I didn't think I'd get around to writing anything for a
while, but I can't let this go by. There
is a remarkably beautifully written piece by Philip Roth -- In Memory of a Friend, Teacher and Mentor -- in yesterday's New York Times, which one can read on several levels. It is a eulogy, a profound testament to the
power of mentoring, insight into the fine line between literature and
non-fiction, and a condemnation of "the scum in power" -- what one
could call government at certain stages of American history. Roth is referring to the McCarthy era when
his former high school teacher, mentor and friend, Dr. Bob Lowenstein was
"mauled in Congress’s anti-Communist crusade of the 1940s and 1950s."
The main character in Roth's I Married a Communist was shaped by his friend and Roth says "the
book is, at bottom, education, tutelage, mentorship, in particular the
education of an eager, earnest and impressionable adolescent in how to become —
as well as how not to become — a bold and honorable and effective man." But it is also about that era when his friend
and mentor was branded as "political deviant" and lost his job as a
teacher for six years: "I refer now not to a boy’s but to an adult’s
education: in loss, grief and, that inescapable component of living, betrayal.
Bob had iron in him and he resisted the outrage of the injustice with
extraordinary courage and bravery, but he was a man, and he felt it as a man,
and so he suffered too."
Being a teacher, Bob was in the position of being a
mentor to many. I had had thoughts of
going into teaching instead of publishing (actually, I had no thoughts about
the latter, I just needed to work when I got out of college -- I think of
myself as an "accidental publisher").
Good teachers are mentors by design and I have been lucky
enough to have two during my impressionable high school and college years, and remarkably
we are still in touch and continue to be part of my life, my high school
economics and political science teacher, Roger Brickner, and my college English teacher Martin Tucker.
But I've been a mentor too in my career (and have been
mentored by others in the publishing world) and although I rarely see them, I
am lucky enough to have an email relationship with several former colleagues,
some of whom I've known almost from the beginning. The last entry made an oblique reference to
one who contacted me after 44 years, Mary.
Well, hat tip to her for passing on this brilliant piece of satire by Andy Borowitz of The New Yorker, which sort of ties everything up regarding this entry --
a new shameful era in our political history, the Senate having the "the
courage and grit to stand up to the overwhelming wishes of the American
people."
When President Obama delivered his State of the Union
address, he said that the people of Newtown, Connecticut "deserve a vote"
on gun control, little did he imagine that a watered down version that focuses
mainly on background checks would fail -- a shameful example of NRA's control
of our politicians We got our vote. Hopefully, all will remember when those Senators are up for reelection.
And to the city of Boston, great sighs of relief to the refrains of Sweet Caroline.....
And when I hurt,
Hurtin' runs off my
shoulders
