My Talk

Last evening, I gave a talk on the art of writing letters to the editor of the New York Times. I think, and hope it was well received.

For those unable to attend, don't worry. You can hear my words, from first to last.

Part essay, part pieces on politics, sports and the highs and lows of life, a bit of poetry (with a nod to Dr. Seuss), and hopefully much poetic sounding prose.

I hope you enjoy.

Patriotism on Bended Knee

("The Uses of Patriotism")

In the wake of 9/11, there was a fervor to project unity and strength, a love for this country and for each other. We wrapped ourselves in the flag and sang our national anthem arm in arm. Rudy Giuliani made a career out of this patriotism, with his noun, a verb and 9/11. 

But we were not then a country at peace with itself, our political parties at war and our citizens armed with words and actions against one another. And 15 years later, we remain a house deeply divided.

We are a nation in crisis, and no singing of a national anthem can hide our flaws. We do not need to rise in unison to show we are as one. Instead we need to do the hard work that remains undone, recognize our shortcomings and strive to overcome them, meet our prejudices, our biases and hatreds head on.

Like the rallying cry of "Hamilton" , "we're gonna rise up", but we rise to fight the injustice not to mask it. And until we act in concert according to the aspirations of our anthem, Mr. Kaepernick and others aggrieved, whether high schooler or pro, football player or bricklayer, have good cause to kneel in silent protest. 

It is not in the words of an anthem but the actions of its citizens that this country can reveal its greatness.

Hillary Clinton and the Deplorable Donald Trump

   Trump's "Deplorable" Deflections

We can protest his hypocrisy, paraphrase his travesties, ridicule his heartlessness. But even as we belittle Mr. Trump for his belittling of so many, we cannot but be troubled by Ms.Clinton's oops moment.

Do not say she spoke the truth, though that might be so. It is in the castigation itself that the damage is done. It is not that so many of Mr. Trump's followers are bonded by anger, hatred, bias and resentment but that EVERY Republican voter feels that Ms. Clinton may have been pointing an accusing finger at them personally. 

Like Mr. Trump's attack on all Mexicans, although some "might be good" or Mr. Romney's 47 per cent remark, Ms. Clinton's demeaning an entire group is but recipe for disaster. Putting people in buckets, or binders, can only put you in a bind.

Sisyphus and Hillary Clinton

("Hillary Clinton's Sick Days")

Donald Trump entered our home not through the front door but the television. He spoke to us not in the coffee shop but from a stage in an arena. He reminded us of his greatness, and others frailties, from his computer. He didn't study policy. Heck, he didn't even read. 

Hillary Clinton has spent a lifetime pushing a boulder up a hill. She has done the hard work, the hardest really, logging the countless hours of learning, traveling the remotest of roads, fighting the toughest of battles. And for all her effort, all her energy devoted to us and the cause of humanity, she has endured far more slings and arrows across the bow than she ever deserved.

And where Mr. Trump most certainly would have been applauded for persevering through illness, Ms. Clinton is taunted, and it is suggested she is too weak to hold the highest office. The truth is that she is probably the strongest, physically and mentally of anyone we have seen upon this stage, a person who does not quit, does not surrender, does not back down. 

So, while Mr. Trump heads back to his own bed for a night's sleep, Ms. Clinton once more is forced to roll that boulder back up the hill. With any luck, this time she will make it to the top.

Trump and the Applause Sign

("Donald Trump's Ideology of Applause")

 "Did you see the polls today?" was his primary theme song, "the Wall" his go to whenever the crowd seemed to be drifting off. 

He is an entertainer, trying out his shtick, seeing what the hoi polloi responds best to, creating not a platform but a series of routines.

 

When his Don Rickles impression got a thumbs up, Trump became a serial basher. If one "bit" got tired, or the  response sour,  like with his "McCain is no hero", he could just move on in search of the next victim. 

Far too much of America has been taken in by a charlatan, a deeply flawed candidate masquerading as whatever sells well in the moment. He is a chameleon, able to change positions in a flash, tethered not to any beliefs but only to the next routine that gathers applause. 

It is not the stuff that heroes are made of. Nor a President.

