Allright. Now let's talk about the real reason I've not been writing this past week ...

He was seventeen and expecting to enter Contra Costa Community College this fall semester. (I can still see him in my mind's eye, a handsome dark-skinned youth, neatly-dressed, seated at our conference table just two seats over listening intently). This youngster was one of about a dozen local kids from a program known as C.Y.C.L.E. Their director is Ms. Lillie Mae Jones, a feisty aging Saul Alinsky-trained community organizer and activist who is my friend, and who has been conducting a program for disadvantaged youngsters in Richmond's troubled Iron Triangle neighborhood for many years. And what makes this story the more poignant is that Lillie Mae conducts the program from her wheelchair and has done so for as many years as I've known her.

One morning just two weeks ago, my friend, and her daughter and very capable assistant, Lena, called to ask if it would be possible for me to conduct a guided tour of the Rosie the Riveter Memorial for her summer youth program. "We have our own van, and can be there in a few minutes." With only an hour's notice, my ranger partner and I quickly organized a mini-tour.

As Elizabeth and I ran through our PowerPoint and my short "Of lost conversations" DVD in our conference room, I noticed how rapt were those kids, and realized how unknowing they were about their own local history. It was a great morning, and though they drove ahead while I took care of some items waiting at my desk, the adventure ended up with my joining them at the Memorial in Marina Bay Park where we walked the time line of WWII together, and read each panel aloud and talked about meanings. It was rangering at its best, and I felt rightfully "in the moment."

Lena phoned me at home later that evening to say how moved she had been by our presentation and of how excited the kids were; how animated was the talk on the way back to their center.

Just two days ago I learned that our 17 year-old student had been accosted on the street by an assailant and shot 5 times in the back! That he had survived the murder attempt but may be suffering permanent physical damage. The psychological damage must be overwhelming. The kind of hatred that would bring 5 shots to the back might well indicate that the shooter will return at some point -- and ...what does one say or do in the face of that kind of awfulness?

And ... what are the relationships between my earlier post (below) and this one? And why have I held the story for so many hours without sharing it with anyone, not even with my co-workers?

Is it just an illusion that putting it into words makes the terror more real?

I truly don't know.

"Leave the guns at home", says EJ Dionne, Washington Post columnist ... .

There has been little or no comment on the differences or similarities between Mr. Dionne's thought-provoking and moving editorial which brought to mind the chilling and long-familiar images of the Black Panther Party marching in formation -- fully and legally armed -- through the halls of the State Capitol in Sacramento during the early Sixties. That act ushered in the era of CoInTelPro and the relentless and brutal siege staged against black militancy, nationwide, over the following decade. With militias now blessed with legal permission to publicly arm themselves in many states -- and with the NRA fiercely defending their 2nd amendment rights -- is skin color the only difference? How were J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI justified in shutting down black militancy by use of deadly force then, and where are those powers now? What has changed? I'm not at all sure of the answers to this new and seemingly irrational show of force -- and this time not by our government but by the citizenry -- nor do I support or defend the Panther's deliberately provocative strategy back in the Sixties. It's the loss of control over the issue that is so disturbing.

But the irony was inescapable -- of the young black brother decked out in his strapped-on shoulder holster assault rifle plus his openly displayed revolver; given that history. Out of what rabbit hole do you supposed he climbed? About the time that his image slid into view -- being interviewed by a white dude with a revolver strapped to his leg(!) -- I found myself giggling helplessly! Testosterone on the rampage! What in the world? It was about at that point that the "deja" became completely unglued from the "vu" and I lost it! Maybe laughter is the only defense reasonable folks can have to such behaviors; but surely that isn't enough. Something critically important to our survival may be at risk here; something activated by decades of unending war and ceaseless urban violence. Have we become so desensitized that we've lost the ability to respond appropriately? This morning the grin has disappeared and my skin crawls with fear for what may lie ahead ... .

We graduated our Rosie's Girls yesterday and a prouder gaggle of grownups have rarely been seen ...

The girls were gathered in a circle at the head of the community room at the Coronado YMCA -- seated in beautiful chairs they'd constructed from scratch and painted in every shape and color imaginable after their introduction to the use of power tools. Such a proud collection of happy faces is rare, indeed.

There were proud parents (mostly moms), two of the NPS women equestriennes from Fort Mason who'd met with them during the session; several Sheroes who returned to be with them on this final day of the program; members of the City's Public Works Dept. who had been in on the project from the start; the director of YouthWorks, a city summer job's program into which many of the girls will transition for the rest of the summer; members of the Richmond Police Dept., YMCA staffers, some funders (including Chevron/Texaco and Wells Fargo Bank), and as many rangers as are in our management system. What a day! If grins were dollars we'd have made up the richest collection of wealth on the planet.

Our Rosie's Girls spent Thursday night aboard a submarine moored in the San Francisco harbor and were still excited! They wished for "just one more week." As for the adult leaders, immediate discussions were already initiated -- hints of plans for next year. Burned out? Hardly. Even Ms. Vanessa "Mom" Calloway," their intrepid program director, appeared ready for another round. The community came together to make this happen and is ready to roll up its sleeves to continue to develop its model.

As an aside, there were moments -- especially after being drawn in against my will to present as a shero last Thursday -- that I truly felt irrelevant and old. My age placed me so far beyond even the imaginations of these youngsters that I found it almost impossible to relate to them - at least not from that perspective. I was perfectly at ease as just another adult figure in the room; on human terms, which holds its own value. But when re-introduced to them as a "Shero" I stumbled and felt incoherent. The distance between was simply too great and the time line impossible to comprehend. I felt embarrassed standing before them . I could have been their great-grandmother, ferheavensake! Until that point, I'd been simply, "Miss Betty," a comfortable being in the room. We'd been together a number of times, but now I was setting myself apart -- or so it seemed. I'd become a "Shero," and it felt different somehow.

I know when my presence is relevant and contributes to events -- and when it does not. It's a feeling thing. Perception. Hard to explain without sounding self-deprecating. Yesterday I wanted to simply be in the room, uncelebrated, blending in -- and regretted being singled out in any way. Fortunately it was short-lived; a gesture of little consequence, after all. But it may have heralded a new phase in the aging process. Will I begin now to find myself in places where I've lost relevance, really? Was it because I have grandchildren in the middle school years and with whom my relationship is clearly-defined -- where their love and respect is unquestioned but -- are they impressed with Grandma's exploits? -- a little, maybe, but that's old stuff. My sons are far more taken with their park ranger mom and her derring-do. Maybe one generations is about as far back in time most of us can go before we lose focus.

