Monthly Archives: January 2011

I Miss My Father

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He was born February 20, 1914 and died August 16, 1969 when he was 55 and I was 15. He was my closest friend and remains the greatest gift life has ever given me.

While I know there will be more missives like this one about him, I also know that any words of mine will fail in their attempt to tell you what a truly special human being he was. There are things I can tell you that may, I hope, give you a glimpse. For example, there was not an iota of bigotry in him. He comfortably accepted people for who they were. It didn’t matter to him, and I mean, it didn’t matter to him if someone was gay or straight, if someone was black, Latino, Asian, Jewish, Muslim and so forth.

My father experienced people as individuals, and was not adverse to stinging back when confronted by bigotry. When we moved from Pearl River, New York to Nyack, New York somewhere around 1967, the house in Pearl River had not yet sold. While Nyack was a truly integrated community Pearl River was, for all intents and purposes, snowflake white. We were known as a civil rights family. Our minister marched with Dr. King and all of us were very open about our commitment to civil rights – for all people.

One day my father returned to check on the Pearl River house to discover someone had written the words Nigger Lovers on the front window. My father either lost sight of the fact selling the house might be a tad easier if he removed the words or he simply didn’t care because, rather than remove the words, he added some of his own. When he drove away, the words Nigger Lovers were still on the front window, however, they were now followed by the words, And Proud of It.

Staying with this theme, my father let me fight my own fights but would, at times, be nearby in case things got out of hand. Soon after we moved to Nyack I became enamored with a beautiful girl who happened to be black. Anyway, some kids found out. One day me and about three or four boys my own age were hanging out in our garage when one of them told me they weren’t going to let me out of the garage unless I said the word nigger. Now, while I supported Dr. King’s non-violent movement I must admit I wasn’t very good at it. I punched the kid right in the face and next thing I knew I was in a fight with all of them. Suddenly one of the boys saw my father approaching the garage. Everybody froze. I went out to see father. I was disheveled and may have had a bloody nose.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. I told him what they wanted me to say in order to get out of the garage.

“You want some help?”

“No, I’m okay.”

“Okay. I’ll be nearby if you need me.”

And so I went back into the garage and ended things when, after more punches were thrown, I picked up a long-handled shovel and begin swinging for the fences which caused my opponents to flee.

When I went back into the house my father ran a bath for his bruised-up son. I sat in the bath and my father sat in the bathroom with me and we talked.  In a tone that told me he knew the answer he asked, “Did you say it?”

“Nope.”

“Good for you. I’m proud of you.” He stood up, leaned over,  kissed me on top of my head, and said, “I’ll get you some aspirin.”

I miss my father.

I Hear I’m Controversial

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Sometimes a part of our truth can be right in front of us and we can’t see it. Case in point: I sheepishly confess that I was utterly entirely flabbergasted this morning when a friend of mine said, “Well, you know you’re controversial, Peter.”  It was, I’ve gathered since talking to others since this morning’s conversation, and enduring everyone’s laughter by the way, a rather prominent deer in the headlights moment for me. I instinctively responded by saying, “Why should equal rights be controversial?”

They are.

I asked them why they think I’m controversial. The theme of their answers was the same. You call out people, companies, agencies, government agencies on their actions or lack of actions. You don’t politically walk on eggs. You are deeply sensitive to all minorities and you don’t hesitate to identify those who persecute them, even when you know it is going to cost you. People know if you see people being mistreated you’re going to say it and name names. One person said, You drag things into the light.

Well, if that all makes me controversial then I’m glad I am. I was recently in a meeting where someone I respect a great deal said part of advocacy is about pushing the envelope.

One person said, Some folks hope you’ll just go away.  Those who hope I’ll just go away are those who through action or inaction support things that deny people their rights.

I know of too many people whose support for minorities like people with disabilities, Gays, Lesbians, blacks, Latinos, Jews, Muslims, Native Americans is cast in lip service and self-aggrandizement. Bad news for these folks. I’m not going away. I can’t. I’m controversial.

Answering a Reader’s Questions

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Recently a reader posted the following comment to an August 12, 2008 blog essay about my mother’s suicide called Dusty Stones: Notes On A Suicide. The well thought out comment reads as follows: 

  • The New York State Education Department, Division of Professional Licensing, establishes ethical guidelines for the practice of the professions it monitors and regulates.
  • What are their guidelines in this important and delicate area?
  • Was this Therapist actually licensed by the New York State Education Department and subject to its disciplinary authority and review?

The were no doubt related to Fred Drobin, the psychotherapist who worked with my mother and, the day after her suicide, told me he had to end our phone conversation because his dinner was getting cold.

Here is my response to this reader, whose comment and questions are deeply appreciated. The reader is right that the New York State Education Department, Division of Professional Licensing, establishes ethical guidelines for the practice of the professions it monitors and regulates. The problem is New York, like most states, only has what’s called title protection, meaning you can’t call yourself a social worker, psychologist, psychiatrist, etc., without certain education credentials and you must be licensed by State Ed.

