One day -- in the mid-nineties -- my live-in niece, Gail returned home from work to find the McNeill-Leherer production team filming in our El Cerrito kitchen ...

She quietly lay down her gear and began to make coffee for the crew -- as if this was the most normal thing in the world and of no particular consequence. We often laughed at the obvious fact that for reasons unknown, the world tended to bisect through my kitchen!

I had only recently moved from Berkeley and hadn't lived in the community very long. After the multiple trucks and cameras left the two of us doubled over with laughter at the thought that my new neighbors were probably expecting to pick up the West County Times the next morning to read about the old lady drug bust on Cabrillo Street the day before!

The occasion was that I'd been discovered online (probably recommended by SeniorNet) as one of the growing number of seniors who'd become computer savvy and were using the new technologies in our daily lives. Somewhere here in my cluttered files is a copy of that unbelievable tape which features that video essay that had been aired nationwide.

It was a few years later when the (Gail-predicted) call came from the Oprah show. Someone at the end of the Chicago line was calling because my blog had been picked up by someone and I was being asked to be a guest on the show to talk about how the Internet had changed my life. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of a single reason why that would be true. Having said as much the caller immediately lost interest and the brief interview ended. So much for a free trip to Chicago and Oprah fame.

Last week I had the same kind of repressed giggle attack upon picking up my phone at work to hear a woman's voice with a delightful British accent announce that she was calling from the BBC in London and that they have a 5-hour documentary currently in production. "We're planning to come to Richmond "rawtha soon" to film an essential "pawt" of the story." As you may or may not know, Henry Kaiser was building ships for the United Kingdom under Lend Lease prior to December 7th, 1941, and our entry into the war. "We're planning to arrive in Richmond May 18th to do some filming there at the park and would appreciate it if you could be available for an on-camera interview at five o'clock on Saturday, the 23rd."

"Life gets curiouser and curiouser," says Alice!

The old dear slipping a cog? Nope. Not at all, thank you ... .

Reading back through the last few days of posts it occurred to me that anyone reading them might erroneously conclude that the old lady has lost it. Reads absolutely manic, doesn't it?

In the event that the mood swings might suggest otherwise, let me assure you that they are more an indication of the hugeness of the world I move around in, and the enormity of what is out there to be sensed and felt and tasted and perceived -- and that give me a way to measure my own capacity to be open enough to let it all in without self-destructing. Writing is the way I sort through it all, and the means by which I'm able to make sense of the wild places these brain cells take me to if I don't allow the censors in to shut down those nerve endings and slow the synapses.

Wondered as I was dropping off into that quiet edge of consciousness just before deep sleep last night -- if what I'm experiencing as I age up into my "wisdom" (presumably) -- if I'm not tapping into that wildly open-to-learning-everything space that we experience in the ages from birth through 3 or 4 years-old? That period before we reach the place in childhood where compulsion to conform begins to erode curiosity. I'm certain that all of the people that I ever was are alive in me still and that I draw upon earlier parts of myself as the noise and the busyness of the world allows. There's something that feels quite primitive going on these days; something I can't name. But it's all good. No pathology here.

Of this I am certain.

... and this afternoon I'm going to attend a Mother's Day Gospel Concert at Star Bethel Baptist Church in Oakland. Weird for a non-believer? Not at all. There's a quality of profound faith in the black church that I can witness no other place on earth, except for a moment or two last winter while standing transfixed at the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Black gospel music is glorious! Count it another dimension of existence. It needs no rationale. Nothing to prove. Check intellect at the door and join the shoutin'! The hats, alone, provide enough drama and color to satisfy most saints, surely! Next Sunday I'll visit with Mozart and Brahms and Haydn at a chamber music concert at Davies Hall in S.F., but today it's the celebration of Hallelujah! There's no earthly dimension that could simultaneously accommodate such diverse cultures -- but they co-exist within me -- and quite comfortably, thank you -- as do all of the apparent contradictions I wrote about the failures of public education and the exaltation of living those few hours with the fourth graders at Joaquin Miller School on Friday.

I see few inconsistencies, only Dimensions!

Differing realities? Dimensions? What gives?

I suspect that it is the gift of being able to remain in the now that controls the phenomenon, but whatever it is; I'm experiencing a new awareness that excites me down to the molecule level. It rivals time travel in ways that are undeniable:


It is possible to attend a meeting of seniors almost anywhere in the liberal Greater Bay Area and find myself amid hard-working, thoughtful, caring white-haired liberal/radical/progressives who are striving for equality at all levels. They can be found standing on street corners with picket signs damning war and demanding peace in our time. Stalwart members of the NAACP and the Civil Liberties Union are valiantly supporting their causes come rain or shine on any given day. They have surely been found at the gates of San Quentin protesting the inhumane death penalty. Life would hardly be worth living did I lose sight of their presence in my life. I've surely spent enough time during my long lifetime sharing and/or acting on those concerns. But they're but one reality in a life filled with complexity. Among primary concerns has always been racial equality -- something to be achieved at all costs.

Yesterday I spent a part of my day with the combined fourth grade classes at Joaquin Miller Elementary School in the East Oakland hills. It was African American Day, and the children had recently completed a unit on "the wartime migration of African Americans in the 40's"; intended to fulfill the requirements of the California History standard. I'd been invited by a member of the faculty (referred by the Oakland Museum) in my park ranger role to help to add life to their studies. The visit was to include lunch (typical African American menu of macaroni and cheese, potato salad, chicken wings, yams, mustard greens, corn bread and red soda water). In celebration of the day the children were costumed in the working garb of the period with little girls wearing colorful bandanas, the signature of the Rosies of WWII. It was pure delight to find a photo of myself (a laminated copy of the front page story in the Oakland Tribune) in their exhibit right along with the icons of the Civil Rights struggles.

I sat with the children during lunch and watched and listened quietly -- trying to figure out just what I could possibly say to them that might bridge the vastness of the space between their youth (9 & 10 year-olds?) and my 87 years. How on earth could that be possible? And if I couldn't build that bridge what purpose could my visit contribute to their learning?

