What's In a Name? That Which We Call ... Shirley

In a mad rush at the grocery store this morning, I spotted a couple little girls motoring along past the pharmacy with their mom. The girls, maybe 7, 8 years old, wore identical white t-shirts with bold black letters: SHAKESPEARE LIVES, it read, with a big ol’ cartoonish head of The Bard.

“Hey! I’m going there,” I said, way too excited, to these complete strangers, who stared blankly at the crazy man who hadn’t shaved in several days. Realizing they might be frightened, I quickly added, “Oh … I’m Gracie’s dad.” But they were gone.

(Sidebar: My wife says I talk too much to strangers. Like last night, we were late for a barbecue and I stopped by Leroy Package Store to get a bottle of Red Cat and ended up talking to the guy at the counter for a few minutes – the guy who grows and sells his own vegetables. Hadn’t seen him for a while. He filled me in on Mike, the kid who used to work there, and how Mike just went off to basic training. Army, I think he said.

I don’t really know Mike at all, but we chatted about him for a bit, then I came out to the car. The kids were singing along with "Smashing Pumpkins." “What were you doing?” my wife asked, all edgy. “Just talking to the guy about Mike, the guy who …” She shook her head as we drove away. Then she made fun of me at the barbecue.)

When I pulled up at Shirley Goodman’s house a few minutes after leaving the grocery store this morning, delivering a bag of ice to keep the ginger ale cold for the Shakespeare Camp final day's performance, I was relieved to see those same two little girls and their mom again. In my world of things needing to even out (see: the "Even Stephen" Seinfeld episode), it was a cleansing moment. So now the little girls and their mom knew I wasn't just some crazy person. Not completely, anyway.

I went onto the porch amid a bunch of elementary school girls, all wearing various colored t-shirts bearing the same bold print and the cartoon cranium. And there was Shirley, dragging a large green cooler out the front door.

Have you met Shirley Goodman? First thing you should know about her is that she’s among the small percentage of legitimately kind human beings walking around our planet. There's no facade. From there, the rest is gravy.

Shirley's a self-deprecating, semi-guileless sort, punctuated with a sarcastic jab. She and her husband Mike have four kids, some cats the number of which I don't actually know, a thundering, lovable mastiff with a urinary tract infection, maybe some rabbits or meerkats or pumas living in her back yard, who knows? You wouldn’t doubt it.

Shirley also has six heads, each going in one of seven directions. It's a trait that endears her to my wife and I, considering that we're familiar with the six-and-seven routine, albeit with half as many kids and, aside from two cats and a mammoth dog of our own, no other pets. (Although, my mother-in-law recently moved in. Have I mentioned that? Maybe a story for another day.)

From my view about halfway up in the Theater of Life (I don't see Shirley close-up every day, of course), she just puts herself out there for others - over and over and over - with a smile on her face.

In her day job (or as some might say, "in her real life"), Shirley Goodman is a special education teacher, perhaps one of the more challenging roles that world offers. People who teach children with disabilities receive a “get in free” card to heaven. If they don't, they should. I, and maybe you, too, don’t currently possess that level of patience.

But what Shirley Goodman does when she’s not drawing a paycheck might be one of the coolest things about her. After work, she volunteers (see: no money) to oversee her school’s drama club. And then there was today, and this week, with Shakespeare Camp.

To fill in some blanks, her little program is actually called Front-Porch Drama. As you might catch from the title, a bunch of young kids, those of her friends, neighbors and other cohorts – I’d guess around 15-20 girls, ages in the 7 to 11 range, and a small handful of boys in that range, too – gathered from 9 a.m. to noon each day this week on Shirley Goodman’s front porch.

As Shirley recently said, laughing, “I call it that because I’m not very creative, frankly. I also call a pencil … a pencil.”

This week on the Goodmans’ front porch, my 9-year-old daughter learned a lot.

* What was it like to be alive in Elizabethan times? Life was hard, and it was short.

* Mrs. Goodman showed them status gestures of the era – the bows and the greetings.

* They worked through the famous “speak the speech, I pray you” scene from Hamlet.

* They learned what Shakespeare was not (“whatcha talkin’ ’bout, Willis Shakespeare”) and what he was (“it’s Greek to me”).

* The kids were given food recipes from the Elizabethan era, then asked to put on a sort of Food Channel program, as they would imagine it might go (my daughter spoke the most about this activity).

