Bye bye, St. Anthony's

St. Anthony's School, Winsted, Connecticut

Winsted, Connecticut, where I started school in September 1946, was like much of the rest of New England, a town with a mixed population. Because I had a Scottish (i.e., “non-foreign-sounding”) surname, I had entrée into the society of WASPish types, some of whom actually went back all the way to colonial days. If you went to my church and took a seat in the cushioned pews the first thing your eye would settle on would be the Pilgrim Hymnal. The youth group which was my social center through my high school years was called the “Pilgrim Fellowship” and there was no mistaking the heritage I was expected to identify with.

My best friend in high school was Tom D’Amore. He lived with his Italian immigrant family, including one maternal and one paternal grandparent, who came down to the table each day and fiercely refused to talk to each other. Tommy and I hung out after school most days together and I was often at their table at mealtimes, marveling at the passion, the cacophony, the broad reaches across the table and the high volume verbal exchanges, and wishing that the atmosphere of my more austere German/Scottish home could be more like theirs. My growing up was all about either/or categories: waspish or immigrant, Italian or Northern European, Catholic or Protestant. The nuances were swept under the rug, the fact that with a German-born mother I too was an immigrant - and, for that matter, my paternal grandfather was born in Kirkconnel, Scotland - and the fact that, with factory workers for parents, I wasn’t really a part of the ruling class of waspish “real New Englanders,” except by racist implication.

In the 1940s and 50s, the term “melting pot” still applied. There were two public elementary schools, one at each end of Main Street. Both fed into a single middle school, so eventually every public school kid could, at least theoretically, get to know every other public school kid in town. The rich kids and the poor kids, the ones with Anglo-Saxon names and the ones with names like Centrella or Martinelli.

Main Street was dotted with stone churches. My own, the First Church (Baptist and Congregational) was at the east end and the Second Congregational Church was at the west end. In between were the Methodist and Episcopal churches and a church that stood on a hill and dominated the entire downtown space, St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church. And St. Joseph Parish supported its own Catholic parochial school. Originally named St. Joseph School, its name was changed to St. Anthony School because William L. Gilbert, when he left money for the formation of the local high school, specified that no children from St. Joseph would be allowed to attend. Or so the story goes. I’ve hunted all morning for confirmation of what may be my first encounter with an urban legend, and cannot find any. If someone can dig out the facts for me and add them to the commentary, I would be grateful.

In any case, just as the kids from the two public elementary schools funneled together into the public middle school, the kids from the middle school funneled together with the kids from St. Anthony's into the high school, and although a second high school was eventually built, in my day, at least, I could say with some justification that the name of every kid in Winsted was familiar to me. Family names, at least.

The rivalries that may have existed among the adults were softened as the kids made friends across these identity barriers. I balked once when looking at the St. Anthony textbooks of the D’Amore kids and noted that they portrayed “Catholic countries” in a better light than “Protestant countries,” but I found it more amusing than offensive. Bizarre, rather than wrong. I sympathized with my friend Camille, who had nothing good to say about the nuns who pushed her around rudely during her first communion at St. Joseph’s because she was a “public school girl” and who resented the way the priests would visit her home to determine how much the family might contribute to church coffers every year. It wasn’t till much later that I came to cultivate a laser-beam loathing for the Roman Catholic Church as a major part of the locus of homophobia that poisoned the self-image of many of my gay friends and led in some cases to suicide.

St. Anthony’s was the model in my imagination for the Catholic school portrayed in one of the wittiest plays of all time, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it all for you, which came out in 1979 (and was later made into a movie starring Diane Keaton in 2001). Sister Mary Ignatius stood in front of the class in her traditional habit, channeled violence into her pointer stick, which she slapped against the blackboard and scared the bejeezus out of her students. The play offended the hell out of traditional Catholics and some tried to have it banned, but most of us who saw the play performed laughed till we cried. Take that, you goddam Catholic indoctrination machine, said the little voice in my head. Die, sucker die. There was some real hatred and resentment developed by the time I grew up and left Winsted for greener pastures.

So you can imagine my mixed feelings at reading the other morning that St. Anthony’s School, after educating/indoctrinating (you choose) kids as the longest functioning parochial school in the Hartford Archdiocese would be going out of business at the end of the current school year. The negative reaction to Roman Catholicism in America, exacerbated, and no doubt primarily brought on, by the disgust over the way it responded to the child abuse crisis in the church, has found its way into my home town. Not only are Catholic churches closing right and left. So are the schools.

I’d need to go into deep meditation to find out how I feel about this. Up here at the surface all I know is that the part of me that once raged at the church as an institution wants to go out and dance in the street. But another part of me, the one that has let go of the rage and has come to sympathize with the good Catholic folk who simply want their kids to be raised with high standards and look to the church to provide them, is washed over with sadness.

Mostly, though, it has little to do with religion. It has much more to do with the fact that I don’t like anybody messing with my historical memories. The older I get, the more I want history, or my childhood construction of it, to remain untouched by the ravages of time.

