Songs I wrote and performed for the sound track of the prize-winning filmed documentary,  "Farallon Light," by San Francisco filmmaker, Charles Petersen ... .

Wind song

Hear my wind song, hear the gulls cry

watch the storm race through
restless reeds writhe ... waves weave madness!
blackness steals the blue.

here I stand in winter's wildness
sea and sand are mine!
take them storm, if you trust my mildness.
should you dare -- I'll bid the sun to shine!

See the clouds lift. Sand surround me
Now sun, now! Break through!
See the tide's gifts all around me
jewels I'll bring to you.

hear my gulls cry ... feel the warm sky,

hear my wind song ...

hear my wind
song ......

Meditation   

When my lovely world turns cold and leaves me wondering
if all I am to be has now been?
And if all I am to grow, to sense, to hear, to see, to know...
if all I am to feel has flown with the wind.

Then I flee my lonely world and climb a hill
where soft earth fits my foot and I can make the world be still
while my arms, outstretched, hold sun and clouds and sky...
and the wind folds me in love
and I'm ...
all ...
I.

And then high atop my hill my trees and I
through earth beneath our feet all can feel the world inside
and through limbs, outstretched, feel moon and stars and sky
and our wind folds us in love
and
we're ...
all ...
I.

Am thinking about the day when I took very young granddaughter, Kokee, up to the Lawrence Science Museum high above the U.C. Berkeley campus and -- walking down a long hallway -- could hear the sound of my own voice as it drifted through an open doorway. We walked inside to an empty and darkened theater. Farallon Light was being shown on a large screen ... there were the waves crashing against the rocks, and my disembodied voice ... . Waited until the film ended -- long enough to see the film credits. Realized that no one that I knew was even aware that I'd done this. Why had I been so secretive?

By this time I'd left the suburbs far behind and had re-entered life in Berkeley where I was now divorced and remarried, a faculty wife on campus, but had not yet reconnected with any of the life I'd left behind in 1950 when we'd moved into another new life. I'd become a whole other person, and there was no way to explain this Betty to either my family or our friends from those earlier years. It felt surreal. It was.

It was about this time that I stopped writing and began to evolve into political Betty. The artist was dismissed, but she may have saved my life while here. Owning that part of myself has been a difficult thing to do, but blogging is helping in that process.

Guess I'd hate to die and leave so much of myself behind buried in blue plastic storage boxes... .

Struck gold... !

Ran across this among old papers, and it speaks of an event that rushes back in the reading of it. There was a comic side that I'll tell you about, too. It's a press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 6, 1971
Public Information Office
Sacramento City College
3835 Freeport Boulevard
Sacramento, California 94822
Phone: 449-7442, Distr. A,B,C,O
Lawrence Benke

Betty Reid, singer and poet, will make her second appearance at Sacramento City College this school year. The dialogue concert is scheduled for April 17, 1971, at 8:00 p.m. in the College Center.

Miss Reid recently recorded the soundtrack for a film by Charles Peterson entitled, "The Farallon Light."* The songs used are original compositions by Miss Reid. The film is a documentary on the environment.

Peterson is a former TV producer who worked with Lee Mendelsohn, producer of the Charlie Brown specials.

Betty also write lyrics and music for the theme song for a new recruiting film produced by Blacksides, Inc.,* for the United States department of Health, Education and Welfare. The film called "Code Blue" will be used to recruit young blacks and Chicanos into careers in medicine.

Mother of four, she resides in Walnut Creek, has appeared in concert in San Francisco with Pete Seeger and Malvina Reynolds. Her last appearance in Sacramento was at City College in December of 1970, and was hailed a complete success by college officials.

I cudda binna contendah!

Remember that night well, but not for obvious reasons.

At the time I was having a struggle with whether or not to seek a career in music. Had attracted a lot of attention for my work at that time, and there were many offers out there tempting me. But, remember, I had three kids and a shaky marriage at home -- one of whom had reached those troubled teens and my youngest who was mentally disabled. These occasional opportunities to share my work served to keep me whole, and to provide enough ego satisfaction to keep me writing. Performing never was as fulfilling as the creative process, itself. That was more like ashes than embers.

On that first appearance in December of the year before, I'd appeared with Ric Masten and another friend (forgive me for losing her name), but this time I had been asked to return as a soloist. Frightening thought, that. But a trick I'd learned was to take along some costume to wrap myself in, comb my hair and apply make up in a kind of "getting into the character who could DO this" mode. It meant that I could leave "Betty" in the dressing room, and emerge as "singer."

I recall now that when I'd done my set in December, I'd asked the audience to please let me sing through all of my pieces without interruption, "no applause, please, because it serves as a constant reminder that they were there. I do best when I can imagine that I'm singing to myself and letting you listen. The spotlights make that possible." They'd been wonderful.

Now, during the intervening months (and the good reviews) before this solo concert, I'd become far more confident. You need to be aware of that. Felt far more deserving of the accolades, I suppose.

You can imagine how I crashed at the end of the first few numbers when everyone sat firmly on their hands -- in total silence ... Figured that I'd totally bombed!

When (at the end of the first set) I stopped to ask why no one was responding to me I learned that -- while I was in the dressing room preparing to go on -- the emcee announced to the crowd that this was a sensitive artist who would much prefer not to be interrupted ...".

What was not taken into consideration was that the important thing here was not that I needed silence, but that what I did need was to set my own conditions for performing. The important thing was the interaction, not the outcome. That first audience and I had an agreement, and it was what I needed at that time. The emcee had taken away my ability to make my contract with these listeners, and it was a disaster.

Then the magic happened. I took the time to explain what was happening and we all had a good laugh that resulted in a new contract that allowed me to quite openly accept their appreciation. The applause was tremendous, and I learned an important lesson. Maybe we all did.

*1. Farallon Light was a filmed documentary created for the occasion of the scheduled removal of the last beacon light from the island sanctuary. The had been maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard over many decades, but was being replaced by the Audubon Society sentry. The year it was released it won the Toronto Film Festival, took second at Atlanta, and placed at San Francisco's. It won first placed for Charles Peterson, as his masters thesis at the University 9of San Francisco. But that's another story.

*2. Blacksides, Inc., is the production company that later created the Eyes on the Prize and many other fine series for PBS. It was headed by my friend, Henry Hampton, of Boston.

It's Saturday again ... .

Ran out of week late yesterday afternoon, and found myself easing into Saturday prematurely around six o'clock last night. Climbed into bed with a book, and only a small twinge of guilt at not attending the vigil for Chan. I was aware that it was happening at precisely six. Thought about the five other young people of color who'd lost their lives to gunfire over the past two weeks here in our town, and felt a twinge of hopelessness that overcame the small twinge of guilt... .

As always, woke this morning to a magnificent day that holds promise (as always), and -- after my usual cup of hot tea and a shower -- I'll see where it leads.

The nature of my work is such that clocks and calendars are irrelevant. A workday can start at the ungodly hour of seven a.m. and end at ten o'clock at night. But that's unusual. For the most part I saunter in at nine or ten and am at home by five -- then often out again to cover an evening of the planning commission or city council or a panel or banquet somewhere where I'm to present a plaque or resolution on the Assemblywoman's behalf.