* There was an activity centering on the play "The Tempest," after which they sang a song in the round, called, “Man’s Life a Vapor, Full of Woes.” ("He cuts a caper, down he goes! Down he, down he, down he, down he, Down he goes!”) At least the tune is upbeat, if not the lyrics.

* And they played games, making all this stuff I trudged through as a college student – yes, a British literature major, in the early stages – much less daunting and much more fun.

Years later, I’d read, on my own, the complete works of Shakespeare, coming to the conclusion that he remains today the world’s greatest writer. Ever.

Shirley Goodman doesn’t know I think that, but I’d guess she'd agree, at least in part because, in another lifetime, she received a master’s degree from New York University in education theater. Before Mike and the minors and the mastiff and the meerkats, Shirley did regional theater and a little bit of professional acting.

She travelled to England to study the stuff, then came home and sang with the Tri-Cities Opera choir, spent time with the Cider Mill Playhouse crew and the semi-professional New Heights Theater. She even did a one-woman show based on the popular book “Women Who Love Too Much,” called “Women Who Sing Too Much.” (Yeah, she’s funny.)

So, thanks to Shirley Goodman and people like her. They deserve a bottle of Red Cat (or two), and a huge thanks from people like us.

And now for something, well … from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.”

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. (Yes, Rush likes Shakespeare, too.)

You Speak Shakespeare ... As You Like It

Still not interested in Shakespeare? You’d never read that garbage? Too boring? Oh, really?

I found the bit below online. Might surprise you. Take a look. We're all unwitting Shakespeare citers:

“Without rhyme or reason," if you are "in a pickle" because you have been "eaten out of house and home" and even your "salad days" have "vanished into thin air," you are quoting Shakespeare.

You've been "hoodwinked" and "more sinned against than sinning." No wonder you're not "playing fast and loose" and haven't "slept a wink" and are probably "breathing your last." It's "cold comfort" that you're quoting Shakespeare.

If you "point your finger" at me, "bid me good riddance" when you "send me packing" and call me a "laughing-stock," "the devil incarnate," a "sorry sight," "eyesore," and a "stone-hearted," "bloody-minded" "blinking idiot" and wish I were "dead as a door-nail", then I would say that you possess neither a "heart of gold" nor "the milk of human kindness," especially considering that we are "flesh and blood." (Yep, all Shakespeare.)

Now that we have gone "full circle" and you are still waiting with a "bated breath" since I have not been able to make you "budge an inch," it is "fair play" for me to quit this sermon since Shakespeare himself taught me that "brevity is the soul of wit."

It's a "foregone conclusion" that we all speak Shakespeare's language.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

This Joe Merrill for Mayor political lawn sign is well placed, as it is on private property.


To the left and right of this frame is something that's seen frequently around the city now. Two signs for the same political candidate on one property. According to city code, this is illegal.


This Matt Ryan for Mayor sign is illegally placed, on city property, between the sidewalk and the curb. This sign must either be moved to the opposite side of that sidewalk, or it must be removed, according to city code.


This Matt Ryan political yard sign is well placed, on private property.


In this photo, there are two political lawn signs on the same property - a violation of city code. (The second sign is more difficult to see in this photo, from this angle. The second sign faces the other street, as this property is a corner lot.)

’Tis the season for political lawn signs, so step right up for your annual lesson on how it can, and cannot go.

So far in the City of Binghamton we’ve been graced by a bevy of Matt Ryan multi-colored signs, and a smattering of Joe Merrill signs. They’re running in a primary to see who gets local Democrats' nod in the booth come November.

So far, both candidates have been in violation of City of Binghamton law, Ryan to a much greater extent. (I was in contact with the City Clerk's office for this article, and mentioned just one Merrill sign I'd spotted that was in violation. Merrill responded in writing immediately.)

"I've already corrected two people (who have placed) mine," Merrill wrote. "I'm probably the worst one yelling about it because I don't need any problems. Please give me a shout if you find any of mine that are not, they will be fixed by the end of the day."

If you cruise the streets of the city, at the moment you’ll see several more Ryan political support signs than those from the Merrill camp. Ryan has more dots on the map, and his signs also violate the city’s code many more times. His people have either placed more than one of his signs on a single property, or they've placed signs on the strips of turf between sidewalks and the street which, technically speaking, is city property.

It was an entertaining exercise calling around to see who knew what about the yard signs.
A quick call to the Broome County Elections office got the following response: “You’ll have to call your town about that.”

