Throughout my career, I estimate I’ve been to several thousand testimonials or more. I’ve sat through litanies of praise more effusive than the Monks of Santa Domingo, applause from person after person and wondered, “Can this possibly be true?”
Sometimes the people being honored were scoundrels or self-serving, I thought. Other times, I theorized, they were being honored for work their employees did, volunteer service on company time. And yet there were occasions I thought I could very well have been in the presence of a living saint, such as Father Vincent O’Connor of St. Catherine of Siena of Riverside.
But my perennial question has been, “Can this possibly be true?”
And so I asked myself the same question on Sunday night as I sat in the audience and listened to them say wonderful things about the man being honored. “Can this possibly be true?” And I had to answer “no” because I was the man.
My mother used to say, “They should know what you’re really like.”
I shudder to think that they someday might. Of course, she knew what I was like because in the day-to-day grind we call life, the patina of wonderfulness wears off quickly. Contrary to what Johnnie Mercer said, I was not “just too marvelous, too marvelous for words.”
And so in this gathering at the Greenwich Hyatt, I learned a great lesson while friends and pretend foes gathered to toast me for my deeds and roast me for my misdeeds over the years at The Advocate and Greenwich Time.
The great lesson I learned, if you can believe this, is humility. How, you might wonder, do we learn humility when people praise you? Because I knew beyond a doubt I’m not the wonderful person they think I am.
We’re all a mixture of weak and strong, good and bad, paisley and plaid, true and false. I won’t continue. You get the idea. It’s called the human condition.
But what really struck me that night was the selflessness and sacrifice of the people who labored for months to put this affair on, starting with the major domo, Ernie DiMattia, head of the Ferguson Library in Stamford, inspired, he said, by Father Richard Futie, Greenwich native and pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Stamford.
Joined by my former colleagues, Durrie Monsma, Joy Haenlein, John Breunig, Barbara Bind, Bruce Hunter and Susie Costaregni, not to mention the people who put on the show, former publisher Durrie Monsma, who came back from California for this affair, the eminent Bernie Yudain, his sidekick, guitar-strumming thespian and attorney wannabe Ted Yudain, Joy, my longtime friend, retired AP Special Correspondent Hugh Mulligan and Monsignor Stephen DiGiovanni.
I’ve seen so many proclamations given out over the years that I was delighted to receive one from First Selectman Peter Tesei and a citation from Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and a superb standup routine by Mayor Dan Malloy.
And let me never forget my tireless personal paparazzi John Ferris Robben, whose fine pictures grace this website.
To all of you, and to everyone who endured this undeserved celebration, a very heartfelt thank you. You have made my life worthwhile.
