The January 16, 2012 Boston Globe Metro section featured the touching story of a romance that bloomed in the Occupy Boston encampment before the 99 percent were forced out of Dewey Square by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and the forces of the evil one percent.

The Globe described Anya Karasik, 18, and Robert Stitham, 25, as the “archetype of an Occupy couple: he a redheaded Mainer with tattoos on his arms; she, a petite upstate New York girl with a heart-shaped face and a boyish haircut, wearing a knit grandmother sweater three sizes too big.”

They sound positively adorable, don’t they?

When the Globe interviewed them, the happy pair had known each other for 11 days and had been a couple for three.

“Everyone,” Stitham told the Globe, “was like, dude, you guys should get together.”

Totally.

Karasik calls Stitham “Red,” because of his red hair, the Globe felt the need to explain.

Despite knowing Red for only a few days, Karasik “felt as if he was one of her closest friends,” according to the Globe. “He’s, like, the first real person I’ve met in a long time,” she said. For an 18 year-old, that’s saying something.

Karasik and Stitham are just one of many couples for whom romance bloomed at Occupy, the Globe affirmed.

“It was not long,” the Globe reported, “before Occupiers were stealing kisses at the food tent, holding hands during general assemblies, cuddling on the bench near the Gandhi statue.”

Bringing a smile to the Mahatma’s lips, no doubt.

Now that Occupy Boston and other camps around the country have ended, “those who found love among the tents are struggling to keep the flame alive,” the Globe lamented.

Bummer, man.

To a generation whose romantic dealings revolve around a maze of electronic communications and social networking web sites like Facebook, the Globe explained, romances that sprung up at Occupy camps “seemed much realer.”

Karasik contrasted her experience with meeting someone at Starbucks.

“You’re not just going to go up to them and start hugging them and swinging them around and stuff in the middle of Starbucks,” she told the Globe. “There’s a lot of social restraints, but at Occupy, everyone’s, like, free.”

Unlike those Starbucks boot camps.

But there is trouble in paradise, the Globe reports.

Karasik’s parents have pushed her to enroll in community college, so she’s living at home again in upstate New York, according to the Globe, and Red is looking for work in Maine or Boston. She and Red are carrying on a long-distance romance, but it’s not the same as sleeping in a tent with somebody you just met.

She feels ignored when he doesn’t reply to her texts, the Globe says, and he worries that the girl who jumped into his sleeping bag after knowing him for barely a week might flirt with guys from back home.

Karasik admitted to the Globe that if she had gone to school last fall instead of joining the Occupy camp, things would have been different.

“I wouldn’t have met Red,” she says, “and that would have been awful because he’s so wonderful.”

And stuff.

[This column originally appeared in the January 19, 2012 Wakefield Daily Item.]

Addendum: According to a January 19, 2012 Boston Herald story, Robert “Red” Stitham is a Level 3 sex offender.

Occupy Boston tents photo by Sam Marshall.
Gandhi statue photo by Tim Pierce.

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If I had to pick one word to describe Professor Faler, it would be “clarity.” After going over a subject matter once, he would invariably say, “In other words…” and explain it again from a different angle until it was crystal clear.

Around 1978, I was in a downtown Wakefield place of business when a man walked in whom I recognized instantly.

“Aren’t you Paul Faler?” I asked.

“Yes, I am,” he said.

“You probably don’t remember me,” I said. “I was in a couple of your classes at UMass.”

“Sure I remember you,” Paul replied. “Mark Sardella.”

It was easy for me to remember the names of a couple of dozen professors. But I was surprised that out of hundreds of students he remembered my name. I was a decent student, but certainly no superstar.

Paul told me that he and his wife Karen had just moved to Wakefield, having purchased a house on Lowell Street.

In the 1980s, Paul became interested in local property taxation and in 1984 got himself elected to the Board of Assessors. Meanwhile, I was starting to get involved with local cable television production. At a Board of Assessors meeting sometime in 1985 or 1986, Paul was planning to propose something and anticipated a less than warm reception from his colleagues on the board. He thought it might be interesting if I showed up with a video camera to tape the meeting.

