Those WWII-related PBS Specials are about to be aired... .

On the weekend of September 29-30th the 1st Annual Home Front Festival by the Bay (www.homefrontfestival.com) will be held here in Richmond. We've been gearing up for it for weeks with bi-monthy meetings now morphing into bi-weekly ones, and at times, daily meetings standing in doorways or quick sessions in the parking lot. It's a crazy time for us all.

The festival will fall during the showing of Ken Burns' epic series, "The War!" with several PBS one-hour local specials airing that week as well. I've been interviewed for at least 3 of those about to be aired.

Received an advance copy of the KCET-TV PBS production on Saturday. This would be the session with the California Connected production crew that came up from Southern California some weeks ago. So much has happened since that time, I had no idea what would show up on the DVD. As it happens, I'm on camera for all of 3 seconds, in two places. In the first -- a single line clipped from the hour-and-a-half of talk is absolutely untrue! They've taken out of context the line, "...African Americans could not live in the city of Richmond." Anyone with half a brain knows that Richmond was the site of the largest HUD program of temporary war housing constructed in the nation and that many of those units were occupied by African Americans. The second line is accurate and I spoke it well through my veil of wrinkles (but didn't my necklace of garnets look great?). It was this, "...it registered on the Richter Scale in Berkeley." That's it; the sum total of my part in the proceedings. This followed scenes of the tragic explosion at Port Chicago in July 0f 1944.

And you know what? It's a great production. It bears the title, "California at War" and is a truly impressive account of the war years with many film clips that I've never seen before, and with an overview of the period that was great. Original music (I think), and the careful and evenhanded telling of the story made this a major production fine enough for Emmy consideration.

Some of the other talking heads were people known to me; Tom Debley, Kaiser Permanente historian; Kevin Starr, esteemed State of California historian; Maggie Gee, of the University of California, Berkeley; and others.

Watch for it. It has already been shown in Southern California -- twice during late August -- and is scheduled for viewing in the Bay Area on September 20, at 3:00 in the afternoon, I'm told, but you'll want to check your own program schedules for changes.

Despite my less than compelling performance, I'm really proud to have been a part of this important work. Now I can't wait to see what the other two documentaries will show. I believe that I'm seen for an additional ten seconds (I'm sure) in both the KTEH (PBS-San Jose) one-hour special, then again in one that was created by KQED (PBS-San Francisco). I'm guessing that -- all together -- my on-screen appearances will amount to less than a minute, and that may be an exaggeration; and it's probably just as well.

It matters not. These are fine documentaries, and to have been chosen to help tell this important story is to be greatly honored by some very creative professionals.

But now I'm real-ly curious ... .

Photo: The launching of the SS Red Oak Victory, one of the last victory ships built in the Kaiser Permanente Shipyards in Richmond. She served as late as the Vietnam War and is presently moored at Shipyard II while being lovingly restored by veterans of the Maritime Service, and others.

The immigration issue keeps gnawing at me. It sits there at the front of my brain waiting to be resolved ...

And -- I surely don't have enough ego to believe that I, alone, can solve it. The problem is that this is one of those times when I have friends on all sides of the issue -- friends whom I respect and admire. It's my own ill-defined position that troubles me.

It came up again for me this week when an invitation arrived announcing a big meeting being held at Easter Hill United Methodist church where the matter will be discussed by leaders of the black community. The questions to be explored are those that I've asked myself repeatedly over time. To hear the opinions of other African Americans who are struggling with the same issues would be extremely valuable. Why, then, have I not responded to the invitation? Why do I remain so conflicted? Did I just accidentally trash the email? Or, does the fact that I did so indicate a reluctance to face my own feelings about it? Interesting questions.

I've rarely ever ducked out on confronting controversial issues -- but this one continues to gnaw at me without resolution.

Think I'll go back to my mailbox -- read it over (if it's still there) and try to struggle my way through it this weekend. I need to know for myself just where I stand -- and in a way that is direct and uncomplicated and that will resonate with my family and friends who still look to me for guidance from time to time in matters of politics.

If I can't find a solid position that I can defend in my present state of mind-- then I must reconsider by re-framing the questions in order to allow myself to change the way I'm thinking about it.

Maybe it is this that is so difficult.

This sure beats the hell outa Bingo Nite at the Senior Center!

