THE END OF AN ERA

 

Trude Mero

 

An era in Hartford Democratic politics came to an end today with the passing of Trude Mero. I am not going to pretend to have ever been close to Trude or anything else, but it would be extremely hard to not know who Trude was. Anyone involved in Hartford politics has come across Trude, probably many more times than just once.

 

Sometimes you wonder how things work. I was out last night with a couple people and we started talking about Hartford politics and Trude came up. I had to tell my favorite Trude Mero story to them. Now Trude and myself didn't normally see eye to eye, and when two strong personalities collide, it makes for some interesting debates.

 

After mentioning her name to someone else this afternoon , I was told that Trude had been in poor health recently. About an hour later I was told she had passed away.

 

Although I had quite a few "debates" with Trude , the one I remember best was after the Halloween Snow storm a couple years ago.  I was running for City Council at the time and we were in the Parker Memorial Center on North Main Street, which was being used as an emergency center for people with out power

 

I had asked Trude for her support, almost expecting a "no" , but I had to ask anyway. Maybe just to see her reaction to me asking or maybe hoping she would say yes. Now anyone who has been at the receiving end of one of Trude's stares and the pause while she contemplated what she was going to say will understand the feeling, but it is hard to describe if you have never been there.

 

After she thought about what she was going to say, she continued the stare and said " Yes, I am going to support you, I really don't like you, but I like what you do"

 

That was classic Trude.

 

A mentor to many of Hartford's politico's will be missed