I can’t say for sure that it was the very first Wakefield government meeting taped for cable TV, but it was certainly one of the first. The other two members of the board nearly did double takes when they strolled into the meeting room at Town Hall and saw that big old video camera.

Last summer, I was cleaning a spare room when I found a yellowing newspaper clipping dated February 9, 1987. The clipping includes a photo to promote a cable TV debate between incumbent assessor Paul Faler and challenger Harris Cusick. The photo caption reads, “Producer Mark Sardella, Moderator Paul Dooley and Assessor Paul Faler review the ground rules for tonight’s debate.” The paper explained that Mr. Cusick was not able to attend the photo op.

Paul may have won that debate but he narrowly lost the election to Cusick by 32 votes. Paul’s strengths were reason and logic – qualities that don’t always lead to success in politics.

Many people witnessed those qualities when Paul spoke at Town Meeting. After listening to our various Town Meeting orators drone endlessly, Paul would often rise and use simple language to distill a complex issue down to its essence in about two minutes. After Paul finished, everyone understood what the crux of the matter was.

As a member of the Board of Assessors for many of the last 27 years, Paul advocated for what he believed was best for the town and especially its small property owners. He often ran into resistance from those interested in preserving the established way of doing things.

But often, time would vindicate Paul’s point of view. The recent case where the state Appellate Tax Board upheld the town’s right to tax concrete pumpers, resulting in thousands of additional dollars in previously untapped tax revenue for the town, is only the latest example.

Paul was instrumental in instituting tax classification in Wakefield, which shifts some of the property tax burden from the residential taxpayers to the commercial property owners. He also successfully pushed for the local hotel tax, which has brought hundreds of thousands of dollars into the town coffers.

Even after I left his UMass classroom, Paul continued to stoke my interest in history, especially family history. Long before the advent of Ancestry.com, he suggested that we drive down to the National Archives in Waltham, Massachusetts where we each spent the afternoon doing our own research. That day, I learned the dates that my immigrant grandparents arrived, the ports through which they departed and entered, and the names of the ships that took them to their new lives in America.

A few years ago, Paul gave me an old historical map of the City of Lynn. It still hangs on my dining room wall.

Back in its pre-industrial history, Wakefield was an agricultural town. As one local resident has suggested, Paul may have been Wakefield’s last farmer – a tag that I doubt he would have minded. With the vast acreage behind his home, Paul grew a wide variety of vegetables and fruits. Every year he would bring me a big tub of blueberries that he picked from the patches on his property.

I’ll miss Paul as a friend and a teacher. The residential taxpayers of Wakefield will miss him as an advocate on their behalf.

In more than one sense, Paul Faler left the town of Wakefield a richer place.

[This column originally appeared in the December 22, 2011 Wakefield Daily Item.]

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Brown’s win set off a period of deep mourning and hand-wringing in the “progressive community.” But as soon as they recovered from the shocking news that the 12-member Massachusetts congressional delegation would include one moderate Republican, they set about to correct this travesty.

The TV and radio ads began as soon as Brown was sworn in as a US senator. The progressive political action committees weren’t accustomed to a senator from Massachusetts who needed to be told what to do, so they flooded the airwaves with “Tell Scott Brown” spots.

“Tell Scott Brown to stop obstructing progress on global warming.”

“Tell Scott Brown to stop voting with Wall Street.”

“Tell Scott Brown to Release $700 million in Federal Relief Money to Massachusetts.”

“Tell Scott Brown to Extend Unemployment Insurance.”

No one could remember ever having to tell Ted Kennedy anything.

Now that the 2012 election is less than a year away, the anti-Brown PACs have stepped up their activity again. Having a Republican finish Ted Kennedy’s term was devastating enough. The last thing these folks want is for Brown to be elected to a full 6-year term. So the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) recently spent $1.9 million on a TV ad buy targeting Brown. You’ve probably seen the ads. If you own a television, they’re hard to miss.

The ad shows a Brown stand-in shedding his barn coat to reveal a well-tailored suit. (See, Brown’s secretly one of those corporate types.) The ad also shows the Brown stand-in tossing trash out the window of his pickup truck. Get it? Brown hates the environment.

