Toss your walkers, your dentures, and fling your hearing aids skyward. "We can do it" too!

Would have written sooner, but I was busy getting my keys to the tree house, and everything had to be put on hold while I was being properly badged and hatted for re-entry into the workforce (as if I ever left). As unlikely as it may sound, I'm now a full-fledged National Park Ranger and I'm even wearing regulation brown socks, courtesy of our General Superintendent. (But I vowed long ago to go easy on mentioning the actual names of others in my life lest I invade someone's privacy. Learned that from one of my son's who shall be nameless.)

At an age where most have been retired for at least 25 years, I've just started another career. And -- I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm having an amazing adventure that will probably come to an end only on that day when I wake up and look for my bright and shining brass name plate (neatly placed over my right breast pocket) to figure out just who I am and what in the world this woman is doing driving to the office in my little red Beamer with my fancy-schmancy ranger hat topping her blue flannel pajamas!

Last Friday was my first day actually in uniform after several years of being a contract worker for the Trust which supports Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front Historical National Park. In that role I've been consciously aware of the privilege and responsibility of working with a national park in its earliest stages of development. The chance to help to shape what this park will be -- even in the seemingly inconsequential ways open to someone in the lower ranks of the hierarchy -- is awesome -- in the best sense of that overused word.

Though my work life started relatively late. (I didn't seriously enter the work force until my children were grown and I was nearly 50.) Since that time I've been lucky to have held a succession of great positions that -- together -- led to where I am now. Nothing was wasted; not a single month, day, or hour. And it all came at a time when I was fully mature with an impressive time line in exciting eras of political change; with an awareness of where I fit into it all; and with an enthusiasm that kept me contemporary every step of the way.

I thought of all that yesterday as city staffers began to file into our work space (the Park's temporary Reception Center is hosted by the City of Richmond in City Hall) to take a look at me in full regalia. It feels as if I've become symbolic of something truly important. I am a woman of color. In a strange way, through my work with the National Park Service -- we've all arrived at some new place. It feels as though we're all standing under this distinctive straw hat -- only I'm the official wearer of the moment. Some young woman will inherit this role at some point when I'm no longer around; what a humbling thought. What an amazing way to enter into a new trajectory of national life while helping to preserve the old and its lessons. In some strange way I appear to represent it all.

Much of this crossed my mind as I stood against the wall of the makeshift chapel with the other Rangers at yesterday afternoon's powerful commemoration of the tragic Port Chicago Explosion of July 17, 1944. I was there among the remaining veterans of a tiny group of survivors; family members of survivors; other National Park Service personnel; Armed Forces and Maritime Service representatives; all gathered to honor those young lives lost long ago. I could close my eyes and still bring to consciousness the trauma of that awful night when -- miles away in Berkeley -- the silence was shattered by the fury of that awful blast as it broke through our sleep. Some of the lives that were lost had been at an innocent afternoon party only hours before in our little apartment. They'd left hurriedly to make it back to Port Chicago before curfew ... .

I never knew their names.

... and here it was. Betty the Old with Betty the Contemporary, and both awed by the wonder of it all ... .

In that eerie way that some sixth sense moves me from some deep place now and then ...

Today I found myself -- for no particular reason -- absently putting "Charbonnet" (my surname) into the Google search bar and -- there it was among the many listings offered up; an obituary for someone I didn't realize had survived into these years. This was my aunt. The wife of one of my father's younger brothers. She passed away only a few days ago, at 101. I saw her over 30 years ago when she and my uncle made their only visit to the S.F. Bay Area when my father was critically ill. Or perhaps it was late in the 1980's when Bill and I stayed at their home on a Mardi Gras visit home.


Myrtle "Ma Myrt" Labat Charbonnet Passes
posted by Laureen Lentz on June 26, 20007

In a city where funerals are revered as one of our unique cultural experiences, the passing of Mrs. Myrtle Labat-Charbonnet is of particular historical significance. The Charbonnet funeral home is at the center of St. Phillips St. and Claiborne in Treme. Under Myrtle's encouragement they rebuilt after Katrina. Their hard work has encouraged the property owners around them not just to rebuild but encouraged larger investment along Ursuline and N. Robertson Streets. They have been a catalyst to the positive work being done in Treme.

I used to go to second lines. Now, I go to the funerals too. In this case, it's a neighbor who has lost a Mother. But at the service, I learned so much more about this legendary family from Treme.

Jazz Funerals don't just happen. Bands, carriages, programs, limosines, caring and guiding staff, horses and their guides, police escorts, the repast at the end. It is very complex when you consider all that must happen, all the while serving a grieving family, not just the second line most of us enjoy.

The Charbonnet Funeral home owns the elaborate carriages for which New Orleans is known for as part of our unique Jazz Funeral tradition and they are stored in Treme. Myrtle Labat-Charbonnet inherited the funeral home from her Godfather at a young age. It suffered a tragic fire in 1962 and Ma Myrt and her husband, Louis, rebuilt. Ma Myrt was born in 1906. She lived in New Orleans when it was all horse and buggy. She attended the Bayou Road School as a child and told her family how she was able to ride a horse from Treme to the River. I learned many compelling facts about this strong and fascinating lady today from her handsome family. For instance, Ma Myrt was declared the oldest voter in her precinct, never missing an election.

As her obituary points out, she was a very active member of her church and community throughout her life. Even though she was in a fragile state of health and remained in Baton Rouge she insisted that her children work to reopen after Katrina. They fulfilled her wish and gave our neighborhood hope in the process. Charbonnet supported their first post-storm service in October of 2005 and reopened the public areas of the funeral home in a limited capacity in June of 2006 and now are operating in all the space on their site.

Today, due to its rich legacy, the Labat-Charbonnet Funeral Home is one of the most highly-regarded funeral homes in the entire state. This was evident by the presence of many state-level funeral, embalming and mortuary professionals at the funeral today who offered their support to this legendary family who have supported thousands of New Orleans families through their darkest time throughout their 124 year history.

Louis, Jr., her son, gives the neighborhood organization (HFTA) use of rooms at the funeral home for meetings in Treme. He broke down in tears today as he explained that Ma Myrt never made it back home to New Oreans after Katrina. He said, "We were so close, until she suffered a fall. When they discharged the hospice ...


So many families have been unable to get their elders home since Katrina, but today, Ma Myrt is home. It was a great honor to be there today."


Photo accompanied the article above. This was the funeral procession for Aunt Myrtle.

Another video interview and the usual early-morning post mortem ...

The pattern is pretty well set now. I've gradually become more comfortable with the public attention, but there are some unanticipated problems. I've not yet learned to take full advantage of my newly-found limited celebrity well enough to allow for my also newly-found "outrageous 'lil ole lady" status to take fuller advantage of the limelight. I may need some boldness lessons. Example:

Yesterday I taped two half-hour shows with Dr. Barbara Cannon for later viewing from the City of Berkeley public access channel studio. I was invited to share thoughts about California's Black Pioneers in one piece and the African American WWII experience in the other. Easy. That's my thing. No need for preparation since all of that sits behind my eyes waiting to spring when evoked. It's simply truth-telling at a time in history when those truths can be heard -- and spoken to an unseen audience for whom it is previously unknown information; the perfect scenario.

It's only in the early morning hours after the fact that I realize how much I am still self-censoring; protecting the listeners(?); "...first do no harm"? Is that what I'm doing?

