Only in America.......................................

      There was no incentive, then, to move higher.  And perhaps the office of governor of New York was high enough for one lifetime.  It already marked an extraordinary rise for a boy born in Queens, behind a shop, to immigrants from Italy who spoke no English;  for the son of a grocer in a stained overall who saved crusts for those even needier than he was.  The boy Mario had soared through baseball, law and politics, but to them he was still the lucky scamp, and he would test out his policy ideas on Momma later to get her earthy, tart reaction.  His ideal America was just this, a bickering, diverse family in which each member nonetheless worked for the enterprise and all were in it together;  and where almost no one, certainly not he, so indulged the sin of pride as to think themselves worthy of the very highest place.

-excerpted from this The Economist obituary for Mario Cuomo