Who turned off the stars?

As always, the thoughts continued into the night. I'm convinced that the reason that elders sleep less is due to a subconscious awareness that time is winding down -- and that -- regardless of our physical well-being -- sleep is a total waste of time. There are so many opportunities to travel back over time and reconsider what we settled for as Truth, and that a second look may be important in these changing times.

The lively questions in yesterday's classroom wakened the answers (just before sleep) that I was unable to find while sitting before those wonderful children.

"How is the world different for you than it was when you were our age?"

My answer was superficial -- at the level of cell phones, ballpoint pens, and jet travel. It was too large a question to deal with in that little classroom. But the wheels began to turn just before sleep last night. And -- how I wish for the time to tell them where their innocent questions took me in the quiet of the night... .

When I was nine there were no bridges across San Francisco Bay. We took ferries to San Francisco, so it seemed so much further away and much more of an adventure. There were open creeks that meandered through the city, occasionally opening up into small ponds draped in willows that held springtime tadpoles to be taken home in jars of creek water -- pollywogs to watch grow legs and slowly draw tails into tiny bodies (miraculous!) as they grew into tiny frogs. There were open fields that would later hold more houses than were comfortable for any community -- which would later begin to rise into apartments and condos to hold more and more new Californians. Those open fields would host summer baseball games with homemade bases and fathers or uncles with the time to umpire and settle disputes about whether one was "out" or "safe." And -- because safe held a different meaning then -- we all played "One Foot Across the Gutter" and "Prisoner's Base" under the street lights (and without adult supervision) -- until bedtime and beyond. And -- there were small Mom & Pop grocery stores within walking distance of anyone's homes -- with owners who knew your parents and sometimes helped to stretch the budget with a loaf of day-old bread as a gift. There were ice-men in rubber aprons who came in trucks carrying blocks of ice for the kitchen icebox -- icy blocks slung over their back with menacing-looking tongs; and milkmen with glass bottles that would often be set just inside the never-locked back door out of the sun, if no one was at home to receive them. There was trust.

Those open city lots also brought us wild anise and milkweed upon which cocoons of the Monarch and lovely white Cabbage butterflies were attached -- and that one could very carefully break off the small branch to which it was attached -- to be brought home to watch in awe for the weeks it took for the miraculous mature beautiful creatures to suddenly appear to be released into the rose bushes to begin the fully-developed adult lives of all such creatures. What a powerful metaphor -- one I remember from about that age when a wise and sensitive young teacher made the connections for me. It was in this lesson that I learned the necessity of struggle -- metamorphosis may have been the earliest huge word that I truly understood. It may be the place where language became important. It was almost a private word since I doubted that my parents owned it (and even then I knew that one had to use a word in order to truly own it). It was all mine (and Mrs. Rhineger's), of course.

My preoccupation with words would set me apart from both my peers and my parents over time. I loved words with a passion, and often used them inappropriately -- though there were few at home who cared about words enough to make the corrections, but who managed to make me feel self-conscious and as if rudely "putting on airs". (I suppose today such a child might be accused of "acting white") And even at the tender age of 9 I knew that really long words (like disestablishmentarianism) were really trick words and not really interesting at all. But metamorphosis was real and true and described a dramatic life process that fascinated me. That one I continued to own well into my teens, when I discovered that it belonged to more thinkers than Mrs. Rhineger and me. Maybe this is where I began to learn about intellectualism and to respect knowledge for its own sake (...and Bartlett's Quotations, and Roget's Thesaurus, and the World Book Encyclopedia -- and Edna St. Vincent Millay!).

But the aspect of my life as a 9 year-old that I most miss would have to be stars. I don't know when we turned off the skies of my childhood, but -- over years and years -- they disappeared. I remember the magic of lying on my back in the grass and watching the night sky for hours. I could look deep into space and see billions and billions of tiny lights and that I was aware, even at nine, that children all over the world were sharing this magnificent sky with me. That it mattered not whether they were looking up from a yurt, a tent, a hogan, an igloo, a fire escape, a thatched hut, from a sled, or the back of a truck or wagon, or from the deck of a ship at sea, out of an attic window or from a city rooftop, or from the window of a train, we were sharing the beautiful night sky. It was the earliest miracle that I can remember, and the first thoughts of the internationalism that would guide my life and my politics since that time. One simply cannot make war with grownup children with whom you've shared the miracle of the skies. I knew that we spoke of it in different languages, but -- if we could just stand together looking up -- it wouldn't matter. We would all understand in the jumble of sounds or -- even in the silence -- what a wonder this was. This I knew. The night sky was probably my very first awareness of "Truth," truth that has remained constant over a lifetime.

Perhaps one light switch at a time, year after year, decade after decade, we turned off the miracle. I'm not sure when it happened. But somehow the night sky began to close in -- light pollution eventually blocked out almost every star leaving only the brightest of the planets, the sun and the moon, and the depth of the night vanished, and with it something vital was lost.

The night sky was a universally-shared experience. It is no longer. It only exists in those places where the city lights have not yet invaded the atmosphere. The children in Ms. Merz's fifth grade classroom must be taken by car to a Planetarium to look at the night sky through a telescope in order to witness this -- the oldest of the natural wonders.

I will have some of the wonder restored in February when I'm enrolled for two weeks at the Grand Canyon's NPS Training Site. I cannot believe that the star thieves have stolen away the night skies from that holy place. On some nights, there are still echoes of Van Gogh's Starry Night in Mendocino when the incoming fog creates patches where single stars are isolated and therefore appear slightly fuzzy, distorted, and even more brilliant as viewed through the bedroom skylight , --- but even in that Eden the night skies have been dimmed by the pollution of city and coastal lights -- and, it all happened so-oo-o gradually that I'm not sure that too many have noticed; or that most of those who do still remember are now coming to the end of life... .

