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Thursday, July 04, 2002
Click here for an Easy Print Version This is a tale of two cities: New York, and Buffalo. But it can just as easily have been a tale about Fairbanks and Orlando; or San Diego and Bangor; or Minneapolis and Austin. And, like the better known tale of the same name, this is not a story about the two cities; but of the people - two of the people - those two cities produced. On Independence Day, the Capital Mall in Washington, DC is typically jammed with a million-or-so people. There is a large festival put on by the Smithsonian Institution, there is entertainment down near the Washington Monument, there is food and drink, and it's a great time. At the other end - up near the Capitol - there is a more formal concert which is headlined by the National Symphony. Many tens of thousands of people stake out space on the lawn below the West Front to have a picnic and watch the show. At sundown everyone pauses to watch the fireworks, typically coordinated with a symphonic suite played by the orchestra. Over the years we have bundled The Lad into the car and parked along the George Washington Parkway to watch the fireworks; we have picnicked on the lawn in front of the Capitol and watched the concert; Once, when he was very young we watched from the steps of the Jefferson Memorial. Upon seeing the fireworks, he excitedly pointed to the "boom lights" thereby exhibiting an early gift for language. Some years later, when Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House, the Mullings Director of Standards & Practices and I were invited to watch the Fourth of July festivities from the balcony outside the Speaker's suite in the Capitol. The Speaker's Balcony overlooks the Mall. If there is a place which defines America, it is that balcony which points, in a straight line, from the Capitol, to the Washington Monument, to the Lincoln Memorial then, across the Potomac River, to Arlington National Cemetery and the grave of John F. Kennedy. It was as thrilling as you would imagine it would be: The son of a guy who came back from World War II and learned how to be an upholsterer in Queens, New York, standing on the balcony of the Capitol of the United States on Independence Day. When I was growing up on Long Island our family never knew anyone who knew anyone who knew the Speaker of the House. But my mother and father - like millions of mothers and fathers - worked at The Store six days a week to give their four children the opportunities they didn't have. A few days later I was recounting this experience to an acquaintance, especially the notion that in America it is not just possible to improve upon the accomplishments of our parents, it is expected that we take what they had given us and do better. A few months previous, he had been named the Buffalo, New York, American Legion Man of the Year and all he needed to do to receive his award was to come to Buffalo and attend a dinner in his honor. As he had grown up in Buffalo, he was happy to do it. He read to me the speech he wrote in accepting the award. It was a short history of his dad: A gunner on a bomber in World War II which crashed, he was pulled from the burning plane by a guy from Chicago. After the war, he got a job with a grocery chain. Then he got his big break: A job with the city. A safe, long-term job. In the Buffalo Department of Sanitation. That son of the sanitation worker was Tim Russert. These were men, remember, who had lived through the Depression, so whether a shop owner or a city worker, they knew how tenuous economic life could be. And they each presented their children, through years of hard work, with opportunities of which they had never conceived. Of which they never COULD have conceived. That discussion - between the son of a sanitation worker and the son of an upholsterer - was a small part of the American cultural tapestry which is continuously renewed and rewoven before being passed along to our own children. This tale of two American cities could have been the tale of any two cities. And any two sons or daughters of those cities. It happens to have been our story, but it probably isn't very different from yours. Happy birthday, America. And, thank you. (For a nice photo of the original Declaration of Independence, go to the Secret Decoder Ring) Copyright © 2002 Richard A. Galen If you are working at a lobbying firm, a government affairs office, a coalition, or a PAC you should take a look at this page to see how advertising in Mullings might serve your organization very well:
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