COVID—this time the BA-5 variant, the most contagious of the five or so strains out there—has reminded us, once again, that it’s not ready to move on, just yet.  This week, this newest virus strain snuck up on Joe Biden and me, and tens of thousands of other folks.

Following five-days on Paxlovid, the anti-retroviral drug designed to moderate the virus and spare us severe symptoms, I’m coming out of my quarantine period feeling very strong, symptom-less and wearing my N-95 mask much more conscientiously.  Like lots of others, I let my guard down a bit, having been twice vaccinated and twice boosted—just as President Biden was.  I was feeling, kind of, invincible.

Fortunately—unlike the earlier killer-COVID strains that struck two years ago, emerging before vaccines, boosters and anti-retroviral drugs —we’re far better equipped today to handle this latest spike of a different sort, than we were for past variants.   Better, that is, IF we are double-vaxxed and boosted.

My last booster was administered in March, like Biden’s, and the four months between then and now, is the usual period when the boost begins to weaken. Unlike, Joe, I battled an earlier, more virulent strain of COVID in the Fall of 2021, before the first booster shots were available, which gave me a dry cough for days, and left me lethargic for more than a week.  This time around—thanks to two vaccinations, two boosters, and fairly regular masking (especially indoors and in public places), this COVID confrontation has felt no worse than a bout with post-nasal drip.

What astounds me, having battled the virus twice now—once before and after being boosted—is how clearly the boosters reduce the severity of the virus and the likelihood of hospitalization.  I find it incomprehensible that some 75% of Americans still refuseto take the boosters—choosing, instead to play Russian Roulette with their lives and the lives of the people they love.   Why is there even a question about coming up with a third, and fourth or more booster, if it’s going to help keep us healthy, reduce illness and save lives? Just because others don’t take it, is no reason to deny it to those of us who take our health, and the public’s health, seriously. 

Unlike President Biden, I have not done any foreign travel in a few years, and my only recent trip on public carriers was to NYC last month, when we avoided taking the subway and walked everywhere around Manhattan.  We started and ended that trip testing negative.

Like Joe, I still wore a mask in most crowded places—even outdoors– but was not as assiduous about it as my partner, Carol Villano, who—like Jill Biden, a fellow educator— also tested negative.  We differed on the kind of masks we wore: I was comfortable with a light blue surgical mask (since it was what our doctors made us put on before entering their offices); Carol, wisely, noted that the N-95 offered far more protection, even if it was more uncomfortable.  And, I’m the one who worked in public health for nearly 20 years.  Go figure. 

A few days after going to a crowded open-air concert in our town (when I stupidly let my mask down) I began to feel a sore throat, runny nose and slight headache.  We immediately took a home antigen test.  Carol tested negative, but my “Positive” line flashed bright.  

I immediately wanted a “second opinion”, and scurried to my Sutter Health facility in Santa Rosa, CA, where I was administered a PCR test.   The test confirmed my positive COVID status.

Like Biden, I’m over 70 years old, so my physician prescribed Paxlovid, instructing me to take the anti-retroviral drug for 5 days.   He asked me what prescription drugs I was taking.   

“Just Prosac and Viagra,” I said, assuming that most 70+ year old men took some combination of the two drugs.  

“You can keep taking the anti-depressants, “ he said,  “but cut out the Viagra while you’re on Paxlovid.” 

Yeeeesh, talk about a buzz kill.  (YES, some of us 70+ year old men, blessed with good health, still have sex, ride bicycles, walk or hike miles, and live a vigorous, love-filled life.)

I understood the smart, cautious medical reasoning behind not mixing contra-indicated meds.  In Viagra’s case, that miracle drug affected blood flow and heart rate, and could interfere with the effectiveness of Paxlovid, or worse.

The only side-effect I’ve experienced from taking Paxlovid this week was having a metallic-like taste in my mouth, which neither tomato sauce nor chocolate could erase for too long, but which tasty Thai food, and peppermint life-savers, didtemper.

Still, one week without Viagra—and without wine or alcohol– were small sacrifices when it came to knocking out COVID, one-more time.   Far bigger, but necessary, sacrifices, were staying isolated from my partner of 50 years, sleeping in separate beds, using separate bathroom, and eating meals in separate sections of the house.  Doing without hugging, or kissing, or touching, were the toughest precautions to take, to protect those we love from COVID.

