12 minute read
City Voices
HARVEY
Farewell to my first teacher, my brother
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JANICE HARVEY
He came into this world fighting to be here, and he went out fighting to stay.
My brother Kevin was born on an icy January day in 1948, three months before he was due to appear. 72 years ago, the odds were against a child surviving such a premature birth. I find it ironic that he exited earlier than planned, just as he arrived.
He was my first teacher. I was his first student, though thousands like me would follow. He saw in me some spark of curiosity, despite the nine-year age gap between us. He handed me books to read. When my friends were still reading Trixie Belden, I was reading the plays of Tennessee Williams and novels by Thomas Mann. I gobbled up Kurt Vonnegut by eighth grade because Kevin said: “Read this.” By ninth grade, I’d read his copy of Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” so many times, the binding was shot.
In his room, his sacred room, I would wander when he wasn’t home and run my fingers over the spines of his books. I couldn’t decipher his system. Sometimes, the works of one author were clumped together, but a random volume might be elsewhere in the bookcase. His former wife Nancy once told me that he placed them where they would be “comfortable,” where they would like being neighbors to certain books by other authors. He was crafting a peaceful, happy world within his shelves.
In that room there stood a table that held an old Smith-Corona surrounded by what he was reading currently, and a stack of clean white paper. This too I touched gingerly, as if he might dust for fingerprints. I sneaked from his albums music I wanted to play in my room – his eclectic collection was already extraordinary, since every cent he made working Denholm’s receiving docks went into the cash register of Arnold’s record shop. I left the Elvis albums untouched; this obsession we didn’t share. But from his room I first pilfered the Beatles and eventually Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. I smuggled Todd Rundgren and Randy Newman. With T. Rex, I banged an imaginary gong when he was out with friends, and slipped the records back into their slots before he arrived. If he noticed, he never spoke of it.
Kevin was Paul McCartney’s doppelganger, and I heard it ad nauseam from starry-eyed girls who fell madly in love with him. Sometimes, they would boldly attempt to befriend me and my sister Lyn to learn more about him, to get closer. We’d roll our eyes. He’d bat his baby blues, and smirk. What he was thinking was a mystery if it was personal, but he’d pontificate endlessly about everything else from sports, to music to politics. He once described himself laughingly as “the aloof icon.”
Lest Kevin sound like an egghead, he certainly had an affinity for junkier things. He insisted that the French were right about Jerry Lewis “unappreciated” genius, and forced on me like a homework assignment a set of the comic’s “gems.” He owned all of Elvis Presley’s movies on DVD and more than a few “Godzillas” and “Beach Blanket Bingos.” He was what we call “well-rounded.” He firmly believed that truly awful art, if done right, is as enjoyable as any masterpiece. Kevin was devastatingly funny – much funnier than Jerry Lewis.
For 30 years Kevin was a professor of English literature at New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire, and an authority on the life and works of author Henry James. He often wrote music reviews for Muddy Water magazine. He was a novelist and a playwright who lived to see his one-act play “Albert” about jazz composer Sun Ra and saxophonist Albert Ayler performed in New York.
An aggressive lymphoma beyond the miracles of Dana Farber finally took him from us last week. I watched in awe as his son Ellery and his daughter Kate cradled him and massaged the wispy limbs of their father. They murmured words of love as they wiped his brow and offered water-soaked sponges for his parched lips. I held his hand in mine and whispered an apology.
“I love you, and I’m really sorry for sneaking your albums out of your room when you weren’t home. I know my crappy little stereo with the worn needle probably ruined the surface,” I said. He was beyond answering but his eyes fluttered. I think he always knew.
My first teacher was the reason I am a teacher, the reason I am a writer. To the end I looked for his approval of columns and cover stories I penned for Worcester Magazine. I will always try to regard my own work through those baby blues. Kevin was never one for displays of affection, and as I stroked his arm, I recalled a scene from one of the many wonderful books he gave me to read. In the last pages of “To Kill a Mockingbird” Scout brings Boo Radley in to see a sedated Jem.
And so I kissed his hand because I could, and because I loved him.
FIRST PERSON
Thoughts on statues and other symbols LEE O’DONNELL Statuary indicates who and what
Ihave recently thought about events, we, want to commemorate the symbols we respect and and revere. The police signify what revere more seriously. Flags, our society enforces and who gets statues, monuments, and the treated well, fairly or not. police. Recently, here in Worcester, Let us start with flags. Recently, the statue of Christopher ColumMississippi took steps to rethink bus at Union Station was defaced. their state flag. I was glad to read This has created an outcry in two the news … the Confederate battle directions … take the statue down flag in the upper left corner of the and “How dare you desecrate this flag had to go! So, now the Native statue?” Americans residing in our own
For many years now, I have tried state have reignited a controversy to think about what our symbols (they have been pursuing a change stand for — the ideal behind them in the flag since the 1980s) with and the reality that occurs. But, our own state flag … the broad like all of us, I have ignored or sword hanging over the head of just taken for granted that a flag the “Indian.” I can remember see(think the Massachusetts state ing that when I was younger and flag) or statues/monuments we wondering about that symbolism. have erected are around. The But I did not really think about it BLM movement has helped me to too much. The Native Americans refocus and pay attention to what have a simple solution for changthese symbols are and what they ing the flag … remove the arm with represent. the broad sword and replace it
I applaud people around the with a pine tree. world focusing on flags, statuNext, statues and monuments ary and the police to show that need to be addressed. Who do we there are other voices that need commemorate … want to rememto be heard. Flags stand for what ber? What kind of event do we to is important to a community honor? We erect monuments to the … a state … a nation … a cause. CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
WORCESTERIA
Of scavenger hunts, hunger and police accountability ...