The League of Conservation Voters claims to be a “nonpartisan” group, but they target Republicans almost exclusively. A web search of political candidates that the LCV has endorsed in other states turned up lots of Democrats but so far not one Republican.

Thinkprogress.org has a story about the LCV ad on its web site. The story claims that “Brown has received $152,100 in campaign contributions from oil and gas companies over the course of his career.” No mention of the fact that the LCV is spending over 12 times that amount over two months on its anti-Brown TV ads.

Another group that has entered Brown-bashing sweepstakes is called RethinkBrown. They’ve spent $150,000 to unleash two attack ads so far and they’ve launched a web site, RethinkBrown.com. Who are they? Well, the PAC includes the Massachusetts Teachers Association and the Service Employees International Union.

I know – I was shocked too.

A major thrust of Rethink’s criticism of Brown is that he accepted campaign contributions from “Wall Street.”

For a region of the country that is home to some of the nation’s major financial centers, pro-business legislators aren’t exactly plentiful around these parts. Whose door would you expect Wall Street to knock on? Bernie Sanders?

Brown was back in his home town of Wakefield, Massachusetts two weeks ago, speaking to the Wakefield business community at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

“If businesses do well,” Brown observed, “then everyone does well.”

In fairness, Scott Brown isn’t alone in being targeted by PACs running expensive attack ads. Brown’s presumed Democratic opponent, Elizabeth Warren, has been the subject of an ad campaign funded by Karl Rove’s PAC. That ad points out that Warren has identified herself as the intellectual godmother of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

I’ll let Warren’s own hometown newspaper, The Occupied Wall Street Journal, handle that part of the story.

Meanwhile, another Wakefield GOP guy, Richard Tisei, is taking on embattled Congressman John Tierney. Tierney somehow manages to get re-elected year after year despite staking out territory much further to the left of most Democrats that I know.

But Tisei, with his message of fiscal responsibility and moderate positions on social issues, appeals to a lot of traditional Democrats and independent voters.

A year from now, it’s possible that there could be two Republicans with Wakefield ties in the Massachusetts congressional delegation.

Based on the reaction in some quarters to Brown’s victory two years ago, I’d advise having the grief counselors on standby.

[The column originally appeared in the December 1, 2011 Wakefield Daily Item.]

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A few minutes before the band appeared on stage, a man who introduced himself as “Dave” from Heptunes, the concert promoter, took the stage and announced that “a week from tonight is Dan’s 70th birthday.” Dave said that after the second song of the first set, bassist Paul Smith would signal the crowd to stand and sing “Happy Birthday” to Dan.

After the band walked on stage to wild cheers, “Dave” again stepped to the microphone to plug some of Heptunes upcoming events. Dan stood by expressionless through Dave’s rather overlong promotion. When Dave finally relinquished the mike, Dan deadpanned, “I thought that guy would never leave, whoever he is.”

The band launched into “Avalon,” an instrumental, “to warm up the instruments,” Dan said, and then played their traditional show opener, “Canned Music.”

At this point, Paul Smith raised his hand and on cue, the crowd rose and sang a rousing version of “Happy Birthday” to Dan as the band provided instrumental accompaniment. Dan appeared genuinely surprised and even displayed brief moment of uncharateristc sheepishness.

“Was that spontaneous?” Dan teased the crowd. “I saw people standing up and I thought, ‘That last song went over really well.’” 

The next tune was “Blues My Naughty Baby Gave to Me,” which Dan reminded the crowd was a song popularized by 1960s Cambridge folkie Jim Kweskin.

At this point, Dan intoduced the band: Benito Cortez on violin and mandolin; Paul Smith on bass; female backup vocalists, “Lickettes” Daria and Roberta. “And of course,” Dan added, “I’m Loudon Wainwright III.”

Next came the first of several Christmas tunes sprinkled throughout the show, “Rudolph the Bald Headed Reindeer.”

Dan introduced “Along Come a Viper,” by telling the audience, “I tried to sell this song to Willie Nelson. He told me to get off his property.”

