“Cuomo Echo”

c. 2020 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(4-20)

Pandemic.

It is no act of exaggeration to state that the Coronavirus has reshaped life in our world. Revealing both good and bad qualities that have remained dormant, for generations. Fear and courage have been aroused and inspired by this challenge to social order. Our very concept of personal liberty has been placed under review. The full yield remains yet to be seen.

But here in Ohio, jewel of the Midwest, I have thought less about such weighty issues, and more about coffee and the need for creative prose.

In my state, we follow daily briefings by Governor Mike DeWine and Department of Health Director Amy Acton while striving to find normalcy during the crisis. With asides by local Cleveland commentators like Mike Trivisonno of WTAM radio, a populist outlier in his field, providing entertainment.

Yet morning broadcasts on CNN have offered cause for personal reflection. Specifically, their live coverage of briefings from Governor Andrew Cuomo, chief executive of New York. Each day, when these sessions commence, I am transported backward, through time and space. To Ithaca, a city in the Empire State’s Finger Lakes region, and the year of 1982.

Mario Cuomo had been Lieutenant Governor under Hugh Carey, who famously volunteered to drink a glass of PCB’s during a scandal about the cleanup of a state office building. While campaigning for higher office, he visited the State Theater in Tompkins County. A friend mentioned the appearance, and I was struck by this opportunity to see him in person. Something a bit out-of-character for a young poet, drifting through debris left after studying television through Cornell University.

In that era, family members liked to comment that my own talent had been wasted. A taunt that stung with meaning.

Upon entering an apprenticeship program, I worked at Channel 13, an offshoot of our local television provider. I learned the various phases of production and hosted my own show about ‘Punk Rock’ and local, alternative culture. The experience was intended to preface becoming a full-fledged student at our esteemed university. One who dedicated himself to mastering communications in the modern era.

But a flaw dogged my soul. Unbridled love for Rock & Roll music.

Instead of focusing on life and career aspirations, I followed a downward slope into misanthropic abandon. This wrong turn made me something of an outsider to family members. Later, even to my friends. An alien in my own world. Only two things brought joy. Alcohol, and my typewriter. It was easy to contemplate success as an author or a musician, or to blush over thoughts of a spectacular descent toward oblivion. I turned 21 in the fall. Death held no meaning. I was not afraid to die. Instead, I hoped to exit with great fanfare. To seek out self-negation. To erase what my parents had created through their union. I could not conceive of the true measure of mortality. Instead, it seemed enticing to fantasize about following Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison to the grave. And of course, a later icon of rebellion I held more closely, Sid Vicious. My hero and inspiration as an immature lump of flesh. On television, I wore a padlock around my neck. On a chain, as a pendant. I had seen him do the same in photographs of the Sex Pistols.

Mario represented something more sane in my life, however. A link to my mother’s stories about Franklin Roosevelt and her childhood during the Great Depression. As a willful outcast and vagabond, I needed some sort of lifeline. So on that afternoon, instead of hanging out at Record Den or Napoli’s Pizzeria, I decided to visit West State Street, just off the Commons.

Upon entering the theater, with my cohort ‘Manic McManus’ from the television studio, I heard ‘Happy Days Are Here Again.’ This song was memorable for being used as the campaign theme for FDR in 1932. The anthem worked its intended spell as we waited. It put everyone in a hopeful and progressive mood. Then, a familiar figure appeared. His voice resonated through the public-address system like the admonition of a priest, a school principal, or favorite uncle. He talked about responsibility, about love of family, and about “the greatest state in the nation.”

Mario was never phony. Never a caricature, never an actor.

He spoke about his parents and Kessler’s Grocery Store in South Jamaica, Queens. They were immigrants from Campania, in southern Italy. My eyes grew wet when he remembered their hard labor and sacrifice. It rekindled moments when my grandmother would talk about the general store she helped run in West Virginia. Where my mother first learned to handle patrons and operate a business. A place where families came for food and household needs, but also, for fellowship.

When the appearance had ended, I left on foot, alone. Trudging back up North Cayuga Street toward my neighborhood by Fall Creek. A glow of inspiration remained. I was determined to offer my vote for Mario, in November. Yet in that moment of introspection, I should have considered something greater. A move to resurrect myself. To fulfill the promise of my birth. To shed the guilt, anger, alienation, and befuddlement of my journey in favor of a new, creative mission.

To write out my passions, unencumbered by weakness.

But in 1982, I did not have such control over my thoughts. The wanderlust continued, for awhile, until I returned home to my native Ohio. Though this encounter with Mario would grow larger over time. From a simple event to a reference point that spanned decades of consciousness.

An echo that now helps to chart how far I have traveled.

Andrew Cuomo makes me think lovingly of his father. Something that I must share with millions of Americans who tune into CNN for information about the sprawling, global virus. But indeed, he also moves me to thoughts of something else, something closer to home.

Myself.

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