The Angel of Union Square

This morning I attended a 2 hour panel discussion at the Foundation Center, on how to successfully start up a nonprofit organization. Afterwards I went scouting up East 15th Street to look for vanity plates for my other blog, Vain Plates

Union Square was full of produce, cheese, meat, wine, and baked goods stands, for Monday's Greenmarket. I gave a glance but I always end up feeling that everything is just too overpriced. Standing in the midst of all this was a very tall woman dressed as an angel. I have no idea why she was there or what she was supposed to represent. At her feet was a cloth-covered container (for money?) and a large paper rose.

When I got into the subway station I spotted another unusual woman, wearing full makeup but with her head shaved. She wore a "Bald Headed Soprano" tee shirt so I assume she was advertising for a show. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of her. But that's one thing I enjoy about New York City. You never know what you might see.

Sand Sculpture

Today we went to Coney Island to see the Sand Sculpture contest. There wasn't really much. Maybe there were 10-15 sculptures in the sand. There were other mounds, unused, that no one claimed.

If you bought a place in the contest you got a tee shirt that said, Coney Island, Summer of Hope. Well, I wonder just what that is about. I know developers are coming in but I hope they won't turn Coney Island into a boring, homogenized bunch of condos and a strip mall. It's run down, it's somewhat tacky, but that is part of it's charm. I'd like to see it stay the same but that's probably a hope that won't be realized.

Bruce says the problem is, for many years people stayed away and didn't give Coney Island the attention it needed. It had become a bit of a no-man's land, and that's probably what attracted the eyes of the developers. Oh yes, they want it to be entertaining, but they'd probably clean it up, do away with the weirdness and freakiness.

I like the weirdness. I want the Mermaid Parade to go on, and Circus Amok to come visit and put on their zany political performances for years and years to come. So that's my hope this summer.

It's All Happening At the Zoo

We finished up our "staycation" activities on Saturday with a trip to the Bronx Zoo. Here are a few representative photographs. That huge bug is a Madagascar hissing cockroach, which will give you a piece of its mind if you annoy it. When Jason stood close to the docent holding it, the roach jumped onto his shirt. This would have given me a heart attack, but Jason was amused. We are glad it wasn't perturbed with him for tickling one of its cousins and getting it to hiss many years ago at a demo in Prospect Park.

The tiger needs no introduction. It looked fierce and beautiful, everything a big cat should be. The mist up on "Tiger Mountain" was cool and refreshing, too.

I don't know what species of bird that is, but it had a long, snakelike neck when extended. Quite an odd looking little creature. If anyone can identify it, please let me know.

It's hard to get a butterfly to pose. They are forever fluttering their wings. This one obliged long enough for me to snap a photo.

The subway station nearest the Bronx Zoo, East Tremont/West Farms, has a number of stained glass windows illustrating scenes from the Zoo. On the way home, I snapped several photos of them. It's all a part of a memory of a fun day out, even if our feet did get sore traipsing almost the entire length of the zoo and back again.

Staycation

Since July 4th, Bruce has been on a "staycation." We've done these stay-at-home vacations for years because there hasn't always been the money to go away. All of a sudden it has become trendy to vacation at home, because people can't afford to go away with the high fuel costs.

We did some running around at first, trying to grab all the gusto. After the July 4th party at Tony's (see my other blog, Brooklyn Humanist Community) we went to the Paley Institute of Media, which used to be the Museum of TV and Radio. There was a special on the late George Carlin, including his "seven dirty words" routine. He was hilarious, I was sad when I read he died so young. Nowadays seventy-one is young!

We also treated ourselves to some old TV shows like Get Smart, Seinfeld, and the Twilight Zone. In the library, I watched an Outer Limits episode that starred William Shatner, made back in 1964. Two years before "Star Trek," he played in this episode as a space explorer captain whose project was called "Project Vulcan." I wonder if there was any connection between the script writer and Gene Roddenberry who created "Star Trek" two years later.

Sunday we got a late start and wound up going over to the Brooklyn Historical Society. It was not that exciting this time but I did find some of the Vietnam veterans' stories interesting, and there was an exhibit of antique children's books. Some of them were so moralistic, today's kids probably would chuck them right out the window. For all I know, kids in the 19th century may have wanted to as well. There were stories about dreadful fates that befell children who disobeyed, sucked their thumbs, or committed various other heinous sins. You have to hope that impressionable little minds did not have to listen to these as bedtime stories; they are made-to-order nightmares.

But along with the cautionary tales there were some cute alphabet books and easy reading classics, such as "The Swiss Family Robinson" in words of one syllable.

Monday we met Cynthia for lunch and went to the Malibu diner, and afterwards Bruce and I visited the Museum of Sex. I had to see it at least once since it's such an unusual subject for a museum. I found it all very interesting but none of it particularly stimulating. What I came away impressed with was the extensive human imagination that has put so many bells and whistles on something that is a natural function. But we have surrounded it with so many fantasies and artifacts that it becomes something else entirely.

Tuesday we went on a walking tour of Greenwich Village. It was a Big Onion tour, led by a young man who just earned his Ph.D. in history, with a specialty in the history of New York City. So he was able to give us an in-depth talk on the history of Greenwich Village and why the area is so different from the rest of New York City. Community activism, whether by landowners or by civil libertarians and civil rights activists, has shaped the Village, even to the peculiar layout of the streets and the survival of older style buildings that have vanished in most of the rest of the city.

