In the Heart of It All

F. Celeste Richard

Sujets

• Lettres et linguistique

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 22 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781631014932
• Langue: English

Extrait

In the Heart of It All
In the Heart of It All
An Unvarnished Account of My Life in Public Service
Richard F. Celeste

The Kent State University Press
KENT, OHIO
© 2022 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242
All rights reserved
Unless otherwise noted, all photographs are courtesy of the author.
ISBN 978-1-60635-445-2
Manufactured in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced, in any manner whatsoever, without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of short quotations in critical reviews or articles.
Cataloging information for this title is available at the Library of Congress.
26 25 24 23 22 5 4 3 2 1
To Jacqueline and to my children, you keep me going.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
  1 In the Beginning
  2 Yale
  3 Oxford
  4 India
  5 On to Columbus
  6 The Awkward Challenge
  7 Peace Corps
  8 Landslide
  9 First Term and Other Crises
10 Savings and Loans
11 A Second Term and the Presidency
12 Private Life and Other Unexpected Destinations
13 What’s the Situation That Prevails?
Epilogue
Index
Preface
In eighty years, I have moved my home base from the shores of Lake Erie to the foot of Pikes Peak. But in the eight decades that took me far beyond my early dreams, I have always considered Lakewood, Ohio, home. And I suppose I have carried its influence with me on every step of my life’s journey.
That journey has been one richly blessed. My grandmother Bessie Louis liked to say that “it is a mighty long road that has no turns.” And I have experienced many turns, some planned and others unexpected, along the way. As I have reflected on and recorded the pulls and tugs toward a life of public service, several themes emerged.
First, people—even, or maybe especially, people we know well—are full of surprises. Early on I developed an enthusiasm for engaging with folks who could be quite different from me—the Latvian family who came to live with us for a year or so as “DPs” (displaced persons), the voice of someone my uncle Wolcott reached on his ham radio (W8BHJ—B-boy-H-henry-J-john), kids at Methodist Youth Conference from all across the country. As curious as I was about others, I was never curious enough. How could I not know what inspired Bessie’s love of travel or realize that Carolina, my Italian grandmother, had “healing hands.” The pages that follow have only intensified my curiosity.
Second, public service is a calling that unites us all to some degree. But as my family reminded me by word and example, those of us who are especially blessed with talent or resources have a special obligation. No biblical passage was more frequently cited in my youth than “to whom much is given, much is expected.”
I suspect that notion has served as a prod for me when, at each pause in my journey, I have considered what might come next. Even now, when someone asks, “What are you going to do when you retire?” I find myself wondering what I might do that would repay the remarkable opportunities I have been given.
Which brings me to the third theme: make room for serendipity in your life. We all are presented with unexpected moments in life. We need to seize them. I had no idea that a chance conversation with the mother of a fellow Yalie as I was leaving a congressional hearing would lead to a vibrant relationship, first with him on our campus, then with his sister at the Peace Corps, and finally with his father in India.
Nor would I have imagined that pursuing the presidency of Case Western Reserve University would lead me to Colorado College. Embracing the unexpected can bring challenges and joy and, yes, sometimes pain. But always growth and usually fresh opportunities to make a difference in lives along the way.
I try in these pages to share as honestly as I can the influences that led me to devote my life to public service—both in and beyond the political arena. I have tried to illuminate some of the dark corners of political life.
But even more I hope that I convey the fun and the fulfillment that come with working to bring people together around a common vision and to build a constituency for change. Today, as much as at any time in our history, we need the energy, the imagination and the enthusiasm of young people engaged in building the constituency for change.
Acknowledgments
I tell the story of the profound influence my parents and grandparents had on me. So did teachers and friends. A career in politics, diplomacy, public service, and higher education is not a one-man-band. I have benefited enormously from the many individuals who inspired me, knocked on doors for me, shaped policy initiatives, fashioned mission statements, and generally did their best to help me pursue ambitious goals.
