(Updated to reflect the passage of time.)

By Bob Gaydos

JFK … at a press conference

 Twelve years ago, I wrote a column about what I see as the synchronistic connection between myself and John Fitzgerald Kennedy, beginning with the fact we share the same birth date, May 29. The key point in the column, at least to me, was my pledge “to remember to honor him not on the date he died, but on the date we both were born.”

      It’s a pledge that’s even more important today, I think, when there is such a dearth of public figures who inspire the kind of hope and pride in America that JFK did for me and millions of others. Hope and pride are two elements in short supply in today’s political debate. They’ve been replaced by deceit and anger, which only begets more deceit and anger. A path to ruin. So today, on what would be JFK’s 108th birthday, I choose hope.

       My connection with Kennedy began to take shape in my college years. His handling of the Cuban missile crisis allowed me to graduate on time. But as I was home waiting to report to Fort Dix, N.J., for basic training, JFK was assassinated, on Nov. 22, 1963, postponing my duty for a month. And 20 years later, as fate would have it, the first editorial I was asked to write as the new editorial page editor for The Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y., was to mark the 20th anniversary of Kennedy’s death. Headline: “The Measure of the Man.”

     Eight years ago, I wrote: “Much of it still applies. The legend of JFK — Camelot (Jackie, John-John and Caroline), PT-109, Navy and Marine Corps Medals, the Purple Heart, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” “Ask not …”, the challenge to put a man on the moon, the Peace Corps, the New Frontier, a limited nuclear test ban treaty — still far outweighs his failings, including extramarital affairs, hiding illnesses from us, escalation of the American troop presence in Vietnam and a reluctance to take a firm stance in the growing battle over segregation in America.

    “He is regularly rated as one of this country’s greatest presidents, a testament I believe to his ability to inspire hope, faith and courage in Americans, especially young Americans like me, at a time of grave danger. Much of that owes to his youth (he was 43 when elected president, the youngest ever) and his ability to eloquently deliver the words written for him by Ted Sorensen, a synchronistic match if there ever was one. But Kennedy, a Harvard graduate, was no slouch at writing either, having won a Pulitzer Prize for biography with “Profiles in Courage.”

    “… Kennedy’s (message) was unfailingly one of hope. We can do this. We are up to the challenge. We care. His average approval rating as president was 70 percent. He also ranked third, behind Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Teresa, in Gallup’s List of Widely Admired People of the 20th century, according to Wikipedia.”

   The question I still ask myself is, what might JFK have done, what might he have meant to America and the world, if he had lived longer?

    In that column eight years ago, to my ever-lasting embarrassment on the Internet, I also said that I shared a birthday with another great communicator, Bob Dylan. I was off by five days (May 24). Belated happy 84th birthday to the Nobel poet laureate anyway.

     On a positive note, I subsequently discovered that May 29 is also the birthday of Harry G. Frankfurt. The professor emeritus at Princeton University authored a 67-page essay entitled “On Bullshit.“ It was a New York Times best seller in 2005. And it also explained to me how a person like Donald Trump could say the things he said, flying in the face of other things he had recently said, none of which had any basis in reality, and keep doing it. It’s not lying, Frankfurt explains, it’s bullshit. The liar has to remember what he said. The bullshitter does not. He doesn’t care.

     Professor Frankfurt died July 16, 2023, at 84. Like Kennedy, his message and memory will live on with me.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

A blast from the past.

I got a surprise birthday present  three weeks ago from my cousin, Tom Nalesnik. It was a surprise because a) It wasn’t my birthday b) I didn’t think Tom knew my birthday was coming up c) The gift itself was a memory of an ever-more distant past d) How he came by it was perhaps more surprising than the gift itself.

Yes, that’s me dancing in the Go Go cage with Crickett in the photo accompanying this column. The photo  is the gift. It’s a framed copy of a story I wrote about 60 years ago for The Sun-Bulletin in Binghamton, N.Y. There’s no date on the article, but I started working in Binghamton in 1965 and I clearly wasn’t covering the political beat yet when I wrote this. Disco was just coming to the Triple Cities area.

I also was quite svelte and better dressed than I am today.

Wow.

