Grandmothers Against the War ... Keith Olbermann wudda loved it!

Received an alert from the network of old feminist pacifist activist friends with whom I've marched and sang and protested since the Sixties. We were young then, but no more. We were dedicated and idealistic and exuberant in the traditions being newly forged in this part of the country and the world. There was such a dead earnestness about those days with tears shed and speeches screamed at those who would bring the horrors of our time upon ourselves and our young.

Yesterday I felt something new. We've mellowed! The call that came (no longer from the Quakers or the Women For Peace but from MoveOn and CodePink, etc.) but it rang with the same urgency and achieved the same response. Roughly 350 of us -- now grey-haired and softer of body and quieter of soul -- turned up at the Oakland Armed Forces Recruitment Center at 21st and Broadway to enlist!

This time we laughed! Oh how we laughed! Inside these old lady bodies lived, still, the young rebels against the rulers as before. And, there scattered among the grandmothers were a fair number of "Grandfathers Supporting Grandmothers Against War!"

Those young uniformed armed forces recruiters behind the bolted doors (yes!), must have wondered, "what in the world...?" That was inside. Out on the streets (where the Oakland police had closed off a two block area as the crowd spilled out over the sidewalks the comments were hilarious!" Signs were poignant; "Take us instead, we've already lived our lives." And, some carried signs with photographs of grandsons and daughters now fighting in Iraq or stationed in Afghanistan.

My favorite comments, "We'd be cheap to deploy -- you wouldn't have to supply us any body armor -- we've got 'em built in -- just some sturdy aluminum walkers, some crutches, a few motorized wheelchairs and a generous supply of Depends and we're good to go!" And another woman added, and you wouldn't even have to ship some of us home! Gallows humor? Most decidedly.

There was a woman with a hand drum, a guitar or two, the old songsheets, and all of the old songs we've been singing now for at least 30 years. "We shall not moved," and "Blowing in the Wind," and "Joe Hill," plus some lovely rounds I'd not heard before but reflect the more recent generation of women ... nice ... .

As I walked back to the parking lot to return to my desk in Richmond, the grin of freshened memories persisted. How on earth could I have felt such joy at an occasion such as this? I'd spent over an hour renewing friendships -- spending that extra several seconds as my eyes were able to slowly get behind the wrinkles and white hair and see those wonderful women whom I now barely remember that I've missed.

I drove away letting the tears fall where they may without notice. Maybe we did have an effect on the wars of our times, maybe. Maybe not. Vietnam took so much from us all - even those who survived it. And there is irony in the fact that I work every day in the shadow of the Kaiser Shipyards where we once built ships faster than the enemy could sink them, and won the war of my youth in the process. The irony is that on that very site -- in that very shipyard -- present day use is the storage of new autos shipped in for USA consumers, made in Japan, the nation of the enemy that we fought to its knees!

Then I remembered the joy of today and Barbara and Dion and Elizabeth and Judith and Becky and Wendy and all of the others who came together one more time before sunset to say "No" to the sending of our grandchildren to far away lands to kill the grandchildren of other women whose lives will be diminished by the arrogance of power gone mad.

Our symbolic attempt to enlist in the armed forces to take the places of those whose lives are just beginning made a statement. And ultimately, I'm sure that each of us knew that we'd have little effect upon the warmongers, but that -- one more time -- we'd done what we had to do for ourselves and for the sake of our own sanity.

There was also comfort in knowing that in 16 other cities in faraway places other women of our time had joined with us in simultanous solidarity.

Sisters all!

There appears to be both a bottom and a top ... . I've now seen both.

Long ago when Rick was at his hardest places -- alcoholism counselors would insist that I needed to allow him to "bottom out" in order to begin to find his way to sobriety. It was a cliché that we both knew well. I visualized it as a place where he was underwater drowning but needing to touch the pool floor in order to kick himself back to the surface. It was more poetic than real, I think. It never worked because love always managed to get in the way, paradoxically.

This past week or so I found myself with the opposite dilemma -- working so hard to bring off my latest project -- the second Leadership Tour of the park. The first had been phenomenally successful with so much positive buzz that virtually no recruiting had been necessary for this one. People had been calling in asking to be included since the day after.

On Thursday, February 10th, we gathered in the Shimada Room at City Hall for coffee at 8:30, boarded our tour bus at 9:10 for the Rosie The Riveter Memorial at the shoreline, enjoyed a guided tour past World War II structures (Newell Supermarket, the Old Greyhound Bus Station, the Japanese Oishi-Sakai Nurseries (41 handmade greenhouses that survived the years), the Park Florist that supplied the flowers for launchings at the shipyards, the Winters Building that served as an air raid shelter, Atchison Village war housing, the Red Oak Victory Ship and Whirley Crane at Shipyard #3, ending at the magnificant Ford Assembly Plant where the park's reception center will eventually be housed. We gathered for lunch and a de-briefing at the Harbormaster's Offices on the Marina shortly after noon. It was a great event.

That day I'd received a large package from the National Women's History Project containing the large posters and NWHP catalogs. I felt momentary excitement but instantly knew that I needed to stash them away for later. Among our tour passengers was the director of the National Parks Foundation who had flown out from Washington, D.C. He was obviously impressed by the work Naomi and I had done in breathing life into the concept of Civic Engagement.

It was then that I found "The Top." I was experiencing something previously unknown for me. It felt as though my persona was beginning to overwhelm my work. It was getting in the way. The tour I'd worked so doggedly to bring off successfully needed to move to the forefront. This day couldn't be about me.

I'd touched the sky and now was the time to come down.

After the tour ended and the guests (all 28) had scattered back into their lives, I quietly placed the beautiful poster on (Superintendent) Martha's desk - stashed the catalogs in the trunk of my car -- and went home for the day. It felt right.

On March 19th I'll bring out my paper hat again and celebrate.

Everyone should touch the sky, at least once, but that isn't a place that sustains life for long, I think.


Note: Our tours began with a viewing of "Of Lost Conversations ... and Untold stories," the DVD that is now available if you'll click on Cbreaux Annex (the link in the left hand column.) Do leave a comment. Would love to know if the information is new to you. It's all been carefully documented. I don't think Ken Burns needs to worry, though. We're no competition, yet ... .

Breathless ... .

I'm having a difficult time staying in focus right now. So much is happening so fast -- and I'm having a problem keeping on top of it all. Funny what rises to the top at such times.

Yesterday I attended an event honoring Frances Albrier, political activist in Berkeley over many years. The community center in San Pablo Park in South Berkeley was named in her honor years ago. Mrs. Albrier was a friend of my grandfather, Papa George's. I was his buddy for baseball games. He often stopped in at the nearby Albrier home when we visited San Pablo Park to watch the Negro barnstorming baseball teams play the California Eagles. This was long before the major leagues were racially integrated, of course.

Papa George and Daddy Joe would often sell caramel-colored pecan and overly-pink coconut pralines that stained your fingers -- at the games. They had a candy kitchen for a time -- in the back yard of Daddy Joe's home in the Fruitvale Area of Oakland -- one of their many ill-fated moneymaking schemes. In looking back I'm reminded that these two old guys were the African-American version of Steinbeck characters out of the Cannery Row or Sweet Thursday. Wish I'd paid closer attention to their antics at the time. Their entrepreneurial efforts allowed me to get to know the youngsters across town -- we lived far out in East Oakland. They were reasonably trustworthy to oversee my care but were enough involved in the games and their vending to allow for freedom and some growing space at a time when a little girl could use both.