On Wednesday we went into Hoboken, the birthplace of Frank Sinatra, and took ourselves on part of a self-guided walking tour of the town. I got tired about a third of the way into it; there was too much zig zagging back and forth. So we headed over to their historical society before going home. It turned out to be a very tiny museum and only one of the two galleries was open. We saw a history of Hoboken in postcards. I enjoyed reading the little scribbles people wrote on them, little one liners like, "We'll meet you on Wednesday." Before telephones were popular, that's how people sent their "text messages." It's hard to imagine having to wait a few days to hear from someone about a simple meeting.

The docent was very friendly. We were the only visitors to the museum so we had his full attention. We chatted about Frank Sinatra, and about the museums in New York. Bruce invited him to see the Brooklyn Museum, which he'd never visited before.

After that we took a very long walk back to the Path station, and narrowly escaped the pouring rain.

Yesterday, we had to buy a printer because our old one insists on printing on a slant, and we went to the Bowery today and bought new living room lamps. We've had terrible luck with lamps and I hope these will finally turn out to be the ones that will last us for many years. Oddly, before this, the best lamps we had were a pair of used lamps we bought at a yard sale for $15 for the set. Too bad we didn't find a deal like that again.

Tomorrow it's off to the Bronx Zoo if the weather is right, and Sunday we'll probably take it easy. After that Bruce goes back to work on Monday, and our "staycation" will be over.

The Great Debaters

Friday morning before the July 4th party, we watched "The Great Debaters." This movie was based on a true story of a professor at Wiley College in Texas, back in 1935, who inspired his students to form a debating team that wound up taking on Harvard. Because these young people were African-American, this was big news, and the debate made history.

Denzel Washington played the starring role and directed the film. He came across as an intensely dedicated man, determined to lift his students (and the sharecroppers in the town) out of their second-class citizenship. He assembles a team of four, but one young man quits the team because the professor will not answer him as to whether he is a Communist. The three remaining students go on to rack up victory after victory, but the professor's other agenda, union organizing, lands him in jail. By the time the summons to face off with the Harvard debating team comes, he is forced to let his students go on alone, in order not to be imprisoned for jumping bail.

There's a romance between a young brilliant and angry ne'er-do-well and the only female student on the team, while the youngest member, a fourteen-year-old boy who is most profoundly affected by the discrimination and cruelty of the Jim Crow south, breaks out of his shyness to become one of the best debaters of all.

This was a real feel-good, inspiring movie that made me want to give a standing ovation. For those wishing to inspire present day students to hone their debating skills and make the most of their education, visit GreatDebaters.org for more information.

Summer Jobs for Teens

The New York Times reported that summer jobs for teenagers this year are fewer and farther between than they have been in 50 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/business/25teen.html?_r=1&ref=jobs&oref=slogin


Overall, only 1/3 of all teenagers between 16 and 19 years old will find summer jobs this year. That's pretty poor. I know Anthony Weiner is working on getting more federal funding for youth employment programs, but is that going to come through quickly enough to save us from a long, hot summer?


With 2/3 of the kids on the streets, idled, we are at risk for the kinds of trouble kids get into when the weather is unbearably hot and sticky, there's no money in their pockets, and nothing productive to do.


What's the alternative? Well, in New York City, at least there are volunteer opportunities, and plenty of free events. Jason will be taking classes in job hunting and office skills at Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow. He'll also take a math class at his college to prepare for yet one more entrance exam (and here I thought he was exempt from those).

Kids in need of volunteer work (which, by the way, can lead to paid job opportunities once you show them what you can do) can find opportunites at Volunteer Match or at Idealist. The public libraries have programs almost every day, and there are free museums, free book readings, concerts, and lectures. So kids don't have to be out on the street looking for mischief, at least not if they make an effort to find something productive to do.

Still, it's hard on the self-esteem, and reduces opportunities to put paid summer jobs on kids' resumes. The economy is in a mess, true, but there's got to be a way to get kids working.

Incident on the Platform

This afternoon, after volunteering at HMI in the morning and enjoying a lunch of nachos with Cynthia, I arrived on the subway platform at Union Square to witness a disturbing incident. A young man, probably around 30, went into convulsions at the very edge of the platform. He fell over, whacking his head hard against the concrete, and would have rolled onto the tracks if other passengers hadn't grabbed him and pulled him to safety. (He still was not all that far from the edge, though).

Apparently he cut himself when he fell because he was bleeding from somewhere on his head. A few people went upstairs in search of help and came down saying help was on the way. But I didn't see anything. I went upstairs, called 911, and reported the incident to EMS, in hopes they would send an ambulance. I came back to the platform to find one man with a police badge and a walkie talkie hovering over the unconscious man, speaking into it. Then another man in a sort of Transit Authority vest came over and they prevented him from rolling onto the tracks as he tried to turn over (but still not moving him more than a foot or two from the edge).

Meanwhile, probably about 15 minutes had passed and I didn't see any evidence of an amublance. Two more policemen came down, looked the man over, but didn't really do much of anything.

I had to wonder what this unfortunate fellow's chances of survival would have been if he had been dying. Probably not much better than the proverbial snowball in hell. As it was, he might have a concussion or some kind of bleeding on the brain, and precious moments were being lost.