Tonight (though technically a weekend), I'll attend a dinner with the Autism Society where I'll present a Certificate of Recognition and get updated on the activities of one of the areas of concern for me. I'm responsible for environmentalism, disabilities, arts & culture, some redevelopment, etc., and generally wherever events and my interests lead me.

I do want to clarify something, though. Our office does not dispense funds, but we do help to facilitate our constituent organizations to access what is rightfully theirs. By Proposition 40, for instance (and before that Proposition 12), the people of this state passed a bond measure that set aside 8.2 billion dollars for environmental, parks and recreation, arts & cultural, and historic preservation. Those moneys are captured in a variety of funds with differing criteria. Being bond moneys, they are not subject to the vagaries of the general fund, but are untouchable except for the purposes for which the public intended. They, cannot, for instance, be used to balance the budget.

It is the responsibility of legislative offices to help nonprofits, museums, and other appropriate organizations to qualify for those public funds, and to see that our constituents are aware of their availability. This is one of the more satisfying aspects of public service.

But therein lies some of the financial problems of this state. Over many years, there have been more and more such ballot propositions that have mandated "untouchable" moneys to be set aside in the name of the public interest. The Lanterman Act -- a remarkably wise and generous act that long ago established a chain of regional centers throughout the state to guarantee humane treatment and services for the developmentally disabled is another. Prop. 13 that fixed property taxes in ways that once formed the basis for funding for the public school system and is now severely out of balance and needs fixing, but that now pits the needs of children against those of seniors who struggle to remain in their homes against all odds.

The primary reason that some of us who are closest to the legislative activity of the state voted against Prop. 53 in our most recent election was that -- though it was intended to place the much-needed repair and maintenance of our infrastructure (roads and bridges) at the top of the priority list -- its passage would have further limited the amount of moneys left in the state budget for the legislature to assign. As each initiative further encumbers our tax dollars, less and less is available to be allotted to other critical needs of the state, especially health and education. It's pretty crazy.

I'm aware that I've done a u-turn in my writing, but maybe I needed you to know that -- since I'm trying hard not to censor myself, to remain spontaneous, and to stay with wherever my blogs take me -- getting into "nuts and bolts" is grounding, and takes me out of the emotional cul de sac I find myself in as this painful week comes to an end.

Maybe I also need you to see something of the complexities of being me. As with most of us, I suppose, the poet is never far away -- but the practical worker bee seems to be what sustains this being. Moving in and out of bits of that complexity with some ease is probably what keeps me whole. Learned to do that pretty effectively, but only with the help of a fine psychiatrist many years ago when those lines between the conscious and unconscious were not so clearly defined, and when I had far less a sense of control over which of me was required in any given situation.

In these later years, I'm deeply aware of the transitions, and am comfortable with them. I know where the edges are and how to use them and when to do so. This wasn't always so, at least not with the confidence that age has brought as compensation for the awareness of slowing systems and age spots. Though I must admit, I'm not aware of slowing down at all, at least not yet. Guess I just haven't had the time to notice ... .

Will take some time, later today, to look through old files for former Bettys. I do admit that I'm enjoying that part of blogging tremendously.

More later.

The morning newspaper headline says:

"Prosecutors filed murder charges Thursday against a man police say helped kill a 15 year-old girl this week in an attack likely linked to a feud between two Laotian-American street gangs."

He was nineteen.

End of story.

Leaving soon to attend a workshop for environmentalists on Prop. 40 funding opportunities. It's often difficult to readjust my psyche from one area of responsibility to another. Yesterday it was the Oakland Museum where we toured with the execs, then listened to their legitimate case for funding for their collection that represents "90% of what we are holding in a warehouse without climate control -- and that cannot be displayed." Today -- at the State Building in Oakland, it will be the other side of Prop. 40 and the equally legitimate concerns for funding for creek restorations, parks and recreation projects, etc.

In a state and nation with a Congress considering a gift of $87 billion with which to "wage the peace," with shrinking resources and a stubborn resistance to raising taxes, how on earth do you allocate what little revenues there are? And -- how do you do it while avoiding increasing homelessness and a deteriorating infrastructure? How do I deal with the fact that Dorian's 30-day supply of meds now costs $70 (her income is $1093/month and her rent is now $1025). I cannot imagine why anyone of sound mind would want a career in public service in these times.

And when do we get to even talk about the escalating body count and the suicidal lifestyles of so many of our young?

When?

Am writing this from work ...

It's just a little past one o'clock, and I just got in from a trip to the Laotian Organizing Project in another attempt at reaching my friend, Torm. Very wisely drove by once -- parked and walked to the office on a very busy street -- and peeked in to be sure that there was someone there to receive Assemblywoman Loni Hancock's flower basket and both our sympathy cards. There was. I could see a woman sitting at desk inside, alone.

Circled the block to visit a florist to pick up gift basket and a card from me (already had Loni's note in hand), made a selection, drove back to the office and -- as directed by a note on the door -- rang the bell.

The woman hesitated for a long time. I lifted my flower basket so that she could see my reason for being there, but she continued to dart her eyes toward then away from me.

She finally came over to the door and said something. With the street sounds at noon hour so loud, I could hear nothing. I just continued to smile and hold out my flower basket and cards hoping that she would simply open the door and take them from me. I didn't need to enter at all. It began to dawn that she probably spoke no English and had been instructed by police to not open that door to anyone. After all, Chan's killers were still out there and unidentified. What I was seeing was stark fear and I was the subject of it, at least for now.

I backed away. Looked around and discovered that there was another doorway leading from a narrow parking lot beside this building. The security doors were rolled back so that it seemed clear to me that this was the entrance used by the staff of the Laotian Center.

Finding no other way to handle the awkwardness, I placed the flower basket at that doorway with the cards leaning against it (bearing Torm's name), and walked away. This seemed the only thing to do, but it left me feeling ever more depressed being suddenly aware that this community may not be able to access what caring and sympathy many of us are feeling right now because of the language barrier. I recalled how often it was Chan and her young friends who served as the interpreters for their families. How sad this is.

Maybe Torm will just happen to stop by at some point -- and discover our gifts and feel momentarily comforted.

Could think of nothing more to do ... .

Yesterday was day of contrasts.

Realized on the drive to work that the Laotian Organizing Project office was most certainly closed and that leaving flowers would be a wasteful effort. Sure enough, it was. Chan worked there with her uncle part time while attending Middle College (a highschool program at the community college that had been designed for high-risk, high achieving youngsters). She was fifteen and surely one of these. Such a hope for her family and such a loss for her community of refugees from the horrors of the Southeast Asia wars.

When I reached my office, placed a call to Torm at his -- just to leave message of sympathy -- but there was no answer. When the voice mail came on, it was Chan's voice.

By sheer coincidence, Loni was scheduled to speak at Contra Costa Community College yesterday and arrived to find everyone in mourning. Grief counselors had been called in, and -- since this is a small program of a tiny experimental school within the college -- Chan was someone everyone knew, so the effects of her death are devastating.

