News on Jay

10 years.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 24 May 2020 14:30:00 +0000

My dad, Jay Gallagher, died 10 years ago today.

There is so much I continue to miss about him. His warm hugs. His laugh. The way his eyes smirked when he landed a good joke or jab - which is to say, often.

I yearn to talk to him about our current political moment, though I am also a little relieved he was spared the Trump presidency. He would have been just gutted by Trump’s anti-democratic instincts - his vilification of the media; his inability to take criticism, to put the needs of people first, to engage in reasoned thought or discourse. He would worry for the future of our country and democracy, and write about how failures in leadership impact everyday people’s lives.

I listened to people talking about my dad last night (link to videos below) and read over old messages he received. What people valued in him was his ability “rise above the jaded cynicism” - and his commitment to a journalism which had absolute integrity and held itself to a standard of fairness and service.

I think he would have been a really useful voice in thinking through what comes next for the pandemic: the need to come together by staying apart to prevent more suffering and death - weighed against the suffering that will come and be disproportionately shouldered by the most vulnerable amongst us by economic depression.

He would have opined about the proper role of government in the crisis.

He spent much of his career going toe-to-toe with the Cuomos - I would have loved to hear him in that briefing room asking Andrew how he is going to pay for all this, while also cutting him a break and acknowledging that deficit spending might even be justified given what is at stake.

And he somehow would have found a way to don a Red Sox mask.

10 years feels momentous for me - like it should mark a before and after. That he should move into the past tense - cuz come on, it’s time! But this year, in the space created by the pandemic, I have found myself with more time to think about the holes he left, about the places where he should be. On the bike trail from home to downtown Albany! Playing with my nephews - his grandsons - I’m just so sad he never got to know them and experience the joy of playing ball with Jasper, receiving Aidan’s head butts, and being decorated, jumped on, and dressed up as they saw fit.

We are all ok - I am finishing my own book, which I realize mirrors his in some ways. Both share the stories of how average people are affected by government ineptitude (albeit mine is set in Mexico and focuses on failures of their justice system). My sister works at ahem a leading educational institution - working to promote a spirit of public service amongst future governmental and business leaders. And mom continues to therapize - alleviating suffering one client at a time. We all miss him, in our own way.

If you get a chance this Memorial Day weekend, please take a moment (or a swig of beer) to remember my dad. I am trying to breathe into his challenge to think productively about shitty situations: what can I say, write, or do to think about how we lessen our own and other’s suffering as we come out of (and go back into?) this crisis.

Go Sox! (errr… ok. that’s doesn’t even work right now…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5wY_0e5qYw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=VmIDwzCniH0&feature=emb_logo

Text of our part of the Memorial Service

noreply@blogger.com (Ellen G) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:53:00 +0000

Here is the text of what Janice and I read at the memorial service last night.