I’ve always hated July 4th since I was a working–class kid growing up in North Babylon, Long Island.  That was a lifetime ago, decades before 4Chan existed, “Mass Murder Websites” had followers, and Assault Weapons were as easy to buy as fireworks. 

My father, a tough guy from Brooklyn and a newcomer to the suburbs at 40 years old, despised the Fourth of July, hated driving a car—a suburban necessity– BBQing, mowing the lawn, or hosing down the driveway each night, the way every single one of our mostly Italian neighbors did.   To him, it was all a stupid, empty waste of time.

We never hung the American Flag up in front of our house, even though my father fought the Fascists in WWII, and bore tattoos from the War burned into his arms.   Patriotism, like religion, was something we just didn’t flaunt.

“I ain’t no holy roller,” my father would proclaim.  He hated “mosses”, an Italian-phrase he butchered, meaning that he despised making a big deal about anything.

Our “fireworks” celebrations were always understated, consisting mostly of lighting sparklers in our small back yard with my cousins from the City, who came out to the “country” to visit us each year on the Fourth. The rest of the “holiday”— a bombastic celebration of militarism– was simply a paid day off from work for working stiffs like my father.

Although I couldn’t yet fully comprehend peoples’ obsession with fireworks,  I illegally sold them one year. To me, it was absurd that people would pay virtually anything to literally set their money on fire.    

My older brother, Vinnie—shrewd and savvy in the ways of the world– brought home “mats” of firecrackers, loose cherry bombs, bottle rockets, and exploding “ashcans” that could blow off your hand.  I was his underage “dealer”, selling the stuff to any of my friends who would buy them.  In our working class neighborhood on the North Babylon/Deer Park border, setting off fireworks was a defiant pleasure which made some feel far more powerful than they ever imagined they could.   Back then, in the 1950’s and 60’s, assault weapons were only used in war zones around the world.  Otherwise, only the police, and criminals & mobsters had guns.

For a poor kid who sold my toys and comic books to have spending money in the summertime, my brother opened my eyes to the serious money I could make by selling fireworks.    As July 4th approached in the Year I Lived Dangerously, sales were so outrageously brisk that my schoolmates were running up the block, waving $20 bills in their fists for any scrap of fireworks I had left. 

The cherry-bomb clamoring crowd grew so noisy on our front steps, that our next door neighbor threatened to call the cops and report us. I went to sleep with several gross of firecrackers under my bed, worried that either the police were going to raid us, or our house would catch fire, and light up like a rocket in the night.  

 “Controlled” fireworks displays—or controlled anything for that matter– were not part of our consciousness. Our lives were completely out of control. Chaos reigned. Money, or lack of it, ruled.  We wanted to exercise some power—to show we existed— and fireworks were an easy way to do it, and a quick way to make a buck.  Also, we rationalized, they weren’t drugs or guns.

This week’s mass murder at the July 4th celebration in Highland Park, Illinois—a wealthy, mostly Jewish-suburb 25 miles north of Chicago—has brought all of those mangled memories rushing back to me.  If only I had protested louder and sooner about how stupid I thought July 4th celebrations and fireworks displays were, maybe some lives could have been saved.  If only I hadn’t sold fireworks; if only, if only, there were national traditions far different from military parades and simulated  bombs in the sky.  If only there were no weapons of mass destruction in civilian hands, that ripped the bodies of babies to shreds.   If only it poured heavy rain that day, or people stayed home and read books to their kids, or went swimming or binge watched something on Netflix or Disney or HBO… if only, if only, if only…

It took me more than 50 years to speak out against such July 4th foolishness.  We were living a long, long way from North Babylon, in the northern Napa County town of St. Helena, California, a wealthy town experiencing a devastating drought.  Fire warning levels were “extremely” high; water rationing was mandatory. Only the rich, enamored as they are with controlling everything, still wanted controlled fireworks displays. The rest of us thought any  fireworks were far too high a fire risk, unnecessary, and a grotesque waste of money.  

But, some wine country benefactor was willing to bankroll the entire $50,000 cost of a “controlled” fireworks display to make sure that July 4th was a “patriotic” celebration—despite the rampant risk of fire, and reams of research that demonstrated fireworks displays triggered PTSD episodes in Veterans who have fought in wartime.  Right down the road from us in Yountville, was the largest Veterans Facility in the State of California.  None of that mattered.  The fireworks show must go on.   How else could they boast that this year’s fireworks display was better than last?  How else could patriotism be powerfully demonstrated?

