Fourth of July - Every Picture Tells a Story

Okay- It's the Fourth of July- Independence Day. I'm not going to lecture you on the Patriotic stuff. Not going to wave the flag at you. I'm going to tell you the story of this photo. And maybe even what it means to me.

The photo itself was taken by Michael held, a friend since departed, in 1974 at Penn Station in NYC. These guys didn't know it at the time, and probably aren't aware of it to this very day- but they are one of many reasons I joined the Service a year or so later.

One of the men shown is a "Lifer". That is someone who enlists and stays in for 35 years or so versus someone who does his 4 years and gets out. You can tell by the "hash" marks sewn on the bottom of his sleeve. He is the one smiling and shaking my hand. Vietnam had ceased the year before and these guys were returning home from overseas due to the winding down of the military at the time. Mike and I were in Manhattan that day to get concert tickets, get stoned and just generally play around.

Now in all of Penn Station you would have been hard pressed to find two more divergent looking groups of people. Naturally they were staring at us and vice versa.This led to some good natured bantering along the lines of "Why don't you get a haircut?" to "What have you been doing while we fought for your freedom?"  Our replies were along the lines of- "We just had one" to "Dating your wives."

Now the point of all this is that this photo, to me, represents the America I love and one that has become increasingly rare. One in which we don't have to agree on everything to get along. We just have to get along. The Powers That Be would love to keep us polarized- but it's up to each one of us, as individuals, to back off a bit- tone it down a notch and learn to tolerate one another again. Just like the photo.

We're all different, but really one and the same. E Pluribus Unum. Happy Fourth everyone! Happy Birthday America! And hell, here's that flag...

The Great Blackout-1965

I was 11 years old and my Mom was getting dinner ready at about 5:25 when the radio station (WABC- 770 AM) went dead for a minute and then came back on. There was a "blackout" of all electrical power on the entire Eastern Seaboard!

Coming only 2 years after JFK's assassination and amid the height of the Cold War no one knew what was really happening. The trains stopped running, traffic signals ceased and traffic became one big gridlock.

We waited and waited for our lights to go out too, but nothing happened! There was an underground transformer beneath Avenue R between East 13th and 14th Streets. This was what kept us in lights. I don't really understand how it worked but it did.

My Dad got home about 7:30 or 8 PM. I'm not sure if he drove or walked. But after he had eaten we took a stroll through the neighborhood. There were policeman directing traffic with flashlights and Auxilary Policeman assisiting where needed. There was no crime, no looting, no panic.

It was the first time I had ever seen the surrounding neighborhood plunged into darkness and it reminded me of all the stories my Mom told about the Blackouts and Air Raid Drills during World War Two.

The neighbors in our apartment building had their doors all opened to the hallway and everyone was wandering from apartment to apartment. There was concern, but no fear. Mr. and Mrs. Gold, who had fled Nazi Germany, went around the building with John, the German Superintendant and his wife Katie, seeing to it that all the elderly were okay. This was a beautiful thing as John had been a German soldier during the war. And now he and his wife were looking after a building full of Jews.

The whole event was indicative of the times. We had not yet been split asunder by the events of Vietnam, which had just started heating up with the draft. We were a couple of years away from the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. Civility still reigned to some extent.

I often look back to that night. The fear, the suspicions, the uncertainty never hit me. I was safe with my family and my stomach was full. Hell, we even had lights!

St. Patrick's Day - Nana and the Orangmen

Growing up with my Irish grandmother only about a mile away on my bicycle, I used to ride over there to see her. She used to tell me stories about how she met my grandfather; who I never met, he died before I was born; and about growing up. But, I was always confused about her stance concerning St. Patrick’s Day. Moreover there seemed to be something going on about “orange men” that confused me even further.

Of course, at the time I had no idea about the religious and political differences which divided Ireland over a thousand years ago. And, even now; at 60 years of age; it is still something I am trying to understand.