Thank you again who all who came to celebrate and remember our father.
- Ellen

~~~~~

I think everyone knows that our dad was irreverent - whether telling a cop off in Providence, or asking our highest-level elected officials "how they were going to pay" for whatever rosy-sounding project they had proposed, our father spoke truth to power. Like any good reporter, he was cynical.

But he was not all cynic. He hewed close to some basic values - and was a man with firm principles, and fierce integrity.

Here are some of the values he held most dear:

Family

He was gentle, supportive and affirming with us - helping us believe that not only did we have the responsibility to make a contribution to society, but that we were infinitely capable of doing so.
As much as he was a man of words, his actions said perhaps more about how he felt about family. Mom and Dad together prioritized our well-being, sometimes even above their own. When dad was looking for a house in Albany at the time of the big move from Rochester, he saw about 20 kids playing outside on a cul-de-sac in Delmar. While the house wasn't perfect, they were sold. Since it would be best for his girls, that's where they would live.
While dad did like the metaphor that paying for our college educations was like buying a new car every year and driving it off a cliff, he did it: he and mom lived frugally so that we would enter our adult lives debt-free, enabling us to choose careers in education and public service that pay in ethical and spiritual, but not so much in material, rewards.
He almost never missed a sporting event of ours, setting earlier deadlines for the other reporters so that he could make our games.
It was important to him that we spend holidays together as a family, especially Christmas, of which he spent all but three in his entire life in the house that his grandfather built outside of Lowell, MA. He loved meeting the new additions to the family at holidays, and got a twinkle in his eye when he played with his nephews, and later his nephews' children.

Public Service

Dad thought that there was no higher calling than helping citizens hold their elected officials accountable for serving the public. He told me he was never more proud of me than when I worked in Colombia trying to decrease human rights abuses by the government.
This appreciation for public service was at least partially hereditary: his father, uncle and sister were reporters, and his grandfather was on the board of selectman.
While Dad had ink in his blood, he also had teaching in his veins. His mother, sister and daughter were all teachers, and dad's commitment to mentoring young reporters expressed what he always said was his second career choice: a history teacher and coach. He had dreams of teaching in his retirement, perhaps as a professor. He loved that his job, and the book he wrote, gave him the opportunity to travel the state and explain NY government to different groups of people.
In his last year, Dad got more involved in local politics. He helped a friend with his campaign and frequently attended school board meetings, at which he put his same keen eye to their budget (and its affect on his property taxes) as he did to the state budget.

Fun

As much as dad was committed to his work, he also loved weekends, which would find him sailing his tiny sunfish, golfing with friends, or sitting in front of the tv rooting for his beloved teams: Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, Pats and Bills. Vacations were great because they were expanded weekends, and were especially good if they included Aunt Judi, water views, and a long bike ride that ended at an ice cream stand.
Dad loved games, especially ones he could win. When I started trouncing him at the word game Boggle in my early teens, we switched to ping pong. Which he beat me convincingly at, with both his left AND right hand.
He loved music and dancing.
Most car rides between our house and his family's house in Boston as a kid consisted of me sitting in the front seat with dad, belting out oldies tunes for hours. He was never happier than when a falsetto part of a beach boys song came on. The LCA's commitment to reworking oldies' songs AND letting dad have at them was, perhaps, the real key to his longevity in Albany.

Principles of Journalism

Dad was committed to accuracy, directness, attention to detail, and fairness.
When we would say something like “there were 3 or 4 people there” he would ask: "Well, was it three or four?" If we said we’d arrive around 8, he’d want to know if it was 8:15, 8 or 8:30.
Dad asked direct questions that went to the heart of someone's perspective: upon meeting a political theorist friend of mine, he asked the eternal big question: "Why is everything so screwed up? in politics" which launched them into a really interesting conversation about why politics is so, well, screwed up.
Knowing statistics and facts helped him order the world. Dad knew the populations of most countries and cities. He could tell you the important Red Sox sluggers since he was a kid, along with their batting averages. And he of course knew more details about NY state budgets and elections than one should.
Dad was fair. The quickest way to get on dad's bad side was to lie to or cheat him. Or let him see you lying to or cheating others.
His fairness translated into his child-rearing philosophy: I knew that the quickest way to get something from my dad, was to point out that Janice already had it.

Simple pleasures and routine

In the end, dad was a simple guy, and a creature of habit.
He kissed mom every day when he came home from work. And hugged us when we drove in from far away, and incidentally, also hugged most everyone he met this past year.
He started every day, no matter where, with a newspaper, OJ and grape nuts, he ate dinner at 6:30, and followed a consistent, if bland, diet. After a hard tennis match or bike ride, he enjoyed lobster, tater tots, cold beer, or a cold lemonade like no one else: He would sit back in his chair, close his eyes tight, and dramatically take in the beer/fried potato/lemonade slowly, opening his eyes only after the treasured food had percolated inside him for a while.
Also, he believed that any food in the world could, and should, be turned into a sandwich. For example: filet mignon and salad. Scallops and clams in a biscuit.
He loved spending lazy summer afternoons visiting with his siblings, cousins, and later niece and nephews on Long Pond.

Love

For the love of his daughters, dad travelled to Bogota, Colombia and the Amazon in Ecuador when we knew he would probably prefer to be sitting on his screened-in-porch with the Sunday crossword. But because Ecuador and Colombia is where we were, he came to visit and managed to have a good time.