Then through half-closed eyes (while sipping red soda from a paper cup) I suddenly saw the rainbow before me. This was surely one of the most racially diverse audiences I'd ever experienced. And it was all completely natural. The teaching staff as well as the children represented the full spectrum of the demographics of this remarkable American city.

Suddenly I realized that there was a congruence, a continuum of experience that meshed those white-haired activists working so hard to make right the world and these beautiful children with whom I was honored to share the day. It was this. They represent separate dimensions. Neither is aware of the existence of the other. Those sincere elders are still working hard toward goals that have already been achieved! The children in the All-Purpose room at this elementary school were the end result of that heartbreaking effort of the past decades of struggle. The questions and the answers were at hand in the here and now. And I was the bridge! Because I'm able to remain in the now, I'm experiencing both realities simultaneously!

Were one to question these children about their feelings about the election of the first black president, they would probably have no idea why we were even asking such a silly question! For them, the conversation is hardly worth engaging in. Were people ever so silly as to believe that they could own other people or lynch men because they refused to step off the sidewalks when confronted by another man or woman on the same path -- or that we would refuse to allow some people to ride in the front of the bus or that we would confine some to only the lowliest of labor because of a difference in skin color -- or, be so uncool as to refuse to share drinking fountains or attend the same schools because of race?

How to let them know what they'd taught me yesterday ... I tried in a small way by starting off saying, "... I'm not sure how to make the bridge that I'll need to tell you about my life -- I'm 87 years old. My great-grandmother was born into slavery in 1846 and my mother in 1894 and I was a little girl before there were ball point pens, bridges across the bay, push button telephones, or television or Harry Potter or cell phones -- etc. What is it that you'd like to know about me?" And from there the questions flowed.

It worried me that I may have been talking over their heads, but even if they were having to reach a bit, I felt connected to them, and even if I couldn't tell them that I'd discovered the differing realities, dimensions, and connections between the work of those dedicated elders and the perception ... that I had -- in a crazy few seconds -- slipped into a dimension where the questions and the answers had blended into a unified whole -- in a single moment of time -- in an instant that defied the limits of time and space ... .

As I was leaving after some picture-taking (which I'm hoping will be forwarded soon), it was clear that the teachers had heard me. It's possible that ... if my words were obscure -- maybe they'll evoke different questions from the children in days to come, and that new learning may occur because new thoughts have been introduced. I don't really know. I never know, really, except that I can sense viscerally when that human connection has been made.

But I drove away - back into the afternoon traffic on the Warren Freeway -- grinning to myself and feeling well-fed and affirmed in the knowledge that the world is in good hands and that those lovely children now growing into the process of democracy are being well-prepared by a diverse team of adult graduates of Sesame Street. That it took us all to reach this place, and that those caring elders may or may not ever know that they(we) were more successful than we could ever have dreamed. (I hope you're catching all this, Jim Henson, wherever you are!)

None of this will make sense tomorrow -- but this day, Saturday, May 9th, in the year 2009, I learned that I'm able to navigate differing realities and dimensions almost at will -- and as it is destined to be -- those distances between here and there and then and now will continue to narrow as the years taper into oblivion.

Thinking about Justice Thurgood Marshall and the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling -- 1954 ... .

I've been including in my talks lately, the fact that one of the gifts of aging is that one knows how all the stories turned out. True. An octogenarian view of history makes possible this period of summation, only now that the patterns are visible. Every now and then there are flashes of insight and the implications are inescapable. Each time I find myself watching news coverage about the plight of public education, the tiny pieces of incremental change add up to a reality that is disturbing. We've experienced a downward spiral and lost control of the way we're schooling our young. And, how else does a democracy survive except with an educated electorate? After 55 years of living with the results of that much-heralded decision, has the system of public education been successfully dismantled?

I'm not at all sure that those who championed the cause for equality won that one. In fact, it seems more and more evident that we may have lost that battle resoundingly. Recent studies show that segregation is more evident than ever and that we're a long way from achieving the goals of the mandate of 1954.

Just after the order to desegregate came down from the Supreme Court (by the way, a racist decision since it was the first time in history that a ruling was not immediately adopted but included the words, "with all deliberate speed") the disintegration of public education began. This meant that we allowed enough foot-dragging for the forces of resistance to organize and defeat the intent of the ruling. Black children who were attending all-black schools lost their teachers for the most part since our educators could not follow the kids into the newly integrated schools due to what was considered inadequate training. Our children were suddenly tossed into a world where everyone with authority was white, while black teachers who had been held in high esteem in their own communities were unceremoniously purged from the system.

Most white children throughout the southern states were moved into tax supported private "academies" created to keep them out of what was believed to be "harm's way." As the result of sometimes violently protested busing programs, schools everywhere were gradually re-segregated since demographics now followed housing patterns and racism determined where families of color could live. The great suburbanization of the Fifties withdrew much-needed tax dollars from urban school systems throughout the next two decades, a financial loss to inner city schools that has never been regained.

Over time, we've forgotten the genesis of "academies," and they've moved out of the south and been transformed into "charter schools" a change that has -- over time -- re-directed funding away from public education and into often untested and highly-specialized voucher-supported or privatized corporately-run institutions. And though often credited with introducing important innovations, accountability is often overlooked. We appear to have completely forgotten their genesis or why they exist at all. I felt a ripple of concern upon hearing our president speak out strongly in support of charter schools, and found myself wondering if his relative youth had shielded him from making the connections with the past?

Meanwhile, graduate schools are by now so costly that only the relatively wealthy can afford to attend. With teaching so poorly paid in comparison to other careers, repayment of student loans has become impractical for most students, black or white. In time it's my fear that -- whether or not we ever achieve racial equality -- it will be those who can afford the education who will continue to lead in all fields; a further extension of white privilege.

