To Beth Macy:
This is a fan letter, inclusive of a number of touchpoints, some trivial but fun, others close to being substantive — all prompted by reading “Paper Girl.”
- I grew up in West Henrietta, New York, a one traffic light town a few miles from where your photographer is a professor, RIT.
- I did not hang out at the library; the closest was in the next town; instead, as a high schooler, I became hooked on reading the Wall Street Journal, despite a total absence of financial interest in our middle class family.
Decades later, I had an Op Ed piece published in the WSJ.
I still buy the physical versions of the WSJ and the New York Times every day; fortunately a good-hearted convenience store owner even puts them aside for me when I travel.
- As a middle schooler, I was a paper boy, delivering the Rochester Times-Union, the afternoon paper published by Gannett Newspapers. Later, under Al Neuharth, Gannett rose to fame as a major acquiror of newspapers and as the founder of USA Today. It was a period when some guy named Buffett was extolling the virtues of relatively small newspapers; they were like toll bridges – advertisers had to use them to reach their readers and thus the paper could charge a handsome rate, and earn a fat profit margin in doing so.
The highlight of my route was getting Christmas calendars from Gannett for a nickel apiece and then “giving” them to Times-Union customers, of which there were about 40. In the Christmas spirit, they usually flipped me a buck.
- My career goal in high school was a position on Wall Street, with journalism being number two. Years later, as a Wall Street analyst, I covered the newspaper industry inter alia. On returning from a Knight Ridder visit in Miami, I had a multi-page write-up done so quickly and clearly that the company thought I should be a reporter. (Candidly, I was/am a better writer than investor.)
- My third idea for a career was driving a taxi in New York City, the objective being interesting conversations that would be converted into some form of writing. I did accomplish one instance of the reverse eventually. As a passenger, I initiated conversation with the Senegalese driver and we subsequently shared several meals together and a small business venture.
- Among the non-media companies I researched on Wall Street was Bassett Furniture, a company near and dear to your heart.
- When Dopesick was published, I immediately purchased a copy. One had to be inert not to have become aware of the nation’s drug problem, and I particularly appreciated that you personally interacted with drug addicts. In the late 80’s, I spent several years as a homeless shelter volunteer in New York City and true to my calling, had multiple conversations with several dozen homeless people, attended homeless conferences, developed my own view on the issue, and did some writing.
More recently, in part reflecting a half-dozen trips to talk with counselors in Uvalde, I have been wondering whether the legal liability ultimately (and totally justifiably) attached to Purdue, even though strictly speaking, it never forced anybody to take its drug, could be mirrored in the gun area, specifically the AR-15 and other weaponry. Your commentary on potential violence underscores the need for paying attention. Mass shootings of school kids apparently are insufficient to get the attention of politicians. You could write a book!
- In Paper Girl, Celesta Dunn quoted the same James Baldwin statement that has stuck in my mind since I read many of his books as a young man.
- Our family’s favorite card game happens to be Oh Hell, although without any gambling attached. Maybe I will suggest that at Christmas.
- There is minimal similarity in my childhood geography/community/friends situation to your rendition of Urbana. I simply left home for college and basically never returned, nor did I participate in high school reunions save one.
Your struggle concerning siblings, however, does resonate. Three years ago, I initiated a Sibling Summit (I love alliteration in a heading), which brought my older sister (lives near our natal home), two younger brothers (both long-timers in San Antonio), and I (Hackettstown, New Jersey) together for the first time ever without it being an “occasion.”
When, after hours of food, drink, and running through direct family stuff, I ventured to make a comment about something akin to a societal situation, one brother shut the conversation down with, “I don’t feel guilty about slavery and I support the police.” More recently he has appended a Trump flag to the fence on his property. He expresses sibling love without offering any substantive reasons for being pro-Trump.
- My daughters and I are avid book readers, and we have noticed an increase in proofreading errors in recent years. On page 35 of Paper Girl, is the word “possible” correct?
- I would have liked to see more about Section 230. Why should social media companies be protected when publishing falsehoods. To say they are merely conduits for thoughts put forth by others is sophistry; every word is folded into an algorithm designed to ring the cash register. Ask the Sandy Hook parents about their battle with social media/Alex Jones.
- I seemed to have missed Saving Cecil and Lazarus. That will be rectified.
- Like most things in my life, direct experience has been critical to my understanding. In personally assisting a large number of financially challenged young people to pursue their education aspirations, I have been involved in immigration issues for many years, most recently creating the Hispanic Information Center. There is only one explanation for what Trump is doing: his goal is a whitening of America.
- My foundation provided the seed capital for what eventually became Uncommon Schools, a leading charter school management entity. Its schools are located in heavily minority urban areas that are being poorly served by the historical neighborhood schools who have lowered the academic bar to virtual non-existence. From day one, the teachers union has wanted us dead. There is much to be said about our education system, but not here. Suffice it to repeat the bromide: for every complex question, there is a simple answer and it is always wrong.
- If I had a mild criticism of “Paper Girl,” it would be a standard one: description of social ills is much easier than prescription. The Democratic Party continues to labor under the weight of this problem: all its energy is about being against T, with apparently no bandwidth remaining to put together a cogent program. The NYC Mayoral surprise may not be a complete one-off but it seems unlikely to play in Peoria.
I once wrote a piece with this thesis: the superrich are content to throw a 15-20% tip on the table to cover the needs of the millions at the other end of income ladder. They do not care to think about policies because they live in a totally different world, unassailable even if tax rates were sharply boosted.
- For several years, I talked regularly with and financially supported a young African American man whose father was a no-show from age six and whose mother died of cancer when David was a teenager. In the middle of the night, we quietly removed David from a welfare facility that could have cared less. He had a script he was going to sell to Hollywood and the two of us headed west with that goal in mind. Our excellent adventure included a bus, train, rental car, and airplane.
When he failed to sell his script, like 99% of all others, he blamed the result on skin color and not having a relative in the business. I commented to him that his skin color was unlikely to change and it was equally long odds that a relative would be discovered.
When I asked him the Baldwin question – why didn’t he get angry? His answer: “because I might kill somebody.” As a P.S. on David, he had no interest in having a job; why should he, since he had a million dollar script.
- Interacting extensively with people in difficult situations, I coined the term “negative security blanket” to capture the tendency of many/most to shun paths with positive possibilities. Reasons abound, as delineated in Paper Girl.
Peace,
Bob Howitt