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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or so it seems.

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

What a freeing insight ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

How much better could life possibly be?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think that's called, "Punting!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have we lost our collective minds???

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

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

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

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

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

Guantanamo ...

Abu Graib.

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

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

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

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

What does that remind me of?

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

Is my cynicism growing?

Maybe.

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

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

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

Peace.

What on earth is an Atheist doing in a seminary? And well you might ask ...

This last post was written while I was serving as a member of the Board of Trustees at Starr King School for the Ministry, a member of the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) on the border of the University of California, Berkeley, campus. One of the privileges of serving was the opportunity to join graduate students studying theology at any time during one's tenure and as often as one felt the urge to do so. It was not for the purpose of monitoring classes, but fulfilling the duties required of all students -- by completing reading assignments and taking part in discussions and seminars for a full semester. A typical class might involve 12-14 students plus a professor or two.

The GTU is a consortium of schools and seminaries clustered in an area called "Holy Hill" just north of the UC campus. There are more than a dozen religious institutions sharing classes and an amazing library in common, and whose students study together, ecumenically, though registered formally in his/her own schools. Sitting in a study group with Buddhists, Jews, Franciscans and Jesuits, priests-in-training and nuns, Episcopalians, Baptists, Wiccans, United Methodists, Presbyterians, yes, and Unitarian/Universalists, etc., is a very ordinary state of affairs. Some students would be studying for parish ministries while others were preparing for moral leadership in a variety of settings, including public service, prison chaplaincies, or legislative practice from a position of conscience.

The GTU/Starr King experience was rich beyond measure, and fulfilled an insatiable hunger for spiritual inquiry in an environment of total acceptance and respect. I could probe and test and wonder in a place where there were no intellectual or spiritual boundaries.

I miss the mental stimulation that I now must find elsewhere ... but I must admit that the Internet has afforded me some extended trips into realms I never dreamed I'd get to explore.

...maybe I'm missing my Unitarian Universalist connections, though, but -- on the other hand -- maybe I'm simply responding to the fact that tomorrow is Easter, and I have my fancy hat but no place to go ... .

That's the problem with Atheism and Humanism; no Easter hat tradition!

Cleaning out the files, again, while responding to the reawakened effects of Good Friday, I suppose ... (once a Catholic ...)

Subj: Re: At the Schoolhouse
Date: 97-10-15
From: CBreaux

Fascinating class at Starr King School for the Ministry today. We were still dealing with Breech's "The Silence of Jesus" (and I had not read the assigned pages) and everyone was filled with questions about the symbolism represented by the parables. My head was still back with Hawking; and the interesting ways those images of the nebulae have been playing against the back of my eyelids all week ... .

Not sure how my mind made the leap, but at some point in the discussion I found myself realizing that -- despite my atheism -- I really have no particular quarrel with either the Jesus-centered stories or with any of the prophets that time has delivered to different places at different times in history. At some subliminal level I must have found that the only times I have trouble with organized religion and theocratic dogma are those times when I've forgotten that the historic Jesus may have been less teacher than seeker, as I am -- as we all are, and that the important thing for me is to try to discover is just what it is that I already know, and that when that great truth (for me) is revealed, it is my suspicion that it will be elegantly simple and that I'll realize that I've known it all along. ("The kingdom of God is within you?")

Maybe that's the fascination for me with Hawking, Einstein et al. They may have tapped into a place that I stumbled upon years ago while crossing that line which "The World" claims for "sanity" and into the realm that the world defines as "madness." It was in that place (during a mental breakdown/breakthrough) that -- for a period of time -- I found myself blessedly out of sync with time. That state of being may be what is required for a full understanding of the universe and those dimensions that we can get brief glimpses of -- only if we are either mad enough, or (as in Hawking and Einstein et al) brilliant enough to transcend the limitations of our humanness.

Betty

Response from the USS Hornet ...

From: "Jon Stanley"
To: Betty Reid Soskin
Date: Monday, March 19, 2007 03:02PM
Subject: RE: Thanks so much for a memorable experience ... .

Betty - the day was memorable for all of us on Hornet, as well. We were indeed honored to have you and the other speakers with us to share your stories and perspectives.

In reading your email, I, too, am glad that you didn't "retreat", but chose to join us and participate in our celebration of "Women in History".

Will you join us for our Glenn Miller Orchestra night? - I certainly hope you can.