Maybe that's it.

Photo: Victoria Jones, Vice-president of Clorox Corporation, who visited on Tuesday, August 13th.
Pamela Freund-Striplin, Violist for San Francisco Opera, Symphony, and Artistic Director for
the Gold Coast Chamber Music group of Lafayette, California.

Life is good ... no, not good ... sensational!

...and it is not because I've won the lottery (refuse to play on principle, actually), or, that I woke up this morning wrinkle-free and with hair follicles reactivated. Nah. It has simply been one of those stretches of time when even the smallest wishes have been granted, even those unspoken and deeply buried in my psyche.

Various segments of my past were reunited, starting with Paul and Shirley, but from my more recent past -- times from years of working with the community in other capacities. My world has always been nicely peopled, a fact that has enriched life considerably and added to the self confidence I now seem to have achieved.

Case in point: A brand new program, "Rosie's Girls" (a local version of a national program) was introduced into our daily park lives this summer that is so exciting and that called upon the wealth of years of contacts with some of the most exciting women one might wish for. The assignment meant going through my contacts list to gather together an impressive group of women with whom I'd shared segments of my own life over the years.

Rosie's Girls recruited 24 youngsters from two local middle schools to participate in a 3 week urban summer day camp which would broaden their horizons by introducing them to non-traditional work place roles in the tradition of "Rosie the Riveter". We (the park) would partner with the school district, the city's Dept. of Public Works, a local bank, private industries, public safety agencies, the YMCA, etc., which would sponsor exciting experiences in order to expand the choices of youngsters whose own life choices might be seriously limited by a number of challenges. During camp they would be given hands-on experiences with a variety of skills (simple electrical and plumbing repairs, carpentry, cement work, fire safety, landscaping, wall-climbing, an overnight on a submarine after dinner at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, visits to the Marine Headlands, to a fabrication studio where they would create concrete stepping stones for a victory garden planted by kids in another summer program. And all this would be experienced in jumpsuits with Rosie's Girls emblazoned on the backs and over a breast pocket, with matching baseball caps, work gloves, safety glasses; all items will be theirs to keep when the program ends. (How cool is that?)

My assignment was a relatively limited one. My outreach co-ranger, Carla, was acting as lead. I was to come up with a "Shero" (term coined by Maya Angelou for female heroes) to give a lunchtime presentation for each day; successful women from every walk of life who would share lunch and do a Q&A with these 12-14 year-olds. They were to bring along photos of themselves (maybe at their geekiest) at about those ages -- talk about what inspired them at that time and how those ambitions shifted over the years; if indeed they did change. They were asked to say something about the challenges they'd faced and how their current life measures up to those early dreams. The Sheroes were sensational!

They included the mayor of the city and two former mayors; a vice-president of an international corporation; a member of the California State Assembly; a violist from the San Francisco symphony and opera companies who also plays for soundtracks for video games and films at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch; a popular R&B singer; the woman who heads the education committee of the Tellurite Film Festival in Colorado; a playwright with two productions currently on stage; two national park superintendents; two authors, a poet, and a publisher; a juvenile justice specialist, several feminist leaders, etc. It was an amazing collection of inspiring role models. I've already begun my list for next year's program, and we have plans to bring the original group together for an evaluation luncheon very soon. One note I do need to add is that there was not one refusal among the busily engaged women invited to participate. Some came from quite a distance away to share of themselves, and they did so with caring and enthusiasm. Something that I'm sure was contagious and filled the room to over-flowing each day.

I can hardly imagine the kind of impact such an exposure to strong and accomplished women will have on youngsters (and these were mostly children of color) in these formative years. I will provide links to the Rosie's Girls website as soon as I can figure out the process. Meanwhile, I'm anxious to share the good news.

Spent most of yesterday afternoon drafting a brief essay for an online website involved in African American tourism for the Convention and Visitor's Bureau of the City of Richmond. Since I was writing while riding high on the Rosie's Girls experience and Friday's installation of the beautiful stepping stones at Verde elementary school's victory garden -- the article wrote itself with minimal help from me.

"And the walls came a-tumba-lin' down!"

...and the sun remained in the firmament along with the stars and the moon ... and, despite the brouhaha going on in Cambridge twixt the cop and the professor; the "Twain" has met and it was good!

I suppose that throughout time there have been those who were trying their darndest to "get it right," while the oppositionists flailed and cursed change. Maybe that's who Paul Charbonnet is for me; the one of this generation who has chosen to buck the system, find a corresponding brave soul -- and courageously proceed to break the cycle of alienation that we'd ceased to even be aware of over the decades. What a wonderful man is he! It was love at first sight and I suspect that it was mutual. Both Paul and his warm and welcoming plain-spoken Shirley stepped into my world as if they'd been always standing by waiting in the wings for an invitation. Those Charbonnet genes leapt across the conference room and met in mid-air as if the centuries-old separation of our white and black families had never been. Would that all could find it so easy.

It could not have been a more dramatic opening scene. Wednesday was a day scheduled for one of my "Betty-guided" bus tours of the scattered sites of our park and on my roster were two names that caused my heart to skip -- theirs. The other 14 passengers had no idea what a huge day this was for us. I'd sent a memo around to our staff the day before letting them know how special this tour would be for me, and why.

They arrived at 9:30 from their hotel in San Francisco - having flown from Louisiana to be here. In they walked, the first to arrive for the tour -- and I was hyperventilating wildly! It was hard to allow the enormity of what was happening to sink in at that moment. I had an orientation to present and a tour to run and it was crazy -- we were the Jeffersons and the Hemmings, and all of the great slave family reunions put together, except that none in our Charbonnet family had been enslaved to our knowledge. Slavery would be in my maternal line. My father's family was alienated since the 1830's due to a French Charbonnet male joining with a "woman of color of high-standing" with whom he started our line. It is since that time that we've been two branches -- neither recognizing the other -- at least not officially. In our conversation over lunch we could both recall older members of our families referring to informal relationships that were maintained, mostly through male members. But never overt and probably subject to denial if need be. It was the "southern" way, and time honored in practice.

That's over now.

And -- could it have been a more auspicious day for them to arrive? After the tour Martha and I were scheduled to participate in a PBS program called "California's Gold," and would spend much of the afternoon on camera for a production about the magnificent historic Ford Building, one of the sites incorporated in Rosie the Riveter WWII/Home Front Historic National Park, and the site of the soon-to-be-constructed NPS Visitor's Center. If I wanted to impress, this sure was the way to do so. How's that for drama?