But then maybe it's just the complexities that make truth-telling so difficult. When talking about racial bigotry, how on earth does one distinguish between those sins so firmly embedded in our system through cleverly-designed and deceptive legislation and the more apparently enlightened policies that I, along with all others have benefitted from over time? Have those inequities become so much a part of the fabric of governance that we can no longer even identify them except when they effect us personally? Who other than African Americans can better afford to challenge the selling of an imperfect system of democracy to other nations seduced by the myths we impose through the barrel of a gun? Who better knows the tragic hippocracy of our American lives? And ... when will I stop falling silent while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance when we reach ... " and with liberty and justice for all"?

Given the system under which I grew up "American" (before becoming a hyphenated-American), I might well have never risen above my status as that 20 year-old file clerk in a Jim Crow Union hall instead of the multi-careered and many-talented elder that I've grown into despite the inequities. It was this thought that crashed into my psyche and woke me this morning: Have we any idea how huge has been the loss in human potential -- how monumentally high has been the cost to the human enterprise -- costs of maintaining the illusion of white supremacy?

I now look back on a childhood and youth that contained much of the same pride and arrogance as any other American child. In my case it was based upon the heritage of a New Orleans Creole ancestry -- two brothers who came to this continent to escape the French Revolution -- in the 1700s, before the Revolutionary War and long before the Louisiana Purchase in 1805. Firmly centered in my DNA is all of the arrogance that goes with that -- having followed in the souls of each of us young Charbonnets after the catastrophic floods of 1927 -- of the city of New Orleans. It was then that we traveled west to join Papa George in Oakland. The pride was packed in with the brownpaper carefully-wrapped packets of filet (fee-lay) for gumbo and dried shrimp for jambalaya. It may have been all we had left of the family possessions. Pride was all that had survived. This was the gift of legacy provided by my name. Since my culture was strongly French Creole and my parents were both bi-lingual, my African bloodlines were muted. I'm certain now that each of my young second-generation European and Asian friends came with their own versions of the New Orleans flood story originating in some far away land. We were far more alike than different in many ways. They appear to have forgotten that, over time. Clearly, we haven't.

My mother's Breaux bloodlines were similarly French, but her roots were more populist, springing from the Acadians ("Cajuns") who -- as an agrarian people -- had a long history of working the fields with their slaves and building inclusive lives with many marriages that overwhelmed even the restrictions of slavery and were sanctioned by the Catholic Church. My greatgrandmother Leontine Breaux Allen's parents were a Cajun planter, Edouard Breaux, and his slave and long time partner in the fields, Celeste "of no last name" (according to their marriage license written in French and hanging on the wall of my study). I am an American. Pure and simple. How dare anyone think otherwise?

Small wonder that -- armed with this sense of pride -- resettled Creoles along with earlier settlers from many black cultures from Haiti, the Carolinas, Caribbean Islands, Cuba, and elsewhere created a multiplicity of languages, cuisines, arts and music which provided us with a rich social environment outside of the mainstream. I knew of the terms, Geechee and Gullah without any notion of what the words meant.

We were ill-equipped to deal with the ugliness of racism that descended upon us with the Declaration of War in 1941. We simply didn't feel "less than." Up to that time we were probably under the impression that we were grouped together as a large affinity group that simply preferred its own company! We really didn't feel particularly envious of our non-black friends who were for the most part second generation Portuguese, German, Greek, Italian, Irish, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, also from working-class families with their own special cultural events and facilities that honored those things their parents had brought with them from other lands. Sarah had her B'nai Brith and Hadassah, Maria had her Columbus Day at the Holy Ghost Hall on 71st Avenue, beautiful little Lillian Oka and her colorful lacquered fans and paper parasols had her celebrations to the Japanese Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, -- and we had our Linden Street (black) YWCA, we had Ella, Duke Ellington; the magnificent and unconquerable, "Brown Bomber", Joe Louis; the Black baseball barnstormers and so much more. Each group retreated into its own culture when schools closed at 3 o'clock and "real life" began. It meant little more than that. We hadn't yet entered the worlds of contrived "Multiculturalism." or the strident calls for "Black Power."

It might have taken an additional 30 years for the cauldron of crippling racial hatred to spill over into the Sixties Civil Rights Revolution had it depended upon those of us already settled in the West and for whom life was at least tolerable. We were radicalized by those black folks who dragged us kicking and screaming in various states of denial when they migrated west to answer the nation's call for home front workers to fulfill the wartime labor demands -- and by so doing -- to make a better lives for themselves and their children, and ultimately -- for us all. It was they who gradually ignited the fires of protest for full equality over the 20 years following World War II when life failed to live up to its promises.

In my post mortem this dawn, I was suddenly aware of how insulated I'd been as a child -- having been allowed the privilege of growing up as any other second-generation American with full expectations that I, too, would someday move into the mainstream and take my place beside my second-generation peers of other races and cultures. It was ordained in the stars and guaranteed by my diploma from Castlemont high school.

World War II was a crushing blow to those dreams, but it failed to fully quench the fires of pride and arrogance that gave us the belief that we were equal to anybody; that we could be the Tuskegee Airmen and the heroic 761st Tank Battalion which -- with General George Patton, led the Battle of the Bulge -- ; that we black women could fly the planes (like Bessie Coleman) and develop the powers of blood plasma as did Dr. Charles Drew, etc. Fortunately for the nation, we prevailed after a fashion and 20 years of ardent and perilous protest with Dr. King and Rosa Parks. And that (in the case of my young 4th generation California-born husband, Mel Reid) we could refuse to be messmen in the US Navy when we volunteered to fight for this country!

But we've never fully completed our ascent into full equality.

I realized with a start that one of the exorbitant costs of continuing false beliefs in the concept of white supremacy may be that the individual who will someday save the world from the now irreversible doom of global warming may at this very moment be a black youngster trapped in a failing system of public education; may be sitting in a prison cell trying to read his or her way out of despair through laboriously mastering the dictionary -- reading through the encyclopedia (as did Malcolm) -- studying correspondence courses that rose from barely detectable hints of a better world glimpsed through the illusions brought on by a drug hit that opened wide the doors of perception in some inner city back alley... .

It might very well be -- and we may never know until we free those minds through humane rehabilitation. Perhaps this is one way for the nation to begin the process of healing the wounds we together inflicted upon ourselves and others merely because of differing skin colors beginning with the horror of physical enslavement from the 15th through 19th centuries and continuing through the travesty of drug laws that unfairly prolong that psychological enslavement into this, the 21st. We'll never know until the doors of opportunity are open to all at a time when gradations of skin color no longer determine one's ultimate station in life.

Maybe this is one of the lessons of ordinary-extraordinary lives like mine; lives of those of us who -- despite externally-imposed limitations -- have lived to contribute meaningfully to the lives of others and to the destiny of the planet in increasingly significant ways; even when we're unaware that we're doing so. When we only sense that we're leaning into the winds of constructive change along with countless unseen others, trusting and hoping that this powerful perception is enough to change the world.

... and that we may have loved humankind deeply enough to forgive because we refused to believe the delusion of white supremacy.


Photo: 1) Daughters of the proud early pioneer Reid family whose ancestors arrived in the S. F. Bay Area during the Civil War. These are my husband, Mel's, aunts -- Leila; Charlie Reid's first wife, Irma; Ruth , and Alberta, seated on a hillside in Berkeley. This photo was taken in September of 1919, two years before my birth.

