‘Suffer the little children.’ How the Vatican’s good old boys protected Ireland’s most notorious pedophile priest, Father Tony Walsh.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
We have been accustomed for years now to the steady
drip, drip, drip of stories of pedophile priests — known,
protected, unrelenting, sickening. The drill goes something
like this:
First, the abuse.
Then the denial.
Then the acknowledgement.
Then the settlement.
Then the cash payments.
Then the (ordinarily too weak) promises
of new oversight and reform.
Surely, there could be nothing new under this cloud.
Think again…. for now you will meet (then Father)
Tony Walsh… a priest with a penchant for impersonating
Elvis… and a rapacious sexual appetite rivaling Don
Giovanni. But this is not so much a story about Tony Walsh
as it is the tale of how the Vatican, knowing much and
fearing more, winked for nearly 20 years at  a man known
to many as Ireland’s most predatory pedophile priest.
This is the Rosetta Stone of pedophile priest stories…
for understanding this, reveals all.
The joy boy of Ballyfermot
Ballyfermot is part of Dublin. It is grim, poor, but
fertile for those seeking the very young and winsome,
for they are omnipresent and without voice or influence,
the choicest morsels, available, helpless.
These were tailor-made for Father Tony  Walsh. As such, he
lost no time making good use of them when
he took up this parish in 1978. He molested his first
boy there just two days after he started. It was simple
and oh so easy. He knew he was on to a very good thing.
Father Tony honed his approach and his solicitation
skills. He toured as Elvis in a traveling Catholic song-and-dance
production. He ran the Boy Scouts (de rigueur for pedophile
priests) and brought boys to the Dublin seminary,
Clonliffe College. Through such means, an embarrass
du choix, he kept a steady flow of what he desired while
keeping up appearances so that those who would not see
would have no grounds for suspicion. It was all very well
organized, cynical, loathsome.
Bit by bit, the story of Father Tony seeped out.  Ballyfermot
was rife with noisome rumors. So much incessant seduction
spurred an avalanche of saucy tales, which lost nothing in the
telling, not least because they were true.
This went on for 19 years, between 1975-2004 by which
time the matter was widely known, conspicuous, flagrant.
Yet Father Tony continued to work his cynical magic
with the boys of Ballyfermot. He had a system that worked,
and he enjoyed it accordingly while his superiors discussed,
dithered, procrastinated… then postponed, delayed, and discussed
some more. It was the Catholic version of Dickens’ Circumlocution
Office… and, of course, was perfectly created for Father Tony
Walsh. He was one of the boys, he was inside the charmed
circle… he had protection, tolerance, cover, right up to
and including his eminence Cardinal Desmond Connell, Archbishop
of Dublin, Primate of All Ireland.
What did his eminence do?
Over time, stories like those of Father Tony and his ilk
became general knowledge; so general that even the Primate
of All Ireland was forced to pay attention. But he moved too
little too late so that reformers, despairing of Church-lead
reform, turned to the Irish government instead. The findings of the
state-ordered investigation shocked the nation and raised profound
questions about how so much abuse could have occurred
with so little and so ineffective response.
Item: Church officials knew of widespread abuse.
Item: Church officials shielded the perpetrators and
ensured that abuse cases be treated internally,
which meant they were not treated at all.
Item: No abuse cases or sexual crimes were reported by
the Church until the mid-1990′s. Not a single one.
And what of blissful Father Tony Walsh?
Investigators focused their attention on 46 priestly abuse
cases occurring between 1975-2004. Of these cases,
all heinous, the most flagrant of all was Father Tony Walsh,
who in his Elvis impersonations gave a whole new meaning
to “Love Me Tender…”
He was, the investigators concluded, “probably the most
notorious child sexual abuser” of all… a man who knew the
system well, knew that he was shielded from repercussions,
and took full advantage of his superiors’ penchant for
shuffling, disregarding, and willingness to tolerate any
abuse, no matter how young the victim or revolting the
act. The man, the abuser, was a priest, elect of God,
and that was enough. It was a passport to mayhem.
But the luck of Father Tony Walsh was even now not
exhausted. In the report of the state-ordered investigation
the chapter on Father Tony was excluded. Why? Because
his criminal case was then before the courts and his
rights must be protected. Indeed.
However, at long last, the case of Father Tony was heard
in all its lurid, sordid, riveting detail. The nation watched, angry,
sorrowful, wondering how so many could have done so
wrong for so long. How parents and teachers, how priests
and cardinals could have known so much and done so
little… creating the fetid environment in which Father Tony
et al had flourished. How could this have happened in Ireland,
to all its good people? How?
Tony Walsh, no longer a priest, was convicted and convicted
yet again. First he was convicted of a May, 1994 assault on
a boy in a pub restroom following the funeral of the boy’s
grandfather. Then, later, he was convicted of sexually
assaulting several more boys, receiving a further 10-year
sentence.
In its wisdom the court saw fit to reduce this sentence,
giving Tony Walsh instead a term of just 6 years. Just
six years, after a lifetime of abuse and assault.
And what of the victims, all young, all innocent susceptibility?
Who is to reduce their term by 40 percent, or by any
number? Who can eradicate Father Tony Walsh from
their minds and lives by even a moment? Who will be
there for them when devastating memories surface and
terrorize in depth of night? For they who needed the most help,
got the least… to the shame of all Ireland and all its holy clerics and
princely potentates who are hereby sentenced to remember and
regret.

Why I shall NEVER retire! A Declaration of Independence

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

I am at the age (64 on 02/16/11) when I am asked one 
particular question over and over again: "When do you plan 
to retire?" My resolute answer delivered con brio surprises 
my questioners: "I shall NEVER retire!"

Because they ALWAYS want to know why… I have 
decided to write this, a latter-day Declaration of 
Independence, to provide a ready means of response 
for myself and all the other people worldwide who 
are thrilled by what they do and the life  they have 
fashioned and have absolutely no desire to change 
things, no matter what.

J’y suis, J’y reste.

It was le Marechal McMahon at the siege of Sebastopol 
in 1855 who memorably barked out this trenchant phrase 
which loosely translates into "I am here and here I shall 
remain!"  It’s the way those of us feel who are adamant 
about either retaining our present position or engaging 
in other constructive work instead of retiring.

You see, we know a secret that the vast horde of the 
retired either does not know or came to understand too 
late: work invigorates, energizes, and exercises facilities 
which otherwise quickly enervate and deteriorate. In other 
words, productive, meaningful work is essential to staying 
young, alive, and alert. So, let’s review all the reasons why 
retirement as generally practised and understood is  one 
of the worst things you can ever do to yourself.

1) Retirement rots the brain.

If you have work you like,  one reason  you fancy it 
is because you have meaningful questions to answer, 
challenges to face, and labor to do. Work, as Sigmund 
Freud well understood, is crucial to the well-lived life. 
Take  away work which engages your full attention, 
experience, and expertise, and you have removed a 
critical factor of your well-being.  Formless leisure can 
never replace the knowledge that you are engaged in 
something worth doing.

2) Retirement leads to physical deterioration.