Why am I mulling this over at all? I discovered in a conversation a few nights ago that my son, David, is working frantically to find some way to finance his two young daughter's (11 and 13) tuition in Catholic school. Would you believe that for a semester it will cost $23,000 for each? This is not some exclusive educational institution for special kids; it's just your ordinary neighborhood parochial school for ordinary Catholic children. And beyond that first semester -- what then? In the urban public school that they currently attend, participation in the vollyball program had to be skipped since it would have required a payment over $700 for each for the season. Could the fact that the junior proms and senior balls -- that used to take place in specially decorated school gyms and that now involve limos and grand hotels and week-long spring breaks in Cancun or the Caribbean -- suggest a profitable arrangement by school districts with travel agencies and the hotel and visitor's bureaus in major cities? Should we be thinking "kickbacks" or is this grandma's paranoia?

Am I the only one who remembers my own introduction to the arts and music and literature and science came from public schools that were funded by us all? The PTA may have funded band uniforms with car washes and bake sales (and I'm not even sure about that), and the local grocery stores and gas stations collected coins in a jar on the counter for field trips, but it was all there. It seemed effortless. I can't recall my own parents ever being concerned with anything beyond making sure that I fulfilled my obligation to attend classes on time and neatly dressed for the day.

What have we done?

... and, how can we begin to find our way back?

The first of the big Richmond annual festivals ... Cinco de Mayo!

Not even the slow steady light rain could dampen the spirits of those who gathered along 23rd Street to watch us pass by today. I was Unit #43 driving alone in today's parade, inching along in our NPS sedan with the signature arrowheads emblazoned on both sides; dressed in full regalia; sandwiched between a small contingent of U.S. Naval folks and a large flat-bed truck carrying several miles worth of "Cielito Lindo" blaring loudly enough for the late sleepers in the lower hills to hear!

I could remember waking in the night wondering if the headlines this afternoon would read, "Lil ole lady mows down drum and bugle corps in today's festival parade!" But, gratefully, it was not to be. Though it was my first ever participation in a genuine parade, it was all carried off professionally with the proper attention to regal smiles and graceful hand-waving (it's all in the elegance of proper wrist rotation!). Only once did I feel skittish and that was at a point in the proceedings when the mounted caballeros rode past going in the opposite direction -- with horses that didn't seem all too sure they wanted to go that way ... . I held my ground, stared them down, and they -- with some resistance -- clipped-clopped on without incident.

The trick was to leave at least 40 feet between my car and the marching unit ahead; never move out of first gear; and to be sure to maintain eye contact with those who waved back. Nuthin' to it! The best moment came when I was able to catch the eye of a child (perhaps 8-9) standing at an upstairs window of an apartment all alone and looking forlorn (ill, maybe?). I waved and his face lit up brightly as he waved back. Our eyes had met briefly, but it was a few seconds of full recognition. How nice! Made my day, and perhaps his as well.

Now that I've mastered the finer points of parading despite precipitation and inexperience, I'll start preparing for the Juneteenth Festival Parade next month.

Happy Cinco de Mayo, y'all!

Guided a bus tour for Drinking Liberally (a local chapter of a national political group) which regularly meets to debate current events ... .

...and it was while standing is the gaping expanse of the cathedral-like Craneway of the iconic Ford Building that I felt the impact of revelation:

If the visionaries of my generation could enable us to abruptly disassemble the auto industry under the eminent threat of war -- and tool up to transform itself from auto manufacturing to tank assembling, and shipbuilding, and then create an aircraft industry from scratch in the matter of months -- what's so difficult about creating a green economy based on alternative energy sources now?

All it took in 1941 was a nation willing and prepared by courageous leadership to sacrifice for the good of the all. We did without, gave up everyday items, dealt with rationing of the essentials, grew our own food, even walked when petroleum was needed for the war effort.

Found myself wondering as I fell asleep last night if President Obama isn't looking at more than the Franklin Delano Roosevelt regulatory policies for guidance, but as much at the leadership style that inspired those kinds of sacrifices in we the people who bought in despite a discriminatory social system that could easily have cost us the national will to prevail in a disastrous war that saved us from totalitarian world domination. Perhaps political partisanship will be the hurdle to be overcome in our time ... but we may have the kind of leadership that can overcome that, I believe. This may be what's behind the president's insistence upon erasing those lines that divide us; red from blue, liberal from conservative, Democrat from Republican. American lives as well as the lives of the entire planet may well depend upon his ability to accomplish that.

I realized again while guiding yesterday's tour that this park is vitally important to helping this generation to shape its response to precipitous climate change. The models for the mobilization lie in the WWII Home Front story. They exist to tell the world that that kind of monumental change is not only possible but that we've already done it. That the models are here to see and that therein lies the hope for the future that we're so desperately seeking in order to meet the new and daunting challenges to life as we know it here on the planet we call home.

Could hardly sleep last night as my mind raced back over the day in the search for the tomorrow that is always tucked into the kaleidoscopic re-run that prepares me to face each succeeding day.

Last Wednesday was another remarkable day in a remarkable year of growth and change ... for both me and the park.

Attended a special day at Fort Mason where the members of the media, PBS staff, and some members of park staffs from those parks surrounding the bay gathered to meet Ken Burns. I've rarely seen so many rangers in one place at the same time. We'd been invited to preview parts of the latest PBS documentary created to tell the story of the NPS. It's called, "The National Park System, America's Best Idea." It was an all day event that included a preview not only a part of the 12-hour piece to be shown in late September, but we also heard speeches by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan plus others who figured prominently in a number of parks and programs that are featured in the work.

Burns is indisputably the documentarian of our times, and to have been included in that audience was a great honor, but as with his latest epic "The War," I came away with a sense of frustration.

The work has taken ten years to complete and starts with the early development by men (and they were all male) like John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, Mather, Albright, etc., and those magnificent pristine wild places that were saved for posterity. Yellowstone, being the first followed by Yosemite and other places of natural wonder would later include the historic sites -- the battlefields, monuments, and memorials that tell the story of the nation.

At one point it was realized that the visitation "by the people" who were the owners of the national park system tended to be restricted only to those who could afford the trips and that there was limited access for those who could not. In more recent times the NPS has concentrated on bringing the parks to the people by legislation created to include the protection and preservation of urban historic sites that now enshrine the heroic stories of the Underground Railroad, the Civil Rights Movement, the Native American stories, the Women's Movement, etc., all critically important to the telling of the more complete story of America.

