Joe Pisani

There are some people in our lives who embody values like dignity, integrity and compassion – all the things that are good – and they’re powers of example for the rest of us. Vic Coudert, a lifelong Greenwich resident who served on the ethics board for 42 years, was one of them.

I knew Victor from the mid-1970s, when I taught his children English grammar and theology at Greenwich Catholic Middle School, and over the years a lastly friendship developed, especially when I was editor of Greenwich Time and he was in town government.

A gentle and honest man, Victor never hesitated to tell me when the paper had made an error, but was always gracious in that role – even though I sensed he secretly delighted in having one up on the editor. Once, I even recall he called to tell me we had mistakes in a story about Frank Trotta, my colleague in Ourgreenwich.com. With both of them double-teaming me, I knew it was a losing battle. But they were gracious and I was a better person for it.

On many more occasions, Victor and I would have lunch with Greenwich scribe Bernie Yudain, and the two of them would offer me their insights into community journalism. Victor was a spiritual man, and for more than 21 years, he regularly went to Lourdes, the apparition site of the Blessed Mother, where many miracles and healings have occurred. He helped countless people with physical and spiritual disabilities and always encouraged me to make a pilgrimage with him.

When I left the newspaper, he was there, offering advice and encouragement. He even reviewed my resume with suggestions about how to improve it, but most importantly, he told me about the time when, as a middle-aged man, he had to make a change in his career.

“You can do it,” he said. “I did it. It’s not the end of the world.” He was right.

You can’t buy friendship like that. And when you find it, you have to cherish. He and Virginia were two of the most gracious people I’ve known.

Victor, I’ll miss you.

I still remember the day, a long time ago when I believed in the inherent goodness of the workplace, that my boss stood up at a staff meeting with a remarkably innovative and unprecedented idea that everyone loved, including the big boss, who praised him to high Heaven. The only problem is that it was my idea.

OK, maybe I was meant to learn humility from the experience, but I didn’t because I’m a proud guy, a jealous guy. I’ve always been like that, and I’ve tried to change with minimal success. But now I realize I’m not alone. In fact, I have the entire canine world on my side. (I might even start visiting the dog pound for therapy.)

According to recent research by the University of Vienna, dogs experience the same disturbing emotions we do. They feel pride and jealousy and can sense fairness. Dogs and horses, but there was no mention of cats. Actually, I’ve never really been a cat kind of guy although some of their traits are definitely transferable to women – and men – I’ve known.

Now, this surely must have been groundbreaking research, and I have to say I’m happy it was conducted in Austria because I would have been one very angry (another one of those destructive emotions) taxpayer to discover my dollars had gone to determine how dogs feel when they don’t get a doggie treat for rolling over or giving their paw.

The scientists realized that dogs get VERY upset when their owners are affectionate to other dogs. They tested their theory about doggie emotions by having 33 dogs extend their paws to humans. The canines performed whether they received a reward or not – however, when they noticed other dogs getting rewarded when they weren’t, they got jealous and started licking and scratching themselves. Been there, done that.

I have to confess that around women I’ve always felt like a dog performing for biscuits. Throughout my life, at work and at home, it’s been that way. And I’m always in the doghouse for some indiscretion or animal-like behavior like soiling the carpet.

Nevertheless, like most of us, canine and human, I respond well to positive reinforcement. “Here’s your little treat.” And then I’d dance on my hind legs or roll over the get my belly scratched. The real problem, I suppose, comes when I start scratching and licking myself at staff meetings.

It’s a dog’s life for sure –  James Thurber taught us that decades before the Vienna researchers.

Throughout my career, usually because of convenience but more likely out of desperation, I always managed to take off the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and every year when I returned to East Elm Street on Jan. 2, my administrative assistant would ask, “How was your vacation?”

Don’t you hate that question? Vacations, at least to me, have a distressing tendency never to live up to my expectations, even the minimal expectations.

Anyway, I’d usually curse under my breath and say, “Terrific.” And then move on to the first or second or 20^th crisis of the new year. 

And every year I’d vow I’d never take that week off again because having our four children at home – who were generally suffering cabin fever by midweek and disconsolate because their Christmas toys only provided about 48 hours of pleasure – was a perfect formula for domestic disaster. They would be hanging from the chandeliers while my long-suffering wife would be threatening to abandon all of us. The same thing happened for about 20 years in a row.

