OPINION
THE MESA TRIBUNE | MARCH 6, 2022
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Neighbor’s suicide leaves regret, questions in its wake BY DAVID LEIBOWITZ Tribune Columnist
T
he white house sits across the street from the window fronting my desk. Not much distinguishes the place from the rest of the block where I moved two weeks ago. Four orange trees, their trunks painted white, line the east edge of the driveway. The side gate has a sign that reads “Beware of the Dog” in faded orange letters. On the porch sits a white pot sprouting a metal replica of a sunflower. The flower’s bright yellow adds a little cheer to the scene, but this is not that kind of story. I met the woman who owned the house once, a few days after I moved in. I was unloading the last of my boxes. She walked over from across the street and introduced herself as Linda. She looked to be approaching 80, and blunt in the way peo-
ple of a certain age can pull off. “It’s a nice street,” she assured me, with a hard glance that seemed to suggest I had better keep it that way. I learned Linda had lived in the small white house for decades, beside Carolyn, her best friend and forever neighbor. There was rarely traffic on the block. Dogs barked on occasion. I told her my name. Then my phone rang. It was a work call I needed to take. We said goodbyes and I thought nothing more of it for a few days, when I came home to a street full of police cars and an ambulance. The low white house had police crime scene tape blocking the driveway. Officers milled about. Carolyn, the forever neighbor, sat on her porch talking into her phone. I could see her shoulders heaving. The sergeant running the scene met me in the street. He had little to say except there had been a death. Now a death investigation was happen-
ing. I asked whether there had been a crime. He said he didn’t think so, that it looked like an older woman, the home’s only occupant, had taken her own life. No, not with a gun. It appeared she had hanged herself. “That’s sad,” was the best I could do. “Very sad,” he agreed. A thought occurred to me: “I guess she might have been lonely.” A couple of visitors have come and gone from the house since that afternoon, and I have looked for excuses to bump into Carolyn from the house next door, to ask if there’s anything I can do. Each morning, I glance through the obituaries, to see if there might be more to Linda’s life – loved ones left behind, a memorial service scheduled, a charity where one might pay tribute. Possibly, that’s the reporter in me, wanting to know “the rest of the story,” as Paul Harvey used to say. But more likely, it’s the human being in me, the
new neighbor who wishes he hadn’t answered his phone, who regrets not being warmer, who wonders how he might have made some small difference. This is magical thinking, I suppose. The world may feel small today, with everyone in each other’s business on Facebook, on Twitter, online, but the truth is, we have never been more isolated. Buried under the outward self we show the world, the #blessings and proclamations of gratitude, each of us has endless hidden nuances, stories we take pains to keep locked away. Now I write a story about a neighbor no longer here to read it, while I stare at the house she left vacant and wonder what happened behind those closed curtains, that front door with the iron security grate. So it goes. We are here until we’re not, and sometimes we take the rest of the story with us. ■
“We must also be alert,” President Eisenhower said, to the “danger that public policy itself could become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” Two years after Dr. Anthony Fauci persuaded President Trump that our nation faced the prospect of a dangerous pandemic from COVID-19, it is painfully obvious that Ike’s concern of six decades ago became our own bitter reality. What began as “15 days to slow the spread” morphed into a much longer and sustained effort to establish “Fauci-ism.” As our nation’s highest paid bureaucrat, with a salary of $417,608 in 2019, Fauci obviously believes that he should have power equaling the status of his paycheck. After all, he makes more than the president! Outpacing that generous sum from the
taxpayers is Dr. Fauci’s oversized ego, demonstrating the “fine for me but not for thee” inclinations of the Washington elite. When challenged on his policies by other health experts, the frustrated Fauci channeled French King Louis XIV, attempting to shut down the essence of scientific inquiry, by claiming that “his” science alone was valid. “I represent science,” he boasted. (“L’Etat c’est moi,” anyone?) Even before Dr. Fauci’s veracity began to unravel, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis cast a wide net in seeking advice on the public health measures that should be taken in his state. Eisenhower’s assertion was the catalyst that prompted DeSantis to prioritize vaccinations and care for seniors,
embrace innovative treatments such as the use of monoclonal antibodies, and reopen Florida for business and travel as well as public education. “The job of the statesman is not to subcontract out your policy to help bureaucrats,” he said. “The job of the statesman is to lead…so many governors over the last two years would simply defer to help bureaucrats because it was a safe thing to do politically.” Governor Doug Ducey hasn’t always done the wise thing politically when it comes to combating COVID, and it appears he’s now poised to take the Grand Canyon State over the edge when it comes to individual rights and health records. The business magazine “Forbes” re-
State moves in wrong direction on health card BY JD HAYWORTH Tribune Columnist
W
hen Dwight David Eisenhower said farewell to public life in January 1961, he noted the rise of the “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry.” Eisenhower warned the American People that “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought” by what he labeled “the military-industrial complex.” While Ike’s historic description and warning endures, his farewell address sounded an additional cautionary note about another worrisome faction. Six decades later, that less-heralded admonition has proven remarkably prophetic.
see HAYWORTH page 24
Share Your Thoughts: Send your letters on local issues to: pmaryniak@timespublications.com
