The Negotiator Read online

  My two oldest brothers’ teams won the State and New England championships, and Robbie’s won the State Championship. I played on the junior varsity in my sophomore and junior years and made the varsity in my senior year, but I started only one game (and played poorly) and played little in the others. I couldn’t even make the tournament team. That was the low point, the final humiliation. The best teams in the state are divided into the eastern and western Maine tournaments of eight teams each; then the winners of the two regional tournaments meet for the State Championship. When tournament time came, our squad had to be cut to ten, down from the twelve that were carried during the year. The coach gave me and one other sad boy the bad news. As a consolation he asked us to come to the tournament with the team as ball boys. Ball boys! I was so surprised, hurt, and angry I was afraid I’d cry if I opened my mouth. So I didn’t say anything. Neither did the other boy (I assume for the same reason). The coach took our silence for acquiescence, and we went to the tournament as ball boys. Fortunately all of my brothers were away. If they had been at home, they would have made fun of me and made me even more miserable than I was.

  My father handled the situation well. He encouraged my brothers without discouraging me. He kept sports in the proper perspective and emphasized scholastic achievement. He urged me to study, to read, to get the education he never had but that he was determined his children would have. I didn’t really listen, didn’t read or study much. But every time I attended a game or a practice and heard other fathers yelling at their kids, at the opposing team, at the coaches, at the referees, I silently thanked God for my father. He attended some games, but by no means all the ones in which we played, and when he did attend he sat quietly, never raising his voice.

  Not so my mother. She attended many more games than did my father. Although she didn’t understand any of the sports involved, her point of view was simple: her boys were playing and she was there for them. In 1949, when I was a junior in high school and Robbie a senior, Waterville won the Eastern Maine Championship and played South Portland for the state title. Robbie was the star of the team and had a great night in the championship game, scoring twenty-one points and leading Waterville to victory. According to several eyewitnesses, my mother was seated directly in front of a man who throughout the game made loud and abusive remarks about Robbie. Finally, during a timeout, unable to stand it any longer, she stood up, wheeled around, swung her handbag, and belted the man on the side of the head. As she did so, she shouted, “That’s my son you’re talking about!” The crowd around her cheered. The man, obviously embarrassed, sat silently through the rest of the game.

  While supportive of her sons, she understood the meaning of team effort. In the fall of Johnny’s junior year in high school, he refused to report when the basketball team started practice. He was angry at the coach because in the last game of the recently concluded football season, the coach had used Johnny for only a few minutes. The same man coached both football and basketball, and Johnny fancied himself a star in both sports. He was sitting around the house one afternoon after school, sulking. My mother was baking bread at the time. She asked him why he wasn’t at basketball practice. She was holding a large wooden spatula that she used for baking bread. When Johnny told her why he wasn’t at practice, she hit him with the spatula, which broke apart. “You psynee!” she said, using the Arabic word for kitten, or pussycat, which she frequently called Johnny. “You’re going to practice right now.” She grabbed him by the ear and started for the door. He, fearing the embarrassment of having his mother drag him into practice, pleaded with her to let him go alone. She made him call the coach and tell him he’d be there in fifteen minutes. He didn’t miss another practice. That year Waterville was undefeated and became the first (and still only) Maine team to win the New England High School Basketball Championship when all six states participated. In the final game, held at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, Johnny excelled and was named the Most Valuable Player. It was his eighteenth birthday.

  Our mother didn’t understand anything about baseball, but because her children listened to the games on the radio, so did she. Because her children loved the Red Sox and idolized Ted Williams, so did she. She had great fun talking back to the radio, arguing with the announcer, all in fractured English that kept everybody laughing, and when Williams hit a home run she led the cheers. Although I didn’t think of her in such terms at the time, she was a lot of fun to be around, especially when she was in her jovial, self-deprecating moods.

  By my senior year in high school my relative lack of athletic ability was evident to everyone. But I wouldn’t admit it. I went to college determined to play basketball and prove to my brothers that I could keep pace with them. Although I played more in college than I did in high school, and even more later while in the army, I gradually came to realize and accept the truth. It was a hard but useful lesson.

  EVERYONE WORKED

  Although I did not understand how or why, and still cannot fully explain it, my father insisted that I move rapidly through the school system. As a result I entered high school two weeks after I turned thirteen and graduated when I was sixteen. My father was proud of my brothers’ achievements, of course, but he had not gone beyond the fourth grade, so to him learning was everything. Whenever I was in tears or dejected (or both) at not having done well in a sport, he always tried to console me: “Don’t worry about it, it’s not that important. You study hard and someday your brothers will look up to you, just like you look up to them now.” I didn’t believe him, but he did increase my incentive to do well in school.

