Gov. Patrick Discusses His "Improbable" Life

April 25, 2011

Click here to see the photo gallery on Flickr from this event.

The following article appeared in the April 23 edition of the Daily Hampshire Gazette.

'Improbable' Gov. Deval Patrick appears at Mount Holyoke College on book tour

By BEN STORROW
Staff Writer

SOUTH HADLEY - A son of the South Side of Chicago, Deval Patrick did not know much about dairy farming before he ran for governor in 2006. "I'd been on farms before, but I never had farmers talk to me about the challenges they face," Patrick said, recalling a campaign stop at a Colrain dairy in 2006. "I never had farmers talk to me about whether the second- or third-generation family farm would be there for their children or whether the next generation even wanted to run the farm.

"That connection with people, the grace they have shown me, is what I am trying to write about in this book," Patrick said.

That book is the governor's recently published memoir, "A Reason to Believe: Lessons From an Improbable Life," and those comments came in a wide-ranging interview with the Gazette this week, in which Patrick discussed his recent travels, the state's finances, his relationship with western Massachusetts and the memoir itself.

The governor, as he has done in numerous interviews, attempted to dispel the notion that publishing the memoir means he has set his sights on higher political office.

"I think if you are a sitting governor and you write a book people think you are preparing for a campaign or settling scores," Patrick said. "This is not a book about settling political scores. This is a personal story about the extraordinary gift that has been given to me and the impact it has had on others."

He promised he would serve out the remainder of the four-year term he began in January.

Patrick has spent a considerable amount of time promoting the memoir in recent weeks, traveling to Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C., to talk up the book and appearing on national television programs ranging from "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" to "Today."

The governor's travels have produced fresh fodder for critics, who claim Patrick is neglecting his duties at a time when the state is facing a projected $1.9 billion budget shortfall in the fiscal year beginning July 1.

But the governor deflected those barbs, saying "You're governor all the time. I know what my day job is, believe me." Patrick said that he already has turned in a budget for the coming fiscal year which "eliminates the structural budget deficit we have had over the last couple of years."

The governor's proposed $30.5 billion would close the $1.9 billion shortfall by making $1.3 billion in budget cuts, using $360 million in temporary reserves while anticipating $244 million from revenue reforms, such as an expanded bottle bill.

Those revenue projections were not included in the House's $30.4 billion budget released earlier this month. On Friday, the governor's attention returned to his book tour, this time with a pair of events at Mount Holyoke College- a private fundraiser to benefit Picknelly Adult and Family Education Center in Holyoke and a public reading of his memoir.

In the latter event, the governor largely stuck to what has become a well-worn script at promotional events and interviews with the press. He said the memoir was written as a tribute to the teachers, church ladies on the South Side of Chicago, voters and countless strangers who have helped get him to where he is today.

"I am very hopeful person, an unrepentant idealist, and I have come to appreciate those qualities as strengths. This book as much of anything is a tribute to the people who have taught me those lessons," Patrick told the crowd, repeating a refrain that has become commonplace wherever he discusses the book.

But the governor opened up as the event entered into a question and answer session. Attendees pressed the governor on everything from his education policies to maintaining his optimism during recent years, when both the commonwealth and its citizens have struggled amid the depths of the recession.

The resilience of optimism during difficult times was a skill acquired long ago from his grandmother, who taught him to dream that a better future is always possible, the governor said in response to the latter question. His grandmother always told him to tell people that they were broke, never poor, because "broke is temporary," Patrick said.

And as it related to the difficulties at the state level, Patrick recalled a story from a civil rights advocate who told him that fighting for civil rights was like a relay race for justice.

"We're doing in our time what we can do and must do to leave it better for those who come behind us," Patrick said, citing the commonwealth's increases in alternative energy production and widespread access to health care as major accomplishments even amid the recession. "For me it has been learning that we may not be able to solve it all, but if you just sit around and moan about what you haven't been able to do, then you don't spend the time doing what you can."

The memoir, a 227-page account, chronicles the governor's rise from an impoverished childhood on the South Side of Chicago to becoming the first African-American governor of Massachusetts. He tells the stories of his adjustment to life at Milton Academy, the prep school he attended on scholarship in high school, his difficult and prolonged reconciliation with his father, who was absent in his youth, and the small moments of kindness from strangers along the way.