It was here that I'd met my husband, Mel. I was 14 and he, 17. He was sitting on his bike (with newspaper saddlebags attached) near the clubhouse. I remember trying hard not to be obvious as I watched him from atop the fence where I was seated - only half watching the game. He was shy. I was even more so. It was not an auspicious meeting, surely not one that predicted that he would become my husband in May of 1942. But yesterday was Mrs. Albrier's day, and I was invited to attend as one of the elders with a memory of her and of her times. I'd been asked to say a few words of remembrance along with others

Later in the evening I joined Tom, his daughter and son and Peter's beautiful young fiancé for dinner in San Francisco. On the drive home I found myself with that little bit of nonsense that kept drifting in and out of focus and finally rose to the top riding on a hidden grin:

At 19 I'd married Mel Reid, celebrated extravagantly handsome football hero (quarterback for USF) which allowed me to learn more than I ever wanted to know about football with the bonus of seats on the 50-yard line for all important games; both in college and later at professional games. At 20-something that's nothin' to sneeze at.

After a failed but 35-year marriage; at fifty-something I married Bill which gave me access to the world of the university. Bill was the grey-bearded pipe-smoking yellow cashmere sweater with leather patches on elbows and tweed slacks with Brooks Bros. button-down shirt and loafers -- university psychology professor-- but even more important -- he had a University of California, Berkeley, parking space with his name on it. There were moments when I jokingly insisted that it was for this perk alone that I'd agreed to marry him. Sometimes he laughed -- sometimes not -- depending upon who was in the room when I'd blurt such nonsense.

It's all relative. Tom has a bright blue plastic handicap placard -- better than valet parking! You can't imagine how much that simplifies life in the Greater Bay Area which has such a glut of cars (he, for reasons that escape me, owns three). We have such poor public transportation, and so many fascinating places to visit. Memberships in the MOMA, the DeYoung Museum, and Ashland Shakespeare Festival doesn't hurt this friendship, but it's that bright blue plastic handicap placard that equals Bill Soskin's Cal parking space and Mel Reid's seats behind home plate or on the 50-yard line. The fact that he is one of the nicest gentle men I've known over a long lifetime doesn't hurt, either.

Life does have its compensations, doesn't it? You just have to be able to recognize the blessings when they surface. And wouldn't it be sad if I really was this shallow?

...and I do need to do something about arranging for some ambling lessons. I still find myself sprinting when a simple leisurely one foot in front of the other -- rhythmically and considerately will do just fine. Bill often expressed a wish that I could be tethered to his ankle when we window-shopped along Union Street in San Francisco (one of his favorite pastimes). His annoyance was clearly visible. When I'd find myself two stores ahead -- he'd deliberately hang back to force me to slow my pace.

I think I'm getting a little better at it, but have a long way to go before I've mastered it. It's particularly noticeable when I'm with Tom at art galleries. I tend to be always at least one exhibit ahead -- constantly running back to alert him to something up ahead that he has yet to reach ... .It must be frustrating as hell! He is so patient and long-suffering and never yet has he complained. But I notice and feel embarrassed and guilty at my irrepressible enthusiasm at such times. His health is poor and the condition is long-standing. I'm blessed with energy to burn ... and enough curiosity to wear out all but the heartiest of men. To his credit -- Tom continues to hang in and tolerates my exuberance with the grace of a saint. I'm so-oo-o grateful for his patience.

The Calder show is coming to the MOMA in March. Maybe this time ... .

The pendulum continues to swing into the stratosphere ... and I'm hanging on for dear life ... !

Is this how celebrity happens? And, if so, why on earth did it take so long? In a very disconcerting way -- it appears to feed on itself -- creating its own energy and crowding out humility. But that part of me that tends to sit outside myself monitoring events as if from afar keeps things in perspective pretty well. If it gets too crazy I just remind myself that I'm outliving my hair and that -- given a few more years I'll be as bald as an eagle! That's when the giggles come.

The week continued to unfold with surprises around every corner. On the day after word came that my songs were available to me (and the cassette is now in hand, thanks to Charlotte), and that my film would be on its way soon; I arrived at my office and unloaded voice mail (had the weekend's accumulation) and here it was. Here was a call from the office of Rep. Barbara Lee asking if it would be possible to obtain 30 copies of the DVD. What DVD? Another story:

My co-worker, Naomi, and I had created a 4-and-a-half minute production intended as a discussion starter for our evolving outreach program (we specialists call this a "strategy"). Impressed? It turned out to be a barn burner; a little piece with a narration written and added to a cascade of images of the WWII period that shows ship launchings involving African Americans, news pieces; vintage photos from the albums of Marguerite Roles, widow of union official Mahlon Roles; and a background score by a jazz guitarist. It was never intended to be any more than something that we could use at Neighborhood Council meetings to get the community into discussions about that historic period. It's still in draft form, awaiting cleaning up of a faulty sound track. Naomi did the technical work. I provided content. We named it, "Lost Conversations ... and Untold Stories." It's causing a minor sensation with everyone who views it, because -- even in that short piece -- much of the information is previously unknown -- dug up from research studies collected here in the park's growing archives for scholars who will one day want to access it and add to the nation's knowledge of the period.

I'd given a copy to my friend who is chief of staff for Barbara Lee just before Christmas. I'd learned that the Congressional Black Caucus was planning a weekend visit to the Bay Area on January 26th as guests of the congresswoman and suggested that a tour of the new park might be an interesting field trip for the representatives. I'd talked about it briefly with our staff and we figured it was a workable plan. This park will be important to the telling of not only the story of the Rosies, but of the stories of black homefront workers on the west coast, and of the Japanese-Americans who were interned and later returned to Richmond; history that is little known and long neglected. The park tour plan got lost in the Christmas holidays and I'd heard nothing more about that possibility until the brief message turned upon Monday.

Now the phone message was asking if our office could supply them with 30 copies to include in the packets of the national representatives along with our little tour booklet and the General Market Plan Newsletter (added as an important afterthought). There wouldn't be enough time in which to fit a park tour, but they were greatly interested in a later tour for Rep. Lee and her staff when it could be scheduled. Meanwhile, our little DVD would take off across the country in the briefcases of every member of the Congressional Black Caucus. What a coup!

On February 23 I will appear on a panel at Mare Island, Vallejo, California, as a part of the Forest Service's Black History Month's observance. I'll use the little DVD to introduce my part in the proceedings. I'll be presented along with a member of the Buffalo Soldiers, and another panelist who will talk about the contributions of the late Rosa Parks.

But that wasn't all: Two days ago I received the hyperlink to that half-hour interview I did on January 20th for Pacifica Radio. And -- it really didn't sound as randomly nutty as I'd feared after re-reading the oral history from the Bancroft Library. I needn't have feared. It was lucid -- coherent. Truth carries its own power and when there are interested listeners, the words flow pretty evenly. When I clicked into the website I found that a production has been created around that little interview that begins with a poet reciting an interesting spoken word piece to music -- followed by Paul Robson singing "The House I live in." The interview ends with that great African American hero singing "Old Man River." Can you imagine? I don't think that it's been aired yet, but maybe I've missed it ... .

The Fight Against Racial Discrimination in the Richmond Shipyards:An interview with Soskin. (I found the site under Betty Reid Soskin and this title.)

An embarrassment of riches? Yes!

A re-reading of yesterday's entry surely reveals the clear fact that I woke euphoric. It's that strange phenomenon that defies understanding -- unless we factor in morphic resonance, maybe? Rupert Sheldrake may be onto something, truly. And why do you suppose that Sheldrake would have come to mind on Saturday -- 24 hours before? It's that strange experience of a feeling of getting out of sync with time ... acting on information that I don't yet have.