A Kid in a Candy Store

For me it was like walking through the dugout past Mickey, Yogi and Whitey. There they were, Gail, Nick and Frank. Part of Murderer's Row, or as the public commonly refers to them, op ed writers for the New York Times.

 

Having spent almost every morning over these past years in a very one sided relationship with Gail Collins, Nicholas Kristof, Frank Bruni and others in the lineup from Paul Krugman to David Brooks, Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd, Charles Blow and Ross Douthat, I felt like I knew them intimately. I wondered if any of them read the letter's section of their paper, if any of them ever commented to themselves about one of my critiques of a column they wrote. But I couldn't ask, as I was but a guest in their home.

I had called Sue earlier in the day, told her I was working on her street (which I was, even though it was sort of on the opposite side of the city) and asked if I could stop by later. When I met up with her I advised that, apart from my wife, she and Tom knew more about my thoughts and feelings than anyone. She chuckled. Sue, Tom and Mary comprise the team of editors in the letters department of the Times. 

My son said I must have been like a kid in a candy store. I can only imagine my permanent grin as Sue escorted me around, showing me a little of the layout of the letters page for tomorrow's paper, telling me who resided in what office or cubicle. There the reporters sat, over there the video equipment for the on-line pieces. 

In some way I think Sue was as anxious to meet me as I was to finally be face to face with her. Who, after all, was this man who corresponded with her several days a week for nearly a decade? When the elevator door opened was she surprised to see a small, bald, semi-old man emerge? And was she disappointed that I was certainly much smarter, much more erudite on paper than I was in person? If she was, she hid it well, making me feel more like an honored guest than a wide eyed interloper. 

It is a very strange obsession that has attached to my being. There can be but a few handful of others like me who have made a passionate, long term commitment to writing to the New York Times.  Sue and I spoke of a possible gathering in the future of our small group of the most persistent. Where we can exchange our tales, discuss the hours spent revealing our thoughts to strangers, sizing up our competition. And maybe even meeting the Babe Ruth of our team, Felicia. If I have hit a few home runs over the years, Felicia has smacked hundreds.

When it was time to leave and I finally let Sue get back to her job, there was more than a touch of sadness. When I walked out into the street I was no longer that guy whose letters showed up regularly in the New York Times, but just another nameless person walking back to his car, fighting the traffic on the West Side Highway, heading home for the evening. 

But oh what a glorious tale I had to tell. Me, Frank, Gail and Nick, together at last. Imagining, as I strolled by, one of them exclaiming, "is that really Nussbaum? Do you think I could talk to him for a minute?"

The way it was always meant to be.

The Heart of Darkness

AN EDITED VERSION OF THIS POST IS SCHEDULED TO APPEAR IN THE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR SECTION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES


("The Black Eyes in Trump's Life")

 A black eye to a teacher. A bad newspaper boy.  A childish stunt with a fellow student. Errors by underlings on housing requests. Allegations of sexual improprieties. Three marriages. I can hear the Trump supporters right now saying "is that the best you've got?"

But I would suggest it is not in the litany of what Mr. Trump has done wrong, but what he has not done right over his 70 years that should speak volumes. Where, with all this money and power, did Mr. Trump put it to good use? What charities has he supported with significant monies from his own pocket? What journeys has he made to help those in need? What are the list not of his bad works, but of his good ones?

For the heart of this small, petty, virulent man lies not in what he has accomplished but what he has failed to accomplish. Not in his towers,in his casinos, in his golf courses, but in the hospitals that do not bear his name, in the streets he has not walked comforting those whose life has made a turn for the worse, in the days and nights, the years and the decades he has not devoted to using his fame and wealth to benefit anyone but himself.

The tragedy and travesty that is Donald Trump should be centered not on his myriad mistakes but rather on the absence of anything positive that would make his life one worth admiring.

Death By a Thousand Cuts

("Hillary Clinton Gets Gored")
 

Hillary Clinton has been cut up and picked at more than a piece of bad meat at a wedding. She has been dissected as often as a frog in a science class.

