Seven men I have known whom I admire the most are all of humble birth. Only 3 of them have more than a high school education.
My father lost his father when he was 15, months before the onset of the Great Depression. He had to drop out of ninth grade to go to work. He scrambled for jobs until he was 24 when he became a Trooper in the Pennsylvania State Police. More than anyone else, he shaped my sense of morality, especially in this: that victims of predators and the powerful deserve protection and justice.
Mr. Dobrosky taught Senior Religion at Holy Name, my high school and Charles Watkins taught me in 3 philosophy courses at college. They showed me how to think, how to apply logic, how to approach a subject from multiple points-of-view, how to create arguments, how to read deeply.
Norbert Merkel was the chief custodian at the Science Building at my college. I worked for him for 4 years as a custodian while attending college. He taught me how to clean a blackboard, how to mop, dust, make a college bathroom spotless, wax a hallway, be meticulous, and to take care in doing a good job no matter the job.
I do not remember their last names, but I can still summon their faces and the way they walked and spoke. Pete and Sid taught me how to pack a truck so that the driver upon making his deliveries could place his hand upon the exact box he needed at the exact time he needed it. They showed me how to create checklists, break tasks into component parts, pack a box so that it is tight but so its contents are not crushed. Norbert Merkel and Pete and Sid also showed me how to take pride in any piece of work well done, no matter how dirty or physically taxing and that doing so was an indication of strength of character because it was simply the right thing to do.
William Faulkner was the principal of Owen J Roberts High School for 19 years, from my 3rd year as a teacher to my 22nd. He patiently reconstructed the High School, lifting it from an out of control institution ruled by whim and chaos into a superb place for children to be educated.
I have been thinking of those men this week.
I have been thinking of the qualities of character they all hold in common:
Integrity; the importance of patience and an attention to detail; humility; precision in thinking and writing; a calm approach to any problem; the importance of restraint, self-discipline, and hard work.
I have been thinking of these men in contrast to Trump and his band of moral eunuchs and their performance of fascist theater in Lafayette Square and at St. John’s Episcopal Church on June 1st.
There is no need for me to describe what transpired. If you have not seen it, it is readily available online in all its grotesque wonder. As Roger Cohen wrote, “His Bible-brandishing, American Gothic portrait this week outside St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington is one of the most disturbing portraits of psychopathic self-importance seen since 1933.”*
In spite of all his iniquity and decay, 43% of voters accept his version of manhood — the tough guy persona, the self-made man myth, the swaggering businessman who will fearlessly clean out the DC swamp. But Trump is the polar opposite of the seven men I have named. He is incurious, unable to learn, perpetually hateful, imprecise in every way, thoughtless, impulsive, utterly dishonest, allergic to hard work, abusive, lacking in all imagination, a blowhard, a fraud, a coward. He is a blight upon the very idea of integrity. I have enough faith in human beings to believe that many of his supporters would not have a man like him in their homes or near their children … as long as he was not named Trump. He gets a pass for reasons which defy my ability to understand.
Whatever my many failures and defects of character, the best qualities of those seven men, and especially my father, have consistently marked true north for me, points of aspiration I am grateful to seek, above all now, when we need as many examples of true north as we can find.
