tales of copper city

The passion of waiting

I have been re-reading Henri Nouwen's The Path of Waiting. I think it is among the best of the many books that I have read on waiting, a kind of brief, succinct summary of how large waiting does loom---should loom---in our life.

Nouwen relies on an Anglican priest, W.H. Vanstone, who wrote The Stature of Waiting, also a wonderful book that reminds us that, beginning with the trip to Jerusalem, Jesus "handed himself over" to the Judeans and to the Romans, and waited to see what would be done to him.Wwould they become followers or executioners?

Waiting has for a very long time been a big part of my life. 

I laughingly call the years in New York, from 1988 to 1992, "Waiting for Mario."  These were years of hope for me as I waited for a fine governor to decide whether to run for president and as my staff prepared a universal health care plan that he could use in that race. 

I was waiting for the big universal health care wave to come to shore, the one that Bill Clinton tried to ride. And we are all waiting for that wave, once again.

Bisbee Times: "You asked for it."

When you run for office in a democracy you promise two things. The first is to get the job done. The second is to hand yourself over.

That second promise is a doozy. It means that as a public official you agree to hand yourself over for a period  of time, a time that extends from when you announce until long after you leave office, making yourself available for all kinds of questioning, criticism, suggestions, abuse, and so forth.

It's a vital part of the American democracy. By handing yourself over you don't get to limit criticism to the polite, the well thought out, or the considered criticism.

You have to take it all, the good, the bad, the unfair, and the, well, loony. I can tell you, no matter what anyone says, that part of being an elected official isn't fun.

When an elected official complains, even mildly, about unfair criticism, nearly everyone immediately says: "You asked for it!" They are referring to the second promise, the promise to hand yourself over.

Most people want nothing to do with running for office precisely because of that second promise.

Bisbee Times: talent and the ABNY crowd

My favorite baseball team is the New York Yankees and it gets me a lot of grief.

I wear the Yankees baseball cap whenever I can, although I also have a AZ Diamondbacks cap, another favorite team of mine. I think that the World Series between the Yanks and the Diamondbacks was the greatest that I have ever seen and I've watched a lot of them.

I was happy to see the Diamondbacks win; they deserved it. I think a lot of Yankees fans thought so too.

I said the Yankees cap gets me a lot of grief.

I got on an American Airlines flight to Tucson at DFW last year and an old codger (older than me at least) growled, "Take off that cap." 

Everybody laughed, including me.

Earlier at DFW I got teased at the AA desk by another member of the ABNY crowd but the other attendant pointed to the Yankees pin on her lapel.

Bisbee Times: there is joy in Copper City

Great news from Bisbee; a very rare recall effort mounted by a very small group of individuals was crushed yesterday. Luche Giacomino beat her opponent with a 80-20 (257-70)  split; Bob Kasun triumphed over Jeff Harris, 75-25 (246-83).

Bob Kasun, by the way, died last week after a long illness. I for one believe that his life was made harder than it had to be by the general nastiness and untruthfulness of the recall campaign.

I know the wisdom is to be magnanimous in victory but I ain't running anymore.

I know how much this group led by some of the usual suspects misstated the facts about what happened in our two terms in office.

Bob and Luche were right there every step of the way; sometimes they supported me and at other times they opposed me but at all times they were loyal to the community and the ward they served and lived in all of their lives.

Bob often took me to the woodshed in a council meeting and sparks would fly. In truth he had a heart as big as all outdoors.

I once told him before a meeting that I hated our sparring contests and he said, "Me too." We understood and respected each other.

What a rare treat to meet and work with such wonderful people. I thank God for that and for Bisbee.

Carole and I are deeply grateful for the work of so many in the community to oppose this needless split in the ongoing life of a community. Jack and Pat Porter are at the top of that list and such dear friends. 

This was only the second recall in about five decades. The first one was against Frank Peters who went on to become a fine Bisbee mayor.

