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petepettingillposts · 4 years ago

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NEW YORK DAYS 1987 – 1988

I was born in Queens, a New York City borough but I grew up in Nassau County. The city always loomed large in our lives but we didn’t have much to do with it. It might as well have been another country.

My father worked at 26 Broadway. My Aunt Jessie worked in Manhattan, too, for General Electric in the sixties and early seventies. My mother worked for Liggett & Meyers until she left to have me in the late fifties. We visited the city a few times as kids to see my father, to eat at the automat, to ride the Staten Island ferry. As young adults we would drive in late in the evening to go to the top of the World Trade Center. We did that a few times. But we’d always come right back out.

Sometime in 1987 I was promoted by my company to a supervisory position in Rockefeller Center from one of the Long Island offices. I was not keen on this at all but I went. It was going to mean longer days because of the commute and I was uncertain what it would be like overall. I was twenty-eight years-old and had been with the company two and a half years. In hindsight I was not so opposed that I ever contemplated quitting my job. As a dutiful soldier, I took the assignment and went to New York City, much as I had taken orders to go from Fort Jackson, SC to Giessen, Germany a decade earlier.

I was married and living in Hempstead. We had been married just over two years. E was working as a research librarian at a Wall Street bond firm. Our apartment was very close to the Long Island Railroad station. It was only a mile but I did not consider walking there because it was not a great neighborhood. I drove to the station every morning. I had to have a town sticker to park in that parking lot.

I became excited about the job and wanted to do well. I went early every day. I recall getting up at 4:30 or 5:00, showering, dressing and leaving. We wore suits in those days, or at least slacks and sports jackets with a tie. Don’t forget the tie. In the late autumn and winter, I wore a trench coat or an overcoat. It was during this period I developed an affinity for herringbone. I had a maroon briefcase from Macy’s I bought for my promotion. That only went to the dump a few years ago.

Whenever I reflect on this part of my life to other people, I always make sure I tell them “I read the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times in the morning and the New York Post in the afternoon.” Stories in the news then were Tawana Brawley, the garbage barge, and, of course, Oliver North and Fawn Hall were waist deep in the Iran-Contra Affair with Ronald Reagan. And rarely a day went by that Donald Trump was not in the New York Post.

Rarely did I catch a morning train that did not require a change at Jamaica to go to Pennsylvania Station, so I also like to share how at least twice I fell asleep, missed the change, ended up in Brooklyn, and had to work my way up to Rockefeller Center on the subways from Brooklyn. I am glad that only happened twice. It is an ordeal.

On the approach to Jamaica, I was always fascinated by the ruin of Saint Monica. Saint Monica’s was a Roman Catholic Church built in 1856 and closed in 1973. In 1987 it was staggering to see this church, right in the middle of Queens, not just in complete disrepair but collapsing. It always captured my imagination: the people who had built it, loved it, and cared for it. And now abandoned it. What had become of them that this had become of this church?

Shortly after departing Jamaica, the trained stopped at Woodside, and from there accelerated and dove in to a tunnel under the East River. Next stop: Pennsylvania Station.

Depending on the weather I would either walk the mile from Penn Station to Rockefeller Center or I would take a subway. I had two choices: the 1 train or the F train. The F train stopped in a mall beneath what was then the JC Penney building. I could work my way through the labyrinth to number 10. Using the 1 train I would emerge by a deli and I would always get a fried egg on a bulky roll and pint of Tropicana orange juice for about $2. Those guys could move some people through that place every morning. The hustle was all New York.

Early on I learned about synchronized commuting on the subway: the best entry point on the subway that would be the best exit point off the subway for my stop. You will see the same New Yorker standing in the same spot at the same time for decades with little deviation.

Rarely was I the first one in the office. Pat always beat me. In those days he commuted in from the Delaware Water Gap. That was an hour and a half each way! I would eventually work with Pat again in Dover, New Hampshire.

I loved the work I was doing in New York. I was a supervisor and we were doing liability claims primarily for department stores, hotels, and restaurants. I worked with some great people and we had a lot of fun. I can still name names but I won’t. We had one guy who frequently took naps in the bathroom stall with his pants around his ankles.

It was a formative time in my career. I had good managers. They let us do our work and were there for us when we needed them. We dealt with some huge and complex claims, and I was exposed to some of the most notorious plaintiff attorneys in the country. I was naïve and would go right at them. I had no idea who I was dealing with until it was all over. Sometimes it ended well and sometimes it did not. But we settled cases all day long.

We had some high profile claims that were in the news and we’d always have a few with celebrities. It was real time stuff. I worked with some great defense lawyers. And to be honest I worked with some really good plaintiff attorneys. One guy actually coached me on how to do my job. I mean he was completely forthright and honest. I remember his name as if I spoke with him last week. “Kid, make sure you are leaving a paper trail because you will never remember it all and I’d hate to see you get hung up.” My adversary said that to me.

I am sure I ate lunch but I don’t remember much about it or any particular routine except for walking. I walked everywhere. I’d walk up to Central Park and back. I’d go down to Bryant Park and the New York Public Library. I took advantage of the sights and sounds of the city. Of course, the famous Christmas tree was right outside our building and Saint Patrick’s Cathedral was across the street. I had no inside information but I knew my city career would be a brief period of my life and I wanted to take in every piece of it while it lasted.

I frequently walked over to the then construction site of Worldwide Plaza. When I first visited the site it was a great big hole between West 49th and West 50th Streets and Eighth and Ninth Avenues, the proverbial city block. And for the remainder of my time working in the city I watched that hole turn to a foundation and three main buildings, the tallest being fifty stories. If you have never watched a skyscraper being built, it is really something else to see the trucks arriving with steel beams, and the workers and the cranes put them in place and fasten them.

If I did take the subway back to Penn Station at the end of the day I have no recollection of that now. For the most part I walked. It was a mile and it was an interesting mile of people, places and things. And smells. Smells good and bad. It always seemed like the best choice to walk. In fact it might be quicker depending on the timing of the subway. And it was a good way to unwind. If my timing was right, I could catch the Hempstead train and not have to change at Jamaica. In fact, I think I planned it that way most often.

To call Penn Station bustling is an understatement. Certainly, not for the faint of heart. I quickly became accustomed to it, entering from Seventh Avenue, descending the escalator, and working my way through the faceless crowd and countless shops and concessions. Thinking back on it all now, it was pretty amazing, the timing of it all: leave the office, walk to Penn, get on the train moments before it pulled out.

I feel fortunate I had the experience. After about 18 months, I was moved back to one of the Long Island offices and shortly after that, in 1989 I came to New Hampshire on a 3 – 5 year temporary assignment.

I’ll leave it at that for now.

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petepettingillposts · 5 years ago

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Quarantined we have taken the opportunity to clean out and re-organize things around the house. I doing so sixty-two year-old me found a pile of journals from the eighties.

First one pulled November, 1981 – March, 1982. Twenty-three year old me. Thirty-nine years ago.

Twenty-three year-old me was two years out of the Army and wrapping up two years at Nassau Community College with an associate’s degree in liberal arts that November. Living with my parents, working at Herman’s World of Sporting Goods in Roosevelt Field in the hunting and fishing department; editor-in-chief of the college paper, Vignette; a robust social life. For extra money twenty-three year-old me drilled the holes in bowling balls. One dollar per ball. Struggling to keep the lime green VW Beetle going.

Twenty-three year-old me drafted ideas for papers and editorials, wrote about current events (how polarized the nation was!), and demonstrated political moderation with a liberal twist. Still there. Not as contemptuous of Ronald Reagan now as then.

Twenty-three year-old me then appears at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in January, 1982. The journal reveals an intentional pull back of activities to become more engaged: completely engaged in schoolwork, homework, essays and papers. Typesetting for the college paper. Writing endlessly about Emerson and Thoreau, writing about Professor Newlin and his insights, writing about the lost love of Stephanie. Visiting my cousin Michael who lived nearby. Lonely and isolated. Need to do something about that next semester.

Twenty-three year-old me in early 1982 was idealistic, a little naïve, and somewhat misinformed; thought himself a man of the world. Was already complaining about knee problems. Riding a bicycle every chance he got. Loved the woods and the beach. Frequently contemplated the future and what needed to be done to be successful in it. “Nothing I do matters, if I am not happy first.”

Twenty-three year-old me wrote about Phil Donahue. Apparently, watching him in the morning when getting ready for the day. No recollection of doing that but an episode on progeria clearly affected me and the episode is recalled.

Twenty-three year-old me had a vision of what he wanted and sixty-two year-old me has it.

Twenty-three year-old me had no idea that sixty-two year-old me would one cold and rainy day in Barrington, New Hampshire pull that journal and be so deeply affected by him. And write about it in his journal.

Twenty-three year-old me is still so alive. It’s uncanny.

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petepettingillposts · 7 years ago

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A New England Narrative

It’s not quite winter but you wouldn’t know that this mid-November New Hampshire afternoon.

