Ted Kennedy – Family, Life, and Lessons – Part 3

Turns out that Newsweek has a whole series on Ted Kennedy.  A few of the other sites I’ve visited – Time and CNN, for example – have sporadic coverage.  Here’s a third article.

Understanding Teddy Kennedy, Jon Meacham, Newsweek, August 29, 2009 from the magazine issue dated September 7, 2009
http://www.newsweek.com/id/214246

• To cast him in a sentimental warm light (the left) or to demonize him (the right) are equally inadequate to capturing his character…
• …when you think about it, the challenges he faced and the sins he committed were less about life on an American Mount Olympus and more in line with what ordinary mortals face.
• He was a man, not a monument, and the fact that he managed to accomplish monumental things is all the more inspiring given his all too human flaws.
• Ted actually vindicated a more mundane truism: that half (or maybe as much as 90 percent) of success in life is just showing up.
• Ted Kennedy essentially embodied liberal orthodoxy, but he was not a purist.  He believed in getting things done and never let he perfect be the enemy of the good.

People are complicated even when they want things in black or white.  Life is also complicated and full of gray areas.  Many people struggle in life just because they don’t understand that fact.  Knowing the reason someone does something cannot be easily understood, especially in India, where people don’t talk directly.  It’s not the case in the States where people tend to be more transparent.  I am generalizing, of course.  You’ll find all kinds of people and situations everywhere.  Still, cultural differences are pronounced between the East and the West.

Ted Kennedy’s life was a mix of celebrity, great successes, and tragic failures.  His life was like most people’s, though.  The key difference is that Ted was a public figure from a high profile family.  His problems were public and were larger-than-life because of it.  Other than that, his issues were not unique to him.

Ted did two things very well, apparently.  He was highly persistent.  He knew his chance would come so he kept at it.  He was also the ideal Boy Scout – always prepared.  These two behaviors kept him in the ball game.  More than anything, he kept showing up, day after day.  Showing up over and over again is absolutely key.  The tide does eventually change.

Ted also had a philosophy that it’s important not to pass up a good opportunity waiting for the perfect one.  Who is to say the next opportunity will be the better or worse than the current one?  If it’s good enough, go for it.  The question, of course, is what is good enough?  That can be tough to decide on.  But you have to know that is how it works – that you have to accept a good pitch and swing.

Ted Kennedy – Family, Life, and Lessons – Part 2

Here’s another article for you to read on Ted Kennedy.  This one is much shorter but relays a few points I’d like to talk about.

How Kennedy Learned to Care, Adam Clymer, Newsweek Web Exclusive, August 26, 2009
http://www.newsweek.com/id/213741

• Up in the Fitzgerald’s suite in the old Bellevue Hotel on Beacon Hill, Teddy would listen as Honey Fitz called people on the phone, asking how they were, offering condolences in the case of death or illness.
• When they went downstairs to have lunch, the ex-mayor made a point of going through the kitchen, saying hello to everyone working there, an instinctive political touch his grandson would adopt.
• After lunch, Honey Fitz would take Teddy around his beloved Boston, walking the glory of its history.
• Being a good Irish storyteller is a gift you hone.

Teddy Kennedy’s grandfather was the mayor of Boston.  They called him “Honey Fitz” – short for John F. Fitzgerald.  From his grandpa is where Teddy got his sense of community service early on, something his father, Joe P. Kennedy, cemented in him in his early years.

I don’t have many regrets in life.  If I need to do something, I do it.  If I need to say sorry, to something big or small, I do it as soon as possible.  I do not let time go by.  I do not wait for the right time.  There is no such thing.  One of the things I do regret, though not due to my negligence or error, is a closeness with my grandparents.  I never got to know them.  When we were young, my brother and I went to boarding school.  Immediately after that, we shipped off to the States. 

