Writer's Notebook - James Rafferty Blog

Remembrance of Paddy

The summons came in the late Fall around 2007. You're invited to breakfast. My wife Cindy and I had been asked to breakfast by our neighbor, Paddy Wazan. Paddy and her husband Hank lived in a unique house across the street, a contemporary built during the Sixties to Hank's specifications, complete with a classic New England living room and a garden one could see through the glass behind the dining area in the middle of the house.  On this morning, we weren't the only guests; another couple from in town had also been invited.  We all sat around the breakfast table, which filled with vivid conversations, fueled by wonderful aromas coming from the kitchen. Soon a brunch was served -- replete with eggs, pastries, bacon, fruit, strong coffee and juice. We hadn't seen Paddy very much since we'd moved onto the street, since she spent her summers in Nantucket and would come back to our town of Norfolk for the winters. Paddy had loads of energy and loved hosting guests and cooking delicious meals. Hank was a quiet man, but loved doing projects and had a background in architecture.  They were a generation older than us, but good neighbors.  

As I write this, another nine years have elapsed and so much has happened since then. This was one of our early introductions to Paddy, but we got a glimpse of her vitality and artistry in the kitchen during that breakfast and on other occasions where she would host groups large and small. In 2009, all of this changed. Hank was diagnosed with cancer and within weeks he had passed. Paddy came back from Nantucket and had to re-build her life without having her beloved Hank by her side. The sad occasion brought our families closer together, as Cindy helped Paddy get organized when she decided to sell the house in Norfolk and I would help Paddy with whatever computer needs she had. 

In time, the Norfolk house was sold, but we soon received the first of many invites to her new abode, a two-story apartment in Wellesley. She would get in touch with Cindy and we take the jaunt across a few towns to her place. Food was a common theme; she always seemed to have a delicious meal waiting for us. She had also struck up a relationship with our son Jason and their fifty some year age difference didn't stop them from becoming fast friends. 

Paddy loved to travel and would regale us with tales of her trips to places like Australia and Japan. Over time, she'd met people from all over the world and was quick to make a plan and take a trip to see these far flung friends.  As she got to know Jason better, she insisted that she would make a visit to see him in his adopted town of Asheville, North Carolina, where he was studying at the local college UNC at Asheville and producing remarkable art. So, in the fall of 2011, our family made plans to visit Jason in Asheville and Paddy arranged to visit during the same time period, just a few days before Thanksgiving.  

Thanksgiving that year was special. We all arrived at Jason's house in West Asheville, which he shared with three roommates from UNCA and immediately got to work cleaning and making preparations for the Thanksgiving feast. Paddy was a guest, but she had definite ideas about what food we would need and we got a few additional provisions at a supermarket down the street. Paddy took command of the process of cooking the bird and she had several other ideas about what needed to go with it. I can remember sitting on the porch in a rocking chair and smelling the enticing mix of foods, both traditional and vegetarian. Later we all sat down for the meal and it was one of the best ones in our memory, as Paddy had worked her culinary magic in a strange kitchen and produced a delicious and diverse meal.

During the next year, Paddy invited us to visit her on Nantucket, so Jason, Cindy and I hopped on a ferry from Hyannis and took our first voyage to Nantucket. Nantucket is an amazing place and we found that Paddy had a charming two story apartment she called the Snuggery hear the harbor. We were staying at a bed and breakfast place nearby, but passed on the regular breakfast to join Paddy for a shared meal at her home. Over the weekend, Paddy took us all around Nantucket and we had a fabulous time.  Here is a picture of Paddy with Cindy and Jason on the beach.  

 Our family had many other fine visits with Paddy over these years.  Whether we were meeting at her apartment for brunch or sharing a lunch at a local seafood restaurant, there was always much to talk about. Paddy tended to be feisty and unstoppable. She had the occasional health issue, but exhibited marvelous resilience and came back from many challenges and then would set out to yet another destination. Last winter we met at her house and she told us about a planned trip to Africa. A few months later, she came back and told us about it; she'd gone on safari and seen so much else on a trip to South Africa.  

We were looking forward to seeing her again when she came back to Wellesley in the late Fall, but heard unfortunate news in mid-October. She'd had a relapse in a bout with cancer and was flown back from Nantucket to a Boston hospital. After so many times of pushing back illnesses and other incidents, she'd finally reached a point where she was beyond treatment. She did return to her home in Wellesley under hospice care and she said her goodbyes over a couple of weeks. She passed away about a week ago and we attended her memorial service and a reception yesterday.  Friends and family gathered, and we all told stories about her, the many times we had met and about her unrelenting zest for life. Paddy will be missed, but will also live on in our memories as a treasured friend and remarkable example of a well-lived life. One of her friends called her "the hostess with the mostest." Yes. Here is a picture of Paddy with Cindy and Jason in front of her Nantucket apartment. Au revoir dear friend.  

