New puppy Blue – posted 7/12/2019

July 12, 2019 2 comments
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Normalizing Sexism – posted 7/6/2019

July 6, 2019 2 comments

For the last 50 years or so, many American women have challenged their second class status and have fought for gender equity. On different fronts, women pushed back against institutional discrimination and the worldview that they were inferior.

On the issues of sexual assault, domestic violence and reproductive rights, traditional sexist views were confronted and rejected. Progress may have been halting but the movement was forward.

That was true until the presidency of Donald Trump. Now we are turning back the clock. Under Trump, sexual politics have regressed. As is the case with racism, where pro-Trump white supremacists have come out from under the rocks where they were previously hiding, Trump has given sexists and misogynists a new lease on life.

Let’s begin with the example of the President himself. At least 22 women have accused him of sexual misconduct since the 1970’s. The latest was Elle Magazine advice columnist E. Jean Carroll who recently accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990’s.

Trump has denied all the allegations against him and has called all the women “liars”. About Carroll, he wrote, “I’ve never met this person in my life” even though New York magazine printed a photo of them together. Then Trump said, “Number one, she’s not my type”.

So does that mean Trump might rape someone who was his type? He has had other disturbing responses to allegations of his sexual misconduct. After businesswoman Jessica Leeds accused him of groping her, Trump said, “Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you”.

I guess Trump’s victims have to be “10’s” to get a shot at being assaulted.

You have to ask: how does this guy get a pass on all the accusations? Doesn’t every woman who has made an accusation deserve a fair hearing on the merits? Trump may not be approaching Harvey Weinstein-type numbers but when you are over 20 allegations, that shocks the conscience.

I thought the federal government had a vigorous policy against sexual harassment. I guess it is two-tiered: one tier for Trump and one for everyone else. If the same accusations had been lodged against President Obama, Obama would have been impeached.

It would appear that Trump is above the law. His behavior is beyond reckoning. Whatever electoral calculations the House Democrats are making, their response to these accusations has been weak and overly accommodating.

What is going on is a throwback to a former era when men unambiguously ruled. It was not A Handmaid’s Tale but in pre-1960’s America, powerful men were dominant and women were under their thumb. Male chauvinism was the norm. Sex was a private matter outside public scrutiny. If a man wanted to assault or batter his wife or girl friend, it was nobody else’s business.

Men had the prerogative to behave badly and complaining women were “hysterical”, not to be believed. Religion often provided cover since patriarchal religion taught that men were the head of the household and women were to obey.

It is easy to see why women have been reluctant to come forward and report sexual assault allegations. They get harassed and threatened. After Carroll made her allegations, Trump encouraged his supporters to harass her. Trump said Carroll’s allegations put her in “dangerous territory”, whatever that means.

I think Trump’s behavior has very bad implications for domestic violence victims. As a national role model, he is saying complaining women are not to be believed. The example Trump sets is one that every abuser emulates. The strategy is what University of Oregon psychology professor Jennifer Freyd calls DARVO: Deny, Attack and Reverse Victim and Offender. Freyd says perpetrators of violence often use this strategy to silence victims and to force retreat.

Backwards views of domestic violence are also reflected in Trump Administration public policy. The Trump Department of Justice revised its definition of domestic violence to only consider physical harm – not psychological and emotional abuse. This is a major step backward, contrary to modern understandings of domestic violence. Also, the Trump Administration, through former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, ruled that domestic violence cannot be a basis for an asylum claim unless very extraordinary conditions are met. The new standard was designed to foil the great majority of domestic violence-based asylum claims. It downgrades and minimizes the crime of domestic violence.

The new sexism is also reflected in reproductive and abortion rights policy. Before our very eyes, abortion rights are disappearing. The right to choose is being rendered a nullity. Trump, his largely male minions and male-dominated state legislatures are denying women their right to choose, even in cases of rape and incest.

Not surprisingly, just as the Trump Administration emboldened a new generation of white supremacists, they have also emboldened a new generation of hateful male supremacists who see feminism as responsible for the decline of Western civilization. Red Pill, incels, and Milo Yiannopoulos come to mind.

We are witnessing an effort to bring back and normalize sexism. In her book, No Visible Bruises, Rachel Snyder quotes a domestic violence activist and survivor, Kit Gruelle:

“We are leaping backwards at an obscene pace.”

I think that sums it up well.