I will think of Tamaya's classmates while in that wondrous Grand Canyon National Park, and know that -- if ever the question arises again -- I'll know the answer... .

It is the miracle of the night sky -- the stars and the planets -- that I miss above all else -- and that defines the difference between the worlds of 9 year-old Betty Charbonnet and of Ms. Alison Merz's fifth graders.

Sincerely,

Tamaya's Grandmother the Ranger

What a lovely afternoon ... spent in a most unlikely place ... .

Today I was invited for a command performance as the subject of "Show and Tell" at my bright and charming 9 year-old granddaughter, Tamaya's, fifth grade classroom. The audience was made up of two combined fifth grade classes, 48 students in all. I'm not at all sure where the rumor got started that children were universally out of control and that educators were unhappy campers. Not so. Surely not at Berkeley Arts Magnet School in the heart of North Berkeley. In that holy place there were eager learners, rabid payers-to-attention, and about the most bright-eyed and busy-tailed children one would ever want to meet.

I'd received a telepone call about a week ago asking if Tamaya's grandma would like to meet with the fifth graders for a presentation on whatever I'd like to talk about. Again, it was the uniform here that is the magnet. The ranger's dimpled felt stetson gets' em every time. I was surprised by a passerby as I was parking my car in front of the school. This smiling woman stopped to admire my uniform -- but clearly had no idea just who I was or what on earth I was doing on Virginia Street in Berkeley. Obviously I was out of context here. I admitted to being a genuine park ranger, and she grinned broadly with the words, "...and you're going to meet with the kids? How wonderful! You're about love and caring for the planet!" I realized then how rare is the sight of the National Park Service ranger here in this sophisticated urban city, and of how important it is that school children be introduced to one of the more exciting and humanizing aspects of national life.

Having arrived about 15 minutes early (as planned), provided a chance to visit for a few minutes with Tamaya; to scan the binder that holds her year's work to date; to see a lengthy essay that she is preparing for posting out among the exhibits in the long corridor on the first floor. It's a journal of her trip last spring to the Philippine Islands with her family. It was a reunion that would bring my two little granddaughters into the exotic world of their mother's large family. She is obviously still absorbing that 3-week adventure. I have been gifted with hours on end of scenes taken with their video camera -- from San Francisco International to Manila and the islands of their maternal homeland. I wonder at times, at how differently the world must look to this globe-trotting generation. In my lifetime, it was exciting to simply travel from one coast to the other, and I didn't do that until I was fifty. In my parent's generation, that must have seemed daring indeed. Their lives had been confined to three states, Louisiana, Michigan, and California.

At no time during today's visit was there ever a moment when the young teacher, Ms. Alison Merz, did not have total (gentle) control over her class. It was also true that tucked in among her lessons at the university had been the key to that process, "...we learn to respect by being respected." At no time was there the slightest hint that her students were either coerced or acting out of fear. They wanted to be here with her, and the courtesy shown to me was extended from her relationship with them.

The questions were polite but real. They wanted to know - not just about my ranger life, but about me. "What was the world like when you were our age?" "What do you like least about your work?" "Were there ever any bad times?" "Do you still know any of the people that you knew way back then?" Real questions requiring real answers.

Upon questioning I learned that many of those children had visited Yosemite and that some had seen Yellowstone. I wondered if the questions asked in Richmond as opposed to Berkeley might have presented quite a different picture. I must visit a comparable group in West County soon. This, too, is an important outreach activity that cries for attention.

We talked about what a park is and why we set land apart. "Because people need them to go to when they're stressed." (This from a 9 year-old.) We talked about why civic, state, and national parks, and I hope I was clear about the answers. I asked many questions, too. There were many raised hands. I sensed their openness and willingness to participate. There was genuine interest in the subject.

While waiting for the class to begin -- a young boy brought a black box 3-dimensional display for me to inspect -- he'd created it to memorialize his deceased father. It contained a place for a candle and a photo of himself at about 3 sitting in his father's lap. It was a touching moment. He'd removed it from a window-sill exhibit the class had produced for the Day of the Dead celebration. "Ms. Merz won't like that I moved it," he told me as he returned it to its place with the others. She'd left the room for a minute to check on the other class that would arrive soon.

It was a delightful and moving hour with tomorrow's grownups. It felt like being in a room with not-quite-mature young adults who were in these very moments growing into the leaders they will surely be in time.

Tonight I'm feeling such a strong sense of faith in tomorrow.

We must hold the world together until they can take it over, right? I do wish we'd done a better job on our watch ... .

...and let's hear it for these valiant young teachers who are molding the future even as we speak!

Another symptom of the aging process?

I'm experiencing an interesting phenomenon that may not have been noticeable in former years. I appear to be entering a place (a mind space) where former life lessons are colliding with current ones, with the result that newer experiences are being crowded out of consciousness in many cases, leaving me with a head wallpapered with question marks! As crazy and convoluted as that sounds, it appears to be quite true.

It's as if I'm being forced to accept new values that contradict old ones -- yet a part of me refuses to give up the old. I'm tending to hold all of the conflicting truths in equal status -- and it all appears to be at least tolerable. It means that I'm sure of less and less as time passes -- with the assumption that this (inconsistency) is the nature of life, and that when I begin to draw conclusions based upon these fragments of truth, it will be the end.

Example: My experience with the Daughters of the American Revolution two weeks ago. I brought so much angst into the experience with me -- so much of which was associated with a past that I did not live -- a past that was the legacy of long dead generations. (And could they not echo these very words?) That legacy didn't hold up in the presence of today's DAR reality--at least not in that meeting room in San Francisco. But one might wonder -- if blame is never assigned or acknowledged -- what happens to accountability? What happens to atonement? To reconciliation? To redemption?

