"We Live In A Beautiful World"

I was walking through the Old Dutch Church in Kingston on Monday afternoon. As planned, I left work an hour early and by this point I had changed into jeans and a t-shirt that read “YES WE CAN.” I was carrying nothing but my red work folder and a yellow plastic bag with my “work wear” in it. I felt almost like Superman in a telephone booth at this point, going from my dress clothing to a t-shirt and jeans. I felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted from my shoulders, and I really felt like a different person.

The sun was shinning (a rarity during this summer) and I just felt happy. I was about a hundred yards from getting into my car and heading up to SPAC to see my favorite band Coldplay perform live. I had tried so hard to win tickets, I had entered multiple contests. The most promising came after I was interviewed by WDST the day before my election. As I left the airwaves, I requested the song Shiver by Coldplay, shortly after they decided to give away tickets. All I had to do was answer this simple question, “The year Jimmy Carter took office is the same year Chris Martin of Coldplay was born. What year was it?”

I was so excited when I heard this, my heart immediately started to race. I realized I still had the number to WDST in my phone. I quickly called up and I was even caller number one! In a moment of overconfidence I replied “1976!”…I was so happy, my heart was racing faster then ever, and then I heard the response, “nope” click…

As some of you may know Jimmy Carter won the 1976 election, but he didn’t take office until 1977. This kind of ruined my whole school day actually. I was still determined to get to SPAC though. I ended up hearing about a special opportunity that appealed to me on many levels. I filled out an application to actually volunteer with Oxfam for the show, this seemed perfect to me as I could help out a worthy cause and still somehow manage to see Coldplay for free! As fate would have it I got selected as one of twenty volunteers, and that meant I also got to go see Coldplay on the lawn at SPAC for free.

As I floated walking through the Church courtyard my eyes caught a man waiting at the gate. I see this same man nearly every day in the morning as I head into my internship. During my brief journey from the Court House to the County Office Building this same man always seems to find me to wish me a good morning, or ask how I am doing. Today I could read the stress right off of his face, he wasn’t smiling like he usually was and he had a lit cigarette in his hand. He asked me if I could spare a few dollars, as I reached for my wallet he said, “Please be generous sir.”

I handed the man a few singles and went on my way, I have to be honest I hesitated before I went to grab my wallet. In fact for a split second I thought maybe I should keep walking and pretend to have never heard the man. You see I had been paranoid the whole morning about how much money I was going to bring, with no paying summer job I really didn’t have too much. As I turned on the ignition and typed in my destination on my borrowed GPS, all I could think of was that man. When I walked towards him I knew something was wrong, and even with that I had to still think before I gave him a few dollars. I really felt bad about myself for hesitating, to be honest. To think I was worried about having enough money to go buy overpriced food, or if I was really lucky an expensive Coldplay shirt (because I don’t have enough shirts with musicians on them already…ha).

As I traveled down the highway I still couldn’t shake my brief encounter with the man. His face had been planted in my mind, but after a while, my personal disappointment turned into relief. I realized I had done the right thing. I may not have had a lot of money, but that man had nothing, and I had to wonder how many people did just walk past him that day. How many people saw that man and lost sight of the fact that he was human, that he was someone son, that he is maybe someone’s father, and maybe even a grandfather? I think we often lose sight of that fact when it comes to people. Here he was wearing tattered clothing and beaten by life and maybe, just maybe, my few dollars helped him out for the moment.

I remember a story that Manny Straus a congregant at my Synagogue and Holocaust survivor once told me while I was preparing for my Bar Mitzvah. Manny had been blessed enough to get out of Europe and into America. He had landed from Europe into New York City. He was about my age now, and all he wanted was enough money so he could join the army and head back to Europe in hopes of liberating his parents from the camp that he had just departed. He told me how he asked people for change, and how one man replied, “Get away from me you bum.” Manny said this with tears in his eyes. You see that man had no clue what Manny had gone through, and he really did just think Manny was a “bum.”

As I voyaged up to SPAC I kept thinking about this man and I felt pretty good about giving the man what I could spare. It was a relief very similar to what I had right before I saw him, the feeling of getting to take off my clothing that made me look creepily similar to Jim Halpert from The Office and put on my Obama t-shirt in its place.

I arrived just in time to hear Coldplay play a few numbers during sound check. I met up with the redt of the volunteers at the Oxfam table and I was really impressed there is just something amazing about getting inspired people all together to do a worthwhile task. Ours today was to collect signatures for Oxfam. Soha (the wonderful woman in charge of Oxfam on Coldplay’s Tour) set a goal of sixty signatures per person. It was a little funny collecting signatures for Oxfam. I realized I had been doing this type of thing on and off for about a year straight now, and I have no problem saying I have gotten pretty good at it. From the time the gate opened at six till right before Coldplay walked on the stage three hours later, I had amassed one hundred and sixty signatures! That means I wasn’t too far off from a signature a minute.

