Sunday Forum; 3; Behind Every Great Woman: Barbara Ackerman

Good evening and welcome to the Sunday forum. Tonight we're presenting part three of our series Behind every great woman. A collection of five seminars on human development with outstanding women from New England. Our guest is Barbara Ackerman mayor of the city of Cambridge. The host for Behind every great woman is Will Fitzhugh. This series is called Behind every great woman. Some people like the name and some don't. It's sometimes I like and sometimes I don't. It's meant to be. An examination of the developmental experiences of an outstanding woman. A series of women. It's an opportunity to get to know some of the things that happen in schools some of the bits of advice some of the people that were influential some of the developmental experiences that contributed to

the decisions that one woman at least made in becoming an extraordinary person. My guest tonight is Barbara Ackerman mayor of Cambridge. My name is Will Fitzhugh. I say this so often and probably I'm just reminding myself that it's not often it's more common to be worried about and concerned about why things go wrong and it's not as often you get an opportunity to spend time with somebody who's done well and find out something about how that happened. So that's the kind of thing I'm interested in in talking with you. You know it sort of puts people on the spot. And also I we were talking earlier about somebody seeing somebody who's extraordinary things that they could never have they

themselves could and could become the owner of that is though it's I should call it the. Athena syndrome or something is spring full grown from the head of Zeus you know Zeus had a headache and came with you know and I think people sometimes feel that way about outstanding women who are outstanding people generally. So it's sort of starting where you are now and to get an idea of how things came out. Could I just. Sure catch you I was uncomfortable coming up to the front door and saying I was going to take the program and the man said Well what was the name of the program and I said well he's behind every great woman because it is a very embarrassing things. I think it's a. I don't think I am a particularly extraordinary person and I think if you think about other politicians and people who care for each other people people in my profession

tend to be well known. But I would say by and large we're pretty bunch. It's great and I have. I get my television coverage in most because I'm female. I don't resent getting what television comfort you but I don't think it really makes me much different than the others. I mean I think basically I'm a politician which is as I say a visible profession and not necessarily one which attracts outstanding people. Well certainly it's getting a bad press these days and some of it's deserved but the thing about I don't know how many women or mayors in the United States but I just think about Cambridge and I don't have the exact populations were 100000. OK not something very few mayors in the United States. OK. Thank you women in Cambridge is something like 30 percent larger than London was in the time of his book The First. So it's it's a great city from the in there you know so I think it's I mean

it's certainly a relative matter and I I'm not I must be. Yeah I don't agree with you that I'm the mayor of an outstanding city. OK well OK. Just to prove that you weren't always the very one standing so it sort of didn't begin with. One of the questions that I was thinking about is oh I know another thing I was thinking about and getting ready for this is that it was a Dick Whittington the thing about London is the story of Dick Whittington who was leaving town as a 12 year old or something in the bells ringing out and saying he would be Lord Mayor of London town and I was wondering if so when you. What sort of can you remember is what your earliest ambition of things when you began to think what you probably do with your career what what was it do you think. I never wanted to be a mayor and it didn't occur to me to be a politician until after I had begun to be when I

I guess I wanted to be an actress. And I wanted to be a missionary and I wanted to be an opera singer but I could never sing. I wanted to be a writer. It I think it was about two and a half years ago that I thought maybe I'd be a mayor. Well in that series sort of missionary and actress and writer so it would which came first you remember was like say in elementary school was there or was there somebody that that you thought OK I want to be like that person. That person is an actress or a missionary. How did you what was the first idea that you had. What you probably very I wanted to be an actress and I don't think it was because of anybody think it was because it was fun acting in school plays. Now I don't remember

looking up to other people thinking I want to be like that person. Did you enjoy being a place right. Not probably is connected with the business about writing as well. There's something about the words as was was being on stage with you. Yes and I like reading. I like reading. Maybe that's why I wanted to be a writer. I seriously tried to be a writer. I mean I want to be an actress when I was a little girl. When I grew up what I wanted to become and what I spent my time trying to become was a writer for rum. Privacy excuse pretty unsuccessfully. Was this during school or have you know this was after I graduated from college. One of the things that I guess when you think about development one of the obvious areas of interest is education and often it turns out that education didn't have much to do with it but it's certainly worth testing and I'd like to ask if there are you know what influence school had on your

