The Kid with It All

About six months after my 18th birthday, my parents’ forewarnings came to pass. I worked an unpaid internship at a Texas newspaper, the San Antonio Light, where my dad was the assistant CEO. Early one evening, about three weeks into it, I was speaking with one of the newspaper’s oldest and longest-serving reporters, Frank Trejo.

 

Unlike many reporters who spent a life writing nearly every story carried out by car thieves, murderers, rapists, serial killers, cops gone bad, run-of-the-mill thugs, and politicians incapable of telling the truth, Frank wasn’t cynical. He was a happy-go-lucky man and, on this particular evening, dispensing advice to make me better in my chosen profession. I devoured his words like a famished kid and even took notes because that’s what good rookies do: Listen to those who’ve come before them.

 

Across the newsroom, eyeing the conversation, was another man. The fact that he couldn’t hear it didn’t matter. He was about 10 years older than me and about 45 years younger than Frank. Life was different for him; authority figures weren’t to be trusted. 

 

“Hey, Trejo!” he screamed across the newsroom, standing behind a five-foot-tall partition where his pens, paints, paper and drawing board were kept for his editorial cartoons. “Are you trying to get a promotion – or a raise!?”

 

As much as the incident pissed me off – and I never mentioned it to my old man – this was exactly what my parents warned me about: People were going to look at me, the son of a prominent executive, and issue judgment because I was following dad’s footsteps.

 

To be the child of a highly successful executive is no easy path to travel, especially if you’re following them into their chosen career. It’s quite treacherous. As my parents warned me, all eyes are on that person. 

 

They endure hushed voices as their colleagues issue biased, harsh, and, often, unfair convictions not only about their abilities and their work but also about what they wear, how they speak, and how they conduct themselves -- something they themselves likely never endured, especially with such furor. 

 

One of the best lines I ever heard about my intent was six years later, during my first week in the circulation department, now called consumer sales, of a gritty tabloid newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times, where my dad was the CEO. I suggested to one of the department’s mid-level executives, who was overseeing my entrée into the department, that I spend my first weekend shadowing one of the division managers so I could improve my understanding of how the paper was distributed and sold. 

 

Nick Manzi called down to the city circulation manager, asking if there was anyone I could tag along with. 

 

“What the hell does he want to do that for?” Ian Clark barked. 

 

“He wants to work,” Nick replied.

 

Soon it was arranged, and I met the division manager at 6 a.m. on Sunday. We spent the day traveling in the city and around the greater Chicago area, visiting various retail outlets, newsstands and both airports, seeing how the paper was presented. We spoke with a few store clerks and managers, too. 

 

I learned a lot that day: One of the reasons people purchased the Sun-Times instead of the Chicago Tribune was because it was far easier to read on a standing-room only El train into the Loop, where many of the city’s businesses were located. It also had the best sports coverage. And winning local teams helped sell copies – big time! 

 

These lessons continued when I worked during the morning’s wee hours, filling the newspaper’s sales boxes – now artifacts from a bygone era – around the city, including those adjacent to Cabrini Green. I delivered copies in sub-zero temperatures, even blizzards, and retain harrowing memories of traveling on the Kennedy Expressway, with about a foot of snow on the ground and more falling, at 1 a.m. to get to a suburb, Wheeling, doing 360s on the highway as I drove one of the newspaper’s 1980s Chevrolet Caprices, which, in those days, were large, heavy, four-door gas guzzlers.

 

“You’ll have to work harder than the next guy,” Dad said before I joined the paper. “And you need to understand it better than everyone, too.”

 

Joan Kane, Dad’s executive assistant, provided even more cutting advice: Consider yourself a public figure, she said.

 

I picked up the hint.

 

Hunter Biden, the president’s younger son, fills me with empathy. Living in a fishbowl isn’t easy. He had no more control over his dad’s career than I had over my dad’s and the steps he took to ascend to the top of his profession.

 

Joe Biden did what was best for Joe Biden and, perhaps, as he contemplated each campaign, he thought about his family. Of course, this is something only those within the Biden inner circle will know. 

 

But it’s a lesson. You can be incredibly successful, as the president is, but if your young are ensconced in legal issues, become front page news, or can’t seem to get a handle on their demons, that says something about the parenting.

 

It’s unfair. It’s harsh. It’s as unforgiving as what any child endures when following their parents into their profession or living in a fishbowl.

