to explain away his (unspecified) action when he stated, “I did not know how old he was. I thought he was a little bit younger than I am, and I did not know if he was armed or not.” If we look at the requirements of an adequate apology listed above, we can see that Zimmerman met none of them. He did not state that he was responsible for the death of the teenager and the pain that the family is suffering, he did not say that he was sorry for taking the action, he offered no compensation to the family, and he said nothing about changing his behavior (such as trying to avoid future conflicts or deciding not to carry a gun, for example). I understand that the legal process made some of this inadvisable, but that fact does not alter the definition of what an apology is and what it is not.

Clearly, we cannot and do not apologize for everything. But, if we spill some milk, it really is nice and proper for us to say that we are sorry for what we’ve done and try to clean it up. Most of us do, except for those times when we blame the other by saying “You shouldn’t have put the milk there” or expect someone else to mop the floor.

Apologizing can be surprisingly rewarding, even if difficult. It can help to repair injuries and improve relationships. Apologies can sometimes provide closure to those parties who have suffered significant losses, where adequate compensation is not possible. They can contribute to mutual understanding and lead to forgiveness and letting go.

An example of an attempt to produce such reconciliation between perpetrators and victims was the Republic of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, created after apartheid was ended in that country in 1994. Apartheid was the white government’s policy of racial segregation, denial of human rights, discrimination, and mistreatment of blacks. The Commission included public hearings in which some of the victims testified to their experience. Perhaps more significantly, perpetrators of violence were also permitted to make public statements of their responsibility for wrong-doing and to request amnesty.

There is quite a distance between spilled milk and spilled blood, no question about it. But the possibility of reconciliation, however remote, can only come with a properly voiced apology and the expressed regret that should come with it. Life is full of disagreements, differences, and damage, in addition to unintentionally hurt feelings. Those who are able to feel remorse and admit wrong doing set the stage for the possibility of some amount of healing. Indeed, the perpetrator and the victim are very occasionally bonded together more strongly by the experience.

I hear you saying, “That’s a lot easier to say than to do.” True enough. As one of the members of the comedy team Cheech and Chong used to say, “Taking responsibility is a lot of responsibility.” Self-interest often recommends denial of fault, as in the case of a trial in a court of law. And yet, sometimes common decency, conscience, and a caring heart dictate that we try to repair what we have broken.

—

The first image is St. Francis in Meditation, a painting by Francisco de Zurbaran from 1635-1639. It is followed by an 1885 Caricature of a Marriage Proposal by H. Schlittzen. Both are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

One man knocks down another. It happens every day, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not; sometimes with malice, sometimes not. What do we, the bystanders, do about it? That is the question for today.

The query is prompted by the behavior of Mr. Raffi Torres, a hockey player for the Phoenix Coyotes, who made his body into a weapon against Mr. Marian Hossa, a member of the Chicago Blackhawks. It happened in the third game of the quarter-finals for the National Hockey League’s 2012 Stanley Cup: the championship trophy awarded to the best team in professional ice hockey. The issue here, however, is not about sports, but rather, what we owe to each other if we are to be a civilized people.

First, let’s get on to the particulars so that we can get past them. Torres was rushing across the ice on his skates. A moment before the collision, Hossa had passed the puck. He did not see Torres coming for him. Torres left his feet, vaulting his 223 pounds to the flashpoint of connection between his left shoulder and Hossa’s head. Hossa crumbled to the ice and was carried-off minutes later on a stretcher. None of the four officials (umpires) saw Torres’s act of needless aggression. Instead, they penalized a Blackhawk teammate who retaliated against Torres after Hossa had been attacked. When the Head Coach of the Blackhawks, Joel Quenneville, stated that “the refereeing tonight was a disgrace,” he was fined $10,000 by the NHL. Too much truth, as they say.

Torres is a repeat offender. In last year’s Stanley Cup playoffs he was suspended for four games for a hit to the head of Jordan Eberle of the Edmonton Oilers, and later did the same to Brent Seabrook of the Blackhawks.

The rules are clear: “A hit resulting in contact with an opponent’s head where the head is targeted and (is) the principal point of contact is not permitted.” They also state that a “minor or major penalty shall be imposed on a player who skates or jumps into, or charges an opponent in any manner.”

Not surprisingly, much has been made of Torres’s behavior in the Chicago press. The usual thing is being said: that the referees and the league higher-ups have not penalized such actions sufficiently to discourage them. If that is true, why not?

Perhaps because hockey is one of those sports (unlike baseball) that taps the alpha male desire for violence — the violence of the Roman Colosseum without the lions or the dead bodies. To take that away from the game, some think, would make it less exciting. Of course, if fewer fans were drawn to it, there would be less money to be made. But, others argue, no one forces these young men to come into harm’s way and they are well-compensated for doing so.

The National Hockey League is careful to paper-over the vicious element of the game. You won’t find a video replay of Hossa getting clobbered on an NHL team website. His brain-rattling experience is called “an upper-body injury.” Decapitation falls into the same category for the truth-averse National Hockey League administrators.

All of this is to be expected. As of Saturday, April 21, the NHL has suspended Mr. Torres for 25 games. Perhaps that will persuade him to behave differently, perhaps not. But, I have seen no one raise the issue of the responsibility of Torres’s teammates and coaches. Like “the three wise monkeys” of Japanese lore, they see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil of their own teammate. Even more importantly, they reported no evil to the officials on the ice when the mugging happened, which would have effectively been to turn their companion in to the hockey police.

There is historical usefulness in this type of ethical blindness. If one is to create communities of people for mutual defense and survival, it undoubtedly has served the tribe well to be able to count on your neighbor without qualification. If you had to fear betrayal by a member of your family or your co-religionists, your friends or companions, how would you be able to work together for the communal good, fight the enemy, prepare for the flood?

Are there any exceptions to the rule of lock-step loyalty? Should there be? Should we ever turn in our teammates, our friends, or the members of our own political party? How about our countrymen, our boss, our children? Should we always cover for them? I understand the conflict in loyalties. I know that there would be anguish, not to mention retribution in blowing the whistle. But must we always condone and support “our own” just because they are “our own?”

What Raffi Torres did is wrong because he violated the rules. It is wrong because he intended to do harm. It is wrong because he didn’t turn himself in. It is wrong that his teammates and coaches didn’t turn him in. And it is wrong that no one expected him or them to do that.

—

The first image is a photo of the Fernie Swastikas (Female) Hockey Team, 1922, before that symbol became widely associated with the Nazi Party. The next picture is Jacques Plante’s Goalie Mask in the NHL Hall of Fame, courtesy of Michael Pick. Finally, The Three Wise Monkeys by Huckfinne. All of these are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

This two-minute video will dazzle you: Murmuration.

It is the movement of a flock of starlings, as if choreographed, in a jaw-dropping spectacle. This happens each autumn in the evening sky of portions of the UK and elsewhere in northern Europe. Stay to the end of the film to see the reaction of one of the two young women in the boat.

The film is by Liberty Smith and Sophia Windsor Clive. Thanks to my friend Judy for sending it along.

—

The first image above is called Awklet Flock, Shumagins 1986, posted by D. Dibenski. The second photo is entitled You Make Me Fly by ElBe. Both are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.