Tom said he got the article from my mom, who never said a word to me about my newspaper career. Never. Not even when I got fired. But that’s a story for another birthday.

This one is about time flying. Some call it progress. We’ve gone from Disco to TikTok in a virtual heartbeat. Typewriters, like the one I used to write about Crickett and her partner, Gena, are now museum exhibits. Soon, artificial intelligence will be plagiarizing this article to write a history of dancing to recorded music in bars and of pieces of folded paper called newspapers.

But not yet.

Crickett and me.

I don’t know if Crickett (Karen Levine) ever realized her dreams of publishing a big music hit or breeding racehorses. Or if her partner, Gena Maloney, ever did anything with her love of photography. (See, I did  interview the ladies.)

As far as I can remember, the bright idea to put the skinny reporter in the cage with the go-go dancers came from the photographer, Renee Myrae, an institution in New York newspaper photography. Make for a better photo, she said. That’s why there’s an annual award named after her for the best photography in the state. At least there used to be, when there were newspapers.

Anyway, I “danced” for about 10 minutes, there was applause and, as I noted, no one offered to buy me a drink.

The article wound up in The Sun-Bulletin, somehow made its way to my uncommunicative mom in Bayonne, N.J., who shared it with my cousin, Tom, in Linden, so he could tell me 60 years later that I inspired him to pursue a career in journalism and communication.

Some things are worth waiting for.

***

(Tom Nalesnik’s video commentary, “Whims of Resistance,” can be seen on substack.com, Instagram and Facebook.)

By Bob Gaydos

Cadet Donald Trump … at NYMA, 1964

It’s roughly a 20-minute drive down the Hudson River from New York Military Academy in Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y., to West Point Military Academy. Twenty minutes and, for Donald Trump, a lifetime of lessons ignored.

Trump is a 1964 graduate of the military school that was often used by parents to try to instill some discipline in undisciplined teenaged sons. The academy’s stated mission is “to develop our cadets in mind, body, and character in preparation for further education and leadership.” Kind of like West Point.

And there’s the cadet code, the same as West Point’s: “A cadet will not lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate those who do.”

So what a perfect setting and opportunity last Saturday for the Narcissist-in-Chief, who is always all about setting the stage, to deliver a unique, personal message of inspiration and dedication to the graduating class of 2025 at West Point: “Here’s what I learned about duty, honor and country nearly 60 years ago at a preparatory military academy just up the road from here …”

He failed. Miserably. Instead of hearing a salute to their hard work, discipline, responsibility and dedication to serving their country (all of which was in the printed transcript of the speech written for him, but much of which was ignored by him), the 1,002 new second lieutenants got a typical rambling, sometimes slurred, Trump monologue that was largely about himself (but not his NYMA experience), and also the perils of trophy wives, yachts, 9/11, and “liberating our troops from divisive and demeaning political trainings,” a  reference to critical race theory and transgender policy, not really major issues at West Point.

He also commented on how “handsome” the male cadets looked in their uniforms, ignoring the fact that West Point is a coed institution.

What a national embarrassment. And what a shame for the graduates, who had their special day commemorated by a man wearing a red MAGA political campaign hat and saying such things as, “The job of the U.S. armed forces is not to host drag shows, to transform foreign cultures (and) spread democracy to everybody around the world at the point of a gun. The military’s job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America, anywhere, anytime and any place.”

He did toss in an ironic (apparently not to him) personal note, saying, “I went through a very tough time with some very radicalized sick people. I say I was investigated more than the great, late Alphonse Capone.”

Well, he might have been the first 34 times convicted felon to speak at a West Point graduation, but even here he could have tied in his NYMA connection by noting that John Gotti Jr. was also an alum. Junior, also a felon, attended the school in 1984. Other alums of note include Francis Ford Coppola and Stephen Sondheim.

The school web site does list Trump as a notable alumni, but makes no special acknowledgement of him elsewhere. Seems odd to me for a two-time president, but then the academy was rescued from bankruptcy during Trump‘s time there by a group of Chinese investors.

Bankruptcy. China. Synchronicity?