Best regards,

Jon Stanley, CEO
USS Hornet Museum

Photo: Singing group of WWII-costumed volunteers called the "Singing Blue Star Moms." They mime to the "Tribute to the Andrews Sisters," recorded classics of the day. They're great!

To the fulfillment of good manners -- and more ...

From: cbreaux@earthlink.net
Sent: Monday, March 19th, 2007 1:16 PM
To: Jon Stanley
Subject: Thanks so much for a memorable experience ...

I will treasure the memory of how overwhelming was the sight of that huge carrier as we approached from the roadway to the pier! How tiny I felt, but how warmly and welcoming were the faces of all we came in contact with over those few hours.

I came so close to calling to cancel as the weekend approached and I, a peace activist, realized that I would be standing on the deck of the USS Hornet, the ultimate symbol of western armed forces dominance at the precise moment that presidential hopeful, Senator Barack Obama, would be appearing in Oakland within just a few miles, and that others with whom I share concerns would be gathering to demonstrate against the war in Iraq -- just over the bridge in San Francisco ... such irony. I was so conflicted ... .

I'm grateful now that I didn't retreat but was able to participate with integrity while surrounded by Blue Star Moms; a woman commander naval pilot of distinction; a tugboat captain; and several civilian flyers -- and still find common ground -- all women who care about our young and pray their safe return. Together we represented the very essence of what it means to be citizens of this great nation -- able to freely express individual versions of patriotism without rancor - and that we could do that on board this great vessel without restraint was a statement that the USS Hornet can be proud of, indeed.

Thanks, again, for an unforgettable day.

Sincerely,

Betty Reid Soskin








Photo: A Blue Star Mom displaying and defending her Marine son who is currently serving in Iraq. This mother was not listed in the program so I don't have her name -- and I suspect that she rose spontaneously from her seat to try to counteract my statement. In looking back, there was obviously room for all opinions. Between us, we aptly provided the polarity that exists in the country.

Memorable Day on board the USS Hornet ...
and to think that I came very close to missing it entirely. But what is needed here is the exchange of emails between the USS Hornet's CEO, Jon Stanley, just yesterday. I'll look them up and post on the next blog entry.

I came home on Saturday afternoon feeling jubilant -- partly from having experienced that gigantic war machine -- the brave walk up that scary gangplank not daring to look down even for an instant! Entering that cavernous deck with its displays from the two times it had served as the pick-up vessel for the space capsules with their precious cargo of John Glenn and the others upon their return from space. It is impossible to not feel the excitement embedded in the walls of that majestic giant. It is impossible not to feel absolutely insignificant as you look around at planes and the other tools of war and space exploration. It is also possible, even for one as anti-war as I, to understand the energy -- the ultimate adrenalin rush that must be present in battle. I could feel my pulse quicken just walking through the exhibits.

Then I saw the flag ... the likes of which I've only seen hanging behind the figure of General George Patton in the movie bearing his name. I would be framed in this setting -- using my allotted ten minutes to explain why I'd come today. That I hadn't realized when I accepted this invitation to participate in the Museum's Women's History Month's celebration -- that it would fall on the weekend of the 4th anniversary of the Iraq war and that those who shared my anti-war feelings would be gathering here and across the nation in major demonstrations. And -- here I would be, standing on board the ultimate symbol of western military dominance, the USS Hornet aircraft carrier, speaking before I knew not whom ... .

I'd decided to not cancel out at the last minute, but to make my own statement in the hope that I could maintain my own integrity by standing by my beliefs, even in this setting. I would rely on the goodwill of these strangers and hope for the best. And -- if I could be so lucky -- the shore patrol wouldn't haul me away and dump me into the estuary!

The other four female panelists were a Cmdr. Lisa Avila of the Naval Air Force; a tugboat captain, two civilian pilots, and a Blue Star Mom carrying an enlarged poster of her marine son now serving in the Middle East. What a place for a peace protester to be!

Then
I'd decided sometime during the night just what I needed to say -- and it came easily:
I'd remembered an incident involving a conference at Asilomar (Stebbins Institute) where I'd heard the author, Ken Kesey, introduce his first lecture in the weeklong series. It was the summer that Kesey and others from many disciplines were on the Stanford University campus as artists in residence -- changing the world as we knew it. It was the summer that heralded San Francisco's Trips Festival, the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore; LSD experimentation in the Summer of Love and the Haight/Ashbury phenomenon. Kesey had published "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and was working on "Sometimes a Great Notion." He was seen as one of the latter day prophets by many in both literature and theology.