My parents didn’t encourage me to keep in touch with my grandparents through phone calls or letters after we moved to the States and I never did.  I didn’t know as a kid that I should do that.  I didn’t have much connection to them growing up that would have made me wanted to call them because I hadn’t spend much time with them.  This is something I wish today was not the case.  My brother and sister both got the affection of my grandparents after they moved to India.  My grandfather also constantly stayed in touch with my brother through letters while we were in the States, as I accidentally learned just a few weeks ago when I saw a stack of them in a bunch of my brother’s stuff sitting in my room.  I was hurt.  Why didn’t my grandfather write to me?  (I suspect the reason he was in touch with my brother is because he was the elder grandson.  Given that my dad wasn’t going to return to India to run the family business, my grandfather probably wanted my brother to do that.  It’s as much as what happened after my father passed away.)

More importantly, though, I didn’t get to see my grandfather in his day-to-day world.  I didn’t learn from him any of his attitudes, behaviors, or tricks of the trade.  I knew he had many contacts.  How did he keep in touch with them?  What kind of a personality was he?  Besides being commanding with his immediate family, how was he outside of it?  How did he cultivate those relationships?  I know little of it all.

Another thing I miss, at a more pragmatic level, is being introduced to all the folks that he knew.  My gramps did well in his life after Partition.  He was a supplier to the Indian army.  This meant he got to know people who later were well-connected themselves.  Now that I’m in India, even though the country has changed and the opportunities available are plentiful and different, I don’t know any of the folks my grandfather knew.

The article talks about how Teddy’s grandpa would take him around Boston so he could learn about the city and its history.  They didn’t do the rounds as tourists.  They went to the same place over and over again.  Having lived in Cambridge myself, I can tell you the region is really something.  It is history of a couple of hundred years old right in front of you in the present.  Even more so, it has character.  It has charm.  I absolutely loved it there. 

I still remember the first time I saw a sign for the city of Cambridge.  It was much smaller than the road signs you see in California and so I missed it for quite some time after moving to the city.  California signs are large and on poles at least 10 feet high.  Road signs in Boston are small and on poles equivalent to the size of tall midgets.  I bet they’re relics of the days when bullock carts and horse-driven carriages roamed those streets and when cars were slow and people walked.  Heck, if you’ve driven in Boston, you know city driving directions are given by landmark.  Go to the Dunkin’ Donuts and make a left.  When you hit the church, turn right.  No one tells you street names because they don’t exist or if they exist no one knows them (again, you can’t see the street signs).  This is probably how it was when Henry Ford’s Model T first got on the roads. 

Welcome to Cambridge

The “Wecome to Cambridge” sign is outside the main entrance to MIT, just a few feet before the steps leading up to the building.  The Charles River separates Cambridge from Boston and the university building is the first one on the Cambridge side.  I would drive the bridge connecting those two cities all the time.  It’s only about half a mile to 3/4 of a mile long.

The first time I saw the Cambridge welcome sign, I remember getting goosebumps even though I had already been there for a few months (actually, I got goosebumps on many an occasion as I toured the city).  I was in Cambridge!  I was in Boston!  This is where it all started!  The country’s history originated from here.  California was awesome with it’s weather, it’s people, it’s vastness, it’s attitude.  As much as I loved the West Coast for it’s innovation culture, I had long dreamed about visiting Boston and it’s ivy-covered brick walls and it’s history.  When I finally had an opportunity to live there, I have to say I absolutely loved it.  I can remember walking around with a smile on my face (not literally!) as I was thrilled at something historic I just saw.  If I could make it work, I could live there my entire life.  (Or, I should say, if I want to live there, I should make it work!)

I digress from the points in the article, but I don’t think it’s by much so I’ll continue.  During the few years I was in Beantown, I visited many of the historic sites around town.  I would round up a few of my friends whenever I wanted to check something out and a few would always be game.  I didn’t do it as much as I should have, I have to admit.  (In fact, I’ve thought that since I live in New Delhi, I should see as much of this city as I can also.  There’s so much to history here.)

My grandparents weren’t showing me around town in Boston like Teddy’s grandpa but I’m sure they would have if we had lived there or if we’d have stayed in Calcutta growing up.  If you’re reading this and you still have your grandparents around, talk to them and ask them about how things were years ago.  In fact, I’ve thought it myself to ask a bunch of my older aunts and uncles the same thing.  I missed out on the story-telling.  I didn’t even know my father all that well, to be honest, nor the kinds of things my family used to do back then.  I wanted to take the opportunity to do that now.  If I wasn’t afraid of meeting relatives regularly because of the chaos that seems to always ensue from those get-togethers, I would love to spend time with them and listen to stories.

