WWII combat pilot. Astronaut. Senator. Most of us would be extremely lucky to have but one of those on our resume. John Glenn, who passed away this week, did it all… he even went back into space at the age of 77, aboard the Discovery space shuttle.
On February 20th, 1997, the thirty-fifth anniversary of the date he became the first American to orbit the earth, John Glenn announced his retirement from the Senate in a speech in his hometown of New Concord, Ohio, at Muskingum College, his alma mater. Here are a few excerpts that ring very true today:
To me, a willingness to build peaceful relationships with other countries is perhaps the most profound measure of a great nation.
The enemies I’m talking about are cynicism, apathy, selfishness, hostility toward government and incivility toward one another.
We didn’t win our world leadership by bemoaning our fate, by overemphasizing our shortcomings, by carping about what was bad — but by building on what was good. And we rose on the strength of our ideas and on the ingenuity and self-confidence of our people, with education for all, and emphasis on curiosity and research into the unknown.
Democracy in our country must be constantly reinvented – it must be fought for. And nothing worth fighting for comes easy.
Don’t tune out, cop out or drop out. Don’t give in to complacency and cynicism. Don’t ignore what is bad, but concentrate on building what is good… and never forget that in our democracy, the government is not “them” — it is “us.”
In fact, one thing I’ve learned in my 75 years on this planet is that the happiest and most fulfilled people I’ve known are those who devoted themselves to something bigger and more profound than merely their own self interest. And I’ve learned that there is nothing in this world more special than the simple act of helping others.
Get the full range of information available to you. Don’t let your views of government and politics and world events be formed through the filter of other people’s biases or ignorance. Develop your own ideas, for you are the government. If you want to join a political party, by all means do so. But before you do, read up on the issues and define in your own mind what political values and principles are most important to you. Then choose a party. Don’t join a party just because your friends or your parents are associated with it.
Fight for equal rights for all people; battle racism and ethnic hatred; build bridges between people and generations. Your work may not make headlines or send you on ticker-tape parades – but you will make a difference. And you will know it. You will know it. and that will be reward enough.
If today’s politics lack civility, my reaction is not to run away — but to work harder until we make it better. When I see people in public office whose ideas and policies would lead us backwards instead of forward, would gut educational opportunities, would cut help to children who otherwise have little hope, would cast senior citizens aside, my impulse is not to quit but to stay and fight for the kind of future Ohio needs and America deserves.
I believe the day will come when this nation finally and forever lays aside racism, sexism and every other “ism” that divides and cripples us. And I believe we will yet make the old dream of justice a new American reality.
Playing Bowie’s “Space Oddity” would make sense here, but I have to give some love to a Cincinnati band instead:
It’s time for another guest column from my old and dear friend (he’s more old than dear), Dave B. Also known as “Mookie” for reasons that shall remain unnamed (because I can’t remember). Dave and I are of the same vintage, and he has some Jack Handey style “deep thoughts” about the aging process, and what happens when the balloon of big dreams meets the thumbtack of reality.
Without further ado, Mookie:
Everyone has goals in life. Some are super lofty, and in retrospect you might look back and say “WTF was I thinking? I had neither the ambition nor the life tools to achieve that!”
As we get older, we scale back a bit. Followed by even more concessions and re-calibrations as you sense your ultimate timeline winding down.
Where did I start and where did I end up? Let’s take a look and later you can play the home game version with your own goals.
Age 5: Be a garbage man. Should have stuck with this one. I could have done this. Really. I had the U.S. public education and the physical and mental tools. By now I’d be retired with a nice city pension, instead of still toiling away for “The Man.” I think about this every time I throw away the plastic wrapper on yet another bottle of Advil.
Age 12: Own a Ferrari. Hoo-boy, I was way off on this one. Those damn posters at Spencer’s Gifts and Alex P. Keaton-era Republican rhetoric led me to believe that anything was possible if you worked hard. I settled for a Prius later.
Age 16: Have a supermodel wife. Hey, I’m no Tom Brady but I didn’t fail in this department. I punch WAYYYY outta my weight class, as anyone who has met my lovely bride will tell you. She’s never been on the Victoria Secret holiday special but she’s a little bit ‘o alright.
Fast forward to Age 30: Hey maybe a I can get a Porsche 911. I know how to work on cars and have restored one. I can get a 911 at the bottom of its depreciation curve and retire it. Nope. Life and family squished that.
The car I restored
The car I’ll never have
Age 40: Retire and be able to travel at will. Be a traveling ambassador. Enjoy the world and try to make it a better place. Nope. Thanks Wall Street! You greedy bastards single-handedly tanked the world economy and my 401K. I hope you all die lonely and in a lot of pain… but you won’t. Everyone loves money and you rodents squirreled away enough with your golden parachutes to ensure the highest quality healthcare and enough hangers-on to not die alone. So unfair.
Age 50: Sadly my only achievable goal left is to finish an entire tube of ChapStick before I leave it in my pocket and it goes through the wash and coats everything in a lovely-smelling waxy film.
Keep reaching for the stars! Hope your swan song looks a hell of a lot cooler than mine!
Thank goodness “Cyber Monday” is over. I don’t think my email inbox could handle another day of overload like this:
(This is just an unedited, screen-grab sample of the email I received, there’s plenty more where that came from.)
Until a few years ago, I thought “Sweetest Day” was the worst retailer ruse that could be foisted upon us, the smartest scam manufactured by marketers in a ceaseless effort to separate unsuspecting customers from their hard-earned cash (or credit). But Cyber Monday has taken it to a whole new level… or an all-time low.