It’s still two hours until sunset but the sun is already low in the sky making driving south and west perilous.

The wind makes the dry air wintry even though it is only forty-two degrees. There is no ice on the brooks or in the nooks but there might as well be. The rivers and streams run high from days and days of rain.

In a strange way it is really a beautiful day. Maybe you have to be a Yankee to really appreciate it. A dry day with even intermittent sunshine feels good.

I wasn’t born in New England but I am of New England.

I was born in Queens, New York, at the long defunct Mary Immaculate hospital. I came to New England as a young man some thirty years ago on a temporary employment assignment. My ancestors and their ancestors prospered here since the Seventeenth Century. But my father left Maine for the Korean War, subsequently met a Brooklyn girl at a USO dance, and the rest, as they say, is history. My mother was never going to milk a cow.

My ancestors’ homes are here; they are all buried here. There is no doubt in my soul that Providence brought me here and that I belong here.

Often I quote Henry Thoreau saying something to the effect that I came to the woods to live deliberately. While it may not be for the deep existential reasons Henry spells out, it certainly was to move from the desperate city, and to not become one of the mass of men who lead lives of quiet desperation. Although I have suffered my fair share of that. Seems unavoidable but something we can outgrow.

As I traverse the road from Hookset to Plaistow today I feel a true sense of peace and gratitude passing the homes and farmsteads of all those who have come and gone before us, even if not my biological ancestors.

I see numerous cemeteries, large and small, ancient and newer. My first thought is about all the biographies in them. And my next thought is how I’d like to write them all.

I spy a town pound made of enormous hewn stone and in my Mind’s Eye can see and hear the farmers and the constables, and the truant cows and pigs of two hundred years ago.

Passing countless barns – those in good repair, and those in poor repair. I hear my long dead father or his sister bemoan the crumbling barns that were raised with such craftsmanship and pride gone to ruin from neglect or ignorance on how to care for them.

I see a house with banking boards. If you know what banking boards are, you might be a Yankee. If you see a house with banking boards you are seeing some real history and you may presume the residents have lived in that house for a very long time or their family has lived there for a very long time or they are well educated on keeping their poorly insulated 200-year-old farmhouse warm.

Banking boards are about the size of a large door and during the winter lean against the perimeter of the house at the foundation to keep the house warm by redirecting – banking - the wind upward as it hits the house. Yankee ingenuity at its finest. Good luck Googling this ancient practice. I learned of it as a child on my grandmother’s West Gardiner, Maine farm. Those boards were still in the barn when we sold it in 1998.

Throughout the afternoon I feel gratitude several times meditating and driving some 100 country miles from Barrington to Hookset to Plaistow and home; grateful for the warmth of my truck, the dry air, intermittent sunshine, and the living history book in which I live.

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petepettingillposts · 7 years ago

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Generational Consciousness Redefined

I was talking with a friend about generational consciousness and it turns out it does not mean what I thought it meant. What generational consciousness apparently means is that one is acutely aware of the role of their generation in the moment. That makes a lot of sense to me.

So what is it that I am looking for? Generational Subconsciousness?

I have felt this deep, abiding connection to my ancestors since I was a child. I have been conscious of the preceding generations for five of my six decades of life.

My father was very proud of our family history even though it turns out he did not have it all right. When we were children he told us about our Revolutionary War ancestor and a Civil War cousins. Our Aunt Janet was heavily engaged in the family history. She made sure all of my father’s children were registered descendants of the Mayflower. In fact we were playing in the street a block from our house one day and I found the five envelopes with our certificates in them that the mail carrier had apparently dropped. They certainly were at risk for never arriving.

A copy of A Pettingell Genealogy (1901) was in in our home by the early 1970s and I was fascinated by it. I was incapable of registering it all at the time but I recall doing an eighth grade genealogy project and stringing together twelve generations. The other students actually made fun of it and I am certain to this day that my teacher doubted its veracity. I recall him leading the charge in making fun of some of the ancient names; Obadiah Pettingill being one of them.

I would go on about my business proud of my heritage and make my way in life eventually cycling back to it all. The next stop in genealogy came after three years in the Army when I commenced a college degree on the GI Bill and had an opportunity to write a paper about my family again. While I cannot recall the class, the paper was about the impact of war on certain generations of my family starting with the French and Indian Wars.

Upon the death of my Aunt Janet in 1997, she bequeathed to me all of her genealogical research. It was boxes and boxes of Xeroxed pages and handwritten notes, and several shelves of county, state, and family reference books. She not only researched our families but for a few dollars would research the families of others. I found letters from folks from all over the country she had corresponded with over thirty years. Like most young folks I failed to have enough curiosity about the details while she was still alive and have had to build out a lot of things myself. The foundation she left was nothing short of phenomenal. And mind you this is all long before Ancestry.com and the like. She trudged through state building halls and rifled through many library shelves to accumulate the data.

I was most recently looking at some work she had done on Descendants of the Magna Carta Dames & Barons which pertained to all American descendants of those barons which presented the Magna Carta to King John for his signature. Another massive piece of work she did was establishing our family’s descendance from King Charlemagne. He would be my 36X great grandfather.

Among a host of other things, I inherited in that sad time were the hundreds of documents of family history. None in any particular order.

Not long after that Ancestry.com was born I joined. Therein I began to build out the digital family tree. It was an enormous task. Ancestry was very much in its infancy at the time, too. In due course, around 2010 maybe, I would record the entire A Pettingell Genealogy in to the system. Now Ancestry had matured and additional data was popping up but so were the conflicts and flaws. That was about an eight month project. Because not only did I record the genealogy but found and corrected countless errors, documented countless questions, and picked up hundreds of additional descendants since the 1901 publication. I really learned a lot on that project.

The point of all of this background and my understanding of generational consciousness, or my apparent misunderstanding as the case might be, is that I became very conscious of who I am because of who I am from. It all went much further than books and laptop.

I visited an aged second cousin in Connecticut who was a ward of my paternal grandparents living on their farm from age nine through college. I found third and fifth cousins and had visits, sharing photographs and lore. I traveled from New Hampshire to Berkeley, California to read a collection of letters written by a great great aunt during the 1860s and 1870s to her “Dear Parents” in Livermore Falls, Maine. And I got to know these people. That’s my point. I feel like I know them. I am very conscious of those generations in every waking moment of my day, of the history they made and participated in. Of how we got where we are as a family and as a nation of families. A nation of families! My family, I believe, represents the American experience from the colonization of Massachusetts through modern day. That is my generational consciousness.

I am hard pressed not to consider the indentured servitude of my ancestor Richard Pettingill at Salem, his subsequent marriage to his former master’s daughter; that his father-in-law built the House of the Seven Gables. I am always cognizant of the massacre of Daniel Pettingill at Fort William Henry, and how his sons were removed from their mother to be raised by other families; and how they themselves would serve in the American War for Independence. The move west my great great aunt Lydia Garcelon Stewart made as a young girl to the gold fields of California over the Isthmus of Nicaragua, the Great March West by my great great grandfather John Harris Pettingill, his marriage in San Diego, and his return to Maine, the early death of his wife, his leaving his children with his mother while he went to work on the Panama Canal. These things and many more are always on my mind and in my heart as I move though my day.

I don’t get a sense of reincarnation at all. Rather I just have a sense of family, as close as it has been with the ones I have known as a child and as an adult. It’s a little weird sometimes, and not a lot of people get it. But I can see and hear some of them as clear as a bell at times. Maybe I am just nuts.

But this is my generational consciousness.

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petepettingillposts · 7 years ago

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An Unexpected Turn

Riding my bicycle through Durham I made an unexpected turn on to a road I had not taken before, and I came across the Hamilton Smith Memorial Chapel. This memorial chapel was erected by Hamilton Smith’s widow to memorialize him and his great accomplishments. The chapel and its grounds, however, also memorialize three generations of women with stories of their own.

I am not a Durham, New Hampshire aficionado, although I generally know my way around. I had never seen this chapel or at least I do not think I have. I had some vague recollection of Hamilton Smith as a wealthy benefactor of the university.

I soaked in this tranquil setting on a sultry summer New Hampshire afternoon, snapped some pictures with my phone, and posted them to Facebook before resuming my ride. I intentionally captured the engravings from the gravestones so I could do a little research on the interred.

By the time I got home many people had commented on the post, one leaving a link about the chapel. I read the data behind that, and did some quick research on Hamilton Smith (1840-1900). While all of the writings about “Ham” Smith, his illustrious career as a mining engineer and financier, his great fortune, his probable exploitation of African people and resources are all very interesting, I became more curious about the other folks buried in the little cemetery.

A visitor may wrongly conclude this was a simple little nineteenth and twentieth century family: a husband, a wife, a daughter, and a grand-daughter and her husband. It is far from that neat and clean.

Hamilton Smith’s wife, “Alice Hamilton Smith,” as the stone reads, was born in to the antebellum American aristocracy as Alice Robinson Jennings in New Orleans, Louisiana on April 8, 1850 to Needler Jennings and Anna Maria Hennen.