Finally I boarded the train and went home. It's discouraging and disheartening to see how slow the response to this incident was, given that we were only a few minutes away from several hospitals. Someone should have been down there actually doing something for this guy a lot quicker. All I can say is, don't get sick on the subway, darlin'. You may not survive.

A Weekend to Remember

Last weekend was one of those memorable ones. Friday night we went to the Cyclones game in Coney Island. I'd never been to a professional baseball game before and had all kinds of reservations about it since I was never a sports lover. But because this was a minor league game, it was much more "user friendly" and entertaining. Sammy the Seagull did his thing as the official mascot, and there were some entertainments for the little kids (human bowling balls, etc.) in between innings. Also, the stadium was small so we could see what was happening.

It was one of those good, tense games where the Cyclones were behind at first, then pulled into a tie with the Ironbirds, and finally made the winning score at the very end of the 9th inning! Right after that the Coney Island fireworks went off, and we had a perfect view of them from the stadium.

The BHC turned out in force, with 22 in attendance including some family and friends.

Saturday I brought Bruce along to be my "caddy" while I shopped for bargains at the Salvation Army. I actually found 2 summer weight skirts and 3 pairs of summer weight pants, all for $25.95 (tax included). That's the sort of shopping that makes me smile.

Sunday afternoon Jason and I went to the BHC Book Club where we discussed Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven. In certain ways the book reminded me of the old Jimmy Stewart movie, "It's a Wonderful Life." But there the main character was alive. I felt sad that in this book, Eddie had to die before he got a chance to see his life in perspective and realize that although he felt his life was wasted in a dead-end dreary job as a maintenance man at an amusement park, in fact he'd saved the lives of many, many children, and his life had meaning after all.

That's great, but why couldn't he have learned this before he died?

Still, the discussion was excellent and so was the exercise Sheila had us do, where we designed our own idea of Heaven and then put down the names of 10 people we wanted to meet there. For a little while, Heaven was an apartment in Sheepshead Bay.

I'm excited about the upcoming July 4th potluck BBQ. And next week, Bruce will be off from work and we will have a New York City Staycation, the sort of vacation we've had for years in an attempt to be frugal, but is now all the rage because gas prices have skyrocketed so high. I'm making a list of places I've either never seen or haven't seen in ages, to check out while Bruce is home.

Alas, Poor Ayveq

I opened the Bay News today and found a sad eulogy to the "star walrus" of the New York Aquarium, Ayveq.

Just a few days after his offspring celebrated his first birthday weekend, Daddy Ayveq succumbed to some mysterious ailment. Here is a link to the article: http://nyaquarium.com/287230/aq_ayveq

During his years as a Docent at the New York Aquarium, Jason often mentioned Ayveq in less than flattering terms. It seems Ayveq had lustful propensities and did not bother to conceal them. Apparently, he was unconcerned about offending public sensibilities. Jason also complained of Ayveq's ungentlemanly attentions to the females in the tank. To top it all off, if Ayveq spotted a Docent in his or her dark green uniform shirt, he would swim after the Docent as far as his tank would allow him.

Jason complained of this to our friend Tony, who found it so humorous that he dubbed Ayveq "Iggy," and teased Jason about Ayveq just about every time they spoke to each other. Jason began calling Tony the "Igman" while Tony dubbed Jason the "Igster."

Jason was not the only one to notice Ayveq's habits, and "Going Coastal" did an article on Ayveq on that very subject, not long after "little" 115-lb. Akituusaq was born. Here's the link to that article, titled "Walrus Dad Still a Self-Lover."

http://goingcoastal.wordpress.com/2007/10/09/walrus-dad-still-a-self-lover/

When Baby Akituusaq was born last June, I pointed out that despite Ayveq being a lewd, crude, rude dude (at least in Jason's eyes), his quite natural behavior had paid off. Ayveq became the father of the first baby walrus born at the New York Aquarium, and one of the few baby walruses to survive in captivity.

Ayveq was a great public attraction and he seemed to know it. I'm sure if he could speak, he would have proudly proclaimed, "I am THE walrus!" In fact, that's exactly what his name meant.

Kudos to the Aquarium staffers who worked hard to try to save Ayveq in his final illness. I'm sure he would have thanked them from the bottom of his heart.

In Memory: Joyce Warshow

I'm including a link to a write up about Joyce Warshow that appeared last fall, shortly after she died. http://jwa.org/discover/weremember/warshow/, and I will be linking this webpage to their memorial page.

Joyce Warshow was my therapist from 1980 to 1983, when I was just getting out on my own as a young single woman. I went to her for a consultation because my relationships with men had fallen into an unfortunate pattern.

Although Joyce was only supposed to meet with me the one time and then refer me to another therapist in her group, she managed to get past some of my defenses and rattle me in that very first meeting. The other therapists I'd met with did not. So after a few days I called her back and firmly stated that I did not want to be referred on to someone else, I wanted to work with her. Joyce made room for me in her schedule, and so we began.

Many times we did not see eye to eye. I told her I was against the establishment, and she pointed to my corporate attire and told me I had joined the establishment. I didn't want to hear that. Another time, speaking about the difficulties I had with men, she told me that some men are like wild horses and need to be corralled. I replied that I didn't want to have to "corrall" a man. I wanted him to want to be committed to me.

