Former New York State Gov. Mario Cuomo will come to Barnes & Noble to talk about life’s lessons and his new children’s book, "The Blue Spruce"
By:Ilene Dube
In 1982, when Mario Cuomo was running against millionaire businessman Lewis Lehrman for the governorship of New York State, he had a little epiphany.
Mr. Cuomo, out of money, was feeling discouraged by Mr. Lehrman’s commanding lead, and thinking about giving up. One night, he came across his father’s old business card. His father had been a grocer in Queens, N.Y., and the card triggered a flashback to an incident many years ago.
The senior Mr. Cuomo had struggled hard for many years to fulfill his dream of moving his family into a house in the Holliswood section of Queens. The house came with a magnificent blue spruce that proved to be a guiding force in the life of Mario Cuomo (see box). In saving the toppled tree during a powerful storm, Mr. Cuomo learned from his father, an Italian immigrant, that you only lose the game when you give up.
Mr. Cuomo went on to win the race and served 12 years as governor. In 1983, Random House published his diary that included the anecdote. Later, Reader’s Digest printed this excerpt, and then Mr. Cuomo recorded it on a cassette for National Public Radio; it was offered as a premium during pledge drives.
About a year ago, Sleeping Bear Press asked Mr. Cuomo if he could turn it into a children’s book.
The result is "The Blue Spruce" (Sleeping Bear Press, $17.95), and Mr. Cuomo will be at Barnes & Noble in MarketFair, West Windsor, Thursday at 7 p.m. to discuss its message: believing in your dreams, working hard, and never giving up until you realize those dreams.
"I believed from the very beginning that it was more than just a beautiful tree," says Mr. Cuomo in the introduction to the book. "In those days my imagination was livelier. I felt the great spruce understood my words and thoughts and even tried to speak back to me. But I never heard the spruce more clearly than I did years later, when I was fully grown, in a tough political race for governor, far behind and discouraged…"
Mr. Cuomo says he prefers writing to speech making. "With writing, there is less strain, and you can correct your words. Every time you give a speech there is the fear that you are going to fail. Once it’s out of your mouth, it’s all over."
Writing for children is more than just simplifying the language, adds Mr. Cuomo. "You need an awareness of child psychology," he said.
Mario Cuomo began life in the struggling neighborhood of South Jamaica, Queens, at the height of the Great Depression. His father, Andrea Cuomo, earned a living digging ditches, and brought his wife, Immaculata, and two children from Italy. When the Depression hit, the senior Mr. Cuomo, who could not read or write, was out of work. There was no welfare, no Medicare, no Medicaid and no Social Security. A baby named Mario died.
Then, a Jewish man with a grocery in South Jamaica who couldn’t do any physical work asked Mr. Cuomo to do the work in exchange for a room behind the grocery. Whenever he could, the grocery store owner would give the Cuomos some money to buy clothing. Mario Cuomo was born on a table in that room, and named for the baby who had died.
"I think about how tough they had it, my papa, older brother and sister, my mother – but not me by the time I came," said Mr. Cuomo.
Though he could barely speak English when he began first grade in the New York City public schools, Mr. Cuomo graduated summa cum laude in 1953 from St. John’s University and in 1956 tied for top-of-the-class honors at St. John’s University School of Law. He later served there for 13 years as an adjunct professor.
For nearly two decades, he fought as a lawyer for the ordinary citizen and eventually gained prominent public notice in 1972 when, at the request of New York City Mayor John Lindsay, he stepped in to resolve a bitter dispute over proposed public housing in the community of Forest Hills, Queens.
Mr. Cuomo continued to practice law until 1975 when he was appointed by Gov. Hugh Carey as New York’s secretary of state. In 1978, he was elected lieutenant governor, a position he held until going on to win the governorship.
Following his governorship, in 1994, he returned to private practice and continues to practice law at the New York firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher.
The book’s illustrations, by Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen, do not exactly conjure Mr. Cuomo’s mental pictures of his childhood.
"They run more to the abstract and the impressionistic," said Mr. Cuomo. "He is a brilliant artist, and the bold colors are lovely for children."
Although the publisher offered to arrange a meeting between author and artist before the illustrations, Mr. Cuomo said he felt this wasn’t necessary – "I understood him to be a great artist."
In the end, when Mr. Cuomo told Mr. Frankenhuyzen that he loved the illustrations, the artist was very pleased, according to Mr. Cuomo.
Married in 1954, the former governor and Matilda Raffa Cuomo are the parents of five children and nine granddaughters.
Profits from the book are earmarked for two charities: HELP, a homeless housing project started by Mr. Cuomo’s son, Andrew, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and run by his daughter, Maria ("It is the largest housing project in the U.S., and probably the world," said Mr. Cuomo); and a national mentoring program for at-risk children, started by Matilda Cuomo.
The blue spruce tree that inspired the story still stands today, reports Mr. Cuomo, although some of the bottom branches have come off.
"It’s getting older after all these years," he said. His family recently gathered for a joint Hanukkah/Christmas celebration, and his daughter, Maria, presented him with a baby blue spruce dedicated to the senior Mr. Cuomo.
When asked if he has ever thought about writing a children’s book about a great man whom many people wanted to run for president, but who did not, he modestly replied, "I haven’t yet met such a ‘great man.’"