At virtually the very same moment that wealthy fireworks fans forked over private funds to pay for their patriotism, St. Helena City officials cut nearly $250,000 of public funds from the budget of its’ terrific local public library.   The full-time Library Director was fired, and the City Council reduced the hours the Library was open to the public, including a complete shutdown on Sundays.  Some things just didn’t matter as much to the rich as flashy fireworks displays.

Money spent on fireworks isn’t spent on books.  I know. I saw it in the eyes of my North Babylon friends throwing money at me for fireworks 60 years ago. If books could have given them the same sense of power, and the same kind of buzz, they’d have burned them too. 

I thought of this peculiar American absurdity of lighting money up into smoke, and feeling powerful from fireworks and mock-military parades on “Independence Day” this year, when American democratic freedoms and individual rights are in grave peril–especially the right to vote; a woman’s right to make health care decisions about her own body; and the right of every child already born to live a healthy, full life, free from the threat of gun violence.

The latest American Killing Field coming during a July 4th celebration in Highland Park—a friendly, Mid-Western city which welcomed Jews cast out by the rest of the world after World War II– should inscribe a message in blood upon all of our doorposts:  humanity matters far more than guns or power or politics or parades.   Forget fireworks; protecting real, existing, human life is the ultimate act of patriotism.

Two powerful strands of life came together this week, in memory, and acknowledgement, once again, that all the wrong people are dying.  

This week marks what would have been the 90^th birthday of former NYS Governor Mario M. Cuomo, a personal inspiration, and a paragon of public service and personal integrity.  Cuomo died seven years ago, just a few months after my oldest brother passed away from Pancreatic cancer.  I loved both men, even though they lived diametrically different lives.   I wrote an entire book (Tightrope: Balancing A Life Between Mario Cuomo & My Brother, 2017, Heliotrope Books, NY, NY) about the anguish both caused me, especially since my brother Michael worked with John Gotti and the Gambino Crime Family, while I worked with Mario Cuomo— who smashed every negative stereotype about Italian-Americans, and was the anti-thesis of criminality, the mob, John Gotti, lawlessness, and Donald Trump.

 Last week, Cuomo’s Press Secretary, Marty Steadman– and one of the kindest bosses I’ve ever known– died at 91 years old.  Steadman, a former print journalist, hired me (I’m convinced), because of our mutual love of sports and newspapers.  In my first and only interview with him in the Governor’s Office at Two World Trade Center on my 36^th birthday, Steadman noticed that I worked for the Suffolk Sun Newspaper—a short-lived competitor to Newsday—as a Sports Correspondent.  Steadman was a reporter for a few of New York City’s newspapers which were no longer in business.

“I think we’ll get along just fine, “ Marty said to me, smiling gently.  “Between the two of us, we’ve closed more newspapers in this town than are still in existence.”

Marty Steadman was also a Kennedy Democrat, and his one and only run for public office came in 1966 when he ran for Congress and lost, in a heavily Republican district in Nassau County.  The man who persuaded Steadman to run—two years after RFK was elected US Senator from NY State—was, Jack English, the local  & national Democratic leader who helped JFK get elected President in 1960.

Twenty years later, when Mario Cuomo was up for re-election as Governor of New York, and Jack English was one year away of dying from cancer, Steadman arranged for English to meet with Cuomo in the Governor’s Two World Trade Center Office, on the 57^th Floor.   Marty asked me to sit in on the meeting, tape record and take notes of their conversation.   

Cuomo and English had previously worked together on Jimmy Carter’s re-election campaign for President in 1980, with English serving as the National Director of the Carter Campaign, and Cuomo heading the effort in NY State. Mario Cuomo and Jack English were friends and former colleagues, both having practiced as lawyers and clerked for judges in New York.  They were “progressive pragmatists,” sharing beliefs in many of the same causes, and a similar approach to politics.  

Cuomo graciously welcomed Jack English into his World Trade Center office, sharing with him the commanding view of New York Harbor, with the deference a student has for a mentor, although English was only six years his senior.  The Governor motioned for English to sit in the armchair with a view of the Statue of Liberty, while Cuomo sat down behind his desk.  I sat on a leather couch, close enough to both, to record their conversation.

English minced no words, perhaps an indicator that he had little time left for Mario Cuomo to make up his mind.  

