I have been around the block more than a few times and I have a very long memory when it comes to all things political. I was bitten by the political bug at a young age when I first saw John F. Kennedy in a motorcade in Manhattan during his presidential campaign in 1960. It was also my first tickertape parade, so it made quite an impression. I remember watching the local television reporter that evening who had stood a few yards from the spot where my Grandmother and I stood near the Battery in lower Manhattan as this constant fall of paper tape cascaded and whirled around us before it hit the ground. Kennedy was young, strong, and decidedly ruggedly handsome with a glint in his eyes that charmed the general public. My father, a veteran of World War II who, like JFK had sustained injuries while in combat, was enthusiastic about this campaign, and voted for him that November.
I remember watching the election results being reported on our black and white set with flip card numbers being used by the anchors who reported results as they came in on the telephone.
Because of a major snow storm, schools were closed on that Inauguration Monday and we were able to watch the swearing in ceremony and the parade that followed. I remember Robert Frost being there reading a poem, "The Gift Outright". In a later iteration, I would watch Maya Angelou reading her poem written for a later inauguration as well. She read her "On the Pulse of a Morning" at Bill Clinton's Inaugeration in 1993, the only poet asked to be at one of these ceremonies thirty-two years after Frost.
In between those two events there were other memorable elections: Mario Cuomo as Governor of New York, who was later at the swearing in of his son, Andrew Cuomo, our current governor; David Dinkins and Ed Koch both elected mayor of New York; Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, the Bush's father and son, Barack Hussain Obama, and finally the election of 2016 and the ascent of Donald Trump.
The current days of political screaming and yelling has brought me back to other similar events of the past: the Watergate scandal and downfall of Richard Nixon. I remember it almost as if it were yesterday, and I can see and hear the ghosts of Richard Nixon, HR Haldeman and Martha Mitchell as I watch the current flock of White House staffers scramble to duck and cover from the inevitable fall out that is soon to come.
I remember my Aunt Marie, at first annoyed that her favorite afternoon soap opera was pre-empted by the hearings on the hill in the House, and the work and presentations to the panel of Congressional representatives, one of whom, Elizabeth Holtzman, was my congresswoman. She later sat hypnotized by the hearings, watching every broadcast wondering how this would affect her daughter who was working in the White House as part of the Nixon clerical staff. She survived, and went on to serve three more presidents. I remember the very glamorous and blond Maureen Dean who sat stoically behind her husband John who told Nixon "There is a cancer on the White House." Dean has emerged after doing his time to be a commentator and talking head on various cable news networks. I am not sure if he is still with Maureen.
I can remember that it was not so much the botched burglary at the Watergate Complex...a place my cousin was living in at the time, but the cover-up that was the "gotcha" moment. I feel we are headed down that same path now. This is becoming the proverbial "train wreck" you can see coming, but just can't stop. I hope I am wrong, but as a student of history, I know it can repeat itself, if people do not heed it or learn lessons from it. Perhaps it is time to dust off that old copy of "All The President's Men" and send it to some folks inside the Beltway.
For your reference:
The Gift Outright
The land was ours before we were the land's.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England's, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.
A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spelling words
Armed for slaughter.
The rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A river sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more.
Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I
And the tree and stone were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow
And when you yet knew you still knew nothing.
The river sings and sings on.
There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing river and the wise rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew,
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek,
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the tree.
Today, the first and last of every tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river.
Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river.
Each of you, descendant of some passed on
Traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name,
You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca,
You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me,
Then forced on bloody feet,
Left me to the employment of other seekers--
Desperate for gain, starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru,
Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am the tree planted by the river,
Which will not be moved.
I, the rock, I the river, I the tree
I am yours--your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage,
Need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts.
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me,
The rock, the river, the tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes,
Into your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.
