private eyes, watching you

I grew up on Denniston Avenue in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, in what was referred to in the good old days as a row house. There were four sets of rows, each containing six homes with at least two common walls.

Denniston Avenue was a safe, simple, place to grow up and as it used to be in the 50's and early 60's a nurturing environment where everyone knew their neighbors, never locked their doors, and shared for the most part, a common public life on the porches or front lawns of a very common neighborhood.

Because of the proximity and lack of any space between the houses, and the fact that social life on Denniston consisted of playing on the street or sitting around the front lawns on a warm and humid summer night, most private life became public knowledge.

We knew when Aunt Ruthie (in the 50's neighbors were like family, but there still was a sense of respect for your elders, so we never called out neighbors by their last names just added aunt or uncle to their first names), and Uncle Nat were arguing. You could walk past their front bedroom and hear a few choice swear words bantered back and forth, and you got wind of the fact that the two cared less and less for each other the more they remained married.

We knew when Uncle Jerry drank too much because Aunt Bea, threatened to throw him out of the house if he dared come home one more night "under the influence". And we actually knew when a second Aunt Ruth was just not interested in having any more sex tonight, tomorrow or as I recall forever, with Uncle Leonard.

The personal lives of the neighbors was never discussed out loud directly, but their private conversations, communications, and chats were known and noticed.

It was however fair game to talk about other peoples marriages and struggles. It was okay to discuss with great discourse the cheating, the drinking, the philandering and infidelities of anyone else. And they did.

And so it seems that many politicians feel the same philosophy of talking publicly about others but never mention my own affairs because it is personal is the correct way to go.

Many politicians will talk about the evils of same sex marriage, never knowing who they may affect by demeaning or discriminating. They will talk about the negatives of how a same sex couple marrying one another would eat away at some invisible foundation of marriage. They will criticize, chastise, and cull up every conceivable scenario to admonish and abolish any hope for marriage other than opposite sex marital bliss.

But talk about their (the politicians) sordid affairs and marriage all of the sudden becomes "off limits", and infringement on the politicians personal life, or not a fair issue to discuss.

Daryl Hall and John Oates had a popular song in 1981 called "Private Eyes". A small part of the lyric stated, "...private eyes are watching you..." How come those same private eyes are always watching someone else; but never are those same peering, condemning, subjective eyes ever turned inward?

If you want to discuss my life it is as sure as hell open season on your life Misters Clinton, Senator Ensign, Governor Sanford, Senator Craig, Senator Vitter, Governor Spitzer.

Enough private eyes watching me.