First off, that’s Nana above. Born Mary Burke, she was the daughter of my great great grandparents Thomas and Ellen Burke, who moved from Ireland to Brooklyn in the 1850’s. He was a blacksmith and a wheelwright. She stayed home and idid what women did back then; had kids; one of whom was my grandmother “Nana.”

Even my Dad used to joke about not wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day and that orange would drive the average Irishman to drink. Later on I got the joke, but as  a kid I couldn’t understand the thing at all. And then when the Irish-Protestant Troubles kicked up again when I was about 13, I gave up trying to figure it out. I mean if these guys; who both worshiped the same God as far as I could see; were going to kill one another who was I to interfere. As for the orange men; well they sort of faded away into a fairy tale; more of a family joke type of thing.

But this year I resolved to find the answer to that ancient question which has tugged at me since I was a kid; what is an Orangeman and why does his mere existence drive the average Irishman to drink? So, with the help of Aunt Gloria; who is an expert on Orangemen; and the assistance of Wikipedia, this is what I have learned.

I figure that the Williams family didn’t want to be considered Irish; but then my Welsh great grandfather Isaac married an Irish woman, my Nana, pictured above. So, it probably started as a joke between them, but then that wouldn’t explain why Nana no longer wore the green after he passed away. Nor would it explain why my Dad especially used to deny being Irish; stressing the English part of the family tree instead. So, we turn to history.

There is an organization called the Orange Institution which holds hundreds of parades throughout Northern Ireland annually. The biggest one is held on July 12^th, in honor of the Battle of the Boyne. Okay, so what was the Battle of the Boyne? Guessing it has something to do with the English and also the division between the Irish Catholic and the Anglican Church. There are also others throughout the year to commemorate the Battle of the Somme. Some of the parades are confrontational, depending on the routes they take.

There are different “neighborhoods” in Belfast where the sentiment runs strong as to whether or not you are an Orangeman; or a Nationalist or Republican. Many of these divisions go back earlier than the Troubles of 1916.

There are also many parades on St. Patrick's Day in Northern Ireland, not just Belfast. Mainly the parade commemorates the Patron Saint Patrick and his place as Patron Saint of Ireland. He is also recognized as the Patron Saint of both Unionists and Nationalists. So now I am totally confused over this Orangeman stuff and besides, Nana was Irish right down to the way she inserted r’s into words like “beirl” and “toirlet”. And if that ain’t Irish, then I’ll eat that hat.

WTC Museum - Cash Cow

The World Trade Center Museum has been hijacked. Not physically. Financially. The City of New York, along with the Port Authority have both resisted the efforts of many American’s; including the families of the victims; to have the Museum taken over by the National Park Service. You have to wonder why since they have been complaining about the cost of operating it since before it even opened.

Last week the WTC Museum Commission asked for the okay to charge $24 for admission to the hallowed grounds where terrorists struck in 2001. So, I began to look into who the people were on the Commission itself. It’s a long list, many of whom are nothing more than political donors. I called and asked to speak with someone about the museum and the admission price. I was transferred to a Mr. Quido. I am not making that up. I am also still waiting on that return call.

I happened to voice my concerns to a friend of mine in New York and the very next day he ran across the following Letter to the Editor in a paper called “The Chief”, a paper which caters to Civil Service Employees in NYC.  The letter speaks volumes, and summarizes my concerns so well that I am posting it here. 

Decide for yourself what you think is right. Personally, I think that when you realize the game of extortion being played out by the Commission you will agree that the Museum needs to be taken over by the National Park Service, just like the USS Arizona in Hawaii.

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To The Editor:

In the latest example of money-grubbing by the excessively high-salaried management of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, it now appears they are demanding a handout from NY City and State for millions of dollars to satisfy their bloated salaries and fiscal mismanagement.

