Getting involved in Greenwich

Christopher Hitchens died yesterday.  News accounts of the details abound, the best coverage is from his last magazine, Vanity Fair, and you can read their article here.  The NY Times has a good article too.  He was a socialist who didn’t believe in God and someone who I disagreed with on most topics.  He was, however, a wonderful author and debater, and he will be missed.  You can read his final VF column here, see him jousting with Jon Stewart here, and see some more interesting video here.  My recollection is of a very funny chapter in his memoir, Hitch, where he talks about drinking.  He had somewhat of a reputation as a big drinker and didn’t mind joking about it.

The chapter, titled A Short Footnote on the Grape and the Grain, is paraphrased below.  It’s a great example of his style, without really getting into his strong social of political beliefs, which many find objectionable. 

     In the continuing effort to gain some idea of how one appears to other people, nothing is more useful than exposing oneself to an audience of strangers.  Very often, for example, sitting anxiously in the front row are motherly-looking ladies who, when they later come to have their books inscribed, will say such reassuring things as: “It’s so nice to meet you in person: I had the impression that you were so angry and maybe unhappy.”  I hadn’t been at all aware of creating this effect. 

      More affecting still is the anxious, considerate way that my hosts greet me, sometimes even at the airport, with a large bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label.  It’s almost as if they feel that they must propitiate the demon that I bring along with me.  Interviewers arriving at my apartment frequently do the same, as if appeasing the insatiable.  I don’t want to say anything that will put even a small dent into this happy practice, but I do feel I owe a few words.  There was a time when I could reckon to outperform all but the most hardened imbibers, but I now drink relatively carefully…….

      I work at home, where there is indeed a bar-room, and can suit myself.  But I don’t.  At about half past midday, decent slug of Mr. Walker’s amber restorative, cut with Perrier (an ideal delivery system) and no ice.  At luncheon, perhaps half of bottle of red wine: not always more but never less.  Then back to the desk and ready to repeat the treatment at the evening meal.  No “after dinner drinks” – most especially nothing sweet and never, ever and brandy.  “Nightcaps” depend on how well the day went, but always the mixture as before.  No mixing: no messing around with a gin here and a vodka there.

      Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing. 

…. I once paid a visit to… Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.  There wasn’t an unsupervised moment on the whole trip, and the main meal we ate – a heavily caloric affair that was supposed to demonstrate how well-nourished the detainees were – was made even more inedible by the way that water (or Sprite) flowed like wine.  Yet a few days later I ran into a friend at the White House who told me half-admiringly: “Way to go at Guantanamo: they say you managed to get your own bottle and open it down on the beach and have a party.”  This would have been utterly unfeasible…but it was completely and willingly believed.  Publicity means that actions are judged by reputations and not the other way about.

     “Hitch: making rules about drinking can be the sign of an alcoholic,” as Martin Amis once teasingly said to me.  Of course, watching the clock for the start-time is probably a bad sign, but here are some simple pieces of advice for the young.  Don’t drink on an empty stomach: the main point of the refreshment is the enhancement of food.  Don’t drink if you have the blues: it’s a junk cure.  Drink when you are in a good mood.  Cheap booze is a false economy.  It’s not true that you shouldn’t drink alone: these can be the happiest glasses you ever drain.  Hangovers are another bad sign, and you should not expect to be believed if you take refuge in saying you can’t properly remember last night.  (If you really don’t remember, that’s an even worse sign.)  Avoid all narcotics: these make you more boring rather than less and are not designed – as are the grape and the grain – to enliven company.  Be careful about up-grading too far to single malt Scotch: when you are voyaging in rough countries it won’t be easily available.  Never even think about driving a care if you have taken a drop.  It’s much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don’t know quite why this is true but it just is.  Don’t ever be responsible for it. 

 Hitchens appeared with William F. Buckley on Firing Line.  He credits Buckley with launching his part-time television career by inviting him onto the show. It’s a terrible loss that we won’t be able to see, like we did with Buckley, how Christopher Hitchens’ opinions would mature as he reached old age.  He was only 62.  I guess about now he’s realizing he was wrong about God, heaven and a lot of other things that stemmed from his believe in neither.