I'm not at all sure that this is what is meant by the term "Civic Engagement," but hey ...!

What a party!

Something wonderful is happening in this city, and we're all a part of it. The somber beginnings of the Fourth Street Park's annual picnic and barbecue gave way to a most wholesome and delightful community event imaginable. There were children everywhere, and families; nonprofits tabling and food vendors galore. There was great entertainment from a portable stage -- headed up by the New Orleans Gumbo Jazz Band from who knows where -- who were wonderful followed by the performers from the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts -- located in the Iron Triangle for about 40 years! The music was irresistible and when these photos were taken I'd succumbed to the traditional "Second Line" lure and found myself snaking my way in rhythm with the rest, waving my white rag while dancing along beside Jacqueline Vaca from the Redevelopment Agency twirling her purple umbrella! We circled the park a couple of times dancing to "When the Saints go marchin' in...", gathering more and more folks along the way as the contagion spread and caught others up in the joy of it all.

Back story: Within the first few minutes after I arrived from Berkeley, a photographer/historian friend from U.C. Santa Cruz approached and told me that he'd heard one of the men who hang out in this park regularly say to someone, "...if they wanna do sumpthin' good with this park, we can always do our boozin' someplace else!" Here was someone with absolutely nothing to his name offering to give up even his turf for the good of the order.

But the best was yet to come.

An hour or so later as I walked the long block back to my car -- and in so doing passed an open garage where; sitting in a back corner -- was Mrs. Lillie Mae Jones, matriarch of the Iron Triangle. She has been valiantly battling city hall for many decades for this community and is about to be honored by having a new housing development named in her honor. She has been wheelchair-bound for years and spends almost as much time now in the hospital as she does at home.

Lillie is visibly fragile now, and looks weary and in pain much of the time. I heard my name called while walking past so turned and headed back to where she was sitting in her wheelchair at the back of the garage -- two dogs and a small child huddled nearby. Lillie Mae said little, but waved to the child and asked that she go upstairs and "...get that picture for me." She greeted me with few words -- I sensed that she wasn't feeling well. It was also clear that this encounter was no accident. I waited for the child to return without a lot of talk; just a few pleasantries between us. She had been at the picnic earlier and may have been waiting to catch me in just this way.

When the little girl came back she was clutching something quite small in her little palm which she handed to Lillie Mae who then gave it to me with the words, "...this is my brother. He worked on the Home Front in the war. I want you to have it." Here was what was obviously a treasured possession and this was really a mini-ceremony as she released it to me with great solemnity. It was his worker's badge from Bethlehem Steel Yard in San Francisco. It held a tiny photograph. "I got some other stuff to give you when you have time to stop by." With those few words I felt dismissed. It was a precious moment I won't soon forget.

And now I was quietly pleased that I'd not changed out of uniform. This was an extremely important gift that was being presented not to me, but to an institution. This was gaining status for her now deceased brother by giving this record of his existence and his work to be honored by a federal institution. I could not have been more deeply honored than to serve as the bridge between this remarkable African American woman and a national agency that I'm growing to revere more with each day.

Tomorrow I will go back to take the proper forms that will give even more shape and solemnity to the ritual of the giving of this important artifact to our museum collection. This may be the first such gift we have from an African American male veteran of the Home Front war effort.

Maybe we need to add a chapter to the manual on Civic Engagement that will validate my non-traditional approach.

What an amazing and glorious day!


Photos by Ellen Gailing

Okay, let's get back to the unfolding of my new life as park ranger Betty ...

Over the weekend I got to test my ability to adapt to the demands of being (like comic Kathy Griffin) a "D-list celebrity". It's a mixed blessing. On the one hand I fully enjoy the new respect being shown for the National Park Service and for my role in it. The wearing of the uniform will take some getting used to since hardly anyone is as impressed by it as I am. Truly. I'm in awe of it, and will probably have to watch myself closely for signs of arrogance in the days to come. I feel at least six inches taller, and it is never more apparent than when I'm acting as a tour guide with my ranger partner.

Before I was uniformed, properly hatted, and badged, I sat quietly in one of the seats on the bus (somewhere near the middle) believing that the most important part of my work had already been completed in the managing of the logistics of the tour; taking the reservations; keeping the roster and doing the confirmations; seeing to it that the physical arrangements were properly completed, etc. That was enough. Since by the time all of this was accomplished, I had established a relationship with the 20 "tourists" and it felt right to be a part of the tour, itself. I had become a kind of link between the park and our guests. I saw this as proper civic engagement. That has changed rather dramatically.