By the way, before I close this post out, I have to mention something heart-warming I came across.  I have been watching the Ted Kennedy funeral ceremonies on ABC News Now on Yahoo!  They stream live.  I’ve also been reading a lot of articles, as you know.  Quite a few times I came across people commenting how Ted would spontaneously burst out singing “Sweet Adeline“.  Nieces and nephews mentioned him doing this.  His colleagues also talked about it.  Well, guess what?  I looked up Honey Fitz on Wiki as I started this post.  Guess where Ted learned the song and probably got the singing bug from?  Even more, Ted, the surrogate father to John and Bobby’s kids and grandfather to his nieces and nephews’ kids used to take the whole young Kennedy clan all around town on historical trips.  I guess he did what his brothers may have done if they were around.  Or maybe he did what Honey Fitz had done.  Clearly, Ted understood the importance and role of parents and grandparents!

Ted Kennedy – Family, Life, and Lessons – Part 1

I’d like to share a few heart-warming, inspirational, historical, poignant, and just funny articles on Ted Kennedy.  Here is the first.

The Liberal Lion, Neal Gabler, Newsweek, August 27, 2009
http://www.newsweek.com/id/213869/output/print

• On JFK’s death on Bobby Kennedy: “…his brother’s death had such a profound effect on him that it seemed to radicalize his politics.  It was if he had suffered some deep, irreparable wound that suddenly connected him to everyone else who was also suffering.  His liberalism was a function of that empathy – of his own tortured soul and the feeling that it was his job to represent the afflicted and powerless.
• In effect, the Kennedy family was a small welfare state, supported by the father’s tremendous wealth but bound by a powerful sense of community in which each member was responsible for every other member.
• But the Republicans found success by flogging their own version of America, one that saw the country not as a community but as a collection of self-interested individualists.

I can relate to each of these statements, which is (duh!) the reason that I have quoted them specifically.  One point to clarify: I don’t have the riches of my parents.  The rest is accurate. 

While I believe each individual must pull their own weight – learn, put forth effort, sacrifice, contribute, and achieve – my values agree with those of the Kennedy family and I deny the notion of self-interested individualists in a country (or a family).  Unfortunately, as I learned by interacting with each member one at a time, my family seems to be people who are by all intents and purposes individualists.  This seems to come as innately to them as the opposite comes to me.  This disagreement on the definition of a family’s core identity has also contributed to some of the problems we’ve had.  At various times in our lives, that’s an understatement.

The reason for this, I believe, has to do with the migration of our family from India to the United States.  Our age and state of maturity when we moved and our openness to the new life led to us picking up different parts of American culture.  This does not mean we were not all open, we probably were, but because of multiple reasons we were open to different kinds of things.  Each person’s personality undoubtedly played a part in it as well.

The Last of the Kennedys

I am very sad to read about Ted Kennedy’s death.  As a teenager, I heard about my dad’s fascination with the Kennedys.  There was a circle of people in India at the time my father was a young man who were enchanted by the Kennedy’s.  John Kennedy’s fabulous run for the White House and his pledge to put a man on the moon caught the fancy of many a people here.

Ted Kennedy is called the “Lion of the Senate”.  In his forty-plus years, he has crafted or helped craft more legislation of significance than almost any other senator.  His life has been typical Kennedy-esque, full of tragedy, mistakes, mystique, and tremendous public service and contribution.

There is no other Kennedy on the mantle to take Ted’s place and that is sad.  The American political system, the public, in fact, in many ways, the world, will likely not see another like them anytime soon.

Update on September 5, 2009:

As I mentioned, many Indians back in the day were fascinated by the Kennedy mystique.  Some had pictures of John F. Kennedy and his family on the walls of their home as is the case with this author.

Cigar Friend Update

It seems like my cigar friend reads this blog.  As I’ve mentioned before, she hasn’t accepted she does it, but it seems like she does.