I was almost traumatized by that night as Kesey spoke of the flag being merely "...a piece of red, white, and blue bunting" -- only a symbol, and how we confuse that with the reality -- and that it surely did not represent him when flying over Vietnam in a war in which he did not believe. Nor did it represent him when standing beside the throne of the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in some Mississippi town. In illustrating his point he seized the huge American flag from the standard at the edge of the stage, threw it to the floor with a loud crash -- then ground his feet in it! Three young girls seated behind me ran from the chapel in tears. I sat feeling nauseus and cried through much of the night afterward. Surely we had made his point. Bunting, indeed! The description of that event became a chapter in Tom Wolfe's book, "The Electric Acid KoolAid Test." I had no idea how mind-bending that conference was on many levels.

I talked of the effects of that dramatic presentation and - after a sleepless night -- how I'd walked down to lie on the white dunes the next morning -- trying so hard to understand both Kesey's presentation and my own response to it. After all, was this not the extension of what I'd been doing most of my life by refusing to participate fully in the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance? He'd forced me to the crucible, and left me wounded.

I lay on the dunes for most of that foggy morning -- calling up bits and pieces of the founding documents; the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, America and America the Beautiful, the Star Spangled Banner; and I spoke the words aloud while I strummed my guitar and sang the lyrics quietly to myself.

I remembered that when I was a very young teen, I'd given up the words of the Pledge, "..with liberty and justice for all...," and would no longer allow sound to escape my lips -- but would mouth the words so that those around me wouldn't know. I suspected that they didn't know that those words didn't mean me. But I knew. And there was no one to talk with about it at the time. I would learn much later that others "edit" pieces of such writings -- as we emerge into a fuller understanding beyond rote memory.

These words still come to me from time to time just before sleep: "We the people in order to form a more perfect Union ...," and some time later, "Thine alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears" (to my increasingly politically aware young mind -- I heard this as cities of white people unaware of innercity black pain); and the lines from the third verse of America the Beautiful that sings; "America, America, God mend thine every flaw -- confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law;" how powerful is that? And how prophetic.
I remember speaking of the realization that day on the dunes -- that all of those passionately patriotic words were the expressions of poets and visionaries -- that they were never promises carved in stone, nor facts or edicts hammered out in legislative sessions by the rulers. They were aspirations of an America that we must continually re-create with each new generation. Democracy is a dynamic thing that cannot be frozen into form nor shot from the barrel of a gun, nor can it be established through a mandate handed down from the powerful and the privileged.
I'm not sure how much of this I communicated during my ten minutes at the lectern, because I hadn't made notes in preparation. But I do remember saying at least twice during that time -- at the beginning and again at the end -- "We the people in order to form a more perfect Union ..." and that on that day on the dunes I took back the patriotic symbols from those who had claimed them -- and that I knew that I had as much right to define patriotism as anyone, and far more need to hope. And I'm sure that I implied that -- when I'm demonstrating against the war -- I am one of the ordinary American people working hard to "...form a more perfect Union."

It was a memorable day ... a keeper.

Photo: CDR Lisa A. Avila, USN, commanding officer of the Navy Ooperational Support Center, Alameda; Captain Jan Tiura, the first woman tugboat captain on San Francisco Bay. Judy Barker and Billie Sposeto, members of "The Ninety Nines." the world's oldest organization of licensed women pilots.

Betty in the Balcony ... bitchin'!

I was so excited at the prospect of viewing this upcoming documentary by one of the great documentarians of our times; filmmaker Ken Burns. Maybe my expectations were simply too high -- after all, I've been pleased and eventually bored out of my wits by both his "Civil War" and "Jazz," and more recently by a repeat telecast of "Baseball." I keep forgetting how excruciatingly slowww-ly his work unfolds and of how frustratingly maudlin it sometimes becomes in the telling. Forget all that. I was open and willing to adjust my sails and join him for another saga of American life. After all, this was one I knew a little about ... this time I'd have some means of comparison with others ... something of importance to me, personally.

However ...