Since becoming an authentic tour guide, I stand proudly behind the driver with my co-guide (a fantastic historian and interpreter) who carries the lion's share of the narration, but now I'm actively adding to the presentation; filling in the blanks; sharing my own stories of the period being careful to include any and all references to the racial segregation effects extant during those years. I'm discovering that there were a lot more words under this hat than I've ever have guessed! I'm fast becoming a kind of "authority" on the period, and am finding it easy to do that presentation factually and with little anger or emotion. It has the flavor of being a performance, so to speak. That history simply was. I've arrived at these advanced years with a sense of moral rightness being on my side and with little need to blame. Truth makes its own statement, and I can see people "getting it." What an amazing experience... .

Back to this weekend: I'd been invited to attend the centennial celebration of San Pablo Park in Berkeley. It was to include the unveiling of a huge plaque honoring Mrs. Frances Albrier, legendary activist/feminist who'd played a role in my own life. She was a dear friend of my grandfather, "Papa George" Allen, my best friend in childhood. Frances Albrier was one of the first "Rosies," having actively crashed through the barriers of racism of the unions and gotten herself hired at the Kaiser Shipyards as one of the first black women to get work. It felt right to be there as a uniformed representative of the Rosie the Riveter new national park -- to honor her memory.

Papa George and I would drive out from East Oakland to San Pablo Park in his little Model T every Sunday where I would sashay around the courts and shyly check out the boys (I was about 14) while Papa and uncle, "Daddy Joe" Warnie watched the barnstorming black baseball clubs play the California Eagles. I remember the Birmingham Black Barons well, one of my uncles knew one of the players.

It was those trips to the black baseball games that inspired those two old codgers to go into business together making and selling the most god-awful pralines (pronounced prah-leens, thank you) at the games. I still remember those ghastly bright pink coconut "splats" that would stain your hands for days! I think it took no more than one baseball season to discourage any more concoctions in the ole Kandy Kitchen in Daddy Joe's backyard! But the games went on as did the Penny Ante card games on Saturday nights and our trips to San Pablo park.

This was also the park where the Northern and Southern California African American tennis clubs competed every year with our players, (later Judge and Oakland Mayor Lionel Wilson, Attorney and newspaper publisher, Tom Berkeley, et al) drawing huge crowds of spectators. This park was the background of much of my social life as an adolescent.

It was at San Pablo Park on just such a Sunday that I met Mel Reid, the man I was to marry a few years later. He was a handsome 17 year-old sitting on his bike with the canvas saddlebags holding the newspapers he was delivering that day. He later -- during WWII -- served this same park as its head playground director days while working in the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond on the swing shift. This was a big one, "nostalgia-wise" for me. So much so that I decided to attend in full uniform. It was a kind of coming home since Frances Albrier was a dear friend of Papa George's with whom he occasionally played cards on weekends.

Once there I felt over-dressed. My "honoring" of their memory was a private thing. I had no reason or need to impress anyone. I'd asked my supervisor on Friday whether I should consider this invitation to attend the Berkeley celebration an official event and she'd given the go-ahead. I was not all that comfortable once there.

The only saving grace was that there were hundreds of children there and seeing little girls glance at me admiringly held its own magic. I'm aware now that each time I'm in a public situation I "announce" the opening of a new career path to those children who have never seen a park ranger of color in uniform and that's a powerful message to send.

In the middle of the ceremony my cell phone rang (wouldn't you know it?) and it was someone from another celebration taking place some miles away back in Richmond -- the annual Fourth Street Park celebration, that I'd never attended before. Being in huge crowds in the infamous Iron Triangle was a daunting experience that I generally opted out of. This feeling had never prevented me from attending meetings at the on-site Nevin Center, even at night, but a festival with its large crowds of revelers was another kettle of fish.

I made a quick decision when a second call came. I would go. It was now early afternoon and the party would be in its early stages and .... but I was still in uniform.


Photo: Proceedings at the Fourth Street Park Festival started with a parade against violence that featured these coffins representing lives lost through street violence in the Iron Triangle over recent weeks. Chilling, but effective. This was followed by prayer and a brief sermon by member of the clergy. An ominous beginning to what turned out to be an absolutely glorious Day!