According to published reports, he received a $1.35 million advance for writing the memoir, which was published by Broadway Books, a division of Random House.

Among the many people that Patrick thanks along the way in the memoir, is a Massachusetts dairy farmer

"There have also been strangers, many strangers - whether on a dairy farm in Massachusetts or in the sands of the Nubian Desert - who through their words or deeds have delivered transcendent messages about life, faith, and friendship," he writes.

Speaking to the Gazette on Monday, Patrick said he was referring to a pair of visits he paid to a Colrain dairy farm, one in 2006 when he was running for governor and another in 2007 after he had assumed office.

Although he did not remember the name of the farm, Patrick said speaking to farmers in Colrain then and learning about the challenges they face helped "teach me how to be a better governor."

The farm in question is the Hager Brothers dairy farm, according to published reports of that visit.

Patrick said he felt he had earned the trust of voters in western Massachusetts, a region he carried heavily in both the 2006 and 2010 gubernatorial contests, by making a commitment to being "governor of the whole state."

In his first campaign, Patrick said he learned that "everybody outside of Route 128 feels like Beacon Hill only concentrates on life inside Route 128. I have been intentional in paying attention to central and western Massachusetts."

Yet he acknowledged the concerns of western Massachusetts residents, who at times have questioned some of his decisions, such as budget cuts to the University of Massachusetts Amherst and in local aid.

"We have had to make cuts to higher education," Patrick said. "Those are not happy cuts ... These are tough times. The solution in many people's view is not to do any cuts, but raise taxes. But it also a time for us to look for ways to get as much out of a buck as possible."

He cited an effort to get the state's colleges and universities to enter into joint purchasing programs as an example of an initiative that will create greater efficiencies and benefit both the state and its higher education system in the long term.

The governor also noted that many western Massachusetts residents remain frustrated over the lack of access to high-speed Internet. At a 2008 ceremony announcing the signing of a $40 million broadband Internet in Goshen, Patrick promised that the region would be connected to the Web within three years.

"They want it yesterday," Patrick said of residents' desire for broadband. "People want those results sooner than later."

But he applauded the state's MassBroadband 123 effort, a $71.6 million project funded by the federal and state governments that will see 1,338 miles of fiber-optic cable strung to rural town centers that now receive only fleeting access to high-speed Internet.

Patrick spoke at length about his view of government, saying, "I don't buy that cartoon version of left or right. I don't buy the big-government or small-government argument. What I believe is that we should have a civic and persistent conversation about what we want government to do ... Then we should have an honest conversation about how to pay for it."

Education ranks at the top of Patrick's list of priorities, he said. "I think high-quality public education, pre-K through higher education, is critical," he said. "... Education is transformative; I can say that as someone who lived it."

He strongly rebutted a notion that funding for public education will drop in the coming year's budget, arguing that the state's contribution to Chapter 70, state aid for education, "has gone up every year."

According to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, an independent research group funded by unions and foundations, the state's contribution to Chapter 70 funds will increase from $3.85 billion in fiscal 2011 to $3.99 billion in fiscal 2012. But total Chapter 70 spending will decrease from $4.07 billion to $3.99 billion due to a loss of federal stimulus fund in the coming fiscal year, MassBudget reported.

Still Patrick acknowledged that state budget cuts to human services were hard for him to stomach, saying "as difficult as they may be for me, I am very mindful of the impact they have on the people who rely on these programs."

On Friday, many of the questioners sought to ask the governor for advice.

Steve Howard of Boston drove to South Hadley for the event. A personal acquaintance of Patrick's who as a child participated in the busing program that saw students transported from the inner city to schools in suburbs like Boston, Howard asked the governor how he speaks to young men about retaining their "blackness" while also pursuing an education.

That dilemma was one that Patrick said he himself had experienced when he went away to study at Milton. Recalling meeting his family at home after returning from his first school break, "My sister said 'ohh, he talks like a white boy.' I was devastated. And my grandmother shot back, he speaks like an educated boy, and saved the day," Patrick said. To overcoming such feelings, Patrick said he drew on a lesson from his sixth-grade teacher, who taught him not to live in a world classified by class or race, but in the "whole world," as he put it.

"The only way to do that with any real authenticity is to decide who you are and then to be that all the time," Patrick said.

Permanent link to this story: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/news/stories/5682829