Teacher spy assassin, p.38
Teacher, Spy, Assassin, page 38
I left Rochester before dawn on Monday morning for Rome. When I got to the office the board was waiting to hear my answer. I said I would take the job. They offered me a $20,000 raise. I said no. At a time that the employees were not getting a raise, neither would I. We shook hands all around.
It would be the first item of business at our next public board meeting.
The newspaper called. “Was the rumor true? Would I do an interview with the paper about taking the superintendent’s job in Rome?”
“I will be happy to spend some time with you after the board meeting on Tuesday night.”
“Then you won’t confirm that you are staying on as superintendent?”
“No,” I said.
I called Katherine to withdraw from the appointment as vice president of the college and to tell her I had accepted the job to stay on as the superintendent of schools in Rome. I explained my thinking.
“As President of your Alma Mater, I am proud of the decision that you made. As your prospective employer, I am really pissed,” she said.
It was gratifying that on the night of the board meeting a large number of the people I had worked with in town came to the meeting to support my being appointed as superintendent. The union leadership spoke on my behalf as did teachers and administrators. The Chamber of Commerce had a representative who supported my candidacy. There were even some students who were recognized to speak for me. The newspaper publisher was there with his reporter. The appointment was made. People seemed pleased to know that I had once again turned down a raise.
After the meeting, the newspaper publisher asked me where we would be staying until I found a house to buy. I mentioned the motel.
He said, “We can’t have that. I would like you and Linda to take our summer cottage on the lake until you find a place. Here are the keys and a map to find it.”
What a way to start! I moved in the next weekend. Linda split her time between Rome and Rochester. She was still rebuilding the house there, and supervising workers, but she seemed to have a real affinity for Rome. She spent a lot of time searching for a new home in Rome. We found one within the month.
It was a 3-bedroom ranch in an upper-middle-class section of the community with a very private pool. The pool was in-ground and large. But the house had not been updated in quite a few years. We bought it for $55,000 thanks to the slump in housing prices.
We started to rebuild that house, as well. I scraped off the popcorn ceiling. We built a large deck overlooking the pool and added huge double sliders to the deck.
We furnished it in things we could give away in the end.
Chapter 57: The US bombs Belgrade
Jim called. He and Pat were headed to the Adirondacks in the fall. “Could we stay with you? And, should we come to Rome or Rochester?”
He offered several dates, I took a risk and selected one. They were coming on a Friday night. I always tried to see at least one game of every team, but I was a sucker for high school football, and Rome had what might become the State Championship team this year. I knew where we would be every Friday night that there was a home game.
“Come to Rome. Get here by 3:00 p.m.,” I said.
Linda had pretty much finished the house in Rochester by the time of Jim and Pat’s October visit (not that she is ever done.) They arrived on time. I had them follow me from my office downtown to our modest home. We sat by the pool on the patio with beverages and caught up. They seemed happy. We passed on dinner at the house, to have hot dogs and nachos at the game.
We were there a half-hour early. Finding seats in the stadium was not easy. There were dozens of mostly blue-collar fans surrounding us. It was clear that I was not a stranger to these people. We engaged with almost everyone. At one point a guy I did not know squatted down next to me in the stadium aisle.
He said in a raspy voice, “Doc, number 89, there. He is my youngest. He is going to get a TD pass tonight. Mark my words. He’s a good kid. Build that high school. These kids deserve it.”
I was always getting advice and encouragement from people in town. This time Jim, Linda, and Pat were there to hear it. Linda heard it often, but she had made a lot of sacrifices for my career, and it never hurt her to hear it again. We couldn’t vote on the high school until the plans were complete and the property selected, but people were lining up to support or oppose.
We had contracted with a regional architectural firm to complete preliminary drawings and they were due in a week.
Number 89 caught many passes that night, including two for touchdowns. We crushed the other team. Rome was well on its way to being named state champs. That night, as tradition had it, Linda and Pat went off to their respective beds, and Jim and I tarried. He over his beer.
“How is Alexander/Davis?” I asked.
“I don’t think he will make it,” Jim said. “I just hope he hangs on.”
“Huh?” I grunted, truly unclear where he was going with this.
“We might have a Republican administration after the elections. If Alexander checks out after that, I have a chance to be picked as the permanent Director of Operations for the Agency. That would be a big fucking deal.”
“Oh,” I added not quite breathless. “But how is he doing?”
“Same old shit. Surgery, big hope. Back again. Chemo, big hope. Back again. More chemo, Big hope. back again. Newer, bigger, chemo. Damned near killed him. Back again. Now it is spreading. Hardly comes in anymore.”
“That’s terrible,” I said. “Maybe he should just go to hospice and let go.”
“Not going to happen, if I can prevent it. Clinton’s bunch would never promote me. I spend a lot of time with Davis’ cow of a wife telling her we should just give it another try. He is too valuable to the nation, blah, blah. I always point that out. You can’t just let him go, I plead. I beg.
