Roger

Roger N. Ludwick came on and off our radar for the decade-long residence we spent in Saipan. Two blips came. First, in our support of teachers in the retirement rule change that excluded those hired on the promise of inclusion in the retirement benefits after three years of PSS employment but has not completed their three-year service. The system was being held accountable to its promise and the Legislature rectified the oversight.

When we joined the PSS family, we were momentarily involved in promoting the interest of PSS teachers through the Association of Commonwealth Teachers. Promoting an ambience of broad participation in the decision-making processes surrounding CNMI education, we tried getting teachers to be more conversant not only in organizational matters that affect their bread and butter, but more importantly, on the curriculum issues that affect the fate of students, who after all, were the raison d’etre for the profession. We found retiree Ludwick’s encouragement and support a very enabling second blip.

We did not last very long in our ACT activism when we planned to return to Hawaii and care for parents getting on with age. Just before I could move, however, my Dad called in ‘ten-four’ at 94; Mom was quite fine with my other siblings that she did not encourage my projected relocation. It didn’t matter since our ACT days appear to have been a bit on the naive side about the political posturing we encountered that surprisingly accompanied what we thought was just a simple gathering of colleagues into a circle of collegial trust and enlightened fellowship.

It was in last year’s Don Farrell-led symposium on the 65th year of the Tinian A-pits that I ran into Roger. We had a pleasant encounter, he and his wife, and the conversation was ever lively since Roger was not known for being bashful about expressing his opinions. He was an active voice in matters related to the Retirement Fund, and I was then still facing the issue of my own “retirement.”

Briefly, I am two years short of SS benefits. I paid five years worth of contribution into the CNMI Retirement Fund rather than fulfill the 10-year contribution requirement of the U.S. Social Security system. Upon diagnosis of cervical spondylosis early 2009, my principal pointed me to the medical retirement option. I checked out what it entailed. Forsaking the medical advice to remove a bone outgrowth, which the government insurance service were to pay for, documents from which would have established my eligibility for medical retirement, I sought instead alternative pain management associated with the degenerative osteoarthritis.

I was not being heroic. I was only too lucid that the Retirement Fund was reeling under its own blithe, though, callous indifference (Roger would say, “criminal”), and by choice, having come on island as a mendicant monastic, I was not comfortable adding more burden to what was evidently a soon-to-be beleaguered public fund. Besides, I was known to champion the cause of individual self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and self-confidence, and I was not about to rely on the performance of the Commonwealth’s Titanic. Also, two years before, I had four days of gall bladder surgery at a hospital in Hawaii to the tune of $24K before I discovered there are less costly ways to dissolve the offending stones without resorting to the scalpel, so I decided to handle my own medical requirement. I resigned my PSS post.

“Big mistake,” a colleague later mused. He opined that not only did I un-employ myself unnecessarily since I could not possibly expect to be rehired when my medical condition stabilized (“the system could hire two entry levels at your price,” he said), I also let PSS off the hook re retirement. “BoE should give you an award for doing them a favor,” he chuckled with his sardonic sense of humor.

Neither here nor there. I did want to bring the matter to Ludwick’s attention (cc: RF watchers Bill Stewart, Ruth Tighe, Sappuro Rayphand), or check with Kilili’s office and see if I can retrieve the CNMI’s counterpart to my retirement contribution and apply it to the SS system, but that is academic since Gov-CNMI had not paid their part in the bargain. Besides, former deputy AG Gregory Baka was kind enough to remind me that U.S. governance is two-tiered sovereignty. Once the CNMI opted to forego the federal SS system, the twain was never to have a sane conversation ever again!

Well, retirement is front-page news these days, what with the feds discovering they had been paying out five years worth of benefits to long departed retirees. Chicago’s labor leaders listed themselves into the retirement fund gravy train, and one GOP presidential candidate called the SS one big Ponzi operation (not altogether false).

Retired Roger was boarding an airplane recently when his heart gave out. Of the Roger I knew, I would expect him to say, “I’ve passed out after a few bottles of brew, made a pass at and passed on by a few; I’ve passed out petitions, and some into law, but when I go, don’t say, ‘He passed away.’ Say, ‘He died, and he knew!’”

I celebrate the completed life of Roger N. Ludwick, one, unique, unrepeatable gift of life into human history. There has never been one like him before, and there will never be another one like him ever again. L’achaim!

Vergara is a regular contributor to the Saipan Tribune’s Opinion Section.