How on earth could I have known that later in the day there would be word from Charlotte in Southern California that -- years ago I'd given her a cassette tape of six of my songs (the tape I've been searching for with a sense of hopelessness for months now) and that she would forward it to me tomorrow? I could have shouted for joy! I'd really started to believe that only those lyrics still in my memory had been preserved -- and that my songs were lost forever. This surely means that I'll need to learn how to add sound to my journal so that you, too, can hear them. Will do.

But that's not all. Later in the day I found a message on my computer that someone was seeking permission to be lifted from the spamblocker. The name was unfamiliar -- but, in the subject line were the words, "Farallon Light." This was the title of the film that I wrote and performed the music for (two songs) lo those many years ago and that I'd never been able to find anywhere on the planet. I'd never told anyone that I'd done that work since it was a created in a time of mental illness and I wasn't all that sure it wasn't simply symptomatic of that and not much more. I knew that it had won festival prizes; and for years had been shown in the theater of the Lawrence Hall of Science on the University of California's Berkeley campus. I'd watched it there with my granddaughter who was about six at the time (she's 20-something now). Only in the past several months have I tried to trace it after re-discovering the old script and stills in my files. I wrote about that here at the time. It was then that I'd contacted this film library.

When I opened the email the message said that they have obtained "...a scratchy copy that we're willing to tranfer to DVD if you're still interested in owning it." Wow! I have a friend who heads the media department at the local community college who might be able to do some repairs or at least smooth out some of the more serious flaws. I want it no matter what shape it's in. It's proof that I've created something that might be of timeless value -- and having it to view after so many years is a priceless gift.

Today the National Women's History Project's annual catalogue arrived in the mail with a reproduction of this year's poster on the cover. I also received by email the draft of the 500-word bio that will be published soon. After reading it, I figure I could spend the rest of my life trying to live up to my own image!

If this is my obituary (so much coming together so eerily!), I'm ready to go, guys. It's gotta be all downhill from here!

Photo: This one is self-explanatory.

Another Sunday morning ... and this one feels good.

Furnace is back humming like a top. And -- naturally -- it wasn't "broken" after all. After two days of sitting in a cold apartment feeling forlorn (PG&E informed me that they couldn't send out a repairman until January 26th!) and unloved, I finally flopped face down on the floor of my den and carefully read the manual on "re-lighting the pilot" and decided (with Tom's reassurance by telephone from Mendocino) that maybe I wouldn't blow up the entire building if I simply tried to do it myself. So saying, I pushed the little button marked pilot and the thing roared on as predicted. Another problem solved; but it did little for my ego to know that the problem probably hadn't existed at all, but was my own misreading of the situation. Sound familiar? Right. It was undoubtedly the "God of Small Things" (see Arundahti Roy) getting me in line again after the ego-tripping caused by that dive into notoreity. After all, seeing one's very own face on a poster has to cause some unbalance in the psyche. I am surely not made of stone.

But to get back to Sunday. Woke slowly and lay with my eyes closed for a long time trying to recapture that feeling of reverence that Sunday used to bring when -- long ago I would have been getting ready for services at the Mt. Diablo Unitarian-Universalist Church in Walnut Creek on Eckley Lane. I might even be preparing to participate in some ceremony or doing a reading or meeting with a religious education class. This morning I truly miss that congregation of old friends, if only to share some of the joys and sorrows of the past weeks and months. There is such a backlog of feelings now -- and except for this journal -- I've no place to use them up ... .

Then there's this place in my mind where nothing ever dissipates but remains whole and retrievable until the time is right to reappear:


This song is not mine, but is a hymn, a real "Ode to Joy," that I discovered trapped in an old 2/4 German(?) march in the pages of the burgundy-bound UU hymnal. I freed it by transforming "Life" into a romantic gypsy peddler, gave it a new and lilting melody and performed it before the congregation on a Sunday morning such as this. The poem is by Sara Teasdale (thanks, Amie.)

Life has loveliness to sell -- all beautiful and splendid things,
blue waves whitened on a cliff, roaring fires that sway and sing,
and children's faces lifted up -- holding wonder like a cup --
for life has loveliness to sell, all beautiful and splendid things!

Life has loveliness to sell, music like a curve of gold,
scent of pine trees in the rain, eyes that love you, arms that hold,
and for the spirit's still delight -- holy thoughts that star the night
for life has loveliness to sell, all beautiful and splendid things.

Spend all you have on loveliness, buy and never count the cost --
for one bright shining hour of peace count many years of strife well lost,
and for a breath of ecstacy -- give all you have been or could be --
for life has loveliness to sell, all beautiful and splendid things!

Such a lovely bit of poetry ... such lush imagery!

Imagine my surprise and delight when -- appropro of nothing -- there at the gates of San Quentin prison only a few weeks ago -- Paul Sawyer mentioned that he had recently been listening to my voice singing this little hymn audiotaped at some church occasion long ago. The music and lyrics have been coming back in bits and pieces since that day. This morning it came together behind my closed eyes -- whole -- in brightly-colored fragments from the corners of my mind ... in slow motion -- drawn together irresistably like metal shavings to a magnet in a lively videographic animation ... as consciousness returned for another day of life.

Somewhere beneath the pain and disappointment; the sense of needing completion somehow and that I'll surely die without ever knowing that feeling; that despite the weight of her life upon my own -- Dorian has kept the child in me alive because that's the place where we meet without judgement. I know that the repository for the artist in me is in that child. I know that -- however The World turns out, eventually, despite my imperfections -- I will have fulfilled my self-imposed obligation to leave footprints deep enough for the children I'll leave behind, and at least as well defined as those left by the ancestors for me to follow. Together with countless others, we've helped to create a country and a world even when we were unaware of our effect upon human history.

Amen.

Time to re-direct ...

and AlterNet provided the perfect means to do just that.

This morning they're running a fascinating article about biologist Rupert Sheldrake, originally of Australia but now living in London. His was the controversial theory of morphic resonance,

"-- a complicated framework of ideas proposing that nature relies upon its own set of memories, which are transmitted through time and space via "morphic fields". The theory holds that these fields, which operate much like electrical or magnetic fields, shape our entire world. A panda bear is a panda bear because it naturally tunes into morphic fields containing storehouses of information that define and govern panda bears. The same with pigeons, platinum atoms, and the oak trees on Hampstead Heath, not to mention human beings. This theory, if widely accepted, would turn our understanding of the universe inside out -- which is why Sheldrake has so often felt the wrath of orthodox scientists.

For the past 20 years, he has pursued further research on morphic fields even though no university or scientific institute would dare hire him. Much of his empirical explorations focus on unsolved phenomenon such as how pigeons and other animals find their way home from great distances, why people experience feelings in amputated limbs, why some people and animals can sense that someone is staring at them. He believes morphic resonance may offer answers to these questions."

the most memorable was the "100 Monkey's theory" so widely discussed during the period of the Human Potential Movement of the 80's. Sheldrake posited that -- in an experiment conducted in the south pacific involving a tipping point where, when a particular number of monkeys on separated islands were introduced to a process of a kind -- the monkeys on the neighboring island adopted it as well -- without contact of any kind, once a critical number had been reached (i.e. the hundredth monkey).

Sheldrake was one of the "heretic" scientists associated with John Lilly and his dolphin studies and others who were intrigued by Zen and Tibetan Buddhism. There was a coming together of physicists, biologists, Buddhists, psychologists, writers like Isaac Asimov and Fritjof Capra and Loren Eisley -- through astronaut Ed Mitchell's Noetic Institute at Stanford and the Nyingma Institute in Berkeley. It was a world I drifted around the edges of while married to the university and to Bill who was deeply involved in all things esoteric and edgy (in its time).

