This is the season that we are reminded…
By Barbara Morris
After hearing so many reports about the way Mardi Gras was being celebrated (I’m not talking about the merrymaking, but about the criminal acts), the arrival or the season of Lent is welcomed in many quarters.
This is the season that we are reminded that those who try to do the right thing are often unfairly judged. We see that often in our own midst and wonder why such things happen, if they can be changed, and how can we help.
Some time ago, I attended a Town Hall Meeting at the Susan B. Anthony School. Outside, protesters held signs decrying the planned construction of a minor league stadium to be built at St. John’s University. Inside, the auditorium was packed to over-flowing. Mayor Giuliani arrived to face an at least partially hostile audience. As he walked down the aisle, he was followed, one by one, by his various commissioners — all or whom were there to give informed answers and, when possible, help that was being sought.
Suddenly, the audience was on its feet, cheering and clapping. One might have thought some miracle had occurred. Actually, what had happened was that the Commissioner of the Parks and Recreation Department, Henry J. Stern, had joined the group on his way to the front or the auditorium. Each of the people who had come to address our various issues was deserving of our thanks. Commissioner Stern, however, had earned that very special tribute.
Over the years, Commissioner Stern, in his own, unique way, has enlisted a huge army of willing volunteers. I am one or them. He hints that something should be done, and, before you know it, the job has been accomplished — whether the work is hard or dirty, or even in weather that would make the weak of will stay in bed. Loyalty is part of it. Working with someone who knows his business is part of it.
Working with someone who knows how to make work interesting and fun is also part of it. And having someone make you proud and appreciated after hard work is still more of it. As if that isn’t enough, he shares his own, very precious best friend, Boomer, with us — and what a treat that is! Through Commissioner Stern’s years of service, this city of ours had gray cement magically polished, facet by facet, into sparkling little gems of parks that not only please the eye and provide rest for the weary, but help clean the atmosphere and provide recreation in as safe an environment as possible.
Some of the tasks he has had before him, (and still has), have been almost too overwhelming to ponder: the Asian Longhorn Beetle, ugly, silently, boring holes deep into the trunks or our valuable woodlands, preparing to spread further once their larvae mature.
Then, too, there is the West Nile Virus that came on unwelcome wings and is a hard enemy to defeat.
Commissioner Stern has, I think, tried to enlist on his staff, experts in all the fields within his purview. They are the generals in his army, and we, the volunteers, are some of the soldiers and students. Yes, we are students, and the lessons we learn would cost a fortune in school. And the fees he has charged large groups who want to take over parts of the parks for their own special functions, help pay for necessary clean-up and repair after their departure. Lacking those fees, folks, the taxpayer — each of us — would have to pay for that.
How should the people of this city say, “Thank you, Commissioner Stern”?
Some of us showed him, at least a little bit, in the Susan R. Anthony auditorium. Some of “the important people” in this city, however, seem to have chosen a different approach. They always start off by saying something like, “Commissioner Stern is a nice man and it’s not that he hasn’t done a great job bringing the parks into shape, but he’s acting like a used-car salesman.” The deliberately biting inference seems to be that he is trying to swindle people. That was the way the tone was set at one meeting I attended at City Hall, and unfortunately the feeding frenzy continues.
I, for one, hope he prevails.