At the very outset Burns appeared on stage before the curtain to announce that he had quite deliberately chosen to tell the story of World War II from the standpoint of four American cities; Burlington, Connecticutt; Mobile, Alabama; St. Louis, Missouri; and Sacramento, California. Until we arrived at the theater that evening I had no idea why the all-important San Francisco Bay Area had been bypassed for Sacramento since we were surrounded by points of embarkation; the Alameda Naval Air Station; the Oakland Army Base; Oak Knoll Naval Hospital; four Kaiser Permanente shipyards in Richmond; Oakland's Moore's Shipyard and Hunter's Point in San Francisco; Marinship in Marin County; the Letterman Hospital and the Presidio at the edge of the Golden Gate; Port Chicago's arsenal; Lawrence Laboratories where the atom bomb had been developed; Camp Stoneman in nearby Pittsburg; and ultimately the creation of the United Nations just across the Bay in San Francisco only a few years later. All that, plus all manner and means of war-making enterprises and the amassing of man- and womanpower to "do the work" in numbers previously unheard of in all of history. Why then Sacramento?

As if in anticipation of an often-asked question from his pre-screening audiences -- in his first spoken sentences to the sold-out house he said, "We chose Sacramento in order to tell the story of the Japanese who were living in that area and who were interned for the duration of the War; and in some instances fought and died in our armed forces in segregated battalions." There it was. The great filmmaker had gone for the low-hanging fruit, and ignored the story that brought greater socio-political change to the nation than any period since the Civil War of the mid-last century.

He stated quite frankly that he had deliberately chosen to tell the Japanese story over the telling of the African American experience in order to relate the stories through its effects upon a series of individual American families. I felt my heart sink ... but that was only the beginning:

As we watched the footage (fairly long film clips of the 14-hour segments) unfold, I watched in a quiet rage as he pictured from the air -- a long shot of a Japanese internment camp (Manzanar?) to the music of Duke Ellington's "In my solitude ..." as the sound track! Later in another segment showing a village in the Phillipines, and from another shot from the air comes the voice of Billie Holiday singing, "... every time it rains it rains, pennies from heaven." How could this be?

I have no idea how much black music was used (as "American" music, of course) in the telling of this history -- expropriated for the telling of the stories of others -- while the black experiences had been intentionally set aside.

I sat in that balcony feeling marginalized in much the way I'd felt marginalized at twenty as I participated in "The War" from the sidelines in a Jim Crow union hall a few miles away from the building of the great ships. What irony! Was I to give credit for Burns' having captured the period so accurately that those feelings of disaffection returned, authentically, as a part of my truth?

Was there no awareness -- not even in the mind of this talented present-day young documentarian, that the great Duke Ellington and the legendary Billie Holiday could not stay in the hotels where they might be allowed to play as they traveled through the south and beyond in those years? Did he not know that even these now revered historic figures of the music world were consigned to the back of the bus, could not enter the front door of most restaurants, and had to use separate restrooms and find "colored" doctors in times of need while traveling? How could he have been so unknowing as to usurp their music for the telling of the stories of others without understanding that the phantom pain for those of us who lived those years might be reawakened by his insensitivity?

But of course he knew. How could he not after having produced "The Civil War," "Jazz," "Baseball" or even "Mark Twain"? Burns knew but choose to ignore in favor of telling the (also compelling) story of the Japanese-Americans. His right, of course, but in so doing he missed what may have been the crucible of our times -- the time when the baseline was created against which we now can measure the nation's socio-political evolution of the last half-century.

Did he not know that -- within four years after the great explosion at Port Chicago where so many young lives were lost, and largely because of that tragic event combined with the outstanding but unrecognized wartime performance of the Tuskeegee Airman in the skies over Europe -- President Harry Truman brought an end to racial segregation in the armed forces by proclamation and started the country on a decades-long course of incremental change? Was Burns not aware that the seeds of dramatic social change were sown in those years -- seeds that led to the great Civil Rights Revolution of the Sixties 20 years hence -- that opened the doors to the social movements that would bring new energy to the struggle for women's rights; gay rights; and that brought about restitution for the wrongly-interned Japanese-Americans, and even today -- to the review of immigration policies of a new group of freedom-seeking peoples from outside our borders? Could he not have known that -- rising from the World War II experience and the resulting social changes introduced through the black experience on both the battlefield and the home front -- life began to change for us all?