Some are mentioned in this story. Far too many are not. Without the enthusiasm of both named and unnamed, and their energy and commitment, none of what I have described in this book would have been possible. Come to think of it, each of them might well have a different take on the various events I have described.
I have been encouraged to write a book (not sure whether those doing the encouraging had this result in mind) for a very long time. Dagmar prodded me. Gabriella offered to help. Each of my children nudged me. Finally, Jacqueline and Sam set an example with books of their own.
It took a conversation with Steve Hayward, a young Colorado College professor we had lured from John Carroll University—and a gifted writer—to get me started. With material support from Dennis Gallagher and much more than that from my son Christopher, I began in earnest.
I was an unconventional choice to lead Colorado College. And this book is an unconventional choice for the Kent State University Press. I am grateful, in both cases, to those who took a chance on me.
Finally, this book describes events from my perspective with, I am sure, some gaps in memory and some descriptions shaped in my bias. I have tried to be truthful. But most of all I have tried to convey how blessed I feel for the opportunities to serve that I have been given.
I hope that readers, especially young ones who are eager to shape a neighborhood, or a state or a nation—even the world beyond—will be encouraged to speak out, sit in, and just maybe run and run again.
Chapter 1
In the Beginning
Like my maternal grandmother, Bessie Louis, I keep everything. When I was growing up in Lakewood, on the shores of Lake Erie, Bessie’s house on Summit Avenue was just a short bike ride from my parents’ on Arthur Avenue. I’d ride over, and the two of us would spend hours together, often sitting under the two fine apple trees in her backyard. We’d share freshly made sugar cookies, and she would show me the things she’d saved. Her father’s cutlery from the Civil War, primitive-looking but solidly made. A faded black-and-white photograph of her standing next to her brother in Alaska, the two of them grinning broadly as a lake glints silver in the background. Photos of her trip to Yellowstone.
I have kept everything and added to the collection myself: report cards, campaign buttons, endless photographs, letters written and received.
For most of my life, I have consciously not looked back. Admittedly, it’s a kind of contradiction. I keep everything but don’t dwell on the past. The experience of writing a book, however, finds me asking questions about days gone by, staring at things I’ve not looked at for fifty years or more—high school yearbooks, old campaign materials, photographs in which I can recognize some but not all of the people. Where did my story begin?
In an important sense, the story of my life commenced before I was born. Long before, in fact, in a small classroom in Monessen, Pennsylvania, the sooty steel town where my father, Frank Celeste, grew up. Most of the pupils in the civics class were immigrants or the children of immigrants. The teacher stood before them, her lesson—who can and cannot be president of the United States. To be president, she informed her pupils, you must be born a US citizen. “For example, Frank Celeste here,” she said, mispronouncing the final “e” in order to make it sound more foreign, more Italian, “could not be president.”
To which my father is said to have quickly replied: “Yes, but my son could be.”
Two decades later, on November 11, 1937, I was born in Cleveland, Ohio. From the very first, I had a lot to live up to.
Both of my Italian grandparents came from large families: my grandfather had been one of twelve; my grandmother one of thirteen. My grandmother—Carolina Santoro—was born to Ferdinand Santoro and Carmela Greco in Cerisano, Italy, in Calabria. Not long after she married my grandfather, Serafino Celeste, he left to start a new life in the United States. My father was born on March 24, 1907, and arrived at Ellis Island as an infant on December 8, 1907, on a ship called the Cretic . My grandfather had already made his way to Monessen by that point, briefly owning and operating a skating rink before going to work in the steel mills.
Though my father was too young to remember the journey from Italy, he would often talk about the way it had changed things for them. It was not just the distances they had traveled or the new opportunities now available—even their names became “American.” Francesco became Frank; Serafino, Sam.
Monessen was a tough, unbeautiful place, and they were poor. For a few pennies, my father would fetch fresh eggs from the chicken coops for the women who lived on Morgan Avenue, carrying them upstairs each morning. One of my father’s stories described how embarrassed he’d been the day he forgot to deliver one of the eggs and went to school with it still in his pants pocket. When he sat down, it cracked and the yolk went everywhere. He suffered through the rest of the day. There was no point in going home to change; he didn’t own a second pair of pants.
Like most of the young men who lived i