Special Occasion

No matter how you feel about the war, gas prices, President Bush, Senators McCain and Obama, even our own Joe Lieberman, one of the more interesting events around the July 4th celebration in Middletown is the annual Naturalization Ceremony. The event takes place Thursday July 3 from 1 - 2 p.m. in the Council Chambers inside Middletown City Hall.

The ceremony is conducted by the Honorable Stefan R. Underhill, United States Federal Judge, and usually attended by CT Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, a member or 2 from the state delegation to the House of Representatives, a State Senator and/or Representative and the Mayor.

It's amazing to watch the people young and old taking the oath surrounded by family members and friends. One cannot help but be touched by the tears streaming down many of the faces. These people, representing many different countries, have come here transfixed by the idea and ideals of freedom. They know what a difficult task it is to become a citizen but they also know what it means.

Monday June 30 was the birthday of one such "citizen", the poet-essayist Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) who was born in Lithuania and settled in Poland during World War II. After defecting to Paris, France,in the early 1950s, he came to the United States in 1960. Milosz taught at the University of California/Berkeley, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980 and was awarded the U.S. National Medal of Arts in 1989. An astute observer of the human condition, he wrote the following words about the U.S. in his book, "Milosz's ABCs" (published in 2000 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.)

"What splendor! What poverty! What humanity! What inhumanity! What mutual good will! What individual isolation! What loyalty to the ideal! What hypocrisy! What a triumph of conscience! What perversity!"

I'm sure the new citizens understand Milosz's sentiments, many agree with him, but, like him, they still want to be part of this "dream."