“I Scare Myself” was next. Dan explained that he wrote the song back in the Sixtes, at a time during the Haight-Ashbury period when he was very much in love. “Either that, or I had just eaten a big, fat hashish brownie,” Dan mused.

Next was another Christmas tune, “Somebody Stole My Santa Claus Suit.”

After an intermission, the band opened the second set with the Tom Waits composition, “The Piano Has Been Drinking,” followed by “Santa’s All Right with Me.”

Lickettes Daria and Roberta were featured in “I’m an Old Cowhand,” which Dan explained was written by Johnny Mercer – “and myself.” Dan joked that he and Mercer co-wrote the song while rooming together at Boston University.

After playing “Santa the Man,” which drew comparisons between Santa and superheroes, Dan explained that the difference was “Santa is real. He’s as real as Herman Cain.”

The band then launched into the Dan Hicks classic “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away.”

Dan intoduced “He’s Stoned” as a song about some of the guys that used to hang around Haight-Ashbury back in the Sixties.

The band said goodnight and returned to play “I Feel Like Singing” as their encore.

It was a solid two-hours of great music, and Dan had the crowd in stitches between tunes. It’s safe to say that a good time was had by all.

1972 Video of Dan Hicks & the Hot Licks

Hicksville website

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If you take on a worthy cause and through persistence and hard work, you create something of value, the public will turn out in droves to support you.

Wakefield’s World War II Memorial Committee could teach the “Occupy” organizers a thing or two.

About a thousand people packed Veterans’ Memorial Common on Veterans’ Day last Friday to witness the unveiling and dedication of the new World War II Monument. Many of them were the children or grandchildren of the servicemen who in their teens and twenties left their cozy hometown of Wakefield 70 years ago to fight and defeat ruthless dictators thousands of miles away. In those days, they understood that you don’t wait around for evil to arrive on your own doorstep.

Phyllis Hull, Chairman of the World War II Memorial Committee, was justifiably proud last Friday as the tarp was removed and the new monument was unveiled.

“Several years ago, I was approached by two World War II veterans about the poor condition of the old World War II monument,” Hull told the crowd. “They wanted to know if the town could supply them with some paint or wood and that they would be willing to do some repair work.”

A selectman at the time, Hull relayed the veterans’ concerns to the full board. They authorized her to form a committee. The committee concluded that time and the elements had caused too much damage for the old monument to be repaired, and recommended building a new memorial.

In May of 2009, the Committee began fundraising, knowing that it would take about $200,000 to build a fitting granite memorial. They accomplished it in 2½ years. If any other local group has raised that much money from private donations in such a short amount of time, I have yet to hear of them.

The pavers for the Veterans’ Walk of Remembrance provided the lion’s share of the funding. John Encarnacao headed the paver subcommittee, along with Jim Murphy and Jim Luciani. Encarnacao reported that over $150,000 was raised from paver donations.

John Encarnacao told the Veterans’ Day crowd that he drove up to the monument one day last week, pulling up in the early evening just as the new lights were being tested for the first time.

“Tears came to my eyes,” Encarnacao said. “It was truly a magical moment in my life and something that all future generations can be proud of and inspired by.”

In the week that the new monument has been in place, people have come in a steady stream to view up close the names cast in bronze and engraved on the Walk of Remembrance. Day or night, there are people there. In that respect, the monument seems destined to be like a local version of the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in Washington, DC.

Too many World War II veterans have already left us, but their children and grandchildren have not forgotten them. Even knowing that their names would already be on the monument, many families purchased pavers in their memory. Families and descendants of servicemen from other eras also came forward so that those heroes would also be represented on the Walk of Remembrance.

Phyllis Hull has said often over the past several years that she wanted the new monument to be finished while there were still World War II veterans alive to see it. The biggest applause at the dedication ceremony came when American Legion Commander Tom Collins asked the World War II veterans to stand and raise their hands.

They saw it Phyllis, thanks to you and your committee.

[This column first appeared in the November 17, 2011 Wakefield Daily Item.]

Photos of the Monument dedication.