All the way home I kept reminding myself that I was having feelings that were inappropriate to the occasion. After all, Ken Burns had created an epic 14-hour series that was about "The War," and not about "The Home Front." His series was about death and destruction and displacement and more death and destruction -- in the way of earlier works about D-Day and the Landing at Omaha Beach and the Bombing of Dresden -- and my responses were emotional and unfair. I was seeing this cherubic filmmaker suddenly as overly pious and a bit precious with his little-boy-British-haircut and prep school blazer and I was being critical in ways that I'd regret tomorrow as unnecessarily narrow and cruel.

But -- most of all -- I was again feeling that unfinished -- awful -- unrequited need for that apology. Understanding. Attention, maybe! And most of all, some sense that in some way someone will notice the staggering and debilitating on-going agony of the black youth of our times and make the connections with times that predicted their tragedy by ignoring the societally-inflicted wounds of the past they have no way to remember; except when the documentarians, the filmmakers, begin to tell their stories through the telling of the heroic and sacrificial stories of their parents and grandparents -- and tell them honestly, comprehensively with full disclosure -- as a major force in American history. Or, to forever consign those stories to insignificance by the simple act of omitting them from the record.

How dare he!

I'm in the throes of adjusting to the time change and I'm only now waking from a long and restless night of tossing and turning ...

It's almost 10:00 a.m. and I'm just now becoming alive again. Through the fog of half-sleep I heard my little clock radio pop on somewhere just before daylight -- it was a string of announcements about this weekend's demonstrations demanding the end of the war in Iraq. My early morning radio is always tuned to our Pacifica radio flagship station, KPFA-FM, and today was no different; except that ... .

I was suddenly wide awake and sitting up with a start that dropped the television remote (stashed under my hand in sleep) to the floor with a downstairs-neighbor-disturbing thud. The announcer was talking about Saturday's schedule of anti-war activities. There would be marching in the streets, locally, for those who can't make it to Washington, D.C., or any of the nearby population centers. These are my people. Never mind that few of my contemporaries are any longer able to show up -- but there had been that call from "Grandmother's For Peace" that I'd not returned. I marched with that group in a protest against the war to the downtown Oakland recruitment office last year; joining with friendly faces from various parts of my past. I'd planned to do the same this year -- but in the busyness of my extraordinary life I'd lost all thought of just when that would be. This is that weekend.

The day is here -- Saturday -- and I'm scheduled to be standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier delivering a 15-minute statement in honor of Women's History Month at that very hour! On the deck of the USS Hornet; and doing so as a representative of the World War II generation of women. What irony!

I must now pick up the telephone and place a call to the events planner for the Hornet and either announce my regrets -- given my anti-war position -- or let her know that my comments may not be in keeping with the occasion. Or, do I simply seize the time and make my "End the War and Bring the Troops Home Now!" statement? Where would I find a more opportunistic forum -- and right there in the belly of the beast? Would I be risking being unceremoniously escorted off the ship brutishly by the civilian version of the shore patrol? Do I dare risk losing my job because I felt compelled to act out my anti-war feelings in a public forum? But then I remembered that I'm a private contractor and not really a federal employee at all, so (except for the judgement call) I'm my own agent. I've surely done this before - but I was far younger and prettier and better able to confront power in ways that may simply be unbecoming to an older woman ... .

But I've left out an important entry in my blog that may explain the dilemma far better. It has to do with having attended the PBS/KQED-sponsored Ken Burns preview of his epic 14-hour documentary called, "WAR!," to be aired in the fall. It was shown to a packed house in the Castro Theater in San Francisco two weeks ago, and included a Q&A with the filmmaker at the end of the screening -- plus a seething Betty seated in the topmost row of the balcony wanting to scream in protest to what was being shown and what had been deliberately omitted!

But suffices to say that the experience served to build a fire under my reaction to this early-morning string of announcements of anti-war activities played against my upcoming appearance on that panel on board the USS Hornet on the same day they're gathering at Justin Herman Plaza readying for the march to the Federal Building in San Francisco!

... but I may need to let some of the angst settle before I write more.

Peace.

Speaking engagements are now frequent enough to begin to provide some confidence that, "yes!" I can do this ... .

Lucy and I spent the morning meeting with a group of young people in the adult education program of the West Contra Costa Unified School District. Their ages were (with one or two exceptions) between 18 and 22. Interesting bunch; mostly male.

I'd received a call from teacher, Nancy Ng, a few weeks ago inviting us to meet with her students in relation to Black History Month. She wanted them to learn something about the local history. As it turned out, last month was a busy one and we couldn't meet her schedule. This morning, here we were, a few days late but ready to give it a try.