what. Were there any kinds of experiences in school that helped you make decisions about what you wanted to do. I was interested in language. I think that was the I always liked word and I like different languages and I have studied and have a smattering of a lot of different languages. And speak a couple. Did you have good did you have instructors that drew you into language or was it from traveling there. I think that my I think my family had a great deal more to do with my development than my teachers did. Though I had some pretty that fine very nice very exciting teachers.

I was brought up in Europe and we travelled. My father was in the consul service and I spent my first four years in Sweden my next war in Ireland. And you can't live in Ireland without getting interested in words and poetry and then I lived for five years in France. There was right afterwards was when I answered the other right. So this is point zero to 13 or so when I was 14 the World War broke out and we came over here and saw there was your was or did you have or did you come back you know states in between or. We came not back we came to the United States I was born over there. But you came you know when the war broke out. Yes but you haven't been to the States before that except on very brief holidays. It was my idea if we went for holidays. Of course during the war it was a different kind of place I suppose. What I always say this was a safer than for and certainly the United States yes.

That wasn't that wasn't visible to me as 14 year old seemed perfectly safe in France too and never had that feeling of danger were you. Why did you feel about leaving. You go in the United States where you sort of live for us or you know that America has the heavenly place you know the promised land I always wanted to come here. Where did you get that idea from. From my father from reading. What what kind of books did you read about America. Well I have rather had the American boy and I had St. Nicholas. She had to make a scene she probably never even heard of. I just read everything that we had we were around. I mean we were we were an isolated family in a foreign country and both of my parents

had very bookish people. And I read my father's school books and my. It was different growing up in those days there was no television and we didn't have any radio so all day long you made cereal packets usin anything from Foreign Service Journal. National Geographic when you were going to be going to American school English speaking school incidents what was when you were going to school would you. I went to when Swedish school in Sweden. And in Ireland they speak beautiful English. And in France I went to a French school for three years French speaking French speaking school. When you when you go to France you must have been known what what year would that have been in school or indeed you went to like third grade I don't know how they do an inference from.

Well they put me in the way below whereas postie is called Never am I in ninth grade and then I skipped a grade and went at him. When I. I can't do it backwards. It goes down to 12 and it was. Oh yes I was seven. Did you did you study French before you got many words were what you had sort of a handicap arriving in France in school where they spoke French. All children being put into a foreign school are yes it's a handicap in a very severe handicap which I think parents don't always realize. You know it's always thought to be so nice for the dear children they're going to get culture and the good learning. And they can learn a language and are going to learn the culture and the culture it's really more difficult. On anybody approaching adolescence then the Langleys you know that all little French girls when they get to school shake hands with all the other little French girls

and tell the boys America. Everything they did was strange to me. And whenever they tell me what to do they tell me in a foreign language. So I have enormous sympathy for such children. And take a great interest in the children we have and ask those who come from Portugal and Spanish speaking Caribbean. It's all really it's so fascinating that. That you had such a block of time in what five years and four years and four years and it is I'd like to ask about the transition. The two transitions and then also about you know what sort of culture shock or whatever. And you had you know stays with when you you said that it was a difficult transition from Ireland to France. What about from Sweden to world. I don't remember very well I was very young when I went to a wonderful school in Ireland it was a it was an open classroom it was one of the very very early British open classrooms

and everybody sat in their own chair and went their own speed. You know I remembered schools being pure heaven school was just wonderful thing to go to and very exciting very stimulating all the time and then I went from there to a French school which was enormously disciplined just the opposite. Nobody studies the same thing all over the country and write all the textbooks are dangerous and it's at that time it was just meant amount of learning by rote and I learned all French history chapter by chapter. And remember none I don't remember anything about French history. I can't give you the kings in the order or anything and that was what I learned. So I really dislike it very much indeed. But I find now you know at the time I thought I hated everything French I find now that I love everything French. And