Back Story ...

Been thinking about that last entry since writing it. As in most instances, it tells only a part of the story. What I need to add is this:

That seemingly irrational legislation that made it impossible for the mentally-retarded to undergo tubal ligation procedures had a reasonable and rational beginning. It was originally designed to halt a cruel practice being forced upon poor and mostly black female welfare recipients who were receiving assistance through the ANC (Aid To Needy Children) program in the State of California. When such young women were seen as drains upon the system by having more children than some well-meaning social worker considered practical -- given their inability to support them financially-- they were often sterilized during a delivery -- and at times, with or without their permission. These dependent and often single women were viewed as using multiple pregnancies to garner for themselves incomes they could not otherwise have earned. They were commonly seen as abusing the system and deserving of their fate; a judgment that may or may not have been warranted, and was certainly questionable.

At some point this was challenged, and legislation came into being that would deny any agency the right to sterilize women -- especially those who were often illiterate or under-educated. The legislation was a perfectly rational answer to an irrational and punitive practice. Unfortunately, the mentally-retarded were caught in the glitch. They still are. I don't believe those laws were ever intended to accomplish what they've imposed on the mentally disabled. And most of us have forgotten how those regulations came into being in the first place and what motivated their passage into law.

The law reads (I'm paraphrasing, of course): "A woman cannot undergo sterilization who is incapable of informed consent."

It was for this reason that I took the responsibility to act on my own and disregard a ruling that I was sure was not reasonable and was quite possibly illegal. I was fully prepared to do it as an act of civil disobedience, with the full expectation that -- if challenged -- I would pay the penalty in order to have the issue addressed and the ruling overturned. I had legal counsel in anticipation of some challenge from those concerned. It didn't come to that, fortunately. It's clear that no one really wants to deal with the issue so it continues to victimize the retarded.

An analogous situation might be the curb cuts that were created to make easier the life of the physically-disabled confined to wheelchairs. No one could foresee that this wonderful and enabling adaptation of street corners would place the blind in jeopardy. Those without sight could no longer be certain when they'd come to the end of a block since a white cane may or may not pick up the curb's edge before its owner stumbled into oncoming traffic ... .

At times the law of unintended consequences can have a cruel and unseen edge.

Sometimes you truly need to go it alone ... with eyes wide open and compassion as a guide. Even then there are no guarantees.

Photo: This is a sculpture that Dorian worked on for weeks. Not sure what it represents, lots of small pieces of wood brightly painted and piled high ... she was very excited for that period and spoke about it in different ways at different times. It was eventually disassembled and became parts of other sculptures ... having many lives. Click on this thumbnail to see the detail. It's quite stunning, I think.

About that admission of having prevented Dorian from having a child ... ever.

As I became aware of the fact that her body was maturing naturally, and that it would follow that her sexuality would begin to emerge. That the hunger for sexual fulfillment would not be denied by her intellectual inadequacies. And that what we were facing was a decision that would be difficult but necessary -- if she were going to be allowed to live out that part of her being that was uneffected by her deficits. It was not her body that was disabled, but her mind.

I began to talk about my new awareness with her social workers and case manager over several months. It quickly became clear that the answers were cloudy and that the professionals (psychologists, social workers, etc.) were terribly uncomfortable with the subject, and that case law would be of little help.

The first shocking discovery came from a conference at Asilomar one summer -- one involving concerned parents and case workers and representatives from a variety of nonprofits and vendors charged with the caring for this population. When I dared to publicly ask my questions in an open session, I found myself pounced upon by several outraged parents wanting me to answer the question (when I asked about the advisability of sterilization), "...and what will you do if she finds a normal man who wants to marry her despite her mental disabilities?" I'd never even imagined such a possibility. It had never dawned ... could such a man be considered normal? What on earth were these kind people suggesting? Was this classic denial?

From a social worker: "Sterilization is against the law in the State of California due to the reality that your daughter is incapable of giving informed consent." Now. This was the awful truth. I would never have guessed at such stupidity. It was ludicrous. She would be forced to procreate, produce another life with no capacity to parent a child. While those who held the power over such decisions wanted to frame the discussion in terms of her inalienable rights, I was equally determined to find someone who would talk with me about her right not to bear children.

