Omaha Unbound

Gilda and I walked into the daycare room last Thursday afternoon to pick up Cecilia whom we hadn’t seen in person in nearly three months, since her family’s move to Omaha. Cecilia took one look at me and started to cry. Apparently an 11-month-old has some difficulty translating facetime images into flesh and blood figures.

She quickly recovered her poise aided by the comforting presence of her dad, Donny. For the next five days Cecilia bonded anew with her grandparents from New York. When we brought her to daycare Tuesday morning prior to our return to White Plains, our reactions had transposed. Gilda and I fought back tears (unsuccessfully, I might add) while Cecilia eagerly jumped into the arms of her caretaker, Katlyn. She had no idea it would be six weeks before we would see each other again.

By then she would have celebrated her first birthday. Perhaps she would be walking on her own. Perhaps she would have a small vocabulary beyond her babbled mmmaammmammmammama.

How Gilda and I envy grandparents who live a reasonable distance, say, no more than an hour, from their grandchildren, as we did before Ellie, Donny and Cecilia moved from Brooklyn to Omaha.

I guess there’s only one cure for missing grandchildren—embark on another visit. That’s exactly what I’ll do, this time with a quick trip next week to see Finley and Dagny in Massachusetts. 

Look for the Union Label

I never really knew any of my grandparents. My father’s parents perished in the Holocaust in Poland. I was barely two when my maternal grandfather died in New York. The only memory I have of my mother’s mother was a visit to a hospital room a couple of years later to see an old woman lying in a bed encased in a clear plastic oxygen tent. She died shortly thereafter.

The closest person I had to a grandmother was Bessie Trachtenberg. When my father came to America in 1939, he roomed with her family in Brooklyn for a while. She remained in his life, and ours, for more than three decades. We’d see Bessie every few weeks or so, usually for a Friday night or Sunday dinner. Though the meals were invariably at our home, Bessie would don an apron. She was a good cook. She made the best breaded veal chops. 

Bessie worked in a clothing factory. She was an active member of the ILGWU, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. And that, dear reader, led to more loud discussions at the dinner table than any other topic. You see, my father owned and operated a non-unionized clothing factory. By all accounts he was a benevolent boss, his workers never once even organizing for a union vote. Bessie, on the other hand, helped the ILGWU establish union locals. She had a much more jaundiced view of management. So they would argue over and over about the value of unions.

Which brings me to this week’s news from Wisconsin that Governor Scott Walker had beaten back efforts to recall him because of his anti-union stands. Let’s also not discount the votes in San Diego and San Jose on Tuesday to scale back benefits for unionized municipal workers, including police and firemen. It’s not an easy time advocating for organized labor. There’s no doubt some unions have acted in less than savory means. Some union executives have become as domineering and untrustworthy as corporate executives. But it is also true that without unions uniform and equitable working conditions, for all employees, would not be as safe and progressive as they are today. 

It’s become acceptable to blame teachers, emergency services personnel and other municipal workers for the skyrocketing public debt of many government entities. In the past, union workers made concessions on wage hikes to secure more golden retirement pension and health care benefits. The politicians who approved those contracts were only too glad to pass the expense on to later generations. 

Clearly something must be done to solve the solvency problem of government outlays. But let’s keep in mind that the workers we are subjecting to Draconian cutbacks many times are the foundation of our present and future. I’d argue teachers are no less important than parents in molding a child’s character and behavior, let alone the quest for knowledge. Are you ready to step outside each day to protect our safety from man, beast, the elements and other unknowns? How’s about riding on the back of a truck collecting garbage in the heat of summer, the frigid blasts of winter? 

We’ve become content with paying these essential workers, along with military personnel who guarantee our freedom and security at the risk of their lives, wages and now benefits that are not commensurate with the value they provide our society. A nurse in a unionized city hospital distributes more tangible, societal value than a hedge fund manager. A fireman contributes more human value than a stock trader. Even a janitor who keeps a school building clean has a job with more positive impact on society than someone crunching derivatives just to make money for money’s sake. 

Being a union member did not confer on them that pedigree. But it didn’t hurt, either.

I was a manager for more than 30 years in a non-union publishing company. I think I treated my editorial and sales staffs fairly, giving them above average salaries, incentives and bonuses to supplement and reward their efforts. I was under no obligation to do so. Indeed, many a year I had to fight upper management for the right to reward my editorial staffers with extra remuneration. 

When I began as a reporter at The New Haven Register in 1972, I earned $150 a week (that’s $7,800 a year for those mathematically challenged) plus a Christmas bonus of a 15-pound turkey, which priced out to about $7.50. After we voted in the Newspaper Guild two years later, my salary was frozen at its $200 a week level ($10,400 a year) during the negotiation period, which lasted more than two years. I left the Register before a settlement was reached. Under the terms won by the union, I would have earned $19,760 a year. Yes, some of that increase would have gone to pay union dues. But no one can convince me it was not the collective efforts of the Guild, representing union and non union workers, that brought financial dignity to the newsroom. 

Look in the Mirror of Reality

Late last year Sylvia landed in the hospital, followed by a rehab center stay. By the time she was discharged and went back to her apartment, she had missed the cutoff date to renew her registration for the Meals on Wheels I deliver in Yonkers each week. Her slot was assigned to another. A government cutback in funding denies program administrators any leeway in adding to their roster of subsidized recipients, so near 90-year-old Sylvia will have to arrange her own meals while she waits to reclaim a spot on the food distribution list. You can easily imagine how the next vacancy might occur.