Reading today's article (more to be found at www.sheldrake.org) served as a reminder of a life I tend to forget about in the dailyness of the past 20-30 years. It all feels very far away now -- like a fine film I once watched, with players so much larger than life. It was a period that lasted only ten years of my marriage -- until Bill's death -- and it changed the direction of my life for all time.

That Betty would hardly be squashed by little things like hayfever; not knowing how to deal with a pilot light on the furnace that blew out when she tried to change the filter; finding herself again chained to a child-woman who has returned home needing tending and chauffering and patience (oh the patience!) after being seduced into believing that the time of caretaking was ending ... and that life might finally be all interesting work, art galleries, time to muse, concerts, fine dining, and feeling womanly again. At least a few of yesterday's tears were certainly related to disappointment, a dash of self-pity, and at least a wee bit of guilt at feeling so.

That's what I need; a new infusion of thought by those wonderful daring dreamers -- or today's counterparts -- who knew no limits and who believed in themselves and in all the rest of us as well. Those learned men (and they tended to be all male at that time) saw wonder in everything around them. They were the antithesis of today's scientific leaders who are all bound by the bottom line instead of the upper limits of the universe of the mind.

Today I'll read some Rupert Sheldrake and try to recapture some of that dreamdust.

Photo: Taken in the livingroom of Deacon John Weaver of the Northern California Episcopal Diocese -- listening to a discussion in preparation for the Vallombrosa Conference at Stanford (circa 1976).

Where is my brownskinned heart to hurry?

The title of a song written long ago ... and that has been playing in the back of my mind since yesterday. This morning I woke sobbing into my pillow. Why on earth ...? No meaning came -- only the music -- as if coming from another voice -- as if in a dream ... but muffled so that Dorian wouldn't wake and find me distressed. I could never have explained to her dimmed mind the cause of the tears -- I couldn't even explain them to myself. Last night I went to bed so elated! But I had spent much of the past two weeks swinging wildly between highs and lows -- the executions at San Quentin, the Martin Luther King celebration, and the honors being bestowed soon by the NWHP. Was this then what it means to be manic-depressive? Surely not, since these were all larger than life events and my feelings appropriate to each. I'd surely never had such a diagnosis, but could this be? More sobs. I lay still for a long time quieting myself in preparation for climbing out of bed and into my clothes for work. Surely this would pass soon. But I'm still here ... .

It was in those few moments of quiet that the lyrics began to come together with the music -- and the ephiphany!


I was late twenty-something and living in Walnut Creek. The racial hostility was at its worst and one of my little boys had been stoned by some teens shouting "nigger!" from a passing car as he was returning on our country road from Sam's market -- across the creek and a few blocks away. He wasn't badly hurt and came to me looking puzzled and frightened to ask why? There was no answer. He was so young. I couldn't tell him that I just didn't know. The feeling of helplessness is one that I recognize as being always there playing softly in the background of my life as mother -- over all the years -- freshening unexpectedly from time to time. Maybe that's true for every parent, but perhaps not quite to this extent.

Later that day, after hours of torment and doubt, I wrote this:

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

I recognized that same feeling of helplessness on the day, years later, when my now grownup son, Rick, asked tearfully why his partner, Gordon, was lying dead on a slab at the county morgue because his northeastern family would neither claim his body nor release it to us for burial? Gordon was white and Rick was not. They were a committed gay couple who'd been together for 18 years. We lived with that gruesome reality for the 30 days required by law before we could claim Gordon's remains and memorialize him. Rick was dead a little more than a year later.

All of that rushed into my mind this morning -- replacing the giddiness I'd experienced last night as I dropped off to blissful sleep with the honors front row and center.

The sobbing that wracked my body this morning suggests that I may finally be willing to give up my self-assigned role of being "...the only grownup in the room." That I cannot possibly change the basic wrongs of the world no matter how hard I try. That I never could. That no one of us can and that it may be time now to set the world back down on its axis and allow it to find its own way toward redemption.

But you know what?

There is unspeakable relief in knowing that someone may have finally heard my song! The recognition being bestowed in March will symbolize this for me. Makes me wonder about the journeys taken by the other women with whom this honor will be shared. I so look forward to learning more about each of them.

Perhaps the tears were some indication of the power of releasing all that unspent pain.

Maybe I've finally exhaled.

Another execution has been held ... with several more slated in the coming months ...

But I cannot live my life weighted down with this issue. It's all consuming and begins to block out the sun after awhile. Dues have been paid -- and I'll table it now until Paul Sawyer trumpets the call again in a few weeks -- to confront the issue for another round of protests at the prison gates. The issue of a moratorium is gaining ground nationwide, and may find some support when the several bills now in one or another committee finally makes their way to the floor of the state senate and/or assembly.

I sense that we're beginning to wake to the death and destruction that this generation is cursed with, and to react to the chaos. Change is in the offing. I can almost feel and hear the brakes being applied to the administration's ugly power surge as the constitutional questions begin to be asked, and impeachment begins to be a serious and grim possibility.

But in the meantime, I'm still wearing my paper hat from the King Birthday Celebration on Sunday. That, coupled with the news from the National Women's History Project this week has me humming to myself and generally having a difficult time getting my hat on at all! They've asked for more information to include with my bio. Our images are featured on a lovely poster being distributed by the organization. The letter announced the dates and times of the presentation of the honorees at an event to be held on March 19th at Griffiths Park in Southern California. I will fly down and will meet the other women at that time. For more information you may want to check out their website. I cannot-- in my wildest dreams -- imagine being mentioned in the same breath with such remarkable women.

Am back at work with a schedule of activities that could threaten a woman half my age, I suppose. Every new project that I take on now carries a time clock with it -- an acute sensitivity to the fact that all this energy could end at any moment -- and that the work is important and must go on with or without me. It adds a note of urgency (but also preciousness) to everything, and makes me feel breathless at times.

I'm beginning to think of all the things I've wanted to do, to complete, to begin, to re-activate, and to feel a frustration that I haven't found the cassette tapes of my songs yet and they may indeed by lost for all time; that I haven't re-framed all those great pictures that lost their glass in storage; re-written some of those fragments of essays I've found from years ago in my files, and that still have a freshness of viewpoint and insight that bears what I'm now beginning to recognize as my own particular form of genius (and do I dare use such a word?). Yes. The National Women's History Project has granted permission by anointing me one of their honored "Community Builders of Communities and Dreams!" (Immodesty feels pretty good, y'all, enjoyed in moderation, of course.)

So much to do -- with diminishing time in which to fit it all in. Maybe soon. But for now there is the work of helping to create a new national park with a team of such capable and dedicated young men and women. What an awesome assignment is that, right?

I suppose that I'm still being deeply effected by the so recent deaths of the four Reid women; Dorothy, Linda, Flossie, and Maybelle, and beginning to face -- ever so gently -- my own mortality.

But not yet. There's good work still to be done.

Illustration: This year's NWHP poster taken from the website. My photo is tucked in at the far right very top - under the "N" in "women." There were 10 chosen, nationwide. What an honor! Maybe I'll buy enough to send out as greeting cards next year. Not sure that I've earned it, but on balance -- whatever is left owing I plan to make up before leaving the planet -- or have my progeny repay after I'm gone. And they'll do so in the name of the ancestors!

Garbage in, garbage out and other nightmares ... and then ...