Needler Jennings was a native of Norfolk, Virginia, but lived most of his life in New Orleans. According to a biographical summary, Needler “practiced law until 1841, when he was appointed Clerk of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Louisiana. He remained in office after secession, serving until the Union army occupied the city in 1862.” He did serve in the Confederate Army despite “his well-known Union sympathies.” He died November 20, 1863, in Osyka, Mississippi.

Alice was cultivated as many young women of her station. She married first Charles Congreve on June 3, 1873 in New Rochelle, New York. Charles was born in England about 1829 probably in Sheffield since the record shows family connection there. Some of the documents on the chapel website and in the university system indicate Alice was born a Congreve when in fact she married in to the family.

Alice and Charles had a daughter, Edith, who is also buried in this cemetery, and who we will talk about later. According to an obituary on Tuesday, February 26, 1878 Charles Congreve “dropped dead at the Delaware, Lackawana, and Western Railroad Station in Newark, N.J…..the immediate cause of his death was over-exertion.” He was 48 years-old and in the course of his business travels; his widow was 28 and his daughter was three. His obituary indicates he was very active in several types of business including the trading of Texas cattle with England brokers.

Alice subsequently married Hamilton “Ham” Smith in 1886 in Kensington, England. She was 36 and he was 46, Edith was 11. The family would have many happy years together and Ham raised Edith as his own daughter. There was much travel around the world as Hamilton became more prominent and wealthier in the mining industry.

Hamilton Smith died on July 4, 1900, one day short of his 60th birthday. The suggestion is that he died “in a boating incident on the Oyster River.” His death certificate indicates he died of “heart failure.” Better than dropping dead trying to switch trains in Newark, New Jersey, I suppose.

Upon his death Alice erected the chapel in his memory. Regrettably she died only six short years later at 56 years-old.

Before she died, however, this daughter of the antebellum aristocracy attended the 1901 Durham, New Hampshire wedding of her daughter Edith to Sherby Onderdonk, and subsequently the 1902 birth of her granddaughter and namesake, Alice. Onderdonk’s first name frequently appears as Sherly or Sherley but the Onderdonk Genealogy uses Sherby.

Sherby Onderdonk was a formidable businessman having many ventures including farming in Costa Rica. He was born in 1873, the son of Andrew Onderdonk and Sarah D. Hilman. Andrew Onderdonk was a civil engineer and contractor who built the sea wall at San Francisco, a large portion of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, and part of the New York City subway system, just to name a few of his accomplishments. Sarah Hilman was the daughter of Sherlock Hilman and a graduate of the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Not surprising Edith would have been introduced to such a prominent character and his family. Onderdonk died in Manhattan, November 15, 1918 at 45 years-old leaving his wife and a 16 year-old daughter, Alice Onderdonk. Sherby is not buried in Durham, and it is not clear at this moment where he is buried. Regrettably Edith died only three and half months later on February 26, 1919 in Brookline, Massachusetts. There is nothing available at this moment to indicate why the Onderdonks died so prematurely.

Edith and Alice traveled together before Edith’s death. Ship manifests show them arriving in Honolulu on July 1, 1912 from Yokohama, Japan, and in San Francisco on July 31, 1912. The latter record indicates they had been to Hong Kong and Japan. Additionally, another record shows them arriving in New York from France on September 15, 1913. Alice was only nine and ten years old during these trips. We can only imagine the wonder and privilege as if we were watching a movie.

And so, the third generation of the females buried at the memorial chapel is Alice Onderdonk, born in Durham on November 4, 1902. It is not clear where Alice lived after her mother died in 1919.

Alice married first Henry Dean Quimby on June 19, 1924. Quimby was a business man from Rochester, New York. She would subsequently move to Rochester, New York and have two children, Henry and Congreve.

What became of that marriage and her children is immediately unclear. I’ll keep looking. But Alice married second Lloyd Britton Van Da Linda (1892 – 1975).

Lloyd was born in New York City, had been married and raised a family primarily in Cincinnati, Ohio. A ship manifest shows him, his wife, Emma, and their two daughters, Betty and Mary, 10 and 8, respectively, arriving in New York from Cherbourg, France on September 1, 1933. A 1948 Virginia divorce record indicates he abandoned his wife in 1944, and Emma prevailed in a non-contested divorce after thirty years of marriage. Lloyd had a varied career and moved around a lot. He was no Hamilton, Congreve, or Onderdonk.

It is unclear how Alice and Lloyd met or when exactly they married but they appear on the October 17, 1951 manifest of the popular passenger ship Mauretania booked for a six-month cruise. There home address is listed ass 23 Main Street, Durham, New Hampshire.

Alice died on May 17, 1978 in Santa Barbara, California, and is interred with her second husband, her mother and grandmother, and Hamilton Smith in the small graveyard adjacent to the Hamilton Smith Memorial Chapel in what seems an unexpected turn.

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petepettingillposts · 7 years ago

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Somewhere between unemployed and retired

On my 60th birthday I find myself in the midst of one big summer vacation.

I still feel as healthy and as energetic, as optimistic and excited about the future as I did at thirty-years-old. The difference now is that wisdom weighs more than experience, and intuition is more readily heeded. I am even okay with the hard fact that there are fewer years in front of me than there are behind me.

On this birthday it is impossible not to reflect on a few things.

First thing I think about are all of the people who have died. Oh yes there are my grandparents, my father, uncles, my beloved Aunt Janet, and many coaches and mentors. But what about the ones that my heart feels should still be here? One day best friends laughing and doing so much together, next day sick and dying, and then gone.

There was my friend and very much big brother John Hesko. He would be turning 69 this December. He died of a disease in 2005 after three years of profound sickness. It was a hard time but it was important for me to witness that courage. There was Dawn Thornton, a work colleague who I only knew for a few years. She proved a stalwart colleague and good friend suddenly struck down in 2011 at 46 years-old by an infection leaving three school age boys and a huge hole in our work group. And most recently my old friend Karen Brickman suddenly struck with a heart ailment, went in to a coma, and succumbed several days later.

I could go on with a host of other names as so many of us can. It is hard not to ask myself sometimes “why them and not me?” I accept it as the narrative by The Author of All Things.

I reflect, too, on another thought I have carried with me for a very long time. I never wanted to have children of my own and I would wonder “when I am sixty will I regret not having had my own children?” The short answer is no. At least not at 60. Maybe I will at seventy or eighty. I was blessed – is that what you call that? – to participate in the rearing of my second wife’s children from ages 13 and 7. I got in on all the adventures of parent teacher conferences, school projects, discipline, graduations, weddings, heart break and tumult, and grandchildren.

The decision to not have my own children was deliberate, if even for the wrong reasons. First and foremost, I think it was driven by extreme selfishness on my behalf. I just didn’t have room for them. I wanted to live my life without encumbrance. There was also fear of economic insecurity which turned out to be unfounded but I had no faith back then. I would always write my position off as “there are enough people having kids in this world that don’t even want them or can’t feed the ones they have.” Then there was the whole 2AM feeding and dirty diaper thing. Right, wrong or indifferent, I never wanted infants. Wasn’t doing that. Selfish or honest? Either way, it’s over now.

Thus far it has been a big life, and I expect that to continue for some years to come, as long as I have my health.

I had a fantastic career with the same company for thirty-three years. Not surprising considering my grandfathers and father worked for their respective employers for 52, 40, and 30 years. We’re not going to see much of that anymore in the new economy.

At 59 years-old I hit a saturation point and the corporate life was over for me. Dead as a door nail. I needed to leave out of self-preservation. It was my faith that allowed me to over-come the fear of economic insecurity.

In my new-found lifestyle which is really I have been able to engage in lots of community service and learn new things, take more time for myself and my faith. One day last week I rode my bicycle 25 miles in the morning and canoed and swam in the afternoon. This is a dream come true.

I know there are many adventures and challenges ahead but for the moment I am grounded in today and grateful.

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petepettingillposts · 7 years ago

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Somewhere between unemployed and retired

On my 60th birthday I find myself in the midst of one big summer vacation.

On this birthday it is impossible not to reflect on a few things.

I could go on with a host of other names as so many of us can. It is hard not to ask myself sometimes “why them and not me?” I accept it as the narrative by The Author of All Things.

Thus far it has been a big life, and I expect that to continue for some years to come, as long as I have my health.

I know there are many adventures and challenges ahead but for the moment I am grounded in today and grateful.

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petepettingillposts · 7 years ago

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Creating change

As I entered the bank this morning heading for one of the tables to count money and prepare the deposit for our club, a small man was moving towards me and to my left. He took a seat along the wall and picked up the local paper, and he began to read it. He was elderly and very unkempt; his clothes dirty. I suspect he had some business and was asked to take a seat.

I pay him no more mind and commence to focus on counting cash and checks that I suspect will total about $400. I have no calculator with me so it is going to require my undivided attention to get it right. I usually prepare these deposits at home and check my math with a calculator after counting.

