A Few Minutes with the Mayor, February 2015

Before beginning this first column of the year, I wish to thank the editor/ publisher of this newspaper who approached me four years ago with the offer to write my own column, promising to allow me total freedom to write whatever I felt like. Now I ask you, what observer of the daily passing parade could resist such an offer? Certainly not yours truly! And… to give him credit, Whit Parker has kept his word. It has been a privilege to write this column… one I truly appreciate.

Having said that, I was given a sharp reminder the other day about how people may react to what I do write. Apparently, I was critical of someone who seemed shocked that I would write about them the way I did. I could have written more… but evidently what I did write was obvious, at least to this person. Understanding the power of words, I was hardly surprised… but I was also pleased, because the author in me celebrated the discovery that someone was reading my column at all.

So what was my sin? Simply put… to possess a fervor and belief that the presence of Britt in our community is a blessing and a priceless asset we should all support. And I shall continue in that belief. Perhaps a little background will explain my attitude.

A century ago, World War I began in Europe. Knowing Turkey would be involved, my uncles took my 16-year-old Turkish father to Constantinople where they trained him to be a barber, and then put him on a ship bound for America in the hope he would avoid the war. Once on that ship, like so many millions before and after him, he was never again to see his brothers or his parents. But what happened when he arrived in America was so improbable it defied all odds.

Arriving in America, he found himself drafted into the U.S. Army once the country went to war with the Axis Powers which included Turkey. Before he could be shipped overseas he was stricken with the deadly 1918 flu pandemic. This plague killed over 100 million people… most of them young adults such as my father. Though it took him six months to recover, he was one of the lucky survivors.

Now comes the improbable part of this story. The war over, my father settled in Syracuse, New York where he met and dated my mother. Here was an uneducated, illiterate, Moslem immigrant from an enemy country, dating a white Baptist young woman in her third year at the Eastman College of Music with the goal of becoming an orchestral harpist. No two people could be more different… in background, education, or culture. Yet, the differences paled in their attraction to each other… much to the dismay of her family. They married, moved to New York City, and took up life in that city crowded with immigrants from not only overseas but transplants from surrounding states, young people seizing opportunity in the “big city” rather than their hometown.

My mother may have given up her dreams of becoming a harpist, but she never surrendered her love of music. Growing up, I found myself dragged to every piano and harp recital at Town Hall or Carnegie Hall… every symphonic concert at Randall’s Island, Central Park Mall, and the Museum of American History for free orchestral concerts almost every week. From Bach to Beethoven, from Grieg to Gershwin, there I was, soaking it all in… admittedly sometimes against my will, but catching every musical nuance issuing forth from some of the greatest musicians in the world.

In spite of my reluctance, my mother succeeded, for I have lived a life devoted to the proposition that a culture without art or music is not just the poorer, but devoid of any soul. I’ve also tried to pass that along to my own children in their early years, by taking them to concert after concert at the Hollywood Bowl and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

So… the bottom line is… I make NO apology for anything I’ve ever said concerning my support of Britt. We are indeed BLESSED to have this venue in our midst. The real losers are those who would voice a certain support while their actions belie their words. It’s worth repeating, without the performing arts, we have no soul.