So Things Go

It must simply be a function of growing older, but I now find myself reading obituaries, as always, but also expecting to read something in the obit that I know about the subject, not because I've met them, but because they're familiar to me through reading or hearing something about them when they were alive.

This happens a little more often these days and has now happened again when I read Robert McFadden's NYT obituary on William Donald Schaefer, a former mayor of Baltimore, governor of Maryland, and later comptroller of the state.

It was a daily double for Mr. McFadden because his bylined obit on William Busher appeared in the same edition.  Both subjects were well past 80, closer to 90, so it has to assumed that the morgue copies come out that McFadden had pre-written and the paper had on file already.

Each obit is a beaut, written in the clear McFadden style that always starts off with a lead that packs more information in it than an entire encyclopedia entry.  Pure reporting, few curlicues and asides, but some color nonetheless.  Somewhere between the Goat Man and 'just the facts.'

Despite living in New York my entire life I had heard of William Schaefer when he was mayor of Baltimore.  He apparently was a manager by walking-around type who left the office and saw what there was to see.  And reacted to it.  One of the things I heard of was a piece in the book 'In Pursuit of Excellance' where Mr. Schaefer's style of observation and management was held up for praise.

Baltimore had lots of problems during Mr. Schaefer's terms.  One of them was abandoned autos, stripped, burned and left at the curbs for months on end.  When I lived in Flushing (part of NYC) we had the same problems.  I was constantly calling them in and following up on their removal.  Our own block had more than its share of the problem.

So when I heard of how the mayor of Baltimore was handling it I was envious.  Mr. Scheafer apparently was driven around and noted where there several such abandoned vehicles.  He told the proper commissioner where the abandoned autos were and expected to find the autos removed fairly quickly. They weren't. Quickly, or otherwise.

Mr. Schaefer was not happy.  He set out again and noted where there were several abandoned autos.  This time he told his commissioner about them, but said he wasn't going to tell him where the autos were.  He basically said go find the ones I mean, but I won't tell you where they are.

The next shift saw at least 50 autos towed into the junk pound.  Mr. Schaefer had made his point.  Abandoned autos started to get attention.  If only New York Mayors Koch and Dinkins acted like that!

This vignette wasn't in Mr. Schaefer's obituary, but there was another example of his style, complete with a picture of the mayor in the zoo's seal pool that sufficed.  Mr. Schaefer was mayor for 16 years.  All his exploits couldn't find their way into a life's summation.  But a good one did.  And I remember another one.

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