But I was getting out the residual angers from my childhood, and learning to grow up and be my own person. I was ruled by myself and not so influenced by my parents any more. For a year or more I participated in group therapy also, but then I felt it became too expensive and I pulled away.

When I finally left we had an exit interview, and at the end of our last session, Joyce hugged me and I went out, ready to face life on my own terms. Yes, I had one more stupid relationship with a man whose major attraction was his anti-establishment attitude and his beard. That was my old pattern. But when that broke up I saw it for what it was, a hangover from an earlier time. And when Bruce came along, the "nice guy" I would have ignored a decade earlier, I was more than ready for him.

I called Joyce about 9 years ago, when I was grieving for a friend and yet not able to dissolve that grief into healing tears. I felt I couldn't afford her prices, but it was good to connect with her however briefly. The last thing she said to me was that I had always been resourceful.

At Fund Raising Day in New York I found out that Joyce passed away last year. This was one of those non-coincidences. At a workshop on branding, the presenter mentioned a coalition of GLBT organizations with reproductive rights organizations, working together for common goals. I was puzzled to note that HMI was not represented on the list and afterwards I went up to the presenter and asked her if she knew why HMI was not part of the coalition. For some reason she mentioned that Joyce Warshow used to be involved there, and when I said she used to be my therapist, the presenter told me that Joyce had died. It was so strange to hear that in the middle of a professional conference, by supposedly sheer accident. Only I don't believe in accidents.

I believe Joyce was sending me a last goodbye.

When she was my therapist, I had no idea she was a lesbian, a filmmaker, and deeply involved in the GLBT community. In fact, I think it was SAGE she was involved with and maybe not HMI, but that doesn't matter. Would it have mattered to me if I'd known this when she was my therapist? Back then, I might have wondered how she could teach me how to get along with men, if she was in a relationship with a woman. But now I know better. I know she was really teaching me, first and foremost, to get along with myself.

Now I'm curious to see some of the films she made, and I'm going to investigate and see whether they can be rented somewhere. In any case, cancer took her too soon, at only 70 years old. Farewell, Joyce, you have clearly touched many many lives. Mine is just one of them.

Town Hall With Anthony Weiner

On Sunday we went to a Town Hall meeting with our Congressman, Anthony Weiner. We all sat in the library at Cunningham Intermediate School, and the Congressman fielded questions from the participants (about 35-40 of us).

He led into the meeting by stating that today there is more information, less compromise, and zero leadership at the top of our government.

He wants to make sure we have an educated workforce, and that we invest in our infrastructure and put people to work. We have ignored our infrastructure for so many years that it is suprising that in the whole U.S. only one bridge has collapsed. Our best tool is education, and it is time to get rid of the antiquated idea that the federal government should not be involved in public education. As a result of this thinking only 6% of our educational monies come from the federal government. But the states are no longer competing with each other; the U.S. is competing globally.

Congressman Weiner also stated that we need leadership on global climate change. We need to leave our world, country and community better than we found it. He wants to see us move toward a green economy.

We must end the war in Iraq and address the big challenges that we have not been able to look at because we are wasting our resources in Iraq. We also need our elected officials to think in the long term even though their term of office is short. The government must incentivize people to think long term, according to Weiner, and we must invest in education over the course of a generation.

I'm proud to say that our Congressman has a perfect 100% score on conservation issues. He says that our community is now overdeveloped. The zoning laws, last changed in 1961, are outdated, and the Board of Standards and Appeals doesn't set standards and doesn't listen to appeals. We need to grow as a city but we have to be sustainable too. He has proposed a full city reassessment of the zoning regulations, so we can decide what kind of a city we want to be. We need to set rules and then stick to those rules. Legal sanctions for violating zoning regulations are strong but they are not being enforced.

Congressman Weiner also discussed accessibility for the handicapped. Another question was whether any more affordable housing complexes will be build. He said, the Fed has stopped building subsidized housing but they need to do it again. However when the Mitchell-Lama buildings were built there was land available. He says now there is some polluted land that the city would clean if developers will build affordable housing. We need to be creative about bringing in affordable housing, perhaps develop air rights over other structures if the resulting units would be affordable. We have to stop thinking this is not the federal government's job.

We have to make alternative transportation possible: there is no more room for more cars in New York City. We have to make it possible by providing bike lockers and bike borrowing as in other places.

Our current model of using fossil fuels is not sustainable. The Congressman wants to offer incentives in the market for sustainable energy that works. Ethanol, he says, is a disaster because it drives up food prices and costs more to produce than the energy we get out of it. A national energy policy is needed.

The Congressman also stated that he is not pleased with the 311 "hotline" to NYC government agencies, because it creates a whole new layer of excuses between citizens and their government.

At the end of his talk he asked us to get in touch with his office (through his website) if we have an idea for a new law. I certainly will!

Mermaid Parade 2008

It glitters. It spangles. It dazzles the eyes and ears. It's funny, it's naughty, it's socially relevant, and it's phantasmagoric. It's Halloween and the Mardi Gras in June.

It's the Mermaid Parade!