Yet, the noose symbolism is a direct descendant of that old "Constitution Hall - Marian Anderson" history, and is undeniably relevant to what we're seeing today. Those echoes of racial bigotry have found their way into the legislation that governs our lives -- and continues to color our times and pollute our national domestic and foreign policies. Racism remains an unresolved national dilemma. The cancer is by now so well-buried in our national psyche that the everyday effects are hardly recognizable anymore, except in the extreme. The cancer may have by now become who we are in the world. What a frightening thought!

In the middle of the experience at the War Memorial I was totally unable to bring those collective memories forth -- so was only able to see the immediate scene before me -- and that scene was benign; dear well-dressed ladies in a time warp. I was as much an anomaly in their lives as they were in mine. Probably not one of us in that room would hold the experience in mind for long but would move on as if it never occurred. They would remain as an interesting surprisingly pleasant experience for me, and I -- on the other hand -- would perhaps simply become this one-of-a-kind African-American woman in a park ranger uniform who appeared out of the blue -- and is surely "not a bit like those others ... ." And we will have all survived the Saturday afternoon experience at the San Francisco War Memorial without having to alter our values or our notions about one another or the nature of our shared national Life one iota.

Is there something that is necessarily protective that enables us to re-arrange "mind matter" in ways that saves us from having to question our sanity at such times? Could I have handled the memories of those searing images of the Ethel Waters performance had it been necessary to hold those competing realities in mind simultaneously? I suspect there is. As surely as I was able to compartmentalize those two entries only inches apart here on this screen. It is as if they rose from two different lives -- from two different minds -- and several generations apart. But both lives are contained under one skull -- sharing a brain -- living my life.

But are they?

I thought again today about " e=mc squared", and of these curious bursts of intellectual energy that appear without warning from time to time -- about the relevance of the time continuum ... and about over-lapping realities .

If this all seems inconclusive -- it is. This is another Saturday -- two weeks hence -- and I'm still chewing on the dramatic contrasts life continues to present.

...there's something telling about the way my mind has separated these experiences. In a way they really are not related, except in my head.

Sunday morning: Last night I was rudely awakened by a flash of insight. The third paragraph above does a fine job of describing (in microcosm) just what may have happened to that long-awaited apology for slavery -- and reparations. You have to read it as a Reader's Digest condensed version, of course. Or maybe a Fox News or Hard Ball sound bite, but the elements are all there, I think. This may describe our national amnesia on the subject of race relations. But, of course, that's silly. Or is it? Dreams and middle-of-the-night insights have their way of collapsing wisdom into ridiculously simplistic bits and pieces -- but sometimes ... .

Yet can this huge rubber-band ball of a mind of mine be stilled -- ever -- or will my conflicting truths continue to build until I'm no longer sure of anything at all?

About those nooses ... and ... I would have been only about twelve when she was soaring on Broadway ...Her name was Ethel Waters, one of the earliest of black Broadway stars -- the very first to receive equal billing with whites. Later I would remember her co-starring in Member of a Wedding with Julie Harris and singing "Happiness is just a thing called Joe" in the old movie, Cabin in the Sky. But one of the memories that burned its way into my brain was from stills I once saw of the Broadway revue, As Thousands Cheer. In it Ms. Waters was featured in a number written especially for her by the celebrated Irving Berlin. It was highly controversial, as it would surely be today. It is this image that rises to the surface when people speak of nooses as pranks, let me describe it for you:

There she would stand alone in the spotlight dressed in a traditional plaid gingham dress covered by a long apron -- with hair tightly wrapped in a print kerchief. The stage was completely dark -- except for the giant silhouette played against the back curtain -- the shadow of a man's limp and contorted dead body hanging by the neck from a noose attached to an extended tree branch:


Against this chilling backdrop she would quietly sing:

Supper time I should set the table cause
it's supper time
Somehow I'm not able
cause this man o' mine
ain't comin' home no more

Supper time, kid's 'll soon be yellin' for their supper time
How'll I keep from tell'in 'em
this man o' mine
ain't comin' home no more.

How'll I keep explaining when they ask me where he's gone?
How'll I keep from cryin' when I bring their supper on?
How can I remind them to pray for their humble board?
How'll I be thankful when they start to thank the Lord, O Lord!

It's supper time I should set the table cause it's supper time
Somehow I'm not able cause this man o' mine
Ain't comin' home no more.

The year was 1933. The number of lynchings in the decades prior to 1930 was approximately 50 blacks annually. In 1933 Irving Berlin dared to risk reputation and economic well-being to bring this statement to the Broadway stage. In much the same way Yip Harburg would risk writing Strange Fruit for Billie Holiday to perform to stunned nightclub audiences. Both would pay heavily in years to come. Harburg would become one of the defiled Hollywood black-listed writers.

I find myself wondering whether it is really ever possible to separate out black history from our national history when so much or our fate has been facilitated by others; in this case two Jews with the determination to defend the lives of others at the expense of their own well-being.

This all came to mind upon reading today's article in the New York Times about nooses turning up across the country in a variety of settings and institutions ... .

"... Nooses have been looped over a tree at the University of Maryland, knotted to
the end of stage-rigging ropes at a suburban Memphis theater, slung on the doorknob of a black professor's office at Columbia University in New York, hung in a locker room at a Long Island police station, stuffed in the duffel bag of a black Coast Guard cadet aboard  a historic ship, and draped around the necks of black dolls in the suburbs.  The hangman's rope has become so prolific, some say, it could replace the Nazi swastika and the Ku Klux Klan's fiery cross as the nation's reigning symbol of hate ..." .

Frightening.