Ended the day by driving in to Berkeley to the 1st Congregational Church to hear Molly Ivins (and isn't that an unlikely setup?) speak. She's on a book tour and a group of us were lucky enough to have gotten tickets to this sold out evening. I needed that.

On Ahnold: "...He looks like a giant condom stuffed with walnuts!"

On being asked if "Shrub" is really dumb or quite clever at acting so, she said. "There's a difference between being stupid and being ignorant. Dubya is not stupid. He is unknowing. As Jim Hightower said about his father, "He was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple." "Dubya just plain doesn't know."

When asked if she didn't believe it was time for a Third Party as alternative her answer was, "I was one of those who voted for Ralph Nader last time around. We believed that there was little difference between Bush and Gore. We were wrong. This time we must vote for anybody who has the best chance of beating George Bush. Though my heart speaks otherwise, I'll have none of "Down the Drain With Dennis!"

It was a good way to end the day.

Today offers a trip to the Oakland Museum to tour the site they'd like to acquire for storage of their collections and that needs the resources of Prop. 40 Cultural and Historic Preservations funds in order to do so. It will be a distraction from the thoughts of being frustrated in my attempts to reach Torm and his family with flowers and Loni's note -- but I have some hours before that can be worked out, and will have surely found him before noon... .

Maybe I'll pick up Molly's new book today, and Michael Moore's as well. Need both for some balance to Fox News and CNN, though I only see them while flipping channels and never linger, unless I'm comparison shopping.

Loni's back and the world took over yesterday, as expected ... .

I'm finding myself reluctant to leave the past and return to this uncertain present (and future). There are few landmarks to follow -- most were obliterated in the recall election. "Governor-elect Schwarzennegger" (still not sure how many 'n's' and 'g's') still sounds impossible to wrap my brain around, and the implications of the change are still murky, impossible to read... .

We gathered around the conference table and tried to get re-oriented. There were as many questions hanging in the air when the meeting ended as there had been when we gathered. Although I must say, it was comforting to be back together after the vacations and illnesses and the many hours of campaign work that has filled all of our off-work hours for weeks. Maybe in a few days we'll discover that little has really changed in Sacramento. Maybe.

There's comfort in the fact that -- under our systems of governance -- the power is well distributed between many sources. Admittedly, those systems have become distorted and need readjusting rather desperately, but they're still in place -- at least in theory. The work of getting meaningful campaign reform legislation into place is of critical importance, and term limits must be reconsidered in light of the loss of institutional memory that so impedes the ability to legislate.

But trying to deal with such things while the body count from this leaderless revolution continues unabated on the streets, keeps us off-balance. Over the weekend we lost 4 more young people. On Saturday, the adolescent niece of the director of a local Laotian Service organization was killed by gunfire. Torm Nompraseart is someone I work with regularly. He is a refugee who arrived in this country after the war in Southeast Asian over 20 years ago. This morning I'll stop by the florist to pick up flowers to drop off at his office on my way to mine.

It seems ironic that nothing that I'll do today will be in any way related to the desperation I'm sure to see in Torm's face, or those of ordinary people in the Iron Triangle, or San Pablo, or in the borderless territories of the inner cities throughout the area -- families living in terror of their lives -- day after day.

So many wars ... .

... and just behind the letter to Robin comes this song written just about that time ... .

The Ballad of the Oakland Induction Center

Went to town that morning, knew I'd find them there
standing 'roun' the sidewalks, not far from the square.
The old and young, together, walking in the sun
with signs on their shoulders and love in their hearts
singing, "Peace just has to come."

Bearded men and children, equal under skies
black and white, old soldiers, too, with fear behind their eyes.
The old and young, together, walking in the sun
with signs on their shoulders and love in their hearts
singing, "Peace just has to come!"

Policeman watched us closely, billies in their hands,
seven hundred strong, they waited -- with orders to protect this land
from old and young, together, walking in the sun
with signs on their shoulders and love in their hearts
singing, "Peace just has to come!"

The first of many carriers rolled up to disembark
the precious cargo of our young men to march off toward the dark
we pleaded with them, "No! Don't go!" Don't let us make you kill!
We must begin to live in peace, if you'll just stay, we will.
We offered them our bodies to lie twixt theirs and hell
The billies struck! The screams rang out! A boy beside me fell!

Then old and young, together, writhing in the sun
with blood on their shoulders and tears in their hearts,
crying, "Peace just has to come!"
crying, "Peace just has to come!"

We gathered up our sorrow, our days work now was done
but we'll return tomorrow, we'll be here with the sun.

then:

Old and young, together, we'll go walking in the sun
with signs on our shoulders and love in our hearts
singing, "Peace just has to come.
singing, "Peace ......
just has to come!"

And so we did. It took a while, but the tide was turned -- eventually -- and that war ended. It helps me to remember this in times such as these, when we find ourselves involved in a preemptive war that appears to resemble the quagmire of Vietnam in many ways.

I've been listening for the poets to begin to speak again. Maybe grassroots songs and poetry now comes disguised as prose by the likes of Al Franken, Michael Moore, Jim Hightower, and Molly Ivins. It just may be too early to tell, but I'll be listening for them -- and hoping... .

Oh, the Patriot's Act will just have to take a back seat to history this day; mine... .

Just ran across a copy of a letter written to a dear friend long ago. It also involves bullhorns, as I recall. It involved the demonstrations at the Oakland Induction Center, one of the turning points in the anti-war movement of the Seventies:

Mr. Robin King
Radio Station KNEW
San Francisco, CA

Dear Robin:

I'm extremely tired tonight. I guess the old term is "soul weary."

Bob, my 17 year-old, is caught up in the dilemma of the draft. He was among the demonstrators on Monday and again on Wednesday. As he told his Dean upon returning to school on Tuesday (after having cut classes), "I'm facing the draft in another 6 months. There are lots of things that I need to learn in order to make my decision about that -- maybe the decision of my life. There's nothing here in school to help me to do that -- my answers were out there in the streets ... I had to go." The Dean (rather untypically, I thought), was very understanding and admitted that, were he in Bob's place, he would surely have done the same. No disciplinary action.

On Wednesday, I joined the demonstrators (after the melee of Tuesday, I had to go). It was interesting and frightening. You know that courage in battle is not one of my strong points, and, for all the words we use to justify actions once taken (when they're controversial); when the evidence is in, I was really there taking my risks in support of Bob; a tiny piece of the whole of this war is all I can really grasp.

I did meet a few people there whom I knew; Clinton White, Attorney for the NAACP standing with U.S. Attorney Cecil Poole ("Brotha" Poole) and a small group of black leaders. In my view, standing on the wrong side. They peered at me out of the corners of their eyes for a few minutes and then I walked up to them and re-introduced myself. Two were old acquaintances. I imagine that they thought I was an observer, too.

While I stood with them, a young man passed by with an old hat extended and a plea for funds for bail for those jailed on the two previous days. I, grandly, reached into my purse and tossed in a ten dollar bill. I really needed that money for an errand I was going to do before returning to Walnut Creek. Never had ten dollars bought such a feeling! I stepped back to them just in time to see another young man (Negro) recognize Brother Poole, call "someone bring me some fire," and watched as he burned his draft card but two feet away from where we were standing. This was scary. His face was contorted, his eyes had a strange look (drugs?), and it seemed for just an instant, that there was no sanity on either side. I wanted to look away. I couldn't.