now when we go back to the countryside is so beautiful and the food is so delicious in the languages the love the French cooking that you tell. Sam race in this very painful childhood experience has left me with a warm glow when you go back you don't have to sit in those rows you could never say you good snow was one of the grown ups now like really sit in the cafe drinking wine. So OK so then then we went to Paris for two years in Paris and went to an American school and that was very nice too. And piracy signee heavenly place and that would have been a school of other children like yourself of parents who were assigned to Paris it was an international school so they were not just American to just an American school as an English being well it was it was an American school. But but the students who are international so that I mean it was an American

school in the sense it was run by Americans and it was and it was a high school. But there were students from other countries. Yeah and I wonder what I know I was a foreign student and I remember the society of fellow foreign students was a good group. We were all sort of going through Come experience even though we were from different countries I wonder if there was because when you were in the school in the first three years you must have been. You didn't have felt I was right it was that was the society of other foreign students. What was that like. There enjoy it. Yes this is it. You know when you've been used to being an outsider it's nice to meet a whole bunch of other outsiders and then you get to be more inside than anybody else. You know you really. So this took you to 13 or 14 to 14 14 when the war broke out and then you came you know. Yes what was that like.

When you heard about it here is the problem when you're actually in that one. It was very like what I expected at the American high school. Hunter remember learning anything in the American high school but again it all seemed like fun. And it was it was sort of like a. I had I had thought it would be sort of like a situation comedy on American TV and it was I thought that they were all seem to be parties basketball games skating. There was a lake near it. We went to a small town in Connecticut which feel Connecticut. And there was a lake nearby and soon as it froze all the boys would come down with brooms and sweep up the ice and build bonfires and hot dogs. All the things I was expecting to happen did happen.

It was very nice about this. I'm also guessing that you probably since you were a reader and also you have done a good deal of language and what that implies or what you have to do your reading ability and you have to increase your vocabulary and stuff like in school must have been fairly easy for you. You can find it a great difficulty in adjusting to the curriculum whatever in the American high school. You see I had been in the American high school for its right. And no I didn't have that much difficulty testing so you had time to. I thought the school was very easy compared to when I had come home. The key difference I noted after a while I was that American women where trying to be less independent than European women. You know first came upon me when I went down to play basketball and in Paris I had been on the basketball team and they played by boys rules and I was the guard

and I was the champion dribbler and I played an extraordinary game here in the United States. Everybody sort of standing in one place and being allowed to throw it a little bit as long as you didn't hurt each other and all of the competitive sports with the boys. There's no competitive sports for girls. And you weren't allowed to run too fast in case you might do something to yourself. And it wasn't till quite a long time afterwards that I realized that I had been brought up in a different kind of an idea of what women could do. Which was which in Europe is not so different from what a maid can do. And so not as in you know just talking about athletics. Well it death athletics was where it struck me. But no I much talk about mathematics. So.

I don't know whether I'm interested in what happened in college but this is the thing you're bringing up about expectations. Did you. Again I think your earlier about this for the sequence when you said you would want to be an actress when you were early in school. Maybe that was in Ireland I don't know if that was in Ireland. And then that faded away and that was during the lonely period in France. And then how long very lonely period. And that's why I think that my family really had more to do with my upbringing then. My schooling. Because you've had to fall back on your family since you were getting in school because so I think family said travels like that operate close. And so you know it's a curious with you if you go away. So you mentioned thing about being a writer and also about being a missionary I wonder where were those started to come in or you know what their sequence was.