Dad would turn off the TV, even if there were just 12 seconds left in a Celtics/Lakers game, when mom got home.
Dad told me that he was happy I was with Allyson because I was happier when we were together. It comforted him to know I'd found love and a partner, and he hoped that my relationship would bring me as much joy as his had with mom.
Dad was deeply kind. Even when we knew he had a difference of opinion with someone, he would refuse to speak badly about them, and change the subject if others did. Critiquing someone based on a factual error or opinion was what he did - but he didn't personalize his critique.

Community

Dad enjoyed and believed in the power of connections.
It was no secret that Dad was a fallen-away Catholic. He found his spiritual home and community in the Albany Unitarian Universalist church, where mom could go to Pagan drum circles, and he could be as cynical as he wanted to about organized religion. He enjoyed the fellowship he shared with others, going to Silver Bay and hamming it up at the Annual Dinner
The LCA Show was something he looked forward to every year, and he would marvel aloud what a great country this was - where pols would laugh at the reporters' jokes, rather than put them in jail. He saw the show as a way to both be irreverant and contribute to the greater civic duty of holding politicians accountable and keeping them grounded.
It was important to him to be connected with our neighbors - from watching the superbowl with the guys, to assisting the Moshiers in a small way after Tim's death in Iraq.

Life

In the past year, dad worked to deal with his increasing physical discomfort. Shortly before he died, he had to decide whether the suffering had been enough. He opted for a potentially traumatic major surgery in order to have a shot at extending his life. He confronted cancer bravely, but also let himself feel and react to its injustice. He struggled to find hope given the dire statistics of pancreatic cancer. He loved life and wanted to live longer, and while he told us he was ready and at peace with dying at the end, he desperately wanted more time here with all of us.

Humility

While the last year was sad in so many ways, kind emails from close friends and strangers alike moved him more than anything else. He was thankful and moved that so many people cared about his health and well-being. He was a man who gave a lot to others without expecting their appreciation in return. So he was deeply grateful when it came.
He, and we, were most struck by all the people who told dad that his work had mattered and made a difference. Whether this work was mentoring an intern or younger reporter, letting politicians know that the public was holding their feet to the fire, or giving readers straight news and sharp analysis, Dad was touched and surprised that his work affected so many people.
He would be deeply honored, and humbled, by all of your presence here tonight. Thank you so much for sharing in our father's life.

Video Tribute to Jay from NY Now

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 31 May 2010 02:32:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5wY_0e5qYw

We will not be posting much more, but we thought this was a great (and short!) tribute to dad on NY Now. We like that it shows him laughing and asking tough questions.

Memorial Service Details & Senate Resolution Honoring Jay

noreply@blogger.com (Ellen G) — Sat, 29 May 2010 03:29:00 +0000

The memorial service will be held on Tuesday, June 1 atWestminster Presbyterian Church, 262 State St in Albany. Doors will open at 7pm and the service will start at 7:30.

Today, our family was honored when Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Senator Neil Breslin introduced a resolution in honor of dad. Here is the video of the Senators speaking about the resolution:

Obituary

noreply@blogger.com (Ellen G) — Wed, 26 May 2010 16:54:00 +0000

Jay Gallagher, award-winning journalist and passionate observer of New York state government for more than a quarter century, died Monday from pancreatic cancer. He was 63. Jay’s dogged determination to bring depth to his reporting led to “The Politics of Decline,” his 2005 book which linked political machinations to economic decay across the state.

Gallagher was born on April 30, 1947. More than most, Jay had ink in his blood. His father and uncle worked as reporters and editors at newspapers in Salem and Lynn, Massachusetts; Jay was was born in Beverly and raised in nearby Danvers. As a boy he became a rabid follower of all Boston sports teams, especially the Red Sox. In his online memoirs, he wrote of his first visit to a ballgame in 1953: "If I ever get to heaven, my arrival could be no sweeter than that moment I saw Fenway Park.''

While earning a bachelor’s degree at Colby College (Maine), he met the woman who would give him a happy life, Emily Kreinick, of Brockton, Mass. After their graduation and marriage in 1969, Jay took his first reporting job at the Waltham (Mass.) News Tribune, then moved on to the Providence (R.I.) Journal. He worked there until a fateful work strike and a day on the picket line. After refusing to pipe down when a police officer ordered, Jay was arrested and quickly determined he’d move on from Rhode Island. He next spent eight years at the Rochester (NY) Times-Union, then joined Gannett News Service’s New York Capitol Bureau in 1984. Named bureau chief in 1989, Jay coordinated state coverage for Gannett’s eight statewide newspapers for the next two decades.

He covered the administrations of governors Mario M. Cuomo, George E. Pataki, Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson. He wrote the weekly New York Angle column, a staple in many Empire State newspapers. He also shepherded the careers of many journalists and student interns who worked at the Gannett bureau. He was a regular panelist on "New York Week in Review,'' a statewide public-television show, and has appeared on the CNN show "Inside Politics'" and "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer'" on PBS. In the last year, he became a co-host on “The Capitol Pressroom,” a statewide public radio program.

Among the numerous awards Jay received for his coverage of state government were the 1998 and 2004 New York Newspaper Publisher’s Association Award for excellence, the 1997 and 2004 Legislative Correspondents’ Association award for outstanding reporter, and the 2002 beat reporting award from Capitol Beat, the national association of state capitol reporters, and the 1993 New York Common Cause award for best commentary on New York state government. He was a favorite among fellow reporters and a staple at the LCA’s annual theatre shows.