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The Veterans’ Day crowd, which some estimated at more than 1,000, included World War II veterans and descendants and relatives of World War II veterans who turned out to dedicate a new monument to those citizens of Wakefield, Massachusetts who left home in the 1940s to fight tyranny overseas.

The new granite memorial bears the names of the 2,471 men and women from Wakefield who served their country in World War II, with a special plaque honoring the 72 who made the supreme sacrifice.

Replacing a decaying wooden memorial that stood for decades on the same site, the new granite monument is the culmination of several years of dedicated work and fundraising by a committee of citizens and volunteers led by Phyllis Hull.

Standing at the podium on Friday, Hull beamed and the crowd cheered as the covering was removed, unveiling the stately granite monument.

“Today, on November 11, 2011, we dedicate a brand new monument to the men and women of Wakefield who served in World War II,” Hull declared. “The new granite memorial that you see here today assures that the men and women who fought in World War II will be remembered not just for decades, but for generations to come.”

Hull thanked her committee and all who donated money, materials and labor to help build the new monument, especially those who donated pavers for the Veterans’ Walk of Remembrance in front of the memorial. Hull stressed that while town officials provided encouragement and support, the monument was funded entirely through private donations.

“The monument you see before you is here because of people like you,” Hull told the crowd.

Master of Ceremonies Lt. Colonel Fred Marshall of the US Marine Corps introduced a series of guest speakers, beginning with Patrick Glynn, Chairman of the Wakefield Board of Selectmen.

“I am humbled to stand in front of this prominent new monument,” Glynn said, praising the tireless work of the World War II Committee.

“Wakefield is a town that remembers and honors its veterans,” Glynn said. “This very site has always been known as the Upper Common. It is now and will forever be known as Veterans’ Memorial Common.”

Rep. Paul Brodeur called the new monument “an impressive display of Wakefield’s commitment to respect and honor its veterans,” especially those who served in World War II. “They all recognized that there are forces in this world that need to be confronted,” Brodeur said, “and when someone’s freedom is threatened, everyone’s freedom is threatened.”

Rep. Donald Wong commended the veterans and “those who worked tirelessly to erect this monument. Thank you to those who served and continue to serve. May their spirit live forever in our hearts and in this memorial.”

Sen. Katherine Clark said, “What a testament. With your presence here today and all the work you did to build this beautiful memorial and Walk of Remembrance, you really make patriotism come alive, It’s inspiring indeed.”

Congressman John Tierney said that the new monument was evidence of the town’s commitment to support and honor all veterans, living and dead.

“All one has to do is look at this wall and all the contributions that went into it,” Tierney said, “to know that Wakefield will make that kind of commitment.”

US Sen. Scott Brown said that it was “great to be back in Wakefield.” The 1977 Wakefield High School graduate said that he was impressed but not surprised by the turnout.

“To come here and see this amazing crowd – it doesn’t surprise me at all,” Brown said, “because that’s what’s so wonderful about this community. You are here on a brisk fall day honoring those who have done more than most.”

Keynote speaker Colonel Michael E. Zarbo talked about growing up on Chestnut Street and starting his Army career at Camp Curtis Guild.

“I will always call Wakefield, Massachusetts my home,” Zarbo said. “I am honored to be here among America’s true heroes whose names are captured on this memorial. They traveled to far off lands to bring democracy to people they never even met.

“This memorial is a beautiful token of your gratitude,” Zarbo added, “and it clearly shows that the acts of these unselfish patriots, their honor, courage, valor, sacrifice and selfless service will never be taken for granted by a grateful nation and certainly not by the citizens of Wakefield.”

Marshall read an email from Wakefield native and former Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, General John R. Galvin, expressing his regret that he could not attend the dedication ceremony.

“During all my service,” Galvin wrote, “I never forgot my true home, which is Wakefield.” Galvin recalled that in the 1940s he witnessed the construction of the original memorial to Wakefield’s World War II heroes. “Our town has answered the call right from the beginning,” Galvin wrote.

John Encarnacao dedicated the Walk of Remembrance “to the memory and honor of all our veterans.”

