DeWitt Erich Silber, my 15-year-old son and a Splice Today contributor, introduced Gov. Kathy Hochul at a celebration of the Erie Canal’s 200th anniversary on Oct. 26, on a Hudson River pier in front of the replica of the Seneca Chief, the boat used by DeWitt Clinton, New York’s sixth governor, and my son’s great-times-five-grandfather, on his mother’s side.
DeWitt’s speech spurred perceptions he aspires to future political office (true), and the governor in her speech suggested he could be an intern in her office, or “lieutenant governor,” even though we’re in the “wrong state,” New Jersey. Other speakers included Brian Stratton, director of New York’s canal system; John Montague, founder of the Buffalo Maritime Center (which built the replica boat); and Melissa Parker Leonard, historian and descendant of the Tonawanda Seneca, whose ancestors include Red Jacket.
After the speeches, there was a “Gathering of the Waters” ceremony (pictured), with a barrel tapped for canal water to use in planting a white pine tree, a Haudenosaunee symbol of peace and a gesture of reconciliation for Native American peoples displaced by canal construction.
Meeting the governor, I gave her a copy of my book, In DeWitt’s Footsteps: Seeing History on the Erie Canal, which she held up in a photo while I regretted that my seller’s account on Amazon is defunct, after a paperwork snafu stemming from low activity. Fortunately, there are other ways to buy the book, such as through the Erie Canal Museum’s website. The next day, DeWitt and I attended an excellent discussion of the canal’s significance at the Roosevelt House in Manhattan. I brought a few copies of my book, and though able to process sales using my phone, handed them out for free, showing poor business skills.
The Roosevelt House crowd was heavy with New York political people, often with experience in Democratic administrations in New York, Albany or Washington. I told a couple of people who’d worked in Ed Koch’s mayoralty the story of how my brother and I met Koch in the street in the early-1990s, after he’d lost re-election. My brother asked Koch if he’d run again, and Koch replied, in his high, nasal voice, “They threw me out!” My brother replied: “The people threw you out, and the people must be punished.” Koch went around for years saying, “The people threw me out, and the people must be punished!”
These ex-officials weren’t impressed by my suggestion that my brother, a marketing writer, was the originator of that Koch slogan, a claim I’ve been making for decades (though my brother’s never asserted it, to my recollection). They think it sounded too much like the sort of thing Koch came up with himself, and maybe they’re right.
Recently, I learned that a story about my sister that I’ve been telling for decades is wrong. In the 1970s, she was a Foreign Service officer assigned to the US Embassy in Mexico and had responsibility for monitoring the treatment of American prisoners in Mexico. That part is true, but I’d thought the policy was that the embassy could complain about bad treatment only if it was discriminatory; worse than other prisoners received. When I said this to some people with my sister present, however, she said it wasn’t so; the embassy was supposed to get involved if Americans were mistreated at all, not just singled out. I’d misconstrued or misremembered something from some long-ago family conversation.
At the Roosevelt House, before the event, a moderator said he would introduce my son and me to the audience. I explained that my son was the DeWitt Clinton descendant, and I’d only married into the family. Then I started to say I’ve written about the history, though, as I was now thinking maybe I should be introduced too. “You’re out,” the guy said, before I could finish.