We gathered up the last bits of Cortland this weekend. Kevin, as big brother, led, doing the heavy lifting, and I am home awed and shaken by the immense collection of photos and documents that are here.
To me, most significantly, is a letter from Warren Eddy, the Library Director of the Cortland Free Library, written March 31, 2003.
Mrs. Philip E. Donohue
43 Morningside Drive
Cortland NY 13045
Dear Phyllis,
It was with great sadness that the article mentioning Phil's passing was noted in Friday's Cortland Standard.
Those of us here who knew and were privileged to be associated with Phil are aware of his many contributions to this library, and especially to the building's architectural integrity. His work during our construction a quarter century ago was a valued counterweight to our architect's thrust and ideas while his role in our securing drapes brought new beauty and aided having pleasing temperatures throughout the year. His understanding support of the library's administrator is also recalled, certainly needed, and assuredly valued.
Phil, though, was more than a trustee, he was also borrower of many a quality book. So we are diminished in yet another way. That we are designated to receive tributes in his memory honors us and will be a continuing way that he will be remembered by library friends and borrowers. Thank you for that.
May these words of sympathy, surely also on behalf of all here who knew your husband, be of help to you and your family during these difficult moments.
Sincerely yours,
Warren S. Eddy
Library Director
Cortland Free Library
Well. Warren Eddy, or, "Mr. Ed" as we referred to him, is now gone, but if you wish to know more about our beloved library:
http://www.flls.org/cortlandlib/
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Liberty without learning is always in peril; learning without liberty is always in vain. - John F. Kennedy
A ride in a taxi yesterday reminded me of how conservative Dad drifted late in life, and made me ponder how he got there. To me, conservatives hate everyone except for themselves and liberals love everyone, to their peril and disappointment.
Dad, in my version, drifted conservative in the 1980s because of too much TV and too much time dealing with the poor imitation of political correctness at TC3, his college. He felt marginalized by sensitivity to race and gender to a regrettable degree.
Before that, hearkening back to the quote above, Dad was such a well-educated guy that he could not see things in the cartoon figure forms of the Reagan era, but with all of the complexity and subtlety of a New Yorker reader. Moronic TV news and the disappointments he had with workers and students at TC3 embittered him, made him myopic, and I am sad about that.
The only real way that he could defend his shaky position was with withering condescension, telling me that I, too, would grow out of being a liberal, as it is a sign of maturity. Mercifully, his prediction did not come out.
The Onion recently had a pastiche of an editorial by Jimmy Carter. In it he uses the most horrifying hate speech and obscenities to express that he had a whole lot of good things going on in the 1970s and now they are all dismantled and it isn't his fault. It was heartbreaking to read because of the stinging truth [and AWFUL graphic language], but it also was ironic and funny because a great liberal like Carter would NEVER be so hateful or possess such braggadocio, and it ended up like Rush Limbaugh rage and Carter accomplishments. Extraordinary.
http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/i_got_what_america_needs_right
I guess that Liberals are also idealists, so, even though we cannot dream that we can turn back the clock, un-kill the unjustly dead, maybe someday we can cycle back to a time where leaders were actually trying to do good.
A ride in a taxi yesterday reminded me of how conservative Dad drifted late in life, and made me ponder how he got there. To me, conservatives hate everyone except for themselves and liberals love everyone, to their peril and disappointment.
Dad, in my version, drifted conservative in the 1980s because of too much TV and too much time dealing with the poor imitation of political correctness at TC3, his college. He felt marginalized by sensitivity to race and gender to a regrettable degree.
Before that, hearkening back to the quote above, Dad was such a well-educated guy that he could not see things in the cartoon figure forms of the Reagan era, but with all of the complexity and subtlety of a New Yorker reader. Moronic TV news and the disappointments he had with workers and students at TC3 embittered him, made him myopic, and I am sad about that.
The only real way that he could defend his shaky position was with withering condescension, telling me that I, too, would grow out of being a liberal, as it is a sign of maturity. Mercifully, his prediction did not come out.
The Onion recently had a pastiche of an editorial by Jimmy Carter. In it he uses the most horrifying hate speech and obscenities to express that he had a whole lot of good things going on in the 1970s and now they are all dismantled and it isn't his fault. It was heartbreaking to read because of the stinging truth [and AWFUL graphic language], but it also was ironic and funny because a great liberal like Carter would NEVER be so hateful or possess such braggadocio, and it ended up like Rush Limbaugh rage and Carter accomplishments. Extraordinary.
http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/i_got_what_america_needs_right
I guess that Liberals are also idealists, so, even though we cannot dream that we can turn back the clock, un-kill the unjustly dead, maybe someday we can cycle back to a time where leaders were actually trying to do good.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
I have not written about my old man in a while. In a sense, I lost my place. After Megan was born was the part of the story that is most challenging to record. There are at least 4 different versions of the story I know, and it is not my place to detail the versions that Megan, Kevin and Mom have, although I have a shorthand way of thinking of them. My version, perhaps, is closest to Mom's, but maybe not.
Everyone thinks that they know their parents the best - and I am no exception - and I suppose that parents exists, somehow, in their children, so it is partly true.
Megan and Kevin were born 10 years apart, and I have always suspected that they had 2 different dads. But, what about me? I was in the middle. Which one did I have? Well, more like Kevin's, I guess, but different, very different.
There is a Eugenides story in a recent New Yorker that deals with the "irrelevancy of fathers," using the gorgeous Roeg fil "Walkabout" as a pretext. I think that my dad was very very relevant, but my expectations were so very low, somehow. I got what I needed from him. More than I did, actually. Kevin did not, perhaps.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/11/070611fa_fact_eugenides
This photo is dad at some family gathering. Which one? An anniversary party? Aunt Nancy, Mom's younger sister, a fun and successful entrepeneur, and my grandfather, called Poppop by one and all. Can you see what a bon vivant Dad was? He was that...Irish, charming, with a commanding, "booming" voice, and actually he was a remarkable diplomat when he wanted to be. Drinking, too. What can I say? Does it match the other characteristics? Does it irrigate them?
Retrospectively, it is easy to look at the habits of the departed and surmise what pysiological reason there may have been for their attributes - to understand - to excuse - to better contextualize them. I have 100 versions of such things: stories about how dad was "self-medicating," and I won't foist my own notions on the readers here.
I mean to be more descriptive than analytical or critical.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
MTD
August 21,1969 Mommy gave birth to Megan Tara Donohue. I was 6 and remember it all in great detail. Dad took me to a florist to buy her a plant in a pink ceramic baby bootie to take to the hospital. Megan had a full head of black hair, very much unlike KSD and I, and was a big surprise. She was almost instantaneously elected as "Daddy's Little Girl." She was far too cute.
DED
Deirdre Ellen Donohue was born June 28, 1963 in Syracuse, NY. Mom was studying Library Science at Syracuse during that era. KSD was 4.
To me, this photo in the middle is flawless - such gestures, so many individual independent glances - I am the baby, Kev is in the corner, and my wonderful cousin Linda Repa is there - must be at my grandparents' house in Underhill VT.
Fatherhood in Vermont
Baby Kevin was born in Northern Vermont, where Mom and Dad lived in an apartment owned by Mom's father, John Repa. He looks like a happy camper.
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