During this time, Jay and Emily raised daughters Janice and Ellen. Jay passed on his love of politics to both daughters: Ellen works to promote the integration of immigrants into communities across the country, and Janice is a PhD student in Political Science, focusing on human rights and international law. His friends knew countless hours of rooting for his beloved Boston teams from the Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics to the New England Patriots. In 2003, Jay stepped back from daily reporting to tackle the question of how New York’s intractable political problems contributed to its economic decline. Growing out of a series of in-depth news articles, Gallagher’s book, “The Politics of Decline,” (Whitston, 2005) detailed government’s major failures: the failure to address the loss of manufacturing jobs, to stop runaway Medicaid costs and to find a balance in funding for public education system. He laid the blame not only on special interests and the lack of political leadership, but also an apathetic public.

Jay always took care to balance work with his personal life. He was a big sports fan, and also liked biking, kayaking, and cross-country skiing with his family. He was a passionate and competitive tennis player, until a bad hip forced him to switch to golf. In high school, he played on the hockey and football teams; in college, hockey and track. And he always attended all the girls’ athletic events, even doing a stint as co-head coach of a girls’ soccer team with daughter Janice.

Jay’s diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in June 2009 came as a shock. But he immediately began to chronicle his fight in a blog carried by several New York newspapers. With wit and grace, he took his readers through the ups and downs of chemotherapy, conflicting medical opinions and wrenching family decisions.

Jay was predeceased by his parents, Joseph and Hazel Bromley Gallagher and his sister Anne Bromley Pramas of Dracut, Mass. He is survived by his wife of almost 41 years, Emily Gallagher, his daughters, Janice Gallagher of Ithaca, N.Y., and Ellen Gallagher (and her spouse, Allyson Goose) of Somerville, Mass. and his brother, Neil Gallagher, of Berwick, Me.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations be made to Friends of Five Rivers, 56 Game Farm Road, Delmar, NY 12054 or the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany Endowment Trust, 405 Washington Ave, Albany, NY 12206.

The memorial service will be held on Tuesday, June 1 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 262 State St in Albany. Doors will open at 7pm and the service will start at 7:30. Please check this blog for further updates.

Good Bye Boys

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Tue, 25 May 2010 04:23:00 +0000

We have both known we would have to write this blog since the day we started it almost a year ago.

We will try to do our dad justice, and be clear and direct and not too sad or sappy, and to laugh as we cry.

ALBANY, NY_Jay Gallagher, 63, died at about 8:30 Monday evening. He was surrounded by his family as he had wanted. Our father passed quickly and without much pain.

He spent his final day resting, and giving his visitors and callers a hard time about overspending, late budgets, and high property taxes. He muttered, while in a sleepy morphine state, "school board elections." He died at the time of a rare television trifecta: a Red Sox game, Celtics game and the 24 season finale were on at the same time. The decision of which to watch seemed to be too much for him.

He was a great man, father, husband and friend. We thought that was our secret, more or less, until this year. We have been totally overwhelmed at how many other people have figured this out - the emails that have poured in over the past year, and especially in the last week, touched him and our family deeply.

After he passed, we tried to talk about our memories of him but it was hard to come up with just one, or ten, things. We talked about how deeply he affected every part of our lives - his integrity, along with his love of politics, family and sports, shaped us. We sang his favorite Beach Boys song together (a little bit badly - as he would). And we cried because we will miss him.

It is actually really scary to write this blog and NOT have it vetted by him. We have been honing our inner BS-meters, too-wordy filters, and grammatical correctness our entire lives. This is the first time we don't have our dad to give us the final edit.

Details will be forthcoming on this blog about the memorial service.

This blog was very important to dad, and he thought about what his "final blog" might say quite a lot. With the help of Yancey Roy, a longtime friend and colleague, here is the closest we can get to our father's "final blog" entry.
----------------
Everything felt like a long shot from the beginning. And it turned out to be just about what they said -- just shy of a year.

As the doctor who visited this morning said, pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult "problems" in medicine. Seems like an understatement from this vantage point.

I don't want this to be maudlin. It's been a long -- and, in some ways, extremely short -- 11 months but I feel like at least we didn't flinch from taking any opportunity -- being daring enough to try whatever was available. The bitch is that every sign of progress was eventually met with a new complication. And the body just can't take it after a while.

It's been an amazing year in other ways. I've had a chance to more fully appreciate human relationships, let go of minor irritants (though I still had to ask friends about the Red Sox and Celtics this morning) and try my hand at new forms of journalism (blogging and radio).

I always said if I came through this fight, I'd be a changed man. Well, even though I didn't "come through this" as I hoped, I am still changed - for the better.
----------------
We love you dad.

Written by Janice and Ellen. Vetted by Mom, Judi and Allyson.

Another day, another prognosis

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Mon, 24 May 2010 00:47:00 +0000

Given the prognosis and expectations, today was an unexpectedly good day. We have been waiting to write this blog in part because we don't want to jinx it.

Dad has had no signs of internal bleeding today: his blood pressure has stabilized, and all his vital signs are good. This despite the fact that his surgery did nothing to fix the cause of the bleeding tumor. Again, our understanding is that the tumor was bleeding because it has grown into adjoining blood vessels, and that this isn't a treatable or controllable condition.