Before Coldplay took the stage I had collected more signatures then anyone else during a Coldplay show. In fact we ended with almost 1,400 signatures more then any other show during Coldplay’s tour! Being the compulsive Coldplay fan I am, I knew Coldplay would play a few songs on the lawn, so I asked Soha where on the lawn should I sit (I really meant where will Coldplay be playing on the lawn). Because of the number of signatures we got, Soha told me I didn’t have to worry about that, and she handed me a ticket. It was for the pit, I thanked her and she said, “Don’t thank me, thank Coldplay.”

The introduction music started playing, and I ran towards my seat. I got stopped maybe five times by the various ushers to view my ticket. Upon the ticket hitting my hand, and as the brother of a 10-year old sister, I am not embarrassed to say that I instantaneously became a “little girl.” I was screaming, running, and jumping, it was all just so surreal. I made it just as the band walked on stage and started playing the first of what would ultimately be two hours worth of songs. I was only a few feet away from the band!

As the night ended I walked only a few seconds away from SPAC to the Gideon Putnam where I had been invited by some friends to stay the night. Just by mere coincidence they had booked the hotel for a conference they were attending that was running the same time I was there. As I laid down at nearly one in the morning I couldn’t have been any more awake. I had to think about the whole experience. How different things would have been had I answered 1977?” How I got upgraded from lawn seats to the best seats in a sold out venue of nearly 25,000, or how I was now lying in a hotel room that was only a few hundred yards from SPAC, and of course I thought of the man.

In the end though I realized how important it was that I gave that man some money. I have always believed coincidences are rare and far between. Things happen for a reason, and as long as you have your eyes and your mind open you will see that.

In my mind it was no coincidence that I requested a Coldplay song on WDST, it was no coincidence that I was one year off, it was no coincidence that I ran into that man or that he ran into me, it was no coincidence I would be asked to collect signatures after doing it for about a year, and it was no coincidence that I got to stay in a suite steps away from the show. Life has a different meaning if you decided to not just always write things off as coincidences, doesn’t it?

Here are some pictures I took from the show...

http://www.oxfam.com/

Simple Twist of Fate

“….Great!” that well worded statement is the answer I gave to the question, “So how does it feel to be the youngest elected person in the history of New Paltz.” I guess I really just didn't know what to say. It feels like a lifetime ago I walked into that gym to hear the election results. I had nothing but a rose in my hand that I was given at my choir concert that had ended mere moments before. In such a short time I feel like my life has already changed so much. The graduation “high” as I have heard it described has well worn off. I have already been sworn into office, and I am currently interning in the Ulster County Comptroller’s office.

It may be summer time, but now all the real work has started. I think sometimes you just have to stop. You need to look at yourself and evaluate what is happening; I think doing this keeps people sane…for the most part. That is why I decided to write today. You see on Sunday I was invited to a fundraiser for Congressman Maurice Hinchey. It was held at the Steel House in Kingston. As I sat there with people who were probably all around twenty years older then me, I couldn’t help but think of the last time I was at the Steel House.

It was May 29, 2009 and it was also Senior Ball. The events in comparison had very different music, and let me tell you it certainly had very different dancing (I think that was for the better though). I had to ask myself how did I do this, how did I go from Senior Ball only a few weeks before to sitting at a table with a woman who felt the need to tell me all that she disliked about public schools and the Teachers Union. That discussion promptly ended with the question, “So Dan, do you want to run for office someday?”

It certainly has been an interesting calendar year to say the least. I realize only a year a go I was just coming home from American Legions Boy State, a place where I decided I didn’t want to run for any office. Instead I sat back and watched other people duke it out. I am very excited to watch and see how the rest of 2009 plays out as the first part has been pretty good to me. I can’t wait to go to Marist, I can’t wait till the Board of Education gets into full swing, I can’t wait to start working on the next campaign, and I just can’t wait to see what is around the corner!

During my relatively short time being involved in the uncharted world of politics I have received a lot of advice, some solicited but most not. I probably have received the best advice from a good friend of mine by the name of Jon Sennett, he once told me, “Do what you think is right…you don’t owe anyone anything.” I certainly have taken that to heart, and I couldn’t help but think of that piece of advice on Saturday.

I sat in a sea of people all focused on one person. That person never acknowledged the crowd, sat in the back of the stage, and wailed into the microphone. He rearranged his songs that everyone had come to know and love to a point where they became nearly unrecognizable. He is 68 and still touring, of course I am talking about Bob Dylan. I have to imagine Dylan has amounted more then enough money that he no longer needs to play dozens of shows scattered throughout the country, and yet he does.

I did notice that through the whole show Dylan seemed to smile, he seemed very comfortable and happy. To me that said it all, he played and performed the way he wanted to because he loves it, he really doesn’t care what any blog or Rolling Stone magazine has to say about it, at the end of the day he is just being himself and that’s all that really matters.

Dylan once wrote, “I try my best to be just like I am, but everyone wants you to be just like them.” I hope that when I am 68 I can still see the beauty in the way he performs. I hope as the next days, weeks, months, and years pass I can picture Dylan singing Maggie's Farm in just the way that only he can, and always keep in mind that small but ever so important piece of advice that Mr. Sennett gave me.