In an instant I suspected that such a law could only be enacted by men. Women would never agree to such a travesty. Only a man would believe that women can only be fulfilled by giving birth, and that a woman who did not follow her fate by so doing was not a woman at all. And that to prevent pregnancy in the retarded was cruel and inhumane. Hogwash!

I'd seen a parade of recently-made films romanticizing the developmentally disabled (I Am Sam, Forest Gump), and I was appalled! I loved my daughter too much to ever be persuaded to place her in such an impossible way of life.

As her mother, I was aware that doll play never worked with Dorian. She would bring the dolls to me to be dressed and fed. Problem was that she knew that I was the mother. She had no abstract ability and couldn't envision herself as a mother at all. She couldn't project herself into the future -- couldn't weigh consequences or alternatives (as she still cannot, though she has developed a bit over the years). Was I the only one in that grand hall who knew that?

I came home from the conference. In a few days I found a sympathetic and courageous physician with whom Dorian and I visited several times, until he felt she was reasonably aware of the procedure and why, and it was done. Some days later we saw one of her friends from a former program on the streets near her old group home -- pushing a stroller holding an infant with two small children holding onto her skirts as they found their way home from the grocery store. Such a pity! Her religious parents had insisted upon Sarah's right to bear ... . When the parents are gone, her siblings will fall heir to these children along with their mother -- and the weight of all those lives will move into the next generation for caretaking.

This will not happen to Dorian nor to her brothers. They are free to care for her from a distance -- leaving room for their own lives and responsibilities -- because she has been made as independent as is possible, given her deficits. Their attitude toward her is loving. She is learning -- after a fashion -- to find her own way, albeit it somewhat unsteadily, in the world. To be an artist who may be able to supplement her disability pension and social security through her art plus her share of family assets upon my death.

To any parent among you who may be struggling with a similar responsibility, your answer may not be the one that I've chosen, but I wish with all my heart that I'd known how other parents had responded to these questions when I felt so alone in making these critical choices.

It is to you that I send these words.

Follow your intuition guided by love. You have been given both.

Photo: This is made of mardi gras beads glued to canvas, but she didn't give it a name. It is quite beautiful. It's interesting to me that she deals with abstractions with great ease in her art while incapable of it intellectually. The mind is a mysterious and magical thing ... .

Life has its way of humbling even those of us flirting with true celebrity ...

On this past Monday, even before the confetti had stopped falling -- in fact -- at the very moment that I was standing before the cameras participating in a press conference in nearby City of Oakland's City Hall at the request of Mayor Ron Dellums' office -- it was happening. On the streets of the Iron Triangle in Richmond Dorian was fighting for her life. I wouldn't learn of it for several hours.

For the past year she has been living in public housing in mid-town Richmond as a client of the Regional Center of the East Bay and in the care of the Harmony House program, one of its vendors. The Regional Center is funded by the Lanterman Act of the State of California which was created to support the lives of the mentally-retarded and those living with Autism. She has been supported in this way since she was very young; one of the great programs of this state -- though plagued by ever-increasing budget cuts now for many years. The safety net that this ground-breaking legislation was intended to provide has now all but disappeared, making it almost impossible for its clients to live independently out in communities without almost impossible risks.

Since Dorrie was very young, I've been deeply aware of my responsibility to prepare her throughout life for living without me in it. That has meant teaching her to use the systems in place for her instead of using them myself on her behalf; not an easy assignment. It has been painful at times when it would have been so much easier to do that in ways that lent comfort to my mother's zeal. That would surely have meant holding her in a state of perpetual infancy; intolerable and unfair to her.

This has meant taking risks and at times, going against the professionals in charge of her life. Most times , I've opted to follow my own intuition and bucked the system when I felt it necessary -- like making it impossible for her to produce children in favor of allowing her to live out her sexuality without fear of bringing forth another life that she could not parent; in this state I acted illegally, but I am still convinced, wisely.

The call came on my cell phone. She was sobbing wildly and could hardly speak! She had been attacked on the street and her cell phone taken away. A woman had grabbed her around the neck leaving huge scratch marks where the skin had been torn. She had been pounded on the back with fists and knocked to the sidewalks before being rescued by passersby who rushed her to a home nearby and called the police and fire department to the scene. It must have been horribly frightening! And the little cell phone that serves as the updated version of a virtual umbilical chord to her mother had been seized by her assailant and taken away! Can you imagine the terror for her... .