In case we've forgotten -- as recently as June 14, 2005, 20 members of the U.S. Senate (19 Republicans and 1 Democrat) refused to sign anti-lynching legislation. They refused to do a roll-call in order to avoid being on the public record.

Never really commented on the Ken Burns series, did I?

Haven't known just what to say about it after the huge build-up. Disappointed? I suppose so. It felt excessive and self-indulgent to me -- but then what do I know, right? A good editor could have sharpened it up by cutting drastically. The brutality was so repetitive that I found myself turning away for long periods and then tuning back in hope that it would have eased up. Never thought I'd see the day when a few commercials would have helped by providing much-needed breaks from the sheer misery of what was being shown on the small screen. However, that, after all is the nature of war. What did I expect?

Watching the replay of WWII against the background of current news from the everyday horrors of the Mid East made it even harder to deal with. But then, maybe that was the intent of the epic series. I'm not sure. I hated the fact that we've learned so little from that horrific experience not yet a lifetime away; that we're still willing to gouge out eyes as souvenirs of war and to burn small children in the interest of the protection of oil reserves and Empire. That primal cruelty is still so close to the surface of humanity. That -- in our lifetimes -- we would be splitting hairs over what constitutes torture. And -- I hated the idea (stronger with each day) that We the People are fast-becoming "the Good Germans."

I'm under no illusion that -- as an African American -- I'm exempt from such a charge. To the extent that I, too, benefit from policies that rape the planet and destroy humanity, the guilt is shared by us all. Though I feel as if we've been duped into believing that -- along with white privilege would have come white power and white wisdom. How naive a notion that should have been outgrown years ago! That, combined with current awareness that power, wisdom, and privilege can be abused by any human beings, regardless of skin color. One needs only to look at Central and West Africa and the Arab Emirates for evidence of privilege gone wild.

I was wrong about the African American story not being told. It was. However, that only served to increase the silent rage I've carried around for a lifetime by being a reminder of things I'd pushed back for decades; things I knew in the deep recesses of my mind, but that were suppressed for the most part. The extent to which I felt renewed humiliation is probably a measure of how far we may or may not have come in what is now socially acceptable behavior. That I can express the anger with hope of being heard is new. My parents simply acquiesced; made do. They expected far less than I do in the everyday living of life. Along with those new freedoms, though, comes the acceptance of shared guilt and responsibility for what my nation does in the world, and the sense that those around me are as helpless as I to bring change. That, too, is new.

The tools with which to bring change seem so fragile, don't they? "Get out and vote!" "Lobby your congresspersons!" "Conserve energy!" and the ever-constant, "Send us a check!" These all seem so useless in turning around the Ship of State. I suppose I'm no longer envious of youth, and in a strange way am somewhat grateful for having lived these last 8 decades (and more) and that time is winding down now. The next 8 are frightening to anticipate. Those will be the years that our children and grandchildren must survive.

Oh how I wish for a way to stop the clock -- just so we can gain the time to better match our future to our ideals! But then maybe the real problem involves fine-tuning our ideals so that they better conform to those who conceived the Constitution and Bill of Rights ... though flawed -- they at least created the blueprint that should have sustained us as a nation. The erosion of principle under today's policies is staggering!

I'm no longer certain that my continuing anger at Ken Burns isn't a simple case of wanting to kill the messenger.

But I have to deposit it somewhere or it will eat me alive!

It only took a moment ... and then decades of misguided impressions dropped away... .

Standing as tall as I could stretch my five-foot-three-inch frame, gave me just about enough heft to get myself through the lobby and into the elevator of the War Memorial. I'd removed my fedora just as I entered -- but once in the elevator -- placed it back on my head for just a bit of extra courage. It worked.

Once on the second floor I walked the long hallway to another that led to a door standing ajar and the sound of genteel voices that grew louder as I approached. Their meeting was in progress and I slid as quietly as I could into a seat just inside the door to await my time at the lectern.

It was soon evident that there was little to fear in this room. Whatever was to come could be handled. These were clearly lovely mostly Southern(?) ladies tending to business. And the business was reverence for God, country, and home -- in that order. Despite the initial feeling of being a jarring element in this orderly setting, I found myself relaxing into the mood of the room.

When a flyer was passed around advertising the upcoming Kentucky Social which promised mint juleps and Derby Pie I felt the last of the up-tightness melt away and in its place came a silent giggle of curiosity and warmth for this sisterhood that seemed both at home and absolutely alien in San Francisco. Funny. It was only "alien" in my everyday world; surely not here in this most cosmopolitan of world cities with something for everybody. Surely this Southern -- all White -- sisterhood was just another collective under the diversity tent. Just a few blocks over in the Fillmore there might well be an all-Japanese tea ceremony going on; and a few blocks beyond that -- an all-Black group preparing for a Gospel Concert over barbecue, mustard greens, and macaroni-and-cheese while planning next year's Juneteenth celebration! It occurred to me that the operative word here should be authenticity; the art of being precisely who you are. This is the common denominator for all such cultural groupings.

I could do this. Martha was quite right. It only took a slight shift in perspective.

When the business of the meeting ended and a touching candle ceremony held -- it was my turn.

Not sure just how I opened my remarks, except to introduce myself, my Great-Grandmother Leontine Breaux Allen, and my mother, with a statement that I'd arrived with much uncertainty about their expectations and just how I might fill them. "Did you understand that I was an African American?" No one ever really answered the question ... but it ceased to matter.

After a brief bio of sorts and some personal history of my WWII past, I looked around and spoke directly; "...you know ... such conversations across these barriers were not possible 20 -- maybe only 10 years ago. We must have them now -- informed by all that has happened in human relations since the Martin Luther King era." It was true. With those simple words I'd placed us all beyond those damning social barriers -- placed us all on the same side -- and it felt right. Could it really be so simple after all?

