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Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Lessons Learned in Hard Times Matter
By Winthrop Quigley
Of the Journal
I met Vivian Boyle earlier this month at a League of Women Voters luncheon. She is the widow of Gerry Boyle, who was chairman of the University of New Mexico economics department and the architect of several important state public financing policies.
It was a nice coincidence. Not long before, I'd interviewed David Abbey, who runs the Legislative Finance Committee staff. We talked a lot about Boyle, who died in 1991, and the spirit of public service and the obligation economists have to try to improve the world.
Boyle was one of Abbey's heroes. Probably because this year the business beat has suffered a shortage of heroes, I have found myself thinking a lot about heroism lately. Or maybe it's because this is the time of year when we hope for better things and try to find comfort and joy wherever we can.
Abbey said he and a lot of other economists and finance experts learned what public service is supposed to be from Gerry Boyle, either in the economics classroom or working with him in state government. Boyle's disciples, Abbey said, learned to serve with integrity. They learned to respect elected officials as the people's representatives. They remembered always that their job was to offer their best advice and their best efforts to accomplish the people's will.
Boyle influenced a who's who of policy movers and shakers, most of whom most New Mexicans wouldn't know but who have made state government what it is, sometimes for worse but mostly for better. Vivian Boyle speaks of them the way a proud mother speaks of her children. She speaks of her husband with special pride. "Gerry loved New Mexico," she said.
Now, in this winter of global economic discontent, comes an opportunity for everyday heroism, the kind Hemingway described as grace under pressure, which was the topic of another mealtime conversation 11 days before Christmas.
It was a birthday celebration that took place around a dinner table crowded with four generations of relatives and friends.
Times are hard, and people are worried. We talked about the economy. We wondered when things will improve. We marveled at the corruption and stupidity that Wall Street has shown us in the year that is, thank heaven, almost over.
And we talked about kindness and love.
One of us was a child during that Depression of the 1930s that for some reason we always call great, as if there were something great about 25 percent unemployment. Her father published a newspaper in Arkansas. "He was the only one with a job," she said. At any given time, as many as 35 people lived in the family home. "I never got into bed without first looking to see who else was in it," she said with a laugh. An aunt in a nearby town was known for providing a meal to any down-on-their-luck travelers who happened by.
One time her mother decided to put everyone to work. She bought a truck and sent the enormous household through town collecting trash.
Our hostess's brother found work this year after too many months of looking. As times get worse, he sees more kindness around him. His wife suggests that, with more of us facing uncertainty and even the wealthy confronting financial trouble, we are turning to one another for warmth and reassurance. Maybe, they said, we're seeing the re-emergence of character and compassion as recession drags into the new year.
Their recently married daughter, sitting across the table, said that older friends have been telling her how to create a merry Christmas in her new, poorly heated home without having to spend too much money. She gave her uncle, the birthday boy, some of the best homemade cookies I've ever tasted, one batch based on a family recipe.
Her uncle, with his best friend on his right and his wife on his left, surveyed the table. He smiled and said, "I love you all."
Experts — if in these unprecedented times there are such things — believe the recession will be over at least by the end of next year. Maybe sooner. Or not. The economic models seem to be broken, so no one really knows. We do know that we are in yet another trough in the business cycle and like all other troughs this one will end and a recovery will begin, followed by another bubble that will appear to have been obvious only after it bursts and sets off the next downturn.
During that recovery, we will forget the hard times. Maybe we'll also forget to be kind and humble and grateful for friends and for work. The next recession will remind us. Like the business cycles, love and kindness and service and heroism will not be denied.
You can reach Win at 823-3896 or wquigley@abqjournal.com.
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