Allen Cory, Greenwich’s Parking Services Director, proposed raising the cost of annual train station parking permits.  Parking in Greenwich Plaza will go up $52 to $540 and the rest will go up $56 to 2$335. 

I’m all for it.  The story, which you can read here, notes that Greenwich is the cheapest in Fairfield or Westchester.  We allow non-residents to have permits so being the cheapest around, and with the Greenwich station right off the highway, it is fairly attractive to come use our station from out of town.  Kind of like our beaches.  So I say raise the rates.  I’d actually like to see them go higher. 

What do you think?

Update: Yes, I was in favor of raising the rates for commuter parking but something seems very wrong?  We first heard about this 2 days ago and the BoS passed it yesterday?  Why, what’s the rush.  The passes don’t get renewed until October.  If you follow most BoS proceedings, especially those regarding parking and traffic, the Board hears about it at one meeting, it gets press coverage, then they decide at the next meeting.  Why was this rushed through with almost no time for comment?

The New Haven Independent reports that uber-liberal Mayor DeStefano plans to lobby for changes in CT law to allow all residents of his fine city to vote in local elections.  Currently, our crude laws require you to be a U.S. citizen to vote.  DeStefano would like us to extend that privilege to non-citizens including those that might be here illegally.  Laughable except that this guy could be governor some day.  Read the story here. 

I’d consider letting legal residents ote in local elections, but only legal residents.  What do you think?

Yet again we here reports about cars with NY plates and even Port Chester taxis dropping kids off at New Lebanon school.  THEY MUST BE FROM OUT OF TOWN, THEY MUST!!  Ok, no one said exactly that, but there’s now a renewed call for better residency checks.  Read the article here.  All is not as it seems.  For one thing, my neighbor in Byram owns one of the taxi companies in Port Chester, he keeps one of his cabs here and has for years been driving his kids to school in it.  Byram is filled with people, I know several personally, who moved here from Port Chester, White Plains, New Rochelle and other towns in Westchester because of our schools.  Our ESL program is the best in Connecticut.  I also know that when people move here they don’t always get their cars registered right away.  I’m sure this is the case with some of the cars they see dropping kids off with NY plates.  I also know that in 1963 my parents moved here from Port Chester so that I and my brothers could attend Greenwich schools.  And for years my mother drove my grandmother’s car with NY plates.  She even drove it to the beach!

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t verify residnecy, just that we should not assume that people are stealing, a rough accusation, if they show up in a car with NY plates.  I hate to think that those kids are facing ridicule or extra scrutiny because of their parent’s cars. 

Verify residency for everyone, and don’t do anything special if a kid shows up in a NY-plated car. 

I’m sure a lot of people would like to comment on this.  Now’s a good time to point out that you may do so anonymously.  When you go to post, it does ask for an email address, but there’s no verification so you can use a fake one, and a fake name.  The email is just so I can communicate with you offline

I guess being one more lackey in the Senate doesn’t grab enough headlines for Dick Blumenthal so he’s up to his old tricks – taking very public shots at corporations so he can get his mug in headlines again.  This time, whining about interest rates on layaway plans.  Probably he’s right and there’s a problem, but really, you’re a U.S. Senator overseeing the worst congressional performance in history.  And this is what you’re focused on?  Not the budget crisis, not Iran, no, layaway plan interest rates.

Here’s the link to a story of his heroic efforts.

I should mention that when I asked him to look into the legality of AT&T’s plan to avoid a public hearing on their cell tower expansion he didn’t bother to answer the request.  No, as AG answering questions about whether state agencies were acting legally wasn’t his job.  Wait, yes it was, but it just wouldn’t attract headlines and get his tanned and trimmed mug in the paper.

How on earth did this nitwit become a Senator.

Update: Dick “Peter Principle” Blumenthal is also busy warning consumers that they should check their bills to make sure they weren’t charged for cable TV during the storms.  Wow, that’s just what I want my senator to be spending his time on.  I guess he doesn’t realize he got promoted to a new job.  Funny, I don’t recall Joe Lieberman ever ranting about Metro North fares or any such local nonsense after he was promoted from AG to US Senator.  Here’s the link to this latest nonsense Blumenthal is working on.