A member of the World War II Memorial Committee, Encarnacao headed the subcommittee in charge of the pavers for the Walk of Remembrance. He reported that over $153,000 was raised from the 378 pavers that were purchased on behalf of veterans.

Encarnacao became emotional as he described seeing the monument at night just after the lighting was installed.

“Tears came to my eyes,” Encarnacao said. “It was truly a magical moment in my life and something that all future generations can be proud of and inspired by.”

The final speaker was Brigadier General Gary Pappas of the Massachusetts National Guard.

“This memorial pays tribute to my father’s generation and what they did and what they sacrificed,” Pappas said.

Following the Benediction by Rev. Richard Weisenbach, Pastor of the First Parish Congregational Church, “Taps” was played by Wakefield High School senior Michael Russo and WHS junior Caroline Andrews.

After a three-round cannon salute ended the program, hundreds lined up for their first close up look at the names on the monument and the Walk of Remembrance.

[This story originally appeared in the November 14, 2011 Wakefield Daily Item.]

More photos from the World War II Monument Dedication Ceremony

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Who says dreams don’t come true?

I suppose the Occupy protesters think that by camping on public and private urban parks indefinitely, they are demonstrating their commitment to whatever cause they are espousing. But have you noticed that when anything – good or bad – is around all the time, one of two things tends to happen? Either it wears out its welcome or it becomes part of the landscape and you stop noticing it.

With their numbers already dwindling, I see two likely scenarios for the Occupiers. When the big city mayors, most of whom are Democrats, finally figure out that these endless demonstrations aren’t helping President Obama’s re-election prospects, the eviction process will begin. Either that, or noted conservative Old Man Winter will give them the boot.

At least the Occupy protesters can point to their ability to attract bipartisan support. Both the American Nazi Party and the Communist Party have endorsed the protests.

I can appreciate the appeal of wilderness camping. But outside of committed outdoorsmen, the attraction of sleeping on the ground tends to fade for most people after about age 30. And even among the most progressive of the earthy crunchy crowd, most adults have a hard time identifying with the idea of sleeping in an urban park for one night, much less for months on end.

Boston’s Dewey Square campers may be doing without a lot of things, but they have hubris in abundance. Quoted in the Boston Globe, one worldly 19 year-old had this to say about holding out through the long, cold Boston winter. “Did civil rights leaders give up when they brought out the hoses?” he mused. “It’s just winter.”

Sure, kid. I wonder if the Globe will do a follow-up interview with this committed camper in January after a week or so of 10-degree high temperatures and -15 wind chills. I suspect that interview will take place at his parents’ home in Brookline or Arlington.

One positive thing has come out of the Occupy movement – some pretty damn good jokes. Even before the video of the first Occupy marriage proposal went viral, Twitter users were tweeting their favorite Occupy Wall Street “pickup lines.” Some of them are not suitable for a family newspaper, but here a few of the better printable ones:

“What time do you get off not working?”

“Can I have someone else buy you a drink?”

And my own humble entry, “Excuse me while I slip into something less sweat encrusted.” (Of course, that was written a month ago, when it was about 40 degrees warmer than it is now.)

The Founding Fathers talked about “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” They said nothing about “camping out indefinitely for the redress of grievances.”

The latter-day hippies in the various “Occupy” campouts might want heed to the words of one of the original 1960’s counterculture troubadours, Dan Hicks, who wrote, “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away?”

[This column originally appeared in the November 3, 2011 Wakefield Daily Item.]

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Except for two things.

You can’t be responsible for your ancestors and unless they came over on the Mayflower, your ancestors probably didn’t have a whole lot to do with the consequences of America’s westward expansion in the 18th and 19th centuries. My own forebears didn’t arrive on these shores until early in the 20th century. Before that, they were in Italy and Ireland toiling in the fields. I’m almost sure they weren’t plotting American Manifest Destiny.
Although, since my father’s people were from Italy and Columbus was Italian, I suppose I bear some measure of tribal guilt for the Pandora’s Box that Columbus opened up. But Columbus was from up north in Genoa and my paternal antecedents were Sicilian, so I doubt we’re related. But I’ll check Ancestry.com to make sure.