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In defense of democratic socialism – posted 6/23/2019

June 23, 2019 Leave a comment

Since there is no shortage of badmouthing socialism, I wanted to outline the road that led me to support for democratic socialism.

Growing up in the Philadelphia area in the 1960’s I was acutely aware of economic inequality and racism. If you got around the city and suburbs, there was a stark contrast between the ghetto of North Philadelphia and the Main Line. It was a chasm even then and I did not understand why there was such a disparity between geographic areas not so far apart.

It was the 1960’s and the War in Vietnam was raging. It was a dominant background reality to all our lives. Everyday featured body counts on TV. The logic for why American troops were in Vietnam was a mystery. Persuasive rationales were missing. Vietnam was a forerunner to Iraq where wars ceased to have any credible justification. The Movement and the counterculture emerged. To be woke was to question authority.

As a young person looking for answers, I gravitated to books. I wanted to understand our society and I was not getting good answers from the mass media of the time. I read widely and I would name two writers who led me to question fundamental things: Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky.

Both articulated a critique of the war in Vietnam that went beyond seeing the war as an accident or a mistake. They saw the war as a product of a profit system that valued money over people. In their writings, they placed the Vietnam war in a context that explained why the United States kept intervening militarily in the Third World. They also offered a critical perspective on U.S.history that was new to me.

In college, I had my first opportunity to read books about socialism. I had a friend, Kevin, who was a member of the radical student group SDS, Students for a Democratic Society. Kevin gave me a list of books to read that were not on any college syllabus. I learned about labor’s untold story as well as the history of socialism and 20th century socialist thought.

Since this is such contested terrain, let me highlight how I see socialism. It has been best summarized by a labor educator, John McDermott:

“Socialism is the movement for the emancipation of working people from the fetters of authoritarian government – this means every kind of authoritarian government – of the left, the right, the center; of capitalist, of communist; of church; of state; of corporation; of expert; and of zealot.”

Socialism is about working class self-rule. It is not about some bureaucracy ruling over workers. Nor is it government ownership of the means of production. Socialism is about more political and economic democracy. The working class is a subjugated class under capitalism. Working people have little control over critical decisions that affect their lives. Over the last 40 years, working people have seen their collective power erode, consistent with the weakening of unions and the expansive greed of our ruling class.

Implicit is the underlying reality of class struggle. Social classes compete for power, wealth and influence. For almost all of human history, working people have been exploited by their masters, whether they were monarchs, feudal lords or capitalists.

In America, a small number of people, the 1%, have amassed a huge amount of money, billions of dollars. The money has been used to buy political power, politicians, and control over our collective political agenda. That agenda has promoted minimalist change guaranteed to protect the profits of the 1%. Nothing too “out there” will get placed on this agenda. The 1% wants economic stability to safeguard its money. It is not an agenda designed to address the human needs of the American people.

The ruling class guards against the possibility of any significant progressive reform happening. It is like our society is a car permanently stuck in neutral.

We only need to look at climate change. According to science, we only have a small window of time to turn things around (12 years) before we will face catastrophic consequences. Where is the urgency? Where is the appreciation for science? There is an overwhelming consensus among scientists about climate change but we continue plodding, with blinders on.

I blame capitalism and the short-sighted pursuit of profit by the fossil fuel industry. You might think that these greedy capitalists would recognize the need for a long-term perspective on climate but that is totally lacking. Instead they still try to manufacture doubt about the science of climate change. The crazy thing is the capitalists along with all of us will have to live with the consequences of climate inaction. This is a betrayal of the future.

You can go down the list of problems we face – racism, sexism, homophobia, militarism, the environment, reproductive rights, and immigration. Each problem has its own specificity but all are deeply rooted in a history where capitalism has failed over generations to adequately address them.

Socialism is not opposed to reforms. Ideas like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, $15 minimum wage, and free college tuition at public colleges and universities are building blocks moving in the direction of a socialist vision. Socialists are strong supporters of these reforms while also being aware that they are only steps in the direction of a radical change.

Some of the critiques of socialism complain that it is unrealistically about “free stuff”. I think arguments like this ignore context. We live in a society where the cost of education has skyrocketed. A generation of young people is now burdened and ultra-stressed because they are burdened with absurd levels of debt. Such debt is not necessary and a socialist agenda needs to offer support to the struggling students.

Socialism, like capitalism, does have a dark side to its history and socialists must not whitewash this history. Stalinism and other examples where human rights have ben trampled should be acknowledged, not dishonestly buried. There are no perfect examples out there and there never will be.