Four daughters in one house with one bathroom just doesn’t work for an extended period of time. One year, however, I got the ingenious idea of traveling to Vermont for a few days of vacation because my daughter was doing a report on Robert Frost, and a visit to his grave in Bennington seemed like an ingenious idea. 

But there was so much hysteria in the car, we didn’t make it to the Vermont state line. I turned the car around and headed back to Connecticut, muttering words I can’t repeat on a community website. Then, my wife intervened and got me to point the car north again. This time, I made it over the state line and into downtown Bennington, but they were driving me so crazy that I turned the car around again and started to head back.

I hate to admit this, but I even put one daughter out of the car on the side of the road and started to drive away I was so furious with her behavior. And she was only a toddler. (Sorry bad joke. She might have been 9.) 

Family vacations and fatherhood are such an insidious combination. But times change and circumstances change with them. This year, for the first time in decades, my wife and I are home alone between Christmas and New Year’s. The daughter who lives with us is headed to California, so we’ll be alone on New Year’s. How depressing is that? What to do? I suppose we could rent a DVD and just relax, or if I’m looking for a little excitement, we could head north and pay a visit to Robert Frost. 

A news story in the June 5, 1932 edition of The New York Times – after the Great Depression had begun to throw America into economic turmoil, upending the social fabric of the country, began: “Darwin’s theory that man can adapt himself to almost any new environment is being illustrated, in this day of economic change, by thousands of New Yorkers who have discovered new ways to live and new ways to earn a living since their formerly placid lives were thrown into chaos by unemployment … occupations and duties which once were scorned have suddenly attained unprecedented popularity.”

The story went on to say that the reported number of shoe shines in the city went from virtually none to almost 7,000 in three years and that they were no longer boys under 17 but men up to the age of 70. The other methods to make money were selling apples, rubber balls, cheap neckties and pencils, hawking newspapers and even showing up for jury duty.

A walk around midtown Manhattan offers evidence that history repeats itself. Street vendors and hawkers abound with cheap ties, contraband DVDs, videotapes, second-hand books and costume jewelry.         

And what of Greenwich, where a recent Reuters’ story said, “As many hedge funds suffer big losses and anxious investors yank out their money, the town synonymous with the riches of their recent glory is now hurting.”

The reporter then went on to list the litany of economic woes afflicting town, from a slump in real estate to the loss of hedge funds, which predominated the local economy in recent years, so much so that Vanity Fair even did a piece on their influence on the community. And typically, the story, which fits into the “toney Greenwich” genre, compared Greenwich Avenue with Rodeo Drive.

There are those of us, however, who long for the good old days when you could buy a cheeseburger and Coke at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s or a piece of chicken at Garden Poultry (long gone) and sit on the lawn at St. Mary’s and watch the world go by. Some people suggest this economic turmoil will bring us back to simpler times. If it does, the process will be painful and it’s only just begun. Let’s see if Darwin’s theory still applies.

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.

Richard S. Fuld Jr., Greenwich resident and chief executive of collapsed Lehman Brothers, testified this week before a Congressional hearing and said, “I feel horrible about what has happened to the company and its effects on so many.”

He defended the compensation system that rewarded him with a package that lawmakers said totalled $485 million since 2000 — although he put the figure at $350 million. After all, there was a compensation committee in place that put its imprimatur on those packages.

I have to ask the foolish, simpleminded, naïve question that proves I don’t have the sophistication I always craved: “Does anyone deserve that much money? Anyone?”

One of my daughters who works as director of communications for a fashion company was driving to New Hampshire with me a few days ago, when we were desperate for something to eat and pulled into McDonald’s in a small town off the interstate.

She went in to buy a few burgers and some fries, against my wife’s protests, but I figure you need some junk food in your stomach every so often.

While she went in, I listened to news radio and the agonizing debate about the $700 billion bailout that did nothing to restore our confidence or calm our anger.

A few minutes later, she came out, paper bag in hand, and got into the car, stinking of fast food, with a troubled look on her face.

“What’s wrong? No Big Macs left?” I asked.

“I can’t explain it,” she said. “There was a girl behind the counter who was my age. She had a wedding band on and I think she was pregnant.”

“So? That’s a good thing.”