It’s always been a little unclear to me just what the anti-Columbus crowd wants. Columbus has been dead for 500 years, so it’s a little late to try him in The Hague for crimes against humanity. I guess they just want us to stop celebrating Christopher Columbus with a national holiday.

This brings us to the problem of applying current mores to previous eras. By 21st century standards, Columbus was undoubtedly a brute in his treatment of the natives he encountered. But what sense does it make to judge a man who lived half a millennium ago by today’s standards? Attitudes of explorers like Columbus toward the “savages” they met were rooted in the ignorance of their times. After all, Columbus went to his grave convinced he had landed in Asia. The Age of Enlightenment had not yet dawned.

The myth that the North American continent was a peaceful paradise populated by tribes living in harmony and cooperation before the Europeans arrived is just that – a myth. Warfare between Indian tribes was a way of life in North America for generations before Columbus arrived.

“Not all Indians lived in a continual state of intertribal war, but war was part of the social pattern,” wrote Samuel Eliot Morison in his History of the American People. “Any Indian group that tried to shift its dominant values from war to peace was doomed to extinction by another.”

That is not to absolve Europeans and their American descendants of all transgressions against Native Americans. But the idea that the white man introduced brutality to the New World is as much a fairy tale as any whitewashed story about the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.

Far more people will be focused on football and a three-day weekend than on celebrating the life of Christopher Columbus. A few cynics will spend the weekend vilifying Columbus and feeling guilty for living in the land that recognizes him with a holiday.

But Columbus was a product of his times. For better or worse, he changed the world and paved the way for a great if imperfect nation.

[The column originally appeared in the October 6, 2011 Wakefield Daily Item.]

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First, Paul D. Wedge, a lacrosse coach at Wakefield High School, convinced the Board of Selectmen to let him mount a bronze cast with Big Jim Landrigan’s Silver Star Citation at Landrigan Field where future generations of Wakefield students can see what it means to be a true American hero.

James M. Landrigan, a 1941 Wakefield High School graduate, was captain of the football and track teams. He served with the Marines in World War II and re-enlisted when the Korean War broke out. He received the Silver Star, the third highest award given by the United States military for heroism, for actions he took in Korea on July 20-21, 1953 while under persistent and relentless enemy fire on his company’s position.

Also last week, the selectmen approved the World War II Memorial Committee’s recommendation that the Upper Common be henceforth known as “Veteran’s Memorial Common.”

Committee chairman Phyllis Hull pointed out that this area of the Common is where the new World War II Memorial and Veterans’ Walk of Remembrance will be located. This section of the Common is also home to memorials to veterans of other wars, including the Civil War, World War I and the Korean and Vietnam wars.

“It is fitting,” Hull maintained, “that this area be recognized as the Veterans’ Memorial Common as a tribute to those brave men and women who have served and are serving our country.”

Just as Wedge emphasized the educational value of placing Landrigan’s plaque at the field that bears his name, members of the World War II Memorial Committee have from the very beginning stressed the new Monument’s value as a teaching tool for educating local kids and the community about the accomplishments of America’s military heroes.

There was a time when appreciation for America and the role of its war heroes was a given, at least in our own country. But sometimes it seems that that appreciation is waning.

At one time, all students willingly said the Pledge of Allegiance every day in school. Even if it became a rote exercise after awhile, it was still a gentle reminder of the importance of their country and the principals “for which it stands.”

Nowadays, students are given the “option” of not reciting the Pledge if doing so would make them “uncomfortable.” Recently, we’ve even seen communities try to ban the Pledge altogether from schools. In Dover, New Hampshire last week, a boy got in trouble for bringing an American flag to school. School officials insisted that it was because the stick could be a weapon and that the reprimand had nothing to do with patriotism or the American flag.

Maybe.

Schools used to be where you learned good things about your country. Now, the emphasis is on the self-image of each individual student. Our collective self-image as a nation? Not so much.

History textbooks that once presented the United States in a favorable light are now deemed “whitewashed” texts that “indoctrinated blind patriotism.” But if we don’t give ourselves the benefit of the doubt who will?

