Personal
Personal reflections, comments about things I've been doing, etc.
Bernie and Me
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 09:21This morning, I turned off the radio’s morning news program as I drove my daughter to summer camp. I’ve heard enough about Bernie Madoff. It was time to talk with my daughter. Off to the left a man was mowing part of the town golf course. The town bought the golf course earlier this year when it went into bankruptcy and has been doing a great job of bringing it back to life. I, too, have suffered economic hardships over the past couple years, but today, the sun was shining and Fiona was ready for camp.
This year, Fiona is attending the Woodbridge Recreation Department’s summer camp. It takes place at the local elementary school. The little island at the beginning of the school’s driveway was festooned with beach balls and a man sitting in a beach chair waving at each incoming camper. Brightly colored traffic cones provided a path for me to follow to another traffic island where Fiona jumped out of the car and was met by a camp counselor. “What group are you in?” she asked.
Fiona promptly replied, “Pumpkins” and the counselor whisked Fiona off to her group as I drove back home. We are now living in a small rented house in Woodbridge. Life has been hard for me. Years ago, I worked full time on Wall Street and that took its toll. Later today, I will go to the doctor to make sure that the current batch of medications is keeping my blood pressure in check. I will get some writing done, a little bit of consulting, and I’ll look out my office window at the trees, the rock outcropping and the wind chimes. I’ll take a break to pick up Fiona from camp, and we’ll both do chores to keep our home life in order.
Perhaps I should be working harder to get back the large Wall Street salaries I had years ago. I could work long hours, be miserable all the time, but my daughters could do more than just go to a municipal summer camp. On the other hand, the specter of Bernie Madoff looms, reminding us all of many great lessons in life. So many people lost so much investing with Madoff. It is a reminder not to store up our treasure on earth where thieves break in and steal. Madoff himself is a reminder. Would he have run his great scheme if he had thought that it would end him up with 150 year prison sentence; forever staining his name? I suspect many people bend the rules as much as they think they can get away with in their lust for worldly goods.
Today, I watched my daughter gleefully go off to join her group at the town summer camp. I don’t have $2.5 million of ill earned wealth left over after a scandal the way Ruth Madoff does. She can keep her $2.5 million as she watches her husband head off to jail. I’ll be much happier skipping spending $2.50 for a fancy cup of coffee on my way home from seeing my daughter off to camp.
Turning Fifty
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 06/27/2009 - 13:17On July 9th, I will turn fifty years old and it is a big deal for me. My forties were rough and I’m hoping that my fifties will be better. I never really had a big birthday bash, and although my wife is struggling with physical difficulties, she is organizing a fiftieth birthday bash for me. Sometime around my fiftieth birthday, I will send my 5,000th tweet.
Perhaps a bigger thing for me is that I grew up loving the writing of Hermann Hesse. I’m told that Hesse once said you should never read anything he wrote before he was fifty and you should only read it after you turn fifty. I’ve always thought of turning fifty as a special point in literary production and I’ve wondered what turns my writing will take after July.
I was brought up in a very frugal family, and it has stayed with me throughout my life. Our financial difficulties over the past few years have further caused me to hold back on dreams of gadgets I would like and so birthday magic often seemed to elude me.
The Confraternity of Crazy Uncles
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 06/13/2009 - 21:30“Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow,” said Mrs. Ramsey. “But you’ll have to be up with the lark,” she added.
These words came to my mind as we chatted at the dinner table. It is predicted that it will be rainy until tomorrow afternoon, followed by a chance of thunderstorms rolling in. Over the next ten days, there are only three that aren’t expected to include some sort of precipitation.
Fiona was concerned. Will we be able to go have a picnic on the New Haven Green tomorrow and listen to They Might Be Giants play as part of the New Haven Festival of Arts and Ideas?
”But”, said his father, stopping in front of the drawing-room window, “it won’t be fair.”
Had there been an axe handy, or a poker, any weapon that would have gashed a hole in his father’s breast and killed him, there and then, James would have seized it. Such were the extremes of emotion that Mr. Ramsay excited in his children’s breasts by his mere presence.
No, I did not interject that tomorrow would not be fair. I hope it will be. Nor do I believe that Fiona glanced around the room looking for a poker. I am prepared to sit in the rain to listen to music, if the show does not get cancelled. I’ve sat with my family on the side of a hill in the rain listening to folk music many times and a little rain won’t keep me away.