We love Bisbee so much and miss it every day. Carole can attest to the plain truth that I am walking around on a cloud today. Politics ain't beanbag. There's nothing like a good old country ass-kicking to restore my somber spirits.

Now if we could find a way to do the same thing at the national level and defeat the same  angry, mean-spirited divisiveness I would smile all the way to my grave.

Bisbee, the Deportation, and the Serenity Prayer

The Serenity Prayer is perhaps the most famous prayer in the world and the cornerstone of A.A. Almost everyone has heard it or read it:

God grant me the serenity to
Accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference

The prayer is sometimes attributed to St. Anthony or is said to have its origins with the Greek Stoics.

Actually, it was written in 1943 as a kind of sermon note by the famous professor, theologian and preacher Reinhold Niebuhr. We know this because Niebuhr's daughter, Elisabeth Sifton, a well-known figure in American publishing, has written a biography of her father based on the origins of the Serenity Prayer: The Serenity Prayer: Faith and Politics in the Time of Peace and War (Norton, 2003).

And guess what: the prayer has some of its origins to a famous episode in Bisbee, AZ.

Niebuhr was a professor at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City and he was very influential in the years between WWI and WWII and beyond in the long struggle for justice for labor, for blacks, for Jews, and in promoting a realistic view of Christian ethics as it was practiced in the public sphere.

According to Sifton, the beginnings of the influences shaping the Serenity Prayer can be traced to events in Bisbee, Arizona when the famous Deportation was staged to quell a miner's strike!

Moving on, or learning to shed our former selves

I was never one to think about retirement, much less long for it. If retirement meant going to Florida, buying a pair of green plaid pants, and taking up golf, I wanted no part of it.

I liked my work, warts and all.

Sure, I was tired of it. Who doesn't get tired of doing much the same thing, for 30 years? But I really couldn't imagine quitting working.

In one way or another I had worked since I was 14.

Who was I, when work was gone?

And, as my brother said to me, "Why retire? College professors are already retired."

When grace comes wrapped in very bad news

It was in September, 1999, that Judith Walker spoke with me about the grace that can come with very bad news. Walker had recently received some very bad news, and it had changed the course of her life-long spiritual quest. Wonderfully. And this was the second time this had happened to her.

How the elected official can learn to love his critics

Being a local elected official, you have to learn a lot of new things and fast, things about yourself and also about others. The first thing you learn is that some people out there don't like you and they are going to write a letter to the editor and detail your many faults. They are going to write a lot of letters to the editor to make sure all of your faults are widely known. This is not fun so you have to learn how to turn it into fun.

I decided to try Zen Buddhism.

photo of Bisbee's Main Street by Ted Weller

Life in the vertical dimension

I once wanted to write a short story about a man who moved to a town like Bisbee and bought a blue house. In the story, the man didn't truly understand why he came to that town and bought such a colorful house. He only knew that the life that was now behind him, a life of striving, was finished. What he wants now is a life lived differently. While the man cannot live his life over, he can at least live the rest of his life, long or short, awakening his heart to another world.

I didn't know how the story would end, but I knew what I wanted to name it: "The Blue House." I never finished the story but I knew it was important. And then I saw a painting in a gallery in Jerome, AZ titled, "The Blue House." The house was on the side of a mountain, like so many in Bisbee. And the gallery itself looked out over the vast valley that lay stretched out below another town that housed a Phelps Dodge mine. Seeing the picture began to open me up to the mysteries of the story and why I wanted to write it.

photo of Old Bisbee by Ted Weller

Lord, don't let me be the man my car says I am

A friend drove up in his little car the other day and offered me a ride. After I folded my 6'5" in, he said, "The seat goes back." He meant that the seat reclines and that I could lay down in his little car if I wanted to, with my legs crammed up under the little dash.

My thoughts turned to the clown cars in the circus. You know, the little jobs that pull into the center ring and 20 or 30 people come piling out. I was wondering how they did that, since pretty soon I had to figure out how to get out of my friend's little car.

My life with cars has been a strange one. It's hard enough finding cars I can fit into or that are safe.