The problem in the case of folks like Drobin and the poster-boy for misrepresentation, Tim Feeney, is you can call yourself a psychotherapist or behavior specialist or life coach and more and because none of these titles are included in the list of those that fall under the title-protection umbrella, you can pretty much get away with it.

Equally disturbing is the fact there are only something like eight or nine states in the country that make it a criminal offense to misrepresent your education credentials, and in these states the crime is only a misdemeanor.

Drobin continues to practice as a psychotherapist in Nyack, New York and Feeney has essentially been hired to work with brain injury survivors for the state. Like I said, the rules are frayed and lax and the cost to the lives of many is brutally high.

Our Protective Memory

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The human capacity for survival is stronger and shrewder than I used to give it credit for. Sometimes it is only by chance that we learn how strong and, in the example I’m about to share, how shrewd we can be, and not even know it.

Before I continue, let me say this to you. There is no difference between you and me on the courage front. The worst, or, better put, the most inaccurate thing you can take from this essay is a belief that somehow I am braver than you, made of sterner stuff. Not so. I was shot early one summer morning in 1984 and I can tell you from the time the gun appeared until the time I came out of surgery hours later I was so terrified that if terror was light I would have glowed.

It went like this. I was walking to work around five in the morning on a beautiful tree-lined street in Brooklyn flanked on either side with brick an Brownstone houses. A teenager came out of nowhere, put a gun to the side of my head, and a second person I never did see emptied my pockets. Then the teenager fired, shooting me in the head at point blank range. 

Here is my memory of what happened next.

When I came to on the ground and opened my eyes I had no vision and no feeling from the neck down. There was no pain, just this enormous outward pressure from the top of my head. It felt as if it had been blown off. I knew I’d been shot and I knew I was going to die. It was not a matter of knowing I might die, I knew I was going to. I thought of someone telling my seven-year-old daughter that her father was dead and I desperately wanted to get up and try to get to the hospital so she would know Daddy didn’t give up. At least I could leave her a courage note, so to speak. Then I thought of my father, the greatest gift life has ever given me, and how he died when I was 15, thinking if Daddy can go from here to there, from life to death, then so can I. And somehow, I am convinced, this last dropped my fear level, and that is when I got back to my feet.

I have no memory of getting up. My memory is this. Once standing I lifted my hand towards the wound and blood hit my hand before my hand reached my head. I pressed a sweatshirt against the wound and began banging on the window of a basement apartment. From down the street I heard a male voice call out. I went back to the sidewalk and a tall slender man in pajamas hurried to me and took me by the arm. “Come on back to the house, my wife’s calling the police and ambulance.” As we walked I looked at him and could see him fighting to maintain his composure. I told him not to worry I’d be okay.

We’d walked no more than a few feet when a half dozen cop cars from Brooklyn’s 84th Precinct came flying up the street. Afraid they wouldn’t see us I pulled my helper into the street, the cars came to a stop, I got into the back of the first unit and off we went to the hospital.

Now, here’s the thing. Everything I just told you is honest. However, nearly all of it is not true.  I later met the man who’d come to my aid. I told him my memory of the morning pretty much as I just told you. He looked perplexed. “You’re all wrong,” he said. “The only thing you’re right about is you were lucid, you weren’t panicking.” And then he told me what really happened. “When I saw you you couldn’t stay on your feet. You kept falling down and getting up. When the cops cars came I was laying you down on the front steps. Me and the cops pretty much threw you into the back seat.”

My memory was honest, but my mind, like yours, is shrewd, we are survivors when possible and my mind was only allowing me to recognize what it could handle. Had it allowed me to recognize the full scope of the shooting, I would not have been able to remain lucid and avoid panic, and I would not have been able to write this essay for you.

Have faith in you, there may be more reason to have faith than you think.

Strippers

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I never liked going to places where there are strippers much less places where there are topless waitresses or barmaids. Why on earth do I want to be tempted and teased by women I’m not allowed to touch? That just doesn’t make sense to me. Don’t get me wrong, no one appreciates the beauty of the female form any more than I do. But choosing to go into a setting where gorgeous women are employed to tease me into a heat-seeking tizzy is a concept I find baffling.  Especially when I’m expected to pay them!

Let me see if I understand this. You tease me, I can’t touch you, and I’m supposed to pay you? You must be joking. You should be paying me.

Let’s review the logic of all this. The stripper, exotic dancer, wearing little if anything at all, is going to writhe and grind and slither around a pole and, if I’m lucky (lucky?!!), she’ll give me a lap dance bringing all of what the lower regions of now piston-Pete are aching for within inches and not only am I not allowed to touch her,  I’m supposed to give her my money?

I am utterly baffled by any man who thinks, Man, you know what, think I’ll go to a place, get teased by a woman so gorgeous and salacious she could melt a glacier on sight, let her arouse me until I’m nearly out of my mind and then I’ll give her my money!

All of this brings to mind the H.L. Mencken quote, something to the effect of, No one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American people.