Mr. Collins Mr. O'Brien, and Sacco and Vanzetti

(Originally published 3/5/14)

Recently, while poring over miscellaneous scraps of paper from my past, I came upon an eighth-grade history test consisted of both a matching column and "True or False" section. Mr. Collins handwrote the test and had it mimeographed. That was the technology of the mid-1970s. One of the True or False questions was: “In 1924 the first pizza parlor in America was opened by Sacco and Vanzetti?” I’m proud to report that I answered it correctly as well as the previous question: “The 1920’s was a time of great hardship and depression?” As for the Sacco and Vanzetti reference, Mr. Collins, I suspect, would have to think twice today about associating an Italian surname with pizza pie. Somebody might turn him in for the offense—but, maybe not, it's only the Italians after all. Then again, everything is so standardized in the here and now that a Mr. Collins-style history test—we called it "Social Studies" back then—wouldn't even reach the modern-day equivalent of the mimeograph machine.

Another snippet of paper in my archives was a handwritten summary of the "Best of Mr. O’Brien," my geometry teacher in high school. While I didn’t care much for the subject matter, Mr. O’Brien was a true original—both a good teacher and a skilled performance artist. When the school year ended, and he informed us that he wouldn’t be returning in the fall—he got a better offer—I recall being profoundly saddened to think that I would never, ever see him again. His lectures were delightfully frenetic, and he loved nothing more than having fun with people’s names—both their first and their last. He was an Irishman who, above all else, enjoyed calling on kids with multi-syllabic Italian surnames. We had a fair share of them in our high school back then. Somebody named Provenzano in his class, for instance, had his name pronounced in a melodious singsong: “Pro-ven-zan-o.” He liked one-syllable names, too. A kid named “Bell,” I remember, rang well in the classroom.

From where I—and just about everybody else—sat, Mr. O'Brien's class is where entertainment met education, and his antics didn’t offend anybody. In fact, we wanted to be included in the give-and-take. "Oh, Nick...oh, Nick," are in my notes, so I was indeed, although the context eludes me all these years later. In fact, more than three decades have passed since the Mr. O'Brien hour and—sad to report—virtually everybody is conditioned to be offended for one reason or another nowadays. Mr. O’Brien quite possibly had to clean up his act at some point in his teaching career, if that is where he pitched his tent. (He probably was in his mid-twenties when I knew him.) If this is what indeed happened, the irony is that some of his students from the 1970s—who greatly admired him—did him in as the humorless, uptight adults they became.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Powerless

(Originally published 5/21/12)

While enduring nine days without electricity recently, the Barkley family rattled around my brain. Via a Netflix gift subscription, I watched—before the lights went out—six episodes of the Big Valley starring Richard Long, Lee Majors, and the legendary Miss Barbara Stanwyck. This well-to-do brood did quite well sans electric lights, refrigeration, and ready-made hot water in the 1880s. Without the aid of a washing machine, the clan always appeared spiffy clean in their pristine and—in my opinion—somewhat ostentatious mansion.

A major electrical problem that would take at least three to four days to remedy took twice as long. Courtesy of a generous neighbor of mine from across the way, who provided me with an extension cord and some power, I was able to hook up my computer and modem and maintain some semblance of a normal life while otherwise in the dark. I could at least do some work, post on Facebook, and Google all sorts of unimportant things. After one evening of this borrowed power, however, the electrician—if you can call him that—cut my cable wire by mistake. In fact, he cut three cable wires by mistake. The cable company said it could not be repaired until the electricity was restored.

I know that a whole lot of people have been without power for a whole lot longer than nine days after natural disasters and such. Still, this stubborn fact of life provided me with little solace as things were being ripped off the wall just outside my door and brick residue saturated the air and tenaciously clung to everything in its path. And then came the drilling of holes through the same brick wall—more noise and more dust. The so-called electrician could be heard alternately crying and laughing while doing the job. 

I’ve noticed through the years that contractor types presume every adult male has at least a working knowledge of their trade and lingo. Other than it comes on when I plug things in, flick switches, and push certain buttons, I know next to nothing about electricity. Nevertheless, I said I understood things I really didn’t and, when asked, nobly assisted as a bona fide electrician's assistant. Trust me: This was the electrician from hell. I found empty beer cans in his wake.

Life lessons learned from being powerless: Foremost, I like electricity. Living in the Big Valley, on the Ponderosa, or in Walnut Grove really isn't all that it's cracked up to be. And when push comes to shove, I can take ice cold showers. Granted, had all of this transpired in January, it would have been more of a challenge. Most important of all—and a life lesson—don't run with the first name that comes up in a Google search of "electrician," even if it's an emergency and the company sends a body over within an hour. In this instance: a body in his own jalopy with fewer tools on him than in a kid's play set. First impressions were bad, I can tell you, and it went downhill from there.