Lucy started out by providing the more scholarly information about World War II and its effects upon the Bay Area in general and the City of Richmond in particular. I always enjoy her impromptu presentations and learn something new from them each time. We've fallen easily into a kind of casual ad libbing kind of presentation that goes wherever the expressions on the faces of the audience leads us. It's always fun when there are interruptions; questions that tell us the kids are involved -- and we're happy to veer off course to take advantage of the interest in the side bars.

I tend to become one of the "interrupters," in that I pop in when- and wherever there's an opening and Lucy recedes enough into the background to make room for my bits and pieces.

This morning I found myself relating to these young people as a kind of "peer" in that it was easy to drop into one of the many people that I am or have become over all these years -- which allowed the 20 year-old Betty to rise to the forefront and join the other 20 year-olds in the room. Strange.

I heard myself saying to them that they were in the process of making history right this minute -- history that could only be viewed in retrospect years hence -- just as I was a little file clerk in a Jim Crow union hall some distance from the frenetic day-and-night building of the great ships of war. That I never saw a ship during those years, and still I was a part of a history that shaped the world.

It is important to note that during those years countries went to war. Now armies do.

It was an interesting morning, and those youngsters caught the spirit of our presentation. We took photos together at the end, and they were invited into the "building of a national park" along with our park staff -- and -- I believe we will see them again at some point.

On Saturday I will be one of the speakers in honor of Women's History Month -- on board the USS Hornet, the aircraft carrier now a museum on the shoreline -- moored in Alameda, California. Not sure who else will share the dais with me, but it will be another adventure -- and I'll get to see that giant war vessel along with the crowds, and feel the now-sleeping but awesome power in that huge ship after over sixty years of knowing them only on film.

Tomorrow we will make a presentation on Richmond's history for Ma'at Environmental Youth Academy. These are teens who will be hearing most of what we have to teach for the very first time. If they're anything like today's group, it will be great fun. This same bunch will be taken on a bus tour on Saturday morning (prior to the visit to the USS Hornet) when we will visit some of the World War II-related sites that are now a part of the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home/Front National Historical Park.

It would be so easy to get caught up in the glorification of war and forget that mine is not the story of war at all -- but simply memories of a time of great confusion, of fear, of not being sure just who the enemy was, of learning that I was less than ... , and the experience of participating in the sowing of the seeds of the great Civil Rights movement of modern times. It would be so easy to lose all of that in this work. What a pity that would be ... so sad if I begin to forget the futility of killing in the name of forcefully exporting democracy through the barrel of a gun -- democracy that has not been realized at home, even now. So sad if we get caught up in heralding old wars and forget the lessons learned so cruelly, and without conscience and born of greed and avarice and the arrogance of the empire builders! How can I admit that I feel a revulsion -- even in the face of the reality of some Hitlerian figure rising -- when I hear someone speak of, "...the Good War"?

Will it be possible to remain true to myself in this process of national park building? Will it be possible to celebrate the gains won through those struggles and still remember the explosion at Port Chicago not as a blast that destroyed a small town and collapsed the walls of its small theater -- but as the place where 202 lives of untrained and unprotected young black navy men were lost tragically and needlessly?

Will it be possible to join with my community in planning next fall's first annual Home Front Festival -- to help in the planning of the commemorative USO dance when I know that I would not have been allowed to attend during those war years? Do I become a spoiler when I remind the dance committee of the Chamber of Commerce of that disturbing truth? Has enough time passed so that I can set aside those painful memories (and that the reason I recall Port Chicago and hearing that terrifying sound and feel of the explosion on the night of July 14, 1944 is because that small group of servicemen were guests at a party in our small apartment in Berkeley because they could not attend the USO dances. Their young bodies were most probably among the dead when the smoke cleared. We never knew their names ... .)

The greatest challenge of this work may be whether I can keep my perspective clear and clean and not lose the lessons of these past 60-odd years in the noises of the present ...?

Nothing comes easy ... but then, life is complex ... and therein lies the magic.

Just in case you're wondering ... my mind is made up. I'll work to elect Senator Barack Obama to the presidency!

But now I'm off to work and clarification of how I reached that decision will have to wait until time allows.