Her alleged misdeeds run from Benghazi to Whitewater, from email abuse to abuse of Monica, from favors for Sidney Blumenthal to Huma Abedin, from Wall Street speeches to Clinton Foundation meetings, seemingly from the time of her birth to the death of Vince Foster.

And yet, what have all these allegations, all these insinuations, all these malevolent implications revealed?
 

For all the effort to discredit Ms.Clinton, to find a way to get her thrown in jail or at least get her out of their hair, the Republican machine has managed to find a bunch of smoke but absolutely no raging fire.
 

Hillary Clinton is deemed dishonest and untrustworthy because that is how she has been forever branded.  If you, I or even Mr. Krugman were investigated to the degree that this candidate had been, we too would be considered damaged goods. And if Mr. Trump and his various questionable endeavors had undergone the level of scrutiny to which Ms. Clinton had been subjected, I think we all well know what the outcome would have revealed.
 

Death by a thousand cuts is the burden Ms. Clinton has had to carry with her every step of this campaign. Sometimes it must get very heavy.

The Day I Quit the Game

It had been leading to this all summer. In almost six decades of playing golf I had never experienced anything like this. My wife's advise to quit kept running through my head as I made my way from hole to hole.

I said little to my playing partner. Though we shared a cart, not much conversation took place each time I hopped in. He basically left me to my own thoughts, sensing there was something different going on in my head.

I was so little when the clubs were first put in my hand, only six. My dad was a golfer, and if he liked it, well so did I. I was a natural, the game coming to me easily and the scores descending rapidly. Though I was lazy and never interested in practicing, for several years in my teens I could give a pretty good scare to par on some days.

As I meandered around the course this Saturday in early September,  I thought about the countless occasions I had made my way from tee to green. Of the time three decades past when the magic had been there for a full round. Hole in one, two chip ins and a final total of 71. Of all the years that followed and all the disappointments, the thrown clubs, the sulking and whining, the joy having vanished, the good walk spoiled.

But nothing had prepared me for what had happened this summer. It began with the thousandth adjustment to my swing, as I searched for a way to relocate the manner in which I had been able to tame the beast so many years before.

I was at the range, a place that I still almost never frequented, but frustration had forced me there. "Do this" I thought to myself. And I did. And for one shot, that slice which had been my constant companion longer than my wife, was nowhere to be seen. The ball flew straight and true, the geometry of swing and result as if Einstein had invented a new theory of relativity.

I thought of that moment, and of the ones that had preceded today during the course of this summer, as I made my way, hole to hole and shot to shot on this Saturday morning.

It was as if I drank from the fountain of youth when I emerged from the driving range that day in the early spring of 2016. I was no more the old guy with the bad back, the one who could only report of having once consistently shot scores in the 70's. I was that kid again.

I never kept a handicap, never kept an ongoing record of my rounds, but I knew that 13 of my last 17 scores had been under 80. And I could feel that something wonderful and unique was possible.

I parred the pretty difficult first, a hole that had always given me headaches in the past. My drive had been pushed, but instead of landing in the trap, it caromed off the side and landed in perfect position. If good luck could follow me this day, well who knew where this might be headed.

Par on two, par on three. Birdie on four, snaking in a twenty footer with a big left to right break. I never made left to right putts. Birdie on five. Now I was two under.

In all the years of chasing a dimpled ball around a pasture, I don't think I ever stood on a tee at two under par.  I take that back. I did once, that day decades removed when the stars aligned and I posted that 71. I was three under that day but bogeys on 17 and 18 left the final tally a mere shot the right side of heaven.

On six, I had my first bobble. An errant second shot landed me in the bunker to the right of the green. In this the summer of my great "content" my sand play had been mediocre at best. Now I hit a crisp shot, only to watch it trickle down an incline and come to rest nearly 20 feet from the hole. Another tough left to righter. Another putt made. Still two under.

A mistake on seven led to the first bogey of the day. Almost birdied eight. Still one under.

Nine was one of the two hardest fours on the course. Out of bounds on the right, the slope bringing balls in that direction and almost willing bad swings. I don't think I ever played this hole in par, for even after my best drive, I would be left with an uphill 175 yard shot to a place where more trouble lurked. Today a four foot straight putt was all that lay between me and a 34 on the front nine. I missed.