I don't think I went to the missionary very long. Oh I probably was reading the wide wide world. Why are those 19th century books that we had at the house. Charlotte Young we shall never know. OK we try. After which field high school or high school English field. Then you went to where you could go and went to school in Washington briefly went to school went to Canada probate went to school in Washington briefly and then went to college at Smith. And for four years which was wonderful long period for me. Stead of moving around so much and you were away from your family you know for the first time was for them were not yet. So that must have been a chain. I was 16 when I went to I had somehow

got ahead through all this because the green for it's one thing right. And I skipped another one and so I got to school when I was 16 which is probably too young to go to college so I was like it was a transition a difficult transition for treason if you say it was too young or now I wasn't so much a difficult transition as I think I would have learned more and got more out of it if I was older. But you say it was a good four years it was great for you. Did you did you just start writing there or did you get interested in writing you know. What do you like about it. I like the intellectual atmosphere I like all the other people in it Smith. You live in small houses with people who are in for writing disciplines. And partly because it was the war there was very little dating and we now have all these headaches about dating which is. I mean you don't have to worry about not

dating because you knew it was all right because there weren't any. But there wasn't anybody to date and there wasn't any gasoline. So there was it was a very intense four years. Studying your own things. Talking hanging out with people is telling different things. Taking For instance a roommate who was a biologist and that girl down the hall was an astronomer and I would never study either of those things but I got to kind of feel for both. I was in Greek in Latin. That's another set of languages. When you study when you start studying Greek to just study in Cambridge now in college you know you start and go yeah but I studied Latin when I was very young. Whether any teachers and its methods particularly there were some wonderful teachers at

Smith but I'm not sure that you know that I'm answering your question well your if if you know there isn't anybody who sort of shaped your career in like that I mean if there's nobody that stands out as someone who'd made a significant change in something you know said You should be right or you should be right or you know why don't you become a politician. I mean if it's just a series of good people you know I think that what I got. Reinforced at college was this feeling that time. I could do anything I chose to do if I was serious about it and persistent took took it had professional attitude toward you. You know why I think this but when you say that I wonder what sort of rules they play basketball why it's worth the read I wonder if you got there you know I've given up on basketball with the middleweight Wars stuff it was.

I get more freedom again. You've given up on athletics all your face at that point I don't think they did that very well it's myth either but they did their studies Well I mean it was it was an excellent college. What up next. When I got out of college and got married and had a job and had a baby and gave up my job and stayed home for a few years and started to write try to write what sort of method did you use to write you all around with it. I was always very loath to learn things from people and I always tried to learn things myself. And I mean of for many years made the mistake that I see other beginning writers making which is writing for myself for years

for myself instead of writing for. For the reader. Writing for an audience. And it was one of the most one of the things I had the biggest influence on my whole life was when I went to Bread Loaf writers conference where they teach you have special attitude toward where you can learn where you can see people who have fresh unlighted toward writing and came away from the term and to be a professional writer. I instantly became a fractional politician. But it's not that different. It's a question of deciding to tackle tackle a problem from the angle from which you can win

as opposed to persistently tackling it the way you can't do it. I know if for instance you know there are a lot of little things around the house that I do very badly because I never will ask anybody how you're supposed to do. For a long long time I couldn't play and I couldn't grow anything in life. Flowerbed because I was so well I could do it this way. Or that it should be able to be done this way. Anyway I didn't want to find out how to do it. Now they take advice and read books. What's the lesson Crusoe I'm much better at. Just several things of interest so I'm interested in this feeling about why you do it yourself and wanting and not wanting to take advice.

Yeah I wanted to invent the wheel and never use it. But I think that's very common and I think that's a great handicap a lot of people have and that's why I bring it up. I think writers particularly are tend to be more and more frustrated because the more and more say but I have to express myself I have to write it for myself. And in fact what they're doing is writing something that they wouldn't want to read. If you if you put yourself as the reader if you can make this great effort and say but I'm the reader and not fall into the trap of saying but it's beautiful because these are the kinds of words I like. And you begin. And then you begin to. Right something that's that's going to serve somebody else that's a secret. So I really wanted to ask about that because I'd like to I'm sure there's a connection between both the intent and the method that you're concerned about in writing and as a politician. You say they were there so closely really that's why I went directly.