Kudos to the 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation for creating #GivingTuesday:
You don’t really need that new gizmo. But 42 million Americans are food insecure. 564,708 people in the U.S. are homeless on any given night. 783 million people around the globe do not have access to clean water and almost 2.5 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation. Please find a charity that speaks to you, and open up your heart and your wallet. Not just today, but all year long.
A few things I’ve read recently have really rung true, and I think they’re worth pondering before we share food and fellowship with family and friends today.
“What I say to them is that people are complicated,” Obama told me. “Societies and cultures are really complicated. . . . This is not mathematics; this is biology and chemistry. These are living organisms, and it’s messy. And your job as a citizen and as a decent human being is to constantly affirm and lift up and fight for treating people with kindness and respect and understanding. And you should anticipate that at any given moment there’s going to be flare-ups of bigotry that you may have to confront, or may be inside you and you have to vanquish. And it doesn’t stop. . . . You don’t get into a fetal position about it. You don’t start worrying about apocalypse. You say, O.K., where are the places where I can push to keep it moving forward.”
Here’s Pope Francis addressing the newly installed cardinals this past Sunday:
Ours is an age of grave global problems and issues. We live at a time in which polarization and exclusion are burgeoning and considered the only way to resolve conflicts. We see, for example, how quickly those among us with the status of a stranger, an immigrant, or a refugee, become a threat, take on the status of an enemy. An enemy because they come from a distant country or have different customs. An enemy because of the color of their skin, their language or their social class. An enemy because they think differently or even have a different faith. An enemy because… And, without our realizing it, this way of thinking becomes part of the way we live and act. Everything and everyone then begins to savor of animosity. Little by little, our differences turn into symptoms of hostility, threats and violence. How many wounds grow deeper due to this epidemic of animosity and violence, which leaves its mark on the flesh of many of the defenseless, because their voice is weak and silenced by this pathology of indifference! How many situations of uncertainty and suffering are sown by this growing animosity between peoples, between us! Yes, between us, within our communities, our priests, our meetings. The virus of polarization and animosity permeates our way of thinking, feeling and acting. We are not immune from this and we need to take care lest such attitudes find a place in our hearts, because this would be contrary to the richness and universality of the Church, which is tangibly evident in the College of Cardinals. We come from distant lands; we have different traditions, skin color, languages and social backgrounds; we think differently and we celebrate our faith in a variety of rites. None of this makes us enemies; instead, it is one of our greatest riches.”
And now for something completely different (but not really), here’s a quote from writer/director/actor Harold Ramis in a Judd Apatow book called Sick in the Head that features interviews with famous comedy folks:
“Life is ridiculous, so why not be a good guy?”
And for dessert, there’s this classic from the Dalai Lama:
So yes, today is a day to be thankful. But every day is a day to be kind. Happy Thanksgiving!
It’s a recent photo of our 15-year-old son Peter (he’s just being a goofball throwing up gang signs – love his sense of humor), contrasted with a photo of him from what seems like weeks ago, but in reality was nearly a decade and a half ago. I know every parent says “it goes so fast” but I usually don’t think about it much, until I’m confronted with it every morning as I grab eggs out of the fridge.
Sure, it makes me sad to realize that our babies are growing up, but it’s also a great reminder to cherish making Peter’s breakfast every weekday morning (2 eggs, scrambled, with cheddar cheese) instead of considering it a thankless chore. Soon enough, he’ll be getting his own breakfast at college (and it had better not be kegs and eggs!).
This trip down memory lane made me think of a great tune from 22 years ago, a song by the Velvet Crush called “Time Wraps Around You.” (Never heard of the Velvet Crush? Neither has 99.4% of America – and that’s a crying shame.) It’s on one of my favorite “hidden gem” albums of all time, Teenage Symphonies To God.
Leonard Cohen, the “songwriter’s songwriter” passed away earlier this week. His best-known song, “Hallelujah,” had an interesting gestation period. It first came out on Cohen’s 1984 album, but didn’t really make much of a splash. Jeff Buckley covered it in spectacular fashion a decade later, but it wasn’t until after Buckley passed away in 1997 that the song actually hit the mainstream. It was featured in the first Shrek film in 2001, but again there was a bit of a twist. A version by John Cale (Velvet Underground) was featured in the movie, but a version by Rufus Wainwright was on the movie’s soundtrack album.
I think it’s great that Cohen was still writing and recording until the very end (his latest album came out earlier this year). I think it’s sad that he was cheated out of millions by his former manager and had to tour the world in his 70’s (387 shows from 2008-2013) just to try to replenish his nest egg.
While “Hallelujah” is Leonard Cohen’s most famous song, his tune “Democracy” is the one that’s really striking a chord with me during election week:
Just like with “Hallelujah” something tells me there might be a bit of a time lag before the lyrics of this song truly catch on as well, but I hope it’s soon:
It’s coming from the sorrow in the street The holy places where the races meet From the homicidal bitchin’ That goes down in every kitchen To determine who will serve and who will eat From the wells of disappointment Where the women kneel to pray For the grace of God in the desert here And the desert far away: Democracy is coming to the USA
Sail on, sail on Oh mighty ship of State To the shores of need Past the reefs of greed Through the Squalls of hate Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on
It’s coming to America first The cradle of the best and of the worst It’s here they got the range And the machinery for change And it’s here they got the spiritual thirst It’s here the family’s broken And it’s here the lonely say That the heart has got to open In a fundamental way Democracy is coming to the USA
Kevin Sullivan on Life advice from a man who lived it: “A good one Damian. Bring our lens into focus after the long weekend or our long life journey.” Jul 7, 09:38
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