I made an immediate call to the woman who is charged with directing her life (the director of her program) and who cares for a number of handicapped residents of group homes and individual apartment dwellers throughout the area, all under her supervision. I needed to set her in motion before I -- in my maternal zeal -- swooped in to save my relatively helpless daughter. I would wait until Barbara had responded before moving in. The lesson here is to always make sure that the response came from somewhere beyond me in preparation for the day when I'm no longer around and she then must depend on others. That's probably the most difficult thing to learn in mothering the mentally handicapped. Having to stand back when there's nothing in the world you want more than to sweep in and take charge is almost unbearable! This was one of those times. I withstood the test, yet another time.

I'd seen it coming. It was inevitable. The little one-bedroom apartment she lives in is situated in a gigantic six-storied building originally intended as senior housing. However, over the years and after many series of state budget cuts, it now holds about 70% of seniors eligible under public assistance guidelines intended to care for those in the lowest-income brackets, with the rest of the residents made up from handicapped adults, ex-offenders and recovering addicts. A lethal combination, right? Combining the most risky of adults with the community's most vulnerable is a prescription for disaster.

And disaster struck.

Dorian.

I have an appointment at Monday noon -- to have lunch with the director of the city's Housing Authority. I've invited him in order to talk about that policy. Maybe I can put a face on it by talking about the woman from the third floor who was the assailant -- just a block or so away from the Hacienda housing complex. The fact that she'd become an occasional visitor to Dorian's apartment who lives on the floor above -- in order to lift a Nike jacket (a prized possession won at a Special Olympics competition), some lingerie and other small items over time. That Dorian, with her ten-year-old mentality would meet her on the street and demand the return of her things which by now included her cell phone -- with the woman then brutally attacking and beating her badly enough to require a visit to the emergency room.

I'll not go to work in my new uniform on Monday, but will be muted in my serious black suit as an equally serious mother with a cause. Maybe -- quietly -- without fanfare and with nothing more than some common sense I can start the process of getting the bureaucracy to take another look at the human tragedy of bad governmental policy.

Just maybe.

Dorian is at this moment still asleep on her futon in the next room. I've brought her home again to heal. Mostly because of my fear, I'll not return her to her own apartment for another day or so. Her physical pain is about over, and I don't know what she has learned from the awful encounter. She seems relatively calm and expresses little fear at this point. But I don't know if that's a good thing. There are some things that warrant fear and that her mental capacity doesn't include. One has to be above an IQ level of at last 70 points before one is capable of judgment or weighing consequences; a fact that I once read that has always haunted me... .

Photos: On the left is a picture taken at the Special Olympics swim meet at Laney College where she won two first places ribbons and a third; though in these events everyone receives ribbons. Medals are pretty meaningless except as ornaments within this context. I've always loved that about these games where cooperation is valued over competitiveness.

Right: Dorian the NIAD artist (National Institute for Artists with Disabilities) proudly holding one of her happy paintings called "Lion with Rainbow."

Oh, I did inquire about whether restrictions against blogging might be in order now that I'm working for the national park service, officially.

It appears that -- as long as I use common sense there are no ethical issues involved, so until further notice, I'll try to trust that my judgment is sound enough to protect me from any indiscretion.

I'm guessing that blogging is a relatively new phenomenon, so hasn't had time to get into the rule books yet. Maybe if I were to ask that question a year from now, there would be regulations and codes to cite that would govern content to some degree.

I've already noticed just a hint of self-censoring when I'm under that hat. I feel about a half-inch taller and may find myself intimidated from time to time, simply because of the uniform and the feeling of responsibility to those around me who are also badged and hatted. I suppose it's a bit like being in the armed services, though that's beyond my personal experience.

I'm also aware that -- as a woman of color -- my very presence in a room in full regalia sends a message to every youngster within reach that they, too, can dare to consider this career path. Maybe that's the great message of that front page story.

Perhaps that's not such a small thing ... more than just another slow news day.

If you were to look up a definition of the phrase, "...it was a slow news day," this is what you'd find ...

