UFT Solidarity Plays Make Believe

Remember when we were children and would play make believe? Or wish we were someone else? Or pretend we were someone else?

When I was 6 I had a kiddie Mets uniform (I wasn't yet a Yankees fan. I was a year removed from living in Flushing). I remember wearing it along with my dad's black dress socks and pretending I was Art Shamsky.

There is a photo somewhere of me when I was about 4 years old dressed up in my dad's suit and dress shoes pretending I was going to work.

When I was 8 years old my family and I went on a trip to Washington, DC. We met with our then congressman, Peter Peyser. He gave us a quick tour of the Capitol Building and showed us the vice president's ceremonial office. My dad took a photo of me sitting in the chair pretending to be Spiro Agnew.

When I was a little older and playing wiffle ball in my friend's backyard I would do a mean imitation of Bobby Murcer's batting stance.

When the 1973 baseball season opened and Thurman Munson was sporting a mustache for the first time I knew I had to have one when I was old enough. Sure enough I grew one in high school.

Heck, I had a friend who told me that he had tunnels in his house which led all the way to the Concord Road School in Ardsley. But he was only 7 years old when he told me.


But remember, these are all done as a child. Fantasy and make believe and imitation is part of the growth process. When we become adults, the days of fantasy and make believe should end.

So when one goes to a UFT function honoring retirees and can't but help make it about oneself, one must wonder where one is coming from and why.

Hey, want to go up to the podium and satisfy some primal Freudian shortcomings, fine go ahead, play make believe. But the continued desperate need for self delusion and adulation by the naive sycophantic minority by posting the photo on Facebook, well...it's weird. Really, really weird (Click to enlarge).

It's time to remove oneself from fantasy land.

It's not going to happen. Ever.