To me, the mere fact that  his advisers allowed him to give the commencement address at West Point was foolish given his increasingly disjointed public appearances and a history of calling members of the military “suckers“ and “losers” and getting a deferment from military service in Vietnam for “bone spurs.” Also, there is his well-known bragging that “I know more than all the generals” and his insult of Naval Academy graduate, the late John McCain, for being taken as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

Maybe the powers behind the throne feared being fired if they tried to talk him out of something he insisted on, given his history of dumping anyone he sees as not loyal. But while the setting was perfect, a Saturday afternoon along the Hudson River, Trump is clearly deteriorating mentally and there wasn’t a whole lot there to begin with. He just can’t stick to the script and he’s increasingly quick to anger.

It’s the kind of thing that might make some suspicious people wonder whether this 78-year-old man has the mental capacity to handle the job of president. Just saying.

Finally, just to add insult to injury at West Point, Trump didn’t stick around for the entire ceremony as other presidents have done to watch the cadets toss their caps in the air and to salute and shake hands with each member of the graduating class. What a lifetime memory that would be for the cadet. Joe Biden did it last year.

Instead, Trump bugged out, saying he had to go “talk to China and Russia.” Actually, to play golf. After all, it was a Saturday and he had given the “suckers and losers“ enough of his time.

On second thought, maybe the cadets were better off that he didn’t stick around to shake hands and they didn’t have to salute him.

Soggy season.
RJ Photography

By Bob Gaydos

Soggy, sloggy, cloggy, boggy.

Later, foggy?
Spring had finally bloomed.

The bell had been rung.

Planting loomed. Then …

Clung!

‘Tis bone-damp and,

once again, chilly.

For May anyway.

Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain.

Refuses

to just go. Away!

Thus, reduced to writing silly rhymes.

Oh, brighter days!

Oh, warmer climes!

A spring with sonnets,

not bonnets?

Rhymes without reason?

… Big Sigh.

Soggy, sloggy, cloggy, boggy.

Grab your boots, fellow travelers.

‘Tis the season.

By Bob Gaydos

The Mental Health Association Bell.
RJ Photography

A while back I ended a column on what I perceived as the insanity of my daily “news” feed on social media noting that one post had informed me that May was Mental Health Awareness Month. “Sign me up,” I wrote in an attempt to end a column on an unfunny state of affairs with a bit of levity. A writer’s gimmick.

Now I feel a need to clarify. I don’t think mental health is a joking matter and, in fact, I’ve already signed up.

On May 1, I had the honor of reading The History of the Bell at the annual meeting of Mental Health Association in Orange County (N.Y.). The honor was mine as the outgoing president of the board of directors of the private, non-profit agency, a post I was privileged to hold for five years.

I’m including that history here because I believe it deserves a broader audience.

***

The History of the MHA Bell

During the early days of mental health treatment, asylums often restrained persons with mental illnesses with iron chains and shackles around their ankles and wrists. Clifford Beers, the founder of the Mental Health Association movement, experienced and witnessed many of these and other abuses. After his own recovery, he became a leading figure in the movement to reform the treatment of, and attitudes toward, mental illness. With better understanding and treatment, cruel practices eventually stopped.

In the early 1950s, in the lobby of the National Headquarters in New York City, the Mental Health Association collected discarded chains and shackles from asylums across the country. All of these restraints were then shipped to the McShane Bell Foundry in Baltimore, Maryland, where they were dropped into a crucible and cast into a 300-pound bell.

The inscription on the bell reads:

“Cast from shackles which bound them,
this bell shall ring out hope for the mentally ill
and victory over mental illness.”

As we seek the vision of victory over mental illness, we need the participation of all citizens in shaping the future of mental health services. We need to remove the shackles from the wisdom of recipients of mental health services and their families and recognize the value of their experience in shaping future policy. Through full citizen participation,

This bell will ring for hope,
This bell will ring for freedom,
This bell will ring for victory.

***

We’re big in this country on designating special months and days for special causes, but I don’t think mental health awareness should go away on June 1 for another year.

Not in a time when those with the power to return us to the years of chains and shackles are talking about slashing or eliminating financial support for agencies like MHA and thousands of others that were called upon to provide the care and assistance needed by those released when those oppressive asylums were closed down across the country.