Yesterday the 3 of us met in San Francisco as guests of a young cousin, Jacques, for lunch. Tomorrow evening we'll gather at my apartment in an open house that will allow all the family members who haven't taken off on vacations to meet our cousins. Wish we'd had more time, but this visit was impulsive and unplanned and there wasn't a way to do the appropriate announcement for an occasion as important as this is. But that will come later. If you're a Charbonnet, please register at charbonnetfamily@yahoo.com so that we can grow ourselves into the proud combined American family that we truly are. The process has begun. Add you and yours to the Grand In-Gathering!

Might I add that Paul discovered me on the Internet while searching for documentation for his own family history project? He started reading here earlier this year and (according to his own words), "I've got to meet this woman!" So saying, the story began to unfold and -- here we are -- two direct descendants of two Charbonnet brothers from Thiers, in the Bordeaux region of France, who arrived here in the New World in the mid-1700s, years before the Revolutionary War. Maybe our adventure, joining together as a total family in the new millenium will prove as daring. Maybe not. But however it goes, I feel deep in my heart that it is these symbolic gestures of reaching across the racial divide in love that may save us all.

Welcome into our lives, Paul Charbonnet!

It's now posted: "The Greatest Wartime Home Front Mobilization", article published in the California Historian, Spring 2009 issue.

Click the Betty Reid Soskin pages link over on the left side of the screen -- above the archives. You'll be taken to those pages where you'll scroll down to the bottom of the directory on the left. Please do comment by email, if you will (use "email me" link at the top of the list). I would truly appreciate the feedback. Remember, I'm still a novice at this.

So much to write about ... so much happening ... and seemingly unrelated, but maybe not ...

Prof. Henry Louis Gates, eminent Harvard educator and recent humiliated proud black man.

I don't believe there is a person of color who didn't immediately grimace in pain upon learning about his arrest on his own front porch in Cambridge.

Immediately my mind rushed back to the many times when we lived in our lovely redwood creekside home in suburban Walnut Creek in the Fifties; when I would answer my doorbell to some salesman or solicitor who would look past me, over my shoulder, and ask if the lady of the house was at home. I was invariably assumed to be the maid. How I wished that I could have screamed and pushed the offender off into the bushes, but instead I would say simply, "I am the lady of the house." There was no graceful way to rescue the idiot with the egg on his face except to quietly close the door and push the insult to the back of my mind in order to get through another day of being diminished.

Then there was the time when -- at my father's invitation -- I attended the annual banquet hosted by his St. Vincent de Paul's Society at a fancy Italian restaurant in downtown Oakland. Dad was an officer of the organization and was to be honored for a year of outstanding service. I'd dressed in my most elegant outfit complete with hat and gloves and drove in from the suburbs to join him and mother for the evening of celebration. Getting there early, I found that I was the first to arrive and that the doors were still locked. I sat in my station wagon at the curb for a while, then -- as I watched -- as a man drove up who was obviously preparing to enter the restaurant, I approached cautiously to inquire about the dinner (maybe I had the wrong date or time?). He welcomed me with a smile and, assuring me that I had the right information. "Just follow me," says he. In so doing I found myself being led through a side door and into a huge bustling kitchen where he pointed to a shelf near the door -- indicating crisply that here was the place to stash my hat and purse -- so saying he handed me a checkered apron and walked away ... .

What does one do with those awful moments? Racial profiling? Of course. The kind that has followed people of color throughout our lives. They have a double-edged effect. We're not only embarrassed for ourselves, but almost always for the offender as well, because we know they're caught up in an age-old stupidity that is almost reflexive -- the default -- born of something bigger than either of us. It's this awful ambiguous situation so easily denied ("you just didn't understand") that builds up until all you can do is push back for the sake of your own sanity. For me it was many years too early so I swallowed my pride and added the incident to a growing body of insults that exploded in a quiet rage fueling my soul in marches and demonstrations and protests as I grew into my anger. This was so hard for well-intentioned liberal friends to understand or appreciate, so it was lonely. The charges were guaranteed to send conservatives into spasms of irrational rages of their own that further alienate (or did you not hear Patrick Buchanan's comments this week?).

Professor Gates could afford to push back because times have changed and there are now both black and white Americans pushing back with him from the same side of the racial divide. But the push-back comes at a very high price for everyone involved; and to him more than to anyone due to his exalted position in the academy. The unfairness adds to his rage, I'm certain. Despite this awfulness, the social climate has changed and I, too, would have expressed my outrage freely were it to happen to me today, and I'm confident that there would be many across that racial barrier who would understand and support me in my fury, as there are for him. I would have liked to count President Obama among them.

I would have preferred that our president had resisted the temptation to be so "even-handed." His first response was the right one, from my obviously biased perspective. And I'm sure he knew that. The weight of the presidency is in delicate balance -- but just this once -- I wish that he'd placed his thumb on our side of the scale. I admit to feeling the sting of disappointment in his later backing away and giving equal weight to both the young white officer's claims and those of the rightfully offended Skip Gates. The president obviously hoped to placate all who have been handed that checkered apron over a lifetime. All it did for me was to re-open old wounds and re-ignite the embers of bitterness I thought long extinguished.

We all have much work to do, still, do we not?

Photo: That would be a photo of me taken in 1957 about the time of the incident at the Italian Restaurant. How did he even know that I was African American? Beats me, except that I'm sure that I appeared more so in person than this picture would indicate. My neighbors had no problem whatsoever pegging my racial identity.

The day has come when the Charbonnet -- from across the ages will reach out and touch for the first time in 300 years of American history ... .

Suddenly, on an ordinary day less than a week ago, my cell phone rang and a voice at the other end of the line asked if it would be convenient to talk. His voice was vaguely familiar, and my heart raced as if somehow I knew the next few minutes would be like no others. It was Paul. I was sitting at my desk at the office working on confirmations for next week's bus tour and he was somewhere in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the "Twain" is about to meet.

"Things have eased up here and Shirley and I have reservations to arrive in San Francisco for our visit on Tuesday. We have a suitcase filled with family historic items to share and can't wait to see you."

After several centuries of separation, we are slowly moving toward reunification of our black and white families -- and the excitement is almost palpable! Neither of us knows how many cousins will follow our lead, or how many generations more it might take for full realization of our hopes, but it matters not one whit. We're taking the first steps with eyes wide open and arms outstretched!