As with "The War" in which the Burns documentary told the western story through Sacramento. It almost completely ignored the Greater Bay Area where the shipbuilding industry pretty much turned the fate of the war in the Pacific by building supply ships faster than the enemy could sink them. Instead he chose to use the (albeit compelling) story of a Japanese family's internment instead. An important story, but the stories that I and millions like me lived as home front workers were missing from the narrative. When taking 12 hours to tell the story, one might suppose that both could be accommodated.

In this week's Burns experience, I felt the disappointment at having the documentary end with the creation of Denali National Wilderness Park in Alaska in the year 1980; more than 20 years ago. That meant that we had not yet reached the point of the beginnings of the urban parks movement and the new more inclusive aspects of park development; so much of which were the "swords into plowshares" parks which included the entire Presidio, Fort Mason, the Marin Headlands, Fort Kronkite, and surely not the entire home front story now being told through the addition of our Rosie the Riveter WWII/Home Front NHP.

Of course he had to stop somewhere, I suppose, but it certainly begs another series that is inclusive of the new directions. Besides, it might have been more enjoyable had he thought to bring Wendy and the Lost Boys along, too.

More later.

Uncompromised truth has its day ...

Insight!

Leaning against the wall yesterday at the premiere of the "Untold Stories" (trying to be as inconspicuous as possible) it dawned; the effect this newly-created national park is having on this city. The insistence upon total honesty as we re-visit the era of what is remembered as "The Good War" has proven to be unquestionably wise. The epiphany came at a moment when our mayor rose to honor the young high school students, Crystal Johnson, 18, Sara Moran, 16, Maria Esparza, 17, and Veronica Godinez 18, in the ceremony following the viewing of their production. I suddenly could see that everything was dependent upon through which lens that history was being viewed. Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, as one voice of many sincerely dedicated peace activists, is seeing it through the lens of the brutal and senseless carnage of war; though one facet of the greater story.

It would be understandable for Kaiser Permanente Corporate leaders of today to view that same history primarily through the remarkable industrial achievements of Henry J Kaiser's total re-structuring of the shipbuilding industry; a history that has had profound implications throughout the years since ... years of unprecedented progress in so many fields -- preventive health care, early childhood education and development, union/management relations, mass production and prefabrication systems.

The Ken Burns documentaries and The Saving of Private Ryan are important if the lens used was one exploring the body count stories; those of human degradation created by armed conflict; our known human capacity for violence and brutality; military sacrifice and heroism. All are critically important to the telling of the story of WWII, but those are not Richmond's story. Those were not the stories that the teens had given up a year's worth of Saturdays to tell.

Rosie the Riveter WWII/Home Front National Historical Park is providing the narrative of the "Great Mobilization"; the coming together of people from Everywhere, USA, in response to a world threatening international crisis. Those years saw the creation of the cauldron into which the nation's conflicting social mores and patterns were cast resulting in two decades of life-changing chaos out of which the causes of civil and human rights were painfully carved bringing us more in line with the promises of our founding documents and loudly-professed but sorrowfully unfulfilled national ideals.

Since 1776 we've been a revolutionary country painfully at odds with a set of core principles and values for which we've been willing for generations to fight and die but by which we've miserably failed to live. We've deceived the world by holding out a tempting imaginary chalice of peace and freedom while holding to contradictions and an arrogance that denied their ever entering into our reality. The WWII home front mobilization and subsequent struggles for redefinition forced us to move through to a more honest alignment with those core beliefs. But -- as a nation of diverse ordinary people in transition -- it all happened with mind-numbing speed -- far too rapidly for us to process.

It is that story that Richmond tells. By initial attempts such as this important work by these young women, we're building a bridge back to that period for us all to re-visit. They're helping us to build a baseline against which to measure the dramatic social changes that have brought us to a new and more enlightened national ethos. Those years (1941-1964 and beyond) forced us to re-examine the relationships between human and civil rights and even the possibility of a world at peace. Without the insistent stress upon the everyday lives of ordinary people living in extraordinary times -- without the urgent demands of the war years to find ways to live and work together despite a non-supportive and unforgiving social system -- and without their persistent and sometimes combative resistance to continuing to any longer endure the contradictions, the nation might never have reached this place of transformation.

"Untold Stories" revealed the raw material from which the new understandings have been carved. Out of such sorrowful history world peace may yet be born. I believe that the City of Richmond provided the background against which the country first began to confront its contradictions and correct its course -- entering a period of 20 years of social upheaval --echoes of which still resonate from our nation's lecterns, pulpits, and town squares. We're still a work in progress, but yesterday's gathering at the Museum suggests that here in this place -- after 6 decades of accelerated change -- this relatively young community of strangers is still asking the right questions, and through the National Park Service, the nation is listening.

Meanwhile, those awful wounds born of hatred and racial injustice are best cauterized by Truth.

Perhaps Rosie was more than a mere riveter, but the ultimate symbol for change of a kind that we're only now beginning to fully understand and appreciate; understanding provided by yet another set of lenses -- those of 4 young students exploring their history and (hopefully) being awed by both what we've endured and how far we've come.


Bottom photo: Director Lois Boyle, SS Red Oak Victory; Luciano del Rio, Richmond Youth Media Project; Crystal Johnson, me, Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner of the 14th Assembly district; Sara Moran, Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin; Veronica Godinez. The fourth member of the group (not shown), student Maria Esparza has joined the Air Force as a direct result of her experience in the program (as she reported on camera).

Note: You can be there by clicking on the thumbnail for enlargement.

Student Conservation Association (SCA) doings ... .

This afternoon -- 5:00 'til 7:00 -- I will get to experience myself as one of the subjects in a 15-minute documentary created by a group of high school girls in a multimedia workshop. The project was conducted under the imaginative leadership of Carla Koop, a member of our ranger staff at Rosie the Riveter WWII/Home Front NHP.

After the release of a timely story in the Contra Costa Times, we've received enough calls from members of the community and beyond to cause no little concern about whether the Richmond Museum of History with a 40-person room-capacity for seated guests will be able to accommodate the crowd!

We've learned that among the guests will be Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner. She will present commendations to the kids (how exciting it that?), and from the telephone calls I've received at home, we may have to run the film at least twice.