The 26th Annual Mermaid Parade stepped off on the first full day of summer, June 21st. Bruce, Jason and I were there by 12:30 and found a spot on the barricades by a few minutes after 1. We met up with Ferdinand and wriggled into the bit of space beside him.

Ferdinand felt the parade would not start until at least 2:30, but I said it would begin earlier. We made a gentleman's bet. Said Ferdinand, "You have nothing to lose but your dignity."

"No problem," I answered, "I haven't any!"

So, Ferdinand suggested we go for double or nothing. He lost the bet; the first floats and antique cars crossed in front of us at about 2:17. Close to the front of the parade, our Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz was celebrating, too. Marty is a true party animal; he never misses a parade! Now he was shouting, "Hello all you Brooklyn meshuggeners! Don't worry, the half-naked people are right behind me!"

There must have been a good thousand marchers. Some that stand out in my mind were the protestors, trying to save Coney Island from being turned into Yuppie Island, paved over with luxury condos and complete with overpriced lattes at Starbucks. The possible encroachment of Thor developers may have explained the contingent of Marie Antoinette's (male and female) and the huge fake guillotine. Let 'em eat cake!

Another protestor wore a pot for a hat and had huge golden dollar signs on her glasses. Greed personified. But as usual, most of the marchers had at least some passing resemblance to sea creatures, real and fanciful.

There were hundreds of mermaids, many of them scantily clad in bikini tops. Others went even farther and heeded the advice on the windshield of an antique convertible, "Go Topless." Women wore seashell pasties, or substituted body paint for clothing. Many of the men were topless and a few were showing off their rear cleavage as well.

I picked up on a bit of a Hawaiian theme, with many marchers in grass skirts and wielding hula hoops. There was a group dressed as Carmen Miranda, with baskets of fruit (and fish) on their headgear. We saw King Kong and the Mermaid, French Mermaids with seashells and sea stars on their black and white uniforms, plenty of sea jellies, lobsters and octopi.

The Polar Bears, those characters who jump into the ocean on January 1st each year, were there, as were some deep sea divers whose slogan is "Wetter is Better." Brooklyn for Peace was represented, as was the Cyclones, and many other groups, including the Mermaids' Civil Liberties Union!

Some of the zaniest folk from last year made a re-appearance: the Parrot Man, who wears a sequined and spangled dress, dyes his beard light green, and carries his gray parrot on his head. Then there's the bearded man who wears a bridal gown of salvaged items and called himself Miss Use of Recycled Materials 2008. Every year there's a new official King Neptune and his wife Queen Mermaid, but there were also plenty of imitators in the parade. Penis Man, the dude who dresses in a pine-colored velvet suit equipped with a phallus big enough to do the Jolly Green Giant proud, was back, too. He came up to us and whacked Ferdinand and me over the head a number of times with his absurdly oversized "member." Afterwards, Ferdinand said, "I don't know about you, but I feel violated!"

Ferdinand brought his new DSLR and we both snapped photos like mad while several men behind us yelled out suggestive and lewd remarks at every bare-breasted woman who marched by. By the end of the parade, I found that I'd taken over 1,000 photos. I had a little trouble zooming in and zooming out, and consequently had to delete quite a few photos of armpits. But with ruthless, and I do mean ruthless, cutting, I narrowed it down to 372 pictures. Now I'm thinking about trying to sell some of them.

Every year, the Mermaid Parade outdoes itself. I'm still hearing "Dancing Queen" in my mind, and seeing the whole cheerfully outrageous crew cavorting by. Let's keep Coney Island weird!

City Sights

Or should I say sightings? In the past week or so, I've seen:

A man with dreadlocks that fell past his backside and brushed his upper thighs. I'll bet he's a law abiding citizen, because if not, it would be awfully easy to grab him by the long hairs.

A man with his pet cat perched on his head. This turned out to be a panhandling ploy, because as soon as I smiled at the cat, its owner approached me for a handout.

A buxom young woman with a hideous stuffed toy nestled between her breasts. You have to wonder why.

And, yesterday, while enjoying Thai food for lunch, a man carrying a skeleton passed by the restaurant. I believe the skeleton was plastic but I'm not entirely sure.

That's what I love about New York. You never know just what to expect!

Fund Raising Day in New York

This year, like last June, I attended the Fund Raising Day in New York conference at the Marriott Marquis hotel. Like last year, I volunteered at the conference, which enabled me to attend for free. Thursday night I attended the volunteer orientation and cocktail party, and on Friday morning I arrived at the conference a few minutes after 7:30 AM.

Over a tasty continental breakfast, I chatted with a young man who'd come down from Toronto to attend the conference. He told me that he works as a consultant, writing grants and creating videos for nonprofit organizations.

I wasn't on duty until the second lecture, so I walked through the exhibit hall for a while, evoking nervous jokes from men who read my "Room Monitor" volunteer's ribbon. I assured them I would not report them to the principal! Then I was free to attend the first lecture of my choice, so I went to a panel discussion on major gifts.

After that there was some time to check out the exhibit hall, score some candy, and get literature from the exhibitors. The first workshop was so well attended that hotel employees had to come take down the air walls, so that the overflow crowd could sit in the hall. The topic was "Connecting with Your Donors," and the two speakers were Thaler Pekar of Thaler Pekar and Associates, and Barbara Becker of StoryCorps. They both spoke about the importance of finding stories that evoke vivid images in donor's minds, and touching their hearts as they view and hear from people whose lives are improved by the organization.