At just this moment, a crowd began to run around the corner to the other side of the Induction Center. I joined them, and, as we rounded the corner, I could see the police marching in formation behind a paddy wagon moving toward the side entrance. The protesters formed a marching picket line. Together we marched and sang and yelled and prayed while the police gathered up those who were blocking the doorway.

In all, I was there for about three hours, singing "We shall Not Be Moved," hearing heroic stories of the day before, sharing in the bravery (which it was possible to "catch", even for a soul as timid as I) and witnessed the arrests of ordinary people, valiant youngsters ... Saw clerical collars, nuns in their habits and wimples, and academic stoles. There was a contingent of youngsters from Berkeley High School -- complete with banners, and accompanied by a young Episcopal priest, sitting in at one of the entrances. Saw a young man cry as he loudly pleaded with a busload of inductees not to go! I yelled "Hell no, don't go!" along with the rest and I meant it way down in my soul.

Looked into the faces of the Oakland Police Department ... now that is an experience. I know that these men are someone's next door neighbor .. that they put up Christmas trees, love their mothers ... but I witnessed the strangest phenomenon. Do you know that garage on the corner (the one from which they emerge with each new crisis or when a new busload of inductees is arriving? And when they -- in greater numbers than I'd ever seen in one place -- come out in formation, carrying clubs with that facelessness that by now has become a part of the uniform ... all of comparable size ... identically uniformed ... standing at arms length in rows along the gutter in full riot gear. I knew that were I to step off the curb... just step off quickly ...I would be struck ... me. There was a law that I was breaking (though I'm no longer sure which one that is). Soldiers, our marines, cutting off the ears of the enemy in the war,.. souvenirs and I could be struck for stepping off the curb -- if I moved in any way, interfered with the job at hand ... .

I heard a young man shout ... "Here they come again, out of the Cop Factory! They snap 'em together in there."

Robin, I laughed. It was absurdly true. They seemed completely dehumanized. I had the wild feeling that these men were so conditioned that one could almost imagine some giant Wizard at a master switch down in the bowels of that garage, an activating switch of some kind ... .

On the way home I suddenly felt my blood run cold. It dawned on me that this was the way it would be with my lovely gentle poet Bobby. That here was the missing piece, so obvious as to get lost in the hysteria of war. Because I am so awed by the Vietnam scholars, the great debaters, the arguments pro and con, "to escalate," to "de-escalate," "to withdraw," "extend the bombing," "the infiltration of commies within the ranks of the peaceniks," all irrelevant.

I'm certain that there are as many reasons for being here as there are protestors, contrary to those who believe that we who protest are controlled by some foreign element, subversive or otherwise.

Speaking for me. I'm here to stop the "Soldier Factory." I realized while driving down the highway tonight that this was why I couldn't ever equate the smiling joyfilled faces of returning cleancut GIs, being met by loving young wives and children (as viewed on TV) and the other film-clips; the ones showing the atrocities committed against "Charlie," the killing and maiming of civilians in the name of "freedom and justice for all!"

These kids were all "Bobs" and as unable to see themselves in the role of killer, in some cases, less than a year ago. It's the same as the "Cop Factory." These are loving fathers and husbands, good neighbors. Conditioning of the sort that must be experienced in order to produce those inhuman creatures must be stopped. Both sides are right in their descriptions of these men; both man and beast. These people marching and sitting-in -- at some level -- know this. They're aware that "There but by the grace of God go I". This is why the young man cried "Hell no, Don't go!"

I now know why I will go back. Yes, even tomorrow when violence is expected. Scared? Yes. Paralyzed? No. My Bob is another Johnny; musket, carbine, M-1, what's the difference. After a trip to the Soldier Factory, he will accept just as millions before him have, down through all of time -- that this is right -- in order to save the world. These young people know this.

I'm an ordinary middle-aged wife and mother. I've seen for myself. I've no more doubts. Anyone with an ounce of integrity left must act, and now, if any of us is to be saved.

Why this letter? Tonight as I was driving home from one of my endless trips to deliver kids, I happened to tune in to KNEW (didn't know that you were with the station). You were just beginning to read from a piece by Henry David Thoreau. I parked beside the road and listened to conclusion. Felt so moved. Wondered if you knew how those of us who have been on the line have needed just that? I felt soothed. Bathed in the silence of the night for awhile. Started the car up again and came home to write this note. Our friendship has known many fine moments, friend, but tonight was a special time. The more meaningful because I could take this familiar voice as a personal message, just to me, but at the same time to know that there are others out there who, like me, will be comforted by the love and conviction in your voice. It was one of your finest hours,

I do so love you, friend

Betty

The Patriot Act failed to involve me sufficiently. Have been side-tracked for several hours -- looking through files -- discovering copies of letters to friends and papers long ago lost in the fog of what once was... .

Have no idea to whom this letter was written, but it's self-explanatory, I think:

January 19, 1971

Just returned from the Bayfront and a long look at the havoc wreaked by the Standard Oil tankers in the collision on the Bay in the black of Tuesday night's heavy fog. Over a million gallons of black ooze covering now all shores of the east side of the Bay. Now the tide has shifted several times. Sausalito is also hard hit as is the coastline outside the gate as far north as Point Reyes (a bird sanctuary).

I stood along the edge helplessly watching poor birds of all descriptions trying to stay afloat -- but then you've seen reams of film on that subject. There were lots of folks who looked like scientists from the university, many children, plus lots of hardhats (actual) who'd been sent out by Standard to try to syphon off as much of the oil as possible, into trucks now standing by. Boxes and sacks of sawdust and rags and newspapers and endless bottles of mineral oil -- also supplied by Standard -- stood ready for the eager volunteers to use in the rescue.

Cold and foggy with near zero visibility. Felt like crying just from the gloom of it all. It's contagious ... getting, at last, a real sense of what "ecological disaster" means.

Sounds ... fog horns ... truck motors ... hushed voices (why are were we so quiet?) ... no. Not all. Seeing the world in small snapshots in the way that fog demands. One only sees in tiny pieces of the whole. Now the big voice over the bullhorn; "Now you look heah people. Dese boids is sad strugglin' out dere in dat oil-covahed watah ... and day got to come closah in tada sho-ah so's we kin ketch 'em 'n clean 'um. And IT DON' HELP NONE FUR YOUSE TA BE STANNEN OUT DERE IN DAH WATAH SCREAMIN', "HEAH BOIDIE, BOIDIE!" God bless him.

Worked for several hours more 'til it just became too cold to continue. The drive home to Walnut Creek loomed long and risky in that fog. We've been socked in for about three days in the valley. This is typical for January. There were at least a few hours of sunshine in Berkeley today, but none for several hours by the time I left for home.

Anyway, I'm back in the valley again and feeling a whole lot better about bullhorns!

Betty

Just back from Sunday errands with Dorian ... .