So I wanted to ask you what why you wanted to write. You know you've said in part that it was to express yourself. But one of the sort of a corollary question is what form did you choose your plays or essays or novels or what kind of writing did you start trying to do. I think I was trying to write short stories which can step the hardest kind of thing to try and write the possible exception of poetry. Now the target in poetry I mean it's hard to be successful short story writer and I knew that people kept telling me that it paid no attention. But I'm different. What did you want to know if I seized on this and it wasn't I shouldn't talk about being missionaries It was an important but did you want to write to have you know to accomplish something with other people or you know I don't think I did I wanted to write in order to have a profession and be successful at

it. So I gave it up quite willingly. When my new profession turned out how to turn up with. Well it turned up when I began to do what everybody buys me to do which was to write about things instead of fantasy. And I went to a school committee meeting and wrote that up by this time we were living were in Cambridge Cambridge. And so I went to a school committee meeting and wrote that up. And didn't laugh. And then my kids were in school so I was interested in the schools and I visited a couple schools and wrote them up for the local newspaper. And recently somebody came round say why don't you in fiscal Committee.

And that you know I know so many people in the same position starting off to write to run for school committee. And. I get not taking you seriously it's a problem. Presenting I mean the first problem is are you the right person. And and what kinds of ideas do you have and what are your intentions if you get elected. And that's the basic problem. And if you're not the right person you won't get elected. Or if you're in it if you're not a person is satisfactory to the electorate that that you're trying to attract you won't get like that from me put it that way. But it's no good being the right person and sitting home because they will not be the pathway to your door. You then have to think about well how do I market this product.

And. You know how do you seriously. Run for office in a large political city like Cambridge. And this is a decision that you made and you're at it but there must be another staffer for this person who wrote the articles and then the person said you should write for a school committee and you said you're crazy. No no I said fine OK. I said I'm thinking of it but I'm not sure I want to run with you right. I mean so how do you get rewards. You know how do you find out that you're the right person to that to the degree that then you can say you know I offer myself in Canada city or whatever I mean you must have to do a little bit experimenting or exploring just to find out whether other people think you're the right person. You know you just don't look at all the other people and clearly you're better than they I said all right at least as competent as the ones that are there. But I don't think competence have my problem.

So when the time came to do campaigning and I don't think that ever is the problem I have never seen anybody win for political office it wasn't fairly sure that they were good thing for the electorate. The question of whether you can get it across or not. And of course the electorate doesn't always agree with you. The hardest thing was suddenly becoming a public person. Keep your picture in the subway she extraordinary to have you pick yourself up like you know I now know that you can have your picture in subway for a long time and nobody will recognize it but he will never know how people ever recognize you put it that it was it was as if somebody had painted this girl it all of my chest it was that it was it to go from being a very private person which is what a writer is to a very

public person kind of a trial. That was hard I also find it I found it. I'm still uncomfortable in front of large groups of people and don't like banquets I don't like ceremonies. I don't like cutting ribbons and breaking champagne bottles. But the fun part was trying to get on to paper. The feeling of what I thought a school committee person should be trying to get their on to pay onto paper in such a way that it would give the impression that I wanted to give and I'm not talking about an untrue impression I think it's I think one the things that every artist learns is that truth is the hardest thing to depict. I say Zahn for instance is a

picture of a hot landscape in profiles but it isn't. It's a lot of kind of yellow and green and all of paint on the canvas. So it's not true and yet it is. I mean in truth it's oil. And yet in truth it is that landscape. And the great great artist that presents truth. But being selective and a writer presents truth by being selective and a politician is really a writer. I mean. You get in touch with people almost entirely through words. It's interesting in one of the things you said you and many and you find yourself very very easily fall into the symbols of truth. I mean that's why it's so easy to imitate politicians and and make fun of

politicians and where we can all write Nixon speeches for him the day before. But but anybody in the business gets into the you know it's it's what I constantly have to fight against is standing up and saying the easy symbols which sort of suggest what I want to say but which aren't really what I want to say. I'm not sure if I came around full circle to where I was when I began. Well it certainly seems to me that it's related to your I was going to say the thing in the bread loaf is about paying attention to the audience. It's like you know I thought originally when you said let's hear you decide to become a professional writer and you know you're going to say yes to can you saw people who are doing it to learn something about it and came back and decided that it would. And what from the way you describe it it seemed to me that this is such a test of a writer as you're describing it that it's sort of like you know you see your readers face to face and you get media