Photo: 2) Taken sometime in the Seventies at a committee meeting at the San Mateo home of Archdeacon John Weaver of San Francisco's Grace Cathedral. It would be hosted by the Vallombrosa Conference of which my husband (Bill Soskin) and I were participants. Vallombrosa was advisory to the Northern California Diocese as the Club of Rome is to the Vatican. This occasion was the planning of the Bicentennial celebration of 1776. I recalled being troubled by how many family relics were brought that night (John Weaver's ancestor's musket, someone else's heirloom quilt, etc.) I, suddenly dissolved into tears at one point, wailing "...and what was I to bring, my ancestor's leg irons?" I remember the hushed and embarrassed silence in the room in response. It was a grave reminder that I would have been chattel, owned, and enslaved at the time being celebrated by my country.

This miraculous thing called the mind: I can close my eyes and still hear that conversation and see everyone in that room. Maybe the blinding irony of that moment seared the scene into my brain. I thought of all those for whom the Bicentennial would have been totally outside our ability to comprehend. Native Americans? Did anyone consider that? That night -- we did. This was when I discovered that our dear friend, the Episcopal Bishop J. Kilmer Myers ("Kim") of the Northern California Diocese had an adopted African American daughter. I'd never met his then teen-aged children. He understood my tears and dawning confusion, and together we lifted the level of debate and made it relevant to the times.

Guess I could use a little less Eleanor Roosevelt and Fanny Lou Hamer and just a bit more Paris Hilton in my persona these days ...

Self promotion can prove so embarrassing. I never know when I've crossed the line between factually sharing my truth and slipping into unnecessary crowing. So I fall into periods of silence. My fingers go mute on the keyboard and I sit and stare or play online Solitaire for hours ... or complete NY Times Crossword puzzles ... (they'll never believe me ... .).

I've not been blogging for days -- surely not for the lack of something to say -- but for not knowing how to write the outrageously sensational everyday facts of my life without being obnoxious in the telling.

For instance, do you know anyone who, as a mid-octogenarian, has just become a bonafide park ranger for the National Park Service? True. At an age where others have been retired for at least 25 years, I'm starting a brand new career. And I do mean -- a uniformed, properly hatted and badged capital "R," Ranger working as a Community Outreach Specialist Assistant. I lacked the necessary educational credentials to qualify for the Outreach Specialist position. The management team is now in the process of evaluating applicants for that supervisory position, and then I'll be in the awkward position of training him/her on just how to go about supervising me. But hey! Them's the rules and I say good luck, young person, whoever you are. Together we'll make this work.

After a number of years of working as a private contractor for the National Park Service, funded by a grant to a nonprofit Trust (and being encouraged by the staff to do so), I applied for the new position (the job I've been holding for some time now) and received 100% on the acceptance announcement of my job application. They closed the interview process and sent certification that I'd been officially hired pending security checks, etc. It's almost beyond imagination.

There will be few changes in my job description, actually, since the position is a new one in one of the most recently congressionally-designated national parks in the system. It is one that I've had a chance to shape and mold (to my own abilities, maybe?). It means that my work will help to define the role for the rangers who will follow me in the years and decades to come. It means that I'll continue to be working with a great team of NPS professionals who -- in concert with the city, the business and corporate entities, the school systems, and related local, regional and state agencies -- will spend the next decade creating another of the growing number of the urban national parks that have been preserved to tell the story of our peoples throughout a rich collective history. Such a privilege. I feel so honored by the trust extended by my colleagues -- trust in my ability to continue to contribute despite being seriously over-birthdayed!

Tonight my little 4-minute DVD, " Of lost conversations and untold stories," will be shown simultaneously on two large screens in the grand dining room on the 14th floor of the Emeryville Hilton on the East Bay shoreline. The occasion is the annual scholarship banquet being hosted by the Kaiser Permanente African American Professional Association. Someone in that organization discovered it on YouTube.com and the result is that I've been invited to be a guest of honor -- to be introduced before a group of people for whom the piece has resonated. These materials are theses and essays culled from the archival materials now accumulating within arms reach of my cubicle. Those writings from present-day researchers can now become a source of great pride to African Americans who've not benefitted by our history of homefront and battlefield heroism -- largely because the information was not revealed until now. Makes one wonder why it took so long? But then I remember that it has only been 67 years, and that's simply not long enough for events to be recognized and valued as history. My present role in all this may simply have been effected by good timing and may not be attributable to exceptional talent at all.

Now that's a sobering thought.

Film crew arriving on Monday for a taping ... and all I can think about is whether the dust will show, and whether there will be time enough for a good house-cleaning ... .

It's been in the works for weeks, now. One crew on Monday (yes , I know it's a holiday, and reminded the producer of that fact), and a KQED taping on Wednesday in San Francisco. Both have to do with participating in cameos in two documentaries that are being produced to augment the great Ken Burns epic, "The War," now completed and awaiting the September release nationwide. Each PBS market across the country will be presenting local versions with discussion groups and study guides. Big event.

I suppose that I'm one of the few of those folks left -- who survived the period and are not on life supports! Therefore I will be asked for words of wisdom and/or the equivalent. Not sure what they're expecting, but for whatever its worth -- I'll have my moment of response to life as so many of us lived it.

I'm told by the producer that there will be a crew of 3 arriving from Southern California on Monday, and that they'll do the interview here in my living room surrounded by the accumulated artifacts of my long life.

Yesterday we did a photo shoot on board the SS Red Oak Victory for the Iron Triangle newsletter -- in what was then the old Kaiser Shipyard #3 and that is now the Port of Richmond. It was a beautiful afternoon, and I was reminded that I never actually saw even one of the 747 ships built by Henry J. during that chaotic 24-hour-a-day four year wartime frenzy. It seems just a little dishonest to be photographed in that setting as though I experienced any of the excitement and sense of patriotism that marked the era for so many.

For a few minutes the only thing I could recall was that it was from the Red Oak Victory that my son, Rick's, ashes were scattered only a few years ago. But I've learned to disassociate from that sadness much of the time now (except for Christmas), and I remembered instead that one of the last times we were together was the day that we shared the experience of being in the crowd that sailed her from her last berth at Mare Island (Vallejo's naval graveyard) on the day she was towed to Richmond by two powerful tugs. That was a glorious adventure -- with fire boats arcing their graceful greetings to us as we left San Pablo Bay and entered the San Francisco Bay from beneath the Richmond-San Rafael bridge -- with restored World War II planes flying playfully overhead ... .

Nah. I need to remember that I was a 20 year-old bride filing membership cards in a Jim Crow (racially segregated) union hall about 2 miles away on Barrett Avenue. Not very romantic, I suppose. After all these years -- I'm still coming to terms with feelings of inadequacy as I try to put forth the image of "Rosie" that is expected of me in these interviews.

And, of course, I'll be honest.

But the photo above may be somewhat deceptive ...

Maybe I can clear that up on Monday when PBS-KCET provides the platform for truth.

It is a relief to know that the nation is finally ready for these troubling conversations. I'm glad that I'm still around to participate in them. Our children and their children have the right to know.

And still later ...

From: Betty Reid Soskin
To: Steve Gilford
Subject: Vivian Allen Jernigan
Date: May 12, 2007 9:03

Just re-read this fragment of your interview with Dr. Sender re dearly departed Aunt Vivian and realized again that she surely played a role in shaping the historic beginnings of the Oakland Kaiser Permanente hospital ethos. Were the truth to be known, I'd guess (and probably rightly) that in those innocent and carefree days in the early development of Kaiser policies with regard to race and equal opportunity, Vivian was extremely influential.