There's a part of me that is always scanning the horizon for my replacement; until something like this happens. Then I wonder just how anxious I am to leave the stage ... .

Watching young minds grow and having some sense of contributing to that process is heady stuff. These feelings of pride and humility must be what teachers experience in their later years. Maybe I, too, am a teacher or sorts.

From my young friends from the California College of the Arts ...

Dear Betty,

I hope all is well, and thank you for meeting with us at the Rosie the Riveter Memorial Park two weeks ago. It was an honor to be amongst your presence.

Our lunch with you marked our final meeting with community leaders of Richmond, and thus we have reached a conclusion of what our final project will be.

As we mentioned to you before, we have decided to create a book of illustrations, bio's, quotes, and info on the wonderful people we've met in Richmond. We are honored to ask your permission to include you in our book.

We have a number of interview questions we would like to ask you if you are interested in participating. I will include them in this text. If you choose to participate, feel free to answer the questions by email, or we can contact you by phone. Just let us know what you are comfortable with and what is most convenient for you.

We hope for this book to be resourceful and informative to the community of Richmond and beyond.

With warm regards,

Madeleine Tonzi
Kathrine Canton
Aria Caton
Camille Hoffman
Sasha Gainor
Katy Chmura

Here are the questions for you to consider if you choose to participate:

What is your role within Richmond?

Besides being a resident, of course. I moved to the city from nearby Berkeley (in Alameda County) while serving as a field representative for two members of the California state assembly; Dion Aroner, and later for her successor, Loni Hancock. I was responsible for all of West Contra Costa County and after a year or so decided that I needed to live in the community in order to best serve both it and those I represented. That evolved into my current position as a NPS park ranger where I've become more and more deeply involved in helping the city to discover and honor its colorful history.

How does your background and practice contribute to the health of Richmond?

I suppose the fact that I am a member of the African American community and therefore one of the many cultural groups who reside here, and partly because I am by nature a very open person of an age where I'm given permission to express that candor, I seem to have the capacity to release the same in those around me. That means that I've found a way to maximize that openness within the context of the work that I'm doing. That's an amazingly empowering way in which to move through life. I'm not at all sure that all of those elements could have come together before my present age (87). I seem to have outlived the need for artifice. I'm no longer becoming, but in a constant state of "being." Perhaps this translates into my community life.

What do you want to share with others about Richmond's history?

It's probably the fact that Richmond played such a pivotal role during those years (1941-1945) when the great mobilization occurred. Total strangers were brought together in this place from many parts of the nation to build the supply ships that would change the course of WWII. In the process the city found itself unwittingly participating in the greatest social upheaval of a kind that re-shaped the country for all time. Extraordinary ordinary people came together under an inherited system of racial segregation yet found the ways to transcend -- to struggle through the next 20 year of confrontations -- both militant and peaceful -- to create new social patterns that eventually changed the course of history. The Greater Bay Area was the nerve center for the war in the Pacific. Richmond was the nerve center of that nerve center with its 4 shipyards. By virtue of the social forces unleashed here for the first time, Richmond later became the cradle of social change. One day the descendants of those humble home front workers will realize that legacy and the city will rise to its rightful place as the "place where it all happened."

If you could send a message to your community, what would it be?

That the time spent in fighting crime and violence would be better spent in replacing it with more positive elements. We choose our reality; I truly believe that. What we choose has the capacity to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We must free ourselves of externally-imposed images and re-direct our energies into creating and being what we want to see.

Where do you think the heart of Richmond is? and why?

I'm not sure that I've been here long enough to answer this question. Or, maybe a more honest answer is that I'm not sure that anyone knows that yet. My sense of the city is that it is a community in search of an identity. Having started out as a company town; been taken over by the great mobilization and the war; having only now become engaged in any kind of collective introspection; its heart may still be undiscovered. That there is one I do not question. Maybe -- if I live long enough -- that question will be answered.

What growth do you hope to see in Richmond's future?

I'm not sure that I'm as interested in growth as I am in consolidation. I'd love to stop the calendar and the clock long enough by some magic to figure out where we'd like to go. This new national park and my own work on its behalf -- I'm more and more convinced -- will help to shape whatever future is out there to be explored and actualized by helping to forge a shared history of a fascinating community.

Betty

Whadayaknow! I'm about to become an actual published author.

I'm beginning to get antsy waiting for the spring issue of the quarterly journal, The California Historian to hit the stands.

I think I mentioned some months ago that our chief of interpretation stopped by my desk one day with a stack of the magazines in hand and a request that I heard as something being assigned as "busy work" since I appeared to be at loose ends. "Betty, do you suppose you could write a piece for this magazine? You're a good writer and it might serve to spur interest in their upcoming annual meeting that will be held in June." We will be hosting one day of that weekend gathering. Historians will be coming from all over the state.

This would be the first time I've been asked (formally) to submit a piece for publication and for a minute there I hesitated. Then I agreed to take a crack at it, but asked Naomi if she'd provide some guidelines (number of words, etc.) but she had no idea what was required. "Take a look at these earlier issues and maybe you'll get some guidance from that." Okay.

Over the next several weeks I wrote and rewrote, copied and pasted, tried to edit for length (it really did get away from me for a while there) but was unsuccessful. As an untrained writer, I discovered how hard it is to try to edit content without finding the edits taking you completely off course with no way to tie the new parts back into the body of the article. It was crazy-making! I finally asked if someone would read what I'd put together and take a first cut at editing. Ours is a busy and small staff so finding a volunteer with the time to devote proved futile. Besides, I'd fallen in love with every word and couldn't possibly make the necessary cuts myself. I had no idea how to shrink what had by that time become at least 6 pages of single-spaced type with no end in sight!

Somewhat embarrassed, I submitted the final draft to Naomi hoping that she would take a red pencil to the entire mess and save me the pain of editing my priceless piece. She looked pained as she handed it back to me unchanged. I took this to mean that she a) hadn't found the time to read it; b) had been intimidated by its length, and was returning it with an unspoken apology. I explained that I'd looked carefully at the back editions and that there were articles at least as long as mine and that I'd failed to find any criteria or guidelines to work from. We eventually decided to simply submit it as an attachment with an email giving their managing editor the freedom to edit however she wished based upon available space. I thought little more about it, once released. There was no expectation of acceptance. It was enough to have fulfilled my responsibility for delivering on schedule.