I spoke for no more then ten minutes and we dissolved into chattering females, "...my what a beautiful hat!", and it was over. The room felt larger and the sounds softer somehow as we sipped tea and grazed the table loaded with homemade cakes and pies.


On the day after I received a lovely note from someone who'd been in the audience. It was enough to bring tears -- it was she who had visited my blog and discovered my references to Marian Anderson. She wrote about the event of long ago at Constitution Hall as her own history -- learned from her grandmothers. Were it not for a feeling that I would be intruding on her privacy I'd post it here, however -- she ended her beautiful note with these words:

“I really, really want a world in which the only time anyone's skin color matters is when they're picking out clothing and deciding what colors look best with it.”

Amen.

Photo: Ms. Dixie Lee Mahy, Chairperson of the meeting. And, yes, that is a small metal cross in the center of her forehead, a unique expression of her faith. Though I seem to have been the only person to notice. Photo by Kathy Samuels of the DAR.

It was a most unusual day -- for any place but San Francisco. There it was the most ordinary of days.

I'd spoken briefly on Thursday with Regent Henriette Gordon of the DAR in order to confirm my appearance as the speaker at their monthly meeting at the War Memorial on Saturday. Until that moment I was unsure of what would be expected of me. How would I reconcile my "Woman of Color-ness" with this particular assignment? Were they expecting a speaker from "Rosie the Riveter World War II/Home Front National Park"? Surely there was little in my telephone voice that would suggest that I might be a woman of color. Did the group have any idea -- and if so - what might that mean? A few questions into the conversation and that was determined. They were interested in "Rosie." I felt a shiver as I realized that I might still be a surprise.

I would not wear my simple black crepe suit with mandatory string of pearls and black suede pumps (pure Betty) as planned, and would instead go in full regalia as Betty the park ranger -- hatted, badged, and properly uniformed. There was some comfort in that. I recalled a colleague saying that she was (at heart) very shy and that she could face public demands with far more confidence when uniformed. I needed to do the same in this moment of uncertainty.

At around noon I drove to the El Cerrito BART station, parked conveniently, checked to be sure that I'd remembered to bring along brochures and friend, Jane Stillwater's, newly-published book, "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket!" to read en route, and boarded the crowded train for the trip across the bay. It was filled with families from the surrounding East Bay suburbs headed for Fleet Week activities in the City. Remembered then that the Blue Angels would be streaking through the skys in another hour or so and hoped that I'd catch a glimpse of them, too. It could hardly have been a more beautiful day with a more perfect blue sky as a canvas upon which to paint their death-defying aerial maneuvers.

After boarding at the Del Norte Station and working my way gradually back through the many bodies blocking the aisle, I managed to find a place to stand where I could hold on. Being accustomed in recent years to having young people rise to offer their seats to me (the elder), it was a surprise to find myself standing all the way to San Francisco's Embarcadero station. It was the uniform! In my full regalia I surely didn't give the impression that I needed the particular consideration commonly held in reserve for the old and the infirm. I'd given up my senior advantage and felt silently amused. I stood just a bit taller in my boots which I planted firmly -- feet some distance apart -- and precariously balanced my way under the bay and into the city for the next twenty minutes.

Once out into the sunlight at the Civic Center I, again, marveled at the site of those magnificent structures that make up the site of the political and cultural life of this great city; walked past the Bill Graham Auditorium and remembered this colorful entrepreneur who lent so much color and character to San Francisco of the Sixties and beyond. Felt properly dwarfed by the huge S.F. Public Library on my right just before the scene enlarged into the mall across from City Hall with its usual collection of citizens gathered on the front steps marking something of importance by their presence ... then I saw them. The Mall lawn on my far right was covered by maroon-robed monks with their supporters (also wearing colors) chanting in support of... then I remembered the plight of Burma (Myamar?) and felt a chill as the first of the practice runs of the Blues Angels split the sky with their thunder -- a grim reminder of the world at war -- yet again.

Walked hurriedly past the Mall toward McAllister and Van Ness where a young man waiting for a bus stopped me to ask if I had (no, not money) something he could read. He'd seen my clutch of brochures held tightly. Ranger-like, I stopped to hand him one with a warm feeling. We made eye contact and in that flash of an instant -- made human contact. It felt good. The stranger's bus approached and as it noisily lumbered past there emerged -- less than 100 feet beyond -- today's destination. I had to stop for the crossing signal which gave just long enough to get the full impact of the gold lettering above the stairs that spelled out, " Herbst Theater, Art Museum, then -- the War Memorial.

Upstairs in Room 212 -- I, Betty Reid Soskin, "Woman of Color," would soon meet with the San Francisco Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and I'd (as promised) left Marian Anderson at home... .

San Francisco never disappoints.

Today would hold no exception.

Been nursing a cold all week, and am now up against a commitment that is probably the reason for the virtual collapse into a sniveling matriarch ... .

Within the next few hours I'll shower and dress to take BART across the bridge to San Francisco where I'm scheduled to address the Daughters of the American Revolution at their monthly meeting. Superintendent Martha Lee has assured me that I can handle this. I hope I'm worthy of that trust. The event is being held at the War Memorial Building in the Civic Center. And if that isn't enough to curl my toe nails, I'm doing it alone. My partner, Lucy, is on a panel at the Mosconi Center at a conference of landscape architects.

I'm not at all sure what I will say, and will sure try to remember not to mention Marian Anderson ... .

But I'll try to report on this new adventure later this evening.

Oh my!

Author, Emily Yellin, of "My Mother's War" giving her address at Friday evening's Gala banquet hosted by the Rosie the Riveter Foundation.











Photos by Tom Butt, Richmond City Councilman.

Photo 1: Representative George Miller speaking at the "Launch" on Saturday afternoon.