It wasn't easy after my recent visit to the Clinton Library in Little Rock and a renewal of my good feelings about Hillary's candidacy and what it will mean to the cause of feminism, but -- after watching Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for these past years -- it's become painfully clear that she did about as much damage to gender politics as George Bush did for the concept of white supremacy. There has to be other ways of measuring the capacity to lead.

More later.

I really need to stop reading these studies ... or to be more selective in who I allow to fiddle around with my head ...

Everywhere I look these days -- especially while driving along the gritty streets of the Iron Triangle on my way to my office cubicle -- I see a cruel confirmation of the WWII past that I'm exploring in my work. Case in point:

I learned from a talk by a (white) San Francisco State researcher at a Black History Month event at Geoffrey's Inner Circle last week that; "...though the GI bill guaranteed a brighter future for returning servicemen and women, it meant little to veterans of color." He continued, "...the bill gave a jump start to whites, but by a clever device the legislature wrote it to be administered locally and not federally." This meant that local banks had the power through their loan programs to determine that blacks would only be allowed to purchase property (homes) in industry-agreed-upon "black catch basins" and that loan costs would discourage home ownership. The difference in loan costs between blacks and whites persists to this day, as do interest and insurance rates. With access to employment seriously limited except for government agencies (mostly the U.S. Postal Service), qualifying for loans was extremely difficult. Racial covenants -- born of the wartime population boom facilitated by fears of the huge migration of blacks from southern states to answer the call for homefront workers -- were used by the banking industry to contain and limit home ownership to whites only.

I remember with some bitterness that -- in 1950 -- the Walnut Creek building site for the home our family would share for the next 20 years, was only made possible by having our friend Dorothy Wilson (white attorney) the wife of African American attorney Lionel Wilson make the purchase for us. At that time Lionel would undoubtedly have been in the same position as we; though he later was appointed a judge of the Superior court and, eventually, would serve as the first black mayor of the City of Oakland.

The same was true in the wake of WWII with regard to higher education. Where whites had a universe of schools from which to choose, blacks were still barred from many educational institutions throughout the South, GI bill or not. There was only one black medical school in the nation, as I recall -- and that was Meharry -- from which my uncle, Dr. Raleigh Coker, graduated in the early teens of the last century. It would be another twenty or more years before James Meridith would knock at the doors of "Ole Miss," or before the defiance of the courageous 9 black students -- and the year-long standoff at Central High in Little Rock.

The legacy of deprivation is still clearly seen here in Richmond where I live and work, and throughout much of the country where the misguided former University of California Regent Ward Connerly and his battles against Affirmative Action has lowered accessibility to higher learning for African Americans here and elsewhere. The result is that the seething black anger has become internalized and suicidal since few remember its genesis, so have no way to use it constructively. You can't expect those who have been educationally deprived to be able to separate out what is personal from what is systemic, so are doomed to self-doubt and a sense of justified rejection. How sad!

Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, et al, focussed the rage and gave it voice that created community and a means for collectively dealing with it. The nation has gone deaf on the issues that consume us, and few any longer bear any sense of responsibility or accountability. The vacant looks in the eyes of alienated kids I see aimlessly gathering together on street corners are frightening -- not because they're evil -- but because their pain and disaffection is so clearly marked in their faces, in their music, and in their poetry. The distance between our worlds is now so great that I have no faith in the notion that it will be bridged in my declining lifetime.

Why do I care at my age? It's because my grandchildren, too, are standing across that abyss and I can't help them to navigate the ocean of alienation that it's taken me over 80 years to traverse. Given the prospects of the world for the creation of peace and environmental justice, there may not be enough time for the next generation to reverse what earlier generations have wrought.

And -- are there any others who still can remember ...?

My but it's been a long time ...

If you've been following this blog for a while, you must have thought that I'd either died or ole Al Zeimers had caught up with me and I'd lost control over either my mind or my fingers! Neither is true. However, what I have lost is control over my emotions. For reasons I'm only now beginning to understand and accept, for months now I've been experiencing a deep seething festering anger. It's a kind of rage that's entirely strange in some respects, but has a familiar ring to it -- as if stored somewhere deep in my psyche since childhood. My last post shows evidence of the first signs of an inner struggle that is now fully exploding into a dull non-focussed but debilitating ache that wakes me from sleep, and that bars rational and consistent thoughts from forming. Writing became impossible.

