A personal note, Goodbye Howard (Metzenbaum.)

This diary began as a comment, but "Metz" interwove with my own personal activism in a way that deserved a small diary entry. I was born and raised an Ohio girl, after all.

***

What I believe to be my very first public political action was marching in my hometown's Fourth of July parade with other local Democrats (which in some small way meant something, just being that visible presence, considering the Republican machine that my county was overrun by at the time.)

We wore baseball hats, and carried baseball paraphernalia, pennants and  gloves, balls and bats and wore stickers proudly slapped on stating "Go Metz!" (Somewhat ironic in retrospect, considering his threatening to repeal the exemption from antitrust laws Major League Baseball enjoyed.)

I was 7 years old at the time, but even I knew how important he was to Ohioans.

In many ways he deeply personified the times I grew up in- fiercely environmental, a voice for abortion access, always a fighter. Ohioans in particular remember his work for the "Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act" which forced factories to give warning before closing down a plant. Maybe today it's hard to really comprehend what that meant in context, but to Ohioans, (and well, pretty much the manufacturing workforce as a whole) it was an important piece of legislation.

He was also Ohio's first Jewish Senator.

As the ugliness was really hitting in the late 70's and into the 80's into the Reagan years and beyond, Howard stood strongly, and that was important to me, as a last gasp child of the 60's and early 70's- to see someone standing and fighting for the world I wanted to live in, fighting for clean-ups at superfund sites, for abortion access in such a critical time period for access.

It wasn't all rose colored glasses, mind you, I'm not saying I was with him on every single thing, but compared to the sorry ass "representation" we find in Democrats up on capital hill these days? Yeah, Howard was a fighter, and that was why I sat county fair booths and stuffed envelopes, and to whatever extent do some of what I do today.

I am a product of a time period, and of having people like Howard as 'early influences' on my life. More than just a flush at some handshake event's passing excitement, I researched what 'my' Senator was doing up in Washington, even while being too young to cast my first ballot, and I liked what I saw. I understood that if there was an 'our side' and a their side', Howard, while having FAR greater resources and connections than the average 'us' at his disposal took on the role of public servant, and stood against those who felt it was alright to walk away from the polluted legacy of superfund sites across my state, he stood against those who wanted to game the system to their advantage at our expense (not merely monetary; but our lives, our health, our state, our homes, our jobs, our future etc.)

Now, these many many years later, several states away, I look at my current so called 'representative', a Democrat who is far too often a 'yes' vote to this administrations ongoing crimes and I think to myself now more than ever, we need a next generation of genuine fighters.

One of Senator Metzenbaum's many nicknames was "Senator No" (yeah, Jesse *@#%*$'n Helms was the R- "Senator No", but Howard was ours.) He was a man who understood the critical importance of standing for what was right. And standing uncompromisingly against what was wrong.

We sure could use a few Dems who understand the importance of saying "no" these days.

Bye Howard, you're already missed.

•  This was hard to write

  that's part of why it took so long/why it's not as 'timely' as it perhaps should have been.

  But measuring the distance between that time then, and this time now is heartbreaking- and it's all too often measured in the spinelessness of our current crop of 'representatives'.

  As I've said before, time to roll up those shirt sleaves.

  by stormcoming on Thu Mar 13, 2008 at 07:35:18 PM PDT

  •  then and now

    I too feel the gulf between "then" and now.  It's hard to articulate, but it depresses me.

    But believe it or not, diaries like this help prevent me from giving up hope -- they remind me that yes, it is possible for good people to make a difference.  We just need to keep trying.  

    And I really think it's cool that your Senator was an early influence in your life.  That says tons about both him and you!

    So thanks for writing this!!

    by shock on Thu Mar 13, 2008 at 07:44:37 PM PDT

    •  thanks

      I've actually got a picture of me and my dad, holding hands on our front porch with the flag hanging above us (as I said, it was the fourth of July) in our 'baseball' outfits with the "Go Metz!" stickers.

      I was old enough to finally begin to really understand and that was why I wanted to march with the local Dems, our tiny contingent.

      People speaking out, consistently, and working on the day to day issues that yeah, affected me, and my neighbors, and my town, and my state, and my country, and my world, it mattered.

      Today's young Ohioans can't imagine what it meant to have 'Metz' and John Glenn as our representatives. I reitterate, it mattered.

      And we were proud.

      Manufacturing jobs were drying up, yes, we had out burning river episode, and there were those embarrassing idiots down in Cinci screaming about Mapplethorpe by day and running around in their Klan hoods by night, but damn it, we had two Senators with a clue.

      I'm not pining for the 'good ole days', I'm trying to light a fire under some butts and remind folks that we need some good days TOMORROW too, and that's going to take work, not whining.