It occurred to me in a moment of epihany; Aha! I've been seeing Vivian through mother's judgemental eyes. Vivian's partying was strategic. Pure and simple. She was far too sophisticated to not have used every technique in her social vocabulary. She was well educated and armed with more charisma than any ten average women. I watched her friends vie for her attention, and how skillfully she "worked the room" at all times. We used to laugh that Aunt Vivian had eyes in the back of her head. I don't remember ever hearing her talk politics. Her political beliefs were so much a part of her daily life, that there was little reason to do so. Vivian was her politics.

And -- no feminist was she. No. Never. She married and buried two loving husbands, the second being the love of her life. She even ironed his underwear. He was the equally charming tall and handsome caramel-colored Ted Jernigan, a former boxer and chief bartender at Slim Jenkins legendary cocktail lounge a few miles away on Seventh Street, and deep in the heart of (Black) West Oakland.

Vivian's welcoming home served as the off-duty hangout for many of the hospital staff -- nursing, administrative, and professional. There they practiced the kind of baudy cameraderie that often accompanies and lessens the intensity of hospital life. She was positioned right in the center of it all. They were all relatively young and venturesome and in the throes of making medical history, though I doubt that they were aware of the importance of their combined contributions to medical and social history. They were breaking the mold in so many fields -- much of it growing out of the wartime experience gained under the leadership of Dr. Sidney Garfield.

It would have been impossible for anyone to be anything but real in her presence. She modeled for me (very young and adoring) what human relationships were about when the garbage was eliminated. I knew no one with her sense of integrity and honor, nor anyone with a greater sense of fun laced generously with compassion and respect.

My mother was intensely jealous of her. They'd shared a father but had different mothers -- and Papa George unabashedly preferred his Vivian. Who could not? She never had children of her own, so her nieces and nephews were very important in her life, which probably added to mother's envy.

Mom's mother died when she was but seven months old at which time she was given to her grandmother, Leontine, to be raised. Papa George quickly married Vivian's mother, Desiree Hernandez Allen, who gave him four more children -- then she, too, died -- at which time a not-yet-6-year-old Vivian and her 3 older brothers also were returned to Mamma's little house beside the levee in St. James Parish to be raised with that gaggle of kids that were now one large and loving family.

I am certain that it was those early days of being "Vivian-ized" that set in stone the racial policies of Kaiser Permanente. Everyone who was exposed to her succumbed to her blunt charm. The award mentioned speaks to that, and not unintentionally. It would have been she who would have seen to it that racism would have been dealt a fatal blow in those early days, and that Kaiser Permanente would have cut a clear path throughout their organization toward equality and opportunity for all. I'm sure of it, and of her role in creating the climate in which that could happen. Vivian was the intellectual equal of all who gathered at the Linden Street hangout, and everyone knew it; thus her obvious powers of persuasion, and ability to overcome race and gender in the interest of good medicine and social policy.

I wish somehow, that though posthumously, we could ferret out her contributions to what is now clearly a corporation that remains at the forefront of Affirmative Action practices. I heard the KP president state at their 60th anniversary celebration in Richmond -- that throughout the nation -- KP employs 52% women and minorities at all levels, both administrative and professional. That's an enviable record of achievement. And I'm certain that much of that informal policy-making took place over gin and tonics (with an occasional brandy tossed in) in front of the fireplace at what my mother would have called, "Vivian's Hell House" on Linden Street. Many a young Kaiser physician sobered up under the tender loving care of Vivian Allen Jernigan and lived to heal another day.

Wish I knew how to flesh out her story -- but these few words from the good doctor may serve as a nice place to begin. On the other hand, maybe we've already done that.

Betty

Later still ...

From: Betty Reid Soskin
To: Steve Gilford
Subject: Vivian Allen Jernigan
Date: May 12, 2007 9:03 PM

You're an absolute angel, Steve. What a find!

It was rumored that Vivian ran Kaiser's Oakland hospital from first floor Station B. She was incredible -- and my role model throughout our lives. She was the first true internationalist I think I ever knew. She was without a doubt the most honest, compassionate, irreverent, and loving person in my limited experience -- either then or now. These brief lines in the interview with Joe Sender catch her spirit, her playfulness, and her ability to cut through all of the garbage of pomp and status.

She died about five years ago in a nursing home in Vallejo -- of a stroke after a lifetime of excesses and heartbreak, I'm sure. A party girl to the end, and with more adoring followers than most people gather together in a lifetime. Wish you could have known her. She was an active member of the Phyllis Wheatley Club for as far back as I can remember.

Edgar Kaiser was among her closest friends and spent many off hours at her (just ten minutes drive away from the hospital) spacious converted mansion on tree-lined Linden street in West Oakland. The wood-paneled foyer with its three-story sweeping elegant marble staircase gave more than a hint of its glorious hospitable past. The house is etched in my memory still. Her apartment was on the right side of the entry on the ground floor of what had -- long before she acquired it -- been converted into 6-8 studio apartments. This neighborhood -- at that time almost exclusively black-owned in the oldest section of the city. It was the first developed area of the East Bay and surely the most prestigious. But that was before the turn of the 20th Century. That gracious old home fell to the wrecking ball in the Sixties when I-80 wiped out those exquisite old mansions and Oakland's more glamourous past with them. Almost as an afterthought, some were saved and restored to create what is now known as Preservation Park in downtown Oakland. Such a pity that hers wasn't among them.

As I told you yesterday, Dr. Jean Neighbor was also a member of her inner circle. She referred to him fondly as "the Devil!" She was known to possess the most sensitive BS detector on the planet. It was impossible to resist her ability to see deep into your psyche, and all the professionals knew it. Vivian probably heard more confessions than the Pope! I suspect that there were probably multiple sets of keys to her apartment ... .

Thanks, again, for this renewal of memories of one of the most remarkable women in memory -- and not only in mine. I'll gather together the memorabilia that I have strewn around my apartment so that you can scan them into the record. Be sure to raise her name to any old nurses or doctors who may still be around. They will all have known Vivian.

Betty

Later ...

From: Steve Gilford
To: Betty Reid Soskin
Subject: Vivian Jernigan
Date: May 12, 2007 12:13 AM

As always, it was a pleasure talking with you even though I felt guilty at taking up so much of your time.

I thought you might get a kick out of this. I looked up Vivian Jernigan in my notes and found her in an interview with Joe Sender. It was about his first day with Permanente. He went on to become one of the leaders of the medical group, a member of the Executive Committee and the Chief physician at the Oakland Medical Center.


JS: Oh, I've got to tell you another story though. The day we got here was July 1st. When I walked on the ward, there was a woman, a black woman by the name of Vivian Jernigan, whom I will never forget. I walked on the ward and first thing she told me was, "Oh, you're Doctor Sender? You're on call today."

I'm on call today? I know nothing about the organization. I'm brand new here. I'm not going to work. I just can't work. I've got to get my people settled in. I only reported because I was supposed to report on July 1st." And then I started looking at the notes. "Gee, these notes, I'm not too sure, what is all this about?" And she said, "What are you griping about?" she said.

Q: Was Vivian Jernigan the charge nurse?

JS: She was a clerk and I'm sure everybody who's worked at Oakland from the '50's until maybe the '70's knew Vivian. As time went on, I really got to like her a lot. Whenever I came on the floor and would start griping about something, she said, "Jesus and Joseph! What do you want?" (Laughing!) But I really think she was thought of very fondly
.

