OLD PUT

“And, as set forth in the report, after that investigation, if we had had confidence that the president did not commit a crime, we would have said so.” Robert Mueller May 29, 2019

     After over two years of silence, Robert Mueller finally spoke. He sounded just like he looks. In a no nonsense, deep voice, Mueller laid out in very clear detail two things: the Russians helped get Trump elected and if he had the legal mandate he could’ve charged a sitting president with obstruction of justice. He didn’t. So he laid it on a silver platter for Congress. Will they eat from that plate? I doubt it. Those fucking Yalies (Democrats and Republicans) probably put their grubby fingers in Geronimo’s eye socket and they can’t get the stink off.       

      I used to think I could lay the blame elsewhere for mega-churches, private prisons, suburban sprawl, Trump, Kerry, the Bushes, the Clintons (from Charles to Hilary) and yes….even the dapper drone killer Obama. I thought my long forgotten families were nothing more than innocent bystanders, cannon fodder, in these imperial battles, passengers along for the ride, as blood-thirsty plots blossomed; disgorging unimaginable carnage. But now, after only a short period of a hobbyist’s enthusiasm, and an amateur’s investigation, I realize what an opportunity we had at so many intervals, ignored and lost forever.

     I’m no better than the rest. This seems another genetic consistency—a devolution into entropy— “a gradual decline into disorder,” apathetic lethargy. I haven’t passed out cold in any bars lately, but I can feel myself slipping. Flying off the handle at the slightest whiff of distain, friends and family alike feel the brunt of my raging insecurities, and brittle narcissism. I no longer have the patience to let dismissal roll off my back. You must listen!  You must see! That nasty frog physiology seems to be grabbing me by the short-hairs, turning me into an old croaker, a spotted throat warbler; and self-awareness alone won’t stop this descent. Tumbling from the high branches, helpless, as these alien dear ones whiz by………pleading…….Catch me. I know this falls short of an apology, but with a bad case of chronic inertia, it’s the best I can muster.

     I descended from wannabe capitalists…but not consumers. My grandfather—a butcher as a young man—then because of health concerns a menial wage worker, he always put food on the table. I’ve had his hardworking example, as well as his business acumen to chew on all my life. His father before him, was a farmhand and seamster, not exactly a capitalist, but definitely a working class survivor. My first “business” was selling fish worms to carp fisherman along the Wallkill River, under my grandfather’s tutelage. My first wage work was as as a janitor and butcher’s assistant. There isn’t a better foundation for a social sculpture artist than that. 

      My father was the first of Wray’s sons to break the relentless wage worker, blue collar cycle and take off the butcher’s apron. Richard Alfred Osterhout put on the suit and worked for Chilson and Newberry, a regional brokerage firm in Kingston, then Doolittle & Co. in Newburgh, ending up in Hartford, (building a house on Newgate Road in East Granby, just up from the old Tory Newgate Prison) with Putnam, Coffin and Burr, later becoming a partner in their offshoot Advest, Inc. Capitalist as he was, he never gave a shit about stuff; no fancy cars, no expensive accounts, no bling. But he knew how to make money and was generous to a fault with it. I, and most of my siblings, reverted back to wage work, with the benefit of a small inherited cushion. As much as I despise the capitalist mindset, I have to admit, I’ve more than benefitted from a father who embraced it. I owe my fringe art career (what there is of it) to my parents’ support and generosity.

    You may have missed that—Putnam, Coffin and Burr. A 2005 article in the Hartford Courant, covering the demise of my father’s company Advest,Inc., begins with, “William H. Putnam was such a giant that life in Hartford came to a standstill for his funeral……Putnam, who counted Revolutionary War hero Israel Putnam as an ancestor, quickly emerged as an influential power in the firm.” Aaron Burr was under General Israel Putnam’s command during the Revolution and his descendants also may have been on the letterhead. I have no idea who the Coffin is. There’s no fewer than nine counties in the United States named after Israel Putnam. Created December 10, 1807, “where [cotton] plantations were developed and worked by the field labor of thousands of African-American slaves,” Putnam County, Georgia is one of those counties named for “Old Put.” His descendant, William H. Putnam, died in 1958, long before my father came to work for the Hartford firm. These corpses never seem to stay buried for long.