Weeks later while we were intensely involved in an all-day meeting involving the Visitor's Center an email arrived from the Editor. "We loved your writings and will be using it as the cover article in the spring edition and would like to arrange a visit to Rosie the Riveter Park to select about 5 photos to accompany it."

Panic time! I'm (of course) flattered beyond all reason, but since I'd written my article based upon my memories of the WWII era, and, since no one other than Naomi had even read the piece -- how on earth would it stand up being released under the aegis of the National Park Service to a reading audience of historians? It had to be accurate. It might even be quoted from at some future time -- and neither Naomi nor I had dreamed it would be accepted for publication so no one from our staff had actually fact-checked a word of it. What to do?

Took it to Martha with an urgent plea that someone (anyone) please take some time to carefully read the work for factual accuracy before it was submitted. It went then to our cultural resources manager who went over the entire lengthy document carefully and changed almost nothing -- just one sentence for clarification. "Looks good to me," says Ric. Then he added, "it will take at least 3 years for my scholarship to catch up with your memory!" I could feel myself grow at least an eighth of an inch.

Still not quite satisfied, I drove to the Richmond Museum of History to hand the article to curator Donald Bastin with the words, "please critique this, Don, and return it to me right away. The journal editor will be stopping in tomorrow to select the photos from your archives." He agreed. He is meticulous in his own work and could be counted on to be demanding in his criticism. He was familiar with and respectful of the publication. Also, in the past we'd had some fairly heated disagreements on issues involving my remembrances vs. his research findings of the era. This is precisely the kind of hard scrutiny needed here. I could trust Don's judgment, completely.

Imagine my surprise when -- upon arrival the next day he gave it back to me with the words. "Found one error. You state twice, Betty, that Henry J. Kaiser and his band of amateur ship builders built and launched 747 ships in 4 years and 7 months. It was actually 3 years and 8 months!" I'd actually understated this incredible feat! His correction added strength to the narrative. The entire article passed muster with the curator. I'd done it! My memory proved to be dependable and accurate (if dramatically overactive), and sometime next week the article will be published for the readership of the California Historical Societies throughout the State of California.

It's quite possible that one day we'll hear some unwitting soul state, "I know its true because I read it in the California Historian." And who's the authority?

Me!

Womens' History Month observance ... and ... suggestibility ...

I was invited to be the guest speaker at a brown bag lunch at the National Park Service's regional offices in downtown Oakland. It was an honor to be appreciated, though I'm always a little uncertain about what's expected of me. For those who work from an acquired body of knowledge, one draws from accumulated academically-approved research. For me, it's a case of working from memory, and finding them shifting from time to time depending upon the stimulus that nudges them to the forefront. A song, a few lines from a poem, a photograph from some fading news clipping, all have the power to thrust me back in time -- and because of our growing collection of artifacts that lie within an arm's length of my desk -- I never know when something I pick up will trigger a flow of fresh memories that change my presentation significantly. So giving my talk is often like working from a moving target. That constant element of surprise leaves me feeling insecure at times when I most need confidence. It may have been this that set the trigger, but:

As I climbed into the car (all decked out in my ranger garb) with the fancy-schmancy arrowhead decals adorning the doors, I slipped the key into the ignition -- turning on the radio (tuned to NPR) and drove out of the parking lot. From the speakers came the voice of the interviewer in conversation with former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. They were discussing her recent appointment to a seat on an important commission on Alzheimers disease. I was aware of the tragic story of her husband being stricken years ago and of the heart-breaking effects upon their marriage and her life. There followed a torrent of alarming calls from members of the listening audience describing their experiences with the caretaking of loved ones. These, unfortunately, included graphic descriptions of clinical symptoms that were truly frightening.

As I slipped easily into the freeway traffic I found myself glued to their conversations. During the 20-minute drive into an increasing traffic flow, the feelings of insecurity began to mount as I felt myself tightening up -- as my breathing became more shallow. My palms were now damp and began to slip ever-so-slightly on the steering wheel ... .

By the time I reached my destination and turned into the underground garage (headed for parking space 55 as directed), I had acquired the symptoms! I was in full-blown Alzheimers mode. Though a competent driver (quite good according to my race car driving mechanic), today I simply could not park the car. I inched back and forth between two cars, twisting and turning the wheels back and forth with no success, and finally becoming hopelessly wedged awkwardly "on the bias," until I finally got out of the car to walk to the security kiosk to ask the guard if he would please park it for me. He didn't offer to do so, but did come over to direct me into the space. By then I was completely unstrung! I'd spent about twelve minutes in the vain attempt and my composure was shot to hell!

Imagine my surprise upon entering the first floor to find the security person and the NPS staff member who was there to greet me -- looking at a computer screen at the reception desk trying to hide their laughter unsuccessfully. They'd been watching the crazy drama going on in the garage! Instantly I saw the insanity of the situation and staggered up to the desk giggling helplessly! Through the laughter I told them about my "alzheimers" attack -- and decided that I had the opening to today's luncheon talk.

It worked. I was able to relax into my presentation and decided to never again allow myself to be defined by external forces -- until next time.


Note: If you'll type Sedona into the search bar (small white strip above my photo on the far left side of the screen) you'll see that this curse of succumbing to definition by external forces has happened before. It will appear as if you've not accessed earlier posts because this entry will appear at the top because the word Sedona is mentioned -- so scroll down to the second post and those that follow.

Lovely day -- exciting young people ... the perfect combination ... .

Earlier in the day we'd met with a large group of perhaps 50 students from a Richmond High school history class. They'd come to visit the memorial to Rosie the Riveter; the home front women who replaced the men who were fighting overseas during World War II.

I love the "interpreter" role here in this place. The memorial is such a moving site that tells its story so well with or without anyone's help. It was designed by two remarkable Bay Area women who understood their subject and blended their talents so fluidly that it's all there; the story, the feel of the times, the heroism of the ordinary people whose lives were forever changed, but who have all but forgotten "what they did here."