Suddenly the woman who manages the tellers approaches the man reading the paper. A petite well-dressed woman with long dark hair she started out very politely but in very short order got to the point: “When one of my tellers asks you if they can do anything else for you I will expect you to answer them respectfully not in the crude manner you just did. You have upset her very much, and you have upset me very much.”

I did not look up. I was right there and heard every word. He was defenseless. Speechless. I sensed he could not believe this was happening. Neither could I but I was encouraged, excited. I was witnessing undaunted courage.

The manager continued. She was calm, kept her voice very moderate considering she was clearly and rightfully incensed. “Do you understand what I am saying? Am I being clear?” Only now as I document this episode do I realize this is not her first rodeo with crude comments towards herself or her staff. And of course, I am also thinking what an excellent manager she is. I was awestruck, knew I’d be writing this down.

At last the man grumbled something like “Okay, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” I could tell he was shocked he was being challenged on what was decades of what he heretofore considered acceptable behavior. Unless he lives in a cave with no access to news, I think he figured out in these moments that this whole treating women with dignity and respect applies to him.

The manager pivoted away and went back to her station, the man went back to his paper, and I went back to screwing up my deposit calculation. The man put down his paper and got up and left. Made me wonder why he sat down in the first place.

A few minutes later I went to the counter and the teller who I supposed had encountered the brunt of a dirty old man helped me. Someone’s daughter. I know a lot of the tellers but not her. I could tell she was still shaken by what ever went down. She was having struggles with the machine, with the customer at the drive through, and was apologetic to me for the delay. “I’m good. Take your time,” I said.

The manager got the machine on line and off we went. My deposit was screwed up. It came up $40 short. She thought she did something wrong. Haha, kid. You’ll get to know me.

The manager came over, we did this and that, I always own I may have the math wrong. “Here’s my scratch sheet,” I said to the manager. “Wanna run the calculator over it?” She did. I was wrong, they were right. Fine with me. I am so glad I am at a place in my life where being wrong is a perfectly acceptable state of being.

As I was closing up my portfolio the bank manager was passing behind the counter and the teller manager said “I need a few minutes of your time, please.” The manager, a tall, well-built thirty- forty-something male asked “Now or in my office?”

“Your office,” she said.

I had no doubt as a good manager she was about to update him on whatever went down with the old man in case it circled back in some way. I always kept my manager apprised of gnarly stuff in case it came out sideways someplace later on.

I feel really fortunate to have witnessed this episode this morning. It is unfortunate that it goes on but wow, to know the teller spoke up and to see this woman challenge a customer exhibiting unacceptable behavior in the defense of her female employee and herself was awesome.

I feel like we’re moving in the right direction. Is it fast enough? I don’t know.

What I do know is this is about all of us stepping up and speaking up one episode at a time. Changing the culture does not happen overnight, and it is not going to happen with just a bunch of directionless anger and rage. But it will happen one challenge at a time.

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petepettingillposts · 7 years ago

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Ed Giglio

The first time I met Ed Giglio was in the spring of 1989 when he interviewed me in Boston for a claim examining position. I was four years with the company then and a supervisor in one of our Long Island offices. Back then in claims work at our company the next logical step was to be an Examiner.

In some respects that interview is a blur but I do distinctly remember sitting in his office as he smoked and talked to me. I remember it as more of a conversation than as an interview. I distinctly remember what he told me about the job and how I used those words countless times in countless types of conversations in later times: the role of the Examiner is to independently examine the case facts and render an objective recommendation. How many people would hear that from me for the next 29 years?

In due course I was asked to come to the Home Office which was in part poised to move to Dover, New Hampshire. In that role I would be exposed to Ed almost daily for the next eight or nine years until he retired. He would become a boss, a mentor, and a leader for me like only another handful of people have over the course of my life. I was sad to learn yesterday that Ed had lost his fight with

cancer and had died. He leaves behind an incredible legacy of family and friends.

As the years went by in my working relationship with him I would hear him yell to the secretary “Is Pettingill out there? Tell him to come in here now.” Or my phone would light up with his name and he’d tell me to come in his office. He was very gruff but treated me incredibly well. He treated everyone well from what I saw. He rotated me in to different positions and promoted me like no other manager I ever had or would ever have.

In the early nineties he promoted me to a very specialized desk that required interaction with the federal government and an insurance regulatory agency. When the audit cycled around we were to all meet in Boston for the results with the auditors and the results were not good. This was the day I took a big piece of Ed into my character and became very much who you know today.

We were all in the conference room waiting for Ed. He knew everyone that was in there. All the claims people and the auditors. Ed was not a big guy but he had a large presence. He walked in the room and people stood up. He tossed a file folder on to the table told everyone to sit down, took off his suit jacket, and put it over the back of his chair. As he sat down began to roll up his sleeves. He was already talking before he sat.

He took charge of that room and he navigated the conversation. He’d clearly done his homework and was well prepared. In short order the meeting was over. Everyone was happy, shaking hands, and departing.

For the next 26 years of my 33-year career, that was me. I had high school teachers and college professors, non-commissioned officers and officers, managers and supervisors throughout my life show me how things were done. But never do I recall having been shown how to take charge of a room like Ed did that day. I knew from there on out it was the only way to go. Like him, I wasn’t always popular but I wasn’t there to be popular, I was there to get a job done. And he taught me that.

In 1996 Ed and his wife Gracie attended our wedding with a host of other characters from work. I recall his graciousness to my mother and my family, how much he adored Sylvia who also worked in our department for a while. It broke my heart when not long after he retired his sweet Grayce died. She was just a wonderful woman and I know he bore that horrible pain for the rest of his life. I was blessed to still see him over the years at various functions but did not have much a relationship with him after he retired.

If we are lucky, if we are really lucky, we all get an Ed Giglio in our lives at some point. That person who lifts us up and teaches us what was taught to them expecting only in return that we will take it and do well with it. I owe my success to many people but I feel like I owe Ed a larger piece than most.

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petepettingillposts · 7 years ago

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Reflection: 1980 - 1981

At the dawn of 1980 I was 21 years-old and about to commence my college education at Nassau Community College. In October, 1979 I had come home to my parents’ Long Island home after three years in the Army. Three of my four siblings still lived there, too.

I had a light blue 1978 Pinto station wagon, and everything I owned fit in it. I was working at Herman’s World of Sporting Goods in Roosevelt Field selling hunting and fishing equipment, and I had reconnected with my high school friend Bob Eastman.

Jimmy Carter was president and the Iran hostage crisis was ongoing. You couldn’t get away from that. Posters, political cartoons, and little musical or poetic ditties about Ayatolla Ruhollah Kohmeini were everywhere. In February the US Hockey team beat the Russians. If you were not a hockey fan, which I was not, you were that day. I was working in the mall and wandering around on break when that went down. It was a very big deal in light of the Cold War.

As I approached this period I thought I wanted to study for and eventually go in to law enforcement since I had been in the military police.

I showed up at Nassau Community College in January with a full course load. I had been dreaming of going to college for quite some time. I considered the military as a career but as I got to the third year I became disenchanted. If I had to do it, I could have but I did not want to. Impetuous youth, I suppose. I wanted more. I wanted something bigger. Secretly I wanted to be a writer but was uncomfortable talking about that. I had kept a journal throughout the service and I had a few short stories in a dogeared folder.

When I got to campus it did not take me long to ferret out the school newspaper, Vignette, and volunteer as a reporter. As a writer what I lacked in skill I made up in enthusiasm. I took a journalism course and the newspaper editors coached and mentored me. I met a lot of people – other newspaper staff, classmates, faculty, other students and their organizations we would write about, administrators. We published on a weekly basis and we had to lay the paper out ourselves manually before printing.

There was not anything I did not like about going to college. I did well academically. I remember one of my classes required me to tutor English as a second language and I remember how grateful my student was. She was a middle-aged woman from eastern Europe. I can barely recall her physical description but her gratitude and desire to learn are clear in my mind.

I struggled terribly with a statistics course, so bad, in fact, I failed and had to take it again. That was the first and last time that would happen. That experience solidified for me that I was not going to be doing any heavy-duty math or science, and how to be a better student and get things the first time. (Later in life, during my insurance claims career, I would become very competent in science and math.)

One of the more profound class room experiences concerned a sociology professor named Porter Kirkwood. He was a black man and told us about his exploits during the sixties with the Black Panthers. He was a no nonsense radical, and I loved it. He taught me so much I would take in to my life. He taught me about the Ruling Class, “that 1% of the population that controls 99% of the wealth.” He basically told us that you “do not have to be black to be oppressed, that we were all oppressed by the Ruling Class.” I bought that then and sell it now. And then there was the bowl of ice cream scenario that I have used countless times over these last four decades: “Don’t hand me a bowl of shit, tell me it is ice cream, and I have to eat it,” he said. “Just tell me it is a bowl of shit and I have to eat it.”