I counted at least 70 attendees at this workshop. It was hard to tell how many people were sitting out in the hall, but one thing was clear: this was a topic many fundraisers were anxious to hear about.

There was a short break before lunchtime, but I had a phone call from Jason. He wanted to go on a sleepover but had very little money left, so I arranged for him to meet me at the conference at 3:30 and then proceeded to lunch.

Lunch was elegant, a small salad, mozzarella slices and tomato, and tuna. There were tiny confections for dessert, iced tea, and coffee. However, this year I preferred to return to the exhibit hall and chat with the exhibitors while the hall was relatively quiet. So I missed the keynote speech.

One of the printing companies had a handwriting expert on hand to amuse the attendees, and I had a somewhat rushed session with her because I had to get back to my post for the 2 PM workshop. She was right on the money about me, telling me I am unconventional and don't much care what people think, I know I can do the job. She said I am creative also and that I put my creativity into an organization. There was also something she said that was a bit eerie, because she told me I had a negative experience at a certain age, and she was absolutely right. She said it was a "shot in the dark" but I don't believe in coincidences. She certainly brings a high level of intuition to her handwriting analysis.

The second workshop I worked at was on the topic of Branding, and it was run by a woman named Bonnie McEwan from Make Waves Not Noise. Ms. McEwan gave us a few eye-opening facts about nonprofit organizations. For instance, last year over 64,000 new organizations registered as nonprofits. They're all competing for the same donor dollars, and competition is not conducive to social change.

She also pointed out some of the specific challenges that nonprofits face in branding themselves, and suggested that one way to avoid competition is for nonprofit organizations with similar goals to form coalitions and collaborate with each other, sharing a common brand and sharing in the monies raised. She quoted John Nash, whose life was the subject of the movie, "A Beautiful Life." His paradigm was, "All players benefit if information is open to all and mixed strategies are used."

Not only do organizations that collaborate in coalition with others gain more resources, they make more progress toward their common goals.

After a half hour break, during which I met Jason and supplied him with some spending money, and went to the raffle drawing where I didn't win any prizes, I attended the last lecture of the day. This time I chose the career track and attended a panel discussion on interviewing. The panelists were a human resources manager and a high-level recruiter. They had some good suggestions on interviewing and dealing with sticky questions.

One woman told some of her "war stories" about terrible interviewers she has met, and afterwards I approached her and told her I wanted to write an article on "Interviews from Hell." She agreed to be interviewed, so I will be writing up and sending out queries for this article.

I enjoyed the day and always gain a new perspective on the fund raising profession by attending this conference. For anyone in the field or considering entering the field, I recommend it highly.

Farewell, Rosanne

I met Rosanne in July of 1991. We were airing our toddlers at a large playground in Sheepshead Bay. Jason and Louis immediately took to each other and ran off to play together. Rosanne looked at me and grinned.



"They're in cahoots!" she said. Jason and Louis continued to be in cahoots throughout their childhood and adolescence too.



Rosanne and I encountered each other in the playground a number of times. She was uncomfortable going home to her apartment on Quentin Road because there was a mouse problem. So she stayed most of the day in the park, and the family ate out almost every night because it upset her to cook where the mice played.



Not too long after we met, we began meeting by design. When the weather turned cold, we left the playground and began meeting in indoor play spaces like Burger King and MacDonald's. Back then many of the fast food restaurants had little play areas for the children, filled with plastic balls they could climb around in, slides, and other attractions. We'd buy Happy Meals for the kids and then sit and chat while they played in the ball pit.



Sometime during that first year, Rosanne and her family moved out to Canarsie to get away from the mice. I was sad, thinking that we might drift apart. Without a car, Canarsie seemed so far away. But at that time Rosanne and Allen had a big brown car and she would come pick me up to go hang out somewhere.



We always had a struggle with the car seats. That is, we had a struggle with getting Louis into his car seat. Jason would get into the car seat calmly but Louis hated them and he would put up such a fight that it would take the both of us to hold him down and snap him into the seat. That may have been one of the first times I heard Rosanne utter one of her signature lines: "Louis Henry, I'm gonna crown you, and it ain't gonna be King!"



My response always was, "But Ro! You named him for two royal houses, naturally he thinks he's in charge!"



In the early years, we celebrated New Year's Eve together. We'd visit them or they would come over to us. We'd have a feast, share some wine, and then eat delicious and sinful desserts. Then there would be a sleepover. We travelled together, too. When the boys were just under 4 years old, we rented an SUV and they drove us out to Lancaster, PA for a weekend. The boys were impossible: overtired and full of mischief, they led us on a merry chase the entire weekend. But we still managed to have fun visiting the Amish country and Hershey Park.



At one point, when the kids all entered school, we had a weekly standing date for Burger King or MacDonald's. Rosanne sometimes brought Louis, and Jason's other two friends, Steven and Morgan, often came too.



Sometime shortly after they moved to Canarsie, Rosanne was approached by some Jehovah's Witnesses who came door to door. She became interested and began going to Bible study with them. I was concerned again when I saw how her views were changing. Suddenly evolution was all wrong, even celebrating birthdays was all wrong. For a few years, she continued to allow Louis to come to Jason's birthday parties but she would send Allen with him in her stead. Then when she was baptized, she no longer allowed him to come at all.