Last Sunday (a week ago) there was a fairly modest story about our tours in the West County Times with an equally modest photograph of yours truly. I knew that it was coming having been forewarned by the columnist who had ridden along on one of our tours a couple of weeks before. I'd been prepared for that. What I wasn't prepared for was the following day (on Monday) when -- on an errand through the reception area of the city manager's outer office -- I caught just a glimpse of this edition of the Oakland Tribune among the collection spread out on a large round table -- of regularly displayed daily newspapers that are subscribed to for the city hall staff. I was stunned for just a minute. It couldn't be, yet it was. The front page lead article with a photograph covering the 4 first columns both above and below the fold with a continuation of the story on page 9!

It was the very next day, on Tuesday, that we woke to the news of the death of legendary San Francisco Forty Niners coach, Bill Walsh -- and the passing of brilliant movie director, Ingmar Bergman. Within 48 hours Oakland Post managing editor, Chauncey Bailey was gunned down cruelly on a street corner.

As it turned out, the article with photos apparently appeared throughout the Bay Area since I heard from friends in both the Diablo Valley and Marin County. The Oakland Tribune is one newspaper in a large family of papers that are distributed throughout the area.

Not sure what it all means, but the thought that rises above all others is that it was, indeed, a very slow news day.

...but out of it comes an invitation to be the object of Show and Tell at my granddaughter's elementary school. After all, how many fifth graders do you know with grandmothers who are park rangers?

Do you suppose that blogging is out of bounds for us Park Rangers?

When completing the multiple forms required for the federal government in order to be placed on the federal payroll I found myself wondering ... ? It could well be that I saw no rules about blogging because the regulations and ethics codes simply haven't caught up with the technology -- and now that I'm no longer an independent contractor working for the National Park system -- will I be breaking some arcane rules if I continue to discuss my work in the public arena? It will be difficult to leave out such a primary part of my life and still share in any meaningful way.

I understand about the need for discretion and how not to accept an honorarium, etc., that was a necessary part of the State of California ethics code under which I worked for many years. What's different now? Was I blogging then? I don't think so. I began this journal in September of 2003 -- just after I resigned from my position as staff to a member of the State Assembly.

It's hard to see how I will be able to continue to write without the ability to share what has become my primary role in life. I'm learning so much and having a chance to do great things with such great people -- how can I not talk about it?

It is here that I visit during the rare lulls in my days and weeks -- where I can take the time to think about things that are moving so fast -- where I can sit at my computer and mull over the highs and the lows and digest so much that is so fluid -- like quicksilver slipping away -- often before I can properly integrate it. Without this magical keyboard, I'm not sure that I could process it all -- download it into my MAC and prepare for another round when the decks (and my mind) have been cleared at intervals.

I asked someone from our management team to check out the regs and to let me know whether I should drop current events and return to writing poetry or maybe take up transcendental meditation!

I'll let y'all know after they've had time to discuss it at a staff meeting soon. I suspect that I'm the only blogger among them, so there are no precedents. It's quite possible that the Department of Interior just hasn't caught up with me!

Betty the Park Ranger

Just returned from another of our wildly successful NPS bus tours ...

Today's was another in a yearlong series of bus tours that began as an experiment designed to involve the Richmond community in park-building with us. Unlike other national parks, Rosie the Riveter is situated on scattered sites throughout the city, and where the NPS owns little or nothing. There are no scenics falls or canyons, no Mt. Rushmores or Old Faithfuls or Civil War Battlefields, or parades of statuary on the Capitol Mall. The area was congressionally designated without precise boundaries. We do have the Rosie Memorial at the shoreline which was its genesis. We're defined by rusting still-existing structures from the World War II period that are privately-owned or are the property of the Redevelopment Agency, the City of Richmond, or organizations that purchased them to be adapted for other more current uses. Therefore, with a variety of partners -- we're co-creating a new national park -- and making it up as we go along. I don't remember ever a time or project that created more interest -- either in me -- or in those who are sharing the adventure with us. Little-by-little, this park is being defined by the human stories it is yielding -- with the structures, the shipyards, SS Red Oak Victory, the Kaiser Permanente and Maritime housing, the beautiful Ford Assembly Building (and the site -- eventually -- of our Reception Center), medical facilities, and prefabrication sites providing the background to those stories.

It is all so fluid at this point that it's is hard to see what form it will eventually take, which makes it all the more exciting. We're building ourselves a national park and you can feel the excitement as it unfolds and takes shape before our eyes with each of these trips into the past.