Take a good,close look at the next person aged 65 
or older who passes your way. The ones engaged in 
significant,  constructive labor (the only kind of work 
any of us should ever do) have an aura radiating energy 
and purpose. They are "with it". Lights! Camera! Action!

The presentation of our laborless peers is very, very 
different. Having nothing better to do than contemplate 
physical infirmities and eternity, they are often peevish, 
selfish, with vistas narrowing, hope evaporating. In such 
circumstances, it is easy to see why physical problems 
and limitations abound.

3) Retirement slashes  your income and lifestyle.

As every study grimly shows, the average person 
hasn’t put away nearly enough money to sustain at 
retirement their current lifestyle, much less do the extra 
things (world cruise, anyone?) you desire.  Do you want to 
make do with less? I certainly don’t. Why face the 
conclusion of life scrimping, having to count every 
penny and cut back… and back… and back? It’s demeaning 
and demoralizing. What’s more it’s completely unnecessary… 
if you keep satisfying labor in your life.

4) Retirement renders a lifetime of experience and 
expertise superfluous , useless.

The day you leave your present employ, you are at 
the top of your professional game. You know the 
most, can do the most, can create the most, and 
solve the most. You are a person of knowledge, 
wisdom, and insight. Wow!

Walk out that door… cut the ties with what you 
have done before and your skill level and all you 
can do with it starts to deteriorate at once… each 
day diminishing  your knowledge and skills. You are 
now walking away from everything you have 
aimed at and achieved for so many years. Does this 
make any sense at all?

5) Retirement reduces respect, deference, and 
awe.

Are you good at what you do? Have you worked a 
lifetime to perfect your skills,  to be and do better 
than others in your field? Are you a master of 
your craft, with the respect, deference and even 
awe that that generates? Will you like doing with 
less and less of this, as the relevancy of what 
you know and can do inevitably diminishes; as 
you move farther and farther away from the peak 
of your skills?

When was the last time you watched a retired 
person at any event in your field? They were no 
doubt greeted politely, even enthusiastically. But 
the conversation quickly moved on to today’s 
questions, today’s challenges… and as it did so 
the retired person, no matter how supreme he 
had been before,  became inevitably de trop. 
Remember when this happened to former 
star Norma Desmond when she returned to 
Paramount Studios in "Sunset Boulevard"? It was, 
in the truest sense of the word… pathetic. Is this what 
you really want, to be forgotten… but not gone?

6) Retirement reduces your ability to help others.

The best careers are always about the good you 
do to others. Retire and that important ability declines day 
by day, painfully, inevitably.

Have people benefited from what you know and 
can do? Has the need for this knowledge and skill 
abated in any way? Or is it as robust as ever? If 
the latter, then why (except for purely selfish reasons) 
would you ever want to stop helping? Stop improving? 
Stop transforming and enlightening? It makes utterly 
no sense…  no sense at all.

How a wily German prince , long dead, is 
influencing your life.

Prince Otto von Bismarck was probably the most 
important statesman of the 19th century, conniving 
as he did at the  unification of Germany.  But perhaps 
his even more important (and invidious) legacy is the 
fact that he determined the age of retirement for much 
of the world. This determination is having a very 
definite and pronounced influence on… you!

Prince Bismarck, first Chancellor of the Imperial Reich, 
wanted to dish the fast-growing German Socialists, alarming 
people with a very different national vision than his own. 
Old-age pensions provided him with the means of seeming 
benevolent to folks whose votes he wanted, without costing much.

German statisticians (then as now superb at their craft) made 
it clear to him that most people would never live to 65 and that that, 
therefore, was a most admirable date to pledge pensions.  And so 
a sacred cow was born, with Prince Bismarck’s raucous 
laugh reverberating through the years, keeping millions enthralled 
to one of the most cynical of men and his very cynical policy: promise 
what you will never have to give.

Today, you are young at  65… act like it!

Today’s 65 year olds are completely different from those 
of over a century ago. For one thing, we are alive. For another, 
we are healthier, more fit, more active…. and thus in no particular 
practical need of retirement or the trickle that is Social Security.

It’s time, therefore, to take a new view of retirement; to see 
it for what it is, not the solution to but the enemy of our well 
being. Join me: say no to retirement. It’ll be the very best 
decision you have ever made and will put you in the company 
of sovereigns and pontiffs, none of whom ever retire either!

Five Things You Don’t Know About Closing Sales Which Are Eviscerating Your Profits

It isn’t just that most people are lousy at sales…
far more shocking is the fact that most SALES PEOPLE
are lousy at sales.

If you’re one of them, this article is for YOU!

The plain fact of the matter is that the overwhelming
majority of sales people rely on their charm, gift
of gab, and ability to “wing it” to make sales… instead
of being prepared to make sale after sale. STOP IT! Following
these sensible steps means more money:

1)  Closing sales is not a matter of motivation or pressure.
Instead, it’s a question of having the right information readily
at hand, so you can answer customer questions quickly, easily, 
thoroughly.

Thus, consider what you have readily available when
you are talking to a customer.

2) Do you have (readily available, mind) a sheet of “you
gets”, that is a list of PRECISELY what your customer
gets when using your product/service?

Dollars to doughnuts, neither you nor any member of
your business has sat down and written out the features
of what you’re selling; then converted each and every
feature into a benefit that the customer gets. Treat each
and every benefit like scoops on an ice-cream cone;
the higher you stack ‘em, the more enticing to the customer!

3)  Do you have a sheet of offers?

Products do not sell themselves; a sales person bragging
“Our product sells itself” is wrong, naive or both. What sells
products is offers; the better the offer the faster the sale.

Thus, have you got a sheet of offers; “add-ons” you can
use to motivate immediate customer action? This list should
make it very clear just what the customer gets for fast action.
AND when the customer must act, for ALL offers must be
limited by time, quantity, etc.

4) Do you have a sheet of results testimonials?

People what to be assured and re-assured about what
they will get when using your product. Here’s where “results”
testimonials come in. These not only provide a happy
customer’s experience in using  your product (“I loved it”),
but the specific results that customer achieved. The greater
the specificity and the benefits, the better and more
effective the testimonial.

Note: whenever possible ALL testimonials must include
full customer and such relevant details as title, location, etc.
In short, testimonials must be detailed and complete to be
completely credible.

5) A page of  objection responses and rebuttals

Face it, not every customer will leap for  joy upon hearing
of what you are selling. That’s why you must be prepared for
the nay-sayers, the procrastinators,  the cautious, and
the merely foolish. For these folks, a list of every possible
objection and your strongest response is required.

Commmon objections include:

“I must ask my spouse.”

“I’m on vacation for the next 2 weeks.”

“I have to check you out.”

“I don’t have the money.”

Now hear this: there isn’t an objection under the sun
which cannot be effectively answered, only not by
“winging it.” EVERY successful sales person knows
that preparation here is mandatory; the rebuttals may
seem spontaneous… but they must ALWAYS  be
rehearsed.  Brainstorm all objections; then work on
the responses. As new objections surface, add them
to your list… and, again, perfect the perfect, objection-
demolishing response.

Last Words

The key to sales success is NEVER a “wing and a prayer.”
It is ALWAYS  a matter of total, complete, deliberate effort.
Such effort can turn a mediocre sales person into a stellar
performer.  That, of course, is precisely what your goal
must be, and now you know how to achieve it!

