My son Grady will be 36 tomorrow, Sunday, Jan. 4 at 7:28 pm. I was there when he was born, in the upstairs bedroom of an exceedingly drafty old house deep in Buffalo New York's working-class West Side. We didn't have a midwife to make our home birth possible. Couldn't find one. What we had was a doctor, a very brave one.
Home births were essentially illegal in the early '70s in New York State. But you could say my wife Patty and I had a taste for illegality back then. We'd both been active in what was then known as the Catholic Radical Left. We burned or stole or otherwise destroyed draft files. I'd dropped out of college to do such things. Legal? We weren't even married at the time.
In the spring of 1972, when Patty found herself pregnant and I'd gotten a suspended sentence for my draft board action, she went looking for a midwife. She knew she wanted to have the baby at home. Midwives were scarce and doctors were worse. The ones she called said she was wrong to even think such thoughts. They called her names -- including the old standby, "Communist" -- and all but threatened her with arrest. Such, such were the glory days of politically polarized America.
A friend in the movement was a nurse. She thought she knew a young doctor, a resident, who might actually be willing to deliver the baby at home. The doctor she had in mind was named Louie Hevizy.
Louie was Hungarian. A Hungarian prince, he told us. A Hungarian prince who had been strung up by the neck to a Budapest lamppost during the 1956 uprising. A Hungarian prince who had been cut down from that lamppost at the last minute by anti-Communist partisans who then spirited him to the underground from where he was eventually allowed to emigrate to the States "with the help of the Rockefeller family," as he always explained.
I liked Louie from the start. He was the only man I'd ever met who was skinnier than I was. He spoke with a deightful accent and loved to brag about his various flirtations and love affairs, the women he lured to the bachelor pad where his giant bed awaited, its vastness outfitted with black silk sheets.
Years later, when I first heard and saw Roman Polanski interviewed, I thought of Louie. They were both great lovers and talkers and braggarts and irresistibly funny.
I never asked to see the burn marks on his neck that would have confirmed Louie's story about his being hanged. Never asked him to explain his family history. He was the least political political refugee I've ever met. He hardly even seemed a doctor -- he seemed more intent on having a good time doing whatever he wanted.
When he looked at us, he couldn't have seen a payday. We were indigent and proud of it. But where every other doctor saw only a pair of hippies or Communists or flakes, Louie saw people. When he looked at Patty, he saw a determined young woman in need. Perhaps he saw a challenge. He never explained why he agreed to risk his career -- because that's what it would have meant -- to respond to our request, to act like a real doctor.
Beverly, our friend the nurse, quietly collected the stuff we'd need and stashed it in the bright orange-and-yellow delivery room we'd made of our bedroom. I remember especially a number of hot water bottles she'd lifted from her hospital with which she lined the baby's garishly red-painted basinette.
It was Louie who, when summoned on that snowy Buffalo day, arrived at our door with his doctor's bag, half a dozen bottles of Asti Spumante and a camera. And it was Louie who delivered Grady Kane-Horrigan 36 years ago today and who took the photos and toasted us with his Asti and hung around downstairs with two dozen friends and family members who'd gathered belowdecks for the great occasion. He even circumcized the poor kid, while allowing me the honor of cutting the cord.
It seems, as I look back on it, a great adventure, a perfect reflection of the times, with its authoritarian despots, idealistic rebels, its naivete and its happy ending. Or beginning. For Grady was our beginning.
I lost track of Louie after he delivered our daughter Annie three years later. Times had changed. We had to go to the hospital. The people there tried their best to shut me out. Annie was born in a surgery whose main features were cold steel gurneys and chains hanging from the ceiling. Though something had been lost, Annie made it easy to forget our disappointment.
We moved from Buffalo a few years after that. Among the many people I lost track of was Louie. What I know of his life after our departure I'm not comfortable relating. I wish I could re-write his story to fit the happy ending he deserved but didn't get.
But today I'll raise a glass to Louie Hevisy, the doctor who broke the rules and went against the odds and brought my son into the world. He was a doctor, a Lothario, a crazy Hungarian and maybe sometimes a bullshit artist. But more than anything else, Louie Hevizy was a prince.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
A Devil's Dictionary for a Departing Daschle
Anyone remember Tom Daschle? I didn't think so. Nevertheless, here are a few political cliches that are belong in the permanent lexicon of American politics: Originally posted in Open Salon after the guy decided he hadn't been spending enough time with his family.)
"An honest mistake" -- The point from which, once admitted, a politician yearns to "move on."
"To move on" -- The publicly pinioned politician's starkest wish; to pretend, against all evidence, that what the whole world knows is true isn't so and really, when all is said and done, doesn't matter all that much anyway.