Q: So you were supposed to be on call that first day?

JS: When I got my acceptance, it had said, "Please report on July 1st." so we made it our business to get here by July 1st. But I figured I'd get oriented. Everytime I went anywhere else, I got an orientation. It didn't make sense to start right in. I didn't have a chance to study the charts, I didn't know where x-ray was, I didn't know what was going on, I didn't even know where the laboratory was.


and

in an employee newsletter that came out in 1962 I saw that she was given something called the "Personality Award from the Management Association. The article headline said the award went to "A Blunt Spirit" and she was called "Mrs. B Ward." The actual working of the award said she was "one whose activity over and above any job requirement fosters better relations among employees, members, the community ... confers distinction upon our medical program ...".

Have a fine weekend!

Steve


Photo: Vivian Allen at age 18 upon graduation from Xavier High School in New Orleans. At that time she was a charming Cajun/Creole girl from St. James Parish -- but was now ready to join her father in Oakland, California, to continue her education at the University of California, Berkeley where she studied for 3 years. One of her greatest regrets was that she was unable to complete her degree. This was in the Twenties, long before higher education was common to women in general, regardless of race or ethnicity. (I hear you asking, "but is she "black"? You'll need to remember that Vivian lived proudly under the "one drop rule," in force until the 1990 census categories changed and multi-race self-identification was allowed for the first time.)

Wondering if I'm the heir apparent ... part of a continuing story ... ?

In that strange way that life is unfolding these days, I found myself standing in the art gallery/home of my friend's neighbors in Mendocino -- a noted architect and his wife -- now retired. We were just about to set down our cocktail glasses and head for home when I noticed a poster-sized photograph of a building I knew well. Our host had brought us into his working studio. The picture I immediately recognized as the beautiful Ordway/Kaiser edifice that was built alongside picturesque Lake Merritt in Oakland. What I hadn't known until that moment was that this masterpiece was designed by our host and his firm years ago. All thought of leaving into the early evening (hoping for a sunset to behold from the window wall of the living room back at Tom's) vanished into the next half hour of learning more about the adventure of envisioning the brilliant design and bringing it into being. Our host's eyes lit up as he became animated with his own memories as he related how, (pointing to another huge photograph of the original design that Edgar Kaiser had rejected) they'd then created the one that I knew so well.

I'd fairly recently had occasion to attend a meeting there at the corporate headquarters with members of our staff and the Kaiser archivists to consider the possibility of our obtaining the "Think Big" Henry J. Kaiser exhibit as a permanent installation at the Rosie the Riveter World War II/Home Front Historical National Park in Richmond. It was a successful meeting -- but my mind never quite left the sight of that beautiful roof garden (atop the parking garage) with those large and lovely now mature trees that I learned were artfully placed atop the massive weight-bearing steel columns that supported the multi-storied garage roof. It was a part of the Kaiser building that I had known nothing about, and it was a wonderland of flowers and shrubs and a variety of trees beautifully landscaped for all to enjoy. Made me wonder just how much of the world that is immediately around me have I not yet discovered?

...and that brings us to Aunt Vivian. That brings us to yesterday's unanticipated conversation with Kaiser historian, Steve Gilford, who happened to stop by my cubicle on one of his all-too-rare visits to our reception center -- where we enjoyed (as always) another of the marvelously rich rambling conversations about cabbages and kings, and this; about Vivian Allen Jernigan, Kaiser legend. We began this time with my report on this weekend's discovery of new Mendocino friends and of their connections to his field of study and interest.

Stirred by the stories, Steve returned to his home in Petaluma to scavenge through his notes and came up with precious fragments of an interview with a prominent Kaiser physician that -- even in the sparseness of the entry -- confirm Vivian as I knew her throughout our lives. But that's for tomorrow ...

I need to refresh these wisps of memory stirred by the fine talk and meeting with the Kaiser builder of that corporate headquarters -- and I need an evening of rummaging through old albums for photos and that collection of pins that she was awarded over the years that I'm sure were the happiest in her long life of service to the Kaiser hospital friends and family ... .

More tomorrow.

Photo: This is a photo of Aunt Vivian and her friends -- dated 1926. She is second from the far right sitting on the running board. The writing on the picture is typical of every snapshot I have that came from her albums. I used to find the scrawlings annoying, but now I feel her presence when I see her notes.

Too much, too fast, too busy, too involved ... ?

At a time in life when I probably should be slowing down, the pace of my life has accellerated to a point where I'm not writing simply for lack of time. There is so much to share and so much to do -- that I'm beginning to consider running away from home -- if I could just find the time to pack!

I did manage to get away to Mendocino for another weekend of sheer joy, sunsets over an expanse of ocean that you would not believe; wildflowers wild turkeys and deer living the good life -- co-habiting with caring humans within 90 feet of ocean's edge with sea lions barking on the great rocks below. Wish I could have lingered much longer, but my crazy/busy world was waiting and time is running out ... .

There were azaleas and rhododendron in more shades of pinks and reds and lilacs than I'd ever have imagined. The weather was ominously warm (temperatures unheard of before now this time of year in this coastal Eden), an undeniable omen of the warming of the planet. It was almost a relief when the fog rolled in and blotted out the ocean and the sunsets (except for the perfect red ball that blasted its way through the fog just before setting time). That was on Saturday, the first day. The balance of my 3-day visit was marked by fog and more of the natural oceanside coolness that gave us a comforting feeling that all may not yet be lost.

My dear friend is far more limited in his physical capacities than I, and it's a relief to spend time in his world where everything must of necessity be slowed to his pace. It's a blessing, I think. I find myself breathing easier and more slowly. After the first few hours I can feel my rhythm change and an unfamiliar peacefulness settle in and I sleep long and hard in the unaccustomed silence of this coastal paradise that is his home. No sirens, nor traffic noises, nor train whistles or the human shouts that are disturbing for the few seconds that it takes to identify the quality and mood of the energy that drives them ... then to exhale.

I've taken to listening to audio books on the 3-hour drive through Marin County then the winding roads from Cloverdale into the lovely vinyards that carpet the Anderson Valley then the miles of redwood forest until Highway 128 reaches Coast Highway 1 -- opening out to the Sea! This time I'd brought along Nora Ephron's "I feel bad about my neck" which was funny and droll for a few miles then became silly and too young (yes, even 64 is now "too young" for where I am in life). I stopped "feeling bad about my neck" many mirror-looks back and became grateful for having one that swivels properly while acting as a pedestal for character.

It surely wasn't that I haven't had many of those worrisome vain feelings about the dregs of aging from time to time, but as I may have mentioned recently, somewhere along the way I stopped becoming and started being, and scrawny turkey-waddle-type necks and wrinkles and face creams that promise but don't deliver slipped away into some psychological abyss never to return (hopefully) and -- either my eyesight grew less effective or my mind censors out the weird stuff -- because I'm pretty much at home with looking into my mirror and finding my mother there. It's strange that my interior doesn't seem much effected by the declining exterior, and I often forget about age until I accidently catch a brief glimpse of my reflection in a store window... Then I become aware that one sign that there is still some vanity operating is the fact that I tend to look not nearly as often and am content with whatever looking it takes to brush my teeth and hair and make sure my lip gloss isn't creeping into the feathering above my lips where I sometime find a single quarter inch white hair mysteriously growing there unnoticed. Then I remember.

