Cowardly Acts

I'm a human being.  I try to treat all other human beings with decency ("generally accepted standards of moral behavior").  I hope others will treat me with decency.  It's like what I learned in Hebrew School a long time ago, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  

In 1954, United States Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin was conducting hearings into conflicting accusations made by both McCarthy and the United States Army.  Chief Counsel for the Army was a lawyer named Joseph Welch.  He later portrayed Judge Weaver in Otto Preminger's 1959 standout courtroom drama Anatomy of a Murder.

In the most memorable moment of the hearings, Welch stopped McCarthy's unjust character assassination of a young man with, "You've done enough.  Have you no sense of decency, sir?  At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"  The answer was apparently not.  

To me, a cowardly act shows a lack of decency.  In my life, I have been both a victim and a perpetrator of cowardly acts.

I am sorry for beating a dead horse, but I must bring up again the pretty blonde girl from Minetto (Sixteen Again and Sixteen Again RevisiTed).  She believed I did something that hurt her in some way.  Instead of confronting me with an explanation and a request for an apology, she committed a cowardly act by ignoring me forever.  She showed me a lack of decency, which I deserved.

I am sorry a second time for beating another dead horse, but I must bring up again the Nameless Girl (and the Nameless Girl RevisiTed).  I did not appreciate how she treated me.  So, instead of confronting her with an explanation and a request she change her ways, I committed a cowardly act by ignoring her forever.  (Did I learn that from the pretty blonde girl from Minetto?)  I showed the Nameless Girl a lack of decency, which she deserved.

Let me mention a new person.  One night my freshman year at Penn, the young men on the fifth floor of the Class of 1928 Dormitory invited women from the nursing school at the nearby Philadelphia General Hospital to a mixer.

There I met a very nice young woman who apparently thought I was a very nice young man.  She wasn't beautiful, but she was cute with short curly brown hair.  We spent virtually the whole mixer together, talking, drinking and eating.  We ignored all others.

She was an athlete (played soccer) and a sports fan.  How wonderful!  When her curfew approached, I walked her back to her dormitory on 34th Street.  She gave me her phone number and we kissed good night.  I felt great.  However, walking back to my dorm, I threw her phone number into a garbage bin on the street.  I never called her, ever.  What a dummy!

In the cold night air, I suddenly realized that our relationship had no long-term future since she wasn't Jewish.  I could imagine the frowning faces of my parents at my considering (at 18 years of age) marrying a shiksa (50 years later, I married one).  I committed a cowardly act by not giving her an explanation for my rude behavior.  

Of course, I should have continued seeing her in spite of my parents.  I was too young to be thinking about marriage.  I showed the nice young woman a lack a decency, which she deserved, which everybody deserves.