The half-hour on the freeway allowed for time to think back on some of the memories that flowed after writing that last piece. Think I'll print out some of these pages and give them to David on his January birthday. There is much to remember, and it isn't all disturbing or hurtful.

There was Mrs. Rood. She was a grandmotherly woman whom I remember as David's first love, and as one who silently co-parented with this lonely young mother for one long and lonely summer. David was a little over five and still pretty self-assured. He looked like one of those apple-cheeked children that appeared from time to time on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.

I've never known how they met, but since she lived just about where the school bus stopped each morning and afternoon, I suspect that he found her, trowel in hand in her garden. Her little house hugged the creek bank a long half-block away. I believe that she lived alone. We met only once, on the occasion of her telephone call to alert me that David had invited her to tea on Wednesday, and that she'd like to accept, thank you.

For most of that summer, at least twice each week my little guy would rush in from kindergarten -- wash his face and change his shirt to get ready for tea with Mrs. Rood. It was quite a formal occasion, but it was also quite private to the two of them. I made no attempt to meet her, wanting to honor this. This was a wise woman. I was sure that she understood. It was the same many years later when my friends, Jean and Roger, became David's close personal grownup friends -- and I quietly withdrew into the background.

On the occasion of his first experience at hosting tea, she came. A lovely white-hair-netted grandmother, lavender-scented and sensible-shoed and with the warmest of smiles. She told me that David had appeared at her door a few days before, pressed the doorbell, and when she answered --handed her a very short-stemmed very large sunflower and one of his little class pictures with the words, "...this is for your goodness!" And so saying, turned and walked away.

I guess it takes only a few of these loves in the life of a child to balance off the nightmarish events that all of the logic in the world can't explain away. It's quite possible that those unanswerable "whys" that haunted us and made me feel so impotent to protect him -- kept alive his humanity and enough of his own "goodness" to handle the pain of rejection. Mrs. Rood was living proof of his worthiness. I wonder if she knew? I suspect that she did.


Another song? This one was written while sitting under some trees high on Mt. Diablo watching the kids play. This mountain is the crowning point in the Valley.

The Real Things

Sailing a kite on a breeze
a child's arms encircling my knees
these are the real things
the truth in my life


watching reeds bend with the wind
buttercups held 'neath my chin
these are the real things
the truth in my life


artists paint so that we may remember the ways
but we laugh and deny what we see
artists play, sing, and dance -- all the ways to remember
the secret is simply "to be!"


holding your face in my hands
seeing there sea, sky, and sands
this is the real thing
the truth in my life.

Am still amazed that the music comes up as soon as I start to type the words ...

Magic!

It's mid-morning, and not yet time to saddle up the Beamer

and pick up Dorian for some shopping-for-the-cats ("we're almost out of litter, Mom"). But first there's the Patriot's Act to pull out and begin to plow through. Did you know that it is 177 pages long? That's a lot of scary stuff, but last night just before climbing into bed, I drew it from my brief case (heavy puppy, that!) and scanned it briefly. Makes you wonder how the founding fathers managed to put so much wisdom into so few words, doesn't it? Small wonder that the paperless world has become anything but.

This morning in the cold light of day (and the first awareness of fall in the air), it's sobering indeed. Just did a search and am finding that everything I'll need is already out there on the net and nicely analyzed by minds far more insightful than mine, but surely without the range of experience, so feel fairly confident that -- after a day of reading and mulling over the implications, I'll be ready to put together a briefing paper (that's fancy talk for "bulleting" and making "talking points").

Been thinking a lot about David. Remembering that I suggested that I might share a bit about him. That got lost in the demands of other things -- and it occurs to me that this may be a key to my relationship with him. He's always been so strong and solidly dependable, that I've developed the habit of relying upon his existence in the world without much awareness that he may need me, too.

This was the child who seems to have walked out of my womb fully developed and fully cognizant of his place in the world. He followed Bobby by less than two years. They were bottle-weaned and potty-trained simultaneously. The day I realized that Davey had the latter all scoped out was the day that I found him sitting on the toilet seat -- face-backwards, with his feet in the john and the job on the floor behind him!

He's always been such a joy! Still is.

On the first day of kindergarten, I nervously watched him walk up the country road to the bus stop -- staying behind to not suggest that I didn't trust this fellow to handle this rite du passage on his own. When 20 minutes later I heard little feet on the front steps and opened the door to a scowling little guy, brand new lunch pail still clutched in hot little hand, and out came the words,"...that bus didn't come. Doesn't that driver know that I have a 'sponsibility!" That's David.

After a few days of wondering how things were going (you may recall that this was the third of my little boys who'd gone off to school into hostile suburban territory) and that life was far from simple for us... .Finally asked my little guy just how things were going? I never wanted to make them unnecessarily defensive, but to let life unfold as it would and take care of the bruises as they occurred.

David: "Kevin called me a little chocolate cookie."

Me (heart in throat): "...and what did you do?"

David: "I called him a little vanilla cookie!"

Some years later I found myself unable to explain to this open and friendly child just why he would be stoned on our country road by a carload of cruel teens with taunting calls of "Hit the nigger!," and all within 100 feet of the home that he was born in. He was just riding his bike to pick up the latest baseball cards from Slo Sams market. It was a day like any other, until... .

Or later, as an adolescent driving to visit a white school friend who'd moved to another part of town, but finding himself cruelly spread-eagled against the hood of our stationwagon by two police officers. It seems that there'd been some incident in the neighborhood and ...

David: "...Mom, I could hear their car radio as they held me there. There was a description being broadcast of the person they were looking for. It was someone who was nothing like me! They so wanted it to be me, Mom...". I knew.

On that cruel day of the stoning, I'd been unable to provide an answer for him. Nothing came. Instead I just held him. We made popovers and ate them with strawberry jam.

Later that morning I reached into that place where I usually found salvation -- when life offered no logical answers ... and wrote:

Brown-skinned Heart

Where is my brown-skinned heart to hurry?
Where shall I find my song?
Why must my mind be just for worry?
To whom does my dream belong?

What are my hands to hold this morning?
Where is my place in the sun?
With what shall I fill this time of longing?
Whose will shall be done?

The fruit of my labor will tumble in soon
in search of my love and my lead
gave all I had when they left this mornin'
Why can't they know how little souls bleed!

Where is my brown-skinned heart to hurry?
To whom does my dream belong?
Why must my mind be just for worry?
Who will hear...
my song ... ?

My four grandchildren are all David's. I say David's because he's been twice-married but has sole custody of Kokie, Rhico, Alayana, and Tamaya, and tries hard to be a loving father to all. He is now the managing-owner of Reid's Enterprises, a business his father and I founded in 1945 as a couple of very young entrepreneurs. David is still being 'sponsible. We are great friends, still.

Received the gift of an entire day!

It seems that -- in the confusion of Friday-ness -- I lost David's message on my office voice mail and twisted the dates for the granddaughter's event at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts. It was not today, after all, but next weekend. You have no idea what a gift it is to learn upon awakening that I had an entire day of not-one-commitment-and-hours-on-end-of-time to squander!