I found myself with a busy life-style and I was all in: school, part-time work at Herman’s, writing for the paper. The military lifestyle set me up for this, and this was setting me up for what was next. I even took on extra work at Herman’s drilling the holes in the bowling balls during league season. I bet you never gave that much thought – who puts the holes in the bowling balls? My recollection is I got one dollar per ball.

My social life was fast and furious because I had friends at school, friends at work, my friend Bob, and then somehow, I got in to roller skating and had a bunch of friends there. Funny thing with that was I never really mixed them. I don’t think that was intentional just no opportunity. In September, 1980 I met my friend Kevin: we are still good friends today. We don’t see each other often at all but we communicate a few times a month, if not more frequently.

In early 1981 I met a girl at the skating rink and we dated. She was about my age and she was pretty awesome. She was from a great family, her brother was playing basketball for Fordham University, her parents were professionals, and she was working at the Plaza Hotel as an events coordinator. I seem to recall she set up a wedding for Robert Redford’s daughter or something like that. She loved the city and we were in there often. We’d go to plays. I distinctly recall seeing Deathtrap with Robert Reed. We were right up front on that one.

Late that year I broke it off. Until this day I can’t tell you exactly why. The first thing that happened was that her parents found out we were sexually active. That did not go over well at all. And that signaled to me, I think, this was getting way too serious and I was no way ready to lock down to marriage and home and kids and so forth. I was also poised to leave the area and start my bachelor’s degree at State University of New York at Stony Brook. (I reached out to her around 2006 to apologize for my behavior. She was very polite but I don’t think she actually remembered me. “Did I know you from the city or from the island?” she asked.)

I have only scratched the surface in this vignette. I skipped the two-day bike ride to Montauk Point, the newspaper workshop in Cuddebackville, New York, and who could forget the newspaper workshop at Ohio State. I could write quite a bit on each one of those experiences. Maybe I will.

When 1981 closed I had an Associate of Arts degree and was poised for Stony Brook in January. These two years had been as formative as the previous three and prepared me well for the next steps.

Thanks to the advent of social media I have reconnected with a host of characters from this chapter of my life. I wish someday to have a call or visit with some of them and see how it all turned out.

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petepettingillposts · 7 years ago

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The Last Frittata

Today, March 30th, is actually my last day as a Liberty Mutual employee. I have been on seven weeks’ vacation since February 12. Actually, six weeks, four and a half days. If you ever worked in Corporate America you just accept the numbers and move forward, you don’t fight it; there is no appeal for thirty-five days.

I left after noon on that Monday, the 12th. Yes, I did do some work that morning which included some last-minute training of a colleague, then we had cake and more speeches, and I left. Despite all of the ceremony, those last few moments felt as unceremonious as the ones when I showed up on April 10, 1985. A colleague helped me carry stuff to my car, and it was over.

There were a number of events during the preceding week. We had a dinner with a group of managers Tuesday evening, and we had a luncheon on Friday. We had everything but a parade. It was a very nice send off with a lot of gifts – from the group and many individually.

One person had a St. Michael the Archangel medallion made up for me from a cast of her grandfather’s medallion he took to WWII. I received two pens: one fountain pen and all the accoutrements, and one in a shooting sports theme a colleague’s spouse made. All tolled I also received over $1,000 in gift cards. Few people get the send off I got.

It always was more than just a job for me. It wasn’t my life but it was a huge part of my life for a long time.

My retirement comes with a lot of mixed emotion because this was more about quitting than it was about retiring. I was well liked, well respected, and well known. I could have continued on in my role for a number of years. I will always recognize myself as blessed when it comes to my career.

I was a 26 year-old Army veteran with an English degree from a state school paid for by the GI Bill, and I found myself floundering in the 1984-1985 job market.

Then one day I saw an ad, and I went to see the employment agent who told me I was not qualified for the $22,000 per annum job I came in for but he had this other one for $17,500 as a claims adjuster. They’d train me, he said. I had no idea what I was getting myself in to. He recommended I shave my beard before the interview, so I did.

I think it goes like this for a lot of people. One day you are 26 years-old, starting a new job, and you’re off! Training, promotion, marriage, promotion, relocation to a different state, divorce, promotion, remarriage, promotion; countless roles, responsibilities, relationships, successes, and adversities; different cars, pets, and houses; friends come and go, people are born, and people die, good health and bad health. Then boom you’re almost 60 years-old. A lot of people don’t do it with the same employer but I did.

When it came to my career and my work, I played hard. I was fully engaged long before “employee engagement” became an HR mantra. A lot of us did a lot of stuff long before it became HR mantra.

We had a lot of fun and we learned a lot from our mistakes, from our clients, from our managers, from our peers and our subordinates, if we were willing. We learned from judges and lawyers, regulators and lobbyists, whether we wanted to or not. We learned from doctors and engineers, injured workers and their families. Plaintiff attorneys taught me a lot early on when I worked a desk in Rockefeller Plaza.

I would have to say what kept me truly engaged was variation and learning. Always learning and trying new things. We were afraid of nothing. We laughed. We laughed hard and loud and often. I was really blessed. I loved being in a leadership role, too. I enjoyed supporting and encouraging people. For a long time I had a great time, and for that I am grateful. A lot of people never know a work life like I have. I always told my step-kids and young folks I coached in later years “you have to lpve your work or you need to find something else.”

Then I started to find I was not having fun anymore. Everything seemed more like work, everything was so serious, so formal, and most of it seemed like drudgery. After a lot of soul searching, prayer and meditation, and counsel, I concluded I was saturated. It broke my heart. My career was terminally ill and there was nothing I could do about it. It was more about me than it was about them; I could not re-fit myself anymore.

Companies evolve to meet market demands, the work changes, the rules cycle from too many to too few and back again, the management philosophies and managers change, and so employees must do likewise. I think I just got old. And bored. Terribly bored. That was a hard pill to swallow. The work I loved was now boring. Try as I might, I could not move the needle on that one. How could this happen?

I took my own advice I had given a thousand times: if the work isn’t fun anymore, it is time to go. So I have.

Over the last seven weeks I have had some highs and I have had some lows. I am uncertain about the future. The financial security is not ideal but it is better than most. I may return to work, I may not. I may return to the industry, I may not. For the immediate future I will just try to take some time off and maybe pursue some home projects, hobbies, activities, and writing. I still feel like I have a lot to say and do. It will certainly help to get on the other side of winter.

On that last Friday morning, I went down to the cafeteria for my breakfast. I had only recently begun the Friday morning habit of having the breakfast buffet, always a frittata, sausage, and some potatoes. There were a number of these lasts as I moved towards February: the last Thanksgiving at work, the last Christmas at work, the last roundtable, the last check signing, the last file posted.

As I returned to my desk, I stopped in my boss’s office with my breakfast, chatted up him and his boss for a moment, mostly around my imminent departure. “Whatcha got there?” one of them asked. “The last frittata,” I said.

Six hours after that, I was running errands for my spouse, and I have not looked back. I am excited about the future, and I have not been excited about the future for a long time.

I hear those lyrics “Every new beginning is some other new beginning’s end,” and I can see that fresh, excited young face in my mind’s eye from so long ago. I am still him.

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petepettingillposts · 7 years ago

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Book Review: Grant

GRANT

Ron Chernow

Penguin Press 1,074 pages

By Peter Pettingill, March, 2018

In the close of Part Three of Grant, the author Ron Chernow allows Frederick Douglass to summarize: “That sturdy old Roman, Benjamin Butler, made the negro a contraband, Lincoln made him a freeman, and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant made him a citizen.” The reader says “Yes. Yes, that is exactly what happened.” But the reader also knows at this point in the book that Reconstruction is dead in its tracks, that there will be no more progress in civil rights for 100 years, and that they have just read one of the greatest records on a titanic battle between Good & Evil.

Grant is a model of biography because it not only captures characteristics of its subject, Ulysses S. Grant, but frequently presents more than one piece about the subject, suggests conclusions, and allows the reader to make their own conclusions. For example, a frequently occurring theme in the work concerns Grant’s drinking habits. The reader has little doubt that Ulysses struggled with drinking in his early career. But in later life as he moved through temperance, Chernow lays the conflicting evidences for the reader to mull over the facts. Often times the reader is unable to conclude whether it was a glass of alcohol, a complete debauch, a character assassination, or something in between. Which forces the reader to wonder “well just how important was that?” Which, I think, is often Chernow’s sentiment. There is a lot more to Ulysses Grant than his drinking.

Drawing on a new treasure trove of recently organized papers, Chernow is able to drill down on Grant unlike the countless biographies and character sketches previously rendered. Like any great biographer, Chernow gives more than ample background information on the current events and the countless characters President Grant interacted with.

After some valuable family background, we find the subject born on the 1822 frontier. The reader may conclude long before completing the work that dysfunctional and meddling families are as old as time itself. The story moves quickly to West Point and the Mexican America War. The history student quickly recognizes multiple names from these venues that will play roles of varying degrees throughout our 19th Century history and Grant’s life.