The ConnDOT is spending $1 million plus studying a new scenic bicycle path along the Merritt, see the article here, and as anyone who lives along I-95 knows, they do absolutely nothing to keep it looking decent.  My backyard would be condemned under nuisance ordinances if it weren’t State property.  Here’s a pic.  The fence is owned by the State.  Behind it is their property.

I’m all for beautifying the Merritt and bike paths, but the State attitude seems to be I-95 is an eyesore and hopeless, Merritt is nice so lets spend money there to make it nicer.  Doesn’t seem fair, especially since the population is denser near I-95.  We’re just not wealthier, maybe that’s the problem.

Not one dime for the Merritt until I-95′s at least brought up to mimimal standards.

Oh yeah, I used to have a really cool car.

I wasn’t a great friend of Bennie Benvenuto’s, but I did work on his 1990 Campaign for state senate.  It was the most spirited campaign I think we ever had in Greenwich, and this is a good occasion to share my memories of Bennie and that campaign. 

The 3-way race’s premise is well known.  Bennie endorsed Lowell Weiker’s 3^rd party run for Governor of Connecticut instead of the republican nominee, John Rowland (my namesake, I’m John Rowland Bowman).  The Greenwich RTC then rewarded his years of service by nominating Bill Nickerson.  When he decided to run on Weiker’s “A Connecticut Party,” I signed up.  I didn’t normally work on local campaigns, not that I didn’t care to get involved but, honestly, there weren’t a lot of contested races in Greenwich.  The Republicans always won and there were only rarely primaries.  This was going to be an election pitting Republicans against Republicans.  In my mind, the Good Republicans who respected Bennie’s decision to support his friend, and the Bad Republicans who were mean-spirited and mostly North Street-types who probably weren’t inclined to support someone from Cos Cob, from Dumpling Pond, anyway. 

So we volunteers took up residence in the Capparelle’s building on River Road.  Calling people, planning, etc.  We had events every weekend and it was a very spirited campaign.  Greenwich is small, so we would run into the other candidates all the time.   We did some work with the Weiker campaign.  It was a little better funded than ours with a paid campaign staff (Stephanie Sanchez was one of them). 

My favorite recollection from that campaign was my then wife Susan’s involvement.  She had almost no interest in politics so I had to drag her to weekend events.  After Bennie asked her a couple of times to just stand next to him and introduce him or hold a sign, she was hooked; hooked on how committed everyone was.  She started coming to every event, including the 6AMs at the train stations.

Speaking of train stations, my big contribution to campaigning was my idea to bring Governor Weiker to Grand Central.  I figured he could meet several trains from all over Fairfield County if he just stood at the track entrances as commuters piled out.  The North End exits weren’t open then, so everyone had to walk into the terminal.  To achieve this, one of the station masters taught me how to read a small almost hidden monitor that showed where the trains were coming in.  I would see where the next train was coming, run then Senator Weiker and his entourage over, then run back to the monitor.  This was repeated from 6:30 to 9:30 in the morning.  All while wearing one of those silly fake straw hats with red, white and blue stripes on it.  The station master and later newspapers reported that this was the first time a Connecticut Governor candidate came to New York to campaign.  My big moment in politics.

Too bad I didn’t have any great ideas for Bennie, as most know, he lost that campaign.  On election night, my wife and I were poll watchers, collecting results and phoning them in.  Then we came to the election night party at Laddins Terrace and waited.  When Bennie gave his concession speech I looked at my wife and saw she was crying.  She wasn’t alone of course, but I just recall how in just a few weeks she had gone from disinterest to crying because Bennie lost.  That, for me, best describes how committed and enthusiastic everyone was on that campaign, and it was a tough loss.  We couldn’t believe it. 

Everyone involved in that campaign (Sam Romeo was chairman) drifted back into the Republican party and it seems all was forgotten.  I will never forget the most exciting campaign in my lifetime and the man who made it necessary.

I’ve been commuting for over 20 years and my biggest complaint has been about the (lack of) legroom on the metro north trains.  I used to get to the train 10 minutes early just so I could get that “5th seat” in the 5-seaters so my knees wouldn’t be up against the next seat’s seatback.  I finally rode one of the new cars and am happy to report that there’s more legroom.  My knees don’t hit the seat in front of me.  Finally, something good from Metro North.  I’m not sure why no one has reported on this.  Now if only I could hope to get on one of the new trains more often then about 1 in 15 trips…