judgment or very soon going to get going on whether they hear what you're trying to express and stuff I'm going to write and that's better communicating with them by pen then by mouth. It's harder for me to write a speech than a letter but if you listen to any listen to any good politician there they're poets we have a lovely man in my town called Baluchi. And it's always interesting to me what his what his reputation is. Well I guess I want to talk about what his reputation is but what he is is a public. And he's he's a kind of an oral poet like a BART. And when he's really going he you know he hits a theme and then he comes around and hits the theme again with a little refrain and many comes around and hits again with a joke. And it's it's it's wonderful to hear him do it and I always envy the way there. And when he

gets through he has conveyed a truth which you couldn't put together for many of the words if I used the words he used I wouldn't have conveyed the truth but he he's what he what he's been trying to do to do is to depict a truth by exaggeration and by jokes and by by every verbal device. And he succeeds in depicting the truth. And he's also fellows very good at identifying truth. You know this is such a phenomenon your I wrote a thing. Buckminster Fuller wrote in too long about going around speaking to people and it's a series of things that he's talking about as both trying to express the truth as well but the what he says at the end is that he's decided that what happens between him and the audiences is absolutely weightless. There's actually there's no exchange for that. Richard fits exactly that's the picture that I'm getting that somehow a person does this thing and there's a change in

people's minds or their attitudes or their understanding or their or their store of truth whatever it is. Well there is when you do it well and all politicians do it fairly well some partitions only do it in the when and when basis but nobody gets elected without having learned how to reach people's mind. And main camp you know it may be that there are politicians who win just by you know just because of their paces just because they look honest. We think of an exciting gives a great impression of being honest and that you hardly ever listen to what he says it all. But yes that was one of the things that I noticed here I was a striving writer trying so hard to get points

across and I noticed that these people that I didn't have a very high opinion of were able to reach the audience that they were trying to reach. And if they hadn't been so able they would have been like. Well some of the people have been talking from people from additions Well you know the suspicion that you know more racial and that creeping in. The right core truth just set values. No I certainly would like to. Yes I mean not now. Yes I certainly would like to give the impression that I think that politicians of all politicians go around saying truth. What I say is that some of us make great effort to do that and it is difficult to do

but I think that that it is always an intellectual effort on the part of the politician even though what he's done is to stir up the emotion and not the thought process. You're. Just so amazed that you're a woman mayor and you talk about the transition from writing it. Essentially for yourself and then going off and learning some skills and then coming back and talking to the world. Dammit time is a cigar essentially quasi crooks you know I'm not talking bad but that's the stereotype and filled with the kind of Damon Runyon world but. Tremendously successful. I think you can miss you later. It's one of the pair that you chose because curiosity. Actually I'm not tremendously successful.

I can count my successes. I've been in politics 12 years and I can count my successes. On my fingers thank yous. Maybe you would make a different judge of success but I think talking about a rising is a very large very unusual and I'm running it with a good deal of success in me but I do talk. Here how you push the door open even from your own mental attitude you can make a lot. I think the surprising thing that I did was to open the door you're quite right. I was. There. That was opening the door was the hard part. After that it was only persistent but getting out on the stage. Saying all right I'm a public person I'm not a private person that was the hard thing. But that was there was a there was an interior struggle.

Let's see what really happened. How did that work out. There was a. We had a zoning case in my neighborhood and again this is a very typical thing I see it happening to other people. We had a zoning case in my neighborhood and it was we took it to court and we had a good lawyer and he said we were all to get up and testify about what kind of neighborhood we lived in. And so I lay awake all night it could go to sleep I thought I would have to stand up there in front of it. And I'm going to be talking you know I'm going to be on the stand. And so I lay awake all night thinking of how I could express. You know me the writer how could I express to this judge what kind of a neighborhood we lived in. And then I did. And I found I could do it and there was a first time that I had.

