LOOSE ENDS, Oct. 25
By: Pam Hersh
The last conversation I had with Princeton Borough Mayor Joe O’Neill about a week before his death had nothing to do with him even though I asked him at least a dozen times how he was doing.
How he was doing never mattered in any of the thousands of conversations I had with him over the course of three decades. To Joe, it only mattered how I was doing, how others were doing, how the town was doing.
As horrible as he probably felt (I could only assume this fact from his labored breathing), Joe performed his job as Pam’s rant catcher with his usual grace, intelligence and wit.
For years, the former Jesuit priest, who exuded the wisdom of a rabbi (my only frame of reference), listened to me rant and rave about everything from dirty downtown Princeton streets to dirty politics. No matter what my personal or professional problem, Joe, whether serving as a Princeton Regional Planning Board member or borough mayor or friend, lent a scholarly and historic perspective that calmed me down long enough to carry me over to my next conversation with him.
Before Joe got sick, he would respond not only with a few wise words, but many wise words in the form of a research paper. Some of the most thoughtful and thought-provoking documents on my computer are those research papers written by Joe on thorny municipal issues, such as property taxes, town-and-gown financial relations and affordable housing.
Describing Joe in terms of a Sunday morning news show, I would say Joe provided me with the calm and in-depth focus of Sunday morning’s Charles Osgood, rather than the loud, screaming "Crossfire" approach.
Included in the litany of topics discussed in our last meeting was the concept of an anniversary, which is the vehicle of choice in town for socializing, networking and fundraising. An article in The New York Times had indicated that sex sells a socially good concept in most parts of the world. Joe and I had noted that in Princeton, anniversaries sell.
In the month of October alone, I had tallied more than a dozen local anniversary celebrations, including the 250th anniversary of Presbyterian mission in Princeton, the 75th anniversary of the Woodrow Wilson School, the 50th anniversary of the death of Einstein and 100th anniversary of Einstein’s remarkable insight into physics, and the 50th anniversary of Landau’s.
Raising the conversation to a scholarly level, Joe noted that the recently celebrated Jewish New Year not only ushered in the year 5766, but an anniversary of the creation of the world. Such an anniversary presented people with the opportunity to evaluate, to reflect on the state of current affairs and to consider how to make changes for the better.
Joe’s observations on the Jewish New Year were reminiscent of conversations I used to have with my father. The 20th anniversary of my father’s death took place Oct. 21, the day Joe died.
One "small but bright" change that Joe wanted to implement centered on an upcoming anniversary the 230th anniversary of the Battle of Princeton, on Jan. 3, 2007. Joe said he intended to preside over the January 2007 rededication of the cleaned, restored and illuminated Battle of Princeton Monument.
As a member of the Princeton Parks Alliance, I was well aware that the alliance had committed to helping Joe raise the money for the illumination. On Sunday, Joe was too sick to preside over the ceremony that launched the monument beautification project.
Sadly, Joe will not be around for the 230th Battle of Princeton anniversary celebration. I am sure he knew this fact when he was discussing the anniversary with me, but he said nothing, perhaps because he did not have the energy to listen to me rant on the utter injustice of such an occurrence.
But I can almost hear him counseling me that he would want this Battle of Princeton anniversary and the anniversaries of his death to be vehicles for celebrating the past, while moving forward with a vision for the future a perpetual light at the end of life’s often confounding tunnel.
A resident of Princeton, Pam Hersh is director of Community and State Affairs for Princeton University and a former managing editor of The Packet.