We're still in the process of identifying those relevant sites that are scattered throughout the city, and in order to do that, we invite groups of folks to board our small bus (18-passengers), and for 3 hours follow a guided tour during which (if we're lucky) our "tourists" slowly become participants in the re-living of the story of the Home Front experience from as many angles as there are people on the bus. The experience is astounding!

The fact that we're re-living times that were triumphant when viewed from the perspective of the progress made in the shipbuilding industry; times that were excruciatingly painful for the black community that entered into one of the greatest migration stories in our nation's history; a time so devastating for the Japanese-Americans shamefully interned in relocation centers for the duration; and a time that was so freeing to the women who were entering the nation's work force for the first time ... with each bus load carrying at least a few who lived some parts of those stories. Layer-upon-layer we've been peeling the onion back to a time of unprecedented social change in the nation's history, and doing it honestly, with candor, and without rancor.

Initially, it was my role as a community outreach consultant to create each group by invitation. Over the past year our past and present mayors, city manager, most department heads, some city council members, school teachers, business and professional leaders, church folks, a few teens mixed in with others, elders, all in a healthy mix of races and ethnicities have come along for the ride. There have been to date over two hundred "tourists." At one point in doing my audit I discovered to my joy that exactly 52% of our riders were African American. In lesser numbers were Latinos, with the rest of European descent. But then I was carefully controlling the makeup of the groups -- being careful to have them balanced racially, and in every other way possible. It worked beautifully. But there were some who were missing. We've had few people of Asian ancestry and none of the newer immigrants; the fairly large Sikh community or an equally substantive community of Laotians that arrived in the Bay Area as refugees after the collapse of the Vietnam War. These groups, of course, are a part of the more current migration story -- but perhaps it's too early for that kind of interpretation. We'll have to work on it.

Over the past month, we've opened the tours up to the general public. No more choreographing. Flyers were sent out. Announcements were made through the media, and a great item was published in the local newspaper by one of several reporters who've joined us from time to time. The response was overwhelming, so much so that the six tours (3 each in July and August) were oversubscribed within 4 hours of the article's release. All week I spent much of my day returning telephone calls to would-be "tourists" explaining the dilemma and promising to add their names to a bulging Wait List. But the past two groups have been totally European-American without a single person of color on board. Interesting. But not to worry. We're allowing folks to self-select now and our next scheduled group will be larger (27) and will consist of 10 African American members from Easter Hill United Methodist Church among others, a Japanese American woman from Berkeley, and a family of 3 Chinese-Americans who have history as workers on the Home Front. Another tour in mid-August will have a group of ten African American teens (14-17) from a training program -- with their director who I believe is from Nigeria. It's an exciting thought that those youngsters will be mixed in with a group of racially-mixed adults in order to encourage the direct transmission of that history to occur. The buy-in by the community is showing up in meaningful ways.

How will we deal with the overflow? Our management team has granted us permission to add two more August dates, and in addition, we're graduating from an 18 passenger model rental bus to one that holds 22 -- and for all 5 tours. However, by the time this was accomplished, my Wait List had accumulated an additional 50 names! Groups are now calling to request permission to come with their own bus (public-address-system equipped), and wanting to know if we can provide guides-only? October will see 40 members of the California Pioneers of Santa Clara County (esta. 1875) touring the still-forming Rosie the Riveter World War II/Home Front Historical National Park with two guides (I'm one) at the helm. Another group of 24 from San Francisco called to ask if we could meet them at the local Bay Area Rapid District (BART) because they like to use public transit when possible... .

And tomorrow's *West County Times Sunday edition is doing a feature story on the park and our tours and then the carefully adjusted expanded system will crash!

Come the last weekend in September we will be hosting with partners (Chamber of Commerce, the City of Richmond, and others) the 1st Annual two-day Home Front Festival. Save the date. And -- only after that date -- after October 1st -- we'll resume public bus tours and, hopefully, we'll have gained control over our popularity and the growing enthusiasm of our audience!

Success is surely the proverbial double-edged sword.

*National Park in Richmond honors women who reshaped workforce during World War II : WARTIME HEROES, The Sunday Times, West County, Sunday, July 29, 2007.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_6493746

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I never knew their names.

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now that's a sobering thought.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And, of course, I'll be honest.

But the photo above may be somewhat deceptive ...

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

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

And still later ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Betty