Page 108 - Pat's Tavern

Pat’s Tavern by Thomas J. CraneThe Approaching StormLittle did I know that storm clouds were gathering and would soon descend upon the men that I once knew. The Golden years that I enjoyed would also end as the ripple effect would cause the eventual closing of my father’s filling station. The storm came in the form of the Kefauver Senate Special Committee, to investigate organized crime. While I personally found that there is trust and honor among men, it came from those who I would least expect it. They were a breed or class among themselves and they displayed a loyalty that has become increasingly difficult to find within our modern day society. As they filtered through my father’s filling station to bid him fond farewell, one of them turned and said to me something so profound that I still remember it to this day and that was, “Tom, Never trust a politician.” Eventually, I was drafted into the Army and went to work at a major university. While I found that the medical and scientific staff were, for the most part, a kind and noble people, the administrative staff, with the exception of those few, can be as ruthless and cunning as those that the Kefauver Committee sought to investigate. And yet, as I look back, I realize that the time that I spent working with my father was the most wonderful and fulfilling of my life. I remembered the words of my father when he said, “judge people on an individual basis and not according to who or what they are, but rather according to their deeds and as to whether those deeds are good or bad.” When Mahatma Gandhi was in this country during the mid-20th Century, a member of the American Clergy asked him, “What is it that you are most afraid of in the world today?” “The hard-hardheartedness of the educated,” Gandhi replied.108