What an amazing time to be alive ... would that our fathers and theirs could have seen this day!

If you notice a slight shift in the pull of gravity on Wednesday morning at around 9 o'clock, it won't be an earth tremor or an errant comet striking the planet. It will be the moment when we meet for the first time to begin the long march toward a new future as one great Southern American family no longer apart. It is my hope that we will -- from this day forward -- be unified on the same side of the racial divide facing up to racism, together, by the simple act of an embrace that will be as significant to the two of us as the electrifying touch of fingertips between God and Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel!

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Their sons ought to study geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain."

John Adams (Letters to Abigail)

Found myself thinking about this memorable quote after newly-discovered cousins Mike and Patricia Charbonnet and their lovely daughter, Fabienne, left yesterday afternoon after a much too brief first visit. We were meeting for the first time, and it was wonderful!

Fabienne is a recent graduate in art history from UCLA who is leaving in a few weeks to take a teaching position under the French Ministry. She will live there in the place from which our ancestors sailed some time in the 1700s to start a life in the New World. What an adventure! I'm hoping that she'll take the time to visit the Charbonnet's ancestral home in Thiers before returning to the States. Wouldn't that be something? Mike and Patricia will travel with her to locate and get her settled in her new living space -- stopping off in Paris before returning to their home in Santa Barbara.

We talked about how many of the current generation are into one or another of the arts (which is what brought the Adams quote to mind). I recalled how strong were the craftsmen represented in our lineage. All of my father, Dorson, and Mike's grandfather, Joseph Charbonnet's brothers, were carpenters, plasterers, bricklayers; "Builders." But then there have been the politicians and technocrats, I'm sure. Find myself wondering about just who we all turned out to be over succeeding generations? There are many writers among us, and now that I'm officially published -- I'll count myself among them.

Here's hoping we'll begin to come together soon in order to have the chance to explore just where life has taken us over time; to learn whether we've finally reached the place on the continuum where wars are behind us in our venerable ages-old Charbonnet Family's development -- and that final stage in social evolution so eloquently spoken of by John Adams has been attained. Perhaps we mirror the nation in that respect ... maybe. It's possible, right? We've been around long enough (since long before the Revolutionary War) to serve as a measure of national progress, don't you suppose?

Yesterday brought the 65th anniversary of the Port Chicago disaster which took 320 lives, 202 of whom were young African Americans ...

On Friday I had the great honor of providing a tour of the Rosie the Riveter Memorial for a group of men (the "mutineers") who survived that tragedy and returned for this year's commemoration.

These are my contemporaries. It's so hard to hold that in mind when I'm surrounded by younger people most of the time. It all seems to have happened in the very recent past. There is the illusion that time collapses in on itself in some strange way (awkward wording but I don't know quite how to describe it). When I'm surrounded by those from my own age group, it's disorienting in some way and I have to remind myself that I'm now at the age where birthdays come every six weeks and that others are experiencing life at the same incomprehensible speed and with this same sense of urgency!

Prior to arriving to meet me for the tour, they'd traveled in a caravan consisting of two large vans and a sedan to the national cemetery at San Bruno on the San Francisco Peninsula where they'd visited the graves of those who perished in that conflagration on July 17, 1944. Yesterday I learned during the ceremony a fact long forgotten. It was that their graves are separated from the others by race. At that time no servicemen of color were buried with the whites, but were segregated into a section "for colored only", and not in some southern graveyard, but here in California where such practices were little known. Of course this would have happened before the desegregation of the armed forces so would not have been questioned at the time. What a cruel irony to revisit! We have so much still to atone for as a nation, don't we? As I've said before, if others will continue to work on atonement, we'll continue to strive valiantly to find forgiveness.

Yesterday about 250 friends and family gathered at the monument in a beautiful ceremony to honor those lost. (Numbers are limited by available space.) It was the annual Day of Remembrance hosted by the National Park Service. State Senator Mark Desaulnier and representatives of all of our local, state, and federal elected officials were present to honor the day. Legislation is now pending in the Senate (after recent passage in the House) to raise the Port Chicago monument to full status as a national park. After introduction by Rep. George Miller in the House, Senator Barbara Boxer is carrying the bill in the Senate with passage anticipated in the very near future.

You must read University of California at Berkeley's Prof. Robert L. Allen's "Port Chicago Mutiny" for the story of the tragedy that occurred on that fateful day in 1944. It was the response to the subsequent mutiny trials of the men who refused to return to the docks to load ammunition without further training that caused President Harry Truman to mandate desegregation of the Armed Forces in 1948 by presidential order. By so doing he inadvertently ushered in the modern civil rights movement that would continue to build over the next 20 years into that which we now remember as the Civil Rights Revolution of the Sixties.

I am so proud of the role being played by the National Park Service in giving voice to the stories of our times without reservation, and for allowing the conflicting perceptions of what happened to resurface so that we can, black and white together, process that history and support one another in growing past the bitterness that has silenced our voices for such a long time. Let those conversations flourish now that we're able to finally bear the pain of remembering. The correctives are not yet all in place but the stage has been set for those exchanges to occur and for a purging of the debilitating hatred to be set in motion.

In January change could be felt in the air at the Inauguration. I feel it still among those who gather at our parks to learn of that history. I felt it again yesterday in that sterile Army building at Port Chicago that came to life again as a diverse group of people came to remember, and to honor by their presence those fallen young heroes long since dead. Our numbers now including the men who came to add their voices -- now aging but still proud of what their standing tall initiated for us all by their honest defiance of that shameful unenlightened past that we've somehow managed to survive into a more promising future. I'm told that only six remain, most of whom traveled from great distances to be with us yesterday. We were deeply honored by their presence.

Incidentally, I was reminded upon seeing him again among the visitors yesterday, that Dr. Robert Allen was one of my guests on a July 15th bus tour of the Richmond park sites. Rather than feeling intimidated by his presence (as one might expect -- given my amateur status as a scholar), it's interesting to note that I came away from the tour feeling affirmed as "historian." One day I may take those quotes away and declare myself (grin).

Betty the Vintage Tour Guide ... .

I'm again guiding tours of the scattered sites that constitute this developing new national park. So far this summer I've conducted 3 2-hour bus tours with 3 more scheduled between now and the end of August. In the process I'm meeting some very interesting people -- some of whom are older -- having had parents who were the veterans of WWII or of the home front mobilization. Some are young workers from local green businesses now located in the restored Ford Assembly Plant, one of the sites included in the park. Many of the elders are coming back to revisit that history and to contribute what they can to the stories. Younger visitors are learning for the first time in most cases what happened here and are deeply impressed with what they're discovering. We're building ourselves a park, one story at a time, and the park visitors are checking in to help in that effort. This is such a fascinating phase in park development.