But the Buddhists are right. The only truth you can ever count on is that everything changes. Nothing ever remains the same.

photo credit: https://winstedphoenix.org/index.php/2020/03/16/st-anthony-school-to-close-after-155-years/

The clichés have it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/opinion/democratic-primary-candidates.html?referringSource=articleShare

I've got half a dozen clichés swirling around in my head:

I'm too embarrassed to actually use them, so I'll just list them here and call them up when appropriate.

1. Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole.

2. You're preaching to the choir.

3. They're like crabs trying to crawl their way out of the crab pot, being pulled back down by their fellow crabs.

4. We're just shifting deck chairs on the Titanic.

5. The fist is more powerful than any single finger.

6. You've just hit a home run.

In the past couple of weeks I've been exchanging views on the Democratic Primary with good friends. I always love talking with these people but lately I find our conversations have raised my frustration level considerably.

In the old days, I might have called our exchanges a "healthy debate" appropriate at election time, discussion of the pros and cons of the candidates, filling in  bits of information for each other as the Democratic Primary process galumphs laboriously along.

But these are not the old days. They are the new days where virtually all confidence in American democracy has collapsed and it feels as if we're at the precipice of a full-fledged disaster, the real possibility Donald Trump could get re-elected. If that happens, he will get, most likely, to put another right-wing justice or two on the Supreme Court, the same Court that has already destroyed fair elections by allowing corporations to be declared persons, thus giving them the right, via the Citizens' United decision, to pump unlimited funds into campaigns and hire lobbyists to buy even more politicians, all of which will keep power in the hands of the superrich. He will also be able to continue to pardon his gangster friends found guilty of crimes left, right and center, to further pollute coastal waters, destroy national parks, and enable the fossil fuel industries to continue to further global warming. When the biggest global crises are climate change. the danger of nuclear weapons and the capture of the control of data, all of which require international cooperation to solve, Trump continues to take an America-only approach to dealing with the outside world, effectively sabotaging any efforts at finding solutions.

And what are we doing? We're fighting amongst ourselves over whether the country is more likely to go to the polls to vote for a moderate or for a liberal progressive? We have all sorts of talking heads explaining why it's one or the other, and it's obvious as hell nobody really has the answer to that question.

As is often the case, when somebody hits you with an either/or question, the best way to go is to insist on both/and. It's painful to me to have to listen to people argue over whether it's Bernie or Elizabeth Warren who has the best approach to health care, whether Bloomfield should be "allowed" to "buy the election," whether Mayor Pete has sold out by now raking in so much money from big donors. Whether Amy Klobuchar should be eliminated because she treated her staff badly. Before Cory Booker and Kamala Harris and Andrew Yang were eliminated, the same mud was slung at them. Not by the Republicans, who have no credibility anymore, but by fellow Democrats. Everybody is acting like [INSERT CRAB POT CLICHE HERE.]

All of these people, every last one of them, despite all their weaknesses, would head a government infinitely superior to the one currently lying its way into the rape of the land and the destruction of the last bit of faith this country has in government. [INSERT DECK CHAIR CLICHE HERE.]

I know we've got to let the race for the primary play out. We've got to go to South Carolina to find out if Biden is the next guy to be eliminated. We've got to go to Super Tuesday to find out whether it's Bloomberg or Bernie or Elizabeth Warren who is going to be declared primus/prima inter pares. 

I came out some time ago in favor of Bernie, but I promised my Elizabeth Warren friends I'd keep listening to their arguments and switch over if I found a really persuasive one. I think I've heard enough arguments by now and want to stick with Bernie. But that's not the point I want to make here. 

The point I want to make here is that I think it's already time we stopped [INSERT PREACHING TO THE CHOIR CLICHE HERE] and [INSERT DONUT CLICHE HERE].

The donut is this. Defeat Donald Trump. For the sake of all that's holy, defeat Donald Trump!

How, you ask?

I think Thomas Friedman has the answer, with E. J. Dionne backing him up.  I leave it to you to suggest adjustments, but I urge you to consider what they are proposing, a cooperative effort by moderates and progressives, rather than worrying about how to go it alone, and regardless who gets to head it up, to agree on a government we can all get behind.

Band together, folks. Think collectively. [INSERT FIST CLICHE HERE.]

Thank you Thomas Friedman. 

Have long appreciated your insights. Really liked From Beirut to Jerusalem. 

And I think you've [INSERT HOME RUN CLICHE HERE.]

P.S. If the New York Times won't give you access to the article, what he's saying, basically, is that we ought to run as a band of brothers and sisters, and all agree collectively to make Amy Klobuchar VP, Elizabeth Warren Health and Human Services Secretary, Joe Biden Secretary of State, Cory Booker Secretary of Housing and Urban Development,  Mayor Pete Secretary of Homeland Security, Kamala Harris Attorney General, Mitt Romney for Commerce Secretary, and AOC Secretary to the United Nations. Plus a few more.