“The good news is there is no one looking over my shoulder anymore,” He added. “I can do some really interesting stuff. I have people running around Kosovo stirring the pot. I have fake Albanian Kosovars attacking police barracks and fomenting revolution and fake Serbs killing Kosovars. We will have a crisis, and Clinton will have to act. This is hurting him. He will have the stain of waiting too long to act, and when he acts it will seem disproportionate to people. We will get a regime change in DC. And that won’t hurt my prospects one bit.”
“Is that true?” I asked.
“Truth?” he mumbled drunkenly. “Truth is what I say it is. I am the acting leader of the clandestine force of America’s clandestine branch. I lie for a living. People believe me.”
I went to bed and left him to find his way to his bed. He seemed not to remember the conversation in the morning. It was disturbing, but things played out about the way he said they would. The Albanians poked the Serbians, who overreacted and massacred the Albanians, which created a new irritant that prompted more hostility. Milosevic seemed to support the reprisals.
I got another call from the Middle States. There was another round of Accreditations in Eastern Europe. Could I go on an accreditation visit? The schools in Tirana, Albania; Skopje, Macedonia; and Ljubljana, Slovenia are asking for an accreditation visit in May of 1999.
“Can you do it? We have no one with the relevant language skills to lead these teams other than you,” Harry asked.
I had seen this drama before.
The Albanian population of the former Yugoslavia was clustered in two areas. The now independent nation of Macedonia, and Kosovo. If the Kosovars were going to get help from some outsiders militarily, other than NATO, it would come from the governments of Albania or Macedonia. Things were heating up in Kosovo. I would be asked to see what would happen in the region if war broke out.
“I will check,” I said. I liked the idea of getting back to Eastern Europe. But the CIA and Jim seemed amoral to me now. In the beginning, I thought I was helping the people of the US.
I was not so sure anymore. I had no one to discuss the matter with. I couldn’t talk about it with Linda. It did no good to talk about it to Jim.
In the end, I agreed to go. I called the Middle States. My visit would be scheduled for the spring of 1999.
Finally, Clinton was in a box. He had no way out. These Yugoslavian wars had gone on too long. We were looking like an ineffectual uncle, unable or unwilling to tell the errant nephew to sit down and shut up. Clinton, in the end, led NATO to bomb Belgrade. We were bombing a world capital during what was otherwise peacetime. There was no end to the controversy. Clinton and the Democrats were attacked by both the pacifists and the warmongers.
Chapter 58: My driveway finds a volunteer plowman
The decision to build a new high school in Rome was roiled in controversy. There were many issues. An early one was the decision of where to build it.
The plan was to build the high school on the Air Force Base. We had a grant of land of 76 acres on the Base from the Federal Government. The land already had three buildings on it: a bowling alley, a movie theater, and a large and graceful chapel. We hoped to incorporate the chapel, perhaps as a cafeteria, and maybe use the movie theater as a small performance space. The free land being offered already had sewer, water, electricity, and roadways. The land on a plateau and had a commanding view of the Mohawk Valley and the city beyond. Much of this large parcel could be used as playing fields on a lower plain down from the plateau that the school would be built on.
The Air Force Base had been a secure facility. People hadn’t driven around the base on a Sunday drive. It was truly terra incognita to the community. Building on a formerly forbidden piece of land seemed risky to some. They worried about what would happen if the Government reactivated it. Were there secret chemicals buried there.
The preliminary plans arrived from the regional architect. They were, in the board’s view, un- remarkable. The board wanted to hire a new architect. I was opposed. I had three years available for this project and this redesign would take time that I did not have. The winning argument from the board was “We will build a new high school once in 50-75 years; let’s not build the wrong one.” We searched for a new architect nationally and hired two firms to work together to design the new high school.
The newly joined firm wanted local input. I put together a team of PTA, teachers, school administrators, board members, and taxpayers. I joined this team at a retreat to dream up a “break the mold” high school. Soon after, sketches and design concepts began to arrive.
I made a statement that I hoped would guide the work. “I will not build a new high school to enshrine an old program. The high school building will be designed as a keystone to a new and better high school program, or we will pull the plug.”
Each academic department was to personalize its own space. Science would make spaces that encouraged a deeper understanding of physical and biological science. The English department would decide how to distribute the technology in its area to encourage writing. The old high school “shop” would now include a brand-new pre-engineering curriculum working with the Rochester Institute of Technology. The band room and the shop areas would have a garage door opening to the stage, and the stage and theater would be built as a possible venue for traveling Broadway shows. We would build a performance space worthy of our children. And there was so much more.
My Deputy Superintendent Larry Rizzo was given the day-to-day and overall supervision of the project. I would be the PR face of the project and I would be the warrior when problems threatened. I would handle the State Education Department and deal with the newspaper.
As the plans came in, we opened them to everyone.
The chapel became the cafeteria. The small classrooms around it, which had been used for Sunday school classrooms by the Air Force chaplains, became the art studios. The movie theater was inadequate and was torn down. The bowling alley would be reconfigured as a district maintenance facility. The athletic complex in the building was to include a state-of-the-art pool, with bleachers for races and a large enough apron to have life-saving and first aid courses.