Four things successful business people will do today…that you won’t!

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Friend, let’s get one thing straight from the get-go. Successful people are going to do things today that you won’t. Read this, and you’ll discover what they are.
1) Successful people don’t just let today happen…. they plan for today… yesterday!
What did you do before you left your office yesterday? If you’re successful, you planned your success for today, determining your clear objectives and laying out the documents, materials, and other things you need.
In other words, you knew what you’d need, and you had it readily at hand so you could, without special effort, pick up first thing today what you so carefully planned…. yesterday.
Organization, a constant focus on time management and efficiency, not caffeine , are what the successful bring to the table. They cannot and do not consider yesterday concluded… until it is organized as the spring board to a successful today.
2) Email a stupendous offer just before you leave your work.
Want to walk in tomorrow to sales? To lots of great prospect leads?
Then email a terrific offer BEFORE you leave.
Most people, bushed, fatigued, tired, upon leaving their offices are contemplating the pleasures of the rest of today. But not the successful.
Successful people are mad keen on organization and efficiency… and constant bank account pleasing cash flow. They know that today’s dollars are the result of yesterday’s offers. Successful business people force themselves to stay, no matter how tired they are, no matter how pleasurable the day’s forthcoming events, until they have crafted the stunning offer that ensures cash flow throughout the hours they are not present.
This offer must be a lollapalooza… the best yet.
As I write, much of the United States, much of the rest of the world is mired in an anaemic economic recovery that is, at best, just limping along.
Yet, by staying focused at all times on the main event, successful business people will flourish and achieve even the most ambitious of business and financial goals.
The key is having cash readily at hand…. and the means to generate more…. at will.
This means offers, better offers, the best offers, never-ending offers.
Because you will be tired at the end of the day, craft your end-of-day offers earlier. To ensure that it delivers the big success you insist upon, shape that offer when your mind is fresh and your abilities keen. Aim to make your offer better than you have ever made before; aim to make it a stunner, head turning, a cash gusher.
What the most successful business people know is that cash is king, especially when other people, people who do not have and do not use such offers, don’t have it. If you focus as on your #1 Priority the shaping and constant sending of eye-popping offers you will have the cash, and thus the freedom, your less focused and clever colleagues lack and will always lack.
3) Call three prospects who have been hanging on the fence, uncertain about buying, and tell them you have the talking turkey offer of all times… if they will act now.
Offers come in many shapes and sizes… but one thing they all have in common is the “act now” factor. Offers to work must have deadlines… and the very best offers mean prompt, immediate response… no dithering allowed.
Most people, you see, even most business people, dither, offering excuses when decisive action is called for. In fact most people are not decision makers; rather, they are decision avoiders. The offer is made for such people, for only a truly superior offer will get these torpid ones to act at all, much less act on your speedy schedule.
Now, be honest. Did you, before leaving your office yesterday, call at least three people with a special, once-in-a-lifetime, knock ‘em, sock ‘em offer?
Or did you just turn off the lights and lock the door?
Want money?Then outline a “for my best customers” offer… and call them to discuss it. (You may also use email to send the offer… but never expect such an email to close the deal. For that the phone is the key).
Pick up the phone, I say, and, upon reaching these prime (if delaying) prospects, verbally embrace them, “Mary, you and I have been in contact for many years. I was thinking of you and wanted to make you a spectacular offer. Have you got a minute?” Then deliver the offer of offers, tellingly delivered, resoundingly delivered, convincingly delivered. This is a Special Offer…. for a Special Person. Deliver it accordingly.
4) Select 5 customers and give them a special unexpected gift.
People have always liked and will always like to get presents. It makes us feel wanted, warm inside. The most important people in your business are your customers; we all know that. However, what have you done lately to warm the cockles of their hearts? Not much, right? Change that today.
Pick a few customers, 5 is a good number, and give them a special gift, report, some free product, any kind of emolument… something that says simply, honestly, “I value you!” Then send it out.
Your customers will be pleased, gratified, impressed. No wonder. In our busy world, too few take even a little time to do the right thing; that thing that identifies you as a quality individual, well deserving of such customers. Out of the enhanced good will such valued offerings engender will come business, lots of business. You deserve it.
Are you going to be the business success you say you want?
You now know what to do. The question, therefore, is whether you will do it,and when.
24 hours from now, as you reflect upon this day, you will know just how successful you will be, based on what you have (or have not) done. It won’t take any longer than that to see how well you’re going to do. You see, now as always, the success you get (or forego) will be upon the actions you take and how well you do them. In short, it’s all about you.
Bon voyage.