"A tax-related issue stemming from Washington, DC unemployment" -- What a politician develops when she makes it impossible for her servants to file for Workers Comp.
"Sadness and regret" -- The proper emotions for a politician who is only too happy to see an honest mistake-maker take a powder.
"A troublesome distraction" -- A politician who can't convince the public it's time to move on.
"The little guy" -- He who pays taxes in accordance with the law of the land; never said of a politician, whose job it is to make the law of the land, with an option to ignore it.
"An honest mistake" -- The point from which, once admitted, a politician yearns to "move on."
"To move on" -- The publicly pinioned politician's starkest wish; to pretend, against all evidence, that what the whole world knows is true isn't so and really, when all is said and done, doesn't matter all that much anyway.
"A tax-related issue stemming from Washington, DC unemployment" -- What a politician develops when she makes it impossible for her servants to file for Workers Comp.
"Sadness and regret" -- The proper emotions for a politician who is only too happy to see an honest mistake-maker take a powder.
"A troublesome distraction" -- A politician who can't convince the public it's time to move on.
"The little guy" -- He who pays taxes in accordance with the law of the land; never said of a politician, whose job it is to make the law of the land, with an option to ignore it.
What Movie changed your Life?
Originally posted in Open Salon.
Last fall, I strolled around the Woodstock Film Festival strapped into a sandwich board, the last shreds of my dignity forfeited in the name of journalistic inquiry. I'd like to ask you that same question: What movie changed your life?.
The first thing most folks said when they saw me coming was "Great question!" The answers were equally great.
To summarize what happened: most people had an answer to the question within seconds, once they realized I wasn't asking about their favorite movie. I wanted to know what movie made a difference in their lives-- changed them or their way of looking at things. It was an exercise in emotional recollection, not intellectual case-making. I was hoping, in fact, to short-circuit the urge for give an intellectual answer.
I was surprised at how quickly the movies came to mind, and how eloquent people were in explaining their impact. Folks seemed at times stunned by the answers that came up for them.
I'll document some of those responses in a subsequent post, including some very revealing responses from filmmakers on the scene. I'll of course reveal my own answer (which surprised me.
Just to prime the pump, I'll list a few of the films that were mentioned: Dumbo. Two Women. The Shaggy Dog. El Topo.
Remember: the idea is to bypass the urge for a favorite film (although that may in fact be the movie that comes to mind). If you'd like to answer the question, give yourself a moment. Your answer will rise up like a fisherman's float. Grab it before you start thinking too much, then write and post your response as quickly as you can. Thanks - Jeremiah
Last fall, I strolled around the Woodstock Film Festival strapped into a sandwich board, the last shreds of my dignity forfeited in the name of journalistic inquiry. I'd like to ask you that same question: What movie changed your life?.
The first thing most folks said when they saw me coming was "Great question!" The answers were equally great.
To summarize what happened: most people had an answer to the question within seconds, once they realized I wasn't asking about their favorite movie. I wanted to know what movie made a difference in their lives-- changed them or their way of looking at things. It was an exercise in emotional recollection, not intellectual case-making. I was hoping, in fact, to short-circuit the urge for give an intellectual answer.
I was surprised at how quickly the movies came to mind, and how eloquent people were in explaining their impact. Folks seemed at times stunned by the answers that came up for them.
I'll document some of those responses in a subsequent post, including some very revealing responses from filmmakers on the scene. I'll of course reveal my own answer (which surprised me.
Just to prime the pump, I'll list a few of the films that were mentioned: Dumbo. Two Women. The Shaggy Dog. El Topo.
Remember: the idea is to bypass the urge for a favorite film (although that may in fact be the movie that comes to mind). If you'd like to answer the question, give yourself a moment. Your answer will rise up like a fisherman's float. Grab it before you start thinking too much, then write and post your response as quickly as you can. Thanks - Jeremiah
How I know I'm going directly to Heaven when I die
Originally posted in Open Salon:
The Catholic Church is bringing back a theological Golden Oldie called "plenary indulgences."
To Catholic Boomers like myself -- Caboomers -- indulgences were nothing less than a ticket to Heaven -- a free pass from purgatory's fires for you and yours, a bailout for your very soul. Indulgences fell out of favor in the '60s, when Vatican II ordered the Church to go native, to swap the wheezy pipe organ for a seminarian's out-of-tune guitar and endless choruses of "Michael Row the Boat Ashore."