Called the local spa and booked myself a facial. This is my idea of total decadence, and it's about time, too. Signed up for the whole schmear, packs and oils, and aromatherapy and soft music, patting and stroking, and fingers connecting with those little nodes of bad energy that I didn't know were there until probed... It all took one-and-a-half hours of long overdue pampering. Finished it off with a couple of rides on my favorite escalator (Macy's) in the local mall and a great big banana/mango/coconut smoothie.

Stopped in at an outrageously expensive dress shop and tried on two equally outrageously expensive dresses (black and slinky but much too short), just for the hell of it! (That's what happens when you watch two successive re-runs of Sex and the City without pause. It skews your wiring, and you forget that life's expectations of you have been dramatically lowered over the past few years. ) But for a few minutes there, Carrie Bradshaw and "forty-something" Betty weren't all that far apart, and if I squint at just the right angle and the light isn't too bright ... Actually, fading memory combined with increasing myopia serves the illusion fairly well. Did notice when I reached home, though, that my freckles are growing and in some places have united with other freckles in a new pattern that I don't seem to have noticed before.

It's probably good that there's a world to save, or I'd surely get lost in trivial pursuits, and completely lose my sense of purpose.

Stopped in at See's Candy to pick up a cuppla chunks of vanilla walnut fudge, and headed for my apartment -- but not before stopping in at Circuit City for a new jazz CD that I've been wanting (Diana Krall) -- and to Walgreens for a new super promising Sun Block recommended by the "aromatherapist." (Didn't know there were such people or careers.) Every now and again ya just gotta get out in the real world and experience these things. ;-)

Tomorrow I promise to climb back into my harness, knit my brows appropriately, complete my report on the Patriot Act (waiting in my briefcase) so that I can prep my boss for a panel appearance next week. Tonight I'll just get into my peejays and watch Trading Spaces and consider that this day has provided some balance in my often duty-bound life of service. But do you know what? I'd have it no other way.

Stopped by the Marina on the drive home tonight.

Have gotten into the habit of taking one-hour vacations at frequent intervals of late. When I'm lucky, I catch windsurfers out on the bay -- looking like dragonflies skimming the water when they're off in the distance. When close up, the sight of young bronzed bodies pressing against the wind in precarious positions, but never stressing the risk factor that goes with most sports, but instead, always seeming to blend with the environment -- never to compete with it. Windsurfing seems to me to be more closely related to dance. Today there were several beautiful and colorful sails on the water, and it was lovely to add them to the sum of my day and an impossible week as an antidote to the madness. One of the joys of living here on the edge of the continent, at the edge of social and political change, and where the horizon is without end ... where only the Marin Headlands separates us from Japan and the China coast.

Second son, David, called a few moments ago with a reminder that tomorrow his little dancers are in performance at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts. They're 5 and 7 and are in their third year of dance (if you can imagine). This fall they will begin ballet training after having completed "Dance Explorations" (okay, so that means the Bunny Hop, Ballin' the Jack, and other impressive movement "experiences"). They've had two years of African dance under a wonderful teacher and this year added drumming to their repertoire. They are also students at the Berkeley Arts Magnet School, and are doing marvelously. Tomorrow night we'll gather at the Center for a dinner show in a community of proud kids and parents.

The EBCPA is a 35 year-old institution that is located in the heart of the Iron Triangle in the old downtown part of Richmond. It serves (until recent budget cuts and the elimination of the California Arts Council) about 2100 children in the schools, and an additional number at the center, itself. There are generous scholarships so that no child is left out, and the racial and socio-economic mix is as broad as one would find anywhere on the planet, save maybe the UN, itself. Do explore their web site. Have served on the Board of Directors for many years now, and find it one of the balancing factors in my life, a way to deal with some of the negativity that I can't control.

Which reminds me, tomorrow I'll tell you something about David. And, there's a David Song, too, as I recall. This is Friday, and I'm needing to log off and re-fuel. It's been a devastating week, and I've got wounds to lick!

Will look up the link for the EBCPA, too, and I do invite you to visit.

Attended the Richmond Chamber/Arts Commission Mixer last evening,

and it took only a few conversations to sense that the chaos of Washington is deeply effecting the local scene. Wondering if that's being reflected across the country? Talked with a number of city officials and staff and picked up what feels like a general deterioration in the ability to plan beyond a few months. For instance, Richmond has adopted a half-year budget. That's unheard of for a city of this size. It is so desperate for sales tax revenue, that little attention is being paid to the negative effects of "big box" retail on small businesses in the city, and it's small business that employs the most workers.

We're at the moment watching WalMart beginning to gather signatures in order to put on the next ballot, something that will make it possible for this national behemoth to override local ordinances against SuperCenters that devote more than a limited amount of space to foods. It's an important matter, since they are known to obliterate other markets from the a wide area. And, since the other chains pay higher wages and have more benefits, the unions are fighting hard to keep them out. Yet, the need for sales tax revenue is so great in these tough economic times, that -- unlike neighboring cities that have used zoning to screen them out -- Richmond appears to be actively wooing them.

The city has seen a 30% layoff in staff and is facing another major cut in January. The promise of WalMart jobs is sweetening the pot for this strapped city, but those who need work most won't be touched since drug-testing will eliminate many at the bottom of the economic ladder. And you have to figure that this city, like many inner cities, is seeing an increase in abuse and addiction due to increasing hopelessness, joblessness, and a failing public school system that's left so many illiterate and ill-equipped for the workforce. The streets are becoming meaner and the murder rate rising with each day. One has to figure that drugs are being used, cynically, as a pacification program since few of the poor have the wherewithal to import narcotics into the urban core. That means that some much higher up are the suppliers; higher ups who are never touched by law enforcement.

With hundreds of thousands of the poor now beginning to reach the lifetime limit (in January) on welfare (Welfare Reform), more and more will fall prey to the underground economy fueled by drugs. It's inevitable. More will become homeless, and still more won't survive at all. It is impossible to build enough prisons to house the "offenders," and we're eons away from treating what's happening on the streets as a crises in public health. This county has about 35 beds available for in-patient drug treatment and thousands in need. The wait for males is many months, and -- to my knowledge -- there are still no treatment facilities for women, though one is on the drawing boards for next year.

Even the "micro" is overwhelming. In fact, it's hard now to get beyond, "Osama bin Who?"

Heard a very disturbing report today ... .

It appears that the governor-elect is considering cutting back the legislature to part-time as the way to balance off his promises of a rollback of the license taxes and other bold promises. When I asked if this was even within the realm of possibility, I was assured that it is. Hope it's just a trial balloon ... .

The implication here is that the legislature will be reduced to participating in the budget process and little else. It also would mean that the state's power will lie in the hands of the governor and the lobbyists, since term limits have already robbed the legislature of its institutional memory. No one in the Assembly can serve more than six years, a mere interruption in one's career. Can you imagine what it will be like if -- even those terms were shortened so that few will have the ability to take the necessary time out to learn the process of governance? The system will have been gutted for all intents and purposes. One shudders to think of how the power shift to the governor would effect us. I don't think the phrase "power grab" can be over-used at this point.