Abraham Lincoln… captivated by words, created by words, empowered by words, glorified by words. Reflections on his Cooper Union Speech, February27, 1860.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. 150 years ago, March 4, 1861 Abraham Lincoln (born 1809), became 16th president of the United States. And if you do not believe in destiny, fate, or kismet, even you will wonder at the undoubted fact that at the time of its maximum peril, the Great Republic should have found the perfect man to guide her affairs and so preside not over her premature dissolution (as so many thought and even wished) but her greatest trial, from which, terrible forge though it was, emerged the greatest of nations. Oh, yes, here was the hand of God, indeed… to the wonder of all… and as we know His ways are mysterious so we shouldn’t wonder at this man and his story… a story to be told in the words he loved, the words he mastered, the words he used to effect his great purpose… the words we all have at our disposal… but which only he used with such grace and power… and such resolve… the mark of the consummate master of our language and the great uses to which it can always rise… For this tale, I have selected as the occasional music a tune Abraham Lincoln loved and tapped his toe to, “Jimmy Crack Corn”. It’s a frolicksome number thought to be a black face minstrel song of the 1840s. Like so much that touches Lincoln, it’s not quite what it appears to be…. that is, a black slave’s lament over his master’s death… it has indeed a subtext of rejoicing over that death and possibly having caused it by deliberate negligence…. “Dat Blue Tail Fly”… It is a feeling every slave must have thought at some time… which every master must have understood and feared… and from this seemingly unsolvable conundrum Lincoln freed both, saving the people, cleansing the Great Republic. Without benefit of formal education… yet with every necessary word to hand. Consider the matter of Illinois, the 21st state, frontier of the Great Republic in 1818 when it was admitted to the Union. It was a land firmly focused on the bright future all were certain was coming… the better to obliterate and make bearable the rigors and unceasing travails of the present. The land was rich… the richness of the people would soon follow. In this land of future promise, inchoate, Lincoln, like all those who delight in words, found his labors lightened and vista magnified by books, and thanks to the good and helpful work of Robert Bray (2007), we may learn just what books he possessed, and so which words he knew, by whom rendered, and how. It is impossible to know in just what order young Lincoln found the books, read the books, and with what degree of joy and enthusiasm, for Lincoln (unlike many who love and live by words) was not a great writer of marginal commentary, in which reader engages in often enraged tete-a-tete with author. Such marginalia are cream to any biographer, but in Lincoln’s case were infrequent. In any event, we can surmise that he learned his words first from the great King James version of The Bible, perhaps the most influential and certainly most lyric book in the language. If so, it bestowed on him not only the words but their sonority, cadence and above all, moral certainty, all of which were critical in the development of his mature style and so helped save a great nation from self-destruction. There followed first the odd volume, happily received, then a steady trickle, then the glorious days when he could have as many books, and so as many words, as he wanted; paradise to a man for whom each word, and every book, was a key to greater understanding of the cosmos… and himself… Thus, E.A. Andrews and S. Stoddard “A Grammar of the Latin Language” (1836); Nathan Bailey “Dictionary of English Etymology” (1721); James Barclay “Dictionary” (1774); George Bancroft “History of the United States (1834); Francis Bacon “Essays” (1625); John Bunyan “The Pilgrim’s Progress” (1678); Benjamin Franklin “Autobiography” (1818); Edward Gibbon “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” (1776)… … and one great poet after another, for as Lincoln learned, as every word smith must learn, there can be no mastery of words where there is no understanding of poets and their precise, meticulous craft… and so one finds without surprise the works of Robert Burns, Lord Byron, Thomas Gray whose “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (1751) he so loved… with its sad beauty, lines which, once read, seem to have been written for Lincoln himself: “The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave, Awaits alike the inevitable hour, the paths of glory lead but to the grave.” It was a thought Lincoln knew only too well, and he had but to touch this poem to think on its powerful, unanswerable, haunting words, including these… “Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne”… but not yet… not yet. And so Lincoln on every day sought out the light enabling him to learn the words, all the words he needed and his work demanded…. thus was he up with day’s first light… to finish his work betimes, to snatch some minutes for the words…, then to pass the night and gain some further words by fire light and smokey tallow. Because the words would not be denied… Lincoln was not to be denied. They beckoned. He followed… until he was at last ready to begin, just to begin, his great work… the work that needed all of him… and so every word at his command. Thus was he summoned from Springfield in Illinois to the greatest city of the Great Republic, New York, where its most renowned and anxious citizens, worthy, substantial, concerned, waited with impatience, condescension, worry and, yes, even hope to hear what a prairie lawyer named Lincoln had to say to them about the great issue of their day and how this great blot upon the Great Republic could be resolved… and their great experiment in governance be purified. And so did Abraham Lincoln rise to speak, at Cooper Union, February 27, 1860. The most important speech since Washington’s Farewell Address (1796). These days only specialists are knowledgeable about the Cooper Union speech… but this is wrong, for it gave the Union a new voice, a new leader, and a man fiercely dedicated to the preservation and triumph of the Constitution. Without Cooper Union Lincoln would never have been nominated in 1860, so never would have served, and could not have brought his signal talents to bear on saving the Great Republic. And thus the greatest experiment in human history and affairs might well have come to naught, to the impoverishment and despair of our species. But Cooper Union did happen… and with every word the nation knew it had found not merely a good and honest man, but a savior… a man fiercely dedicated to truth… fiercely dedicated to working together with even obdurate men who hated and outraged each other… fiercely determined to find the formula to protect and defend the Union… And so he was fierce in his moderation… fierce in his implacable opposition to anyone threatening the great federal Union… fierce in asking all good citizens to step forward and work for the greater good… And such was the power of his fierce message of what must be done, such was the excellence, clarity and reasonableness of his words, that this audience of the great thrilled and cheered him to the very echo. This single man whose ambition was defined (according to his law partner William H. Herndon) as “a little engine that knew no rest”, was now in place for the uttermost struggle, a struggle for common sense, common purpose, common decency and the validation and acknowledgement of all. He was ready… for he had the ideas, the fortitude, the moral certainty… and, above all, the words he needed, the words that saved the Great Republic and remind us still of what is possible when we have a leader who summons the “better angels of our nature.”

‘Look away Dixie Land!’ The day that determined the outcome of the U.S. Civil War. The Battle of Hampton Roads, March 9, 1862. And you are there….

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. The American Civil War began April 12, 1861 with the firing of the rebel forces on Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. It officially ended on April 9, 1865 when General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House. In between, 212,938 people from both sides were killed in action, with total casualties exceeding 625,000 in what was the most bloody war ever fought on this planet… and the most embittered, as is always the case when brothers fight each other to the death, enraged, grieving, broken hearted but determined to have victory, whatever the cost… This war was filled with incident, great deeds of valor, deeds, too, of squalor, treachery, unmitigated cruelty… and chivalry… but of all the deeds in this great struggle, the deeds of just a handful of men determined the outcome. These were the men who fought each other at the Battle of Hampton Roads, Virginia March 8-9, 1862. And I am taking you there today… for you will want to know who won, who lost, and why it happened the way it did. For the incidental music to this article, I have selected Daniel Decatur Emmett’s famous tune, “Dixie,” also known as “I Wish I Was in Dixie,” a song originating in the black face minstrelsy of the 1850s. It is a tune that makes even the least likely ready to jump up and whirl. I have selected it today because, as Abraham Lincoln himself said on April 10, 1865, it’s “one of the best tunes I ever heard” … but also because of its famous line, “Look away, Dixie Land.” After the Battle of Hampton Roads, Virginia and all the other Confederate states had nothing to look forward to… and everything to look away from. But it didn’t look that way on March 8, 1862… quite the contrary. News of the most alarming portent arrives in Washington, D.C., Sunday, March 9, 1862. Gideon Wells, a New England journalist, found himself urgently summoned to the White House. Come! Come at once! And this Connecticut Yankee, in his unlikely role as Secretary of the Navy, scurried to a meeting where he found Mr. Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War, in the greatest possible dismay… and so alarmed himself that he was alarming, too, the President of the Dis-united States of America. It was a scene to brighten every heart in Dixie… and cause shrewd financiers to sell U.S. Treasury bonds short before Wall Street opened Monday, to chaos and defeatism. Mr. Stanton could not keep still, could not hide his profound anxiety and fear. He sat down, only to jump up again and rush to the windows… What was he looking for? A savior for the Union cause… What did he expect to see? The CSS Virginia in all her glory steaming up the Potomac, sinking the Federal cause with effortless grace. It was a scene of destiny, and every man on both sides of the struggle knew that history of the gravest magnitude was happening now! To them! At Hampton Roads! And so depending on their point of view and allegiance they either gave way to unbridled joy… or profound despair and lamentation. No one was neutral on this urgent matter. USS Merrimac into CSS Virginia. The largest naval installation of the Great Republic was at Norfolk in Virginia… and so after the Old Dominion seceded (April 24, 1861) it became a matter of the greatest urgency to both sides to arrange matters there to their greatest advantage. This to the Federal forces meant moving as much as could be moved, destroying the rest. And, to the rebels, to do just the reverse. Thus was the USS Merrimac, unable to be removed in time and against the rebel sentiments of her crew, burnt and sunk… but not effectively. Her new owners quickly discovered both hull and engines were serviceable… and so began her transformation into the CSS Virginia, the vessel which made Secretary Stanton quail with acute fear and humiliating anxiety. Why? Because CSS Virginia, for all that she had just weeks ago been scuttled, was transformed into the mightiest ship of all the navies of all the seas… a ship sheathed in iron, designed to deal death to the picturesque, now ineffectual sailing ships of every navy, but without suffering a single nick at all. Thus did the dead Merrimac come to be the super weapon the Confederacy needed to pulverize the Union and secure their freedom from the meddling, inept Yankees they despised. Confederate triumph March 8, 1862. The world changed this day… as the Virginia, with the merest motion, rammed the hapless USS Cumberland, 121 seamen going down with her… then the USS Congress was put out of action, surrendering… and everyone, from the merest cabin boy, saw the future… and knew that every gallant wooden vessel, yesterday puissant, was now dross. And so, as cat to mouse, Virginia moved to her next sure triumph, USS Minnesota… while every telegrapher sent on the news, the news that so discomfited Secretary Stanton… and every other brave Union heart. Armageddon was here… and it flew a Confederate flag. Until… In August, 1861 Gideon Wells authorized work on a top-secret Union ironclad… and in due course the USS Monitor was born, the most radical naval design ever; the invention of Swedish engineer and inventor John Ericsson. And it was this curious, much mocked vessel that steamed into Hampton Roads March 9, just in time, to reverse what but yesterday had seemed certain, Southern command of the seas and therefore victory. And as Monitor and Virginia battled each other to a draw, each unable to finish its deft opponent, the entire strategic scene changed. All wooden ships, every single one, was now obsolete; thus a new arms race started for command of the seas. USS Monitor had, simply by maneuvering to a draw, stopped the South’s “certain” advance and commenced a war of bloody attrition, a war the North could win, and the South had most reason to fear. For without access to the world, the South could only rely on itself… and that would never be enough to ensure independence as every Southern family would, in tragic due course, come to understand only too well. As for both the historic ships of this engagement, neither sailed for long. Virginia was burnt again and sunk when Union forces took back the Norfolk port facilities in May. As for the plucky Monitor, she sank December 31,1862 off North Carolina. The remains of one of her stricken crew, 24-year-old James Fenwick, were just recently brought to the surface for honorable burial. He had been married just a few weeks before Monitor embarked on her final voyage; her history short but epochal. “Old times they are not forgotten; Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.” ** We invite you to post your comments to this article below.