“Governor, I think you ought to consider running for president,” he said.  “ I think you are exactly what the Democratic Party needs at the head of the ticket in 1988, to take back the White House.”

Cuomo scrunched up his large, chiseled face and shook his head, “No.”

“I’m very grateful for your confidence, Jack,” Cuomo said, and then proceeded to tell his politically astute guest how busy he was running the State of NY against a national administration hostile to the needs of the Northeast, and intent on pitting region against region, race against race, and rich against poor.  

“You need someone like a Bobby Kennedy,” Cuomo said, artfully steering the conversation to a discussion of how well English knew the Kennedys, how hard he worked for what they believed in, and what Robert F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family meant for the country.

“It’s why no one could second guess Teddy’s decision not to run,” Cuomo said.  “The Kennedy family has given far beyond what could be expected of any family to give to serve their country.”   Several months earlier, in December 1985, Teddy Kennedy had taken himself out of consideration for the 1988 Democratic Nomination, catapulting Cuomo into a top contender. 

Jack English nodded his head in agreement, looking off in the distance at New York Harbor glistening in the afternoon sun. He let Mario Cuomo continue.

“We need someone like Bobby today,” Cuomo said. “Someone who can unite black and white, rich and poor, who can speak to the needs of working people, and get people in the suburbs and the cities to see we are all part of the same family.”

I held my pen perfectly still and looked carefully at English, waiting for him to speak.  Jack English’s Irish eyes twinkled and he leaned forward in his chair.

“Well, I think you’re that person, Governor,” he said.

Cuomo wrinkled up his big nose and shook his head, “No.”  He would not allow himself to be held to a standard that he could not control—not even from as towering a Democratic Party legend as Jack English.

The meeting ended on a cordial note, with Cuomo asking English to stay in touch.  A little over a year later, Jack English died at age 61, from liver cancer.

Mario Cuomo never took Jack’s advice, but, by his own life, instructed us how to repair the world.

###

I am a Liz Cheney Democrat.

I eat cowards for breakfast, 

And liars for lunch.

Traitors and terrorists, my brunch.

I am a Liz Cheney Democrat.

With a will of steel, 

And a backbone to match.

To me, Kevin McCarthy is a light snack

.

I am a Liz Cheney Democrat.

Democracy, integrity drive me.

Sedition, it’s my position,

Is a Capitol crime, you miserable slime.

On guns & human rights,

Social justice & income fights,

Climate change & women’s choice,

I bite like Cheney, but AOC’s my voice.

On defense of our nation, I am tenacious;

My appetite for battling bullies, voracious.

I am a Liz Cheney Democrat, with AOC’s heart; 

So, if you want to be finished—I dare you to start.

On Any Given Day, 

I walk past my granddaughters’ schools.

One school, a few blocks from my home.

The other two, a little over a mile away,

On Any Given Day.

I walk past their schools to soothe myself,

That they are safe, and learning, 

Or joyfully at play.

On Any Given Day.

I smile at the windows, 

Decorated with shamrocks or hearts, 

Or flowers, always flowers, and signs of life,

On Any Given Day.

Some days I pick the Kindergartner up,

Outside her school’s locked gate.

She’s safe, she’s safe, I tell myself,

On Any Given Day.

Some days I watch the 10-year old,

Saunter out of school.

Backpack perched upon her back,

Looking very cool.

On Any Given Day.

Some days my love in Junior High,

Will let me pick her up.

As long as I don’t park too close, 

Or embarrass her too much.

On Any Given Day.

On any Given Day

I worry that the classroom windows 

Which face the street,

Don’t get blown away;

By bullets ripping through the glass,

On Any Given Day.

The thought to get a gun

Has crossed my mind again;

To circle each school more than once,

To protect them and their friends.

On Any Given Day.

Be reasonable, I tell myself,

NO Guns is what we need, not more.

To stop them from being made, 

Or sold anywhere, anymore .

On Any Given Day.

In Sandy Hook, and Texas,

Reason has not worked.

39 babies ripped apart,

Our lives have gone beserk.

On Any Given Day.

Don’t tell me owning guns, 

Beats babies in this nation.

With life at stake every single day,

I want Gun Confiscation,

Without accommodation.

On Any Given Day,

I walk past my grandaughters’ schools,

And know that, to keep them safe,

I will break ANY rules,

On Any Given Day.