According to the Wall Street Journal ("9/11 Memorial to Seek Funds From  New York's Mayor," 1/15/14), the memorial and museum foundation (which is chaired by Michael Bloomberg) is asking Mayor de Blasio and the city to pay for nearly a third of its bloated budget.

We agree with Mayor de Blasio's spokesperson, Marti Adams, that the Federal Government must play a "central role" in funding. However, instead of a handout, we insist that the well-respected  National Park Service take over the complete control of the 9/11 memorial and museum and bring the professionalism and fiscal constraints that this out-of-control situation at Ground Zero so desperately needs.

In addition, it appears legislation is yet again being prepared for introduction in the U.S. Senate to provide Federal funding for the memorial and museum. This comes on the heels of a failed attempt in 2011 by the memorial foundation to "allow" for the Department of the Interior (National Park Service) to accept a "gift" of the property of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in return for a $20 million annual stipend.

Many 9/11 families continue to oppose a bailout plan- they do not feel the Federal Government should pay for an enormously-expensive memorial and museum in which the Federal Government- as well as the families of the victims- had virtually no role in the nearly one billion dollar design and planning.

We therefore petition Senators Charles Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand, Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo, to support fiscal responsibility and patriotism, and advocate for a bill in which the National Park Service can assume complete control and operation of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum at Ground Zero.

This is the least that the victims of 9/11, their grieving families, and the American public deserve.

Chief Jim Riches

FDNY (retired)

Chairman, 9/11 Parents and Families of Firefighters and WTC Victims

Fiction vs. Non Fiction

I have often wondered why people take real life events, with all the drama they afford, and turn the events into fiction. "Titanic" with Leonardo DiCaprio springs to mind.

So I was a bit taken aback when I read a review of the new E.L. Doctorow novel "Homer and Langley." He sets the story in the 1950's several years after the brothers died. He even has them dying at seperate times! This is a book I will probably not read- but let me tell you the real story, as I remember it being told by my Uncle Irving when I was about 8 years old.

I had been going in and out of the deserted houses that were coming down all over my neighborhood to make way for new apartment buildings. My Uncle found out and told me of the structural dangers and possible pit falls attendant to playing in such places.

This is the story he told me- Once there were two brothers,Langley and Homer Collyer, who lived at 128th Street and 5th Avenue in an old brownstone. They were hoarders. That is, they kept everything and anything.

Born to a Gynecologist, Herman Collyer and their mother Susie Frost, they were said to have roots extending back to Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower. The parents were both dead by 1929 and Homer and Langley were left to their own devices.

They both had Columbia University degrees. One was in Admirality Law and the other in Engineering. They continued living in the family home even as the demographics of the neighborhood changed around them.

Acting on rumours of great wealth hidden in the old brownstone, several attempts were made to break in during the 1930's. This resulted in one brother booby trapping the entire house. The brothers lived as virtual recluses for years. In 1939 they lost their electric and water due to non payment of utility bills. Langley fetched his water from a park 4 blocks away at night! Homer, blind and crippled by 1933 was under the care of Langley for the rest of his life.Neither brother worked but when the City tried to foreclose on the property for tax reasons in 1939 Langley wrote a check and paid the amount in full.

Around 1943 the press found the story too compelling to ignore and went in to the house to investigate. They found piles of newspapers floor to ceiling. Langley claimed that he was saving them for Homer when he regained his sight. Langley had actually started his brother on a diet of 100 oranges per week in a hope that the massive amounts of Vitiman C would do the trick.

Someone passing by the house in March of 1947 smelled a foul order and called in a tip to Police. It took 7 men to get in the house and past all the rubbish. They found Homer, newly dead and not the cause of the smell. Dependent upon Langley for food he had died blind and alone about 10 hours earlier of starvation.

Langley would be found weeks later,the body trapped beneath one of his own booby traps. Most of the junk in the house was worthless bric a brac and newspapers, boxes and string. There was also a large cache of guns and ammuntion.

So this is a perfect example of why I read Non-Fiction. You can't make up stuff as good as this.