Photo 2: Inside the Craneway at the beautiful Ford Building on Sunday. Rosie's came from faraway places to be celebrated at the 1st Annual Home Front Reunion. This magnificent historic structure will eventually house the Reception Center for the Park.

It's over! The great 1st Annual Homefront Festival was hugely successful -- and will take its place now as "Tradition!"

...and that's precisely the way it felt; like we were in on the birth of something immensely important. Every moment was filled with meaning and every person who stood witness seemed to reflect it.

After months of preparation; seeing things fall apart; dealing with missteps and challenges; starting over a million times; then learning to trust that somehow it would all work out; the sheer act of faith of every such endeavor. The National Park Service was everywhere, beautifully efficient, proud, excited, and ready to serve. It was our moment.

On Friday evening the invited guests (corporate types, community and business leaders, elected officials, etc.) gathered in the magnificant Albert Kahn-designed Ford Assembly Plant re-named "Ford Point") for an elegant Gala banquet hosted by the Rosie Trust. This is the Foundation formed to support the work of the park. I was a guest of historian, Tom Debley, of the Kaiser Permanente Corporation at a special KP table -- one of several. The house was sold-out and the ambiance like nothing I've ever felt in this city. Success and goodwill have arrived on the wings of the establishment of this long-awaited new national park, and that feeling was reflected in the faces of all those gathered.

The guests had come from as far away as Washington, D.C., and represented the National Parks Foundation, the Kaiser Permanente Corporation, the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, PG&E national leadership, local and regional banking industry reps, Chevron-Texaco Refineries, regional Chambers of Commerce, the Council of Industries, etc. These were the board members of major contributors who may hold the future of our park in their hands over these next years of our early development. This was an incredible start to partnerships that see our work as a vitally important contribution to the telling of the stories of this nation for posterity.

What an honor.

Sunday morning brought together from the far away places, at least 150 "Rosies," in a reunion that would last from eleven o'clock in the morning until three in the afternoon. They came in on two feet, in wheelchairs, with walkers, many supported by family members, and all beaming and eager for recognition -- finally!

I shared emcee duties with Kaiser historian, Steve Gilford, with whom I've been working for weeks in preparation for this new role. Steve and I and Artistic Director of the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, Jordan Simmons, had created a program for the day that would feature young actors from the Center reading from oral histories; Steve doing historic pieces, vintage music, and reminiscences from those gathered. We might have done well to have skipped everything else and just turned the mike over to the women who'd come to be honored.

It was my job to move about the audience with a microphone as hands were raised to share memories evoked by Steve's factoids ("who was the original Rosie? What about rationing?, where were you on December 7th?" etc.). Mattered not what the subject was, as the mike was placed before them almost every woman started with, "...I worked in shipyard (or aircraft plant, or munitions factory, etc.) as a riveter (welder or bucker or dispatcher, or, etc.) and off she went! There was no need for prompting. They were there to tell their stories and little else mattered. Finally the nation was taking the time to listen. What a moment to be a part of! One woman started her statement with "... my husband recently died, and..." at which point she dissolved into tears -- my arms went around her, automatically. In that moment she granted permission to every other women in the room to be real and to use the moment in ways that held meaning for themselves.

They'd been primed by the Ken Burns' series that is being aired nationwide and further encouraged by this weekend's homage to their service when the country beckoned long ago.

The universal theme for the poignant and beautiful story of the afternoon was, "...why did our country wait so long? When will this Reception Center be completed? It was clear that each feared that she would not live to see it fully operating and felt frustrated. How sad! But that will be true for me, too. I can only be grateful for the chance I'm having to be in the middle of the work of moving that reality "with all deliberate speed."

We'll have to pray that this dream has a better chance of being realized more rapidly than that other dream -- the one projected by Brown vs. the Board of Education that appears to have been gradually derailed over time.

What a wondrous day it was for us all. What a wonderful future lies ahead; if we can only move fast enough now for those heroic women of the WWII Homefront to see it unfold -- with "Rosie" on the marquis.

Will try to recapture some of the highlights of the weekend -- with photos -- but right this minute I'm a little too close to it -- and find myself blinded by the muchness of it all.

I'm being strangely tearful today ... yesterday was my birthday ... and ...

I'm guessing that this is the result of weeks of re-living the war years. I'm feeling an insistent rage that won't be quieted. It's almost as if I'm being two people simultaneously ... a 20 year-old homefront worker experiencing the humiliation of those years while being a respected elder American woman with every right to feel humiliated! Only problem is that this small body is a little crowded and this age-sharpened mind is rebelling at the imposition.

On Friday evening I watched the second documentary, "The Bay Area At War" I believe it was; the hour-long production of Channel KQED in San Francisco. I watched myself doing this truncated version of "Betty at War" and felt more anger than pride, and hated myself for not being able to enjoy the public exposure.

On camera was my longtime friend, Vangie Buell (I knew her as Vangie Elkins) of the old Berkeley Co-op days. She was telling the story of her father, a Filipino serviceman in the war who had been the cook of Admiral Nimitz. It was another of those tragic tales that illustrated the irony of "The Good War." Her father is buried at the Presidio in San Francisco after serving, eventually, as a fine musician in the Navy Band. The Admiral having made the exception for him and intervened so that he could do so. That was when the tears began to fall.

I was reminded of Mel Reid, my young husband, who refused to serve as a messman when he'd volunteered to fight for his country. I remembered his shame upon the return home to Berkeley after being "honorably" discharged after 3 days of shameful interrogation at Great Lakes Naval Base in Illinois. He'd felt so ashamed and I'd felt so angry -- and here were all those tears sitting behind my eyes for 67 years waiting to burst forth. I hadn't cried then. I did cry on Friday night -- but not in shame but in rage! Mel went to his grave in 1987 still silent about his failure to serve his country in 1942. His country had failed him.