Interest is high, but for the most part the visitors are coming from outside the immediate community. Visitors from the university and nearby colleges and folks from the area's museums are beginning to turn up on the guest lists, and that is both cause for celebration and makes for just a bit of insecurity. After all, my stories are generated from my memory bank and not from objective study. My analyses come straight out of personal living history and -- though I'm confident in the telling -- there is still that fear of seeming too audacious for my own good.

Read back over my California Historian article today after avoiding doing so since it was published earlier this month. I've had the magazine sitting atop my desk, propped up on my copy holder so that I can see it, but have been unable to make myself read it for fear I'd be disappointed or embarrassed in some way.

It will be posted soon on my web pages so that it will be available for you to see within a few days; and then I'll want feedback -- if you'll be kind enough to take the time.

Meanwhile, I must admit that after spending some time with it this afternoon, I came away feeling that I've made my case adequately. There is nothing therein that I would want to change. It reads well and gives a fresh insight into those eventful years.

I recognized a consistency in my on-the-bus interpretation along the tour route and the content of the article. Truth as I lived it comes through loud and clear.

I will be curious to learn what you think of my claims.

I felt confident enough to have forwarded a copy to one of yesterday's guests -- a noted author and a professor in the Black Studies Department at the University of California. Maybe I, too, can now claim to be an historian. After all, I once found myself listed by the National Women's History Project as a cultural anthropologist -- and I had to check the dictionary to figure out just what that was!

Truly, these are remarkable times.

After a few hours of living with that last entry about Michael Jackson ... .

as a way of doing penance I forced myself to sit before my television set -- tuned to MTV -- and watched a full hour of his videos. I then watched "Living With Michael Jackson" (BBC). What a sad experience! This was an artist of and for my children's generation. I felt shame for sitting in judgment of this vulnerable artist, though I was left even more conflicted than before.

His talent and charisma cannot be overstated. I could feel the years peel back as I watched his magic unfold. Incredible!

Among the selections presented was one with Lisa Marie Presley called, "You are not alone," and there it was; the exhibitionism of the baring of his body just as I remembered. The discomfort that I'd felt returned as sharply as before. Wanting to look away ... embarrassed for him in some weird way. I was struck with how long those impressions and images remain in the subconscious to be called up with all of the affect originally experienced. How many years ago was, that, anyway?

Strange.

What an amazing performer was this fragile genius!

He is called the ultimate showman. Transcendent! Legendary. And now, I, too, am a believer.

... but I came away also convinced that he may have been as damaged by his early life experiences as was my Dorian by irreversible birth trauma. Emotionally, he may not have matured much more than she has over the years. Watching him being interviewed evoked empathy usually reserved for the "wounded" who make up her world. I could feel myself mentally lowering expectations and making the necessary allowances ... (this is familiar territory).

Perhaps he was precisely what he needed to be in order to survive his extraordinary fame.

I couldn't help but suspect that -- had Dorian approached with the opening statement, "...tomorrow is my cat's birthday," Michael without hesitation would have asked -- "... and how old will she be?"

Sleep well, Peter Pan... .

The loss of an icon ... .

Been wondering whether to speak of the sudden tragic death of Michael Jackson, and trying to tell myself that -- in a time of so many celebrities passing -- there was really little need to deal with this particular one. But the news has been impossible to avoid. Looking away did little to eliminate the persistent drumbeat of Billie Jean and the brilliance of this flawed young idol. To watch him dance - ghostlike -- hour after hour in the news coverage was like watching poetry personified moving gracefully across the screen. It was impossible to look away ... .

His troubled life was something I didn't really want to think about. It stirred so many painful memories of others I've known about whom there were similar disturbing whispered stories of sexual misconduct. Just another human story among many?

I thought of other larger than life figures from the world of entertainment and the excesses that marked their lives and contributed to their self-destructive choices. Was this one really any different? I don't really know, except that his stature in the world carried with it all of the weight that comes with public scrutiny and notoriety that the lesser known might escape.

Found in myself a mother's tendency to want to forgive and protect, but a large part of me could not exalt. Found myself turning away from the apologists and their pleas that all be forgiven; that we understand the damage done to the child Michael whose loss of his own childhood had formed this flawed adult we all adored and loathed in turn over the years.

His flaws will be examined and dissected into the future; and rightly so. His imperfections will be studied and reviled as his genius is celebrated. Maybe this is as it should be. Maybe this will be his legacy; the much-needed corrections to the laws and regulations that govern the lives and careers of children exploited by those upon whom their lives depend. But then I thought we'd taken care of that with the long ago Jackie Coogan laws and those which developed around child star, McCauley Culkin's, court battles. Maybe not. There is urgent need to correct the system that allows for the abuse of prescription drugs for those with the money to afford them and to limit access from those who are the enablers for a price.

I find it hard to believe that Michael's skin lightening was due to a disease. Given the rest of the dramatic physical transformation that we've watched over the years, it seems far more likely that he'd undergone chemical treatments that whitened his skin -- and may well have shortened his life. We didn't experience the changing along with him -- only the change. And once that change was complete, in his stage appearances we began to see a flaunting of that new white skin with a dramatic baring of his half-naked body on stage and on camera. I remember how uncomfortable it felt to watch those exposures, as if this young man's struggle with the racism we knew so well was being dealt with in a way that we sensed as wrong and feared would lead to more tragedy. It was clear that we were witnessing a psychiatric nightmare! The songs he composed over that period are so contradictory; so in denial, so riddled with conflict, that I wondered why so little was being made of it by the critics and reviewers? He was consumed by "black and white," thematically.

The clue for me was in the fact that from the time of his complete skin transformation we never again saw him out of doors without a hat, long sleeves, and sheltered by a large umbrella, rain or shine. "Avoid exposure to direct sunlight with this medication," screamed loud and clear.

The conclusive evidence for me that this gifted young man was an emotional train wreck came with the fact that -- at the point where he elected to become a parent -- it was not brown children that he chose to "father," but children who could hardly have been born to handsome dark-skinned Michael Jackson -- but children who instead reflected the distorted artificially white-skinned-straight-haired-wigged-self-created man that he'd unnaturally become with the help of unscrupulous plastic surgeons of no conscience. That makes those lovely children little more than extensions of the Michael Jackson fantasy along with Neverland and its Merry-go-rounds and Ferris Wheels.

