A grown mortal man…a native of the Big Apple, was weeping,moved on hearing Mario Cuomo growing up in Queens behind agrocery store, had embraced the American Dream, and left hisbirthright on our Nation, articulating hi ennobling ideals and visions for all humans to make his ascension to those heights,their very own.
II
“A shining city on the hill,” was his allusion to the city of San Francisco, where in 1984 the Democratic Convention to elect aPresident was being held. Then into his role of three timeGovernor of the Empire Ste, he elevated his prose to E.B. white’s poetry (The New Yorker, ‘Toast of the town’) and theprose caught o our planet’s gyrations in space….
The audience were hearing an Italian son of immigrants, bred behind a grocery store, in enrapturing the listeners, with hisinspired grasp of what it is to ascent those altitudes of the Mount Everest of climbing to the crest of achievement and recognitionin all those civilized aspects of the Empire State.
III
Hit on the back of his skull by a pitched ball while playing for a minor league baseball tem,..a farm team of the Pittsburgh Pirate (Branch Rickey’s Gas House gang), he changed course, returning to his base in Queens, enrolling at Saint. Johns School of Law.
Passing the bar, wife Matilda, herself a daughter of immigrants but who attended Midwood High School in Brooklyn, he began his practice in downtown Brooklyn..the heart and soul of Montague and court Streets.
IV
His reputation got the attention of Mayor John Lindsay, whoappointed Mario to head up the cyber space deliberations of an area in Queens, named Corona. Its efficacy for Public Housing.
“A shining city on the Hill,” reverberates through the drudgery long hours rethinking the master plan for the metamorphosis ofCorona into a pattern for realizing the dreams of an adrifthumanity into Lindsay ad Mario Cuomo’s vision of public housing.
V
A grown mortal man on hearing the mesmerizing dialect of Mario Cuomo “a shining city on the Hill” began sobbing and was moved….
3 decades of life’s yesterdays since the 1984 convention. “Dutch” Reagan was the President and Democrat Walter Mondale trying to snarl the non dissembling role from Dutch ..
VI
But it was not meant to be.. “Dutch” winning another four years, Governor Cuomo returning to Albany steadfast in his role, mesmerizing the “Glove” in its revolutions , within ourgalaxy.
VII
In the meantime, the Mario Cuomo legacy and soul had taken the family to Sutton Place off the East River, wife Matilda to mentoring, one son into broadcasting, the older brother to the Governor’s mansion in Albany, his father releasing his soul , passing away several hours after attending his son’s inauguration in Albany.
VIII
A grown mortal man was weeping, moved on hearing “ the shining city on the Hill”
The Big Apple , the City that never sleeps… January 2, 2015