Par for this course had been 70 for nearly all its existence. But too many errant tee shots off the tee on the par four eleventh had  led to litigation with an irate homeowner, turned 70 to 69, four to three and 360 to 180.

Par on 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and then birdie on 15, barely missing eagle with my chip shot into the par 5. Par on 16.

I stood on the 17th tee at one under, two potential pars away from a 68. Forget that this was not a hard layout, forget that this was a perfect day, no breeze to distract and challenge my shots. Nothing else mattered but what was almost in my grasp.

Over the years, through all the frustration and angst, all the times I wondered out loud why I continued to go back to the course seeking to retrieve something I had lost nearly a half century earlier, there had been one consistent message from my wife: "you should have quit the day you shot that 71." She had been with me then, had witnessed first hand the ball disappearing into the cup in a single stroke from the tee. And, as I stood on 17, I thought again about her advise.

Decent tee shot on 17, followed by a really well struck seven iron, but it ended up at the back of the green. After my first three putt of the day I arrived at 18 needing par for 69.

I had been like a pitcher throwing a no hitter, sitting by himself at the end of the dugout, alone with his thoughts, nobody mentioning the obvious for fear the next batter would hit a vicious line drive single up the middle.

I had slipped but once. As I approached my birdie putt on 15, someone from the neighboring tee on 16 announced to my group that he had just birdied the last hole. "I need the birdie putt to go one under for the day." I retorted. Couldn't allow someone else a ray of sunshine when the day was only about my glory, even if it meant challenging the no hit taboo.

18 was about a 370 yard par four with little trouble, especially to the left, unless you pulled the ball very far to a grove of trees. Which I did, as I let out a bit of a primal scream. Only as the ball hit one tree squarely it rebounded into the fairway. Luck had followed me from the first tee shot to the last.

But the angle of return had been decidedly backward and so my wood second shot came up a little short. The chip which followed brought me to within about 12 feet of 69.

As the putt began its right to left curl, it looked true and pure. About two inches from glory, the ball came to rest, seemingly unaware of what one additional roll would have meant.

"That would have been for 69" my cart companion informed our other two partners. Somehow they seemed unimpressed, more focused on their eight footers than taking in the greatness of my accomplishment.

So, after nearly six decades of mulligans and gimmes, of shanks and three putts, of wind and rain, of trials and tribulations, I had played probably the best round of my life. If I had somehow managed to par 17 and 18, the asterisk would have been removed.

My wife's words kept running through my head on my drive home. Wouldn't this be the perfect time to pack it in, going out in style, like Kevin Costner had in that movie about the aging pitcher who found one last moment of glory, threw a no hitter and then headed into the sunset?

I pulled into the garage, took the clubs out of the trunk and put them gently against the wall. I walked into the house, shouted a greeting to my wife and son and headed to the computer.

I thought to myself,  "I should see if my friends can play Wednesday." So much for the day I quit the game.

Wrapping Ourselves in the American Flag

("Americans and Their Flag")

We watch our Olympic athletes, in the moments after triumph, literally drape themselves in the flag. We listen to our politicians speak with huge red, white and blue reminders of their allegiance to this country looming in the background.

"Oh say can you see I am a patriot, oh say can you see I believe in everything this flag symbolizes." 

But what if the flag is tinged in the blood of injustice, in the words of hatred, in the acts of oppression? Do we have the same mandate to wrap ourselves in it then? Or do we have the right, as Mr. Kaepernick, to shed our blind adherence, to open our eyes and our mouths to the wrongs being perpetrated? Doesn't our flag allow us, even invite us, the right to express our dissatisfaction that the ideals envisioned in our anthem and symbolized by that flag are not being maintained?

There will always be visceral response to an athlete, particularly a black athlete, speaking his mind. "We pay you to perform for us, not to engage in discourse with us. Your job is not to make us think."

But it is the job of every American to put this nation's ideals to the test, and when that examination reveals our faults, to voice in ways deep and profound, the disappointment in our shortcomings. Mr. Kaepernick by his action and words is not abandoning us, but merely embracing what our flag, our anthem, intends.