Not in a time when persons without proper health training, experience and credentials are in charge of national health policy.

Not in a time when Congress is discussing eliminating Medicaid, which pays for much of that support to thousands of Americans.

Not in a time when thousands of federal employees who provide research and other vital assistance to those suffering with mental illness are being let go.

Not in a time when when federal funding for agencies that address addiction problems is being eliminated.

Not in a time when programs for veterans dealing with mental illness are being eliminated.

Not in a time when politicians are talking about eliminating the national suicide hotline.

Not in a time when anyone who doesn’t fit the powers-that-be’s increasingly narrow profile of “acceptable” is in danger of being snatched off the street and placed in shackles.

May is almost over, but the bell for hope and freedom for the mentally ill needs to keep ringing. Mental health is health. Sign me up.

***

By Bob Gaydos

Hades … too much to pray for?

     Had breakfast with a friend the other day, trying out a new coffee shop in town. Nice addition.

      The conversation touched on the usual stuff. Too much rain. What’s planted in the garden, the hummingbird count, the challenges in living in a house with another person. Living on a planet with certain other people.

      That last proved provocative. With regard to those certain other people, my friend offered that, if he were a praying man, he would pray for The Rapture.

      I got his intent, but I suggested that I thought he had it backwards. Having read “Left Behind,“ I knew it was the good, caring, kind, faithful humans who were transported off the planet to Heaven, I believe, leaving their clothing and loved ones behind.

      The others, the nasty ones, the ones my friend wanted to be rid of, stayed and, through a series of books, fended for and against themselves and other non-believers. So I suggested that, assuming we wanted to remain in whatever state this is for a while longer, what we needed was a Reverse Rapture.

   We needed someplace we could pray for all those You Know Whats to be sent to, without any get-out-of-jail card in the form of an Orpheus, if I may be allowed to mix my miracles.

     Hades. Yes, Hades. The Underworld would do.

     So, who would we want to go? Personally, I’d start with Trump and his immediate family. The whole crew. Every member of his Cabinet and White House staff. Every lawyer who ever worked for him, except for Michael Cohen. Elon Musk. J.D.Vance. Every current Republican member of Congress, except for Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. The authors of Project 2025. Anyone who wears a Maga T-shirt or hat. Anyone who identifies as a journalist but works and lies for Fox News. Putin. Kim. Hamas and all the other terrorists. The pushers of fentanyl. Laura Loomer. (Speaking of Loomer and Kristi Noem and the Barbi press contact and the attorney general and all the other Trumpettes, Hades will come with no cosmetic amenities, including plastic surgeons. Zero. Just saying.)

    Also, all those mask-wearing ICE employees who’ve been enjoying grabbing people off the street, out of their homes, wherever, with no warrants or concern for the people or the law. And Clarence Thomas, to fulfill Hades’ DEI requirements.

     And, really, anyone who voted for Trump three times. What were they thinking? They get a special wing in Hades where The Apprentice plays on big screens constantly. In Spanish. And they have to use their bitcoin to buy English subtitles, but they already gave it all to Trump, who gave it all to the Saudi royal family (they’re there, too), who promised to build a Hades Trump Tower using white South African immigrants for labor. It could take a while, but who really cares?

     Now, all that cosmic deportation would obviously leave behind a whole lot of room, especially in this big, beautiful country, and a lot of available work for good, caring, reliable, nice, talented, decent, tolerant human beings, maybe from Venezuela or Mexico or Greenland or Panama or El Salvador.

      Too much to ask for, you say? Especially over breakfast? Hell, if you’re going to pray for anything, especially a Reverse Rapture, I say why not go all in?

       Besides, checks and balances seems to be broken.

                                     ***

Additions to the prayer chain are welcome.

By Bob Gaydos

“I don’t know.“

No, that wasn’t a multiple choice question that Donald Trump had just been asked by an ABC News reporter. He was asked if he thought it was his duty as president to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.

Pretty simple and straightforward, most Americans would think. Instead of giving us choice A (yes) or B (no), Trump gave us C (I don’t know).

He expanded: “I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are obviously going to follow what the Supreme Court said.”