Boys will be boys…. thoughts on hazing, fraternities, fair Dartmouth and a renowned college president who stumbled… or did he?

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. I have total recall of this matter. It was1966 and I was about to be a sophomore at alma mater… and my parents were worried… worried that I, their darling, their first-born son, was becoming a wonk… all work, no play, a very dull boy indeed. Sure, I was #1 in my class, a certain summa in the making, but not well rounded, never the lithe master of every country club skill. And so, mom did not so much request as plead with me to go through “rush week” when older boys (to my worried parents’ complete satisfaction) scrutinized younger boys… delivering themselves of every social outrage, all in the name of social acceptance, social advancement, and the glory of the frat.
And so to please mama, I signed up as an available pledge… and went out each and every evening to my fate… which went like this…
Gilded anachronism.
To justify their anachronistic existence, and divert attention from what they liked to do and were in existence to deliver, all the fraternities sponsored a yearly academic prize… and all worked as hard as they ever worked on anything to win it… for winning covered a multitude of outrages. And so they sought out wonks, not because they liked wonks but because these wonks and their stellar grades, once pledged, gave them the latitude to party hardy.
“Boy,” they said at each House in the stream of parties attended, “we don’t want you… but we do want your perfect grade point average… that cool 4 point o.” And so, holding their noses, the jeunesse doree’ of Fraternity Row offered me membership… at the cost of my self-esteem. Finding the necessary resolution, I told them thanks but no thanks, breaking my uncomprehending mother’s heart, who saw not courage but a lifetime of effortless contacts from past, present, future brothers thrown thoughtlessly away…
… As a result, I was never hazed and so cannot from personal experience relate its intricacies, primal thrills and long-established protocols. Luckily I have at my disposal the unvarnished truths on the matter delivered by the man who kissed and told, that rogue brother, the traitor of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, Andrew Lohse, the man who did the worst thing he could do… letting his erstwhile brothers down… to his everlasting shame and damnation.
For the incidental music to this piece about boys being boys and the ways long honed by their Greek letter predecessors of getting around bamboozled parents and clueless authority figures of every kind, I have selected one of the popular songs from the “Animal House” series (first released in 1978). It’s “Louie, Louie”, the ultimate attitude song. It was written by Richard Berry and released in 1957. Find it in any search engine. Play it at once. And, remember, it didn’t get its reputation for outrage, insolence and ability to irritate every adult everywhere for nothing…
Dartmouth College, an abbreviated history.
When you first see Dartmouth, founded in Hanover, New Hampshire in 1769, you catch your breath. It’s a picture-postcard-perfect scene, a location tailor-made for well-heeled parents remembering their own undergrad capers. But behind the Currier-and-Ives scenaries is one generation of Dartmouth men doing absolutely disgusting things with and to the bodies of other young Dartmouth men… in rites as old as Neanderthal and as new as Facebook.
The current imp to unveil the excesses occurring behind the Corinthian columns on Fraternity Row — for they have been unveiled before — is young Lohse, aspiring journalist, who had no farther to look for inspiration than to his brothers. What they were willing to do to sleep in such exalted quarters amongst the gilded youths makes piquant reading indeed…
… how pledges slurped beer (no doubt the cream of pale ales) off the backsides, between the legs of their soon-to-be brethren;
how these same chosen few walked through kiddie pools sloshing urine and excrement;
how they feasted, as well they might, on succulent pies of gourmet-quality vomit.
There is more, of course; there is always more, of these gifted Ivy Leaguers snorting with each other, spitting on each other, tossing the furniture about, least wisely at a female Dartmouth security officer. There is still more… but you get the picture, the picture Lohse first published in the campus newspaper, The Dartmouth (America’s oldest college newspaper, since 1799) on January 25, 2012; a picture he has now sold for publication in “Rolling Stone” for the edification of the world.
The faculty reacted with the usual unedifying mixture of umbrage, outrage, humiliation, and — above all — embarrassment. How could they brag of their high positions at this Ivy League institution when this institution was most often portrayed — and in such detail, too — as a country club for the socially maladjusted and their jejune pastimes and adolescent joys? Outrageous!
Enter Dartmouth president Jim Kim.
Having little else to do in their pristine North woods, the abashed faculty made their way to President Jim Kim’s available door… pouring forth their hot words, often in iambic pentameter. Amongst the words most heard: outmoded, dangerous, illegal, scandalous, moral thuggery, physically, emotionally, psychologically damaging… and much more of this florid, grandiloquent, purple language of high import and flatulence; for this faculty, like so many faculties, never met a sonorous and highfalutin word it didn’t like, and uses them with gay abandon whenever the opportunity arises, as it most surely has arisen here.
Weak as water, or shrewd and cagey, biding his time?
President Kim, a renowned educator, gave these aroused faculty members no satisfaction whatsoever, although he called for an investigation and made it clear the College’s detailed anti-hazing policy, as well as that of the Granite State itself, would be applied and applied with rigor. That was the presidential equivalent of “blah, blah, blah” and conduced to greater anger amongst the academicians than they had already evinced. Too little, they grumbled, too late; they demanded the complete demolition of each and every den of iniquity and bad taste called fraternities.
Here President Kim not only disappointed, but alarmed them… for he made clear that he would not, and most likely, could not eradicate the insolent fraternities and their (to others) offensive ways. Some saw this as a nod in the direction of Dartmouth’s rich alumni, aging brothers with odd tastes and strong memories. If drinking beer their own way had been good enough for them, what had a few chiding do-gooders to say of the practice? They would give to Dartmouth if and only if…
And since Dartmouth needs money, and oodles of if, the fraternities and their bullying, homo-erotic, unhousebroken ways, might have to be tolerated… for this is, after all, America… where a man (or woman) has the God-given right to outrage their neighbors and their prim views just about anyway they like.
And, with that, I give you the stirring chords of “Louie, Louie” once again, because whilst these frats and their particular menaces and peculiar devices might well remain for cycles yet to come, “me, I’ve gotta go”…
**** We invite you to post your comments to this article.

