I, the Jury Member

I’m a little disappointed these days. That's because I feel like I missed out on a great civil ritual. This ritual is something people gripe about, but find worthwhile. 

I”m talking about jury duty. How many of you have been on a jury? Over the summer, I had a summons for the federal court of the Southern District of New York. 

The opportunity intrigued me. I’ve never actually been on a jury. I see it as a civic duty, as vital as voting. I was called to jury duty in Stamford when I lived in Connecticut. I sat all day for a personal injury case, a fall in the parking lot of a big retailer. At the end of the day the opposing attorneys asked about my background, readiness to serve and attitudes relevant to the case. One asked, “What’s your view of personal injury lawsuits?”

My response: “I think a lot of them are opportunistic, people looking for a payout.” As you can imagine, the defense attorney’s eyes sparkled with otherworldly delight. The plaintiff’s attorney was aghast and made sure I was never, ever on that jury. A court official thanked me for my service and sent me on my merry way.

I have been in court before, as a participant--divorce court, traffic court, experiences that I don’t want to replicate, as I was on the defendant side of the equation and once was more than enough. 

Jury duty is something else altogether and I wanted to do that. The federal court summons required me to get from Katonah down to Pearl Street in lower Manhattan. As the instructions made clear, I could forget about serving at the federal court in White Plains wasn’t an option.

I carefully prepared for the first day, where everything from process to location was new to me. I painstakingly prepared people at work for my absence. I figured out how to use e-tickets on my phone. Checking train schedules, I decided to take the 5:55 to make sure I got to court by 8:30. In fact, I was an hour early, so I rambled around Chinatown and the court district until jurors could enter. I was on my way, baby! Ready to serve the cause of justice!

I wasn’t chosen for a case on the first two days. On the third, I made the cut for a civil case. The next day was Yom Kippur and then something else came up, so court would resume the next week.

Then Sunday a court official called to say don’t come down on Monday, the case was being held over to the next week. OK. The next week I called the court to check and to my utter surprise, I learned my service was done, I didn’t need to come in. I didn’t get many details of what was going on and I didn’t ask, being in shock. I should soon get my certificate confirming I served. Several weeks later I printed the online statement confirming my service, and soon got the check for my days and travel expenses.

So, there we are. My thoughts? The judges impressed me with their careful questioning of jurors on our backgrounds, our interests, any factor that could keep us from being impartial. This took hours but resulted, at day’s end, in juries that plaintiffs and defense felt could judge fairly. 

Listening to fellow candidates, I got a glimpse into so many levels of society. Blue collar, white collar, union workers, Wall Street executives, immigrants. Every day, several were excused, for reasons obvious and also unknown. This spoke to a process that was deliberate and thoughtful.

I also liked the chance to get out of the home office for an urban experience. Granted, I felt nervous being on the subway. The pandemic and rising crime spooked me. I wore an N95 mask in response to the first, and for the second, well, I crossed my fingers and hoped. 

I also enjoyed wandering around with my trusty camera. At the end of my first day, I stumbled upon a raucous anti-mask mandate protest in Foley Square. The number of people stunned me, right there in the blue state! I documented the scene with my cellphone, the kind of street photography I miss during the pandemic. 

So now I’m back in the home office. No more trips to Pearl Street. Can you volunteer to do jury duty? Maybe that’ll be a post-retirement project in the future. I still want the opportunity to sit in judgment. I’ll  see if I can get the coveted White Plains assignment the next time, thanks.

Big demo at Foley Square, near the court.

My First Time to Vote and Assorted Election Adventures

 Voting has always been a favorite civic duty of mine. I look forward to casting my ballots, even if I’m usually backing the losing horse in the race. I have always liked observing the political process and taking part in it on every election day. 

Chalk that enthusiasm up to my 1960s-70s civics education in public schools. I learned voting is an essential part of democracy. As soon as I turned 18 in 1975, I registered. This was in Texas, back when the Texas Republican Party wasn’t the well-oiled political juggernaut we know and love today (well, maybe not everybody loves it). Indeed, the party infrastructure was so minimal that its primaries had voters stick paper ballots in shoe boxes, or so I heard. That lack of political presence didn’t appeal to me, the GOP didn't offer enough candidates and electability, so I registered as a Democrat. That act didn’t stop the local GOP contingent in Hidalgo County from asking me to start a “Youth for Ford” group at my high school as part of the 1976 campaign. I didn’t do that, although I kept the campaign swag, like a groovy “President Ford ‘76” T-shirt and a roll of President Ford stickers.