Oh how I feel for those 3 beautiful and confused children he left behind! That they will be loved is a given. There are enough responsible grownup Jacksons to see to that. However, what in the world can ever make up for their distorted life experiences to date?

Make me no speeches about what a loving father was this tortured man. Watching the kind of strange lives that were imposed on these innocent kids was almost as sad as the spectacle Michael's own life has always been. Were it not for his genius and great wealth, he might well have been charged with child abuse in time, though his power and wealth had long ago cast him far beyond the reach of accountability.

There are lots of questions still to be asked, and they're not all about the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death. They have nothing to do with his obvious gifts to black culture and to the entertainment world that will surely not see his equal for a very long time. Those facts are indisputable.

That there has been a persistent feeling of sadness marking these past few days surely is caused by the loss of this sensitive, flawed, and sad young Michael Jackson. But the cruel images we've been fed by CNN suggests that this was a deeply-troubled life on a downward spiral that might not have survived the upcoming 50 concert schedule anyway.

So sad ... .

For the sake of the young and the vulnerable among us, I'm hoping that we're taking the right lessons from his undeniably productive life as a performer. I seriously wonder whether he ever knew how loved he was?

Or was he?

Really?

It seems probable that -- despite the international acclaim that deservedly came with his remarkable career on the world stage -- the gentle Michael seems never to have been convinced that he'd overcome what he must have perceived as the stigma of being the socially-despised black "man in the mirror," the dark specter who must have haunted him since childhood in Gary, Indiana.

Life with Dorian, continued ... .

My developmentally disabled daughter and I spent an unusual amount of time together over the 4th of July weekend. I'd been planning for weeks to include her in (what will surely become) the First Annual Oakland Symphony Free Concert and Fireworks Extravaganza at the Craneway Pavilion. We'd talked about it constantly of late -- when I'd pick her up for the drive to her art center for the day. It was particularly exciting because this weekend would also include the High School Musical at the same venue the following night. Dorian isn't big on symphony (can't hum along too well), but is ecstatic about this tween phenomenon brought to the world by television. She would tolerate the first at my insistence, but WOW! To see Troy and Gabriella of East High in the flesh would be almost too good to imagine. Dorian is now 50 going on 10, and as a fitting cultural event, this is the absolute best.

I'm aware that my conduct and attitude changes radically when she's along. I put on invisible blinders so that others are essentially shut out of my immediate line of vision. I make a subconscious choice -- either I'm with her or in the room with others. If I'm with her the situation demands that I see the experience through her eyes and that adjustments set in place since she was a small child kick in. It's not always possible to remain in my world and bring her along so I learned long ago to opt into hers for limited periods. My intellect slips into limbo; eyes are half-closed; and I move onto her plane for whatever time is required. It's something she's taught me in order for us both to survive in the weird dimension she would otherwise experience alone. I've never fully understood it, but am sure that other parents of the handicapped will understand what I'm struggling to describe.

Dorian is like a brightly-painted Volkswagen in a world of Cadillacs. She has all of the essentials, but none of the extras. The subtleties and nuances pass her by. She can only handle the basics; and she handles them reasonably well, thank you.

As we sat down at our front row table at the concert her first words to Kate (seated directly across from us) were, "tomorrow is my cat's birthday." True. Kate who is the president of the Arts Commission has known Dorrie through NIAD (program for handicapped artists) and is aware of her limitations so took it in stride. A stranger would have been completely taken aback.

Dorian is confident and functions relatively well in social settings. She's always been included in the family activities and trips and displays a rare ability to meet a stranger and immediately set the subject and boundaries of the conversations by stating the ground rules with her first sentence. From childhood she figured out that if she doesn't do so she will be lost in verbal exchanges that she cannot possibly relate to. She found a way to not become lost in other people's words. Makes for some uncomfortable social situations. I tend to find myself putting my hand on her arm or around her waist with the intention of re-directing the interaction. This allows a way to subtly include her while also shutting her down -- so that the other person can both recover from the shock of that first sentence and find a way to respond, or, to find themselves hopelessly lost in talk that is completely controlled by Dorian. She has no understanding that conversations are meant to be two-way and that there needs to be room for the other person to have a word or two. It's all send. No receiving. She is ever creating and managing a social world in which she can function. It's defensive. It's also aggressive.

Not only is the experience emotionally exhausting, but it means that when I take her along I've committed to limiting my own social experience. It means holding her hand under the table as a way of reassuring her that I know that she's being made miserable by the constraints. She is very sensitive and aware that she's being restrained which she clearly resents. She's gregarious and wants desperately to be free to share in the chit-chat around her. It means that I become reluctant to interact with those around us and feel at times that this may be read as aloofness. The more gregarious she becomes, the quieter I tend to be. I begin to withdraw as if by some subtle manipulation I can provide the example for her to follow; a guaranteed failure as witnessed over a lifetime. I've never learned to allow others to take care of themselves in relating to her; as it will be when I'm no longer here to act my part.

I really do understand why we rarely see any of those who people her everyday world of others like her attending public events. It means that when she is with me in these situations, she is always off-key -- different -- odd and out of sync. When she was a little girl I almost always picked her up from school for a weekend or field trip bringing along at least one other child from her world. The practice worked for us. It's the reason I've always been opposed to mainstreaming, but I've never been able to convince anyone of my point of view.

The magic of NIAD (National Institute for Artists and Disabilities) is that Dorian has a chance to function as one of the high-achievers in that special world. Out here in the world where the rules vary greatly, she is always bringing up the rear -- or having her mother holding her hand under the table so that (mother) won't be embarrassed by her brashness and inappropriate though sincere pronouncements about her precious cat's birthday, or something equally as strange.

There was a time during the concert when the orchestra played a lovely medley from The Sound Of Music and invited the audience to sing along. Dorrie lay her head on my shoulder and, blissfully, together we sang every word -- both on and off key -- happily finding a few moments of being totally in sync with the several thousand music lovers around us in that magnificent space.

Happy Independence Day!


Photo: Dorian playing in the Special Olympics basketball tournament last season and competing in a swim meet a few years ago. Of course she was awarded medals; as were all who competed. That's the way it should be, right?

Fourth of July weekend is at hand--and I believe I'm ready ... .