But Rosanne held firm about one thing. She told me that when she joined the Witnesses they wanted her to give up all her "worldly" friends who would lead her astray. "You and me are friends for life," she assured me. And Jason and Louis would be friends for life, too. We joked about watching them graduate college together, about watching them be each other's best men at their weddings.



That wasn't going to happen.



I was the one who got sick first. In 1997 we discovered that I had breast cancer. Rosanne was a huge help. She took care of Jason several times when I went into the hospital for procedures. She helped out again when Bruce had his bout with cancer in 1998.

The kids grew up, and began going out places without adults along. Sometimes Rosanne and I did not see each other for a few months at a time but we always kept in touch and kept up the friendship.

Then, in January 2007, Rosanne wasn't feeling well. She had trouble breathing and tired easily. An X ray or scan showed a large mass in her chest cavity that hadn't been there 4 months earlier when she had a previous X ray. Sadly, the mass turned out to be malignant, a rare form of cancer. I believe it was called myxoid liposarcoma, a type of tumor that grows in the fat cells.

Rosanne was in and out of the hospital many times in the next year and a half. She had her surgery several months later, delaying it somewhat because she was a Witness and wanted to find a doctor who would operate without having to give her whole blood. Her husband feared that while she searched for such a doctor the cancer would spread.

Honestly, I don't think the delay in surgery affected the outcome. This tumor was huge when it was found and probably had already spread to her liver and other places. It was also extremely fast growing. In any case, Rosanne suffered several infections and other problems that delayed her chemotherapy time after time. Each time that happened the tumor had the opportunity to grow, until it overtook her.

The last time I saw her, it was about 36 hours before she died. She was miserably uncomfortable. She wasn't eating and she kept calling out and praying. I don't think she was in terrible pain but she just could not feel relaxed and comfortable. Her labored breathing was very obvious. I knew she didn't have a lot of time. As we left the hospice I prayed that she would be taken quickly and in her sleep. And that's what happened.

She leaves behind a husband of 23 years, an 18 year old son, and many, many friends. I have no doubt that Rosanne will be long remembered. I'll miss her.

Changes Afoot

I am thinking about changing my blog. I note that there hasn't been much added to it in recent weeks, and posts are about ten days apart. Maybe I need to move things around and recategorize them.

What I'm thinking about doing is splitting things off into more than one blog. Maybe one to chronicle the Brooklyn Humanist Community, which is going strong. Another one might be for the books I read and the movies I view. Then there can be the personal stuff, that might stay in this blog.

Would I keep up with all this? Who knows? I'm just thinking that a more cohesive topic would be a help. If I ever decided to go for some advertising or to try and get publicity for the Brooklyn Humanist Community, it is probably better to keep it all under one heading rather than throw random topics into one big mishmosh of a blog.

So I think what I will do is move some of the existing posts into a new blog and see where it goes from there.

Here goes....

BHC News

The Brooklyn Humanist Community met again on Sunday, May 18th at the Kensington Library. We had a poetry reading, something that used to be a tradition for those of us who belonged to BSEC in the past. Although several of our readers could not make it, eight people read and it was a great success.

Tomorrow night we'll have our planning meeting. This should be pretty exciting because we need to decide whether we are going to incorporate as a nonprofit, a religious organization, or simply remain a social club with many activities, as we are doing now. I would like to see us move toward being a 501(c)(3) but that is going to depend on the group's decision.

We also need to decide whether to have a guest speaker from out of town. I feel very strongly that Curtis Gans can put us on the map. He's a known expert on the American electoral process and voting habits. The man is well respected on both sides of the political spectrum, and he has spoken all over the place, including before Congress.

So, I feel we can give him some publicity and his presence would be a real gift to us and a chance to make a name for ourselves as a new organization with the ability to attract some high-level speakers. I hope that I can convince the group to be willing to lay out some money (not all that much, even) in order to bring him here.

There's a lot riding on the meeting tomorrow night. I have my fingers crossed that all will turn out in a satisfactory way.

For One More Day

Mitch Albom's Tuesdays With Morrie was a book that touched me deeply at a time when I was struggling with the loss of my friend and mentor, Richard Price. So when I saw his newer book, For One More Day, I had to read it.

What a stunner. I have read many books about the dead returning to save a loved one in despair, but this one was so immediate, so real, that my eyes were wet. That doesn't happen often when I read a book.

It made me think of my own mother, and it also made me want to hand the book to Jason and tell him, read this before it is too late.

There are chapters headed, Times I Did Not Stand Up for My Mother, juxtaposed against other chapters titled, Times My Mother Stood Up for Me.

Somehow, really, we expect this relationship between mothers and children. Mother gives her all, and the mother in this book, Posey, certainly did. She stood up for her son whenever she perceived a threat to him. On the other hand her son, Chick, didn't stand up for her when he thought it was a contest between his father and his mother, or his mother and the outside world.

Sometimes, though, he did. His parents divorced and so his mother became an outcast, with other women afraid she would charm their husbands away from them. When Chick caught some boys spying on his mother with binoculars and saying, "Look at the divorcee," as if it were a smutty word, he did react and beat them up.