“But I was sad that she was there, working for a few dollars an hour, while I have so much.”

Good question. Healthy guilt. Some compassion. Does that question ever occur to our corporate leaders?

Shouldn’t we all have a little guilt if our lifestyle is self-indulgent and materialistic? Once in a while it doesn’t hurt to think about the person in Haiti who subsists on a few dollars a day.

Besides the guilt, I hope my daughter has a little gratitude because God has given her so much. And maybe a little compassion for everyone who doesn’t have as much.

At least she doesn’t suffer from the spiritually debilitating sense of entitlement that seems to be shared by executives in the collapsed financial services industry.

Is anyone “entitled” because of breeding, education, social status, salary level, executive position — or for any other reason?

I thought of the day laborers who stand under the bridge waiting for work and how much they incense some people because they earn a few dollars a day. Shouldn’t we be more distraught when people earn hundreds of millions?

There’s a vastly inequitable distribution of wealth in the world. Barack Obama and John McCain won’t solve that. But the first baby-step toward change is being able to look at the Latino woman behind the counter at Dunkin Donuts and wish she had a larger piece of Richard Fuld’s pie, not to mention our own.

On 43rd Street, along Fulton Sheen Place, a block from Grand Central and next to Market Café where office workers stand in clusters eating pizza, you’ll find the St. Agnes soup kitchen, where you can join the homeless and the hungry for a free meal a few times a week.

And when I walk down that crowded street, which is especially crowded when the United Nations is in session, I usually encounter a homeless man standing against the street light, watching the confluence of passersby and waiting for a handout.

Even though thousands of people rush by every afternoon, he becomes especially animated when he sees me coming and starts shouting, “YOU! YOU in the bowtie! Over here! C’mon over here, I wanna talk to YOU!”

Like a skittish suburbanite out of his element in midtown Manhattan, I do exactly what my cautious mother always advised me to do: I don’t make eye contact, I keep staring straight ahead and I quicken my pace.

Of course, all this hubbub draws even more attention to me because everyone on that bustling sidewalk, pauses to see just who the guy in the bowtie is. Pee-Wee Herman perhaps?

I admit I started wearing bowties to stand out in the crowd, so all things considered, I got my wish in a perverted sort of way. I got more than my wish, and now I wish I weren’t so conspicuous because this was NOT what I wanted.

Very quickly, this public performance became a daily occurrence, and in desperation, I considered alternate measures, like switching to a necktie, which meant I’d have to retire some 150 or so bowties and sell them on eBay at a considerable loss, or maybe I could simply cross over to the other side of the street to avoid the unwanted attention.

But I did neither. Instead, I bit my tongue and kept walking faster, which didn’t really help my cause.

“YOU in the bowtie! Over here! A man looks sharp in a bowtie! I wanna talk to you!”

Heck, I love New York, but obviously not as much as it loves me.

I couldn’t imagine what he wanted to talk about. The presidential debates? On maybe my gross annual income?

This went on for a few weeks, and every day the commotion got worse until it was apparent I was as obsessed with avoiding him as he was with getting my attention.

“BUDDY! You in the bowtie!”

And then one day, suddenly, mysteriously, marvelously, I got this overwhelming pang of guilt

–- call it grace — and I thought of that very troubling story about Francis of Assisi, the young bon vivant, the heir to the family fortune, the man with a dreadful fear of lepers.Outside his town, there was a lepers’ colony, and one morning when Francis was riding in the plains nearby, he came upon a leper with sores all over his body. He wanted to ride away, but something held him there. Despite his revulsion, he got off his horse, gave the leper all the money he had, kissed his hand and then embraced him.

OK, I confess. I wasn’t ready for a spiritual conversion of that magnitude. I wanted to start slowly. No lepers for at least six months.

But one Monday, as I wove in and out of the pedestrians on that hectic Manhattan street, I came upon the man and things changed.

“Bowtie!” he called out, and I walked up to him. He smiled and offered me a cigarette.

“Don’t you know those things will kill you?” I said.

I reached into my pocket and gave him five bucks

– I wasn’t ready to give him all my cash just yet.”Stay out of trouble,” I said.