A Few Thoughts About a Messy Outcome

Like many Americans, I viewed the election results last Tuesday night as they emerged and came to the realization that Donald Trump had a real shot at winning the election. All of the expert pontification about the narrow road to a Trump victory in the Electoral College proved to be inaccurate; he paved a highway that most pundits said was illusory at best. So, is this a mandate for radical change, either in following the various threads of Trump's various initiatives or in pushing through the roadmap of the Republican party?  I'll note that more people voted against Trump than for him, so this was a razor thin victory and more fodder for those who'd like to dismantle the electoral college. So it is hardly a mandate and one which also has strong opposition, at least in numbers.

But this is a time to think about what went wrong to produce an election that so many people found disheartening. Here are some thoughts.   

1.  Why did Hilary Clinton lose?  She complained about FBI director James Coney, but she never addressed several fundamental issues. Her primary messages in the last weeks were to complain about how bad Trump was. When I found out about the email debacle, my first thought was, one set of rules for the Clintons, another set for everybody else. Using a private email server for government business was a foolish mistake, particularly in the post 9/11 era. Hilary's team was also arrogant and acted like she was entitled to be President because she'd paid her dues.  She is much more qualified to be President than Mr. Trump based on her experience, but no marketing campaign can be successful if there isn't a coherent message.
2. Globalization - Both candidates were in denial about the degree to which globalization has totally changed the game when it comes to running successful businesses or having a successful national economy. Trump did a good job of realizing that rust belt America had been left behind when the post WWII manufacturing economy began transforming into the information economy in the Nineties. But he implied that he could turn back the clock and get those manufacturing jobs back.  Sorry, that economy is gone. Today manufacturing is still a robust industry, but it's highly automated and requires higher levels of skills for the participants.  The US can't turn its back on the global economy and expect to have the economic success that Trump has implied is just around the corner after he gets elected.  
3. International Trade - This issue was a punching bag for Trump and Bernie Sanders, and Hilary Clinton changed her positions to pile on. All were in agreement that trade deals were a bad idea, at least in their public stances. But it's easy to criticize diplomacy and to take shots from the outside. It sounds like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) might have even lived up to Hilary's original assessment that it was the gold standard for trade deals. The alternative is to let China set the rules for the Asian economy, which would be a disaster for US economic interests. Check out the assessment Tom Friedman did of the deal in a column he wrote several months ago. If we don't engage in trade deals, somebody else will set the rules and many countries do have not the rule of law, environment protections and intellectual property protections that make the US a great place to do business. We can't ensure a level playing field for our US economy unless we negotiate to make it so.   
4. The Electoral College - This anachronistic system is bad for a whole bunch of reasons.  It's absurd to have the winner of the popular vote -- whoever they are -- lose and have the current system where the only competition is in so-called battleground states. In most states, your vote for President doesn't count under the current system, whether its Massachusetts, Alabama or California.  The current approach encourages pandering to special interests and totally ignoring the needs of the larger states who aren't considered to be "in play."   
5. Repeal and Replace Obamacare -- This is a case where a catchy slogan is supposed to be enough to substitute for the hard work of negotiating a better approach to meeting the health insurance needs of all of the millions who can't be on company or other group health plans.  But 20 million people have enrolled in Obamacare because it met their needs. This despite the myopic view of numerous states that refused to expand Medicaid to cover the poorest of citizens. This deal was messy when it was being negotiated and hardly perfect. But trashing the deal without having a substitute ready will penalize the struggling portions of the poor, working class and middle class that don't have a better approach today than Obamacare. Show me the better program and then maybe I can get behind it. Or more reasonably, Congress needs to do its job and fix it, instead of complaining while they (the members of congress) get gold star health coverage from the government.   
6. Climate Change - The science is clear. Climate change is happening and is not a conspiracy set out by the Chinese government as Trump has absurdly claimed. The Paris agreement is a reasonable step forward, but is still not a solution in itself. The oil industry in the US has its head in the sand on this issue and Trump has been pandering to the anti-science crowd. The US should ratify the Paris agreement, but the Republican party is on record in denying there is even a problem. In the meantime, seas are rising, our shoreside military installations in areas like Norfolk, VA face flooding conditions and a wide array of conditions caused by increasingly volatile weather are threatening multiple regions of the country. The opposition is making economic arguments, but the problem won't go away unless we get real about what's really happening instead of choosing to deny whatever data we choose not agree with.      

As I put together this list, these items were merely the first ones which came to mind. The list could go on, but the common thread is that we need to get the real data about what is happening in problem areas in our country, before we can even hope to solve problems. It's frustrating when the politicians lie about what's really happening or choose to sell pipe dreams instead of acknowledging an issue and then doing the hard work of developing programs that work and negotiating until they come to life. For whatever reasons, the choices this year were unsatisfactory for many voters. As John Kennedy once said, it's time to pass the political torch to a new generation of leaders. We can do better than we did in 2016 and we must.