Still, democratic socialists have learned from the past and part of the learning is the importance of democracy and individual rights. Contrary to what some may think, there is a libertarian tradition in socialism. History shows the importance of the rule of law and something like the Bill of Rights, regardless of whether your social system is capitalist or socialist. When I think of the libertarian socialist tradition, I think of Eugene Debs, Emma Goldman, Victor Serge and Rosa Luxemburg.

Albert Einstein, a socialist, once wrote:


Einstein bemoaned the crippling of the social consciousness of individuals. He favored the development of a sense of community and responsibility toward humanity rather than glorification of power and success.

The moral superiority of socialism is that it offers the possibility of a good life for everyone, not just an elite who hog money, resources, and advantages. Socialism stands for the idea that everyone should be able to lead a life of dignity, accomplishment, security and satisfaction. Our extreme economic inequality is not an inevitability, rather it is an opening for democratic socialism. As Rosa Luxemburg once wrote, we either transition to socialism or we regress into barbarism.

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June 16, 2019 Leave a comment
























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Andrew Jackson, Harriet Tubman, and the $20 bill – posted 6/9/2019 and published in the Concord Monitor on 6/16/2019

June 10, 2019 Leave a comment

Back in 2016, President Obama’s Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that Harriet Tubman would appear on the $20 bill. She would have been the first African-American woman ever to be depicted on our currency.

The idea was that the Tubman redesign would have been released in 2020 in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment which extended the right to vote to women.

Lew’s plan has now run into a roadblock. The current Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has said that the Tubman bill would not be released in 2020. He has said that the Tubman redesign most likely will not be until 2026 at the earliest. When pressed at a congressional hearing by Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass) about the redesign of the $20 bill, Mnuchin responded that the Treasury Department was concentrating on anti-counterfeit measures.

Since it is an honor to appear on such widely circulated currency as a $20 bill, I thought it would be worthwhile to look a little deeper at both Jackson and Tubman to compare and contrast. Who were they?

Andrew Jackson was our seventh president, elected in 1828. He gained fame as a general in the United States Army, especially for defeating the British in 1815 in the Battle of New Orleans, insuring that the United States would maintain control of land it acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. He had a reputation for toughness and he earned the nickname “Old Hickory”.

Jackson had an image as a defender of the common man and as someone who fought a corrupt aristocracy. Unfortunately, American history often seems to undergo a sugarcoating where essential truths are obscured or buried. This is certainly true with Jackson as pointed out by the historian, Howard Zinn.

“If you look through high school textbooks and elementary school textbooks in American history you will find Jackson the frontiersman, soldier, democrat, man of the people – not Jackson the slaveholder, land speculator, executioner of dissident soldiers, exterminator of Indians.”

Andrew Jackson was the most aggressive enemy of Native American people in American history. He considered Native Americans savages. As president, he engineered the forced expulsion of all Native people east of the Mississippi to the new “Indian country”. He had a long military career fighting Indians. In 1801, he took command of the Tennessee militia as a colonel and he drove the Muskogee people out of Georgia. He led four wars against the Muskogee, Creek and Seminoles in Georgia and Florida.

Jackson encouraged white squatters to move onto Indian land. Then he told the Indians that the government could not remove the settlers. His modus operandi was then to tell the Indians they had to cede the land or be wiped out.

In 1814 in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Jackson’s troops killed 800 of the 1000 Red Stick warriors he faced, losing only 50 of his own troops. Jackson’s troops fashioned horse bridle reins from the skin stripped from the Indians killed.

As President, Jackson was able to gain passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Indian removal was Jackson’s top legislative priority and he used the Act to extinguish Indian title to lands in the southeastern United States. The Choctaw, the Seminoles, the Chickasaw and the Cherokee were forcibly removed from their lands.

The Cherokee brought lawsuits and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Cherokees’ favor in 1832 in the case of Worcester v Georgia. Jackson ignored the Court’s mandate which barred Georgia from intruding on Cherokee land. This led to the infamous Trail of Tears, essentially a Cherokee death march in 1838.

Among the Cherokee, an estimated 4,000 people died in the Trail of Tears. The Cherokees lacked adequate clothing and food for the journey. The march began in the winter and many traveled on foot with no shoes or moccasins.

Jackson’s expulsion of Native Americans in the Deep South cleared the way for cotton plantations and the slave economy. Jackson himself owned a 1000 acre cotton plantation located near Nashville Tennessee known as the Hermitage. He was an active slaveholder.

