Close It was
perhaps, the kind of sensitivity one comes to expect from
being a fairly public citizen around here. “I heard
you were dead” said one of the Shandaken town hall regulars,
clearly disappointed, as I arrived at the Board of Elections
in Kingston for that town’s recount last week. As it
happened, I wasn’t. Better informed but also more polished
was 6-year old George Becker at the Phoenicia School the next
day. “Hey I’d heard you had a heart attack”
he said, making solid eye contact over a strong handshake.
“How are you feeling?”
I told him I was feeling very, very lucky, and also that I’m
feeling great. But I’m also feeling really proud to
have guys like little George Becker in my Cub Scout den, and
parents that teach that kind of sensitivity most places I
turn. So to the many, many people who’ve reached out
to my family in recent days, we thank you. We’re all
grateful to live in a place with neighbors like you. To us,
that kind of caring is what matters in a community.
Why it is that fairly healthy 48-year old guys have heart
attacks I couldn’t say. What I can say now is they can
happen without any chest pain or some of the other symptoms
one might expect to hear about. And they can also happen in
such a way that it’s not readily apparent whatever’s
going on is even a coronary problem. In my case after whatever
went wrong, everything else seemed to go right. The ER docs
and the cardiologists at Benedictine did everything perfectly,
and the surgeons at Westchester Med Center had me fixed for
good and back on my feet by the next day. No, it didn’t
used to be that’s what happened after a heart attack
and it isn’t always now. But acting quickly seems to
be important when it comes to improving the odds. So my advice
to any of you should anything seem amiss: take an aspirin,
call 911.
My adventure into modern medicine coincided with that once-every-hundred
and fourth Tuesday when we elect our local government and
set the course our towns will take for the next two years.
Regrettably a full one-third of us just don’t care in
the least about this. We don’t care whether our local
government does as little as it can or as much as it can get
away with, whether its talk and walk is straight or crooked,
or whether our taxes are high or low. And many of us prove
we don’t care by refusing to take 5 minutes out of our
lives, once every couple years, to bother voting on the best
people to try and run our town. In Olive we’re lucky
in that we’re represented by people who generally do
actually represent us well and honestly. …
The major riffs to emerge in the last election, which my editor
spoke about in a recent editorial, involved both a tendency
towards raising one’s local credentials higher than
a candidate’s actual job history or stand on real issues,
and some problems involving budgets. But we’re now beyond
all that.
It’s back to the same team that’s lead the town
for decades now.
Let’s hope that, in the coming term, we start to see
the rise of some younger blood into our town government, just
as young blood has infused the county government with its
first real sense of change in decades.
We thank sincerely all of those willing to stand for public
office this year, no small commitment or sacrifice for any
of them. And we hope that all of them will continue to do
what they can to insure the best possible governance for all
of us.
For our part at The Olive Press, we’re looking forward
to a holiday season that’s about families, community,
self-reflection, and the spirit of giving and learning. And
we’re hoping that for everyone, this season just beginning
will be one that’s filled with the light and promise
of a better future ahead for all of us. Some of us to be sure,
are more grateful to be here than others. All of us wish you
and yours a safe and wonderful holiday season. BP