Still wearable, 45 years later. 

My maiden voyage voter came on May 1, 1976, the Texas Democratic primary. I proudly cast my vote for  . . . Jerry Brown, yes, Governor Moonbeam, who was young and dynamic and dating Linda Ronstadt. People said if Brown were elected president, Ronstadt could hold the role of “First Chick.” I must have been in the hip, aware, forward-looking youth demographic that Brown wanted to reach. Voting for Jerry Brown was the first of many times I’ve supported off-brand candidates to give support to the independent thinkers and protest the limitations of the two-party system. I’m still doing that and still getting the same results. Some things never change. 

In October 1976 politics became up close and personal for one afternoon. I joined the Princeton University Student Democrats for a trip up to Newark for a Columbus Day parade. Vice presidential candidates Walter Mondale and Bob Dole both appeared. I must have had glimpses of both of them. I cannot imagine two national-ticket candidates from the GOP and Democrats appearing at the same event these days, especially not Columbus Day, now that most reviled of civic observances among some political factions in our troubled times.

Anyway, I voted absentee for Gerald Ford, so the t-shirt and stickers must have swayed my opinion. Then in 1980, Carter vs. Reagan squared off in an election colored by a terrible economy, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Three Mile Island and the Iranian hostage crisis—names and crises similar to the current situation. I cast my ballot for the thinking man’s candidate, John Anderson, a breakaway Republican. I even have a Princeton Students for Anderson button somewhere. Needless to say, Anderson didn’t move into the White House but he impressed me then and he still does. 

The campaign cycles rolled through. I took notice of Jesse Jackson’s confident, plainspoken presence in the Democratic primaries of 1984 and 1988. I might have even voted for him, as the spoiler candidate in the New York primaries.  And don't forget idiosyncratic Ross Perot in 1992, with his slide show.

The grimmest election day involved a voting place where I didn’t even vote. This was November 3, 1992. I was the east coast editor of a trade magazine called Video Store. On October 31, MCA Home Video president Robert Blattner was killed in an airplane crash in Colorado. His funeral was on election day, at Congregation Agudath Shalom in Stamford. In my role as an industry reporter, I attended the funeral. Agudath Shalom was also a polling place, so I had the unsettling experience of attending a funeral where the mourners and voters were streaming into the same building. 

Fast forward to election day November 2008. I’m living in Stamford and go to a school in the Springdale neighborhood to vote. Compared to the short lines I’d always encountered, I had to wait at least an hour. That’s the kind of enthusiasm Barack Obama created. In a notable coincidence, I lived on Hope Street at the time the Hope and Change candidate was elected. 

My adventures in voting in 2016 and 2020 weren’t just political—they were visual. Sensing the 2016 election had great historical consequences, I ran around Manhattan taking photos of news crews, police, TV network booths, anything to capture the moment. I especially photographed the news trucks lined up on 6th Avenue, next to the New York Hilton Midtown where Donald Trump had his headquarters for that world-historical night. I didn’t get to the Javits Center, where Hillary Clinton’s supporters had gathered for a celebration that never happened.

Avenue of the Americas, across the street from the New York Hilton Midtown.

The 2020 election also gave me visuals, up to a certain date. I happened to be in Boston the last week of February, perfectly timed to check out a Bernie Sanders rally at Boston Common on February 29. The weather was freezing, my cold stiff fingers struggled with the camera, the crowd was a sea of pro-Bernie blue and the onrushing pandemic turned the world upside down 10 days later. Bernie soon got frozen out of the campaign. The rest is history still unfolding.

Bernie blesses the masses.

So here we are, another election done. I did my part in the Town of Bedford and Westchester County. I didn’t find any dramatic photos to take, since town elections rarely generate visual excitement. But 2022 and 2024—if I can get into Manhattan after voting locally, that’ll be another story.

Have camera, will travel, at least to Grand Central for an election.