This has been a dreadful week, but all is not lost. Until ... until being reunited with someone I've long admired from afar but lost track of years ago into the busyness of too many days of more trivial pursuits. We've been marching in different parades, with his being the more majestic. Less stressful, of that I know. More than likely it's a question of scale. While I've spent a lifetime of activism within a scant 30-mile radius -- he has served on a world stage; from social worker community organizer and later Berkeley City Councilman -- to Chairman of the powerful Congressional Armed Services Committee as 8-term Representative Ronald V. Dellums, man of peace and representing one of the most diverse congressional districts in the nation. In that role he worked to engineer the end of apartheid in South Africa and greatly influenced the freeing of Nelson Mandela and led to this legend's ascendance to the presidency of his country.


Untypically, the past week has combined forces to send me straight to the dumpster. Ordinarily I would have prevailed against all but the most impossible odds. This week exposed some vulnerabilities I'd failed to notice.

a. Dorian has returned home (temporarily) after months of sharing an apartment with another mentally-handicapped young woman under a program that specializes in providing supportive services. For the most part it has been successful until Zena suffered a psychotic break that brought a broken window, tossed chair, a kick through the sheetrock of a bedroom wall -- and risk that forced a quick decision to close the apartment and move Dorrie home again, or at least until a suitable alternative can be provided. There's a HUD 1-bedroom apartment available to her that's awaiting cleanup and painting, so all is not lost. Meanwhile, she is chafing at having to give up her independence again and yield to the (no matter how subtle) controls of an over-anxious mother (moi).

b. A miserable attack of hayfever brought on by excessive rains followed by a couple of warm days and the resulting early advent of offending pollens. That meant missing work for days while hemmed in (with Dorian) with no escape from hour-after-hour CSPAN coverage of the Judiciary Committee hearings. A recipe for disaster!


A growing depression was further worsened by the spaciness of a low-grade fever that tended to make visible the glaring idiocy of events. It was like a parody of government. How about a committee of old white guys (the Senate Boy's Club) sitting in judgement about another white guy's having once belonged to C.A.P., an organization (like their own) that looked with disdain upon women and minorities? How about a Senate Committee composed of old white males (with the exception of Senator Feinstein) placing so much emphasis on this one white guy's attitude about Roe vs. Wade -- white men who haven't a uterus between the bunch of them -- and none of whom has ever been pregnant. What happened to the idea of critical judgements from a "jury of one's peers"? How did it ever come to this? Who said that intelligence and good judgement is embedded in one gender only, and that men have some special capacity to be wise and empathic enough to rule on a woman's right to choose?

Cases have been overturned by the fact that a black defendant's guilt or innocence has been determined by a jury from which all but white jurists have been purged. Would this not be true where gender is a predictive factor in the determination of a case involving abortion? Can we not see the critical importance of having women weigh in on any such matter? Are men truly capable of the kind of objectivity that would take the issues above the level of simply enforcing the subordination of women?


Then word came down that the California Supreme Court had ruled against clemency for Clarence Ray Allen, compounded later by the governor's denial. The execution will take place tonight of one more human being -- even while the moratorium is being considered by the legislature. How can this be? Were you aware that only a months or so ago this man suffered a massive heart attack -- was hospitalized where he slipped away for a time and then was resuscitated with his execution date scheduled for tonight -- on his 77th birthday? Can anyone imagine a greater irony? Why could they not have simply allowed him to die? Who would have been harmed? Were I the doctor in that ER the choice would have been clear.

Hal, a protester who is organizing the vigil activity, called late Saturday afternoon with a reminder that the group will be gathering for several hours at the prison gates that night for a press conference, and would I join them? Rain is threatened. I could not go. It all felt so useless. I've not yet recovered from the very recent execution of Stanley Williams. This was just too much. And I was beginning to feel that pollen was not my problem as much as the feeling of powerlessness now overwhelming me since that death. But I believe that this is where I touched bottom and the rebound was begun ... .


Always there is that pendulum frantically swinging to bring balance. It was already beginning to sway to the opposite pole -- taking me with it despite all.


Weeks ago I'd received a call from Stacy Hoffman asking if there was some way that I could help her organization (Rhythmic Concepts) get former Rep. Ron Dellums as the keynoter for this year's annual Martin Luther King Birthday Concert; a truly important event. It was an easy matter that called on little more than providing a phone number or two that produced the desired result. He accepted. Last night I enjoyed a front row seat (as a grateful Stacy's guest) before an array of hugely talented Oakland musical groups (Linda Tillery and her Cultural Heritage Choir; The Oakland Children's Choir; Madeline Eastman and Faye Carroll, jazz singers; ending with the incredible Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir led by Terence Kelly). They performed in a format that was interspersed with snippets of Dr. King's powerful speeches played upon a large screen to a reverent audience. You would not believe that evening! It was impossible to maintain the gloom that had clung so stubbornly to my being as I'd walked into that auditorium earlier.

The elegant and eloquent former Congressman Dellums (I'd forgotten) rose to speak before this audience of passionate listeners -- oh how magnificently he's aging! -- he was electrifying! He appeared proudly Lincolnesque with that angular face, shock of white hair, and signature beard. He'd announced his intention of entering the race for mayor of this city only a few months ago. More than anyone in public office today, his presence sends a message of peace and stability to those around him. He is charismatic beyond measure. I dared to allow myself to see him as "presidential," to my own surprise. For a quick minute I felt myself comparing him to the current occupant of the White House and felt a silent giggle form in my throat. This is the model that young, fast-rising, and inspirational Senator Barack Obama may well aspire to emulate. He could hardly do better. The word "statesman" fits few in today's political world. The word comes immediately to mind when in the presence of this iconic figure.

I listened raptly as he drew from the wisdom of Dr. King with great skill and confidence. He breathed new life into the words that have become so familiar over the 30 or more years since first uttered -- and that have begun to be emptily recited by rote by generations who "weren't there." It was an evening I'll not forget any time soon.

For the first time in a very long time, today I no longer feel alone ... .

I will volunteer to work in this campaign in that hope that his leadership will become regional -- will reach beyond Oakland's boundaries into my city of Richmond. Ron Dellums is the only person that I can see on the horizon with the potential to draw the like-minded Progressive community together across political and racial boundaries toward positive social and political change. As goes the Bay Area goes the State of California. As goes the State of California, eventually, goes the nation.

Maybe this is where it all begins ... the first steps toward hope and the dramatic changes necessary to rescue this nation for the next generations. Yes, it's that huge and I'm that fearful of a future as predicted by the everyday de-construction of our country's institutions and way of life ... and before so many of us have been able to benefit by the promises of the first or to achieve the second by divine right of citizenship.

There is so much still to be won.

Photo: Found this photo of Ron on his website. This picture appears younger than the man we reconnected with last night. The older (70 maybe?) Ron has whiter hair and heavier beard but with the athletic (6'4") body of a 40 year-old. Wish I'd thought to take my camera along. Will try to update this photo at the first chance to do so. Do explore his website for more information on this exceptional man.

Oh to be young again! Rarely have I experienced this particular regret ... yet ...

In listening to the hearings of the Judiciary I'm finding myself chewing the draperies and licking the wallpaper!

Unfortunately, in the middle of the testimonies I received an email that was blasted by Rev. Paul Sawyer to a broad list of Unitarian-Universalists across the country. It sounded so "reasonable;" didn't fit my rebellious mood one bit. I wanted more outrage! Couldn't resist the temptation to respond from the place of anger that has been eating at me here where there is little distraction given the fact that I'm home from work with Dorian suffering from a severe upper respiratory infection. Dorrie is developmentally-disabled so that the level of conversation is somewhat wanting. I was in no mood for "reasonable!"

So-saying, I sent off a flippant reply -- blasting it to the entire mailing list -- and felt better for a few minutes there.