There was an indoor track cantilevered from the wall for use as for indoor track and jogging. The big gym had a magnificent bleacher system that permitted seating for state and regional championships. The theater was fully professional. The stage was 100 feet by 60 feet and the fly loft could hold any scenery that any theater company could produce. There was an orchestra pit. The theater sat 2000 people and had sound synchronous lighting embedded in its cherry and glass block walls. The theater lighting system was beyond our architects, so it was designed, built, and installed by a New York City theater lighting company.
I was concerned about the ongoing costs of this structure after its construction, so I paid attention to the potential for energy savings and future maintenance costs.
At about that time, the county agency that was trying to save the Air Force Base to use for economic development called me. The Air Force Base had a cogenerating electrical plant that also produced steam to heat the 100 or so buildings on the base. It had the promise to provide cheap electricity and heat for any future tenants, at the airbase. But at the moment, they did not have enough users of the system to keep it viable. If we used their electricity and used their steam to heat our building, they could save this valuable asset to lure new businesses. If it were instead to close permanently, the new businesses would all have to begin the rebuilding of their properties with a furnace.
We negotiated with the base electric outfit and created a solution that worked for everyone. A ten-year contract with a five-year fixed rate for energy was far cheaper than could be had from the local energy companies was struck. It lessened the ongoing cost of energy and eliminated the cost and the space needed for a boiler at the new school. With the saved money we designed a heating and cooling system that continued to cut costs and used our assets well.
The pool was heated with steam. The moist air rising from the pool was circulated through the building to properly humidify it. The electricity was used in the warm months to cool a slurry of ice and water at night when demands for electricity were low. This icy mixture was stored in large “thermoses” and was circulated through pipes and run through blowers to air-condition the school. Everything was zoned and computerized. The heating and cooling could be operated remotely and automated.
The other schools in the area had operated a regional summer school for high school and middle school students. As the only air-conditioned school in the region, we would become the permanent site of that regional summer school. The fees paid by the participating schools for “rent” would pay for our annual air conditioning completely.
We designed a professional radio and television lab. All large common spaces were wired to this laboratory. And the laboratory was wired to the local cable television provider. So, students in this program could televise sporting events, school plays, the board of education meetings, presentations, and guest presenters. Every classroom was provided with a built-in video monitor. The daily announcements and the clock were projected on these monitors. The library would have all of the school’s video assets and could deliver any of them to any classroom at any time.
Teachers rethought their programs. The new spaces were designed to capture and nourish their instructional dreams. The designs of classrooms and technology were developed by academic departments and presented to a committee made up of the department chairs and the principal and the assistant superintendent for instruction, meeting with the architects and the deputy superintendent. Any member of that committee could call me in at any time to arbitrate any dispute. I was never called for that purpose. They were harder on each other’s plans than I would have been.
I insisted on a peaked roof. I had suffered too many leaking flat school roofs to build another. It had to be metal. And the windows would be tinted energy-efficient argon-filled triple-paned with integrated blinds.
I also insisted on durable surfaces. Floors and walls were largely ceramic tiles and where the paint was used it was durable shiny epoxy paint, which should last 15 years.
At last, the detailed plans were done. We were months behind due to the replacement of the initial architectural firm, but the plans encapsulated the dreams of our community for a brighter future. I asked for and got fifty complete sets of plans.
We presented the floor plans and plot plans and elevations to the board and to as many community groups as would have us. I put all 50 sets of architectural plans in the gymnasium for 12 hours for local contractors, carpenters, and builders of every sort to mark up. I wanted to know what they thought might be a problem if built to spec. We provided food, tables and chairs, and an unlimited supply of red pencils. When they were done marking up the plans, they presented them to our team of waiting architects and engineers. A decision was made on the spot. So, everyone would know what became of their suggestions. We got some real help from these building professionals. It was particularly useful for providing plumbing access to make the bathrooms easier to repair.
The board approved the plans. I went to the State Education Department for final approval, and thanks to a shared sense that this was an important economic development plan for a desperate community, it was turned around in days with only a few very helpful suggestions.
A date was established for a community referendum. I asked for a meeting with the publisher of the local newspaper. My wife, Linda, who was originally trained as a graphic artist, had worked in the art departments of several newspapers before we went overseas. When we were in Owego, she took over the advertising for a local weekly and then ran it as the publisher, and ran six weeklies in Southern Central New York and Northern Pennsylvania. When we got to Rome they knew about her background and hired her to help them be more profitable. She did. They were.
I asked for a meeting with the publisher.
He brought his parents to the meeting. They had run the paper for a generation before he took it over. I began by talking about Amsterdam’s decisions when they lost their major employer. I was able to demonstrate that retreating from the historic support for the school system would cause new businesses to stay away, and would eventually erode other local businesses which would negatively impact the newspaper’s advertising revenues and put this long-held family newspaper in jeopardy.