At around noon the second wave arrived to visit this important part of our new national park. The entire city of Richmond with its many deteriorating scattered historic sites has been declared by Congress to be one of our most recently created urban parks. Some years ago Fort Mason and the Marin Headlands became two of the formerly war-related sites to become a "Swords into Ploughshares" parks. Point Reyes and Alcatraz Island prison make up the other national parks in our region. Port Chicago is a national monument with legislation pending that will make it, too, a national park. Parks established in the names of naturalist John Muir and playwright Eugene O'Neill NHP's are also part of our 4-park consortium here in the East Bay. These are the sites where the nation protects and preserves stories of national relevance for succeeding generations. There are memorial sites, historic sites, urban parks, wilderness areas, all set aside by Acts of Congress to be protected for all time. As Ken Burns' soon to be released latest documentary claims, "The National Park Service; America's best idea." (I'm paraphrasing since I'm not certain of the title.)

The second wave of young people to arrive today were students from the California College of the Arts. They're working on a community arts project whose work is based on looking at the city of Richmond as a living entity. They have been interviewing various community leaders with an eye toward developing a product through which they will try to identify which are the circulatory system, the heart, the source of lung power, etc. Haven't the foggiest idea where I fit in with all this, but we spent almost two hours walking the memorial and talking about the city, my work, my feelings about my work as well as my response to the times of my youth and how that was effected by the war of my generation.

I'm never sure just how much I'm able to communicate, but I liked the conversation as it flowed, felt comfortable with the young women and their instructors. The day was blissfully serene and the weather beautiful ...

Was introduced to yam sandwiches(?), and have to admit that the experience was a trifle strange. My Creole taste buds are tuned to hot baked yams smothered in butter, or, candied with brown sugar then sprinkled with orange zest and chopped pecans. I just may not make it as a vegan ... ever. It may be a generational thing; do you suppose?

Meanwhile, it was lovely day that left me feeling well-used.

The day after my trip north I returned to a very special gift of Dorian-designed happy blue jeans... .

And boy-oh-boy was her mom in desperate need of some genuine happy blue jeans!

One of her instructors, Andres, at NIAD (Nat'l Institute for Artists and Disabilities) led her through the process of painting on textiles -- little different from painting on canvas, I suppose. And how beautiful they are -- and how impossible it is to carry around sorrow and pain while wearing your happiness on your bod!

I have rainbows, flowers that were never wilter, cats and dogs, suns-of-power-to-transform-feelings, and besides all that there is a giggle packed lovingly into each pocket.


I'm planning to light up the very next out-of-uniform event. It wouldn't surprise me one whit to discover that they glow in the dark!

Such finery makes up for an awful lot of stored up misery.

(And, yes, I'm splendid in both directions. The back is gorgeous, too!)

Think I'll go light up a gas station ... .

Black History Month has come and gone ... will it one day be folded in with American history?

Might just as well. As the great Dick Gregory used to say, "...they gave us the month with two days missing, anyway!"

Perhaps that will take a bit longer to achieve, but we're working on it.

This year it was easier -- less of the generic to deal with -- with the great Inaugural events to report on; the trip to Washington, D.C., and sharing thoughts about what it all means.

The city employees hosted their annual luncheon with speeches and great food and so much to celebrate. I'm doing a bit better at the celebrity thing, but it's still not quite "me."

Sad note: I hope you've read the obituary published today at the death of John Hope Franklin at the age of 94. What an impressive man -- and what an exceptional life he lived. The grandson of a slave who rose to great heights as an educator. Black History Month was his brain child. Please take the time to do so if you've haven't.

Another argument for transparency ...

I've been unable to shake the disturbing flood of feelings upturned over the past few days; feelings that grew out of the visit with friends from the past. In thinking back to Thursday evening I realized that -- though many years have passed since our last visit -- the ability to enter into intimate conversation was so powerful and so fast that it was less than an hour into our visit that I began to learn things about Don that had gone unspoken over many years of friendship. It provided further evidence of just how natural is this sense of urgency that is now a part of my everyday being. Talk among peers is rarely "small" anymore.

He is no longer the young husband of my friend, Jewell, and the father of 3 lovely little girls. He is now 86 and a veteran of WWII who landed on Normandy Beach just one day after D-Day. Perhaps it was the fact that we've reached the apex of our lives and are now re-tracing our steps ... I don't know. For whatever reason, he rose and went to his room to bring back recent writings which he wanted to share with me. (He'd mentioned that he was leading a creative writing class for men at his church.)

Don settled back into his chair and searched through a sheaf of papers and came up with a most moving piece of writing. It was his account (read in the calmest of voices) of having visited Buchenwald on the second day after it was liberated. It was brief; little more than a scant half-page; typical of my friend -- New England terse. It was stunning in its restraint -- leaving room for the imagination to soar through the giant empty spaces left between words and the moments of brief hesitation as he read. Time had not softened the impact of the unspeakable images on the mind of this kind and loving man sitting now in this built-with-his-own-hands beautiful home deep in the redwoods. He'd wordlessly communicated to me (his old friend), "this I need you to know." The silence, when his voice stopped, was weighted with the not yet spoken.

Don had been in the room during my presentation at the college that afternoon -- which obviously cast him back to the era of WWII. The presentation placed us both in that history; a walk back through time that we'd avoided over all the years.

I drove home yesterday with a copy of my shy friend's account of the holocaust tucked into my bag -- never ever having guessed that he'd been carrying around those images since they were seared onto his brain long ago. Small wonder that his chosen career was one of compassion -- that of a social worker. Or that he would have been so actively involved in trying to save the world from its self-inflicted wounds. He was as motivated by the horror he'd witnessed as I am by my own family's history -- so deeply grounded in slavery.