Yet I’ve sometimes wondered about the extremes of emotion that I might excite in my children’s breasts. Perhaps there is a little bit of Mr. Ramsey, or even Mr. Carmichael from Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse in me.
Towards the end of dinner, I got up and searched for my copy of To the Lighthouse. Fiona joined me in the search, but to no avail. In the end, I grabbed a copy of Remembrance of Things Past.
For a long time I used to go to bed early, I start reading. I’ve explained to Fiona that this is a book for adults, but that it starts with a wonderful recollection that I hoped she would be able to relate to.
Yes, she did relate to having to go to bed early sometimes. I continued, Sometimes, when I had put out my candle. I paused to talk about the days before electric lights. I read a little bit more, but Fiona became distracted. Yes, she remembers times of being caught between sleep and wakefulness, but the cat is outside and should be let in before the thunderstorms come.
I mentioned to Fiona how years ago, I had read parts of Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man to Mairead and Miranda when they were around her age.
Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming
down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road
met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo...His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a
glass: he had a hairy face.He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne
lived: she sold lemon platt.
They did not believe that I was really reading a literary classic to them. Was I making things up? Making fun of them? They checked the words on the page, and sure enough, there was the verbiage of the hairy-faced father. Now, Miranda is studying art in college.
It seems like there always needs to be the crazy uncle, perhaps with opium stains on his beard like Mr. Carmichael and for some reason, I’ve been thinking a lot about the confraternity of crazy uncles recently.
The idea started to take shape at a Memorial Day Picnic where I found myself in that role. In the Monomyth or the hero’s journey, particularly as described by Joseph Campbell in his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, upon the reluctant return of the hero, he must live in two worlds, the divine and the mundane and from that, there remains something otherworldly of the returned hero. It reminds me of the great old saying, “Curiosity killed the cat. Satisfaction brought him back. Never was the same old cat.”
Is that what sets apart the confraternity of crazy uncles? They have been through some hero’s journey, and come back scarred and carrying a vision. It might not be the mythic hero’s journey that Campbell and others write about. It could simply be from feeling life just a little bit too closely.
I pause as I write this. There was another thought I wanted to weave in here. I glance at the piles of junk scattered around me as I try to write. I glance at the time. I am very tired as I try to write this. I cannot recapture the thought right now. It will have to wait.
Garden Update
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 06/13/2009 - 17:52After too much time in meetings, conferences and in front of the computer, I spent a little bit of time this afternoon in the small plot we have in the community gardens. Fiona has been fighting a sore throat so she and Kim stayed home.
When I first approached our plot, I was disappointed. The only thing that seemed to be thriving were the weeds. There is a small rose bush that I was trying to nurture back to health after having been choked out by weeds for who knows how long. Someone seemed to enjoy it, for all that was left was the main stock with thorns and no leaves. The remnant of branches were strewn on the ground around it.
The corn plants look good except for a few areas where no plants seemed to have come up and one plant that someone seemed to enjoy nibbling on. The watermelon plants were small, and apparently bug bitten. Yet most of them appear to have made it. The area where I planted cucumbers appears to be all weeds with only a handful of plants having made it. Perhaps some haven’t come up yet. Perhaps they have, and have been seriously eaten.
So, this afternoon, I did a bit of weeding and then planted some broccoli and some beans. The garden is again looking like it is tended instead of wild and we shall see how it progresses over the summer.
Exploring the Death Penalty: The case of Richard Roszkowski and Holly and Kylie Flannery
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 06/11/2009 - 20:13Last week in Bridgeport, the trial of Richard Roszkowski, convicted of two counts of capital felony and three counts of murder entered the penalty phase. If he is given the death penalty, he will become the 11th person on death row in Connecticut. The same week, Gov. Rell vetoed a bill to repeal the death penalty in Connecticut.
Gov. Rell’s veto was covered by hundreds of news stories. Dr. Petit, whose wife and two daughters were brutally murdered has received a lot of press. Mr. Roszkowski’s trial received by but a few stories.
People have suggested that this illustrates the uneven application of the death penalty. The murder of the wife and daughters of a doctor gains much more notoriety than the murder of the girlfriend of a career criminal and her daughter.
One trial lawyer, upon hearing about my interested in the death penalty suggested that I attend some of the trial and perhaps provide additional coverage. So, today, I attended part of the hearing. Read on to get my experience.