Two days ago, my cigar friend realized she was not hanging out with a lot of her friends.  You see, her brother is in town from out of the country.  He had a friend who’s wedding it was and he spent a week on events.  He met a lot of his childhood friends he’s been in touch with for years and probably some he hasn’t.  This led to a conversation between her and me on long-time friends.  It also seems like this got to my cigar friend (I still can’t be sure she’s telling me the truth in why she feels something or does something.  Either that or she may not realize it herself.)

The result of whatever is going on in her head was that she blamed her lack of hanging out with her friends on me.  She said it was my fault because she spends all her weekends with me.  This is problematic since that’s not true.  We tend to meet on weekday evenings more than on weekends.  Whenever she is going out with a friend of hers, I’ve never told her she should hang out with me.  So , I wasn’t too happy about the blame-game.  She’s told me she is highly critical and I guess this is an example.  That’s not a good thing and her thought of it just jarred me. 

The other issue is that it conveyed in a very loud manner that rather than being happy about spending more time with me, someone she wants to potentially marry, she’s critical of that fact.  Isn’t this what happens to people who are dating, they spend more time together and less (but not none) time with their other friends?

This is perhaps what happens when someone is thinking with her head about dating and marriage while she’s in a relationship.  Sometimes it feels like this whole thing is a transaction for her that she just needs to get over with.  In fact, she told me as much the other day.  This may be the case because she says she’s getting increasing pressure from her family.  I’m not sure of the details but I can understand it.

Unfortunately, the kinds of things we run into and the transaction thing just won’t work for me.  I am so weary of more chaos in my life that I am not going to risk getting married until I know with a very high degree of confidence that I am comfortable with this girl.  This will require more time.  Truth be told, I have come to a conclusion a few times in the past few weeks that we have a lot of incompatibilities and it just won’t work out and I was going to call it off.  For whatever reason, I didn’t.  (I’ve talked about her being like my mom in her thinking and approach.  I’ve had an increasingly tense relationship with my mom since moving to India because of her attitudes, behavior, beliefs and approaches – all of that is perhaps another post at another time, it’s not something I’ve written about yet, which is kinda funny.  My blog is anonymous yet I don’t write about something like that.)

Maybe it’s because there’s a part of me that thinks that maybe this will take more time than it’s been so far.  It’s been 4-5 months.  (Oh by the way, that’s another thing she “hinted” at the other day – she seems to be having a lot of pimples etc on her face and a lot of mosquito bites on her arm and she said that never happened until 4-5 months ago.  She says that right along with saying something else that blamed things on me.  The sad thing also is that she tells her friend about these things even though I’ve asked her not to talk about me or us with them.)

I’ve had more instances of things telling me to back off than there are telling me to move forward.  I’m not sure why I am still moving forward.  Well, actually, part of it is the realization that I can’t seem to be finding anyone else.  I’m not actively looking for anyone else now but when I was, I wasn’t finding her (looking only through matrimonial online, not through work, friends, organizations, etc).

My cigar friend is pretty much ready to marry me and has been for a bit.  A couple of months ago she talked about a diamond ring as the only thing she’ll accept.  She mentioned quite a few times over the last couple of months how many people she would have attend her marriage and we had a detailed discussion about that two nights ago.  As an aside, I told her how I would have my marriage happen for the first time then.  Even while we were having that conversation, it was not feeling right.  Remember that movie with John Cusack?  Serendipity.  He’s about to get married yet he thinks someone else he met is his soulmate.  I don’t have a someone else but the hesitation is the same.  Too bad that I don’t.  My movie may not have a happy ending as John’s did.

I’ve shared my hesitation with my cigar friend and she’s recognized it too and commented on it a few times.  Things happened that made me wonder.  Those same things made her wonder if I’m wondering.  She’s been smart enough to recognize those things.

I have hesitated to write my thoughts here because my cigar friend might be reading this.  Heck, so could her mom and friend.  But maybe I should just write it anyway.  She may not be.  Or maybe it doesn’t matter that she is.

As if John Cusack’s movie is still playing, my story continues.  Today was my cigar friend’s birthday.  I took her and her friend out for lunch.  I am going forward with the motions just like John. 

But maybe none of my feelings on our compatibility matter.  Maybe they’re just a product of the short timeframe of getting to know her.  I don’t know.  I don’t know the right answer and I wish I had it.  Should I call it off or keep going with it?