But then I remember with a grin toward no one in particular -- that the bank has given me another 30 years on my mortgage which assures that I must live for at least another 20 years in order to meet that obligation. That's about how long it will take to complete all of the tasks that I'm currently engaged in anyway, so it all works out fairly in the end.

Meanwhile, I hope that Nora gets her second wind soon -- she will, I'm sure, and then she'll give up the concealing black turtleneck cashmere sweaters and lovely scarves and find a new way to express her delightful sense of humor. That great wit will surely follow her into character as pretty drops into the background.

Tomorrow I'll stop in at my local bookstore and see if I can find the next audio book -- maybe it needs to be another escapist work (not David Halberstam?). There's a lot to be said for letting the mind takes one wherever it will, especially if it's into the recent past. Good way to develop some perspective on the road ahead.

Photo: taken from the deck of his home, facing an almost wrap-around view of the ocean.

Through the magic of technology and one great interpreter of the Einstein theories ... .

When my little radio alarm went off this morning I found myself tuned to CSPAN and a speech being delivered by the president of the Aspen Institute, Walter Isaacson, about his newly-published, "Einstein; his Life and Universe." It only took a few sentences to become fully awake and deep into his talk as this great scientific genius slowly emerged as very human, impudent, fallible, and the most brilliant scientist in history. For the very first time I understood his theory of relativity and the theory of the constant state of light made sense. Because of Isaacson's ability to make Einstein penetrable, where I'd always in the past listened intently while hanging on to the words by my mental fingernails, this time I was following as if I knew the path -- and no longer as if sighted and trying to read Braile. What was meant by "...he thought in four dimensions" was something that was no longer obscured by my lack of education and limited access to the world of physics. His words, "imagination is a far greater force than intellect" echoed through the shell that holds my brain as in a great concert hall. Imagination I have an abundance of. Today I can even imagine that I know what Einstein was talking about.

Albert Einstein was only one of the great world presenters. Isaacson's genius in being able to finally bring understanding to those complex theories was very nearly as stunning. The metaphor of the bowling ball on the trampoline followed by billiard balls -- illustrating the bending of space opened doors of my mind and flooded the subject with light as never before in my lifetime. It may not stick, but at least this Sunday morning in this year 2007, I know what e=mc squared means. Tomorrow, and even later today I'll forget and I'll get back to mundane things like, "will we get the mess in Washington, D.C. cleaned up in time to save the world", but today I'm clear on the need to hold a long view (like global warming) and not sweat the small stuff.

Magically, through the (he)art of technology -- yesterday also brought those unforgettable images of Steven Hawking -- after four decades of being bound to a wheel chair trapped in a disease-ridden paralyzed body devoid of speech -- floating in zero gravity with wonder written clearly in every frozen muscle of his face ... there are no words ... only tears of joy for this brilliant scientist. Hawking, like Einstein, pushed us ever deeper into the exploration of the universe and gave us "Ordinarians" a lot more to chew on than most of our minds can fathom in a lifetime. Is it possible to look at this "man in space" and not want to scream at the pace of embryonic stem cell research and to not hate those who stand in its way?

Hope I'm still around when Walter Isaacson writes a book on Hawking and opens up the String Theory to us lesser minds. Meanwhile, I'm picking up his new book soon -- so that I can nail down these fragile wisps of understanding before they dissipate into the great Unknown never to return.

Meanwhile, I'll go back to trying to figure out just where I left my car keys ...

Which reminds me that the best reason for a woman over sixty not being allowed to give birth (no matter how possible that is for science to enable) is that she'd be constantly stressed out trying to remember where she left the poor baby!

Aside from the fact that I've now lived so long that everybody I meet looks vaguely familiar, what else is new?

Little Rock Central High/Richmond High plan is moving smoothly ahead, with meetings with the school superintendent now behind us and renewal of contact with the folks in Little Rock, Arkansas, back in place. Time is beginning to feel tight with the weeks rolling by all too quickly ... with breakfast now every six hours and Christmas every six weeks. My sense of urgency is even more pronounced and I imagine that wisps of smoke pour from my ears while rushing from meeting to meeting and that I singe the furniture as I brush past!

I catch sight of myself in some plate glass window as I zip from place to place barely recognizing the woman who glances back breathlessly. Denial, maybe? My sense of self no longer comes from that reflected image, but in some strange way -- now comes from someplace else. I don't seem to be any longer tethered to an exterior "me." That greying wrinkled-faced soul with the thinning hair that I see is jarring -- since the self-image that I carry in my mind's eye -- the woman who bounces in and out of my little red BMW hatchback to feed the parking meter -- the one who still bounds up the stairs to my apartment without a pause -- that woman -- is capable of anything. That woman is a loved and respected grandmother; supervises the life of a handicapped daughter; is involved in a loving friendship with a dear man; is creating a cross-country program for young people; is doing a credible job of helping to shape the development of a new national park; and in so doing is modeling the best practices of civic engagement, a concept she'd never even heard of before coming to this last position, but that she probably helped to create. What a world. I can't account for the disconnect, but it all fits into each frantic day quite neatly still.

This week we're engaged in the attempt to save the last of California's handbuilt greenhouses that form a tiny long-abandoned Japanese-American village within the city. The cut flower industry died with NAFTA and the importing from Mexico and South and Central America was begun. The Oishi and Sakai families settled here early in the last century and, along with other Japanese-American families, operated one of the largest cut flower industries in the State.

Situated immediately adjacent to Interstate 80, there are some 41 greenhouses, a watertower, several homes built early in the last century, and the first Japanese language school. At one time this major freeway sliced right through these huge nurseries. The historic complex is scheduled to be demolished soon and replaced by a large development of low to moderate single-family homes, some condos, and duplexes. This may be the last opportunity to save at least a part of that site and its structures that are so critical to the telling of the stories of the historic Japanese American community -- those generations of stoic and patriotic Americans who suffered separation into internment camps during the World War II hysteria about "enemy aliens." Fortunately, the developers appear to be listening -- maybe... .

Helping to raise public awareness of the existence of such sites in the interest of historic preservation is vitally important -- and the feeling of ever-running ahead of the wrecking ball probably has something to do with this all-consuming sense of urgency.

Maybe I'm a little like those greenhouses ... maybe we all are.

I'm certainly aware of my mortality and of the speed with which I'm approaching the end of existence. I'm aware that there are few traces left of the really beautiful young woman I once was -- but I'm extremely grateful for having experienced life as such for far longer than most. I've now used up most of the "pretty," and what's left is pure character, I suppose. But between you and me, pretty was a hell of a lot more satisfying ... if somewhat less productive. I'm certain (in my more insightful moments) that pretty opened a lot of doors that character eventually learned to walk through.

Or so it seems.

Photo: Photographed at home on my wedding day. I was well over 50 at that time. The Sakai greenhouse is an interesting metaphor for the aging process, don't you think? The decay and neglect haven't a chance against those irrepressible roses bursting through the walls and window! I feel a little like that much of the time. This thumbnail really must be seen full size. Click on it then scroll down for full appreciation. It is simply beautiful -- and seeing it gives me such hope.

What a freeing insight ...

Over the past weeks I've been pursued by a high local public official who is anxious to have me co-host a television show for local consumption that will focus on African American leaders who've contributed to history over the decades. These would be the high achievers from the world of athletics, business, politics, education, etc., a kind of "Ebony Magazine" of the airwaves, I guess, with its ever-constant listing of "First African Americans to ... whatever," or "Most eligible ... whatever," and "...... breaks the colorline!" All persons to be proud of, I'm sure. I guess I'm waiting for the day when all of that will be ordinary and no longer news at all, because entry to the board rooms, the athletic fields, and the halls of Congress will have been opened wide to all, and when only merit will count.