I didn't see the end of Friday's documentary. After a time I simply couldn't watch. The ego satisfaction of seeing myself on the small screen didn't hold up under the emotional stress of the painful memories.

I lay on my bed with Dorian on her futon beside me -- sound asleep -- and wondered how I'd make it through the next ten days of the Ken Burns documentary dominance of the airways; and the Home Front Festival next weekend? Soon after ten o'clock dear friend, cousin Doug, called and we chatted for a long time. I said nothing about my increasing distress. But having someone to talk with about almost anything before falling into a fitful sleep felt comforting.

Yesterday I kept an appointment with the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts actors who are going to be performing at next week's Reunion at the Ford Building. I listened to them doing readings from the Bancroft Library's oral history project transcripts. They were wonderful. The material was stunning and memorable. In the middle of that two of my co-workers arrived with celebratory birthday cupcakes and lots of singing of good wishes and I felt properly celebrated and a bit more relaxed. But I was surely aware of the growing storm inside.

(But then, unwisely perhaps, I went home and watched an hour or so of the coverage of the demonstrations at Jena, Louisiana, on behalf of the Jena 6.)

With spirits bolstered by the lovely tribute, I changed my mind about not attending the Richmond Museum of History's opening reception exhibiting a selection of the wonderful children's art from World War II. About 50 pieces of the 4000 recently discovered -- were tastefully hung on backgrounds of bright primary colors. This would be the community's first viewing of the work. I adore children's art. But the art didn't work its magic, and I soon found myself quietly raging inside. I looked around the gallery and noticed that I was the only African American in the room of perhaps 60 people. I recalled that the Maritime Child Development Centers were not open to black children and therefore, why would the African American community feel any relationship to any of this?

This city, after all, for African Americans is only 67 years old -- dating not from its founding in 1905 -- but from 1941, the time of the great migration west. Despite the fact that the old Carnegie Library building that now holds the Richmond Museum of History holds little of relevance to today's multiracial population. Its board of trustees and its staff does not reflect today's demographics at all. The building and its occupants cringe fearfully at the corner of old Fourth Street Park, a scarred and desolate hangout for the homeless, the disenfranchised, and the disaffected -- mostly black.

I could not keep myself from speaking out. When I noticed the guard sitting at the door -- a bulky man with enough armament hanging from his body to protect a regiment -- the anger grew. I was helpless in the face of it. And when the good Dr. Joe Fischer finished his lovely presentation, the words began to tumble out, "...has anyone noticed that we don't in any way represent the demographics of this city?" "Do you know that the period of these lovely children's paintings, according to the dates, was a time when black children were not served by the child development centers -- so therefore no nostalgic parents or descendants to view them with us?"

(I could see Jena, Louisiana's, worried parents of those youngsters facing sentencing, and Mel Reid, and Vangie's father; Ethel Dotson with whom I'd spent a hour only yesterday in a Berkeley hospital where she is terminally ill from cancer she is certain came from her years as a child in the wartime Seaport housing projects that had been built upon contaminated brown-fields; and I knew that they (those in the room) didn't know ... .but I wanted someone to forgive or to be forgiven by... .)

My challenge was taken up by Donald Bastin, the museum's curator, who insisted that none of this was true. That indeed, black families were not discriminated against. He brought forth from the group a former teacher (about my age) who insisted that this was an unfair charge and that there were black children in her classes. She told us that the problem was that you had to be worker at the shipyards in order to find a placement for your child. It felt useless to remind her that there were surely black female workers at the shipyards. Then I began to wonder if I were mistaken? If black women were not hired until late in 1944, would this explain it? I felt embarrassed, but then angrier at being unsure. But then I also knew that this was no myth. That black mothers and grandmothers in this community knew that they were not served by the Maritime Child Development Centers and spoke about it among themselves. It was acknowledged on our bus tours as well by our African American "tourists".

I then reminded myself -- after driving away to cry myself home -- that the period was filled with conflicting truths. That life does not live itself out in prescribed ways, and that I would drive myself crazy if I persisted in dissecting that period of utter confusion. That one cannot make rational the irrational, especially not in retrospect.

Better I should wait until next week's edition the National Park Service's magazine, Common Grounds, is released and I can read myself as I lived it 3 weeks ago when interviewed. Or, listen to myself as NPR reporter, Krissy Clark, and I toured Richmond for some upcoming air time soon. It all makes a kind of sense when I'm responding to questions of others about the period. It's when I sit alone with my own thoughts that it gets bottled up and implodes.

Just sobbed my way through a long distance conversation with my son, Bob, who was calling with a "Happy Birthday, Mom." He was wonderful and supportive and maybe the tears were just a case of "... but my birthday was yesterday and I didn't hear from you." Sometimes it's just that simple. And that complex.

Maybe... .

Picked up the Sunday S.F. Chronicle and nowhere in the two-page spread was my photo ... .

This is as it should be, I guess. When the photographer called on Friday afternoon to tell me that the editor wanted to use my photo (and it was then that I reminded him to have the editor look at the blog entry of 3/15/2007), it was all over. The decision to use other subjects was made and I (probably rightly) ended up on the cutting room floor.

It feels right. I would have felt hypocritical at best, and compromised at worst.

I really must watch the complete Ken Burns series when it airs next week, so that I can begin to put away some of the long-held anger, finally, lest it move through me to the next generation. There is surely too much of that already in the world. My children and grandchildren will need to process the wars of their generation, and come to terms with their roles in it, or lack thereof.

There's still work to do. This afternoon I'll attend the meeting of black leaders who are coming together to discuss the issue of illegal immigration.

And I'm still not sure of my position. I have a lot of listening to do -- this one will haunt me in days to come; I'm certain of it.

