SONNY BOY

Last winter, while camping in Florida, I watched “The Godfather” (Parts I, II, and III)—DVDs are my backup plan when I can’t get local television from a trailer antenna. I liked Al Pacino’s character, Michael Corleone, and his growth throughout the series, which made it a no-brainer to read Pacino’s memoir, “Sonny Boy.”

Pacino does a wonderful job telling his story, including his upbringing, the neighborhood kids he hung out with, his relationship with his mother and her influence over him, his distant relationship with his father, his interest in theatre, and his lucky break with the first Godfather film. But what I’ll remember the most from his memoir is his friendship with Diane Keaton (she played Kay Adams, the girlfriend and eventual wife of Michael Corleone). Pacino was embarrassed about his finances and asked Keaton to accompany him to a meeting with his entertainment lawyer, Arthur Klein. From the book:

Arthur began to explain that I was insolvent, due to mismanagement of my assets. He didn’t play a part in it, I know that. But the words just washed over me.

Diane, however, was furious. She got up from her seat, and she started to question him: “How could this happen?” He was hemming and hawing, well, you know, this and that.

She just exploded. She went up to Arthur and was now face-to-face with him. She backed him into a corner of his office, pointed at me, and said, “Do you know who he is?”

He said, “Well, you know.”

She was practically grabbing him by his lapels: “No, tell me who he is.” He started to speak, but Diane jumped in again: “Yeah, you’re going to tell me, ‘Oh, he’s an artist.’ No. He. Is. An idiot.”

I just stood there. What could I say?

Diane went on: “He’s an ignoramus. When it comes to this, you’ve got to take care of this.”

She meant when it came to my finances—what I’d come from, my upbringing, my early life, right through until then. And she was right.

“Sonny Boy” is worth reading. Al Pacino is a survivor. Now he’s apt to choose lesser-known roles. I'm sure you know about "Scent of a Woman," but wasn't he in Adam Sandler’s “Jack and Jill” too? Read the book.

THE FRIDAY AFTERNOON CLUB

“Grief is just not one note,” Griffin Dunne remarked in an interview with Kelly Clarkson. He is referring to the death of his sister and how he honored her in his humorous memoir, The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir.

 

I have known Griffin Dunne as the lead character in my favorite Martin Scorsese movie, After Hours (1985), which is why I quickly read through FAC. In doing so, I discovered that he played the werewolf in An American Werewolf in London (1981) and Uncle Nick in the third season of This Is Us. How did I not know this? Additionally, he was friends with Carrie Fisher when both were trying to establish their acting careers.

 

What interested me the most about his memoir was his retelling of his sister’s death, the subsequent trial, and the Dunne family’s resilience in moving forward and strengthening their relationships. This book is definitely worth reading. I enjoyed the incidental celebrity encounters from Griffin’s younger days and his realization that he should have developed contacts earlier in his career, instead of struggling along the way. He mentioned that his own struggles mirrored the character he portrayed in After Hours.

 

To conclude, here’s a passage that reflects Griffin’s inner turmoil, along with links to a CBS Sunday Morning interview and After Hours footage.

 

“The peace I found living on the beach was intermittently shattered every time I heard 'Every Breath You Take' by The Police, which topped the charts that summer and was impossible to escape. It was a sinister song about a man obsessed with a woman he would never let out of his sight. I heard a threat of violence in the lyrics, should the woman get the idea to leave him. 

 

'Every move you make / And every vow you break / Every smile you fake / Every claim you stake / I’ll be watching you.'

 

It pained me when some of my intelligent women friends embraced 'Every Breath' as a 'love song.' They thought to have a man so obsessed with a woman was sexy and romantic, where I found the character Sting portrayed to be a sick fuck who would ultimately kill the woman he's singing to and every one of them if he had the chance.”

 

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SATURDAY FLASHBACK ... SCHOOL PRINCIPAL

Never mind the demolition...

...let's remember another Mr. Dandy--School Principal Brian Freedman. He was one of the Educational Manager's rising stars. He always had plenty of advice for us teachers at our academic conferences. 

After a special education meeting near CMU, one of our younger colleagues was approached by Freedman at Bennigan's. Their abrupt conversation went something like this (one name has been changed to respect privacy):

"Hi, I'm Brian Freedman, School Principal."

"Hi, I'm Marvin Shemansky, Human Being."

Here's more news regarding this school principal: 

Prison Legal News

Enjoy my Saturday Flashback.

READ TO ME

It’s April 1, 2024. The library called. My book on Social Security is in.  I grab my library card, my house key, and the blue Post-it note, and step outside. I GPS my Garmin watch and walk in no direction, knowing that I’d more than likely put in my usual mileage.

The First Mile

I think about Ray and Rosalie and the Read-to-Me program they volunteered for decades ago at the Macomb Correctional Facility. Back in the late 90’s I rarely went on vacation because my boss believed in arranging for substitute teachers to keep the classrooms open.  I hated the idea and for good reason: the first prison I taught in in Detroit, my students distracted the substitute teacher and stole her shoes. But Ray was different. He was mild-mannered, observant, and unafraid of writing tickets on misbehaving inmates. I liked Ray. Ray was the perfect fit for my classroom. Also, the Read-to-Me program was invaluable. Prisoners would select a children’s book and Ray and Rosalie made them practice reading it, then they’d record these men's voices on cassette tapes which would get sent to their children—what better way to help these fathers stay in contact with their kids.