Eileen Miller in the Binghamton City Clerk’s Office was, as always, a great help and she sent me via e-mail the following, which lays out guidelines clearly:

Political signs, provided that such signs are not more than 32 square feet in area if located in a commercial or industrial district or four square feet in a residential district; are limited to not more than one per lot; are located entirely on private property pursuant to the owner's consent; are clearly marked with the name, address and telephone number of the person responsible for the removal of such sign; are erected not more than 60 days prior to any general, special or primary election, and are removed within 14 days following such election; and are erected only in the district in which the candidate is running for office.

But I still had a question about the authority to remove the signs.

From the end of 1999 to the end of 2003, I served as Deputy City Clerk for the city. Howard Dugo was my boss, serving as City Clerk. He’d been clerk for several years and knew the routine by rote. I tried calling Howard this week, but he was away on vacation.

I recalled that when I worked with Howard, when we received a complaint call about an ill-placed political sign, we’d send a letter to that candidate’s camp. That contact name, address and phone number was supposed to be affixed to each sign placed throughout the community.

Sometimes they were, but often they weren’t.

Binghamton being a relatively small political realm, however, we usually could find a contact. If they put their sign(s) into compliance (by either moving or removing them, or adding the proper identification information), they were good to go. But many times there would be no action, and the signs would be removed.

Back then, Howard told me that as City Clerk and Deputy Clerk, we had the authority to remove the signs that were not in compliance. I was asked to remove a few – specifically for the Garo Kachadourian City Council campaign, back then – and I did.

Years later, Garo confronted me, saying I “stole” his signs. I told him I was simply doing my job and that the signs were placed on city property. We both eventually got a laugh out of it, especially when he realized I wasn’t about to deny that, “Yes, I removed your signs. It was around noon on a sunny weekday at a very busy intersection. I wasn’t trying to hide anything.”

There were other times when Howard would request that the police officers of the Traffic Division go out and pull signs that were not in compliance with city code. But Eric Denk, who took over as City Clerk after Howard and I left the office, had more information for me.

“The regulations stipulate that political yard signs must be 100 percent on private property,” said Denk, who served as clerk from 2004 to 2006, and is now clerk to the Broome County Legislature. These issues are fielded by personnel who deal with zoning enforcement and code enforcement, he added.

"The City Clerk never really had anything to do with it, on paper," Denk said. "I suspect that the city, in general, didn’t want anything to do with it, so Howard was willing to handle it because he's a nice guy. Back then, City Clerks administered elections so someone probably thought, 'hey, let’s have the City Clerk be responsible for illegal political signs.'"

Denk went on to say that his interpretation of the law is that anything – including a political yard sign – that is placed “in the utility strip (between the sidewalk and the curb) can be considered garbage and can be hauled away.”

I laughed and asked if, then, a private citizen could legally chuck a lawn sign posted in that utility strip. We never really did come to a conclusion, but we agreed it might be akin to someone sifting through your garbage at the curb the night before your pickup.

“Which is also illegal, isn’t it?” I said.

“I think anything that goes to the curb is then, technically, city property,” responded Denk, who served two terms on Binghamton City Council, and who also ran for mayor.

Denk said that there was another area of question when he served as City Clerk.

“When I was clerk, I drafted some language to address properties that did not have sidewalks and/or curbs and submitted it to the city’s Planning Department,” he said, but that change apparently has not yet made it into the city’s code language, which was last updated December 15, 2006.

“If it hasn’t been done yet, it’s my opinion that it should be done in the future,” Denk added.

Ted Tedino returned my call shortly after I spoke with Denk. Tedino works in the city’s Building Bureau. In his voice message, he said that he handles complaints about political signage.

“That’s me. I’ve never had to cite anyone for political signage,” Tedino said. “If they’re in the city right-of-way, then I contact the campaign manager and get them to put it back on the other side of the side walk. That’s the violation.

“If they have more than one, I tell them, get it outta there,” he added.

Tedino also said that before he retired, Chadwick sent letters on July 28 to “all the campaigns,” reminding them of the city guidelines.

So, if you see a political sign on your street, in your neighborhood or, for that matter, anywhere in the city, that does not comply with the city’s laws? I encourage you to contact the proper authorities (Tedino can be reached by calling 772-7004) in order to better hold everyone to the same standard.

And now, for something completely ... well, similar.