Today, school textbooks seem to have drifted increasingly in the direction of questioning and criticizing the American model of freedom. This is deemed a “balanced” approach to history. More than a few US public schools now use “A People’s History of the United States,” by radical professor Howard Zinn, a harsh critic of the United States. Whatever happened to Henry Steele Commager?

Maybe the way some of us were taught about American exceptionalism was a tad over the top. But nowadays, the pendulum seems to have swung to the opposite extreme. America’s flaws are magnified to the point where kids don’t even want to say the Pledge of Allegiance in school.

So it was heartening to see the two gestures last week, memorializing Col. James M. Landrigan and all the other heroes who believed in America and the values “for which it stands.”

[This column originally appeared in the Wakefield Daily Item.]

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September 11, 2001 is one of those dates.

The 10th anniversary of 9/11 is upon us, and even more than any of the preceding anniversaries, the 10th is calculated to remind us of how we felt on that clear blue Tuesday morning.

As it should.

Those of us old enough on September 11, 2001 to see and comprehend what occurred will never forget the sights and sounds that day. Planes flying into skyscrapers. Skyscrapers collapsing in a colossal cloud of dust and debris. Horrified screams and cries audible even over the television.

But the 10th anniversary should also remind us of the emotional memory – the jaw-dropping disbelief, the fierce outrage, and the all too brief and transcendent sense of unity that we all felt as Americans regardless of our political and ideological affiliations.

For the enemy that did this was the enemy of us all – of everyone who went to work that morning, just like the people in those towers; of the people who boarded those planes fully expecting to land on the west coast in six hours. They were us and we were them. The enemy made no distinction.

For a time after the attack we understood. With commerce brought to an abrupt halt, we had the time to absorb it.

We take for granted the sound of commercial aircraft as the default background noise of our lives. When it’s there, we are barely aware of it. But in the aftermath of 9/11, when all commercial aircraft were grounded for days, we all noticed an eerie silence overhead, punctuated only occasionally by the distinctly different engine sound of a patrolling military jet.

For a time after the attack, we understood on an emotional level what it meant to be Americans. It seemed that two out of every three cars had American flags flying from their antennas – flags that eventually became tattered and frayed but remained attached. We were Americans. We were the good guys. No one in those first weeks after the attacks was even hinting that we “had it coming.”

Those sentiments would creep in later, after things began to slowly get back to something resembling “normal.”
Airlines began again to take to the air, but business would remain down for months as a traumatized public refused to fly.

Television networks gradually scaled back their 24/7 coverage of the attacks and resumed their regular schedules. When Saturday Night Live came back, New York City mayor Rudi Giuliani joined SNL producer Lorne Michaels to open the show.

“Is it OK if we’re funny?” Michaels asked Giuliani.

“Why start now?” Giuliani quipped, officially giving a wounded nation permission to laugh again.

Eventually, American life did return to normal. We were not defeated as a people. Besides, it would be emotionally impossible, not to mention unhealthy, to forever remain in the immediate post-9/11 mindset.

Still, we need these occasional reminders of what it felt like to be an American in the days, weeks and months after September 11, 2001. We need to remember that there will always be those who hate and resent us, no matter what we do. No nation in history has ever achieved perfection, but despite what our enemies and their apologists say, we need to remember that the United States has been and remains far more a force for good than ill in the world.

Those who suggest, even indirectly, that on 9/11 America reaped what its policies had sown are caught up in abstract thinking. The 3,000 civilians who were incinerated alive in the Twin Towers did not set US policy. Those same critics who are quick to hold America accountable for each and every collateral civilian war casualty downplay the fact that the avenging terrorists went out of their way to target thousands of innocent civilians.

The 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001 should rekindle that immediate post-9/11 feeling just long enough to remind us that it’s no accident that there hasn’t been a repeat of 9/11. Our enemies have not gone away. They have not stopped hating us.

On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, we need to remember the victims, and for their sake and ours we need to remind ourselves that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

[This column originally appeared in the September 8, 2011 Wakefield Daily Item.]

Photo of Rudy Giuliani by Marc Nozell.

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