Sylvia’s plight, and the juggling act social service providers must play given extreme reductions in funding for safety net programs, begs the question: What type of America do we want our parents and grandparents to live in during their sunset years? Alternately, what type of America do we want to leave to our children and grandchildren?

Will it be an America of opportunity or an America in retreat? An America that cares for its vulnerable citizens or an America that shuns collective responsibility?

Matt Bai of the NY Times framed the debate in terms of gluttony vs. neglect (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/us/politics/17bai.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=matt%20bai&st=cse). Democrats would lead us to decline by a spend, spend, spend mentality. Republicans would cut, cut, cut our way to second tier, or lower, status by failing to invest in infrastructure needs.

Are there any statesmen left in America to bridge the gap between these two philosophies?

Sadly, it’s not really the politicians’ fault. Their job is to get elected and re-elected. As the conspirator/patriot? Cassius said in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” Or, as Walt Kelly’s comic strip possum character Pogo related three decades ago, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

We are blinded by imaginary realities. We create mystical memories of politicians, sans warts. The victorious current candidate is the one who can channel his or her own image more strongly with those of heralded predecessors. Democrats fawn over FDR. And JFK. Republicans lionize Ronald Reagan. FDR and JFK created and extended the safety net and universal freedoms. They were not embraced by most wealthy Americans; their constituents came mainly from the working poor and the growing middle class. Reagan, on the other hand, managed to convince common citizens he served their best interests, a legacy Republicans have pounded into the electorate’s head over and over again. Every Republican swears allegiance to Reagan, hoping the public remembers the image, not the reality of his political arc.

When will the Democratic Party start broadcasting reality reports? When will they de-claw the GOP lion by pointing out he raised taxes in seven of his eight years as president, that he nearly tripled the federal budget deficit, that government grew under his tenure, that his adoption of trickle down economic theories hurt the working class and the middle class? Are the Democrats so cowed by the specter of Ronald Reagan they cringe at the prospect of running against his record?

In the play, Man of La Mancha, based on the book Don Quixote, the hero is brought back to reality by the Knight of the Mirrors. “Look in the mirror of reality and behold things as they truly are...thy dream is a nightmare of a disordered mind,” Don Quixote is told.

It is laudable to have a quest, a vision of greatness. But government based on falsehood would be catastrophic. Better to face reality.

Tax and spend is not the way to go, either. We need a reasoned, compromised approach to ensure America’s prosperous future. We cannot strip away funding for education, for social services, for health care, for infrastructure and expect our country will remain great. The other day an alarming report informed that many foreign students opt to return to their native lands, albeit countries where personal freedoms are limited, because they believe opportunities for wealth generation are greater overseas. Some might say, good riddance, but that would be turning our back on America’s history, a past built on the contributions of immigrants.

I want our country to respect the service and value the Sylvias of her generation contributed to American society. We should not force safety net providers to limit their administration of benefits while we dole out tax relief to wealthy individuals and corporations. I want America to challenge the next generations to think not just of themselves but also of the collective good of all. Societies that allow their citizens’ fortunes to bifurcate may survive for an indefinite period, but they invariably rot from within and topple, often in violent seizures. Our greatest threat is not from China, India, Russia or Iran, et al, it is from our failure to learn the lessons of history.

Parenting Skills

Becoming a grandparent revives long dormant parenting skills, but there’s nothing like tending to your grown-up child to truly bring out paternal instincts.

Ellie had minor foot surgery Monday (almost all surgery on someone else is “minor,” whereas even an ingrown toenail cleaning is major if it’s your big toe being rooted around by the doctor. It’s like the often-used line about the economy—it’s a recession if your neighbor loses his job, it’s a depression if you do).

While in college, Ellie hurt her left foot rock climbing. Ten years later the pain and discomfort reached an intolerable level, so with Gilda’s able parenting and medical expertise, Ellie scheduled surgery first thing Monday morning. She stayed with us Sunday night, which meant we had to wake up at 4 am to prepare and get to Beth Israel’s outpatient facility on Union Square (where Gilda conveniently works) by 5:45. She was the first surgery on the docket, yet that still meant a two and a half hour wait until they took her. An hour later we stood by her bed waiting for the anesthesia to fully wear off.

While Gilda went to work on the floor above the surgical unit, Ellie and I made our way back home around noon where my caring manner was put to the test. Every hour I changed the ice pack on her foot. I set up her room with pillows to elevate her foot, an extra blanket nearby in case she needed it, her phone charger plugged into the wall socket next to the bed. I tiptoed around the house, lest my stomping annoy her. For good measure, I also tried to repair two recalcitrant toilets, both of which went on the fritz shortly after Ellie came home Sunday (I couldn’t help but notice the coincidence).

By 5 pm Ellie seemed well on the road to recovery, inconvenience her only issue. She has to wear a short walking boot, even in bed; she has to use crutches to get around, even to the bathroom; she has to keep her foot elevated; there was nothing enticing to watch on TV.

I, on the other hand, am waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. Will I be confronted with an issue I can’t handle? Will I fumble my chance to be helpful—already on the ride home I bumped into her foot while it was extended on the armrest between the two front seats. Wait, I hear her water glass clinking from the other room. Is that her way of subtly calling me? Well, it’s time to change the ice pack again...