School bullying. Always with us, not acknowledged as a pressing problem needing attention — until now.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. If you’re like me, the first time you heard this bouncy tune, you laughed… then laughed some more. It’s called the “Too fat polka”, with its immediately recognizable opening, “You can have her, I don’t want her, she’s too fat for me.”
It came from the mind of Arthur Godfrey, a nationally known personality from television’s earliest days. Go now to any search engine to find and play it. You will probably laugh, too… until, that is, you really perceive the meaning of the words. Then if you have brain and heart, you’ll have the necessary pause that precedes recognition of what you have been doing… and why you can do it no longer.
Godfrey, you see, was a bully; he evinced his tendencies openly and on national television, most famously the day he canned singer Julius La Rosa on air… not merely removing La Rosa but humiliating him… something that’s cat nip to a bully who lives to torment others, in ways both vulgar and exquisite.
And thus we came to see this not as a cute little ditty, but a tune designed to hurt good people and kind struggling with fat and needing support not insult. And so as Godfrey’s hurtful tendencies and disposition became known, as we grew appalled, not amused; his fame was tarnished and his high star waned. In such ways do we make progress, one person at a time. But this is often too little too late, especially in our wired age where in an instant a vicious sentiment and attack will be universal, thereby magnifying its impact and pain.
The Internet changes everything.
In the first days of the Internet, it was said with pride by the early netizens that “the Internet changes everything.” We had little idea of just how right we were… and how the instant availability of information, easily accessed, easily transmitted, would radically alter the world and human interaction. Nowhere was this more true than in the matter of bullying… both for those doing the bullying and for the people being bullied. The Internet fostered a climate of anonymous insult and malice, a place where, so it was thought, one could with impunity say anything about anyone… garden-variety bullies morphing (with a few keystrokes) into super-bullies, pain, retribution, cosmic comeuppance theirs to summon and command — without care, concern, accountability, responsibility. And so the greatest age in the history of bullying began and prospered.
Understanding bullies.
This is an article with the particular object of understanding school yard bullies, the better to take effective action for their diminishment and eradication. Bullies have existed in every culture and society since the beginning of human history. Bullies have been tolerated, condoned, even encouraged because they represent the prevailing power structure and elites and mirror their attitudes.
Bullies rarely are the representatives of the poor, the dispossessed, the politically isolated, the misunderstood and “different”… although bullies’ usual victims ordinarily are found in these categories. In other words, bullies get away with their anti-social behaviors because they are representatives of prevailing prejudices, hatreds, fears, and anxieties. Scratch a bully, and you will find an entire network of people (often including his parents) who not only do not condemn such activities, but consciously or unconsciously assist in their realization and defense. As such bullying goes well beyond one bully and one victim to being instead one cultural tradition attempting to contain, control, intimidate and even destroy another culture and its “unacceptable” views.
As such the problem of bullies quickly becomes a problem about the cultural wars which so distinguish our times. These wars, like all wars, are brutal, inhumane, boundless in their cruelties and, worst of all, in their point of view which is that they epitomize good; their opponents the very principle of evil amongst us. It is with this background in mind that we take up the labor of understanding, identifying, curtailing, controlling and (for we must keep this high goal before us) eliminating bullying. And so we go to Ground Zero, the schools of the Great Republic, where the internecine cultural wars are fought every day, every single day.
The extent of the problem. Thanks to the sustained work of organizations like how-to-stop-bullying.com we now have, for the first time, hard statistics on such matters as who bullies, who is bullied, why, how, how often, etc. The advent of such data indicates that progress is being made in understanding and effectively confronting and handling this matter. Remember, bullying has always existed… but because it was not regarded as a “problem”, much less a problem that school personnel must deal with, no progress towards the ultimate goal of eradication was made or could be made. These are the early days of a reversal of this invidious, ostrich-head-in-the-sand “policy” which has endured for centuries, where bullying was anecdotal, insignificant, never regarded, never mattered, never solved.
Thankfully our way, indeed our entire approach to this subject, is increasingly different from what has unacceptably gone before. Pro-active, we see the seeds not merely of significant but of pervasive, fundamental, beneficial change. Yes, things are changing, though these are but its early days.
What you can do.
Obviously, this is a problem of most immediate relevance to affected students, their parents, and their schools. This is where the bullying war, in all its aspects, is fought daily.
Parents must be aware that bullying is a daily feature in most schools.
They must therefore maintain open and productive conversations with children to discern what may be happening… and with school authorities who should be glad for your active concern and willingness to help.
Parents should ask school committees and other responsible educational officers just what they are doing both to preclude the problem and handle individual instances once they arise.
In this way, school by school, principal by principal, teacher by teacher, parent by parent, student by student progress must, can and will be made, for one thing is certain: if we as a people, with our full panoply of resources intellectual and organizational, confront this problem with a will, progress will be made and the schools of the Great Republic cleansed of an outrage swept under the rug by nations and peoples before us who were less committed to students and schools than we are. This will not, cannot, be the work of a single school or single term, and we must be so prepared. But it is important work, empowering legions of afflicted students who can now grow to full potential, enriching and enhancing the Great Republic which is sore in need of their skills and services, many and timely.
**** We invite you to post your comments to this article below.