We are all trying our best to take things moment by moment, or at least day by day. To keep in mind that the bleeding, which was life-threatening 3 days ago, could resume at any time. But also to permit ourselves a little bit of hope, even if it is only short-term hope for things like watching the Celtics game tomorrow night…perhaps even at home on our own tv.

Jay is lucid, though tired from the morphine he is taking to control the pain from Friday night's surgery. Dad spent the day with family - Mom's sister Judi came in from California, and his brother Neil arrived from Maine. He continued to eat a little more, and read his email messages when he was able.

We thank you all for your prayers and well-wishes, and ask you to keep sending them! We really do feel them here.

We are meeting with hospice care first thing in the morning to discuss our options for Dad's continued care, which could mean staying here on the 6th floor, moving to hospice, or even moving home. Dad tires easily, and we ask that visits still are limited to family and closest friends.

Author: Janice, with vetting by Mom and Dad

Long-awaited hug

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sun, 23 May 2010 01:30:00 +0000

Guess after the last post, there's almost nowhere to go but up.

Dad had a pretty good day, all things considered. He has had minimal pain from yesterday's surgery, the bleeding from the tumor for now has slowed (perhaps due to the lingering effects of drugs they gave him during his surgery), and he has taken full advantage of the morphine pump that has put him in a semi-dreamlike state. This state, however, has not prevented him from correcting our spelling, recalling important facts about his life and state government history, and generally being his wise-ass self.

He had some wonderful visits today. Most importantly, Ellen and Allyson made it home from Italy this evening, and have already spent many hours at his bedside talking and holding his hand.

He even had a very mini retirement celebration this afternoon, complete with a video featuring Governor Patterson taking shots at him. Doesn't get much better than that… except it does. He was able to eat: a piece of walnut bread, 1/2 a cookie, a lemon ice bar, orange jello AND several sips of the long-awaited Dos Equis beer!

Dad is loving your email messages, and we are reading them to him here. Our mother still likes old-fashioned letters and cards, so please send these to the house.

Dad will now be resting here on the 6th floor at St. Peter's - he left the ICU, and we now have a relatively quiet single room with a picture window looking out on the Corning Towers.. He is not getting any more blood transfusions or any other "life-saving measures." Our goal right now is his comfort and peace. There is no way of knowing how long he has - maybe hours, maybe weeks.

Scribes & Authors: Janice and Ellen, vetted by Dad, Mom and Allyson

Surgery Update

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sat, 22 May 2010 04:24:00 +0000

Jay came out of a "successful" surgery, the anesthesiologist told us.

Well… that's a creative understanding. The surgeon had a different take on it: The tumor, not the stomach/small intestine, is in fact causing the bleeding it turns out. This means there is nothing that can be done to stop the bleeding, and we hope he will transition to hospice care soon.

We are not sure how long he has, but we are told maybe a few days. My sister is doing her best to get home from a trip abroad quickly, and hopefully will arrive in time.

My mom and I are relieved that we tried this surgery. Dad has never been a "quitter," and making this final push assures us that we, and the doctors, have done everything possible to prolong dad's life.

We will update this blog when we know more. We will be reading Jay his email messages when he is awake. We will be limiting visitors to family and closest friends - please call or email before coming by.

- Janice

The Decision

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Fri, 21 May 2010 23:49:00 +0000

For the first time life and death were laid at our door step today.

Since the bleeding problem was not curable, we were given the decision today to choose hospice care and let the inevitable happen, or to choose surgery which would try to fix the cause of the bleeding.

We chose surgery. Surgery seems to opt for the safer long-term chances of survival, but also brings with it a huge risk of complications. And with the possibility of much more pain, which I've gotten damn sick of over the last few weeks.

But the other option was to do nothing - and slip away, slowly and painlessly, in hospice care. We decided life is worth another shot.

Jay will most likely be going into surgery tonight - please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

Scribes: Janice and Emily, waiting with Jay at St. Peter's Hospital before surgery.

Options galore in cancer fight

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Thu, 20 May 2010 21:12:00 +0000

I haven't often heard hospitals compared to the old "ten blind men and an elephant" story, but after today in the hospital, I can see the similarity.
I can also see that medicine also resembles art more than science.
I haven't kept track of how many nurses and doctors we've talked to today, nor the number of different opinions they have expressed about my condition.
But they are considerable and all seemed well informed and persuasive when they are presenting them.
Maybe what I need is another operation to clean up what looks like one remaining bleeding ulcer, one doctor said. That doesn't sound so smart, intoned another who pointed to my history of major surgery and recent pancreatic cancer diagnosis .
Another suggestion was watching to see if the current treatment ( Tuesday's endoscopy, no water or food by mouth, and healing medication) pays off. The down side of that, however, is that I'm losing weight and strength so quickly that it's not clear how long that will be a viable option.
Finally, how about another non-surgical procedure to see what's happening with the internal bleeding? That seemed to have the most support, and probably what we are going to try tomorrow.
Things might always change, though.
(scribe: Emily)

Seen better days

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Wed, 19 May 2010 20:58:00 +0000

At first it seemed as though Monday was the worst day, spending much of the night vomiting and feeling miserable. But that seemed to be topped yesterday, when I was subjected to a series of painful tests, one of which involved four burly guys restraining me so they could stick fingers down my mouth as the exam of my digestive track was going on.