Chernow provides ample background on the Mexican American War which like much of our current experience was not without controversy. At the end of the day the point of the war was to stack the congressional deck with slave states to keep that trade alive. Grant demonstrated significant bravery and unwavering duty during this war but to his seeming disappointment assigned to the quartermaster, responsible for assuring supplies much to his chagrin. Little did he know – or the new Grant student - how this charge was preparing him with experience for the biggest fight of his life.

The Mexican American War and the civilian life afterward reside in Part I - Life of Struggle. And what a struggle it was for Grant and his family after his 1854 resignation. Chernow describes for us in detail the abject poverty and demoralization Grant and his wife and children encounter. It is almost impossible to believe this Grant, the General, and the President are even one in the same person. Chernow alludes, however, because of facts laid out in the introduction, that Ulysses Grant will financially struggle all of his life, which keeps us engaged to the end especially after so much success.

It is probably more for the money than out of duty Grant has his commission restored, and the rest, as they say, is history. Chernow deftly moves us through the Civil War careful not to bore us to disinterest with pages of technical minutiae but to bring us in close enough to engage emotionally. The war’s progression, Grant’s progression and struggles, the larger political and military struggles are woven in by Chernow to keep us engaged as we move through a Life of War to a Life of Peace. And as we move to A Life of Peace, the presidency, we are not mistaken that Grant sees the benefit of the presidency as an income. Chernow keeps us current on finances throughout the work because Grant was acutely concerned with.

As we move through the presidency we get to see a man who had to learn things all over again, that the successful means by which he operated as a general were not serving him well in his first term where he made most of his decisions without much consultation. Whereas by his second term he is becoming a masterful politician and statesman. Again, Chernow takes us through this period with the with great story telling skill to educate us about the period but not bore us with so much detail the work becomes unreadable to a layperson. A clearly tumultuous time with a lot of scandals. Not unlike our current state.

During the presidency Ron Chernow brings us through Reconstruction, fighting the Klan, and the Treaty of Washington, the latter a now little-known episode that laid the foundation for the resolution of international disputes.

Finally, we come to A Life of Reflection and watch Grant take on his final challenges in life – poverty and sickness. It is hard for most of us to believe that a US President could end up so impoverished. Even though Chernow has tried to prepare us for this, it is still hard to accept. But Grant pulls out all the stops for one more tenacious fight to complete his memoirs with the support of Mark Twain to assure some financial security for his family.

As Grant concludes with Taps I found myself emotional which I think speaks volumes of Chernow’s craft. He has drawn me in to watch a boy grow to a man, face challenge after challenge, and to die well loved. The fact that man so ordinary in all of these ways was one that changed the course of history for a country makes me hopeful there are more Grants in our future.

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petepettingillposts · 7 years ago

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An Influential Woman

One hundred years ago this month our Aunt Janet was born in South Portland, Maine. She was hands down one of the most critical figures in my life.

Janet Madeline Pettingill was born to Madeline Chick and Harris Garcelon Pettingill. Her father was a 28 years-old fireman for the Boston & Maine railroad. Her mother was twenty-nine, I am not sure what she did at that time. Grandma Pettingill always worked at something so I am pretty sure she worked during the South Portland days.

I am not sure what brought them to South Portland and can only surmise it was the railroad work, but I know Harris’s widowed father, John Harris Pettingill (1857-1947), was living there at the same time. In fact I suspect they all lived together.

In 1922 the family moved to West Gardiner, Maine. From the best we can all tell this was incited by John Pettingill who at 65 years-old was retiring from an adventurous life to operate a dairy farm. John had gone west in the 1880s and had worked as a mechanic on the Panama Canal at the turn of the century.

And so began life on the farm which would remain in our family until 1998 when I sold it as executor of Janet’s estate. It served as Janet’s home base all of her life.

Janet’s cousin Carl would come to live with the family about 1928. They were the same age. The farm was a hive of family activity for decades: a summer sanctuary for countless city cousins and their parents. There was reportedly some drinking involved, and very intense discussions regarding Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. At one time Janet’s grandmother Madeline Leroy Chick (1853-1939) lived with them resulting in “Gumpy” John taking exception to her praying on her rosary beads: “praying for me, old woman”; at another time Janet’s great grandmother, Mary Louise Garcelon Pettingill (1834-1927) lived with them, too.

The Great Depression came and went, the Pettingills little affected; reportedly supporting many neighbors with their bounty of chickens, pigs, cows, dairy products and fruit during hard times. In August, 1930 Janet’s little brother, my father, John arrived. Although they were twelve years apart they had a very tight bond. Janet doted on her little brother, and that remained so until he passed in 1990. She was broken hearted over that.

As young woman Janet had great aspirations mostly encourage by her grandfather and father. Her mother had aspirations for her as well. Regrettably they were very different. Madeline believed what was best for Janet was for her to marry a farmer and eventually take over the West Gardiner telephone switchboard. Janet desired a college education and to see the world as her grandfather Pettingill had done. This rift remained for the rest of their lives.

Madeline believed she knew what was best for everyone. Harry shrugged it off when she scolded him for being an under-achiever, not running for governor or striving to attain other prominent roles in the county or state. Madeline was very active in the town, county, and state, and she was quick to hold a grudge when she felt slighted, as was the case regarding Governor Horace Hildreth who failed to give her more than a polite handshake at a luncheon. Madeline was incensed he did not dote on her more in front of the ladies and she appeared as just another guest; after all she knew him well during his youth in Gardiner!

After high school Carl left for college (he would become a successful engineer in Connecticut) and Janet left home to attend college preparatory school at Kents Hill School twenty miles north of West Gardiner. Afterward she would go on to nursing school in New York City, all to her mother’s chagrin.

It was during this period of time Janet came to realize what a cruel world existed outside of bucolic West Gardiner. She worked in the poorest sections of New York City caring for people in tenements, and she shared with us horrible stories of child abuse and neglect that she saw.

Working as a nurse when WWII commenced she immediately joined the Women’s Army Corps as a second lieutenant. She served in Italy and North Africa. This service defined her for the rest of her life. Well in to her late seventies she recalled detail of experiences as if they had happened only weeks ago.

She had a friend during that time named Glatice Hurley. They remained friends until Glatice’s death in the 1960s. They did all kinds of things together and I remember Glatice coming to our house when Janet would visit. Janet had a lot of friends.

On March 24, 1947, Janet married Francis Xavier Ward (1904-1984), a divorced labor lawyer in Baltimore, Maryland. Frank was born and raised in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen and fought his way out to become a successful lawyer.

I mention divorced because this was new territory for the West Gardiner family; the abdication of England’s Edward VIII to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson was still fresh in the American mind. Madeline Leroy Chick and her husband Marquis had been separated for decades because of his drinking but had never divorced. Frank’s Catholic sister Margaret declined to recognize the marriage, taunting “When are you going home to your wife, Frank? Huh? When are you going home to your wife?” Janet was a progressive woman and she was having none of that. But it was the 1940s. The fences were eventually mended. In fact Margaret never married and is buried in the Pettingill’s cemetery lot in Bath, Maine with her brother and her sister-in-law.

Frank would eventually become legal counsel for the Carpenter’s Union and for years they resided in Indianapolis. They eventually relocated to Washington, DC, for his last stint before retirement. He was a prominent lawyer with prominent friends and associates. Somewhere around here there are pictures of Frank with labor leaders including George Meany, an American labor union leader for 57 years, a key figure in the creation of the AFL-CIO who served as the AFL-CIO's first president from 1955 to 1979. Janet was right in the middle of it all hosting or attending dinners and cocktail parties. But she was never very far away from the farm in her heart, and returned frequently. She would visit us on Long Island on her way to the farm from Indianapolis or Washington, DC with or without Frank, with or without Glatice.

In 1969 Frank and Janet retired to the farm. Regrettably, Madeline was not happy about this. Madeline had been struggling financially for years, Harry having died in 1957. My father with his own family of five children working in New York City and living on Long Island, trying to keep his own head above water was unable to help. Madeline refused to live with Frank and took a room in Mrs. Schlossberg’s Gardiner boarding house. She died September 7, 1970.

My first trip away from home, driving all by myself was in September, 1976. I went to the farm to visit Janet and Frank. They were well settled in. Frank was already getting sick, emphysema. This is when I began to get to know Janet as an adult. And I was very fortunate to have an adult relationship with her for the next twenty years.

Janet stayed very active in her early retirement years. She had countless relationships in the area and across the country. She stayed in touch with people her and Frank had known. She had several cousins she stayed in touch with. And she did genealogy with a passion. She belonged to innumerable societies and was thrilled to no end when she had established descent from King Charlemagne. She was proud to be a Colonial Dame. She did research in Augusta and Portland for people all over the country who could not get to the libraries, and established relationships with those folks. When she died she bequeathed to me all of her research, hundreds, if not thousands of pages of Xerox copies and handwritten notes. I think she would be proud how I have taken to that and continued her work, that I have established relationships with distant Garcelon and Pettingill cousins.