VICTOR D. INFANTE
WHAT IS GISH?: Does anyone have a zamphone I can borrow? I’m serious. I need brief use of one to complete a challenge in the The Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen, which I’m playing in this week, at the urging of my friend, art instructor Kim Napoleone. Kim well knows my fondness for scavenger hunts, some of which I’ve designed myself, and escape rooms. She accompanied my wife and myself when we participated in Jason Eastty’s citywide “Find the Spy” game, which we placed somewhere near the bottom, but still had a great time exploring unknown-to-us corners of the city. If nothing else, it seemed like a good idea at the time. But while I’m a sucker for a good scavenger hunt – the weirder the better – this one really sold me when I discovered that every registration provides 15 meals to kids in need through Random Acts & No Kid Hungry. In this economic environment, with rampant unemployment, food insecurity is a paramount concern. Here in Worcester, organizations such as the Worcester County Food Bank, the Mustard Seed soup kitchen and St. John’s Food Pantry, which is set to receive a Smile Award at this year’s Harvey Ball, do amazing work, but food instability is still a serious issue. According to the Worcester Food Policy Council, 99,796 people received assistance from the Worcester County Food Bank in 2012, and 27,800 children in Worcester County who live in food insecure households, as do 33.5% the percentage of households with a disabled member. One imagines those numbers have not improved over the course of the pandemic. In 2018, 37 million Americans struggled with food insecurity, and while current numbers aren’t yet available, the organization Feeding America expects, at current unemployment levels, that number to raise by as much as 17.1 million. If having to track down a strange musical instrument helps make a small dent in those staggering numbers, well, that hardly seems like unreasonable pain and suffering.
STARING INTO THE SUN: Political reporter Peter Lucas raised eyebrows with a recent editorial in the Lowell Sun sporting the headline, “It’s not the cops that need oversight, it’s the press.” Writes Lucas, “On a given day, the left wing progressive ‘newsmen’ in broadcast and print commit more ‘crimes’ than the cops. But while the cops are, and will be, held accountable for bad behavior — fired, sued or jailed, sometimes all three — reporters get Pulitzer prizes.” The entire column is, as our soonto-be president is fond of saying, “malarkey.” Lucas is basically using shock jock language to take a swipe at the Mueller Report, while pouring salt in cultural wounds that have emerged in the wake of the deaths of unarmed African-Americans, including George Floyd, who died after a police officer pressed his knee to his throat for 8 minutes, and Breonna Taylor, who was shot by a police officer while sleeping in her own bed. In the former case, the officers involved were fired and are facing charges. In the latter, only one of three involved officers has been fired, and no charges have been pressed. These results constitute the bare minimum of accountability in the two most high-profile such cases in the country, and history gives us every reason to expect that there will be no convictions in either case. To even get that far took nearly unprecedented levels of public protest and press attention. What happens when police accountability isn’t as high profile? Usually, nothing but suffering. Police are armed, enjoy an immense insulation from the negative effects of their actions and, in Worcester, constitute most of the City’s 100 top-paid employees. When a police officer dies, they are quite rightly usually put on the front page of the local newspaper, and eulogized in glowing terms. Indeed, the overwhelming amount of press the police receive – and I say this as someone who’s worked in news for more than 20 years – is overwhelmingly positive. They have a difficult, dangerous job – everybody understands that – but accountability is not the same thing as victimization, and holding public servants accountable is the reason why the press is the only private institution directly protected by the U.S. Constitution. The very fact that Lucas is given a forum to spout his bile is a refutation of his very premise. In unrelated news, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette is still pursuing a 2018 lawsuit against the Worcester Police Department for access to disciplinary records.
FIRST PERSON CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8
fallen in wars. Every place I have lived has monuments to war. But, here in Worcester, there has been a controversy with who is remembered. A plaque commemorating fallen African-American soldiers that had been visible at Holy Cross College had been removed and “lost” was only recently located and placed in a viewable space. As far as Christopher Columbus goes, there are a lot of people who have had a problem with his accomplishments. He is revered in the Italian-American community but not so much in other parts of the community. Finally, in Boston, there are statues to artists, statesmen, and reformers as well as Christopher Columbus (who was beheaded recently) and monuments to war. Unfortunately, the monument to the Mass. 54th was defaced by people who resented the contribution of African-Americans from Massachusetts in the Civil War maybe.
And, finally, the police need to be looked at. For way too long, it has been accepted that if you are young (I remember being unnecessarily hassled then), black, brown, a woman, LGBTQA, homeless or mentally ill (weird) that it is OK to harass you or even hurt you … maybe even kill you and get away with it. I am no longer in any category which the police feel they can harass me, but I have not forgotten what it was like. I remember starting out 2-3 hours early to be on time for doctor’s appointments because I might be stopped in the vehicle, I was in was stopped for no good reason. It happened more often than I like to remember. I am fortunate that I no longer must worry about that but there are too many people who must worry and cope with this all their lives. The police must be reformed in a drastic way.
We need to have a reasoned, broad, and informed conversation … discussion … about all our symbols and their impact on the community. I am glad these symbols are be reexamined or maybe examined for the first time. We need to question what we hold dear and why. We also need to listen to everyone in the community and respect their point of view. Then we can have our symbols mean something real and project the ideals we want to promote. I would like to see us discuss, in a reasonable and measured way, what a flag, statue, monument and yes…how our police (all of them) really stands for and how they work.
Lee O’Donnell reflects on recent events in Worcester.