Despite his sworn oath, it has become Trump’s standard answer to questions about following the law upholding the Constitution. Blame it on his lawyers. The only ones left who are going to represent him in court. They know the answer. They’re just not saying. Not if they want to keep their jobs. A Justice Department lawyer who goes into court and admits there is no constitutional basis for the argument he or she is making is volunteering for a pink slip.

But then, one can say they should’ve known better when they took the job to represent Trump in the first place. It’s not as if there’s no track record to check.

But honestly, “I don’t know” seems to be the mantra for Trump with regard to just about anything that comes up. He just doesn’t always say it out loud.

Like, I shouldn’t be so friendly with a Saudi prince who had a journalist who worked for an American newspaper killed and dismembered in the Saudi embassy in Turkey because he didn’t like what the reporter wrote. Who knew? Or, I shouldn’t speak highly of an “attractive” Syrian president who once delighted in killing American soldiers in Iraq as part of Al Qaeda. Or, I shouldn’t take $400 million gift airplanes from a Mideastern country that supports terrorists. Or, actually, I shouldn’t take gifts from anyone. Emoluments, y’know? Beautiful word.

Stuff like that. Someone should tell him if he really doesn’t know because it’s infuriating and, frankly, embarrassing to have someone holding the office of president to be so, umm, ill-informed.

On the other hand, there’s such a thing as knowing too much. Or rather, thinking you do.

Take the case of Bobby Junior, better known as RFK Jr., who is now in charge of the health needs, issues and concerns of every American, allegedly.

Kennedy clatters around the Health Department like a know-it-all who once had a worm in his brain. Like a guy who might pick up a dead bear cub off the road, stick it in his car trunk, drive to Central Park and dump it on a walking path. For kicks. That kind of health savant.

Kennedy “knows” that vaccines cause autism and has chosen to ignore the research that dismissed that theory. He wants a new study to figure out why there are so many new cases, aside from the fact that we know so much more about identifying the behavioral disorder today. Gotta be vaccines.

He also “knows” that vaccines do not protect against measles, even though the MMR vaccine has done an excellent job of that for decades. So he’s cut off a lot of congressionally approved spending for vaccines and is promoting  more “natural” protections. Meanwhile, measles cases are multiplying nationwide because some people are following his advice not to use the vaccine. Because he “knows,” right?

Oh, and the man who  took his grandchildren for a Mother’s Day dip in a D.C. watering hole condemned because of the presence of a whole lot of bacteria, including E. coli, now wants to eliminate fluoride in water supplies so that kids and adults can once again get lots of cavities.

I have a local rooting interest in this one. The study that established fluoride as a safe cavity preventive when used in tiny amounts was conducted in 1945 in Newburgh and Kingston, two Hudson River cities in New York. My stomping grounds.

Newburgh got the fluoride. Kids got fewer cavities and their parents got lower dental bills. Kingston was the control group. No fluoride. Kids there got the usual amount of cavities. Since that groundbreaking study 80 years ago, thousands of communities around the country, including New York City, have added EPA-prescribed small doses of fluoride to their water supply to help residents avoid dental problems. It’s worked.

But Kennedy, also a one-time Hudson River denizen, is a longtime opponent of fluoride. He says it is a dangerous chemical with potentially harmful effects (which no one denies, but in much higher doses) and shouldn’t be added to drinking water.

How does he know? Well, he doesn’t, really, but he’s ordered the CDC to stop recommending fluoride as a dental decay preventive and to conduct new studies on the subject. Because, what does science know?

By the way, Utah was the first state to follow Junior’s advice and ban fluoride in its drinking water, under a decree by Gov. Spencer Cox, who happens to be a Mormon. Cause and effect has not yet been determined.

By Bob Gaydos

Anne Sokol Gaydos

I generally didn’t post something on Facebook on Mothers Day because my mom has been gone a while now and I always have trouble finding old photos. But as I read posts a few years ago, and looked at photos of other mothers, I started thinking about what Anne Sokol Gaydos, a typical, post-war, stay-at-home mom in Bayonne, N.J., gave me that had a significant influence on my life.