But today took the cake, with lots of boredom interspersed with various agonizing tests also designed to check out what's going on with my stomach. The results today are that I have developed a couple of good-sized ulcers in my stomach. This seems to solve the mystery of where all the internal bleeding is coming from. So today was devoted to getting blood transfusions, influxes of water, and waiting around for the next test.

Grimmest news: if these delicate tissues tear again, it may be almost impossible repair without a massive abdominal operation - something I've already had done once and am not inclined to repeat.

So best case scenario: keep the acid in my stomach very low, and be extremely careful not to eat acidic food. Not much of a choice, but those seem to be the options right now.

Meanwhile, the immediate future seems to point to several days here, where they can watch me closely.

And that's the news from St. Peter's ICU.

Scribe's note: today's and yesterday's blog were dictated to daughter Janice. Jay is a super hero, but not totally super human.

The best laid schemes of mice and men…

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Tue, 18 May 2010 22:32:00 +0000

Tomorrow night was supposed to be the night when we had quite a gala - a Gannett Albany celebration! We were going to mark my retirement, Joe Specter's elevation to Bureau Chief, Cara Matthews' outstanding contributions over the last six years, and the hiring of Nick Reisman.

Instead, I'm going to be spending the night in the St. Peter's Hospital ICU with nurses watching over me closely to make sure most of my current systems continue to perform adequately.

The cause of this pivot in plans: the rough night I had last night throwing up blood, despite the fact that numerous tests had discovered no problem in recent exams. That's cancer for you.

Doctors tend to take such things seriously, since rapid blood loos is a major cause of death. So this morning we called 911, had the neighborhood deluged with emergency trucks, and got transported to St. Peter's hospital.

Best news is that they found some minor tears in the region of the stomach and esophagus that could have been caused by the deep retching I did. And the very clever gastroenterologists do have a way to stop the bleeding and heal the tears. Of course, it could also be that the tumor is causing the bleeding, which presents a whole new set of problems.

Meanwhile, we are hoping for the simpler explanation and cure.

You might want to vote tomorrow

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Tue, 18 May 2010 00:11:00 +0000

Most people don't know who is running in school-board elections tomorrow. In fact, probably many of us don't even know anyone who is VOTING in the elections, although arguably they are the most important local balloting held all year.

According to an analysis done by the state School Boards Association, only about 10 percent of eligible voters (district residents who are 18 and U.S. citizens) will cast ballots tomorrow, when voters will decide whether to approve school spending plans as well as elect new members to school boards.

And yet this is the time when voters get to decide directly how big their school property-tax bills will be as well as who will set educational policy.

Part of the reason is undoubtedly that since the posts don't pay anything in most instances, they don't attract a lot of candidates to what seems like a totally thankless job.

Maybe it will be different this year when there is an unusually high level of voter anger at school property taxes. The trouble with that, of course, is that the property taxes for all intents and purposes are set when the school board signs a contract with its unions, not at the budget vote. The process of ratifying new contracts by long tradition is kept secret in most districts until the teacher union OKs the deal.

But tomorrow is the best shots voters have - and if they ever elected board members in large numbers who insist on letting taxpayers know what they're getting into before a contract is signed, the first tremors of a long-anticipated taxpayer revolt might be heard.

Scratch off another possible retirement job

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sun, 16 May 2010 22:43:00 +0000

Those of you who remember a post from a couple of months ago about how I would be a disaster as a "facilities manager'' (watching over house maintenance) may not be surprised to learn that I have never been a stellar yard-upkeep person either.

I remember driving around suburban streets before we ever bought our first house and watching people mow their laws, trim their driveways and spread fertilizer. I decided I never wanted to spend my weekends that way.

My conviction wavers the most at this time of year, though. Walking through our neighborhood as I often do now I am struck by the fact that there appears to be two kinds of lawns: those with dandelions and those without.

This was also the case a couple of weeks ago, but it didn't bother me then when our lawn (in the latter category, of course) was adorned with pretty yellow flowers that took no maintenance.

But now those flowers are gone, replaced by ugly stems and the remnants of millions of seeds that will assure us of another crop of the flowers next year.

I wish those stems were gone from our lawn - not enough to actually mow it or even call the boy who cuts our grass now - but still, I feel a little bad about it.

I guess I can scratch "lawn boy'' from the list of possible retirement occupations.

Hometown boy at heart

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Fri, 14 May 2010 20:52:00 +0000

I had a nice visit with an old college roommate (are there any other kind now?) and his wife today, who have a daughter about to graduate from Skidmore.

Finally, somebody somebody to talk to who really cares about the injuries to Mike Cameron and Jacoby Ellsbury and remembers Don Buddin (Red Sox) marvels at the magic of Rajon Rondo (Celtics) and is worried sick that the Bruins might blow their 3-0 lead in the Stanley Cup playoffs (hockey).

He is the same guy I was golfing with a couple of years ago with my long-time best friend from here and realized that between them they had known me for most of my life. They could stitch together a pretty complete biography of me all of these years later (even back to the girls we thought were cute in junior high school) if anybody cared enough. Emily, of course, is a Boston-area girl, as anyone who has ever heard her say "scissors'' will attest.

I remember getting a shock when our kids were small and after a trip back to Boston they made fun of the accents of their cousins. Now Ellen is living there and Janice would like to.