In California, the initiative process has been creating havoc since Prop. 13.  It changed our ability to fund education from local taxes and distorted the entire tax structure. Since that time a series of state initiatives have carried mandates that leaves less and less revenue in the general fund for the legislature to budget. The realization of this fact helped kill Prop. 53 that would have caused us to take -- off the top -- moneys for roads, bridges and infrastructure, before a dollar could be assigned to health and education. Maybe we're beginning to understand that. Perhaps, next we'll begin to see that we've harmed ourselves with term limits and will repeal that awful ruling. After all, that came into being as a way to rid the legislature of then Speaker, Willie Brown. Willie's doing fine, thank you, as San Francisco's mayor, while we're still stuck with that onerous exit strategy of long ago.

Our office has been quiet today. We're all disbelieving present reality. At some point we must be able to deal with the changing of the guard in Sacramento. It will effect us, surely, but the one we represent is still away (following the bruising last session), and will return on Monday. We'll get a read on the capitol's expectations by the end of the week. Meanwhile, I plan to stay in the micro and avoid any on air encounters with anyone in any office higher than mayor!

Have gotten into the habit of using my remote to zap Ashcroft, Bush, Powell (both), Rumsfeld, and now Schwarzenegger! Maybe I'll have to give up CSpan completely, except for Booknotes.

If I hear any more about this proposal to cut back on the time of the legislative sessions, I'll let you know. Hope it's only a rumor, but then I recall a time when I heard the possibility of our electing the Terminator was "only a rumor," too.

Just didn't have the heart to write anything yesterday ... .

The election took its toll, and a kind of numbness has set in. Will probably crash out of this in a few days, and be ready to react. For the moment, though, the lack of feeling is a blessing. Some of this comes from the deep sense of the "too late-ness" for me. After a long life of watching the pendulum swing left to right -- then right to left -- I should be finding comfort in the knowledge that this, too, shall pass. But this is different. There is little or no chance that I have enough time to see history self-correct.

There's another disturbing factor. Over the past several decades, that pendulum has failed to reach the left side -- but has swung right to middle-left, from right to right-left, center to right, and finally, right. The Left side of the national debate has all but disappeared. It would have completely disappeared except for the fact that a great influence in our lives is the Bay Areas' and the country's very first public network, Pacifica Radio, which surely has influenced the political climate of the San Francisco Bay Area and all of the 9 counties that make it up. We totally rejected the recall. Arnold did not win the north coast, but was resoundingly defeated here. The statistics are dramatic. Speaking "truth to power" has kept us in balance, and given us a sense of connectedness to others of like mind.

One might wonder why this huge state doesn't divide into two? The southern end of the state is the most populous and therefore has the greatest representation in the legislature. All of the celebrity representatives have come from that part of the state where star power counts. When I think about it, there should have been little surprise in the outcome on Tuesday. After all, they've sent to Washington, song and dance man, George Murphy, Sonny Bono, Ronald Reagan, among others, and now The Terminator.

The maps in today's newspapers shows that the Bay Area and all of the northern coast voted solidly against the recall. This would explain the optimism we were all feeling in the days leading to election day. We've never seen greater participation. In the office where I did phone-banking on election day, people were lined up waiting for a turn at the phones. There were many volunteers doing poll watching and driving folks to the polls. We were ecstatic at the turnout which was unprecedented (80% in San Francisco!). We were surrounded by a world of people who shared our concerns and our enthusiasm for the process.

On election day I went from the phone banking to city hall. As a member of the Arts Commission, I needed to participate in the presentation of our annual report at the regular meeting of the city council. That was at 7:30. Drove home immediately afterward to find the vote count well underway and concession speeches already being made. I was in shock! How could this be? Slowly undressed and climbed into bed without watching the painful process unfolding to a national audience that vacillated between shock, ridicule, and disbelief .

The words playing against the back of my closed eyelids as I fell off to sleep were, "...and California was to serve as the bulwark of resistance to the president's re-election campaign."
Dropped off to a troubled sleep after a brief cry. Just too tired to spend any more energy on "the world."

Today I go back to dealing with the micro. The macro will have to take care of itself. So today it's the Barbara Alexander Academy project, and tonight the Arts Commission and Chamber of Commerce Mixer at the Convention Center. Will reel in my vulnerability and resist the temptation to watch the political carnage that is bound to take place as the process of transition begins. State Treasurer, Secretary of State, and Senator Pro Tem John Burton are probably salivating at the thought of peeling back the state of the state to this neophyte cocky governor-designate. Would love to be a fly on the wall in the Capitol over the next week or so. Watch for some dramatic back-peddling as Ahnold begins to see what he's stepped into. It will be sobering. But maybe not nearly as sobering as the pictures in my head right now as life continues to rival the most bizarre of scenarios.

Having put my worry into words, ... feeling better. Short of joining some movement to divide the state just below Big Sur (couldn't bear to give that up), there's little that I can think of to do.

Secede?

Phew!

It's been a full day starting with voting before heading for my office, meeting with a member of the Contra Costa County Board of Education at the site of what may become the new Barbara Alexander Academy (next fall), then to stop off for a short visit with a friend from my youth -- Jackie. That was the best part of the day, by far.

We quickly picked up where we left off some years ago with scarcely a breath between sentences. I'd forwarded the link to my blog a few days ago, and learned that she'd been up well past midnight going over the words and remembering. Out came the albums and into the past we quickly found ourselves. I'm so hopeful that she and others who are still in the area will make themselves available to be interviewed for this important oral history. She agreed that it should happen, and maybe we can try at some time in the near future -- to get together in a group and reminisce with a tape recorder and video camera in the room. That thought came to me as I drove to the Democratic headquarters a few miles away.

Learned almost as soon as I arrived that there is an unprecedented number of Californians making their way to the polling places. This morning I had to stand in line for the first time in memory before casting my ballot. It feels hopeful. As I worked from the call sheets over the next several hours, was further heartened by the number of people who told me that they'd already voted. "Long lines at the voting polls!" is what the radio is blaring even as I write!

In our usual way, maybe California is reacting to the ridicule that's been heaped on us by the rest of the country, the insult of the last presidential election (Democrats outnumber others by a long way), and just doing what we do best, lead the way into the future! (Don't I wish!)

Came home to grab a bite then off to an award ceremony as a member of the Arts Commission (at city hall) at seven o'clock. It's just as well. The wait between now and the time that the polls close will be unbearable. When I get back the vote count will have begun. Will watch the returns on my computer (Secretary of State's website - it's public so you can use it, too), but will have my television tuned to the coverage on the Comedy Channel (seriously). The Daily Show cast is doing a Special that will help to celebrate if all goes well, and make defeat bearable -- if it doesn't.

Let us pray!

As you may be aware ...,

we're on the eve of the big special election, and everyone I know is working madly to bring in the vote. We share a sense of real desperation with a touch of disbelief that the governor we elected only last November may be ousted in favor of a neophyte body builder! Something has gone terribly wrong with the process, and no one seems to understand just why. It's pretty frightening.