Now, when I see him, I go out of my way to give him something. (Hey, at least he stopped yelling.) The entire ordeal reminded me I have a long way to go to get to where I should be. Of course, I have no intention of following in Francis’ footsteps. I don’t have the courage or the commitment. I’m a weak man who loves making money more than being generous.

But change is slow, and there’s no telling where it will lead us. Consider that crazy Francis. After he embraced the leper, he started visiting them in hospitals and then made a pilgrimage to Rome and left all his money at St. Peter’s tomb.

When he walked outside, beggars swarmed around him like a flock of pigeons competing for a few crumbs of bread. Since he had no money left, he took off his clothes and gave them to the poorest man there.

In exchange, he took the beggar’s rags to wear. And for the rest of the day, he stood in the square, his hand out, begging for coins because he wanted to understand the humiliation the poor endure.

         Whenever I see those online ads with scantily clad women, I scratch my head and wonder: Can you really find love on the Internet … or just trouble?

         I know a lot of people who tried and failed, a few who went on dates that ended disastrously, one who got married and has a baby in the hopper, several who got divorced because they were scoping out women and got caught, a few who engaged in so-called “cybersex” because they didn’t think it was adultery although their spouses sure did, and a lot of potentially dangerous liaisons, which but for the grace of God, ended before something really terrible happened.

         Millions of people are looking for the perfect partner, for whatever insidious purpose, and the online opportunities are endless.

         Every time I check my email, up pops a picture of an enticing young woman with platinum hair, pink lipstick and that come-hither smile accompanied by the slogan “Sneak a peek.” There’s no crime in that, is there?

         My middle-aged brain immediately goes into post-adolescent hormone-induced fantasy mode because all I have to do is click the little link that says “Go!” and I’ll jin the captain and crew of Love Boat along with countless singles and single wannabes looking for romance or something worse.

         How did temptation for the average guy ever get so easy and so accessible?

         Of course, I don’t succumb to temptation because I have a built-in protective device, sort of a missile defense shield that goes by the name “WIFE.” Not to mention my overactive conscience, which reminds me this cute little blond could be my second daughter. Well, actually my fourth daughter.

         Even worse, if I “sneak a peek,” I’ll be ignominiously labeled a “dirty old man,” which is what they called them back in the ’60s. Sad to say, there are still a lot of them around, but they no longer hover on the fringes of society; now, they’re as American as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and generally getting bailed out, too.

         Being an upstanding middle-aged married man, I check my email and promptly move on.

         But Miss Sneak a Peek seems to be following me. The next ad shows a woman with a sultry smile, pouty lips, brunette hair and a low-cut blouse, who could pass as one of Charlie’s Angels’ daughters, well maybe granddaughter.

         These pesky online stalkers follow you everywhere. A few minutes later, I’m confronted by a young woman who is leaning forward to show cleavage. Later, another one appears, bouncing up and down on the bed, beckoning and smiling with an invitation to “Find Love Now!” 

         She sure looks like she’s having fun and wants to have even more fun. What I find so troubling is that I’m on websites accessible to the average computer-savvy toddler. Is this the only online advertising they can sell? What about ads for Scientology? Or Metameucil?

         How did we ever get transported to this alternate moral universe in a few years? I’m not a prude. I love romance. I love beautiful women. And every once in a while I look inside the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, when I’m in the supermarket checkout, at least until one of my daughters catches me and threatens to tell the parish priest.

         I’m glad because it reminds me their moral gyroscopes are still working even though mine occasionally needs recalibration.

         Sad to say, virtues like modesty are obsolete. You can also strike “chastity” from your moral vocabulary because it’s as passé as holding the door for a woman.

         Those virtues fell into disfavor about 40 years ago when my generation gave America one of the most insidious movements in modern history, the sexual revolution. It liberated us from the oppression of morality, and our goal in life became sneaking a peek, finding pleasure and satisfying lust. Along the way, we forgot values like self-restraint, commitment and love. Traditional morality was supplanted by traditional decadence, tailored to the 20^th century in film, TV, music and social mores. Free love led to online porn, kiddie porn, cybersex and recreational sex … the list is endless.

         Before signing off the computer, I came upon another interactive chippy who was wearing negligee and inviting me to “See photos.” Temptation beckoned again. Should I or shouldn’t I? Is my wife looking?

         This time, my guardian angel restrained me. Instead, I clicked on AccuWeather. Rain tomorrow … damn.

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