Although we ended up not settling down in my home town or even in the Boston area (as my friend did, after a short stint in New York City) I am a homebody at heart, which I' sure explains in part why I've ended up living here for 26 years. Albany is more home to me now than any other place has been.

When we packed up to leave Massachusetts 36 years ago for Rochester to start work at my third paper in five years, little did I realize that I would live upstate for (probably) the rest of my life and for the same company even. That's not supposed to happen.

I'm glad it did. I'm also glad I still have connections to where I grew up.

Go away, Mengele

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Thu, 13 May 2010 22:05:00 +0000

It was certainly unfair of me to think about notorious Nazi Dr. Joseph Mengele today when I was undergoing some cancer tests, but I have to admit he popped into my mind. He is the doc who performed all kinds of hideous experiments on concentration-camp inmates during World
War II.

I was lying under an x-ray machine that, on command, would descend to my abdomen and push really hard into it in an attempt to find out what is causing me pain there.

The tech and PA were of course as nice as could be and explained why the whole thing (all part of an upper-GI series of x-rays) was necessary, and certainly in the long run could help me heal.

All well and good, but when the thing started to dig into me and I looked at the pristine, modern surroundings, the same bad guy hopped back into my mind. Actually no the bad guy himself, but whoever played him in a '70s-era movie.

Anyway, the preliminary results were I guess inconclusive. Things are flowing through my digestive tract fine and there was no sign of any blockages or cancer spread That is a very good thing.

On the other hand, there was also no indication of what is causing my pain and loss of appetite. As the tech said, sometimes you have to do these things just to rule some causes out.

I'll just try to bring better mental pictures with me next time.

Got a headache yet?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Wed, 12 May 2010 20:47:00 +0000

New York, or at least the Capitol, is consumed with the furlough talk, and this isn't about a break from Army duty.

This is about about half of the state work force, or 100,000 people, taking a forced day off a week starting next week without pay - effectively a 20 percent pay cut. The Legislature approved the idea earlier this week.

To hear union leaders talk about it, it will be the final blow that forces thousands of people out of their homes and prevents them from buying life-saving prescription drugs. They have gone to court to try to block the idea, which Gov. David Paterson says will save about $30 million a week.

Not often mentioned in the debate is taxpayers, who will have to come up with the $30 million somewhere else if this idea doesn't fly - taxpayers who often getting less in salaries and benefits than their public-sector bretheren. The unions say that much could be socked away by cutting down on temporary employees, but Paterson says they're needed for specific tasks the government needs to get done (plus the state doesn't pay them benefits).

So let's see. Opponents of the gov's budget plan don't want any increase in taxes, like on soda or cigarettes and certainly don't want to reduce aid to local schools or health care. And please, hands off the state work force. Yet the current outlook is for the state to spend $9.2 billion more than it will take in in revenues.

Got a headache yet? No wonder lawmakers duck out of town every chance they get and Paterson doesn't seem to be around much either.

New cancer strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Wed, 12 May 2010 00:16:00 +0000

Back to the cancer grind today. Doc recommended, and I agreed, to get a series of x-rays this week to see what my stomach problem is. The most likely outcome is we will find tumor lying on the intestine, which causes pain after I eat and no appetite most of the time.

Potential solution would be to put in a stent to keep the intestine open enough to make digestion easier and help me get my appetite back

We're going to do this Thursday. Meanwhile we're going to push the resumption of chemo back another week, which will allow me maybe to enjoy the weekend (two in a row!) and also have a pretty good chance of feeling good for my retirement party next week.

Doc also told me that it's not a good idea to try to scrimp on the pain medication, with the idea being to try to wean myself off it. He said staying ahead of the pain is more important, since once it gains a foothold it tends to be hard to dislodge.

Amazing all of the stuff that the digestive system does sort of automatically, with most of us never giving it a second thought. I won't do that any more.

Aftgerglow lives on

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Mon, 10 May 2010 22:19:00 +0000

The eyebrows are gone, but the memories linger.

A show always looks the best, I think, in the days immediately after. Gaffes tend to be forgotten, laughs from jokes inflated and the tunefulness of our songs emphasized. People who liked the show tend to make a point of telling the participants right away how good they were, while critics, I suspect, don't see the point of letting their views known.

The age of instant videos and U-Tube have diminished this phenomenon somewhat, but it still carries on. Still, in my case, it is a bit stunning to reconcile how I thought I looked and sounded and what the technology actually recorded. I guess there really is a reason I had a day job for all of those years.

The instant videos, I think, also diminish the quality of the responders - the government officials and politicians who get up when we are done and try to even the score a little bit with their remarks. Not too many years ago, what they said would be laughed at and commented on that night, but then pretty much forgotten after that.

I recall that all changed when Hillary Clinton was running for the Senate and spoke at the show, in the year 2000, an event that was recorded by dozens of cameras. Now whatever is said lives on indefinitely.

One thing we know for sure: there will be plenty of fodder to feed our writers next year.

Another Miracle

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sun, 09 May 2010 16:40:00 +0000

The yearly miracle happened again.

What seemed like just a few days before as a disparate, disjointed series of songs attempted by people who mostly didn't know their lines turned into a show that came together well enough this weekend so that both the Friday night and Saturday night crowds seemed to enjoy themselves. I also managed not to make any big screw ups.