Find myself wondering why those 15 women waited so long to come forward? And, these are legitimate charges by credible women, but we've grown so accustomed to these last minute hit pieces that cynicism kicks in and makes some doubt the validity of the complaints. Not so with those I work with, because we are just familiar enough with some of the sources of news, that we know these particular reports are legitimate. But we've certainly seen the times when they weren't, and that they emanated from all camps, liberal and conservative. It's the nature of the political process in these times of mass media and deep pockets.

Tomorrow we'll walk precincts and do the phone-banking, help to get voters to the polling places and do anything and everything humanly possible to stop the recall. I admit that -- to some extent -- I find the ritual exciting and usually relish this exercise in democracy. This time it's different. I'm running scared. Despite my feeling that those polls cannot be right because not one person that I know has been polled. No one has asked my intentions. Maybe there are millions like me out there who have not been counted and who will be the no voters. But then I worry about the more than one million who had already voted before the disclosures of the gross sexual misbehaviors of Mr. Schwarzenegger had been revealed by the L.A. Times. I cannot believe that most women voters won't be turned off by those charges, but in the few interviews I've seen on the tube in the last hour, many are accepting his denials that this is no more than "puke politics!" (his words). What an un-statesman-like praise that is! He should fire his PR firm, or they should muzzle him! What a horror show this has become.

I'm persuaded by Greg Palast's last column that links Arnold with Enron and Ken Lay. It sounds reasonable. The story is that there were several meetings earlier in the year when the pending court case in which Governor Gray Davis and Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamente are suing in the name of the state in order to recover $9 billion dollars in energy overcharges. It appears that the vanity recall initiated by Darrel Issa afforded the opportunity to insert Arnold into the ballot process, crowd Issa out, and try to capture the state house and kill the lawsuit at the same time.

There are some problems with that for me, I'm not sure that -- even if their ploy is successful and Arnold makes it into the Capitol -- he's faced with a Democratic administration -- from top to bottom -- both houses (Assembly and Senate) -- so how that could possibly be managed is a mystery to me. However, the present administration in Washington (where this is assumed to be coming from) hasn't got all that great a record on exit strategies, or follow up plans. The only one they've pulled off successfully was the seating of the president, but that took the Supreme Court to accomplish!

On Wednesday I'll try to get back into my "past lives," but over the next 48 hours I'm expecting to be preoccupied with the immediacy of this $70 million dollar recall election in a state that's already facing a $9 billion dollar shortfall in the coming year. The lion's share of our staff time was taken up with the budget only a few months ago. We're still smarting from the pressure of that. The new budget process will begin in only a few months. In order to keep on top of that, I'm sure that the governor's staff is deep in the preliminary stages of planning even as the state struggles with this untimely election. The budget must be in place in early spring. The effects of this craziness will be profound, and the voters have no idea of just how devastating this additional loss can be in a time of a national crisis in the economy.

Not sure why, but I do have a feeling that -- just maybe -- the polls are skewed by the media, and that the vote will be closer than expected. I cannot believe California will not turn back the recall. But, either way, look for this to eventually be settled in the courts. We may not have the outcome for many days. And, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that many of those who voted absentee early will be sorry that they did so.

Now I'm off to do some phone-banking tonight, and probably won't write again until after this agony is past.

Vote no on the Recall!

No on Prop. 54!

No on Prop. 53!

If you need an explanation, send me an email.

After a long and lazy Saturday ... .

enjoyed a fine dinner at a local Cantonese restaurant with a cousin and dear friend, Doug Allen. We've forged a deep and warm cross-generational friendship that seems to enrich us both each time we connect.

Doug is one of many writers in our family. He is a reporter and columnist for the Berkeley Daily Planet at the moment, but in the past has written for the San Jose Mercury News, the Metro Papers, the East Bay Express, and more. He has served as literary critic for a number of publishers from time to time, and is deep in the writing of his first novel. We talked about that a bit last night and I will be one of his readers, before he submits his manuscript to a publisher.

He brought along a copy of a document that I've been wanting to have for my family archives for ages. I'd seen it about a year ago at a family reunion and coveted it ever since.

It's a letter written in response to an inquiry from (cousin) Ivy Y. Lewis, another of our family elders. At that time Ivy was compiling a wealth of materials left by her father (and my first husband's uncle):

July 27, 1977

Dear Mrs. Lewis:

By California law, each California County has issued a biennial publication, the Great Register of Voters. You may be interested to know that Edward West Parker is listed in the 1872 Great Register of San Francisco County Voters as having registered to vote on April 15, 1870, the very first day of registration under the 15th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He listed his occupation as a boot maker; his birthplace as Virginia; and his residence as 786 Harrison Street. He gave his age as 54 on that date of registration.

You may be interested to know that my card catalog was published a few months ago in three volumes. Copies have been presented both to the East Bay Negro Historical Society, Oakland, and the African American Historical Society, San Francisco, in case you may wish to see it.

Some years ago, Mr. Williams L. Patterson told me that he had seen several copies of the San Francisco Elevator (1860s - 1880s) which were then held by local relatives of his. It occurs to me that these copies should be carefully indexed for the historical information contained in them. If you learn of the whereabouts of these papers and can secure permission to index them, I certainly would be most interested in so doing.

With best wishes,

Sincerely yours,

James Abajian

If you can imagine -- after looking at the dates on these yellowed pages -- that this was not very long after the State of California was chartered and entered the union, it may give you some sense of how hard it was for some of us to relate to the great consternation that accompanied the passage of the Voter's Rights legislation some 60 years later!

After returning from dinner, Doug and I talked late into the night. He'd brought along another photograph that showed about 18 lovely, animated young women in their early twenties. It was taken at some social event of a club I once belonged to, as did his mother, Maybelle. It was known as "The Women" (Inspired by the old classic film). It reminded me of something I wrote about a few days ago -- about my world prior to World War II -- and the social context in which we lived. There I was in this photograph standing at the far right end of the group, and for a moment I recognized (viscerally) the young Betty of that first oral history interview. This was she, and she seems very far away now. So much life has been lived. So many bridges crossed. So much pain endured. And so much joy, overall... .

During our conversation, I realized that our childhood and youth had been not unlike that of any other immigrant groups. The Portuguese, Italians, Irish, etc., whose families had come from other forms of oppression, from other corners of the world. Many of our families had escaped the pain of slavery and Jim Crow by moving west, and many of us were the first generation to grow up in a place where racial segregation didn't yet have a firm footing. Like some of our offspring today who take civil rights for granted for the most part, we reveled in our youth with as much pride and abandon as any other youngsters of any other ethnic background.

The children of that pioneer Black population might have made a fascinating study of the kind of world African Americans would have produced for themselves, were the chains of racial prejudice not used to suppress and deny the natural upward spiral enjoyed by most other groups of immigrants in the general population. This may have been an important opportunity missed. We've begun to die off now, and there aren't too many of my generation still around to work with, but what few there are should by all means be recorded for the sake of history. And, like many other pre-World War II Californians, we too are waiting for all you strangers to go home! (Said with a smile, of course.)

...Which reminds me to stop now and place a call to an old friend, Jackie, whom I've allowed to get away -- in the busyness of everyday life. I'll arrange a time this afternoon to visit. I'll take along my photo of "The Women," and watch her face light up!

More later.