“I was trying to get in touch with Gorbachev all those
years,” he explained about former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev,
“especially when Ronald Reagan was calling it the evil empire and we
found out later on there were some pretty close calls with our
submarines bumping their submarines.”
His goal, other than meeting Gorbachev,
was to bring an end to the Cold War; Curley had founded the 1988 Peace
Club in an effort to do just that. “I wanted to keep plugging on this
thing,” he added. “I feel vindicated because I wrote letters and kids’
books, and it ended up with Gorbachev’s right-hand man telling me he
had received my letters and my proposals. It was pretty heady stuff in
my house.”
Ultimately, Curley, who just released a collection of his musings in a book called So Far Out That He’s In: Opinions from an Opinionated Journalist
(Prometheus Books, Amherst, N.Y.; 403 pages; $18.98/softcover), met and
shook hands with the president at a 1997 appearance by Gorbechev at
Colgate University. “Having him take the actions that he took, which
paralleled my proposals for peace, I was quite proud of myself,” Curley
said. “There was a great temptation to brag about it for awhile, but
I’m over that now.”
With wit, charm and a good bit of humor,
Curley imparts his opinion and wisdom about a great many topics, each
chapter a conversation of sorts with his alter ego, Win. Chapter titles
include Politics, Potluck, Family, Opinions and Professor Quirky, in
which Curley inserts himself as a character in a sort of
point-counterpoint. Overall, it’s an entertaining read from a writer
whose name many longtime Central New Yorkers should recognize.
For more than three decades, Curley, 81, worked as a reporter and photographer for the Rome Sentinel, Oneida Daily Dispatch and Syracuse Herald-Journal.
Former Oneida Mayor Army Carinci, whom Curley covered in a professional
capacity, wrote the book’s foreword. “It was good to get Army Carinci’s
praise,” Curley said. “He’s known me for so long, and to be praised for
telling the truth. I was always proud of that.”
While cleaning the attic of his Oneida
home, he and some family members came upon a box of columns. After they
realized what they had found, the family pitched in to make choices and
compile. “The end result is these 400 pages,” Curley said. “There’s
still another box somewhere; this is probably 70 percent of the total.”
As for the book’s title, he explained it this way: “We had a friend of
one my kids over, and I was wearing a double-breasted suit. It had
probably been 30 or 40 years since anybody wore one of those and the
friend said, ‘Look at this guy here. He’s so far out that he’s in.’”
Curley seems genuinely bemused by the positive feedback
he has gotten for his tome. “It has been received with considerably
more gusto than I had anticipated,” he admitted. “A lot of people have
called to tell me they bought it and they love it. It surprises me that
So Far Out has gone as far as it’s gone.”
—Molly English-Bowers