In the interest of full disclosure ...

I found myself suggesting to the S.F. Chronicle photographer who had arrived at my cubicle to take me on a photo shoot for this weekend's spread on the Ken Burns' epic -- that he check out my blog. I was uncomfortable that I'd written a scathing critique on "The War!" back in the spring when I'd been a member of the pre-screening audience at San Francisco's Castro theater. I was furious! (See March 15, 2007 in the archives - "Betty bitchin' in the balcony!")

I wasn't all that sure that they'd want to use me as their subject after reading what I thought of the Burns documentary. After all this spread is to be published in support of the presentation of the 15-hour series (check your listings for times and dates in your area).

In subsequent days I've been increasingly unhappy with the fact that the Latino community had raised so much hell that Ken Burns had eventually succumbed to the criticism and gone back into the studios to increase coverage of their role in the war. Where was my community? Why was there no outcry from African Americans? In seeing just pieces of each segment that night, had I simply not seen the story of the black experience? Was I grossly unfair to Ken Burns?

As I write this, I have no idea whether the writer (the photographer mentioned that the story would be done by one of the staff writers) read that piece and therefore decided to edit out all references to me, or, if he had decided to ignore the rantings of an old woman and written his story using existing online information from my blog or oral history from the Bancroft Library. Have no idea. I do know that he did not call for an interview. But I'll pick up a copy of the Sunday Chronicle and learn whether I wound up on the cutting-room floor after all.

If it means a retraction of my impressions of the Ken Burns epic, ... that's not possible. When I went back to re-read what I'd written that night, it felt real and true, and an accurate description of how it felt to sit in the back row of that balcony and have all of the pain of rejection and humiliation rise again in my throat, feel the rush of blood block my ears against the sounds around me, and threaten to cut off my breathing -- and to be unable to scream lest I embarrass myself and those around me... .

The story of our lives ... .

There has never been a time when I've had more to write about ...

Yet I'm finding it impossible to write -- from the center of a vortex. My fingers freeze over the keyboard, and I sit here in virtual silence while my brain races on wildly! So much is happening to me at a time when everything I know would suggest the opposite should be true at this stage in life. This writer's block has been true for two weeks now, and there seems to be little to be done about it.

I'm learning that "celebrity" is neither comfortable nor a guarantor of self-confidence. I'm forgetting things and losing a sense of control over small but important facets of my life. I worry that the confusion is less related to the multiple demands on my psyche and more by my newfound fame. It may be no more than the simple fact of aging. Is it beginning to happen now -- after this long stint of slipping by the physical and mental slowdown being experienced by so many of my contemporaries?

I vacillate between wanting to proudly preen in my fancy ranger uniform and distinctive hat and hiding under my desk or losing myself behind the screen of my computer for hours at a time. I've gradually grown used to telephone calls from reporters and columnists -- but always with the nagging question about where they all were when I was 26 -- 36 -- and surely just as aware and thoughtful as now; though surely without the experiences of later life which defined me.

And what of all the Bettys in all of the towns throughout the nation, young black women with the potential to be special and who were doomed to marginal back room jobs in marginal back room facilities, or other people's kitchens, of making beds in hotel rooms, because of skin color, alone? What a tragic waste of human potential to the nation! And it continues ... .

I feel so ordinary in so many ways, yet here they are with their notebooks open and pens poised for my "words of wisdom." I'm fitting into a scenario that is ripe for exploitation -- but only at a time when I'm years past my prime -- and so close to the end of life. Yet -- over the past weeks I've found myself on the front page of local newspapers; on the small screen in several documentaries; being featured as one of three women in a cover article in a national magazine being published this month; and in so many ways, without a firm conviction about my worthiness of such attention. Could this be residual scars leftover from the life of that 20 year-old over-achiever from the blacks-only Boilermakers Auxiliary union hall many years ago? Maybe.

But -- as Cousin Doug continues to say -- "... just enjoy it."

He may be right.

I almost believed him when a night or so ago (while re-playing the daily "movie" against my closed eye-lids just before sleep), there was a flash of insight:

I thought about the experience of watching "California at War," the KCET production in which I am on camera for 3-4 seconds at most. I thought about how impressed I was at the fairness -- the evenhandedness of the documentary in matters of race and ethnicity in the telling of their story. Then it dawned on me that the 3-4 seconds was not the issue at all. It was the fact that those talking heads (and mine among them) were all elderly people who had lived the era either as players or as children whose lives were effected by the war. We were being interviewed many years after the events, and at a time in life when we had nothing to gain by not being completely truthful. Obviously we all were.

After viewing the hours of interviews (mine was perhaps 90 minutes) necessary in order to cull those 3-4 seconds, our individual stories were embedded into the work. We (those interviewed) had created the documentary as surely as those who then applied the technology that gave those stories life. It was our experiences that shaped the work, and it was in the long hours -- the effects of the intimacy of our images and words on the producers -- from the computer screens and storyboards that produced the documentary. The metaphor might be that the interviews themselves were the live embers and that final 3-4 seconds on-screen little more than the (albeit still warm) ashes of the completed on-screen experience.

Now I can hardly wait to see the other documentaries in which my interviews may well have played a similar role; that of influencing the artists and technicians, and ultimately, the telling of the story of that heroic and tragic chapter in the history of the nation.

And -- yes, it's still difficult to write from the center of the vortex. But maybe it's the vortex, itself, that I need to be writing about... .

Photo: Dates from 1942 and is a picture taken at a baby shower for Marguerite Roles, wife of the secretary-treasurer of Boilermakers A-36, the Jim Crow union where I worked as a file clerk during WWII. I am in the front row in the left corner of the screen. Little did I know how time, alone, would transform my life many times over.

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!