Deviled eggs.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. This is a story as American as apple pie and hay rides, although its roots go back to Ancient Rome. It’s a story that will remind you of your own youthful days when the livin’ was easy, and you had time enough to waste without a single regret.
It’s a story about people you haven’t thought about in too long… and places you miss the minute you think of them… it’s about the days when your energies were prodigal… and you were admonished to wipe your feet and wash those hands before sitting down and giving a blessing too short, perfunctory… because you didn’t know how blessed you were.
It’s a story of mom in the kitchen laboring, the lady of the house, a position which later ladies might disparage, but which she never did. It’s a story, too, of dad who organizes the whole shebang for the good of the family he’s proud of; saying little perhaps, but giving all.
This is the story of a little item that was a frequent guest… and a joy to eat… a thing eaten fast, never savored, gulped, acknowledged later with a belch you tried to quell but could not; your mother thereupon pointing a finger at you while saying, “I told you so.”
This is the story of deviled eggs… and you, like me, will be glad to have it… and, if you can find one today, glad to eat… for it is the most delicious time capsule of all… and you’ve been missing it without even knowing.
As the incidental music for this article, and this culinary staple of high summer, I have selected “In the Good Old Summertime.” It started as an American Tin Pan Alley song first published in 1902 with music by George Evans and lyrics by Ren Shields. It was the title song in the 1940 film starring Judy Garland and Van Johnson. Go now to any search engine and find the version you like. Then sing along, so you can work up an even better appetite for your ovoid treat.
Terrible cook, memorable deviled eggs.
My mother, bless her soul, was a terrible cook; I could therefore count on the fingers of a single hand the dishes she made which were actually good. One of these was her deviled eggs. They were not merely good; they were supreme, as if all the talents which might otherwise have gone into a dozen dishes or more had been concentrated in just one never-to-be-forgotten masterpiece.
Thus when I saw deviled eggs on the menu at the Cambridge Common Restaurant a couple months ago, I ordered them at once… and found myself impatient while waiting for them; (a thing I never thought I’d see on any menu hereabouts) . And I did to them what I did to their ancestors of fifty years and more ago: I gulped them down, for my brain, in some deep place of memory, knew that that was the way, the only way, to eat them… And so in an instant, with a single taste, I was no longer the senior citizen with burdens and obligations, but twelve or fourteen or so, happy, alive, immersed in joy, surrounded by love… and as many deviled eggs as the sustenance and prolongation of such a mood and condition might require.
Ingredients.
No two cooks, even if they scrupulously followed a common recipe, would produce their deviled eggs in the same way. That is because each, yes every single one, adds one top secret ingredient, an ingredient so important it was never discussed, and most assuredly never written down; for your mother was aware that every other housewife (no matter how honorable in other matters ) couldn’t possibly resist a little culinary espionage, regarding it as an essential aspect of her work. And if she found and employed this ingredient to improve what was wrought by her own fair hand, why that was her bounden duty and solemn obligation. After all, all’s fair in love…
Start here.
But before we get to the matter of those secret ingredients, let’s start with the basics, for in these most cooks are agreed.
A dozen hard boiled eggs, yolks extracted Mayo (generously mixed in) Mustard (only a little) salt & pepper a splash of Worcestershire sauce Add all ingredients above into bowl and hand mix or use hand blender Refill egg cavities with yolk mix Dust finished eggs with paprika Slice pimento-stuffed green olives and place a piece so the red center of the green olive is in the center of each deviled egg. Chill and serve.
This recipe works, of course, in the way all such recipes work. It does the job but just in prosaic, pedestrian manner. As such while it may be good enough for others (like Mrs. Anne down the road), it will never be good enough for you and yours. And so you go where lesser housewives do not venture; places that prove your ingenuity, skill and cunning… a condition of affairs which you relish and exult.
And so to Rome.
There isn’t a culture on earth that doesn’t have its version of deviled eggs; thus you are able to excel in your presentation by studying what is done far from your kitchen… by housewives as proud as you are. Each delights in her own secret: diced pickle or pickle relish, ground black pepper, powdered cayenne pepper or chipole, turmeric, vinegar, poppy seed, thyme, cilantro, minced onion, celery… and
… garlic, horseradish, wasabi, sliced Jalapeno pepper, cheese, chutney, salsa, hot sauce, ham, mushrooms, spinach, sour cream, caviar, smoked salmon … and many more…
Each a secret ingredient, and kept secret until the actual moment of use, the ingredient that spells mastery… and love… for each is the ingredient proving her family is the most loved and cared for of all, proven by a taste that forever means home…wherever you are, whenever you have it.
And, this summer, as in all the summers before, deviled eggs will be in attendance, waiting to perform their delicious function for you as they once did for the emperors of the seven hills of Rome and the wide world beyond….
“No trouble annoying, Each one is enjoying, The good old summer time”…
… and all the deviled eggs you could ever want.
*** We invite you to post your comments to this article.

Running your own business? Think you’re listening to and serving your customers? You may be surprised what these customers think about that.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
We live in a society where the means of connecting with each other increase and proliferate every single day. And yet, we are communicating with each other less well than ever; in fact, it seems to me that as the means of communicating go up, the actual communicating we do goes down. And if this is one of the chief ironies of our times; it is also amongst the greatest, most irritating and always infuriating aspects, not least because it should never occur at all.
Irritation by phone.
Every Wednesday I have occasion to see how people who are not sufficiently client-centered handle their customers. The case in point is the team of Brazilian cleaners which comes every 7 days to help keep me sufficiently clean and tidy for another week so that I can do my important work for you, readers, with the complete focus required.
These cleaners have worked for me for some years now. I like them and (despite my exigent standards) they seem to like me.
Lately, however, the situation, once stable and acceptable, has declined. What’s more I know why and (if they’re paying attention) the cleaners and their fearless leader should know, too.
We have, in fact, arrived at the point where I say a thing, but they do not hear that thing, much less take action to do that thing. And so a “problem” that should never have existed… now needs the kind of action I am no longer sure these cleaners are able and willing to take. It goes like this…
“Hang that phone up.”
The head cleaner, not to put too fine a point on the matter, has never met a phone she doesn’t like. She’s always pleasant, personable, a smile ever at the ready even when things in her life are not going as well as she might like… and (and this is the gravamen of my charge) she’s a chatterbox who may well have been born with a phone in her ear, and this not only annoys me; it alarms me… for my particular lifestyle is unusual for our times…
Life in a museum.
Over the course of the last couple of decades or so I have focused on the acquisition of museum quality artifacts of every kind. Their care and protection is my objective… the better to give each of them the opportunity to be shown to utmost advantage. This means regular dusting and polishing. Here’s where the problem begins.
I have made it clear to the cleaners on now innumerable occasions that the way they work for others may not constitute the best way they should work for me. In other words, their whirling dervish style of dust removal must be changed when the object being dusted has literally hung at Versailles. Slow and steady is the desired approach…
“Don’t do it all at once.”
Dusting and the like, let’s face it, can be dull, excruciatingly dull indeed. I pride myself on an acute awareness of this fact. And so from the very beginning, with so many facets needing regular attention, I have advised the cleaners to do a portion of the artifacts one week; the balance the next… even extending full dusting over three visits; in other words caution and care are desirable, not necessarily the speed on which they pride their operation. That works for them; it most assuredly does not work for me. And, worse, as they rush through their tasks, I literally hold my breath while they swing their awkward and provocative vacuum cleaner in the very limited space at their disposal. To say I am nervous as they work is the ultimate under statement.
But no matter how often I advise them… that is the precise number of times they have not only failed to hear… but have made it perfectly clear that they regard this advice as superfluous, intrusive, completely beside the point…
The phone, the whole phone, and nothing but the phone.
The cleaners love to yap (a word my grandmother used to use for chatter that most assuredly did not rise to the level of more demanding and reciprocal conversation)… and they yap from the moment they arrive… to the moment they depart. They do it LOUDLY with each other (a situation that I usually ignore). More seriously, they do it on the phone while doing their cleaning… and this is a situation I most assuredly do NOT ignore. What’s more, I cannot ignore it… because, in my case, that would be careless and irresponsible, such is the rarity and beauty of the items herein, a fact I am never sure they have taken in, much less understand and make clear they understand by carefully considered and carefully rendered action.
The situation rises to boiling point when they focus on the telephone and their jejune yapping… instead of devoting 100% of their attention to the breathtaking portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) which arrests the attention of every connoisseur who sees it. For the cleaners, philistines, it is just another burdensome object to get through, get by, get over until they can go home — safe from the old geezer who demands not only an earnest effort, but one that does not on any way threaten the object in question.
And so the chief cleaner says this to me with complete incomprehension: “I never break anything,” her pout pronounced… her eyes smouldering. Thus, she indicates she has not heard my point, clearly doesn’t understand it, and does not perceive the benefit of attending to her customer, the customer she needs for her business but cannot be bothered to comprehend, much less conciliate and reassure.
Beneficial advice. Treat it accordingly.
Now let us draw what benefits we can from this situation, for it is time to resolve it, placing our relations on the better footing they once were.
1) Listen to your customers. They are the sole reason why you have a business in the first place.
2) Do not see the customer as the enemy but rather a fellow traveler with you on this planet, who has a right to your ear as well as your labor.
3) Do not casually listen to, or even ignore, what this customer says. Not only is that bad business; it is also bad human relations.
4) When the customer addresses you, listen… and see what you can do, not to ignore the point, but to implement it, as quickly and easily as possible.’
5) Where the customer has concerns respond to them with alacrity and with empathy. Then see what you can do about implementing solutions to them.
6) Even where you do not entirely agree with the customer, do what you can to accommodate that customer.
7) Where you know that such and such a thing disturbs your customer, go the extra mile to avoid such disturbance.
And, above all, ask yourself this fundamental and crucial question: have I done everything this day to ameliorate the situation, hearing, doing, improving the relations and so earning the trust and even admiration of this all important person. For, remember, each contact you have with your customer provides yet another occasion to earn this trust and admiration, and if you do not take it, you are yourself your own worst enemy… and that is unacceptable indeed.
But let’s end on the highest possible note of accommodation and joy, with “painfully fabulous” Siedah Garrett’s 2012 Academy Award nominated song, “Real in Rio.” Find it in any search engine… and samba. Just don’t do it when you’re polishing the silver.