In no time at all came a cautionary reply from a former president of the UUA, with more than a hint of annoyance and a curt bid for patience and fortitude on my part; inciting more resistance and defiance from a little ole lady who's earned her stripes and isn't ready to back off one iota.

How on earth can he or anyone know that I'm speaking from a body of experience that does little to encourage a rational response to an irrational world?

1. I was born an African-American woman to a world that appreciates neither.
2. Was 27 years-old when my slave ancestor died at 102 (whom I knew), so slavery is no abstraction but a living-breathing continuing factor of my being.
3. Lived through a young adulthood scarred by Jim Crow and blatant racial segregation after a childhood of relative acceptance (WWII migration into California),
4. Lived for 20 years as the mother of a young black family in an (all-white) California suburb where fighting for rights was both personal and collective, and sometimes perilous.
5. Raised an openly gay son to adulthood only to lose him to his inability to survive that world of physical abuse, social rejection, and alcoholism into a thinly-veiled suicide.
6. Spent 10 years as a university faculty spouse of a European professor -- and learned new levels of discrimination.
7. ...then another ten or so years as a social activist and black merchant in a welfare community followed by another ten living and working in the belly of the beast ...
8. ...as a field representative to one then another of two powerful members of the California State Assembly.
9. I'm still working fulltime with racial discrimination a continuing factor in my everyday existence. I'm working with the National Park Service in a newly-created park that enshrines Rosie the Riveter/Home Front of WWII, another era of overwhelming racial segregation. The sensitivity with what such enterprises must be approached is critical to our not supporting that which we have outlived, painfully, as a nation. I'm fine-tuned in ways that most are not, I'm sure, but have a sense of being quite able to work with those elements in ways that serve the greater cause of unity with a team of people who are sensitive to the needs and make every day worth rising for.

Having said all that; it felt right to express my impatience with the charade that I'm seeing on CSPAN this day. Those who are clearly challenging this appointment and demanding direct answers to direct questions are comforting to witness. The patronizing drooling cheek-patting Alito supporters on the Judiciary are infuriating and give me that familiar old feeling of being the only grownup in the room. I want to shake these powerful men until their teeth rattle and their wigs fall off!

Maybe demanding that room be made for those of us who've lived differing realities is not "reasonable." But, to be an aging grandmother who will leave behind progeny who will inherit this awfulness does little to encourage a rational response. I've given much and sacrificed much pride in the interest of social progress. Now age has brought a sense of urgency that will not be denied. There's no time to do it over. There isn't the time to try to convince those not already on the path -- so -- as it was during the Black Revolution of the Sixties -- I'll trust my anger to those with whom it may have some effect. The silent promise of our nation's founding documents plus those of a denomination where much of the work has already been done is seductive, indeed, and tempts me to continue to prod and poke ever in the hope that -- just a little nudge here or there ... (we've come so close at times in the past).

But patience wears thin, and voices become harsh and rasping as years go by and ... .

and ... time will not permit hesitation if my grandchildren and yours are to inherit the benefits of the just society we've worked and fought so hard to achieve, and for which so many are continuing to die.

Photo: Mel and Betty Reid (moi) photographed in front of the Oaks Baseball field in Emeryville. At that time he was playing for the Oakland Giants professional football club (circa 1943).

Discrimination in the labor unions interview (KPFA) ...

Appeared at Pacifica's flagship station late on Sunday afternoon for the agreed-upon interview. The interviewer was held up elsewhere and I found myself with an hour's delay before we could begin the work. Maybe it was during that time that I lost the intensity I needed in order to fulfill my self-expectations.

It was interesting to find myself here -- with others waiting to tell their stories. I didn't know quite what to expect, but to find myself taken to an upper studio to be not only audiotaped but in front of a camera for videotaping was something I wasn't prepared for. I'd not worn makeup (except for a little darkening of eyebrows that have mysteriously begun to disappear(!), and a little blush on cheeks. Womanly vanity would have dictated some thought be given to the shape of my neckline or earrings, or something ... .

The interviewer asked reasonable questions but I couldn't find resonance within myself so the words felt dead leaving my lips. It's all beginning to feel warmed-over now -- too-oft-repeated, and I felt a little embarrassed to be here at all. Not sure why that is. The truth is surely worth expressing and the history lived by those in our age group is fast-disappearing into a past that was tumultous at times -- and surely worth making note of. We are the carriers, the grios of our personal histories and those histories express universals -- we're not as different as our egos might suggest so -- in a way -- my story is one related to all stories of these decades.

Maybe it's the differences between written and spoken words that best explain my reactions to the experience at the studio. It was the last entry here about the Bancroft Library interview in this journal that made me aware of those differences. Is this the way this will sound -- that will go out over the airwaves next Monday to casual listeners? Will the words spill over themselves in a torrent of meaningless noise? Am I not far more comfortable here writing in a proper sequence where these symbols of meaning can't get lost in the utterance of them?

Maybe I'd far rather write ... yet there is an awareness that there is some arresting quality that I sense in the audience when I speak the words. Wish I better understood ... . What is the "x" factor that I'm missing?

There is the memorable experience of speaking before the audience at the National Women's History Project conference at Mills College last summer. It effected me profoundly -- and apparently did the same for those listening.

Maybe it is truth that has a life of its own -- and that the carrier is only incidental to that. I truly don't know... .

Photo: Speaking at a Starr King School for the Ministry commencement at the Oakland UU Church while serving as a member of the Board of Trustees.

The Bancroft Library Oral History interviews ...

After writing that last post I spent much of the afternoon reading back through the binder that holds the oral history done in October of 2002. I found the affirmation I was looking for -- some place in the re-telling of my life story that confirms a high place. I noticed immediately the huge difference between the written and spoken word. There is little coherence -- the words spill over themselves in the telling. Interesting:

2-00:1506:
Wilmot (interviewer)

So when you were in high school, do you have any memories of teachers who especially influenced you? You told me that at one time you were reading a lot, I'm wondering ---

Soskin:
This one teacher would light up. I could see his face light up when we'd meet in the hall and he would ask me challenging questions. And to this day, I can remember a long exciting debate in his public speaking class -- about euthanasia -- and I remember that the kids went off -- as people do -- into that fine line between euthanasia, murder -- the risk of people being intentionally eliminated. I remember raising my hand and waving it wildly to get his attention and having him ignore me for a long time and knowing that he knew that I knew but that it wasn't time yet to let my comment into the room. And I was aware, even as -- I guess I was a sophomore at the time -- I can remember being -- having a sense of being on the same level with this teacher -- because somehow we both knew that I knew. Also that I was cooperating with his game about not saying it yet, and finally toward the end of the debate of having him--or maybe it wasn't a debate but rather a discussion -- and having him point to me so that I could say, "...but you're no longer talking about euthanasia. You're talking about murder," and having him grin and say (finally!) "Ah-ha!" And having this sense for the first time of being at an adult's intellectual level and how freeing that was for a kid. I looked for these moments in time with my own kids; those moments when they hit something that we could relate to as equals; that were new for me and breakthroughs for them. I wonder sometimes -- in teaching -- how often people are aware of how great that is when you hit it? Mr. McLaughlin was probably the only high school teacher besides my drama teacher that I remember now. I'd know him today were I to meet him in the hallway. I remember her because she was too fearful of criticism from parents if she allowed me to play Maria in Maxwell Anderson's Winterset with a white male student playing the lead. She kept me in after the bell rang to apologize for her lack of courage but lauded my reading of the scene.