Not a day passes that I do not think of my Aunt Janet.

In these troubled times of sexual harassment and sexual abuse charges, that women still struggle for equality in our country and on our planet, I cannot help but reflect on Janet. She had to fight with her own mother to achieve an independent lifestyle. She faced discrimination after discrimination and challenged it every step of the way.

Janet was one of the strongest women I have ever known. She set a standard for me on how to interact with women, especially in the workplace.

Janet’s pride in her military service was loud and clear, and rightfully so. Upon retiring to Maine she decided it would be a good time to join the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Upon approaching the organization she was told that women were not allowed.

Wrong answer.

If you are a female member of the VFW, thank Aunt Janet.

I love her and miss her every day. I wish she could see how it has all turned out. I hope in my actions and my words, I make her spirit proud of me, for I know it lives within.

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petepettingillposts · 9 years ago

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Election Reflections during my 15th Presidential Election

The 2016 US Presidential Election has been exhausting. Of course it has. It has been running since June or July of 2015! It is inescapable. You would think nothing else is going on in the world or the country. It is a huge money-maker for the media outlets selling premium advertising space. And the reporting and commentary is C+ journalism. No matter where you look. This week this cycle has me reflecting on the fourteen previous campaigns I have lived through.

I was only two-years old during the 1960 Presidential election so I have no recollection of it but college political science courses assured I understood the gravity of the first televised debates, the power of youth, the negative impact of the five o’clock shadow, and the importance of being photogenic. I was old enough to come home from kindergarten to find out that the winner of that contest had been killed in November, 1963.

By ’64 my political conversations were getting some traction. I distinctly remember some kid on the morning bus saying “my father said that if Goldwater becomes president we will have to go to school on the weekends.” I have absolutely no idea where that came from, how it had anything to do with the election but I consider it my first political conversation.

By 1968 I am ten. Starting to understand things a little more. We’re emerging from a dark year as we move to November with the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. A terrible time to be ten. My primary concern that year and the immediate ones to follow was that I was going to get killed in Vietnam. Yep, lying in bed sleepless, particularly on Friday nights for some reason, certain I would die a horrible death in the jungle.

I was acutely aware of Richard Nixon. I watched a television show, an autobiography narrated by Nixon, I think, talking about growing up in California, a tough life, orange ranches, hard working mother, his Quaker heritage. It really impressed me and I am sure I would have voted for him. It certainly served as a gateway to my interest in history and politics.

At some point I visited a Nixon campaign office. I still have the Nixon Agnew buttons somewhere. Might be worth something now.

The tumult continued as we moved towards and through the 1972 campaigns. Vietnam. Vietnam. Vietnam. That was all that was on my mind. Mr. Nixon, could you please end this war. Please. I do not want to die in Vietnam! I was 14. Then Woodstock gave us this little diddy: “’cause it’s 1-2-3 what are we fightin’ for? Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn, my next stop is Vietnam. And it’s 5-6-7 open up the pearly gates, hey there ain’t no use to wonder why, whoopee were all gonna die.” Or something like that. You had to be there, I guess,

Always made me wonder how many sleepless 14 year-olds did we have during the Iraqi War? And how many even now as the conflicts continue? But I digress.

Thanks to the 1971 ratification of the 26th Amendment, which I was acutely aware of when 1976 came rolling around and my 18th birthday in July I was going to be able to vote in the Presidential election. Ford v. Carter after an absolutely horrible 1973-1974 which resulted in the resignation of an American President. That was a very big deal; I knew I was witnessing some serious history.

Ford was much loved by my father. And I think that was the whole point of bringing him on board as VP. I really had no opinion on the matter and that all kind of worked out since Election Day 1976 found me freezing my butt off during a US Army basic training bivouac in Fort Dix, New Jersey. I knew nothing of the absentee ballot, nor did anyone bother to educate me on it. It would be the only election I would ever not vote in, and I have used the absentee ballot at least twice including our current election. In fact I have already voted as I write this in late October, 2016.

By Inauguration Day 1977 I was at MP School in Fort McClellan, Alabama and realized I had missed the election and my father’s beloved Jerry Ford was out of work.

In November, 1980 I was already honorably discharged from my three year military commitment, going to school on the GI Bill (what a great deal that was), and living with my parents. I was already developing my liberal inclination and therefore in a different camp from the old man. I don’t have a lot of recollection of that campaign but I can tell you that John Anderson was running as a third-party candidate and some were not too happy about that.

I can also tell you that we were a year into the Iran hostage crisis during that election, and if you were alive and old enough to understand what was going on with that, my friends, that was big news, and all anyone ever talked about. In my humble opinion – and I am no political scientist or analyst – that was a terrorist attempt to manipulate American politics; and manipulate they did. It was certainly no coincidence the hostages were freed on Inauguration Day, 1981, the day Saint Ronald Reagan was canonized. And here began my liberal alignment which remains a strong under-current in my current politics. But I am always willing to consider other candidates. Always.

Number Seven - 1984: Walter Mondale & Geraldine Ferraro try to unseat Reagan-Bush. I had just graduated SUNY Stony Brook with my BA in English and was living and working in Smithtown, NY. The first time I recall watching the conventions and the debates. And of course the first time a woman is named to a major ticket. Ferraro was unflappable. I really liked her. A no nonsense New Yorker, they threw everything they could at her; tried to suggest her husband was mob affiliated. The Ruling Class was entrenched and getting people to settle for trickle down economics. It was that very phrase – trickle-down economics – that made the hair stand up on my neck and fueled my anger at the Patriarchy, the Ruling Class. I would not buy it! I would not succumb to them. I would not be a tool, a proletariat. The Democrats got clobbered.

1988 is kind of a blur. Living and working in New York, a very busy life, George Herbert Walker Bush – Michael Dukakis. Here is the piece of history I was watching when it happened: the Vice-Presidential debate between Lloyd Benson and Dan Quayle, when Dan Quayle tries to hold himself as a John F. Kennedy-like character, and the senior senator from Texas slams the heck out of him with a line something to the effect of “son I knew Jack Kennedy, and you are no Jack Kennedy.” Right, wrong or indifferent still one of the best one liners in any debate I recall.

1992 I am living in first in the nation primary New Hampshire, I am very engaged in the Democratic primary, and I am all in on Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. I loved the guy. Well, we all know how that turned out. I loved Bill Clinton and I would support him for the rest of 1992 and again in 1996. By 1996 I was 38 years old, really building my career and I have a wife and two kids. I was prosperous! And I would have told you I was prosperous because of Democratic policies, and I will stick by that today.

But come 2000 I am ready to take a giant leap. I am prepared to claim my independence, and I vote in the Republican primary for John McCain. I was so disappointed he did not make the cut. I ended up voting for Gore, and we all know how that turned out. I hope we never have to have an election decided by the US Supreme Court again. But it certainly demonstrated the close contest of the election and the spirit of Democracy.

A lot of people were bitter about that for a long time. I was not. I accepted it and moved on. I never warmed to #43. I actually like him a little better now. I think it was his cadre, especially Cheney and Rumsfeld. Those two always remind me of Star Wars villains, and they certainly represent the Patriarchy at its finest.

2004 was anti-climactic for me. John Kerry. Blah. I don’t recall who I voted for in the New Hampshire primary. Something tells me it was John Edwards who turned out to be one of the most debased human beings that ever duped us.

2008 came rolling around and I voted in the Democratic primary for Hillary Clinton; I ultimately ended up supporting Obama, although I was clearly torn. The deal breaker for me not voting for McCain, who you will recall I supported eight years earlier, was Sarah Palin. I thought she was refreshing at first but then I could not believe the things she was saying and I was out. I was certainly concerned Obama might be too liberal for me but he has not been. I think he has done a nice job considering the outright hatred and disrespect he has encountered for being black. I think it is a disgrace the way people hate him and I distance myself from those folks as much as possible, or at least avoid talking politics with them.

I did vote for Jon Huntsman in the 2012 Republican primary, and ultimately could not get behind Romney. I did give him serious consideration but I felt in the end he was a tool of the Patriarchy and it would be more Saint Ronald favorable policies for the wealthy and unfavorable policies for the working class.

I usually vote for what I think it best for the nation at large, not what would be best for me. I voted for Obama a second time. He is not the best President we ever had but he is not the worst. I have been disappointed in the whole thing, including the four sessions of congress. The Affordable Care Act has been a gross disappointment.

And here we are, number 15: 2016. As engaged as I have ever been. Supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary and was proud to do it. He is over the top liberal, of course, but I figured with the House and Senate we have, it would be an interesting polarization. I was grossly disappointed in the behavior of some of his rabid supporters and have found them to be as blind and deaf as some of the Trump supporters.

Is anyone listening to anyone? Or is everyone just thinking about what they want to say and waiting for the other person to stop talking? It has really been shameful and disappointing to see people I thought were friends, well balanced, kind people, reduced to nothing short of hatred and contempt.