Oh my God you can do anything. There are buttons and you can push it and in fact the whole thing was a farce because the judge never rendered any decision and after a long time he went crazy. And so he never rendered any decision I think I think having all the decisions weighing on him must have proven him crazy but it is how it told wasn't in fact the button then and it didn't really happen. So I think they'll eventually win the case but. It For some reason that I you know it made it made it a possibility it was possible to do things and so I thought well if I can do that I can win for school committee. So I ran for the school committee. Once I had started on the. Once I was on the school committee I got on the school committee because I was interested in the

schools. As soon as I got there I realized that with that I would that this was you know politics is a profession in itself. It's a question of if you know it's the art of the possible it's maneuvering things until something happens it's identifying a goal that you can reach and then reaching it and that you know that that that became totally fascinating and involving for me and I've been in it ever since. How do you make things happen. My brother when we were kids my brother had. The British version of an erector set which isn't a can of set and he always. Wanted to know how that kind of thing worked you know. He was used to he used to build the heap. He finally built a grandfather's clock with the pendulum. How does it work. But I

find it much more fascinating. You know how do people work and how do you make people work and how do you get things to happen. Identifying what you want to have happen isn't that hard because. Usually in politics. I think always in our government. The majority of people identify and lead long before anything happened. And so you sit there thinking Well everybody everybody wants this to happen. Who could make it happen. And then you find out that the form of government is not just something that you learn in the history books that in fact which I didn't learn in the history books. So it went the wrong kind of school but but is something. You know there is a guy in the statehouse or. A person down the line or a way of writing a law. So the change can come about. And that's you know

since I got on the school committee maybe this answers your question since I got on the school committee I have been so totally fascinated by involved with the subject matter and what I was doing and what I thought should happen that I haven't spent much time thinking about. What I you know I kind of automatically ran for office every two years and haven't had much trouble running since. And I got to be the mayor by running because city council and until it's my turn. I'm pushing it back. But I think that I think it's pretty since and I think that's true in any profession. But you know I think there are a lot of other there are a lot of as I said in the beginning there were a lot of people who have this persistence who are not very admirable in any other way.

It's a you know that's one of the qualities. But it's essential quality and I think it's essential quality for success anywhere you said you would interview connectors last week. Oh surely. Persistence is the key quality there. And talent and ability and interest yes but persistent This is persistence is the difference between the ones that make it and the ones that don't. Sitting when she was you know exact words and she was talking about those setting goals and whatever Heroes was. So people can remember was Kim's daily lives taken to get to church. About the number of returns on auditions she wanted to achieve. So we were in the beginning was 50 auditions she would get one. She got one callback that was OK for the first six months or so of us right at the Nicorette in the next six months. Thirty five. It's pretty one so and and this was only five or

six years later. And if at that dinner that time the goal wasn't reached and she'd go into something else. And so I mean I think what I'm trying to say is I think in her case and I'd like to ask about yours that there's a relationship between persistence and goal setting and success. I mean this is you know they're sort of tied in together you know. Hammer it's something that just never comes. So first of all you were saying you were successful when you were elected. Well the thing is you see that I have never viewed my successes in terms of whether I got elected in that I've been lucky enough never to not to get elected. I've always succeeded in my elections and my successes. And failures are in terms of what I was trying to do. And for instance I think last year at the. When we had that bad riot that was about towers and the boy

died in that place now. I'm not quite sure what my goal. Was but I felt you know that we succeeded in nothing there. I was hoping as a result of that either to get a better relationship with the police or a better relationship with the neighborhood or new standards. And I felt that the only thing we succeeded in doing was I was eventually we succeeded in calming down the neighborhood. But that wasn't really very. It wasn't totally set that wasn't a satisfactory go sell that so that you you know you really that that's those are the things I think about.

Two years ago I set out to get a new superintendent for the school system. And we not only got a new superintendent we got a new superintendent who's doing a fantastic job. So I view that as a success.