Found myself grinning silently as I read this today -- realizing that my face had softened and that somewhere inside that little girl still has a sense of knowing ... and that most of that comes through intuition -- a kind of sixth sense that came into the world with me. The confirmation for even the most seemingly outrageous and risky civil actions comes from that place inside. The only time I feel lost is when the world crowds out the sounds of my own heartbeat... the drumbeat to which I've always marched .. even when I can't see those who march with me.

Since it begins to appear that there are some other logical folks out there helping to hold up the sky -- I'm off to visit the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art with Tom for an afternoon of soul-restoring ...

Will report on my state of mind and heart later this evening. Have other ideas for just how I might do that. It came to me just before sleep. There are times when the only answers are inside, but can usually be accessed through some outside stimulus. Walking through the art galleries ordinarily takes care of part of it, but I think I'll spend the latter part of the day reading back through the transcripts of the oral history the university's Bancroft Library sent to me some time ago. I just may find some fragments of self therein that will re-direct me from this depression before it becomes too firmly-rooted to dispel without some hard work.

What is needed here is another Betty to bring forth -- to help to herd the rest of them into line toward some kind of inner peace. Reading through the transcript may turn up some parts of me that I've begun to lose touch with ... or I wouldn't be feeling such a sense of loss.

Do you think...?

Photo: This comes from somewhere in the late 80's, I think. This seems to have been a time of similar concern, doesn't it? Makes me wince to look into this face; a stark reminder of another place and time when the pain burst through to threaten my existence (see June 20, 2004 in the archives).

This arrived in today's mailbox ... just maybe ...

CALL TO ACTION
from the OFFICES OF OAKLAND CITY COUNCILMEMBER DESLEY BROOKS

Oakland Councilmember Brooks BACKS two-YEAR Moratorium on State Executions

- CITIZENS URGED to TAKE ACTION -

(Oakland, CA - January 4, 2006) The Oakland City Council voted unanimously to support Assembly Bill 1121 (AB-1121) which would impose a moratorium on carrying out any executions in the State of California until certain criteria are met, or, failing that, until January 1, 2009. The bill also stipulates that the state legislature consider all recommendations of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice. The resolution was brought before the Council by Councilperson Desley Brooks.

One-hundred-twenty-two (122) people nationwide have been released from death row after being able to establish their factual innocence, six were Californians. Brooks said, “A civilized society should seek to ensure that no innocent person is ever executed, and should the state seek to impose the death penalty we should be absolutely certain that it is not done in an unjust or arbitrary manner.”

Over the last few years, serious concerns have been raised that the death penalty is not being applied fairly or accurately across the board to all death penalty eligible defendants. Many of these concerns have been prompted by revelations that innocent people in California have been convicted of crimes they did not commit, as demonstrated by new DNA technology, by documented racial and geographic disparities in the implementation of capital punishment in California, by erroneous eyewitness and false testimony, by prosecutorial and police misconduct, and by pervasive complaints about ineffectiveness of counsel in death penalty cases.

In late 2004, the California Senate established the bi-partisan California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice (“Commission”) to study and determine the extent to which California’s criminal justice system has failed in the past and why innocent people are being convicted, and sometimes executed, in this state. The Commission is required to make findings and recommendations for reform to the Legislature by no later than December 31, 2007.

Currently, there are 648 inmates on death row in California, more than any other state in the country. AB-1121 was authored by Assemblyman Paul Koretz (D-LA) and co-authored by Assemblymembers Sally Lieber and Mervyn Dymally.

The State Legislature is scheduled to vote on this matter early in the 2006 legislative session.

Councilmember Brooks also requests fellow elected officials to bring a support resolution before their respective jurisdictions, and that faith-based leaders forward letters of support to the state legislature.

Putting executions on hold can only happen with your help. Support the "California Moratorium on Executions Act" (AB 1121) by visiting www.aclunc.org, where you can easily and quickly submit a note to Governor Schwarzenegger and your state representatives. You can also stay in the loop by signing up to receive upcoming alerts on this issue.

Back to the prison gates and a growing sense of hopelessness ...

I'm not sure when it happened, but I found myself in a new place today ... perhaps heralded by the awful news of those trapped miners far below the earth; maybe by images on the news of nearby families suffering the storm-driven rising waters of the Russian and Napa rivers; continuing pictures of the devastation of New Orleans and of the many newly homeless newly deserted black families still wandering rootlessly in the wake of bureaucratic abuse of astounding proportions. For whatever reason, I found myself speechless today as the cameras and the microphones moved about as unobtrusively as possible during the vigil.

Paul Sawyer, Michael Delacorte, Joe Macdonald, and the others -- some whom I've met here before -- arrived at the agreed-upon hour, formed our prayer circle in the chill of a newly-gathering storm. Added to the mix was Fred Jackson, an old friend from North Richmond and a man who visited with Stan "Tookie" Williams in his last hours. He would speak of that at one point. It was cold. Raindrops pelted my face as I walked from my car on the narrow road to the prison gates. The sky was dark and grey and my spirits reflected the mood of the weather. There was little wind, only the occasional gust that was bone-chilling as it invaded every exposed part of my body that was unprotected against this untypical typical California winter series of storms. Even with the cameras watching, I found myself wiping my nose on the sleeve of my trenchcoat more than once. I didn't care. Our seasons are like our political and social climates; unpredictable -- ever-changing. Tomorrow could as well bring a springlike day with little hint that today ever happened. But today the weather was threatening and set the mood for an hour's worth of feelings I'd rather not have experienced.

The ritual was as always; about 18 stalwart protesters against the death penalty with assorted media people creeping around with their microphones and cameras. Two of the major television channels were present but there were no familiar faces among them.

A San Francisco poet who had been a part of the political Left (now "Progressive") Berkeley/San Francisco group to which both Paul Sawyer and perennial Berkeley city council candidate, Michael Delacorte, belonged had joined with us. He had come to read from the published writings of Clarence Ray Allen, the next candidate for execution. The works had been published in Italy and were read in both English and Italian. It was impressive poetry. I'm not at all sure what I expected, but surely not this lyrical and quite beautiful work. Ray Allen is otherwise known as "Running Bear." He is reported to be Native American, I believe, though didn't appear so in photos I've seen.

A Quaker woman in our circle spoke of "...the God in each of us that must be protected at all costs," and of how "... this redemptive spirit can be accessed by each ...". Her words sounded naive; out of step with the severity of the moment. I thought of Stan Williams and found myself wondering if, Allen, this legally blind and disabled man had found the same redemption in his prison life? Wondered if he, too, had experienced the isolation of solitary confinement and if his poetry was a reflection of the experience? I don't even know what he did to have been convicted -- a fact that had escaped me until that moment. Strange. I still don't know. Only the fact of capital punishment done in my name is of consequence, and the fact that I know that we are all diminished as we allow it to go on.

We must separate out for all time those who would do us harm. Life without the possibility of parole. That I know. That killing in order to deter killing simply makes no sense to me. That I protest against, and it is that which brought me to stand in the cold gray harshness of San Quentin this day.

But as I listened to each -- after Paul Sawyer opened the proceedings in his eloquent pulpit style -- and after Joe had sung his song taken from something he'd found having to do with chain gangs -- only when those around the circle began to testify did I discover that I'd lost something along the way. Normally I would have been listening with a part of myself while pulling together the words that I might share. I usually waited until many have spoken so that I would speak only if my thoughts had not been expressed by someone else. Today it was different. I listened intently. I felt no urge to speak. It was as though I were coming from another place and that I'd lost the sense of relevance. Was it the experience of Stan's execution so recently lived through? What had that done to my resolve?

I said nothing. Absolutely nothing. Was this coming from a sense of hopelessness? Will I spring out of this into some new level of understanding? Had I finally given up? Have I finally lost my sense of relevance? Is this then what getting old feels like?