Here's how it worked in the bad old days: It was well-known among Caboomers that they were all sinners. We were told this five days a week by the nuns who taught us to fear God as much as we feared them. Indulgences were like work-release programs for convicted sinners -- a way to bank up good time against the punishments of sin that every child above the age of seven stood constantly accused of.
There were two kinds of indulgences, plenary and partial. Partials were just what they sound like -- certain short prayers, for example, usually got you 300 days off your accruing sentence in purgatory (i.e., hell with an escape hatch). The nuns would pass out holy cards like so many baseball cards. On one side was a picture of a saint. On the other side was a short prayer whose days-off value would be noted.
These short prayers were called "ejaculations." That's all I'll say about them just now, for fear of providing an occasion of sin for Caboomers who are easily led astray.
Plenary indulgences were seeming jackpots for junior sinners (whose darkest sin was usually something on the order of calling your brother a stupid-head.).
The New York Times described plenaries with admirable concision Monday: they eliminated all your sins, at least until another one was committed. You could get one for yourself, or for someone who was dead. Even for your brother. But you couldn't buy one either (especially on the money a paper route got you in those days). And there was a limit of one plenary per sinner per day.
Plenaries, in other words, seemed like the smartest bargain. Sin was everywhere back then -- you could go to hell for eating meat on Friday. As George Carlin once noted, "there are guys down in hell today doing time on a meat rap."
But because the plenaries were such an all-or-nothing deal, smart Caboomers like myself looked to the partials for long-term redemption. Simply by ejacula . . . saying something as simple as "Oh Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recoursed to thee," you could get almost a year lopped off your inevitable sentence in purgatory. It was an extremely good deal, incareation-wise: big time off for very little time spent.
Have you any idea how many prayers like that a hell-haunted little kid can rattle off in a single hour? A day? A year?
The nuns' prophecies came true, as will any such poisonously proposed prediction will. I've led a sinful life. But I'm Heaven-bound anyway. I figure I've got a stockpile of partials so deep and wide, the Pope might envy me, if envy weren't such a sin and he weren't such a Pope.
But if you think I'm ever doing time on a meat rap, you must be some kind of stupid-head.
The Catholic Church is bringing back a theological Golden Oldie called "plenary indulgences."
To Catholic Boomers like myself -- Caboomers -- indulgences were nothing less than a ticket to Heaven -- a free pass from purgatory's fires for you and yours, a bailout for your very soul. Indulgences fell out of favor in the '60s, when Vatican II ordered the Church to go native, to swap the wheezy pipe organ for a seminarian's out-of-tune guitar and endless choruses of "Michael Row the Boat Ashore."
Here's how it worked in the bad old days: It was well-known among Caboomers that they were all sinners. We were told this five days a week by the nuns who taught us to fear God as much as we feared them. Indulgences were like work-release programs for convicted sinners -- a way to bank up good time against the punishments of sin that every child above the age of seven stood constantly accused of.
There were two kinds of indulgences, plenary and partial. Partials were just what they sound like -- certain short prayers, for example, usually got you 300 days off your accruing sentence in purgatory (i.e., hell with an escape hatch). The nuns would pass out holy cards like so many baseball cards. On one side was a picture of a saint. On the other side was a short prayer whose days-off value would be noted.
These short prayers were called "ejaculations." That's all I'll say about them just now, for fear of providing an occasion of sin for Caboomers who are easily led astray.
Plenary indulgences were seeming jackpots for junior sinners (whose darkest sin was usually something on the order of calling your brother a stupid-head.).
The New York Times described plenaries with admirable concision Monday: they eliminated all your sins, at least until another one was committed. You could get one for yourself, or for someone who was dead. Even for your brother. But you couldn't buy one either (especially on the money a paper route got you in those days). And there was a limit of one plenary per sinner per day.
Plenaries, in other words, seemed like the smartest bargain. Sin was everywhere back then -- you could go to hell for eating meat on Friday. As George Carlin once noted, "there are guys down in hell today doing time on a meat rap."
But because the plenaries were such an all-or-nothing deal, smart Caboomers like myself looked to the partials for long-term redemption. Simply by ejacula . . . saying something as simple as "Oh Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recoursed to thee," you could get almost a year lopped off your inevitable sentence in purgatory. It was an extremely good deal, incareation-wise: big time off for very little time spent.
Have you any idea how many prayers like that a hell-haunted little kid can rattle off in a single hour? A day? A year?
The nuns' prophecies came true, as will any such poisonously proposed prediction will. I've led a sinful life. But I'm Heaven-bound anyway. I figure I've got a stockpile of partials so deep and wide, the Pope might envy me, if envy weren't such a sin and he weren't such a Pope.
But if you think I'm ever doing time on a meat rap, you must be some kind of stupid-head.
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