Long after the Fords had gone to bed I found myself tossing sleeplessly on the sofa bed in their living room; wondering what kinds of secrets we all are holding to our detriment? Blogging has saved me from taking mine to the grave, but what about others close to me? After Don's revelation I suddenly felt an urgency to know -- to scream to elders around me to please speak their truths to one another. Find someone, anyone, with whom some of the awfulness and (perhaps more importantly) the wonders that we've lived can be shared and lifted from the entrapment of our minds. Which brought up the certainty that dementia is surely one mechanism created by the brain to withstand the pain of remembering the unthinkable.

Is it possible that my generation is as often as not slipping quietly into our graves taking those critical lessons learned with us? Are we bleeding away the power to learn and change, progress, and evolve by silently clutching desperately to the most horrific of life experiences instead of shouting out the warnings and leaving visible markers for succeeding generations to follow?

It was only moments later when Don read a second piece consisting of a short poem: It described in a few words how -- when he was 12 years-old -- while on a family outing, he and his brother had walked into a stream on a dare and only he had returned. He spoke of no one in his family ever taking the time to talk with him about his younger brother's death by drowning. I felt a huge responsibility to react in a way worthy of his trust in me -- but the trauma in the listening outweighed any attempt to find a response fitting to the moment. All I could muster was a timid completely inadequate, "thanks, Don."

It was this double-whammy that set off the depression that followed me the next morning up Highway 101, through from Cloverdale, Yorkville, Boonville, Philo, Navarro, the redwoods, up the Coast Highway past the historic town of Mendocino to Tom's and the intended brief respite at the ocean's edge.

It was impossible to chat idly over dinner that night -- about bank bailouts, presidential appearances on Leno, credit default swaps & derivatives, the First Lady's upper arms, White House victory gardens, etc., and there was simply no place to tuck away the new awareness of the kinds of pain so many of us are squirreling away into the back recesses of our minds day after day as we age into oblivion.

Small wonder I'm having such a hard time climbing out of this emotional abyss this Sunday morning ... .


Yet -- tomorrow will bring another day of increasingly important work and another opportunity to help to shape a park that holds the power to help us to better understand that period of unprecedented social change. A chance to influence the way we examine that history -- placing the bottom low enough to capture the worse of what we've been as a country and a world -- in order to understand (when measuring against today's reality) just how huge is our capacity to grow and change.

What a challenge, and how on earth do I have the audacity to imagine in my wildest dreams that I have the power to do that? I don't. But we do. I know because we've already done it. And I've lived long enough to know that -- to have a real sense of just how that story is ending -- if,

indeed, it is.


Note: See Cbreaux Annex (under my photo above the archives), click to read Don's writings.

Two big events now in the past ... and it's just as well. I'm running out of mental pegs to hang things on.

Mid-week the big public meeting to present and review the General Master Plan for our park arrived. The report is the culmination of 8 years of hard work by some very capable staff people, both locally and regionally. I had no direct involvement is creating it (except for being one of the many voices that mulled over hours, days, and weeks, of meetings in various configurations and levels of dream-makers). The document that is the outcome of all that work is really impressive.

Last week I spent many work hours driving around the area delivering copies to museums, libraries, agencies, nonprofits, civic partners, etc., and feeling really welcomed at each stop. My uniform continues to open doors and produce smiles of greeting. I'm always aware that I'm announcing a potential career option each time I enter into new territory. Feels good. There are always questions from those who have no idea that there is a national park any closer than Yosemite; that, indeed, there is one in development less than 30 minutes away -- how exciting is that?

Rosie the Riveter WWII/Home Front Historical National Park is still relatively unknown beyond the boundaries of the city of Richmond, but with each new phase in park-building the circle of those-who-know grows a bit larger.

On Thursday afternoon I drove up to Santa Rosa Community College to appear as a panelist for their school's Women's History Month celebration. Stopped by my office to pick up my goodie box of handouts; stuffed it in my car's trunk along with an overnight bag (for staying over with long time friends in nearby Occidental). I planned to join Tom at his Mendocino oceanfront home on Friday morning for some whale-watching before returning home to attend the Rosie Trust annual dinner tonight (Saturday).

Hit a bump in the road along the way that disrupted my anticipated happy holiday. First of all, the panel that was advertised on the widely-distributed posters as consisting of 3 panelists -- turned out about the same as one I'd participated in last spring at the Oakland Museum. The event had been several months in the planning and by the time the date arrived -- I was the only one left standing! The others had passed away ... so sad. So depressing. Upon arrival in Santa Rosa I discovered that the other two women (both "Rosies" over 80) had cancelled out and I was again going to be doing a solo presentation. Except that -- in this instance -- two instructors quickly were added to the mix and did a really credible job of creating the replacement program we needed.

But it set a tone that dampened my spirits and I found myself feeling old and out of context. Those feelings were still clinging upon arrival in Occidental where Don and Jewell and I spent a late evening remembering. It was impossible to not be aware of how much we were all aging -- and of how little time is left now. These were two dear friends I've known and loved since the early days when we were all hard-working members of that brave ahead-of-its-time little Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Walnut Creek. We'd raised our children together while working toward a more equitable community in which to grow them.

I drove away toward Mendocino on Friday morning feeling a sense of sorrow at how fast our world is changing and wondering just how much longer I can retain some sense of relevance ... .

I keep forgetting -- since my everyday world is peopled by those at least a generation below my own -- that it is I who is out of context. My own generation is making peace with the end times and coming to terms with their mortality in ways that -- perhaps -- I've not yet begun to consider -- to slow my pace one whit. I'm ordinarily not even aware of the need to do so.

Will Time wake up one morning soon and notice that he has forgotten me, and that Age will then arrive with a vengeance and cart me away unceremoniously -- without warning?

And wouldn't that be a wonderful way to make an exit?

It was in this mood that I hopped into my little red Beamer with its inappropriately loud muffler to (prematurely) drive away from Tom, the whales, threatening skies, to head for home along magnificent Coast Highway 1; through the Navarro River gorge with its 14 mile stand of redwoods; through to Highway 128 -- through the Anderson Valley now busily dressing for spring; with the hope that this pall will lift and isn't a signal that I'm reaching another plateau where age will (finally) become a factor to be reckoned with.

I looked back as I drove out of his driveway to see Tom standing in the doorway looking puzzled and patient, as always.

I could never have explained ... .