By the time he was elected president he owned 160 slaves. He is the only U.S. president who personally drove a slave coffle.

As for Harriet Tubman, she was born into slavery. In 1849, she escaped. During the following decade she made at least 13 secret expeditions into Maryland to rescue slaves. She led 70 people out of bondage. She is probably the person most famously connected to the Underground Railroad.

Tubman usually travelled at night, guided by the North Star. Her missions were usually in the winter when the nights were longer and people were inside more. Because of her courage and daring, the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison nicknamed her “Moses”.

Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 which greatly increased the penalties and risks for Tubman. Bounty hunters pursued fugitive slaves into the North as well as in the South.

On one of her last missions into Maryland, Tubman rescued her aging parents. She had earlier saved her brother. She was a master of subterfuge, carried a revolver, and she knew how to use it. She was an associate and friend of John Brown. She helped recruit men for Brown’s ill-fated raid on Harper’s Ferry.

During the Civil War, Tubman supported the Union forces and served as a scout and a spy for the U.S. Army. She became the first woman to lead an armed assault in that war. In the Combahee River Raid she played a role in rescuing more than 750 slaves.

Later in her life. Tubman became a supporter of women’ suffrage. She travelled widely to speak out in support of women’ right to vote.

Interestingly, the Treasury Department has no records explaining why Jackson ended up on the $20 bill. He has appeared on the 20 since 1928 when he replaced Grover Cleveland. A strong case can be made for his removal from the $20 bill based on his well-documented history of racism toward Native Americans and African-Americans. I think such removal is long overdue.

By any intellectually honest reckoning, this is not a hard call. Harriet Tubman belongs on the $20 bill. Unlike Andrew Jackson, she earned it and deserves it.

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The underappreciated heroism of John Quincy Adams – posted 6/1/2019 and published in the Concord Monitor on 6/9/2019

June 1, 2019 1 comment

John Quincy Adams has been generally panned by historians as an undistinguished president. Our sixth president, he won the presidency in 1824 after no candidate received a majority of electoral votes. Adams also did not win a majority of the popular vote. The House of Representatives decided the election in Adams’ favor. Adams became the first elected president not to obtain a plurality of the national popular vote.

During his presidency, Adams proposed major infrastructure programs including building roads, bridges, canals, and a national university. He particularly supported science and he wanted to build a national observatory. Little got passed. Adams lost the presidency after one term to Andrew Jackson.

What is interesting about Adams is that he did not retire from politics after his presidential defeat. Adams began a new career as a Congressman. He ran for Congress from the Plymouth district in Massachusetts. At the age of 63, in 1830, he got elected. He proceeded to serve in Congress for 17 years until his death.

Besides being a president, a secretary of state, a Massachusetts senator, a United States senator, ambassador to Great Britain and minister to the courts of Russia, Prussia, Holland, Sweden, Portugal and France, Adams was named to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Madison and was confirmed but he declined the position. Adams had an unmatched resume.

In what is most unusual in U.S. history at least as far as presidents are concerned, Adams’ work as a Congressman turned out to be his most extraordinary public service, surpassing anything he did as President.

In Congress, Adams led the fight against slavery and the Slave Power. His contribution to the anti-slavery fight has been unrecognized and underrated in its importance.

When Adams got elected to Congress in 1830, slavery was very deeply entrenched in American society. It was a dominant institution and the mainstream view was that slavery could never be abolished. In his wonderful book, Arguing About Slavery, William Lee Miller put the politics of the early 19th century in perspective:


This was the world abolitionists faced. As of 1830, they were a tiny minority and they were viewed as “vile fanatics” and “fiends of hell”. Mainstream opinion in the South and the North despised and scorned the abolitionists. Hardly any Congressmen were willing to come forward and support abolition of slavery. Overwhelmingly, it was seen as a political loser.

Even in the North in the mid-1830’s, mobs broke up abolitionist meetings while abolitionist speakers faced rocks, eggs, lashings and clubbing. In 1837, a mob in Alton, Illinois, killed Elijah Lovejoy, a preacher-editor, who wrote against slavery. Lovejoy had been trying to defend his printing press.

It was into these headwinds that John Quincy Adams tried to introduce petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. He was almost alone in Congress in speaking against slavery.

