Editor’s Letter

The Impact of Memorable People

We have become so focused upon whatever our particular choice in media, we sometimes overlook the impactful presence of those who’ve actually helped us fashion who we become . . . until they are not with us anymore. Once we are cajoled to “say a few words” about them, the view comes into focus again. That’s not to say we’ve forgotten their positive influences, it’s just that as we grow older, we slip away from those connections, which played such prominent roles in our lives.

“Burt never stopped encouraging me to learn more, do more, be active in medical organizations,” Candy Tedeschi reminisces about her mentor, Dr. Burton A. Krumholz. “I’ m eternally grateful he pushed me to become the nurse practitioner I am today, with his influence demonstrated for the many patients I treat each year, as part of that army of healthcare providers who are better caregivers because of him.”

Bill Scheller’s connection with his family and roots in Paterson, New Jersey, are a major element in how he looks at life. For Italian-Americans, the locus of points that shaped their lives was around the dinner table, where the meaningful exchanges of each day occurred. And it was the care of the homemade meal that graced the center of the table and themed the dialog. “I suppose pasta was the villain responsible for padding us so well, ” Bill recalls about his mother. Perhaps so, but it was the price you paid gladly to participate in the dialog of the evening meal or the midday Sunday weekend feast.

For others, these connections become a matter of coming to terms with an ancestral past. Few as dramatic as Ginny Craven.

“I am just three generations removed from Admiral Raphael Semmes,” Ginny Craven writes. “He was the pillar of the Confederate Navy – still reputed to be the most successful raider in maritime history. He hunted and sank U.S. supply ships all over the world.”

The towering statue of Admiral Raphael Semmes was removed from its pride of place in Mobile, Alabama, she writes. “That seems right to me. The statue now resides in the Mobile Historical Museum – a far less celebrated position.”

Maybe the way to deal with the pluses and minuses of all this to satirize it to music during the pre-Lenten days before Easter, each year.

“Carnival remains irrepressible despite authority’s many stompings over the centuries,” writes Skip Kaltenheuser, the ultimate Carnival chronicler. “When Carnival collided with the Church, it softened with themes of redemption and renewal. The carnival spirit, burned in effigy, departs taking the woes of the year, leaving all with a clean slate. Has there ever been a city more in need of a spiritual cleanse than Washington?

-- Tony Tedeschi