The drive home was uneventful except for a continuing sense of nothingness ... a deadness.

Then it hit me as I descended from the Richmond-San Rafael bridge -- and drove alongside the huge Chevron refinery on Richmond's shoreline. It was that my frame of reference was so long -- attenuated by the years -- that I see that monstrosity of a prison as having every prisoner of every cell on death row predetermined into the system. I see the places where the Ship of State might have been turned around from this path of self-destruction now buried so far into the past -- that we can no longer see those relationships that might have made us sensitive to the little tributaries, the coves, the safe harbors that would have permitted the space and time to make the adjustments -- the fine-tuning in our course -- that would have allowed us to save ourselves as a nation, and as the hope of the world.

Just as I see Oliver North and the other Iran-Contra co-conspirators as the co-creators of the Crips and the Bloods, I see the inevitability of our young men of color having to become a part of a leaderless revolution misnamed "crime in the streets" for their own survival. I see an entire industry born of the drug wars and the dependency of so many professionals in law enforcement now thoroughly enmeshed in the trials, convictions, and warehousing of those now caught in an underground drug economy that cannot be denied. The profits are too great.

It felt today as if we were dealing with symptoms and that those entrapped in this death ritual will never escape because there is no logic to appeal to.

Today it feels as if we've lost this battle, or, that the outcome will have to be achieved by others. I no longer have any sense of control over a system gone mad -- it was an illusion that I ever could have effected change. I knew that, of course, but knowing didn't prevent the need to act as one of the responsibilities of being human.


There was a familiarity about the feelings. I felt this dispair at least once before -- standing beside the road leading to the Port Chicago Weapons Station. I'd joined the small band of Quakers who were protesting the loading of ammunition being shipped to the Vietnam war front. I knew no one on that line. Had decided the night before to join them after reading of their protest in the local newspaper.

It was a horrifying experience! As otherwise ordinary white suburban families drove by us in their station wagons, grinning parents jabbing middle fingers toward us while driving as close to the protesters as possible -- without actually hitting us. They'd yell obscenities and laugh as they taunted us, and all to the delight of their laughing children. I was terrified! I firmly believed in the constitutional right to protest and/or to engage in civil disobedience -- always expecting to pay the consequences of my actions. This, I was to later learn, was the highest form of ethical behavior according to the Kohlberg Harvard study. In those moments I was acting on conscience, only, and learning where my limits were.

At one point I saw an African American youth -- standing just a few feet behind the lines and obviously as much a stranger to the (all white) Quakers as I. I seriously doubted that he would have known their tenet of pacifism. I saw him slowly draw a knife from under his shirt. I figured that he was preparing himself to defend us -- and I knew that I, alone, had seen the knife. The reason being that -- unlike the others -- I'd not held my ground on the road as the cars shaved dangerously past us -- but had stepped back in fear -- so only I saw his defensive act. I'd not been armed by the godliness of the Quaker belief system so was as defenseless as this boy.

A few minutes later the huge munitions trucks began to arrive. The sign carriers held their ground. I couldn't, but turned and ran as fast as I could to climb into my car and tearfully drive away from the scene in disgrace! I'd never felt so much a failure. I couldn't find the "right" in the picture; couldn't make sense of what I was seeing. I knew that I wanted to help to end the war, but since I'd never had to live through one, I truly didn't know what a war was. I did know what a truck with an evil-grinning driver was. I feared trucks! I could feel the searing hatred in the faces and the voices of those families -- and I couldn't escape the feeling that in some strange way it was I who was causing the rage and the contempt that was all around me. The love and patriotism of the Friends were over-ridden by the hatred their acts of dedication to principle inspired.

There was something of that experience in what I saw today. What? Was I again yielding my place at the roadside in the face of fear? I'm not yet sure, and I may not get to figure this out in my lifetime; not with what lifetime I have left. But I do know that when the logic disappears, hope is diminished. Those to whom the appeals must be made are far away where the logic in our simple acts of protest and defiance cannot be seen or heard. These peaceful logical voices will be silenced by the cacophony of sound bytes and the kaleidoscope of other atrocities in faraway places where life has been so cheapened that our precious war dead are now being shipped home as freight!

Has our nation lost its soul ... ?

And today I'm feeling some unaccustomed dispair, while hoping against hope that others will maintain while I try to pick up the pieces ... .

Photo: Country Joe MacDonald. We met in 1965, before he wrote "We're all gonna die rag!" and Woodstock happened. We shared songs as we wrote them some afternoons in my home in Walnut Creek. He'd just returned from a tour of duty in the navy.

New connections ... newly discovered writers, poets, singers, and activists among those who will follow ...

Young Zena and Yaminah have recently entered from stage left to take their places on that continuum of Reid, Allen, Charbonnet, Parker, Galt, and Moody, "woman lives". The succession goes on as the matriarchs yield the life force to a new generation. Find myself wondering if Mammá or great aunt Alice or great great grandmother Celestine thought about such things in their final years? Did their Catholicism continue to answer all of their questions or were they, too, left with "dead is dead" as it has been for both writer Joan Didion ... and for me? Is this, then, the kind of awareness that develops as time begins to wind down? Am I alone in this?

Maybe Zena Allen's singing and composing ability and Yaminah's budding political activism feel just a bit like extensions of my own life -- and therefore provide a sense of ... what? I knew neither of them until the past few weeks -- so there surely could not have been any influences imposed on their social development -- at least not from me. But I will try harder now to find old tapes of my songs and will offer them to Zena to add to her repertoire. Perhaps that is the "why" of my music, after all. The songs were written for some purpose, though that seemed only serendipitous until now.

We met at her grandmother, Maybelle's, memorial service. She grew up on the east coast, the daughter of Prof. Ernest Allen of Amherst and a mother whom I've never met. Another of the Allen-Reid connections of which there were four such for these large families. Wonder how these bloodlines will play out over the next generations?


Last night brought a phone call from UU minister, Paul Sawyer, who has returned from his meetings at Cambridge -- that jarred me out of the lethargy of holidays and back into the awareness of the pending execution of the oldest prisoner on death row. It's scheduled to take place very soon now. The clock is moving steadily toward another confrontation with the governor's office with another deathwatch to live through. Maybe clemency will be granted this time, and maybe the re-examination of the efficacy of the death penalty as a prelude to the hearing of Assemblymember Mark Leno's bill will gain support. This man's age, poor physical condition, blindness, and the fact that he will be brought to the death chamber in his wheelchair should make a statement about the ritual of death that we'll again have to live through. There could hardly be a more bizarre case upon which to hang this awesome penalty.

This man has become a published poet while serving time. Some of his work will be on hand to be read by those of us who will gather for this new vigil. I'll meet Paul and Country Joe MacDonald and others at the prison gates on Tuesday at noon where there will be yet another press conference and the beginning of a new action in the hope of stopping state executions until we've had a hearing on the Leno bill in the new legislative session sometime in January.

Last Friday, December 29th, would have been the 52nd birthday of Stanley Tookie Williams, had he lived. Barbara Becnel and those who continue to work to clear his name met that day on the steps of the capitol in Sacramento to declare this date evermore as "Redemption Day" and have vowed to meet to memorialize his life annually as they work to bring an end to capital punishment to this state and, hopefully, to the nation. This, done in Stan's name, will have given meaning to his troubled life and senseless death.

It has been a troubling year in many ways, has it not?

...with any luck, the rains may cease ... .

Photo: Newly discovered young cousin, Zena Allen, singer songwriter born on the east coast but currently seeking a career in music in Los Angeles. Her father is Prof. Ernest Allen of Amherst in Massachusetts.