I even got a laugh from a line that reads like Greek to me. "I make Carl Krueger look like Dr. Oz." I guess Carl Krueger, a senator from Brooklyn, must be a hard-living sort.

We even sold enough tickets on Saturday night that there's a good chance we even made some money on the deal, for a change.

Best part was having Emily, Ellen and Janice all attend Saturday night for the first time. I managed to scarf up a couple of free tickets that were floating around.

Anyway, here is a picture and two videos from the show.

Emily, Ellen, me & Janice at Saturday night's LCA Show.

Above I'm singing my hit "Borrow", to the tune of Ed Ames' "Follow." The best lyrics were: You are so hapless, I wish I heard crap less, about how you can't make reductions. How about ending the medicaid spending for trannies who want liposuction?

The entire LCA cast and many alums singing the traditional show closer, "Good Bye Boys" on Saturday night.

Hoping for a Friday Night Miracle

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Wed, 05 May 2010 22:09:00 +0000

I like to have eyebrows, but don't get to do it very often.

I will for a couple of nights this weekend, when we hold our reporters' show. Tonight we add the band to the songs we have been practicing for a few weeks. Then tomorrow night we add costumes before starting our two-night run on Friday.

Maybe everything will come off smoothly, although at this time every year the show strikes me as a train wreck about to happen. When we get through it somehow the first night, we call it the Friday Night Miracle.

Eyebrows are among the hair follicles that I never had in abundance, and I have often noticed that bald guys who have them don't look as bald. I don't mean Groucho Marx-style eyebrows, but just normal ones.

At this stage the makeup usually consists for me of either some headware or powder for my head. But I always most regret washing off the eyebrows.

For a couple of nights we all have this overwhelming rouge and powder look - quite strange actually. I didn't realize how necessary it was until one of our thespian colleagues decided to go without one year, and looked totally washed out under the lights.

Hope that is the least of our problems this weekend.

Alex: Tim Murphy. Question: Who is Mass Lt. Gov?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:02:00 +0000

I got a little scare last night when Ellen stumbled for a second over the question, who is the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, where she lives?. This was after I pointed out in yesterday's posting that Cornell PhD government grad students didn't know who Richard Ravitch is. Then she came through with Tim Murphy, which would be a good guess for the name of anyone in the Bay State, and in this case the correct answer as well.

I got the classic comment about the office being worth about as much a a glass of warm spit, which actually might have been first used to did describe vice president. And someone pointed out that New Jersey seems to get along (not that well, let's face it) without one. It is handy to have someone waiting in the wings to take over when the sitting governor resigns because he admits he is having an affair with a boyfriend with his wife tearily at his side. But that's what then-N.J. Gov. James McGreevey did in 2006. The president of the senate had to take over.

There are also some who theorize that the worst thing Eliot Spitzer did to New York was make David Paterson his running-mate, even though he knew his limitations.

And maybe, who knows, Ravitch will turn out to be one of the best things Paterson did for New York, since he has devised a way out of the fiscal mess as well as getting the Court of Appeals to agree the appointment was legal.But I guess it's a good thing he's not running for election as governor, since he seems to have trouble attracting attention to himself, at least on the Cornell campus.

Who is that borrowing man?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sun, 02 May 2010 22:49:00 +0000

I got a chance to meet several fellow government PhD students of Janice at Cornell this weekend. They were without exception interesting, competent and bright. Also, not a single one of about seven questioned, three or four of whom are from New York, could answer this 8th-grade civics question:: Who is Richard Ravitch?

I could of course have made it tougher and asked who the lieutenant governor is. Ravitch wasn't ever elected to his job though, and I thought there was more of a chance of getting a right answer by asking it the other way.

Hu-huh.

"I have this vague recollection of a heavy-set guy with glasses,'' one recent graduate opined, but she could go no further.

Another, a political theorist who is trying to figure out a way to get Plato into her students' consciousnesses, explained she didn't have time to try to keep up with current events with so such research to do.

I was going to ask her if she knew who Eliot Spitzer to get a sense of how interested she is in pop culture, but I didn't want to hog the conversation.

The exercise reminded me a little of the practice of hiring interns, when I would also ask questions about who their public officials are. Mostly they didn't know, below the level of governor, but the ones that did always excelled.

People often ask me, what is wrong with New York and how can it be fixed? I think this little story offers at least a clue to the first question.

Not totally in vain

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 20:18:00 +0000

A year ago, the day I turned 62, we were in North Carolina, visiting some Delmar expatriates (they have since moved back) and enjoying the full flush of a mid-Atlantic spring.

62 sounded kind of old to me then - old enough to get Social Security if I wanted, old enough so that the occasional movie discounts started to turn into a flood of money-saving offers.

I'm glad I didn't realize at the time that I was less than 6 weeks from my cancer diagnosis, although I suppose that means we could have started fighting it earlier. But it sure would have screwed up even more last spring.

63 now sounds terribly youthful for someone with this affliction, and sounds like someone who should have a long slow glide into old age. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I already got the best birthday card anyone should ever get. It shows a little girl bending down on a sidewalk. She is saying that she used to think that having good luck was finding a dime on the sidewalk or a four-leaf clover.

Then you open the card and she says, "Now I realize it was having you as a Dad.''

All of these years haven't been totally in vain.