But, he felt he abandoned her to follow his father's dream of making him into a baseball star, and she succumbed to a heart attack. Who hasn't felt he or she wasn't there enough for Mom?

Even though it's in the nature of things, it felt deeply satisfying to see Chick get his one more day with his Mom, and accompany her in the spirit world to minister to people who were about to die. Wonderful story of salvation, because when he awakens, Chick sets about repairing his own broken family, cleaning up his alcoholism, and becoming a part of his daughter's life again, where once he was such an embarrassment that she didn't even invite him to her wedding.

And Mitch Albom dedicates the book to his own mother and reveals that at least one incident in the story came directly from his own life; there's a photograph to prove it.

I guess it is fitting that I read this right before Mother's Day. It is the perfect Mother's Day present... from a mother to a child.

BHC April Program

"The first days are the hardest days, don't you worry any more
Cause when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door."

-- The Grateful Dead, "Uncle John's Band"

It's not always simple getting a new organization off the ground, but we've been managing to come up with monthly programs on a variety of issues, and to have plenty of fun too.

Sunday we met at the Kensington Library, where Remi gave a talk on The Truth of Myth. She brought out the psychological needs that are built into our brains and into all societies, a need for a myth or story, as Kurt would put it.

Remi spoke of the disconnect many people have between the mammalian brain, the cerebellum, that rules emotions, and the cerebrum, that gives us the ability to think and be logical. The need for myth arises from the emotional part of the brain, which requires teaching and needs to be helped to grow just as much as the logical part. She mentioned the story of a young boy who had a nervous breakdown, and when his psychiatrist explored the reasons, he realized that the boy grew up in a family of very intelligent, logical thinkers who wanted nothing but scientific facts in their lives. Consequently they never read their son any children's stories, fairy tales, or myths. That side of his development had not kept pace with his high IQ, so he became dysfunctional.

Once this was discovered, the boy began to recover as his therapist read stories to him, and finally he ordered his family to read children's stories to him every night as other families did.

Remi also brought out that the Greek myths were about gods who were not infallible, in fact they were very fallible. Even though they were more powerful than humans they had some very human failings, which helped people to feel that they were not so unreachable. She also pointed out that until a certain age (the onset of adolescence, maybe) children need heroes to help them feel safe and secure. Take away Samson, she said, and he will be replaced by Superman, because children need that super powerful figure to believe in. Later on many people replace the mythical heroes with an abstract figure such as God.

We went around the room and talked about our thoughts on myths and any myths that have been important to us. One person brought up Prometheus, who brought fire to humanity and was punished by being chained to a rock and having an eagle eat his liver every day. I mentioned two children's stories that influenced me a great deal, both Dr. Seuss books: Horton Hears a Who, and Horton Hatches the Egg. Horton Hatches the Egg fits into the BHC ideal of keeping commitments, because Horton the elephant stays on that nest and keeps that baby bird warm no matter what befalls him. Horton Hears a Who demonstrates not only the importance of standing up for the "invisible" and overlooked people in society, no matter how tiny a minority they may be, but also the importance of everyone standing together and speaking out against injustice.

Both these books were an influence on me as a child and I think led me into the ethical path that first induced me to explore and join Ethical Culture, and then when BSEC failed to walk its talk, breaking away and helping to form the Brooklyn Humanist Community.

After a short break, The Sticker Dude recited the "Storyteller" poem, and then sang folk and protest songs, all selected so we could sing along. He took us from Paradise (Kentucky) to the Promised Land. Along the way we sang along to "Uncle John's Band," "This Little Light of Mine," and many others. It was a rollicking, fun way to finish up the program, and brought back some nostalgic thoughts of Sticker Dude's impromptu concerts in the basement of BSEC. But now we're the Brooklyn Humanist Community, and by golly, BHC Rocks!

BHC Book Club: My Sister's Keeper

On Friday night the BHC Book Discussion Group met at Sheila's apartment to discuss My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. Sheila provided a delicious dinner: a giant bagel sandwich, cole slaw, potato and macaroni salad, fruit salad, cookies and chocolates.

After we ate the "jury" convened to deliberate on whether the various characters in the Fitzgerald family acted ethically. For the most part, we favored Anna, the main character, who was created as a "designer baby" to be a perfect genetic match and therefore a stem cell donor for her older sister Kate, who had a rare and very dangerous form of leukemia. Most of us criticized the mother, Sara, for her obvious favoritism toward Kate to the exclusion of her two other children, Anna and Jesse. Anna was raised with the expectation that she would always be there to donate blood, bone marrow and even body parts to save her sister. Jesse, the oldest and the only male, has become so embittered by being pushed aside and treated as insignificant that he has resorted to drugs, stealing cars, and arson. The father, Brian, could be viewed as kinder to his youngest child than Sara, or else as passive, letting Sara make all the decisions and not putting in his two cents.

Some people felt that Sara was right to try and save Kate at all costs, even if it meant endangering Anna. Others felt Anna was right to bring a lawsuit for medical emancipation from her parents so that they could not coerce her into giving up a kidney for her sister. The discussion was lively and impassioned, and all sorts of moral criteria came to the fore.

It's a tough book to read, especially with the shocking and tragic ending. But the writing drew me in and I ended up reading it three times.

This was an excellent evening, with lots of input from everyone. Our next book will be A Thousand Splendid Suns.