      Although, tonight, with the loss of Howard, yeah, it's ok to cry in a mug of burning river and raise said glass to Howard before we sleep it off and get back to work.

      It IS depressing. The trick is, not to let that stop us.

      by stormcoming on Thu Mar 13, 2008 at 08:04:03 PM PDT

  •  It's almost

    like we grew up at the height of enlightened thought in this country and now we've had to watch it recede.

    p.s. I also think we grew up with the best movies and music.

    by TracieLynn on Thu Mar 13, 2008 at 08:04:21 PM PDT

    •  If you'll forgive me,

      it being a good night to get misty eyed, Hunter S. Thompson said it best, in 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream', better than anyone ever will, (though I'm a bit too young to have have lived it directly, I lived in the aftermath, and the wreckage thereof-)

      "Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .

      History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

      My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .

      There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

      And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

      So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

      by stormcoming on Thu Mar 13, 2008 at 08:24:12 PM PDT

      •  I read that when

        I was about 20, which was 27 years ago.  I should read it again at this age.

        Great passage.  Thanks.

        by TracieLynn on Thu Mar 13, 2008 at 08:44:24 PM PDT

  •  As said elsewhere..

    well done you. I do wonder though...

    Now, these many many years later, several states away, I look at my current so called 'representative', a Democrat who is far too often a 'yes' vote to this administrations ongoing crimes and I think to myself now more than ever, we need a next generation of genuine fighters.

    whether that it seems so many in the Party do not come from a Union background, per se. Always a good way to practice hard negotiation and sticking to ones principles. The Union presence and influence is still a huge part of the Party base of course, but it does not, to me, seem well represented on the elected side. Might be part the problem.

      At least, on the upside, we have a whole lot of Fighten' Dems coming home from the Bushwar. give it time...... but I think this Donkey can defy science and grow a new spine.

    by eastvan on Thu Mar 13, 2008 at 08:06:10 PM PDT

  •  I wish you had diaried earlier,

    your recollections are valuable.  But as a western Pennsylvania blue collar descendent, I really admired the good Senator from Ohio.

    by wozzle on Thu Mar 13, 2008 at 08:39:21 PM PDT

    •  Thanks wozzle

      I really wish I could have, but honestly, it's been this difficult.

      It took me this long.

      I was very glad to see the (other) diary on the rec list though- some people have no clue who he was and that's it's own form of 'down the memory hole'. One we have to fight- hard.

      by stormcoming on Thu Mar 13, 2008 at 10:06:59 PM PDT

•  The other reason this has been so hard for me

  Is that I'm an adult who was adopted in Ohio. As some adoptive parents are beginning to express their appreciation towards the former Senator for his adoption related work, I've felt it important to try to write another piece over on my adoption related blog-
  On the Passing of Howard Metzenbaum from my particular adoption related prespective as unfortunately, it's perhaps my major area of contention with Howard's legacy.

  On adoption, he ended up working with the industry lobby which was working for permanently sealed records. Several pieces of his supported legislation laid critical groundwork for some of the really ugly adoption industry related mess we find ourselves in today.

  In short, perhaps unknowingly, he took the side of industry over the directly affected, of silencers rather than whistleblowers, and of erasing womyn as opposed to supporting them as he had so strongly in his work for abortion access.

  All of which is deeply at odds with the rest of his legacy- and I personally found deeply disturbing.

  But as I write in my Baby Love Child diary, there were reasons he may have unknowingly done what he did.

  But this one particular portion of his legacy, yes, for me has added an additional emotional and strategic layer that well, while not detracting from so much of the good he did, it is something we still live with today and it's deeply at odds with so much of the rest of the man's lifes work.

  In any case, it's a discussion I'd sort of rather have over in adoptionland, rather than here, on a night when fond rememberances are where I'd prefer to focus- were it not for this particular piece that well, affects me and many others like me.  

  by stormcoming on Thu Mar 13, 2008 at 10:18:51 PM PDT

•  I remember him in his heyday from afar.

  He was followed closely by the people in New York and New Jersey.  And he was part of a group of influential senators, including William Proxmire, who defined the Senate as a watchdog against corruption for consumers, laborers and minorities.  He is sorely needed today and it saddens me that he is gone.

  by The Totalizer on Sat Mar 15, 2008 at 01:27:09 AM PDT

•  Thank you for your testimony storm.

  Metzenbaum was one of the larger than life.

  Like contemporaries JFK and Lyndon Johnson, and yes even Barry Goldwater.

  They were  giants and milled together.

  by gogol on Sat Mar 15, 2008 at 01:52:22 AM PDT