During the summers of my college years I worked as a bellhop at a small Jewish resort hotel in Mt. Freedom New Jersey. I remember many of the staff and regular guests, and have even stayed in touch with a few of them. One older gentleman (I’ll call him Sid) was a poker fanatic, and indeed paid for his entire seasons’ room and board with his winnings at the card table. Sid was a successful furrier, a meticulous dresser, and a more than generous tipper.

One July day, the hotel management treated the guests to a surprise. At about three o’clock in the afternoon, an announcement was made advising all guests and staff that a buffet was open in the recreation area in the main building. I was at the pool, sitting on a folding chair near the exit, attending to the needs of the players at the three poker games in progress. At the sound of the announcement, I looked up and was transported back to my childhood, seated on the floor in front of our Hallicrafter TV watching “Western Prairie Theater.” I was confronted with a cowboy’s nightmare; a herd of stampeding cattle, heads lowered, eyes wide, rolling, and blazing with intensity and purpose. From the youngest busboy to the oldest and most arthritic of the guests, the herd spewed through the gate and streamed across the lawn to the entrance of the main building. All that was missing were the “moos;” in their stead was a weird silence. They were conserving their breath.

Having now no card games to attend to, I followed the crowd into the lobby and down the stairs. The kitchen staff had set up a long row of buffet tables, and stood ready to carve roasts, briskets, corned beef, pastrami, and turkey. There were all the usual side dishes that one would expect in such surroundings; potato salad, cole slaw, pickled beets, full and half sour pickles. Stacks of freshly baked rye and pumpernickel bread were piled at strategic locations along the tables.

As I hit the landing I could see that the staff was woefully inadequate to the task at hand. There were perhaps five hundred guests and staff, and maybe eight attendants.

At first, things were relatively orderly as the crowd lined up with plates and utensils in hand.

Now, in the dining room, things were more orderly and the ritual more firmly established. You had a choice of appetizer, entrée and dessert. Each course was presented by your waiter, and consumed. Then you left.

This deal was different.

There were no real rules to this affair. The supply of food seemed endless, and as long as you stood in front of one of the staff with a reasonable amount of room on your plate (or plates) he would continue to slice and pile it high with food. Some of the demands of the herd, in my opinion, bordered on the comical. I witnessed elderly women and men whose daily breakfast consisted of a toasted bagel with a side of prune juice and hot water, stagger from the buffet with enough fatty food to constipate a fire hose. In thinking about it, it must have been simply the greed of unlimited opportunity and a limited time to take advantage of it. They were absolutely irrational.

The high point of the spectacle for me was Sid’s encounter with the meat slicer. Sid was dressed tastefully in linen trousers and shirt, with a cashmere sport jacket. He stood there holding the carver’s gaze with his plate extended as the hapless staffer piled corned beef and pastrami higher and higher on Sid’s plate. Finally the guy simply stopped, returning Sid’s baleful glare with his own plea for mercy. Sid broke eye contact first, slowly lowering his gaze to his absurd wrist-breaking load of cured meat, and I could imagine his inner struggle; rational thought doing battle with his lizard brain. Finally, he relocked eyes with the carver, sneered, and extended his plate for more. The poor staffer had had about enough of the riot (Sid’s assault on the meat table was beginning to cause a bit of agitation and anxiety on the part of those behind him) smiled and said something about there being no more room on Sid’s plate.

Sid didn’t miss a beat. He reached up with one of his hands, grabbed a greasy handful of pastrami from his plate and thereby created the required room.

The meat slicer shook his head in defeat and piled yet more meat on Mount Sidney. With that, Sid spun on his heel, and to the laughter of those in the immediate vicinity headed with what dignity he could muster for the stairs and the lobby. I, of course, had to see what he had in mind as far as crossing the crowded upper room with one hand full of aromatic and dripping pastrami. Again, Sid didn’t miss a beat. When he hit the top of the stairs, he crammed the half-pound or so of meat in his cashmere jacket pocket and headed to his room.

What he had in mind, I have no idea. There were no refrigerators in the rooms. And if there were, who would want cold pastrami? Did this represent some sort of moral victory? Or was it simply the aforementioned limitless opportunity/limited time formula in practical application?

I never asked Sid, and I suppose he wouldn’t have a clue himself. At any rate, he’s probably long gone by now, God bless him.

I don’t know why the above memory came so strongly to the fore after so many years, but I do know why I chose to relate it in the Outspeaker. The opportunity/time ratio seems to be at the root of what passes for business in Congress in general and the Republican Party in particular these days. I have no idea if the Democrats were in power the dynamic would be the same, but I really don’t care. I have never seen or read about anything like the sheer arrogance and greed that dominates the Republican Party these days. I have never hated, nor do I now hate Republicans. I am old enough to remember Republicans that I both liked and admired. Jacob Javits, a progressive Republican comes to mind. Richard Cohen, Secretary of Defense under Clinton is another. I even admired some of the ideas of Newt Gingrich; though he demonized liberals, he seems like a moderate compared to the Delays and Frists who stalk the halls of the capitol these days.

What has gone on of late in the Congress and the executive is frightening in the extreme. It is almost as though the party in power cares not a bit for public opinion or the long-term consequences of their actions. Polls have recently clearly shown that the priorities of this administration and their familiars in congress are out of step with Americans, and yet they continue to attempt to dismantle the New Deal, to roll back all progressive policy, to return us not to the days before Franklin Roosevelt, but to those before Franklin Pierce. They change rules at will when it suits their agenda, even when public opinion is opposed to their craven actions. They attack the judiciary for going against the will of congress and the executive, as if they don’t understand that that is exactly what a judiciary is supposed to do. They seem to not care a whit for what the minority thinks or does. They seem to think that we live in a democracy. We do not. We live in a democratic republic. If we lived in a pure democracy, where majority ruled absolutely, we’d all be in a lot of trouble.
The courts are a prime example of the protection our constitution affords us. As an example, if every single citizen in the nation was in favor of a law banning flag desecration, and one solitary American disagreed with them and burned a flag, the courts would have the power to disregard the will of the people, their representatives, and the executive. The only recourse the other two branches would have would be to change the constitution. That remedy was made purposely difficult to implement.
In future columns, I hope to discuss in detail the exact process the founders went through to come up with the wonderful document our representatives and we seem so ignorant of. For now, let me wish all of you well, and as always, invite your feedback.