To his everlasting credit, Adams doggedly fought the slave interests. Tirelessly and repeatedly for years, he brought up petitions from his constituents and others demanding an end to slavery. He met a stone wall of opposition. Southern Congressmen invoked a gag rule. For years, they had the votes to prohibit any discussion about the abolition of slavery. From 1836 to 1844, anti-slavery petitions could not be heard. The House tabled all petitions directed against slavery.

Adams, in part, saw the battle as a matter of free speech. He hated the idea that the House could bar discussion of a national issue. As a master of parliamentary procedure and a creative legal mind, Adams drove the Southern Congressmen crazy. Always looking for an opening, he brought petitions on behalf of women and on behalf of slaves. Southern Congressmen would give no standing to slaves and they were horrified by Adams’ actions.

The Southern Congressmen began to attack Adams personally. Many rose to publicly condemn and disparage him. A movement started to censure Adams or even expel him from the House. Only two Congressmen, Caleb Cushing and Levi Lincoln, rose to defend Adams during the 1837 censure debate.

Adams used the controversy to defend himself and he prepared days of arguments against the slave trade and against ownership of slaves. Cleverly, he turned the censure motion into an attack on slavery. He also forced House members to consider the bad precedent of censure for free speech on the House floor.

The House effort to censure Adams failed. On February 8, 1837, the House tabled the motion to censure Adams. Adams’ stature as a former president and his brilliant parliamentary tactics created divisions among his opponents. Unfortunately, the House never accepted Adams’ argument that slaves had a right to petition Congress. That right continued to belong only to free white persons.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that during this period in 1841, Adams successfully represented the defendants at the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of United States v. Amistad. In that epic case, memorialized in the Steven Spielberg movie, Adams argued that African slaves who had mutinied on their ship should not be deported to Cuba and should be considered free. Adams won the slaves their freedom, arguing that the U.S. had prohibited the international slave trade (even though slavery was accepted internally).

Adams was 74 at the time he argued the Amistad case. He had not appeared as a lawyer before any court for 31 years. Over two days, he orally argued for seven and a half hours. He never billed anyone for his time on the case.

I think there are several reasons why Adams’ anti-slavery advocacy has not been more acknowledged. The time period of Adams’ tenure as a Congressmen is a relative dead zone in American history. The Civil War sucks up so much attention that the 1830’s and 1840’s is not much taught in American history.

Also, I think, compared to presidents, not much attention is typically paid to the history of Congress. Abolitionists, who were activists outside of institutions, like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and William Lloyd Garrison, garnered more credit for their actions.

Adams went out on a moral limb at a time when he was virtually alone. And he did it continuously for years in the face of massive opposition.

During the fight over his House censure, Adams said that he hoped he would be remembered as “the acutest, the astutest, the archest enemy of Southern slavery that ever existed”. How cool a legacy is that!

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Donald L. Baird, Ten Years Later – posted 5/26/2019

May 26, 2019 4 comments

It has now been over ten years since my dad, Don Baird, died. He died on May 4, 2009.

Time provides perspective and I have a better appreciation now of how good a dad my dad was. In my work, I see the range of parents out there from extraordinarily good to bad beyond belief. I guess it is luck of the draw where we all end up but I lucked out, as did my siblings.

My dad was a conscientious parent, fiercely devoted to family. Maybe, in part, because he suffered some neglect when he was young, he was determined to do better. It is amazing what my dad overcame.

His family was poor when he was growing up. He talked about putting newspaper in his shoes. When my grandfather went to prison for arson and interstate robbery, my dad had to live with some stigma. He told me that some girls would not date him because he was the child of an ex-con. He would recount for me how he would take cream to the prison where his dad was incarcerated and he would pay off a guard to smuggle in the cream so his dad could have cream in his coffee.

Growing up, he got no advantages. His parents were not in a position to help him with the cost of a college education. He always worked from the time he was 12. From very early on, he provided for his parents. He even paid for their summer rental at Stenton Place in Atlantic City where they went for years. That was a pattern that lasted until my grandparents died.

My dad had drive and motivation. After serving in the army, he come back and started his own international textile trading business. There was opportunity then. It was the late 1940’s. My dad was very successful in the 1950’s and 1960’s. He made a lot of money. He brought his brother, Carl, into the business and for a long time, they did very well.

We moved from Rock Glen Rd near City Line Ave in Philadelphia, to Prescott Rd in Lower Merion to 284 Melrose Rd., also in Lower Merion. Our house was lovely and spacious.