I managed to find many ways to say "no," without having much sense of why I felt so reluctant to join him. About the third time he approached me in my little cubbyhole of an office I had decided to add to my refusal a recommendation as a way to pass the opportunity along to someone more in need of public exposure -- someone who is young enough to still be building a resumé. It wasn't hard to come up with some possibilities that I was sure had the ability, the personal charm, the ambition, and the time to take this on and develop a new edge to their career goals.

He refused, and worked hard (mostly by appealing to my ego) to convince me that only I could provide what his vision of a fine program needed. And only I knew that was silly.

Woke this morning realizing a wonderful thing: I'm feeling completed these days, with a sense of no longer becoming. I've entered a stage in life where I'm now simply being! There's still a lot of work to do, don't misunderstand, and I'm spending my days fully occupied in the process of "downloading" back into time everything that can be transferred back. However, I no longer need any new starting places -- I'm busy tying up loose ends in the effort to "... leave the place better than I found it." And there's nothing morbid about it, I'm doing a hell of a job of giving back and I've found a venue in which to do that and am being given the platform and the tools that make it all possible.

I was aware in the dawn's early light that the lives of my enslaved greatgrandmother, Leontine Breaux Allen; my mother, Lottie Allen Charbonnet; and I, Betty Charbonnet Reid Soskin -- represent a span of time that embraces everything -- all of the wars and social struggles and lynchings and fights for equality -- from 1846 through 2007 -- just those three lives. Leontine was born in 1846-1948; mother's life spanned the years from 1894-1995, and I was born in 1921 and am still around at 85. How I would love to have been able to see their stories (through the wonder of technology) as much in detail as I've been able to write of my own here in this journal. Mamma could neither read nor write, her non-status as a slave prohibited it. She was freed at the age of 19 when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. My own mother, Lottie, was barely able to read and very deliberately "drew" my school notes in scrawling rounded letters with a tightly-held pencil, having been taught primarily at night beside the oil stove by her (not much older) Aunt Alice. She grew up as a part of Mamma's household where there were many children -- all needed to work the fields to raise the food for survival in that small shack beside the levee in St. James. Interestingly enough, Aunt Vivian -- mother's younger sister -- before joining Papa George et al in Oakland in the Twenties, completed high school at Xavier in New Orleans then attended the University of California at Berkeley where she studied for 3 years. Aunt Vivian was a primary influence in my own life. We all adored her.

Yet here I am in this year 2007, with a luxurious feeling of completion -- as though I've enough superfluous life and talents left over from a life filled with trial and error, tragedy and pain, but with triumphs and personal achievements enough to balance it all out -- enough to be able to leave behind a personal legacy that may enhance the lives of my children and theirs -- and through my current work -- the lives of others. And most of it is in intangibles -- those things which are a part of the world by virtue of my having passed through ... and I'm here by having entered through the wombs of those strong and good and forgiving and ever-reaching-upward heroic African American women.

How much better could life possibly be?

Photo: This is a map of plantations -- all bordering on the Mississippi River. This was not dated, but is presumably sometime before the Civil War. The plantation of which Leontine Breaux Allen's little narrow piece of land is here -- at the edge of the Breaux Plantation. Land owned by her father, Eduoard Breaux, a Cajun planter. It was here that my mother grew up.

Have been working hard all week on a project that grew out of our trip to Little Rock last fall ...

Many entries back (around October 22nd) I mentioned the hope that we could find some way to bring together those wonderful Central High students with students here in West County in a dialogue around civil rights. It's going to happen, though not in the form first considered. I'm working now with school district folks here to create a teleconference that will accomplish something similar, if a little less impressive. The cost of moving students around was far too costly for both school districts, but what with the technology available to us, such a conference is not only possible, but in the works even as we speak.

Since Central High is not only a highschool, but a National Park site as well, we have the infrastructure to work with and we've found a positive response from everyone.

This fall will see the first annual Home Front Festival here in Richmond -- and simultaneously, Central High will be celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Little Rock Standoff. To bring kids together to talk about that will be absolutely mind-blowing! Central has been doing an oral history project whereby students have interviewed parents and grandparents who were a part of that dramatic history.

Richmond has yet to process its World War II history and the arrival of racial segregation that came as the result of the city growing from a sleepy small industrial town of 24,000 to 108,000 -- mostly blacks and whites from the southern states --- in response to world events and the needs of the huge war effort. The great migration brought with it changes that are still being lived through and by an unknowing population that has had little opportunity to learn the lessons of the monumental social change that ensued. Today's Richmond children have had little connection with the lessons of the past, or of the heroism and sacrifices endured by their parents and grandparents during the war years.

What an opportunity this presents to re-examine that period, and how to put shape to that important debate is what I'm struggling with right now. Everyone says, "Yes!," but finding the way to implement what we all see as a golden opportunity remains illusive at best.

As an outreach specialist for the parks (on a contract) I'm clearly in a position to open the doors to possibilities and to bring together those who can actualize the vision. Beyond that I'm relatively helpless to deliver. I've met with the president of the local community college, have appointments with a former member of the school board and the superintendent of schools for the county -- that's next week. I'm in touch with the teacher/counselor of the kids at Central High and the National Park Service staff in Little Rock, and with some of the media people here ... but once I've done my part -- it must be implemented by the educators, and only the educators. Knowing when to pull back and let go will be the challenge.

I think that's called, "Punting!"

Photo: Another of Dorrie's works, this one is a tryptich (sp.?), of linoleum block prints that I bought to hang when I can find the time to re-arrange my growing collection ... .

My daughter, Dorian Reid's, stunning art pieces were among those featured in a new show ...

It was wonderful to be reminded of some of the great things in the world this weekend -- after hours on end of exposure to the Don Imus craziness and the wierdness of having the entire media repeat over and over and over those hated words "nappy-headed ho's" as if doing so would cleanse them of their toxicity. It didn't. The insult was compounded and made the more egregious as time wore on.

What got lost was something I kept hoping would surface and rise above the din. It never did. And it was this:

Ten years ago the effects of the Imus transgression would have created a minor ripple but would have faded quickly into the background noise. Ten years ago corporate board rooms, newsrooms, broadcasting corporations were made up largely of white males. What has come is diversity to the workplace. In case no one has noticed, Affirmative Action has been and is being a resounding success!

In the aftermath of the Imus debacle, outrage within those corporations -- now integrated by both race and gender -- dramatically changed the outcome. Both NBC and MSNBC brass were confronted by women and racial minority staffmembers who demanded Imus's head! Not only the upper ranks of cable networks, but front offices of advertisers are now racially integrated and women and people of color are now in positions of relative power, and in large enough numbers to make a difference in matters of consequence.

That's the story that I've been missing in the aftermath. But I'm sure that someone will notice, and soon.

The Imus defenders are largely male, with a few notable exceptions. The female quislings -- Ann Coulter et al, appear pretty ridiculous as they continue swimming upstream against the majority of their gender -- which makes their positions the more glaring and ridiculous. There is also the usual complement of black conservative apologists for whom this is an unexpected windfall -- providing more ways to promise to bring the "Brethren" around; as if ... .