Yada…Yada…Yada…The No Learning Curve

Sometime during my youth in the colorful 1970s, a friend and I offered a running commentary on the classic black-and-white, must-see Popeye cartoons from the 1930s. “That couldn’t happen,” we would say and say again. In real life that is: Like Popeye confronting a raging bull with a spinach-powered punch, turning the menacing animal into a fully stocked, open-for-business meat market with Depression-era price markers. Those were the days, my friend, we thought they would never end—when hamburger meat was twelve cents a pound, geometry was race-neutral, and higher education was more Horse Feathers than horse manure. With all the conspiracy theories floating around—on the right and the left—I submit that running them through the Popeye calculation would be prudent before taking them to heart.

Moving right along to the It Could Happen Because It Did file: In every presidential election from 1984 to 2020, I cast my vote for either the Democrat nominee or the Republican nominee. This year, however, I couldn’t bring myself to pick the lesser of two evils—politically, not personally, speaking—because I couldn’t quite figure out who was who. So, I cast a write-in for a former presidential candidate—a decent, intelligent man whom I passed on in 2012.

Yada, yada, yada: Democracy was on the ballot this year. I had been told that ad nauseum by countless talking heads, including historian Michael Beschloss, whom I once held in high regard. But a couple of years ago, the guy warned us that the 2022 midterms could well be the last free elections we ever had. And, just last week, Beschloss speculated on MSNBC that Trump 2.0 might spell the end of independent publishing as we know it. A prerequisite for being a contributor to that network is making ludicrous and sensational prognostications, I guess. After all, host Rachel Maddow suggested that she—very possibly—was destined for an internment camp if You Know Who beat Democracy’s Defender.

So, let me get this straight, I only had one choice vis-à-vis saving democracy and that was to vote for a woman who never competed in a primary or caucus this year, renounced most of her past positions on issues, and made Sarah Palin appear like a nimble-on-her-feet, spellbinding orator. Granted, I know she ran a “flawless campaign” and wisely spent the billion dollars raised on her behalf. But in the good old days, I faithfully watched Hardball with Chris Matthews. Chris would begin each show with the call: “Let’s play hardball!” Kamala Harris’s chief problem was she hadn’t mastered softball, let alone hardball.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg wrote this week: “Don’t outsource your intellect, your principles, or conscience to one man or party. When you do that, you are making your partisan identity your actual identity.” Truer words have never been spoken in 2024. It’s sad that there are so many people willing to jettison relationships—family, friends, et al—based solely on politics. As a window into our collective spleens, I give you exhibit A: Facebook. The social media platform has been a veritable killing field these past few months. I’ve witnessed demagoguery, sanctimonious elitism, and outright nastiness end relationships—some flimsy Facebook friendships, yes, but other more longstanding ones, I suspect. Worth it?

That said: I can fully appreciate why someone voted for Kamala for one reason and one reason only: She wasn’t Donald Trump. I contemplated that path myself. The latter, after all, would not have conceded the election had he lost fair and square like he did in 2020. Likewise, I can understand a vote for Trump that was—foremost—a repudiation of all that Kamala stood for—or did four years ago. Defund the police and other such nonsense. She also stood by her man. And I don’t mean the slap-happy one. I’m speaking of the addled geriatric and his policy trail, which included a porous border, runaway inflation, and a help-yourself-to-whatever-you-want retail crime wave. Sorry, but I blame the blameworthy for the mess we are in.

I fear, though, that the preponderance of the Democratic ruling and pundit classes are incapable of learning—just like Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer. They have already doubled down on the reasons they believe the party suffered a shellacking at the hands of an undisciplined, aged headbanger with more baggage than a bag lady’s purloined shopping cart. Let’s blame it on racism, sexism, and the folly of the uneducated. Yawn! And let’s sit around our cable TV roundtables and yell, literally cry, and whine to one another about the stupid, bigoted, uninformed voters more concerned about the off-the charts prices of eggs, bread, and butter than respecting a person’s chosen pronouns.

An aside here that underscores the moment: Whoopi Goldberg—no relation to Jonah—makes a reported $8 million a year and has a net worth of $60 million. On her show, The View, this week, she said: “Your pocketbook is bad, not because the Bidens did anything. Not because the economy is bad. Your grocery bills are what they are because the folks that own the groceries are pigs.” Thank you, economist Whoopi! And what with the "Bidens" plural? Can we compare salaries and net worth now: Whoopi versus the grocery store owners?

What will tomorrow bring? A bull in a China shop, perhaps? God only knows. I pray, though, that the normies are rewarded in the coming years and the crazies are sidelined. I’m not holding my breath on that one, but democracy will survive, come hell or high water, because of our Constitution and checks and balances. They are stronger than any one person—or president. And Rachel Maddow won’t land in any gruel-for-supper camp; Michael Beschloss will publish his next book without any interference; and the cast of The View will continue to say ignorant and moronic things. It’s the American way. Let freedom ring!