Somehow, I had lost touch with Ray due to an ongoing rotation of school principals. I remember our last phone conversations. He wanted to know if my new boss—who had already cut the Read-to-Me program—was on board with keeping substitute teachers and whether I would advocate for his return. I told him I’d try. And I did try. Unfortunately, my new boss wasn’t interested.

Our last conversation was muddled in my brain. I’m not sure who called who. Perhaps it was me. But I do remember a conversation about my divorce and my teenage daughter who refused to have any contact with my side of the family. Ray was supportive and we agreed to keep in touch. Yet, the years rolled by. Somehow, I had learned that Ray retired from his public school teaching job. I followed suit a dozen years later.

The Second Mile

I thought about how quickly I escaped from the prison:

• April 2021, I remarried.
• October 2021, I downsized.
• January 2022, I retired.   

I moved to a small city where Ray lives less than a mile from my new house. For whatever reason I failed to visit him and I’m not sure why. 

I pause my GPS. Here I am at the doorstep of a condo. I see an NRA sticker on the window. Ray never seemed like a die-hard right-to-bear-arms kind of guy. I check the address I had written on the blue Post-it note and ring the doorbell.

Rosalie opens the door just a little bit.

“Hi Rosalie,” I say. “Is Ray here?”

“No.” 

“You probably don’t remember me,” I tell her my name, where I retired from, and how I admired their volunteer work at the prison.

“I remember you,” she says. “Do you see your daughter?”

“No.” An awkward silence falls between us.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she replies.

“Do you know when Ray will be back?”  More silence.

“Ray’s dead.”

I tell her how bad I feel not being able to see him again, “When did he pass?”

I learn that he died in December 2021.  “Ray had Covid,” she says and explains how a doctor came to the house to give him an infusion.  “But it really wasn’t working.” Rosalie’s eyes start to water. “He would have been on a ventilator,” she continues. Then Rosalie adds more to my confusion. “He didn’t die from Covid.” 

I don’t know what to say.

“I left him alone for a while. When I returned, I didn’t know where he was. I found him in the basement. He shot himself.” Rosalie sees the anguish on my face and stops. 

Again, I apologize for not knowing. We agree to meet for coffee sometime. I say goodbye and start my GPS. 

The Third Mile 

With GPS paused, I enter the library and beeline it to the memoir stacks. I randomly select two books based on their covers:

Granger Smith’s Like A River—Finding the Faith and Strength to Move Forward after Loss and Heartache. 

Chip St. Clair’s The Butterfly Garden—"This book gives one the courage to look within and provides everlasting hope in the human spirit.” 

At the check-out, I tell the clerk that I have a Social Security book on hold and give her my card. She finds it and adds it to my collection. 

“Will that be all?” she says. 

“Yes,” I say, “that will be all.” 

I go outside. I start my GPS. I walk home.

 

FORGIVENESS: SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN

 

A few weeks ago, while hammocking at my campsite, I read Alex Mar’s “Seventy Times Seven, A True Story of Murder and Mercy,” and it has made a lasting impression on me. I thought about the time the school principal dropped off a list of prisoners for me to TABE (Test of Adult Basic Education). When I examined the names my first impulse was circular-filing it and questioning the task: “Why am I evaluating a bunch of 50- to 60-year-old men who are juvenile-lifers? They’re doing ALL DAY!” Instead, I said nothing. I did my job. Over 12 years ago, us corrections teachers eliminated prisoners with life sentences from our class rosters—no more lifers in our prison GED programs throughout the State of Michigan. I had heard about sweeping changes in the juvenile justice system but had no clue as to how it would impact the men I had assessed. Incidentally, only one inmate refused the TABE; a year later, he was within a week of his freedom when he died in his cell from Covid.

Back to Mar’s book: She retells the life story of Paula Cooper, her crime at the age of 15, how the juvenile-justice system evolved during her prison sentence, the life of Ruth Pelke, the correspondence between Paula and Bill Pelke, Ruth’s grandson (who publicly forgave Paula and dedicated the rest of his life to ending capital punishment), Paula’s perps, and so many more. There’s Victor Streib, a professor of criminal law specializing in juveniles charged with homicide. And there’s Watt Espy, a traveling salesperson (security systems, then cemetery plots) who visited courthouses and prisons, cataloging every death sentence carried out in the U.S. (10 years of research, over 13,600 executions). And, yes, like I said, so much more… the prosecutor, the judge, the jury, Paula’s supporters, the victim’s family…

In her prologue, Mar writes: “The act of forgiveness… is more alien and requires something tougher: a belief that none of us is solely defined by the worst thing we have ever done. That each of us remains human, sometimes in spite of our actions. And that sometimes our actions are a response to forces larger than ourselves.”

Forgiveness is not easy. Forgiving ourselves is harder. “Seventy Times Seven…” might help. A definite read.