My absentee ballot will be in the mail in the morning.

Best wishes to you and your candidate!

^�NO1

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petepettingillposts · 10 years ago

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Redistribution of Wealth

Few phrases drive this lifelong Democrat to outrage as the phrase “redistribution of wealth.” “Trickle down economics” is certainly another.

I have been working since I was a kid. Started with my father on weekends, moved on to a paper route, then the supermarket; went in the service, - had a part time job even then, worked through college, and now have been with the same employer for thirty years. I make a moderate salary that allows me to save money so I can retire in my early or mid-sixties.

I have a modest pension from my employer (which was just significantly revised - read that reduced), Sylvia has one, too. We have the traditional savings plans, and some other money we have managed to put away, I often refer to the latter as the war chest. We have had our eye on the ball for years. We have been frugal and disciplined.

In this month’s money magazine there is an article about the things one needs to do to secure $1,000,000. A couple were start early, live below your means, disciplined saving, and frugality. It also mentioned there were 10,000,000 people in our country with a $1,000,000 or better net worth.

Couple thoughts on that: $1,000,000 really isn’t that much money if you plan to live long and independent from the government, and I am sure those figures drive the “redistribution of wealth” crowd right to the gates. We are counting on social security in our plan because we were told we could. But if it falls short, it will not cripple us. I refuse to be dependent on the government for then I am beholden.

I am all in on taking care of the elderly, the poor children, giving people a leg up when they lose a job and have everything possible go wrong. I am all in on taking care of our profoundly physically disabled or mentally ill. But I am not all in on “entitlement.” Not even close.

If you want redistribution of wealth try it in your own house!

Instead of buying the 75” flat screen with all the trimmings on credit, buy the 42” without all the trimmings for cash. Instead of having state of the art cable service have basic. It still all beats the heck out of getting up to change the channel or adjusting the antenna. Instead of buying a new car just because you’re bored with the old one, consider keeping the one you have and get a few years with no car payment. Seriously consider your instant gratification factor and impulse buying.

As a very young man I visited my Aunt Janet on the family farm. She had the wood stove going in the kitchen and there was a pot of soup or stew on it. I remember asking “why don’t you use that stove?” pointing to the electric stove on the other side of the kitchen. As was her style she quickly replied “My Yankee frugality will not allow me to turn on that stove over there when I have a perfectly hot one over here.” My Yankee frugality was ignited.

And so here I am at 57, the better years of my working life behind me, some money in the bank and a modest financial plan to get me through my retirement years, and some nitwit like Bernie Sanders is talking about redistributing my wealth. Screw you, Bernie! My experience if a lot of people have just made bad choices.

I have watched the New Hampshire & Strafford County social welfare systems work, and they work really well. Pretty much.

I watched a pregnant woman return to New Hampshire after a series of events which required her to seek asylum with her family. No one was hiring pregnant women that winter. She sought county assistance for the prenatal care and the state and county saw that child born under conditions no less than we should in our society. In due course that woman sought welfare and the program required her to take training and go through the job search process. She graduated the program and was placed in a good paying job, the state subsidized the daycare based on her income. I supported everything the state did. I felt our tax dollars were well invested.

The state asked the woman’s assistance in establishing paternity and the woman was uncooperative. She stopped working and wanted more benefits. The state said no! Good for the state. They did continue to provide Medicaid for the child but daycare assistance, the food stamps, and the cash assistance duly terminated.

This is how the system should work. It is not redistribution of wealth. It is the support of our struggling family members and neighbors in a centralized order.

Redistribution of wealth as Bernie Sanders speaks of it is straight up socialism. I actually think Bernie is really a communist. But I am splitting hairs.

I will not stand by silently as Bernie Sanders and his communist hordes try to rip my modest lifestyle from me, tax me to Kingdom Come, and make me dependent on the government. That is not what the Democratic party has stood for, stands for, or will ever stand for. Most of us are socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Of course the party of “You’re either with us or you’re against us,” sees it all rather differently.

People better rethink the redistribution of wealth proposition and realize that what it will mean is we will all have 24” screens with crummy reception.

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petepettingillposts · 10 years ago

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Your order has shipped!

Few things on the internet stir my Christmas morning inner-child like an e-mail titled “Your order has shipped.”

I love almost everything about the internet. I love the ability to secure all kinds of data on all kinds of topics. I love to get breaking news - local, national, and international. I enjoy social media. Notice the downgrade from love. Some of the bickering and bullying I could live without. I have unfriended or hidden numerous people. And then of course there is e-commerce.

E-commerce to most baby boomers is fabulous. Weed whacker string thingy breaks on Saturday afternoon, break out the user manual, and get on the internet, order the part and have it for next Saturday. 15-20 minutes. That was my introduction to it. I can not recount how many different parts for how many things I have ordered since the advent of e-commerce.

Obviously it has expanded way beyond that for me. Last Christmas I did 95% of my shopping on Black Friday on the internet.

Brick & mortar shopping holds little romance for me. I cannot even tell you the last time I was to our local mall. Probably more than a year. I go to the Van Heusen outlet in Kittery for most of my work clothes. And even if my desire for instant gratification is so overwhelming that I want to go to a store, I basically do my shopping on-line and make sure the store has it before I go there. Anyone still going from store to store looking for something is just wasting time and gas. I’m an Earth Day child….take it easy on the carbon footprint. I am also a busy guy, I don’t have time to go from store to store over three hours looking for something.

Shipping and handling? Biggest scam going. Of course now we have Amazon Prime which just slams the door on that. I haven’t signed up for it yet but it seems inevitable. But S&H to me all plays in to the cost benefit analysis. Let’s see, ride my bike and go canoeing on a Saturday afternoon, or drive 20-30 miles round-trip to pick something up? Usually a no brainer if it is not something urgent. I have declined puchases because I thought the S&H was too costly.

Once you become a regular customer of most e-commerce retailers you get their promotional e-mails and plenty of it. You can curb that. Some I like to get because I use a lot of their products such as Teavana and Midway USA.

Midway USA had a 24 hour sale on Friday July 3: buy at least $25 worth of product and get free shipping. I needed some .357 Magnum brass and bullets for reloading. I spent just over $25. Friday, as you will recall was a holiday. At 9:20 AM today I had a notice “Your order has shipped.” A little bit o’ Christmas morning. I’ll have that Wednesday or Thursday. That’s just how they roll.

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petepettingillposts · 10 years ago

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On the Confederate flag issue

This past weekend I saw a fellow with a large Confederate flag flapping from the bed of his pick-up truck….in New Hampshire…..with New Hampshire plates.

Good for him exercising his first amendment right. Good for him! I completely support his right to express himself.

I feel confident he was completely unaware that he was about two miles from the grave of John P. Hale (1806 - 1873), a Strafford County resident, career politician, and US Senator. Hale was the first senator to speak out for the abolition of slavery.

Let me tell you what I think about when I see the Confederate flag.

I think about the War of Secession. More commonly referred to as the Civil War. I think about what the core issue was in that war: a state’s right to allow slavery. Slice it and dice it how you will, the Confederate flag represents to me the support of slavery or on it’s best day a doctrine of separate but equal. Both are completely unacceptable to me: one abolished by proclamation and the other adjudicated unconstitutional.

Make no mistake about it, the War of the Secession was about states rights. The state right that was at issue was the right to keep slaves, and is considered in the modern world reprehensible. That desire for slavery was in direct conflict with the spirit of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution; it was in direct conflict with modern morality!

There have always been arguments over states rights and there will always be arguments over states rights. We have them before us right now in the gay marriage and Affordable Care Act.

While I have no dog in the fight as a New Hampshire Yankee, I nonetheless have an opinion as my ancestors did during that dark time in our history.

If some yahoo wants to drive around with the Confederate flag flapping from his pick up truck bed, or tattoo it on his forehead, I do not care. I read it that he is either a proponent of slavery or racism or profoundly misguided, at best. I’m sure he wants to tell me “I’m just a rebel.“ If someone wants to fly the flag of ISIS or Nazi Germany at their home or on their car, or tattoo either on their forehead, I guess I don’t care. I will be weary of them and avoid them. But if the town of Barrington wants to fly one of these flags in front of town hall, I get a say, and I say “no.” It is not representative of who I am and what I believe my community is about.

If South Carolina and Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana want display the Confederate flag in some way shape or form, than it tells me the exact same thing about them as a state and their government as about the yahoo driving around with it flapping from his truck: that they remain proponents of slavery, that they have racist tenets, or they are profoundly misguided.

If the private citizen wants to wave it, so be it. It’s his constitutional right, and serves as a banner to the rest of civilization to stay clear. But when a state, county, parish or town government incorporates it, I think the citizens have a say. And if it is okay with them, I should serve as a banner to the rest of us to stay clear. They are dangerous!

My family sacrificed dearly during the War of Secession to preserve the Union and to free the slaves. I will not tolerate a resurgence of slavery or of racism. I hope you don’t.

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