 

As these stories about Hunter’s legal woes, personal failings, and drug and alcohol abuse come to pass, there are likely many who wonder, me included, what kind of father Joe Biden was to him. Was he there for those critical moments when Hunter was much younger or during the teenage years, sometimes filled with danger and trepidation? What lessons did he impart, and what nurturing did he provide when Hunter was younger and into adulthood?

 

Parenting never stops. I know. I've got two in college. 

As children grow up, they need their parents less. They’re making their way and their name in the world. But when the child is front-page news, and the articles are centered on legal woes and, sometimes questionable business affairs, some of it is a reflection on the parents. 

 

Did Joe Biden set up his kid?

Alzheimer's and the Health of Public Officials

Years ago, when covering Massachusetts public schools and the state’s education department for Bay State Parent, a monthly magazine, I had my own run-in when writing about the health of a public official. Instead of it being the governor, or even the president of the United States, it was the Bay State’s education commissioner. Mitchell Chester wielded a lot of power, overseeing the state’s K-12 public schools. 

 

If the teachers’ unions weren’t taking issue with him, it was the parents and others who thought they knew better than he about the best way to educate kids. I interviewed him a few times, and I always found him quite pleasant.

 

In fact, I often thought if the state board of education – to whom he reported – really wanted to sell what the Department was doing – pushing standardized testing, especially Common Core – they should have put on him on the road, doing more public speaking around the Commonwealth. He made a strong case for standardized testing -- “the system needs feedback" -- and he always did it with a smile. He was very engaging.

 

Tragically, back in 2017, he was diagnosed with cancer. The Department didn’t make the news public, but the board of education allowed Chester so much time away from the office they appointed one of the Education Department’s top leaders “acting commissioner.” The appointment and Chester’s health were kept out of the public eye.

 

Then, one Friday afternoon, an incontrovertible source called me. This individual had a lengthy professional history with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. They had worked alongside Chester for years and had also served, for many years, on the state’s board of education before retiring. They knew the state’s education Department quite well, and many in the Department fed them documents that weren’t supposed to be seen by the public; this source shared them with me. 

 

They didn’t make the Department look so good, showing that it was being supported, on occasion, financially by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation so it could enact certain policies – mostly to do with Common Core – they wouldn’t need to be run by the legislators on Beacon Hill for funding. (Talk about a threat to democracy!)

 

Of course, I wrote about it, and that put me on the Department’s well, let's say, "bad list." Not that I cared, of course. 

 

When I heard about the cancer diagnosis, it was a huge story. The Massachusetts Teachers Association knew something was wrong with him, too. As I recall, they were getting it from their members, plus, likely, the rumor mill. 

 

On Monday, I spoke again with my source. As on Friday, they confirmed their source was someone no one expected -- the acting commissioner. I quizzed the source about details about how the discussion came about and mentioned that this better be true. They swore it was. As for the details about their talk, it was surprising and somewhat comedic.

 

Of course, Bay State Parent’s editor and I were in touch on this issue with many phone calls. We saw this as a huge story that needed to be reported.

 

On Monday morning, I also called the state Education Department’s spokesperson. After we exchanged pleasantries, I asked her about the commissioner’s health, telling her what I knew. She promptly went into a 15-minute tirade, screaming that I was the worst reporter she ever met. I replied, saying the sources were solid and she had until 3 p.m. to provide a statement; otherwise, I said, we would update our website with the story -- as is. 

 

She provided a statement. We had a scoop. The commissioner died three weeks later. 

 

So, if a state education department can be highly defensive about its leader’s health, imagine what the Biden White House is going through. It has lots to lose, so they’re being as protective as possible about the president’s health. I’m not a Joe Biden fan. I’m not a Donald Trump fan. As a voter, I feel like that great social commentator and comedian Tom Lehrer once remarked, a "Christian Scientist with an appendicitis."

 

The WSJ’s story on the president’s health was likely as good and objective as could be expected. They quoted both sides. Could it have been better? I think so. But there’s always an editor – no matter if the media outlet sides with the left or the right – driving their reporters to get the story as quickly as possible.

 

As for Biden’s mental acuity, I’ll say this:  His actions, particularly the way he speaks, are reminiscent of the way my mother was just before she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. 

 

It’s important to keep in mind that President Reagan underwent the same scrutiny about his health during his re-election campaign in 1984, which Democrats were all too happy to discuss and push. His first debate appearance against former Vice President Mondale didn’t go so well, and it was thought he was in decline. Reagan acquitted himself in the second one, saying he wasn't about to take advantage of Mondale’s “youth and inexperience.” 

 

It generated several laughs, and Reagan waltzed into victory.

 

Imagine if the Biden campaign did the same.