By Dee Richard
Good Friday was a sad day for us as my favorite sister-in-law died. She and my brother lived in St. Mary's County in southern Maryland. At Christmas she invited us down for a holiday visit. We postponed the trip till sometime in the spring, when we would not be so busy (the month of December is our busiest month of the year). The weather would also be nicer in the spring. The weather, of course, in the beginning of the year was so unpredictable we kept postponing the visit.The moral of this story is, do not put things off by procrastinating, as you may very well find that your good intentions were too late. As they say, send flowers to the living, for the dead cannot smell them.How did we get so busy getting involved in so many time-consuming non-essential projects? All our time and energy seems to be consumed. When did we also become equally dedicated to accumulating things and stuff, most of which is unnecessary anyway? We all have only a finite amount of time, why squander it on time-consuming trivial pursuits?It's very disconcerting to hear about people passing on, especially those who are younger than you. But now that I think about it, it seems as though most of my friends and family are younger than I am. It's tough to contemplate our own mortality, but that's a fact of life.The week started off with Lois Marbach's monthly meeting of her new Democratic Club in the Pride of Judah Building in Douglaston. The guest speaker was Tony Simone, the policy and field director for the People for the American Way Organization. Simone reminded me that we had met before, when he was working on Catherine Abbate's campaign when I covered it.On Wednesday, the Continental Democratic Club held its monthly meeting at the Rego Park Jewish Center. The guest speakers were former Assemblyman Michael Cohen, who resigned on March 14. He stopped by to thank everyone for their support while he was their assemblyman. He regrettably had to step down due to family health reasons. He will now be working for HIP and he will still be an active member in the club.The other speaker was Andrew Hevesi, youngest son of New York State Comptroller Allen Hevesi. Andrew is the Democratic heir apparent for Cohen's seat. Our first thoughts were “here we go again, another relative looking to be gainfully employed in the family business of politics.”Not so! We were pleasantly surprised to find young Hevesi was intelligent, well-informed and sincerely concerned about New York and New Yorkers.His background included working for Assemblyman Jeffrey Klein. Andrew showed a spark of the famous Hevesi sense of humor when he said “when I went to work for Klein, he was a mere assemblyman. When I left him, he was elevated to the role of senator. I guess you could say I did a pretty good job.”If you recall, Klein was elected to fill Guy Velella's vacated seat. Andrew is now employed by New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum as her director of community outreach. Hevesi also said it was up to Gov. George Pataki to pick a date for the special election. So far the governor hasn't indicated when that date would be. He also said he has no Democratic opponent and as far as he knows, the Republicans have not selected a candidate to run against him.Funny he should say that, as the very next night, on Thursday, while covering the Queens Symphony Orchestras Gala we ran into Anthony Como, a young Republican attorney who informed us that he is definitely considering running on the Republican line for Cohen's seat.It is good to see that both major parties are recruiting young, talented, ambitious candidates to run for public office. We need fresh new faces, with equally fresh new ideas. Most incumbents in government are getting rather stale and shopworn. We could use a change. Lots of luck, fellows, may the best man win.Thursday night, as usual, was the week's busiest. We started off with the Queens County Chamber of Commerce Business Card Exchange at the New York Hall of Science Building.Our next stop was the Queens Symphony Orchestra Gala at the Sheraton LaGuardia East Flushing.The following stop was the Reception House in Flushing for a double header. First was a fund-raiser for Democratic District Leader Rory Lanceman. Second, was the William Jefferson Clinton Democratic Club's monthly meeting. The guest speaker was New York City Council Speaker Gifford Miller. Miller, as you know, is a mayoral candidate.Our final stop for the evening was the Corona Cafe in Corona, where the new Central Queens Republican Club was having its inaugural meeting.Due to our usual space limitation, we will have to fill you in with additional details about the aforementioned events next week.Don't forget to keep the voice mails coming at 719-767-6484 or faxes to 718-746-0066 or if you prefer, e-mail us at deerrichard@aol.com.Till next week,Dee