Yuval Noah Harari

When depression sets in, a common response is to label it a problem - which it is, to be sure - and go in search of a solution. I’m talking about real depression, not simply being down, feeling blue, out of sorts, or in a funk - there are so many expressions for the phenomenon because it’s so very common. If it’s just a light case of ennui, which some mistake for depression, the solution is probably a change of scene. Take a hike, get the body in motion, treat yourself to something you save for these occasions - chocolate, some uplifting music, whatever works for you. No, I mean serious depression, the mental condition that there’s something terribly wrong that can’t be fixed. In that case you probably need outside help. 

I like the image that depression is something you “fall” into. Like falling into a hole you can’t find your way out of, or falling down and not knowing how to get up. It’s generally the false conviction that the place you’re in is the only place there is and the time you’re in the only time. I call that a false conviction because I am persuaded that the Buddhists have figured out correctly that the only certainty is change. The here and now is always temporary, and that’s something you lose sight of when you get depressed. The solution is to recognize you need external help. If you’re good with words, psychotherapy may work for you. And it may be that the problem is chemical, and the best way out is anti-depressant medication.

I’ve been dealing with depression recently and my first thought was to ask my pulmonologist whether depression was a side effect of the new medication I had just gone on. The old one gave me nausea and vomiting and diarrhea, so I switched to an alternate medication, which was fortunately available.

The doctor said the medication was still new and there was not enough research on it. He suggested I give it up for a while and see if I felt better. I said no. The depression was bad, but the medication was something that could potentially extend my life for years, so giving it up didn’t make sense. I would find my way through the downturn in mood. Tough it out and find another way to go. Which means, of course, that the depression was probably not that bad. Not the kind where you can’t get out of bed, can’t work or eat or sleep. Just the kind that makes you want to shut all your doors and windows and talk only with your dogs, and maybe your spouse, if he begins to feel neglected.

I’ve got a good friend who is inclined to blame depression on chemical imbalance. I decided I’d be contrary and insist that’s not what’s going on in my case. In my case, I said, I was depressed not because of something wrong with me, but because the world really is all fucked up at the moment. One of those times when you have to say to others, “If you are not depressed, it’s because you’re not aware of what’s going on!”

Here’s what’s going on in my life. My country is in the shitcan. The people running it at the moment run it for the superrich, the way we structure the mechanics of government has turned out to be dysfunctional and the Republicans, who benefit from the dysfunction, are spending a good part of their wealth on convincing the low information voters among us that God put the Leader in power and they need to get behind him. And getting the opposition organized is like herding cats and things are looking bleak for November. The ice is melting at the North and South Poles and a billion animals lost their lives in fires in Australia. We spend more money jailing people than educating our young, and a significant percentage of the American population can’t locate the Pacific Ocean on a map. The question isn’t why am I depressed. The question is why aren’t you?

I opened the February 17/24 edition of The New Yorker the other day and saw there was an article by Ian Parker on this Israeli guy Yuval Noah Harari. I had heard of him but had not read any of his three books: Sapiens: A brief history of humankind; Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow; and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. The Parker article was long and my mind wandered mid-way for a while, but I soon realized I had come across a way out of my depression. Harari is a globalist. A historian and a philosopher. His concerns are the big picture, the mega questions. Pretty soon I had found my way to YouTube where I discovered about sixty videos of his speeches and interviews and before I knew it I had stopped fussing over who was going to win in November, or even whether American democracy was going to survive.

Don’t get me wrong. I still care. I just stopped fussing and switched focus. Harari is convinced there are three existential challenges the human race is facing: environmental destruction, possible annihilation through a nuclear holocaust, and the biggest one of all, what to do about the fact that after millions of years of human life on earth we are at the point where we could turn ourselves over to control by artificial intelligence.

For the next several days I was glued to YouTube videos of Harari beating his drum on these topics. He’s a brilliant man. I don’t know why it took me so long to discover him - obviously I don’t have all my priorities straight. I’ve reached the point where I think I’ve picked up his message and can move on now. The point is not that I’ve discovered a new guru; the point is that I’ve rediscovered the healing power of books and ideas. Harari got the wheels turning again. Instead of stressing so much over the American political nightmare I’m now back where I think I should be. Fussing over whether the coronavirus is going to invade Japan, fussing over whether Brexit is going to lead to the breakup of the UK, fussing over whether the AfD election in Saxony is giving the neo-Nazis real traction in Germany, whether Ukraine can get free of Russian hegemony, whether I’m going to live to see my 90th birthday.

And whether we can solve the climate crisis, cool down the nuclear threat, and come up with a way to keep the human race from handing over its collective brain to machines.

And whether we can keep that piece of shit Donald J. Trump from getting re-elected in November.

I haven’t stopped worrying about the old stuff; I’m just back in the world of ideas.

Which has always worked in the past to keep me going when things got rough. Ideas are my all-time favorite medicine. Works to counter aching joints, crotch itch, arthritic hands, hair loss, loss of balance, and runny nose.

And depression.

Too much to think about to be depressed.

Just needed a little boost, that’s all. Yuval, you’re my man!