As I scrolled, nothing unusual came to mind until, suddenly, there it was, staring me in the face and sitting in a neat pile on the end chair of the kitchen table back in Bayonne. Each and every morning: The Bayonne Times, The Jersey Journal, The Newark Star-Ledger, The Daily News, The Mirror. The routine morning reading.

As I got older, I added to the pile: The Herald Tribune, The New York Post, The Journal-American.

With this constant immersion in the news of the day, I naturally went to college to study electrical engineering. For one semester. Then mom’s influence came into play.

A wise counselor suggested that I major in English. At another college. Something about grades and attendance.

Long story short, I did. I went to Adelphi College (now a university) and majored in English. Specifically, writing. After college, I got a job at The Bayonne Facts, a weekly, then worked as a journalist for daily newspapers in Binghamton, Annapolis and Middletown for more than 50 years. Obviously, I still write and I still identify as a journalist.

So, in brief, that’s it. Basically, that stay-at-home mom who taught me how to play 500 rummy also gave me my entire career, which I have thoroughly enjoyed and still do.

Thanks, Mom, happy Mothers Day and happy birthday coming up May 17.

Love, Bob

By Bob Gaydos

History.

Synchronicity thy name is Robert Francis Prevost, native son of Chicago. Bob to his friends. Otherwise known as Pope Leo XIV, Bishop of Rome, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, the first U.S.-born citizen to hold that position.

A missionary and longtime advocate for migrants and “ordinary people,” his elevation to the Holy See comes at a time when an American president has waged war on migrants, created unnecessary pain for ordinary people and mused about being pope, even posting an image of himself on a throne in such a role only days after the death of Pope Francis and bragging that he not only “runs America,” but runs the world.

But an American pope now has a voice and a pulpit to challenge that of Donald Trump and an audience that is arguably farther reaching. Pope Leo, 69, also is fluent in five languages. Trump, 78, struggles through English. Trump sells Bibles. Pope Leo quotes from them. Furthermore, in a contest of character, the pontiff is the clear favorite.

And he’s black. Or not purely Caucasian. The pope’s mother was the daughter of a mixed-race landowner, Joseph Martinez, born in Haiti, and Louise Baquiet (also Baquiex) a mixed-race Black Creole from New Orleans. The couple were listed as Black in census records from 1900, a family historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection, shared on Facebook and with CNN.

There are no coincidences. The powers that guide such things clearly knew what they were doing when Bob, from Chicago by way of Peru, was elevated to pope quickly on the second ballot of the College of Cardinals. No time to waste. A speedy, much-needed puff of white smoke in a time of gathering darkness.

MAGA hates him already. They call him “woke.”

The president’s muse, Laura Loomer, the far-right loony who persuaded Trump to fire some of his aides for not being loyal enough, said on X of Pope Leo, “He is anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-open Borders, and a total Marxist like Pope Francis.”

Well, hallelujah and amen.

By Bob Gaydos

Ruby-throated, hummingbird
RJ Photography

Back-burner, bozos!

The news of the day can wait.

Haven’t you heard?

They’re here. The birds.

The ones that hum.

They’re back.

The ones that flit and dart

and go and come.

They’re back in town

from hither and yon

and even farther.

On course again to delight

with their frantic flight.

A feathered tour de force.

***

‘Tis been a while,

half a year or more,

since they fled for warmer shore.

No notice.

No goodbye.

Just pack up, flit and fly.

Sad to see you go, said I.

Bye bye. Hope you enjoyed the hospitality.

See you next year.

***

And now they’re here.

‘Twould appear, to stay

At least for a while.

For the summer.

For the smile.

For the sugar.

For the nesting.

Though there’ll be precious little resting.

It’ll be mostly flitting

and flying and zigging

and zagging.

Some hovering, too.

Looking, ever, for the nectar. So Sweet.

All the while humming

to a frantic wingbeat.

***

Did you hear?

They’re here.

They’ve come.

The birds. You know, the tiny ones that hum. The greens and blues and purples and reds.

And our very own ruby-throated.

Dear Feathered Friends,

Welcome back.

Have a drink. Try to relax.

Your arrival

has been duly noted.