Rock of ages. The pain and comfort locked in every piece of jewelry.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

I am about to open a time capsule. It’s been waiting for me for some years now, and I am, I think, as ready as I shall ever be to look inside — and to be swept away by the strongest and most enduring memories… of mother, deceased, never more alive in my mind.

I am writing this article for just 4 people, first, my mother herself; she and I discussed this subject on several occasions and I want to keep faith with her.

Second, I am writing this article for me. I resolved some time ago that as incidents in my mother’s life rose to the top of my consciousness, I would write about them, the better to remember her and keep her memory green.

The third person for whom this is written is my only niece Chelsea; she’s the young woman (now just 21) who will get these pieces, and I want her to know her grandmother better; to at least know her through my eyes. Chelsea, your grandmother lives again here, and it is my hope you will understand just what that means and your role, for you are the one designated by fate, destiny and your grandmother and I to have, behold, savor this jewelry — and, in your turn, to pass them on with the seriousness and thoughtfulness they deserve.

Finally, I am writing this article for you, dear reader. Why? Because at some point in your life you will face the exact subject of this article and must do it completely right the first time. This article will enable you to do just that…

The intimacy of jewelry.

All jewelry is valuable, even that you find on the bargain table of the five-and-dime. Just what that value is depends on the materials used, the fame of the person who designed it, the company that sold it, and the overall impact of the work. On these things you have no influence whatsoever

But on the final point your opinion is everything: what emotional wallop does the piece pack, an intangible that emanates from the loved one who wore this beautiful item, what she thought of it, where and when she wore it, photographs in which the item is featured, etc. So does such an object become an apperture into the life of and memories about your departed beloved… and you must make a decision about their importance and intensity to you… and who might have them after you, too, are gone. All this is essential, not easy, and fraught with emotional dynamite.

Pen, paper, object, focus.

It is easy to get distracted when you’re sorting items as intimate as your mother’s jewelry. These items are, after all, of the greatest personal significance to you, as must be the case given the person they once adorned, brightening her life — and yours. Such memories, too, deserve your full attention… but not until the business is handled. For this you need the following items: pen, paper, camera and an easy-to-work-in space where you can unpack the items and work with them. Drawing up a list on your computer is also advisable and makes it easy to communicate with the people involved in this matter. Do this as soon as possible.

This is easier said than done.

As you can see from this article I deferred handling this matter for several years. This would have been irresponsible of me but for the unique circumstances of our family. There were only three ladies in the family who had and still have (in the case of the two juniors) any involvement in this matter, and one being removed from the scene, the other two, mother and daughter, did not demand or insist upon an instant resolution to the business… rather the reverse as Chelsea, the one who would get most everything, was not ready for ownership yet as still an undergraduate without fixed address or life’s work… and so the matter could be continued without inconvenience to anyone. This is why the objects waited so long for my detailed attention, inspection, report, and distribution.

But now the time capsule must be opened, each item evocative of its owner brought forth, and the important work begun, as I am doing here at my desk.

The importance of each object being marked and recorded, boxed, ready for the next owner, like Mary Regina did.

I take as my superb skill model Queen Mary, wife of King George V. She might have been a curator of a museum, and in all practical particulars she was, given the professional way she handled all items in the collection of the royal house of Windsor. Each was examined by the Queen and often all its important details clearly recorded in her own fair hand. Well, if it’s good enough for Queen Mary, it’s good enough for me. And so, with great care, I take the first box out of the shopping bag where the jewelry has lived for a prolonged period. It is now time for its renewed appearance, to be worn and treasured by another generation.

Open the first box and begin.

If you are lucky the recipient of the jewelry with which you are charged has been scrupulous about saving the box the item came in and any paperwork, like invoice or sales slip. These are important since they contain vital information which may bear on the value and rarity of the piece. Keep them safe… and always gather these details for your heirs. I have been a good guardian… that is my pride as I start to pull the dusty boxes into the light.

And, then, unbidden the insistent memories are here, demanding a sustained attention I feel compelled to give.

The penny-farthing bicycle pin in silver… a reduced version of her Baron’s coronet, set in gold, the ancient title hers in her own right… the golden Christmas wreath pin set in emeralds and sapphires she wore to every seasonal party, for she loved the gladdening smell, regretting only that this pin could not duplicate the original…

And so it went, items unearthed, opened, scrutinized, remembered… each one a memory tugging at my heart… but I had promised myself I would focus first and foremost on the business at hand… and I kept this promise until one very special piece of jewelry emerged, immediately catching the light and igniting.

It was the gold iridescent dragonfly with its dense green and gold motif. I recognized it at once; after all, I had given it to her. In addition to the card that accompanied the original gift, there was a message in my hand. “She always said she wanted to fly free as the curious dragonfly. And now she does…”

I broke down and sobbed, for at this moment human frailty, human limitations, human mortality were all too close, too painful, too real. And now this brilliant creature is in my hand half a world away… and here I shall keep it, until Chelsea is ready and knows why the tears flowed hot and heartfelt and will keep it safe as I have done.

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