Today will be a work day in that I'll be meeting for lunch with two professors from the Black Studies department of the University, and another from Dominican College in Marin County. I've been hopeful over the past months that a way might be found for that to happen. I've been flying off the seat of my pants for years now, working from memory and little else in the interpretative areas of my position. Being blessed with a remarkable memory and reasonable ability to articulate those recollections has formed the basis of my qualifications of this late-blooming career as a ranger with the park service. But it worries me at times. Could it be that I've simply out-lived all those who might challenge my assumptions and conclusions? Just because I've lived long enough to be able to see the patterns and know how it all turned out may not be sufficient to warrant the kinds of attention and validation that my declarations get from the public.

I'm confident in my positions, and am rewarded every time I see an elder on one of my bus tours smile quietly -- a comforting affirmation. I'm reassured by the silent "amens" that I see around me. It appears that over the years I've been able to use candor to release conversations across the racial barrier in ways that I've seen only rarely over my lifetime. I suppose that's my gift if there is one operating here.

Last week a professor, Prof. Waldo Martin, from the Black Studies Department at the University of California visited with me at the office, returned for a tour on Wednesday, and invited me to lunch today to meet one of the other professors, Prof. Leon Litwack, whose studies of black life on the home front during WWII I've read and reread over time. This will provide the chance to explore just how one might go about involving African American graduate students to do some advance study around the premise that the modern civil rights movement found its roots here in the Greater Bay Area as the result of the human forces -- black and white -- brought here to work together to forge the home front effort that may have saved the world. It's an amazing story, and one -- in all of its complexity -- that has been largely omitted from the history of the times. Their story provides the baseline against which one must measure social change in this country that led, eventually, to the presidency of the first black American. What happened here in this place where social change was fast-tracked (and remains so) enough to change the racial dynamics of the nation.

Today's coming together of two men whose work in the university can bring validity to the life experience of one who lived the history but whose only advanced degrees were gained by an alert mind, a lifetime of social activism, and by mothering four children. This may be the beginning of that validation. I worry about what might happen in the event that I die leaving my part of the work incomplete so that the foundation out of which that history can be brought into the present will go with me. Those men have the education, but I have the megaphone. So in a very limited way -- I must bring those things together in order for the work to go on.

Besides, I decided on my 86th birthday to speak only in declarative sentences for the rest of my lifetime. I may give new meaning to the word pomposity over the next few years as I draw back into a more normal expression of "elderness." But for today's lunch, I see no need for reticence. I need to hold onto enough edge to be able to inspire the young to help to bring that history alive into our time.

Wish I'd known decades ago how all this stuff works ... that, individually, we're relatively powerless human beings who must combine forces in order to bring the change needed to move us forward as a people. The reason being that life experience out of which real change comes is collective, collaborative, in the aggregate so must contain all of the elements -- both positive and negative -- in order to be broad and strong enough to carry us along into the next phase of social evolution.

Bless all ye saints and sinners! I'm a published author with a cover article yet ... !

I'd almost forgotten it was out there ... the piece written for the California Historian last spring. But this weekend was the annual gathering of the Conference of California Historical Societies this year held in Martinez. The issue was printed and distributed "...in time for everyone to have a chance to read it before our visit to Rosie the Riveter National Park today," (according to editor, Mary Ellen Jones -- formerly of the University of California's Bancroft Library). And here were all 6 pages in fine print -- with pictures -- of the article I'd had so much trouble editing for space! All 6 pages! The editors didn't lay a glove on it except to improve the headings a bit -- and give it a better title.

You have no idea how honored I felt last night seated at the head table with President and Mrs. Richard Kimball, Ms. Jones, Ms. Andrea Bachman, my NPS colleague and archivist Carola DeRooey and husband, John, -- just like a "regullah" author with a resumé and bio and all.

Not only that, but during the lovely dinner Ms. Jones reached past my wine glass to slip into my hand a brochure and what appeared to be a press release for an about-to-be-published book by a noted author saying, "... Betty, I have the dummy copy of this new book in my car, and was wondering if you'd be interested in reading it and writing a review for me?" It is being published by HeyDay Books (publication date October, 2009), a publisher of progressive California authors. I remembered that Elaine Elinson, communications director of the ACLU of Northern California, was a guest on one of the bus tours I'd guided a few years ago with Ranger Lucy Lawliss -- and how enthusiastic she'd been about the experience. I also read the short paragraphs from two other reviewers, Dr. Robert Allen, author of The Port Chicago Mutiny and actor Mike Farrell, a leader in the anti-death penalty movement. Pretty impressive company to be in, right? This was a serious proposal being requested of Betty Reid Soskin, newly-acknowledged somewhat over-ripe fledgling author at the absolute top edge of life.

Wherever There's a Fight
How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists, Immigrants, Strikers, and Poets
Shaped Civil Liberties in California
Elaine Elinson and Stan Yogi, co-authors

Looks like my kind of folks, right?

Never has "better late then never" held more meaning than now.

The magazine is a limited edition that I believe is distributed mainly within the organization and perhaps to history museums and libraries, but I've been given multiple copies for our NPS staff. This issue also carries a fine article about one of our other parks, the John Muir National Historical Park, so it becomes a twofer for us.

This Saturday morning I will not wash clothes and match socks. This is a day to do something of relative significance. Maybe Dorian and I will take a trip over to the new Aquarium in Golden Gate Park. Been intending to do that for some time -- and this is the day to reward myself in some meaningful way. There's no better way to rein in one's ego than to bear witness to the wonders of the natural world; especially in watching such wondrous life forms as giant jellyfish and/or watching synchronized schools of silvery smelt slithering silently through the water in their primordial dance ... . Been thinking about that since Tom and I chatted recently -- mulling over the possibility of a visit there before my work schedule intervened, again ... .

Now I'll call my daughter to see if she'd like to go out and play with me today. No one will be able to see my invisible C-List badge of celebrity, but I'll know it's there on my lapel. Maybe I'll even wear my celebratory hand-painted Dorrie-designed happy jeans. (You'll notice that I've moved myself up a notch from the D-List.)

During a long conversation this morning with Jerome Smith, community activist and poet ...

I recalled what I now recognize as a remarkable story from years ago:

My friend, Joan Adams Brann, had received a federal grant to conduct a drug prevention program in our South Berkeley neighborhood. Joan's program was actually kicked off by an invitation to Washington where she met with First Lady Nancy Reagan who named the program, "Just Say No." Remember?