Now, maybe we can get back to appreciating the finer things in life, like the beautiful "outsider" art of the mentally-retarded. Is anything more stunning, more pure, ... or more directly from the heart; uncontaminated by either intellect or cleverness?

Photo: These are sections of a large (4' x 5') wall-hanging that is composed of Mardi Gras beads glued to canvas in a colorful free form that Dorian calls "Dragon." She had several pieces in this show, several of which were sold ($295 for this one)-- with half going to NIAD (National Institute for Artists with Disabilities) and half to the artist. Click on these thumbnails to get a closer look. They're exquisite!

Wish I knew what to say about Don Imus ...

Found myself watching the Rutgers women's basketball team in a press conference yesterday -- feeling both admiring and sad. They're such a fine group of young women, so undeserving of the firestorm they're unwittingly caught up in ... and so open to whatever process is being set in place for their responses. And -- whatever their response -- it will have little impact on the debate, I think.

It made me feel old in ways that I'm still not accustomed to. Old as in irrelevant to the times. Old as in, "what on earth makes those young women in today's music videos display themselves so salaciously?" And, "...do the beautiful young women in the ballroom dance competitions wear those soft-porn skin-bearing costumes really mean to be so sexually provocative?" And, " why on earth have we reached the point where nearly everything in the culture has a rule book and bare-fisted competitiveness as a central theme?" Why has, "...sorry, go pack your things and head for home. You're out!" become the universal bottom line in reality television? And what is reality television, anyway, and has it any other purpose but to degrade arts and culture by being so cheap to produce? Since when did we opt for entertainment based upon public airings of domestic court proceedings, invasive explicit psythotherapy sessions, media exposure to murderers, tours behind prison walls, cheaters and pedophiles, domestic abuse, breast enhancement surgeries, drug arrests, and car chases? And we won't even talk about the Anna Nicole Smith life/death/funeral/determination-of-paternity extravaganza! Where did we believe all of this would take us? Is anyone else as uncomfortable when flipping by one of those "funniest television moments" when the studio audiences howl with laughter as someone trips over something and falls heavily to the ground -- off a roof -- into the sea, or, gets smacked with a 2X4, or experiences a hundred other possibly painful accidents? How about those no-holds-barred wrestling-boxing-mauling matches where presumably grown men kick, punch, jab, and do everything but bite their opponents?

What's happened to us? Have we lost our capacity for empathy?

I think, sometimes, that the Don Imuses and Bill O'Reilly's et al are simply mirroring back the disintegration that now dominates the cultural life of the country. What happened with comic Michael Richards, with Imus, with Trent Lott or any of the other offenders, may be an extension of the anti-intellectualism and cynicism that have run riot over the culture, and is now the norm. To hear Imus petulantly plead his status as victim of the Hip Hop generation and the unfairness that allows rappers to use racist sexist language while robbing him of his right to free expression was almost hilarious! Outrageous! Worthy of a cartoon cel in the New Yorker! Then, in the aftermath, to hear serious radio and television personalities asking quite earnestly whether or not there was a double standard operating here, as in "... why can blacks say such things but white folks can't?" As if free expression was ever meant to support and encourage racism or sexism or homophobia even while allowing dissonant voices the right to be heard? There is a huge but important difference here, and one that guarantees the sustainability of "democracy" and insures protection against the tyranny of an all-powerful majority -- the genius of our system of governance.

Maybe there's something here that resembles the Act of Civil Disobedience. Whereas: One has the right to say or do whatever ones wishes to, but only with the understanding that there may be a cost and be willing to pay it to make a point. The cost of Trent Lott, Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, Isiah Washington, and Don Imus's freedom of expression may well be the loss of their positions and public condemnation. The choice was theirs, and skipping off to Rehab and/or offering a weak apology with the demand that it be accepted doesn't cut it. The public's right to extract retribution is justified and might help to change the course of this downward spiral into a deeper alienation between races, genders, and class.

Have we lost our collective minds???

I agree with Al Sharpton. The public airways -- which we pay for with our taxes should not be allowed to be continually contaminated by corporate-sponsored denigrating attacks as those expressed by this self-proclaimed and highly-paid "comic/shockjock/wouldbeserious pundit". Mr. Imus et al can have all the freedom of expression they'd like -- but not on the publicly-owned airways. He should be fired. The producer who aided and abetted should accompany him into obscurity. Then we need to continue to clean up those images in the media that feed the monster and provide cover for the offenders.

Okay. Now that's said, and I'll gladly relinquish my not-too-old status for something more fitting, like, "...shape up and behave yourselves like responsible grownups, people!"

...and I secretly see this form of de-sensitizing of our nation as a major contributor to a climate that makes permissible a new definition of torture and a willingness to overlook the most aggregious behaviors under the auspices of "defending our country," even while occupying another. It's all in the conditioning for a New World Order. Paranoia? I no longer think so. Is this the result of the consolidation of the media under a few powerful corporate owners?

Thought about that while listening to a radio interview on NPR this past weekend with Dr. Phil Zimbardo. He was talking about his landmark Stanford University experiment. It was there to see 20 years ago. His new book is called "The Lucifer Effect." Look it up online.

Scary stuff... chilling ... and predictive.

Guantanamo ...

Abu Graib.

It's hell to live so long that the continuum starts to reveal itself -- the connections that are invisible in the early years -- when Christmas came once a year instead of every six weeks -- and life's patterns emerge as if etched into one's brain in acid laced with blood -- when it's too late to effect the course of change; as if a single individual ever could.

... maybe it's time now to get out into this climate-challenged springtime and lie on the grass and watch the sky for a little while ... .

Happy Easter and, my, how things have changed ... .

Picked Dorian up this morning to drop her off at one of the group homes owned by Harmony Homes, a housing program for mentally handicapped adults who live semi-independently. She's been looking forward to today's big event all week. An Easter Egg hunt! My sweet girl/woman loved it last year and has been talking about it all week. What's so special? Those "eggs" will each hold a $20 bill, so finding them will be exciting, indeed, and in terms that even the mentally-retarded can understand. Whatever happened to those chocolate marshmallow bunnies and jelly beans and baskets stuffed with fake grass?

What does that remind me of?

Listening yesterday to the pundits chewing over the results of the dollars raised by the presidential hopefuls that now indicate who the "real" leaders are in what may be fast approaching the status of a flag-draped charade. What ever happened to the formal exercise of the electoral process of a great nation as in caucuses and primaries? They may have become something other than what we've intended; an anachronism, with the real results determined far in advance of those determined by the ballot box -- electronic or otherwise. Determined by what is predicted to be our first "... billion dollar presidential election."

Is my cynicism growing?

Maybe.

But I'll still work hard for Senator Barack Obama in the days ahead while waiting for Lady Liberty to begin to recover her balance -- and pray for a restoration of her wonderful sense of humor -- of whimsey. How else can one explain the election of George W. Bush to be leader of the free world? Arnold Schwarzenegger???

Think I'll go find myself some jelly beans... . Oh, yes ... that was our Governor Ronald Reagan wasn't it? -- another inexplicable folly to this aging Californian who remembers marching along Telegraph Avenue in the People's Park protests years ago -- watching smiling young women placing flowers down gun barrels of the National Guard troopers while his tear-gas-spewing heliocopters stalked and bombed from overhead. And how we watched in disbelief a few years later when the nation chose him to lead the world as our president!

Again, Happy Easter to you, and may the God in whom you believe continue to protect us from ourselves.

Peace.