Limelight or Behind the Scenes?

When I was a teenager and young man I was conflicted. On one hand I wanted to be known and liked by everyone; on the other I was shy. I was in the middle of being an introvert and extrovert, just like many kids. I had a few friends, but was never "popular" in public high school, or sought after or even known by most of my classmates. This was different from my Catholic grammar school experience, when I knew everyone in grades five thru eight, and they all knew me. Palling around was much easier, as was meeting and kissing girls. Yes, we played Spin the Bottle in those days, but it didn't go further.

When I was a Boy Scout in 7th and 8th grades, we had our scout meetings in the CYO youth center next to my church. They had a pool table on the third floor, and we hung out and played pool, and goofed off, regularly. The scout meetings were really pool marathons. One day I was in the right place at the right time, since our Scoutmaster sent in a picture of me and a fellow scout, playing pool, to the local paper, The Trenton Times. It probably appeared on page 8 or something. You could see my shyness and not my bravado.

That was the first of half a dozen times my name would appear in the paper. A few of my Letters to the Editor showed up in the paper over the years. Some were Baha'i-related, including a photo of me giving a public talk on the disparities of wealth in the U.S. c. 1986. Some were just opinion letters, like my crusade to get all taxes listed on NJ utility bills (which never have been). At those times I was proud of the notoriety and promoted myself. I still do to a degree, but things have changed.

I'm much happier being in the background now, although I still write letters to the Times Editor. In early December I wrote a letter about the loss of our weekly Memoir Class at Lawrence Library. Diana, the letters editor acknowledged receipt. The class had been meeting weekly for over two years, lead by our energetic, enthusiastic and positive facilitator Maria. On Nov. 16, Maria was killed by a driver while she was walking across busy Route 206 near Rider University, and our class was thrown into shock and loss. A week later, with the status of the group in disarray, the Library Manager told the group we could only meet once monthly, and not weekly, effective Jan. 1. We were upset, especially since no reasonable explanations were given for the change, other than "It's our new policy for outside groups."

The group formed a committee of three members to meet with the Manager. They did, and there was no change in the Library's stance, even though we knew plenty of meeting rooms were available, and that we were a wildly successful group with as many as 24 class attendees at times. Emails were flying back and forth. I happened to notice one from Robert, a committee member, which mentioned that the Library Manager had directed us to the Director of Human Services, Marygrace, head of all county libraries. On a whim, I emailed her asking for a response to why we had been changed.

To give her credit, she responded the same day. We spoke on the phone. She reiterated the party line "Once a month." Then she surprised me, "However, because you are a long-standing group, and we want to cooperate, we are allowing you to meet weekly through 2013. After that, it's just once per month because you are not a library sponsored group." I was calm and thanked her, but was inwardly ecstatic. I emailed Robert and told him the news. He emailed the group who were also surprised, happy and thankful. Robert even mentioned my role. I received some personal kudos.We are a close knit group. We are friends. We are intimates.

This occurred c. Dec. 22. I wrote back to Diana, the Times reporter I was working with who was ready to publish my acerbic letter about the situation. I retracted my letter and thanked her. But she said she thought this was an interesting story, and was going to pass it on to the Editor-in-Chief, which she did.

The Times assigned freelance reporter Joyce Persico to the story and we corresponded by email. The rest, as they say, is history. Joyce wrote a magnificient story, and the Times published it on Monday 1/14/13, on the front page, with a large photograph of Karin reading from her memoir. I was pictured in the background. You can see and read it yourself at http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2013/01/storytelling_seniors_pour_thei.html

I am now firmly convinced I like being in the background better (as in the photo) than being in the limelight.We still have unresolved issues with the Lawrence Library, which we will work on. But our case is decidedly stronger now. I have no doubt that as long as we have a core group of writers, we'll be allowed to meet weekly indefinitely. I certainly hope so..