Ode to Lamar Cox

First, a note: I worked for Lamar Cox and his wife Sandra for twenty years. He died this March. I was asked by his family to speak at his June memorial service, and the poem that follows is what I shared. 

For Lamar Cox 

It’s a rare person who does it all well – 

From modest beginnings, who could foretell 

The heights you would rise to, the ways you’d excel? 

On mental agility first let us dwell: 

In the first cohort of Black enrollees 

At U Cincinnati Engineering, 50’s, 

The six of you studied, and then stayed in touch, 

For breaking that barrier enabled so much. 

You ran the high hurdles on the track team 

Though for your height and build, that looked extreme – 

It’s the spring in your stride, not the length of your limbs 

That launches you upward, those hurdles to skim. 

In corporate America you found a place 

To tap into your insight, in the rat race 

But patents and kudos could not suffice – 

Being your own man was worth sacrifice. 

But without a partner, what is a life? 

On your second go, you met your soul’s wife. 

From New York to Washington, finding your spot: 

The American Enterprises juggernaut. 

And that’s where I met you, in an interview 

For office assistant – you thought I would do 

Helping you manage your businesses there 

I worked for a couple beyond compare. 

On alarm systems and CCTV 

You applied the knowledge of your degree -

A motion sensor, in a house with a cat? 

Sure, you had a solution for that. 

Upside-down mounting would keep it from seeing 

That false-alarm magnet, jumping and fleeing. 

Your intuition alerted you 

When embezzlement came into view 

Without a fuss you put it right -

I admired that insight. 

To set up shop in Silver Spring 

You proved you could do anything: 

Cutting new doorways, finished and fine, 

Track lighting making the showroom shine – 

I watched you cut glass shelves like a pro, 

Scoring above then tapping below, 

Breaking them cleanly along that edge – 

A deft and able personage! 

Did I mention your musical gift? 

Operatic tones through the office would drift – 

And hosting friends at Christmas parties, 

With Charlotte Douglass on the keys 

Leading us all to sing a carol 

In our holiday apparel. 

Stories you shared – a bit of New York lore – 

A customer at the floral store 

Who occasioned a running gag: 

“You couldn’t put a dog in a bag!” 

 In marriage, you advised, “fight fair – 

Calling names you should foreswear. 

Never hit then when they’re low 

 That’ll be you sometime, you know. 

Once you’ve fought, then let it go – 

You don’t need bravissimo. 

A cultivated love will grow 

Stronger when kindness you bestow.” 

We miss you, Lamar, your life well made 

Inspires every accolade: 

Employer, and a mentor too – 

As family I think of you – 

No one can be in another’s skin 

But soul to soul, we’re still akin. 

Love, NC Weil

Prague Winter, by Madeleine Albright

Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s 2012 memoir of her childhood in Czechoslovakia, England, and Yugoslavia 1937-1948 covers history you may think you know, from the vantage of a small country caught in the tides of larger powers. After the Anschluss, in which Nazi Germany annexed Austria, the next to fall was Czechoslovakia. The small nation was multi-ethnic, and its German-majority region pushed to join Germany. 

Once the war began in earnest, Nazi occupiers created the Terezin camp, packing in resident Jews while creating for willing-to-believe inspectors a “model city” in which its detainees were dressed up and served abundant food – bounty that was snatched away as soon as the inspectors left. People were packed 50 to a room, disease was rampant, food and medicine in short supply, and soon transports began to death camps in Poland. 

Albright learned at the age of 57 that she had Jewish ancestry. Her non-religious parents converted to Catholicism, partly to protect her and her younger siblings, and partly so her father, Joseph Korbel, could continue his diplomatic career. She followed in his footsteps with her own ability to balance needs and forces, to find justice in difficult situations. We may cringe now at the notion of the Soviet Union as anyone’s savior, yet in WWII, small countries in eastern Europe had little choice, and made pacts with Stalin in hopes of establishing post-war autonomy. Although the Iron Curtain fell across Europe and Soviet forces supported Communist governments, leaders hoped to make the best of a situation they could not control. 

As she notes early in the book, “A scholar,” wrote my father, “inescapably reads the historical record in much the same way as he would look in a mirror – what is most clear to him is the image of his own values [and] sense of… identity.” And events bear out this assertion – again and again, people see what they want to, what fits their image of the world, blocking out uncomfortable facts that threaten that view.

This book is worth your time: because Albright is a fine writer; because she casts light from a lesser-known angle on events we consider familiar; because she understands the compromises forced on politicians, diplomats, and citizens by the sweep of history. She condemns cravenness and cruelty, but not well-meaning efforts to ameliorate harm. 

I think we read about and study WWII so much because it strikes us as a just war: unmitigated aggression coupled with genocidal plans and manifestations of pure evil, clashing with forces reluctant to take up arms, but whose courage aids their response. Righteous causes in war exist mostly in the eyes of politicians and generals – those who must do the actual fighting find less to beat their chests about. But as we watch Ukraine struggle against Russia, should we be sitting on the sidelines while their cities are bombed and people shot?