It was undoubtedly born in Papa George's truck garden when -- as an impressionable little girl I first heard the stories of life in St. James Parish, and about Mamma and slavery as experienced long ago -- about those black men whose bodies were found rotting in the Mississippi -- about so much awfulness that my child's mind was unable to process at the time ... .

My work here at the park has enlivened that deeply-troubled collective past shared with others like me -- reading recent studies about the World War II era from black scholars who are only now beginning to work on the period and make the connections; and who are now reaching out in some cases -- through cyberspace to add to my work through theirs.

Since I wrote last I've spoken for the AFL-CIO Laborfest; the School Board, the Richmond City Council; and most importantly, at the Richmond's Veterans Memorial hall before the (all-Black) 761st Tank Battalion Auxiliary that served so heroically with Patton in WWII, and that led the Battle of the Bulge and freed a prison camp and those awaiting death in the ovens of the Nazis. (Are you aware of the irony of an all-black unit fighting for democracy?) As we watched together the History Channel-produced documentary on the experience of those daring black soldiers who were hailed as heroes in Europe only to return home by way of the "back of the bus" and to full racial segregation -- my cynicism and anger re-surfaced. Our local connection to this film was that the national Commander, Floyd Dade, had recently passed away. His widow, Edris, was in the audience as we watched; a lovely woman. Her husband was one of the veterans of the 761st profiled in the documentary. I recalled as I watched that this giant of a man's obituary described him as the father of six and , "...a janitor in one of San Francisco's public schools" at the time of his death.

In preparation for the Auxiliary's Black History event I'd gone on line and read the Dade's oral history. It was truly a story of heroism under fire under a system that demanded that all black men be supervised by white officers because (as stated in the film) everyone knew that "... black soldiers could never be trusted to not run at the first sound of gunfire when in battle."

I'm thinking that this event (only two weeks ago) was the place where the smoldering rage began to persistently define itself -- to hold tight -- and to not let go without redress. Maybe over the next few weeks I can use my fingers and this keyboard to begin that process.

It may be that mine is a particularly insightful mind, or, that a natural talent for analytical thinking has taken over and combined with this summation of life that arrived over the past few years as the direct result of the aging process. Not sure of the 'why' of it, but I am certain that the flashes of revelations that wash over me from time to time now are real and true and important.

And, of this I am certain: Before I leave this earth -- someone owes me an apology! And that isn't "me" singular, but all of those who have gone through this schizophrenic life of paralyzing confusion rooted in the problem of never being able to actually know just who the "enemy" was/is and just how to confront a system that had never come to terms with its own past -- its own reality.

The final insult may lie in the fact that -- as a part of my work -- I've been involved in making presentations for the purposes of celebrating Black History Month while realizing all the while that I hate it! In a strange way -- though I know that we fought to have it established as a way of honoring our past -- we have allowed ourselves to be entrapped in a situation where we've carved out a limited period to remember while the rest of the year is reserved for others. In the words of the author Tim Wise (White Like Me), "We've got all the rest of them. They're called January, March, April, May, etc., all months reserved for the privileged!" At what point will we know that black history is really our national US history, and that until we learn to incorporate all of it into some cohesive whole, we will have simply re-segregated even our past? New thoughts -- and disturbing.

Over the past (silent) months, I've been busier than ever, and am in the midst of re-writing the script of "... Of lost conversations and untold stories." The little DVD has caught fire and I've been asked to expand it from its present 4 minutes 21 seconds to a full half-hour documentary.
I've been struggling with that -- mostly because I find that I've said what I wanted to say with the original rough draft that is now on YouTube.com -- and my unwritten rule with myself is that -- when I run out of truth -- I stop writing. It's quite possible that some of the power in the piece is in its brevity. It is dense with information, and actually seems longer than it actually is.

I met with a consultant on Friday. He is Steve Gilford, Kaiser Permanente historian, whose work is deeply-rooted in the World War II era. It was from Steve's studies that I learned some of the facts that were included in the first piece. I told him of my writer's block and of my idle games of online Solitaire as I try endlessly to recapture and broaden the themes of the original. His advice, "...toss it. Just send me a list of a few of the things that you want to say to us. If some of the original creeps back in, good. Maybe it will go someplace entirely new...".

That I will do; but not until I either get a handle on this disembodied rage that's been building for months and years, or until I can begin to transform that into what I'm needing now to make my case.

Maybe I can use this forum ... maybe... .