December the final month of the year 2000 is upon us. Reflecting back to that month in the year 1999 one recalls all the turmoil forecasted because of entering the new millennium. It occurs to me that it is misnamed as well. The word December comes from the Latin and should refer to the tenth month of the year. Somehow, thanks to the Romans, and other calendar makers along the way, it is the twelfth month, which would or should be called “Duodecember” (if you stick with those Latin guys). But whether it’s Duo or Uno, it is here. We are still thanking the good Lord for sparing us all the calamities we were assured would befall us on January 1,2000. But just so the prognosticators have something to do, now all they need to do is predict who will be our next President.
The present crisis reminds me once again how truth, or fact, is really stranger than fiction. Who would believe a novel in which the main character running for President has a brother, who governs the state, that is the deciding one? “It could never happen, it sounds too contrived”, says the cynic. Or what of the factual irony, not a fiction, of an accuser and an accused ending up in the same prison. “No way” one would say. Yet, in the life of Ring Lardner, Jr., one of the Hollywood Ten, it happened. He reports in his memoir, as reviewed in the N.Y.Times, that the screaming, gavel pounding Un-American Activities Chairman, J. Parnell Thomas was sent to the Federal Prison in Danbury, Connecticut while Mr.Lardner was still a guest there. Lardner was there on a contempt conviction. They never talked while residing there. Incidentally, the Chairman was convicted of carrying invisible employees on his Federal payroll. That is, in simple language, stealing, but at least he was not in contempt of Congress, but just in violation of the Ten Commandments, the Federal and State laws, and probably something even his mother told him not to do.
The election presents another test of the theory of fact versus fiction, namely it is a repeat. About one hundred and twenty four years ago in 1876 the nation was treated to another wrenching finish in a Presidential Election. Tilden versus Hayes ended in virtual tie with l84 electoral votes each or almost, depending on whose certification you believed. The deciding state was none other than Florida with 4 electoral votes. It ran into the courts and over into Congress, then a commission which finally by a 8-7 vote named Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican, the winner on March 2nd, two days before Grant’s term expired. Where could you find a better script than that? Not once but twice in history of election the state of Florida is the pivotal state. As reported recently, “In a parallel to the current vote, a nail-biting race(in 1876) led to a starring role for Florida”. I wanted to point out, to all my suspicious political friends in Philadelphia, that my working the polls in Florida on Election Day had nothing to do with the results being challenged. It all happened here before.
The candidate, almost President, George Bush in an interview on December 5th said much the same thing. “It’s been a fascination, as I’m sure you can imagine. I’m not a very good novelist. But it’d make a pretty interesting novel”.
A good friend Bill King sent me a book review written by Tom Ferrick of the Philadelphia Inquirer. The book, whose title I can’t now recall has something to do with a journey for truth, but was a memoir, or biography of Arlen Specter. Mr.Ferrick’s review was none too flattering in that he thought it misnamed since the search or journey of the Senator has been for self-aggrandizement fueled by unbridled ambition. I was reminded of my last meeting with the Senator some where around 1974 or 75. I was coming from a track meet which had been held for Masters at Ursinus College just out side of Chestnut Hill area of Philadelphia. Frank Wick and I were at a bar in Chestnut Hill having a beer when who should I behold near the end of the bar , Arlen and the then Managing Director, Hillel Levison. One of us greeted the other and then I facetiously reminded Hillel that Frank, i.e., the then Mayor Rizzo, had not called me. He assured me he would. I than got a pronouncement from Senator Specter with words something like, “Ah, there’s McSorley still waiting in the wings”, referring to my having failed to be elected and waiting for another call to go on stage. I assured him I was no longer waiting but had enough to keep me busy and happy working at the law and as a Jury Commissioner. I subconsciously noted that here was a Republican Senator meeting quietly with a city Democratic big shot during an election period. Hmmm went my mind,you see with Arlen no matter how innocent his conduct should seem, I, due to his past behavior, would read something conniving into it. I sent a note to Mr.Ferrick commenting on his review. I agreed with his assessments of the character of the Senator, which he gathered from the book and his knowledge of his life as a politician. He responded saying another writer called the book an ” unflattering autobiography. Only someone with the egotistical talents of Arlen could have achieved such a goal.
The forgotten phone call by Mayor Rizzo, which I humorously asked Hillel about, was due to Hillel having called me after Rizzo was elected in 1971, but before he took office. He asked me to resign as Commissioner of Records. I suggested that since Frank and I had served together as Commissioners that he should call me. Hillell agreed and said Frank would call. As you can see then some four years later, Frank is now running again, and I still had not received that promised phone call. Incidentally all of a Mayor’s appointees terms expire with his leaving office, even if the mayor had been re-elected, you need to be re-appointed. So with or without the phone call come December 31,1971, I was out of office. Rizzo incidentally had no time for those referred to in Philadelphia Magazine as Mayor Tate’s Irish Mafia.
My grandson, Tommy McSorley, flattered me the other day. He flatters me by just being the outstanding young man that he is. His Dad and others continually claim that all his scholarly achievements came to him via his Pop-pop. This of course in not true but I enjoying taking any and all the credit I can get. But the flattery in this instance was that Tommy asked if I ever thought of having my monthly ramblings published? I answered, “Not really, but now that I have a Web Page, I feel like they are.” Such compliments are a bonus. I enjoy doing the writing and naturally enjoy that others like it. I am enough of egotist, however, that even if they didn’t, I would still enjoy doing it. It is supremely complimented when I hear some one like my nephew Bob Lukens in giving an eulogy to his Mom, my sister Anne, say how much she enjoyed receiving them. She liked them even to the point of getting angry with the computer for not producing them properly nor fast enough. Everybody likes compliments but the joy in doing what they like certainly shouldn’t depend on them. Amen.
I like words. It is not a mystery since I have been dealing in words for many years. I am now reading, thanks to my good friend Bill King again, the book “The Professor and the Madman; A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary”. The OED, as it is usually referred to is as “the” English Dictionary. It is now some 20 Volumes and is found in any Library wanting to be known as such. Today we take something like a dictionary for granted. In fact there are so many around that you could compose a dictionary of the dictionaries. For example, I have a Latin dictionary, two Rhyming dictionaries, a Crossword one, The American Heritage (Second College Edition), Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus, and the Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus, American Edition. In addition, I can go on line to OED web page and look up any word I wish. I can get a definition or definitions and the history of the word in the English Language. It was creating that history with its definitions that lead to the crossing of the lives of the Professor and the Madman. The madman incidentally was an American surgeon, graduate of Yale, retired Officer of the U.S. Army and had been in the Civil War. The professor requested volunteers to submit from their reading definitions but particularly quotations to show how it was used, the nuances of its meaning,and when it was used. It is a fascinating history. It is another example of truth being stranger than fiction. Dr. Minor, the madman, his most proficient and voluminous contributor was incarcerated in an lunatic asylum for murder conviction. There’s fiction for you, it would seem, but no, it is fact.
Have a happy and blessed Christmas and may 2001 bring you only more blessings and good news. As we are prone to say around this time of the year: “See you next Year!” Deo Volente! God Willing!