Psychology Today - Feb 11, 2026
Personal Perspective: He stuttered when he was young, but he refused to give up.
When George “Skip” Pakenham was young, it was a stretch to believe that one day he’d be a spokesperson for anything or achieve national stature. He suffered from severe stuttering, which shrouded at the time his extraordinary creative talents.
Pakenham started stuttering at age 10 and had an intense fear of speaking in class. He panicked to the point of asking his teacher, Miss Cooley, “Please don’t call on me!”
She obliged.
Pakenham was raised in Westfield, New Jersey, and has been a New York City resident for 45 years. It wasn’t until after college at the University of Arizona that Pakenham spoke with any confidence. He slowly found his voice, and today is a role model for perseverance and a clean environment.
But that’s just part of the story.
“The University of Arizona in Tucson opened my eyes to stunning nature—pristine mountains, beautiful cactus, and the purest air I’ve ever seen,” he says.
And he’s right. Skip and I—two Metro New Yorkers—met at the University of Arizona and traveled together back and forth through college as wide-eyed 20-year-olds, taking in along the way some of the finest national parks in America—Yellowstone, Montana’s Glacier National Park, Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon, and others. We slept in bedrolls under clear skies where one could see the Milky Way, looking as if someone had painted the sky with endless flecks of white.
It was a life-changing experience for both of us. I went on to become a journalist; Skip to save the planet, starting in New York’s Upper West Side. He brought back to his beloved New York a resilient desire for a far more purified air environment in the Big Apple. Back then, his brother had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.
At the time, Pakenham was an international mortgage advisor at Deutsche Bank in Manhattan, a gifted photographer, and a budding novelist. He looked to the sky for inspiration, and found it in a one-man, lone-ranger crusade for clean, healthy air in smog-infested New York. “I noticed many parked cars, buses, and trucks idling for as long as an hour despite a New York City unenforced 1971 law that said it was illegal to idle more than three minutes,” Pakenham says, noting that such pollution is deadly, causing cancer, dementia, asthma, and more than 3,000 premature deaths in New York each year. “Idling engines in this country,” he adds, “consume more than 6 billion gallons of gasoline annually—a significant but also little-known contributor to local air pollution, respiratory disease and global climate change.”
Pakenham, a man on a perilous mission and dressed in his banker clothes (white collared shirt, tie, and dress shoes), started years ago knocking on windows of idling trucks, cars, and buses, informing motorists peacefully, yet confidently, that they were breaking the law—somewhat of a suicide mission in a tough city like New York. He even designed a business card detailing the law on record.
The responses were as expected, as Pakenham wrote in his book Razzamatazz—99 Excuses.
Among them (can’t mention the expletives here):
“Why don’t you get a life?”
“Get out of my face. I’ll listen to a cop, not you!”
“I’m not idling. I’m waiting.”
Refusing to give up, Pakenham eventually turned heads and got many motorists to turn off their engines. He created a spreadsheet citing the location of the errant vehicle, type of vehicle, description of the driver, and whether they were aware of the law. Most weren’t.
Pakenham also produced an award-winning documentary that took five years to complete, “Idle Threat: Man on Emission.”
In time, his heroics gained worldwide attention, with stories about his efforts—among other media, in the New Yorker, The New York Times, New York Daily News, as well as media including NPR, CBS News, and Dutch, German, and French television coverage.
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All this from a kid who stuttered.
With the help of attorney Samara Swanston, who was in charge of environmental issues for the New York City Council, Pakenham won the support of the City Council and then Mayor Bill de Blasio for passage of a law allowing (and encouraging) other New Yorkers to follow in Pakenham’s footprints in urging enforcement of the idling law. The law comes now with a $350 fine, of which 25 percent upon verification is paid to these “Idle Warriors” as Pakenham calls them. Citizens must register with the city, then submit videos of the offenses for successful court prosecution. “While 2,500 New Yorkers have registered for the program, about 60 are patrolling diligently and making good money—some of them $100,000 a year, one of them a quarter million,” Pakenham proudly adds.
Refusing to rest on his laurels, Pakenham continues his vigilante efforts, although understandably at a lesser pace now.
Life comes full circle, as it has again for both of us. About two years ago, Pakenham, a man of great faith, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a form of dementia—a progressive, neurodegenerative disorder, resulting in symptoms like tremors, stiffness, slow movement, and balance issues. And he now has great fears of his stuttering returning. And several years ago, I was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and cancer—family diseases, both of which take time to run their deadly course.
Pakenham has taught me never to give up, and so I don’t. The two of us just remember those peaceful star-lit skies out west in the Milky Way, and know there is something out there far bigger than us.