  As far back as I can remember, everyone in our family worked: delivering newspapers, mowing lawns, washing cars, sweeping floors, shoveling snow, in textile mills and paper mills, self-employed and for others. We never talked about it; it was expected and we just did it. I still remember clearly the two most difficult jobs I had, one because it was too cold, the other too hot. I hated waking up early to deliver morning newspapers. It was dark, extremely cold in the winter, and the pile of papers we loaded into our delivery bags was heavy. I could just barely lift the bag when it was full, so the early deliveries were the hardest. Although just a few blocks long, the route seemed endless. It was a joy to get back home to a steaming cup of hot chocolate. For a few years I also delivered afternoon papers, then published in Portland and Lewiston. That was much easier; there were no home deliveries. Sales were made directly, in places like Bill’s Bar, just off Front Street, where workers returning home would stop for a beer. We newsboys would burst into the bar yelling, “Portland Evening Express!” or “Lewiston Evening Journal!” as we scrambled for sales from the friendly workers.

  The other job that was difficult was picking beans in the summer. Large farms (or so they seemed at the time) outside of Waterville grew green beans, which were harvested in August. Kids from Waterville were bused to the farms in the morning and spent the day picking. Pay was based on the volume of beans picked, so speed was of the essence. The fastest way was to stand with your legs upright, one foot on either side of the row of beans, your back bent at a ninety-degree angle as you stooped to pick the beans and move quickly down each row. But after a short time the back pain was severe. The alternative was to crawl up and down the space between the rows on your hands and knees; that was easier on your back but much slower and less profitable. So, depending on your individual tolerance, you would stoop as long as you could, then crawl for as short a time as necessary. Inevitably the amount of stooping was greatest early in the morning; as the sun rose and the day got hotter, we (especially the younger kids like me) tired quickly and ended the day crawling ever more slowly. It was difficult work, but the few dollars we earned made a difference at home. We were fortunate that the harvest season was only a few weeks long. Many years later, as a lawyer on a business trip, I found myself standing in truly large agricultural fields in western Arizona and southern California watching migrant laborers pick vegetables under a brutally hot s
un. I thought of how fortunate I was to have had to do such work for just a couple of weeks over a few summers, and I wondered if any of the children I was watching would have the same luck in their lives as I had in mine.

  I worked my way through college as a truck driver, an advertising salesman, a dormitory proctor, and a fraternity steward. I then worked full time as an insurance adjuster while attending law school at night. To me this was not remarkable. It was the way of life I learned from my parents.

  ELVIRA WHITTEN

  Those who know me know that my mother, my father, and Edmund Muskie were three of the most influential persons in my life. Few know who the fourth person was.

  I have read accounts that describe me in early youth as studious and always with a book in my hand, but those accounts are inaccurate. Before high school I had done no meaningful reading. If I did have a book in my hand, it was a comic book (or, as we called them at the time, a funny book). Otherwise I read only the bare minimum of textbooks necessary to get through school.

  Then I met Elvira Whitten, who taught English at Waterville High School. I was in her class in my junior year. I was fifteen years old, naïve, lacking in confidence and self-esteem. She was elderly, intelligent, kind, formal, and erect. With her gray hair swept up on her head she was attractive in a dignified, straitlaced way. She was strict, but she had a calm and gentle manner that effectively banished fear and intimidation from her classroom. One day she asked me to come back to her class after school. I did, not knowing what to expect.

  She pulled a chair up beside her desk and asked me to sit down. I did so, nervously. She looked directly at me and, after a slight pause, asked, “What do you read?” I heard and understood her but instinctively answered, “What do you mean?” She asked again, “What do you read?” Then she added, “Books. Do you read any books? Or magazines, or newspapers?” I told her, truthfully, that the only books I read were textbooks and that I read those only to the extent needed to get by. I was too embarrassed to add that most of my reading was of comic books.

  She smiled and said, “I think you’re ready for more serious reading.” She lifted a book from her desk and handed it to me. “Start with this. When you finish it come back and tell me about it.” I took the book and scanned the cover. The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck. It was a short book, a novella. Mrs. Whitten said, “You don’t have to do this, it won’t affect your grade one way or the other, but I hope you will. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

  I admired her so much that I would have done just about anything to gain her approval. “I’ll read it. I want to read it,” I responded. That evening I started reading. The story is a fictionalized account of the Nazi occupation of Norway during World War II. I found it riveting and, interrupted only by my chores at the Boys Club and the office building next door, read it straight through, finishing that night. The next school day passed slowly for me, eager as I was to report to Mrs. Whitten. After her class, nervous and excited, I told her about it, delivering an emotional book report that was almost as long as the book. She smiled and in her reassuring manner took back the book and handed me another one, Parnassus on Wheels. “This one is different,” she said, “but I think you’ll like it.” She was right.

  From November to late May I read fiction, history, biography, long books, short books. She picked them out; I read and reported to her on them. I wasn’t conscious of it, but my life was changing. Then in May, after one of my reports, I waited for her to hand me the next book. Her smile and tone of voice were the same as she said, “I think you’re ready to choose your own books.” I was surprised, and my face must have betrayed my disappointment at the prospect of no longer being able to meet with her after class, so she quickly added, “Of course if you read something really interesting and want to tell me about it I hope you’ll do so.” Relieved, but still sad, I left.