My dad travelled extensively, especially to Italy, Japan, and Hong Kong. I do think that travel broadened his perspective. He and my mom did things that were quite unusual for Americans of that period. They travelled to many countries, including India and Pakistan, off any beaten path. My dad went to Italy and Japan maybe 50 times. Often my grandparents were at our house, babysitting us kids because mom and dad were away.

I remember my dad’s international phone calls from home. He would call business associates Aldo Fantacci and Vitaliano in Italy and his trading partners in Japan. He talked really loud and you could hear him all over the house.

He would often have foreign guests staying at our house. I remember when my sister Lisa walked in on one who was in the bathroom.

Dad was a very generous man. As one of his children, I have to say that that was a great thing. Private school, camp, college tuition were all covered. He would literally do anything for his children. I do not think he was the best judge of character. He was repeatedly ripped off by people in his business whom he hired and trusted. This was a pattern that went on for years and never changed.

Still, because of his knowledge, his business acumen, and his deep international connections, he was able to rebound. My dad never stopped working. He was 88 when he died. In the last 20 years of his life, he suffered business reversals including two Chapter 11 bankruptcies. Dad struggled financially and he and my mom had much stress about money and paying bills.

The business reversals never stopped him though. My dad had amazing optimism. He was a glass half full kind of person. He was able to come back from being knocked down. Maybe this is naivete on my part but I never stopped believing in my dad and the possibility that he might turn his business situation around. This is true even when he was in his 80’s.

Looking back now, I probably should have known he was in an impossible situation with his business. Somehow though, he kept things going and was able to generate enough business that he did not go under. I think that determination offers a valuable lesson about the importance of resilience and persistence. It took him far.

I did want to mention my dad’s Jewish identity. He had feeling for things Jewish. He rebelled against his Orthodox upbringing and he was not much of a believer. He used to tell me that religion was a crutch for weak people.

When we kids were younger, my dad was pretty active in our synagogue, Main Line Reform Temple in Wynnewood, Pa. I remember him making pizza at a Purim party. He could speak Yiddish. He was steeped in Jewish tradition and he had an appreciation of the liturgy and the music. I can remember him singing along with “My Yiddishe Mama” on Sunday morning Jewish radio. He did sometimes fall asleep during Friday night services and Lisa and I sometimes had to kick him if his snoring got too loud.

He and I clashed frequently when I was in my 20’s. He said going to law school was the first sensible thing I ever did (I did not go to law school until I was 31). We had some blow-out arguments back then. I remember one in a restaurant near Atlantic City, Mac’s in Somers Point. It was a show stopper. My dad was doing business in Chile after the Pinochet coup. I was appalled. We were loud.

We worked through those things. I think my dad changed later in his life. All the adversity he experienced made him more empathetic to people who experienced hardship. I also worked to repair the earlier damage.

I am grateful that my dad did not live to see the death of my sister, Lisa. She died about five months after he did. He and Lise had a special bond. He was especially pained by Lisa’s troubles.

Dad was a man of many passions. I need to mention golf. Dad was a student of the game. Probably at his best, he shot in the 80’s which was pretty good. He belonged to Green Valley Country Club and Atlantic City Country Club. There were other clubs too. He loved to play with my brother Rob and me. We used to be pretty competitive although I think Rob was the best golfer of the three of us.

Dad had other enthusiasms: horses, flying planes, playing tennis and sports generally. In his horse period, he would go to a stable in Fairmount Park and we would ride horses on trails that overlooked the Schuylkill Expressway. I remember Dad subscribing to Appaloosa Magazine at our house. Lise was also an excellent rider and he and Lise did that together.

In their later years, Dad and Mom watched every Phillies game on TV. They were die-hard fans and seeing the Phillies win the World Series in 2008 was fantastic. After all, the Phillies were the first team to lose 10,000 games. As I have written before, Dad used to call me many times during Eagles games. He loved football. We had Eagles season tickets for a few years when I was young. Those memories are indelible.

I especially remember a trip to Clearwater Florida. Dad and I took my friend Hank Fried. We were about 8 years old at the time. Clearwater was home to Phillies spring training. We saw a couple games and we got autographs from Phillies stars of that era, Curt Simmons, Robin Roberts and Richie Ashburn.

It does not feel like ten years since he has been gone. Dad was a force of nature. He loved my mom, his kids and his grandchildren. He offered praise in a big way. It is impossible to think I could ever have had a stronger supporter. I expect his children and his grandchildren would agree that he was that way with them as well.

To have such a dad was a blessing.

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