Joan had recently returned from an amazing adventure -- having been named as the head of the State Department Reception Center in San Francisco by President Jimmy Carter early in his term of office. After he left office Joan served for several years as head of an African Institute in Washington, D.C. This would be her return to South Berkeley, the community where she'd grown up. She'd come home.

By this time I was sole proprietor of Reid's Records, the little business Mel and I created years before in an area that had since become a hotbed of poverty and criminal activity. The streets were filled day and night with young hustlers pushing drugs and old men feeding on their misadventures.

There were often RV's parked along the street in which gambling was openly being conducted and prostitution was probably being pretty broadly practiced. It was a scary place to be -- yet here I was, attempting to conduct a legitimate business in the heart of the drug trade. It was crazy! Not only that, but I'd invited my friend, Joan, to move her newly-funded drug prevention program for kids into a corner office in my building and she'd accepted.

Loni Hancock was mayor at the time, and South Berkeley was the political football that got kicked around every four years as each local politician opened their campaigns by coming down to this small yet infamous crime-ridden mostly black community to make grand promises, usually to order up new studies of just how to bring peace and order to those who had no choice but to live within its borders. Though it would be on Loni's watch that the rehabilitation of the community started under Mayor Gus Newport would be completed. I strongly suspected that almost every urban area like ours gets used as a magnet for federal moneys that go into the general fund never to be expended as promised. If it were ever to be actually cleaned up, the magnet would be lost so the problems of the inner city tend to be perpetually "studied" and never really addressed. Such thoughts are cynical surely; but with a strong suspicion that they were more true than not.

The office was newly-painted and furniture moved in with bright posters in the windows and on the walls. Joan would run films for the neighborhood kids; provide activities of all sorts, and see if she could put a dent in the fatal draw of the negative street activity. It was a brave attempt doomed from the start.

Saturday would be the grand opening with punch and cookies and introductions all around. Joan's stature insured that the town's political figures would surely attend. I was determined that we would make this work. For several days I walked up and down Sacramento Street personally delivering colorful printed invitations. I approached everyone in sight; some I knew by name but most were strangers. The streets were always teeming with activity and every street corner and storefront was populated with those idle from lack of employment and few alternatives. I was greeted with both surprise and pleasure.

I think that it's fair to say that most "uptown" folks avoided this part of the city as much as possible, and that the mayor probably as much as anyone -- and for good reason.

Saturday came and the party was scheduled for about two o'clock. At about noon the streets began to clear. By one o'clock there was not a single soul within sight. It was as if someone has gone along the street and spread the word that Miss Betty was expecting company and things needed to straighten up. This was in no way anticipated; a total surprise to me.

By the time the mayor's entourage and other dignitaries arrived, Sacramento Street and the folks who hung out there were invisible. Apparently those invitations were accepted gratefully. The community had gone home and gussied themselves up and at two o'clock they began to arrive in family groups. They were dressed for church -- women were all prettied up and men were freshly-shaved and dressed in Sunday best. Little girls were wearing lace-topped bobby socks and ribbons in their hair. It was impossible to tell that these were the same people we'd been seeing every day partying in doorways and peddling drugs.

I remember wondering at the time if the hundreds of thousands of dollars paid out to clean up neighborhoods and fight crime can ever equal simply inviting everybody to the party? I thought about that today while Jerome Smith and I were exploring just how we would go about reclaiming the Wisdom Tree site and bringing it back to a place where those who gather there can do so in the spirit of the past -- when it was an important male bonding site for perhaps 100 years of Richmond's colorful history? When did we stop seeing those rituals as socializing and begin to view them as places of loitering? It surely can't be anything so simple as the fact that the skin colors of those men changed from white to black and brown over the decades?

It can't be anything so simplistic as that. I'm far too smart to believe such nonsense -- but there's the germ of something important here that may have been overlooked ... .

Next week Jerome and I will meet again and by that time maybe I'll have fleshed this out into some kind of workable ... .

Are the spirits of the ancestors doing cartwheels in St. Louis Cemetery?

Word arrived midweek that -- due to a critical illness of someone dear to them -- our newly-discovered Charbonnet cousins have had to cancel their trip to the West Coast in July. I am devastated! Had already sent out word to local members of the family to expect an invitation to a no-host reception at a picturesque hotel in San Francisco. Everyone was psyched up for the grand reunification of the Charbonnets across the racial divide. But it is not to be; at least not yet.

When the message came I felt cheated -- who knows just how much longer I'll be around to see this miracle occur? I so want it in to happen in my time!

After sitting with the disappointment for a few days, Sunday morning I searched through my e-mailbox for the contact information he'd sent earlier -- picked up the telephone and dialed the number -- that of not-yet-met Paul in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Suddenly his voice was on the line and it all felt so natural; as if we'd been friends for a lifetime. "But you sound like someone in her twenties," says he in disbelief. Not sure what he expected, but surely not the sound of my voice.

We chatted like old friends and when the conversation ended I was sure of one thing. That we will meet when the time is right. That his emergency situation will end and that when it does -- either here or there -- the "Twain shall meet"!

In the dark later just before sleep, I visualized the white Charbonnet ancestors slipping out of their shrouds and their eerie above-ground vaults in St. Louis Cemetery to dance in celebration that (for the moment at least) the separation twixt the family's white and brown branches would hold. I can only imagine that the brown Charbonnet ancestors were clinging tightly to their crypts -- wondering just what kind of mojo was operating that would have allowed these upstart generations to believe such a thing to be possible anyway? After all, you know what happened to Plessye v. Ferguson, right? ... and right there in New Orleans.

Well, there's been a reprieve. Maybe they're expecting that we'll sober up and come to our senses now that there's been a break in the proceedings. Perhaps we were catapulting toward this in-gathering cavalierly with little thought of what it all means. Perhaps a little reverence here is in order.

I say time is on our side, and that the great Charbonnet clan will rise to the occasion and begin to do some serious planning about just how we'll bring this historic American family into the 21st century, together, disquieted ancestors notwithstanding. It's a serious undertaking, and one that deserves serious consideration. We must come to this willingly and with openness. That we all won't be ready for this step at the same time is a given. Some will need more time to ponder the over-turning of centuries of cultural mores and attitudes. Some will embrace the concept but find that they're simply not emotionally ready for the leap. All in good time. After all, we've been on this journey on parallel tracks for more than 300 years. A few more months can't matter all that much.

I'm so looking forward to wherever these first steps lead ... .

Maybe Paul and I will play drum major for awhile until the parade begins to form behind us.

I'm giddy with anticipation!

Photo: St. Louis Cemetery grave in the Tremé