  I spent weeks pondering my choice. I wanted to keep reading, but I had no basis for decision. I had enjoyed reading every book Mrs. Whitten gave me, in part because they came from her. For days I wandered through both the school library and the public library, browsing, looking through stacks and lists, wondering what Mrs. Whitten would think of my choice. Finally I settled on three books, known collectively as The Bounty Trilogy. That summer I raced through Mutiny on the Bounty, Men Against the Sea, and Pitcairn’s Island. Fletcher Christian and Captain Bligh came alive for me. For the first summer of my life baseball had competition. It was an unsettling surprise to me that by mid-August I looked forward to my next book as much as I did to my next ball game.

  One of the great regrets of my life is that I never returned as an adult to thank Mrs. Whitten in person. I’m certain that my life would have been different, far less meaningful, had I not been one of her students.

  My early failure to comprehend and thank her for her role in my life is consistent with our society’s failure to properly recognize and value the contributions made daily by thousands of Elvira Whittens. All across America, extraordinary and devoted men and women teach, and also shape and inspire, our children. We should do much more to raise their status and compensation. We all benefit if in our society as many young Americans as possible reach their full potential.

  A half century later I tried to make up for my failure. After I retired from the Senate I established a scholarship fund to help young students in need to attend and graduate from college. At the first event the guest speaker was Mrs. Whitten’s daughter. At my request she had traveled from New Hampshire, where she lives, to Maine. As I introduced her, I told the large crowd in attendance about the huge contribution her mother had made to my life. It was gratifying to be able to describe that contribution to her daughter.

  ROBBIE

  It started early in life. Paul and John competed, and occasionally fought, as did Robbie and I. My father nailed a backboard with an attached hoop to the backside of the house. The driveway was dirt but smooth enough to dribble on. There was one drawback: right next to the basket, the house angled back to the garage. Someone driving for a layup, if not careful, could run into a sharp corner of the house. Robbie, my friend Ron Stevens, and I were playing there one day, alternating one-on-one. Robbie was older, bigger, and a better athlete than Ron or I. He was outscoring us and elbowing, pushing, and knocking us around. Angry at losing and taking a physical beating in the process, I let him drive past me for a layup, and, just as he started up to take it, I shoved him from behind, right into the corner of the house. He hit it hard, bounced off, and fell heavily to the ground. I immediately regretted what I’d done and, thinking he was seriously hurt, started toward him. Just before I got to him, he jumped up and came at me, swearing and swinging. His first punch hit me square in the face and knocked me backward, over a low wire fence that separated the driveway from the garden. He jumped over the fence, landed on top of me, and started slugging away. Fortunately for me, Ron began yelling, “He’s killing him! He’s killing him!” My mother ran out of the house and pulled Robbie off me, thereby saving, if not my honor, at least my teeth.

  The competition continued in other ways, and in most of them Robbie scored heavily. We were close in age, born just twenty months apart, separated by one year in school. We grew up together, he the older brother who was a prominent athlete, who always had money and a girlfriend, I the younger, frail brother who was not good in sports, hardly ever had a date, and worked for him to earn spending money. In his senior year Robbie led Waterville High School to the state title in basketball and was voted the Most Valuable Player in the championship game. In my senior year I was unable to make the varsity team. That accurately summed up the difference in our status. Yet I loved and admired him.

  While still in high school he was already a successful entrepreneur, engaged in several business ventures. On most afternoons and evenings during the school year we and many of our classmates went to the Boys Club to play, mostly basketball. One evening Robbie approached me with a proposition. He said he had gotten “the concession” to do the jani
torial work at the Boys Club; if I were willing to help he would split the fee with me. I didn’t know what it meant to get a concession, but it sounded important, so I quickly accepted his offer. I had worked for Robbie before; he was a good source of spending money. At nine o’clock, when the Club closed, he handed me a broom and told me to sweep all of the floors, dust the desks and chairs, empty the wastebaskets, and clean the bathrooms. While I was working he went into the director’s office, sat in the director’s chair, put his feet up on the director’s desk, and talked on the telephone with Janet Fraser, then his girlfriend, later his wife. When I cleaned the director’s office I had to be quiet so as not to disturb him. At ten-thirty I reported to him that I had finished. He said good night to Janet, hung up the phone, and we went home.

  At the end of the first week he paid me $2.50. I thanked him and thought about how lucky I was to have such a smart and generous brother. A few weeks later he told me he had gotten “the concession” to do the janitorial work at a small office building next door to the Boys Club, and he offered me the same deal. I couldn’t believe my luck. I already had two other jobs, delivering newspapers in the morning and washing cars at a used-car lot in the afternoon, so with this new job I would be earning over $10 a week—an incredible amount of money at the time. I had been at it long enough to be able to clean the Boys Club in an hour; the office building took another hour. So Robbie talked to Janet on the phone for two hours every night. I couldn’t figure out how they could see each other at school every day and still find something to talk about for two hours each night. I suppose it beat cleaning the bathrooms.