SOLSC 10: Getting Organized

            After opening all the mail accumulated while I was away, I simply put it into piles. Today I sorted through the piles, and gave in to my propensity to make list

Magazines

1. 2 New York Review of Books

2. 3 New Yorkers. The anniversary issue at the end of February has always been a reproduction of the original cover in 1925, showing a dandy named Eustace Tilley.

That issue this year is a satire of that cover.

 

3. 4 The Nation

4. Poets & Writers

5. Milk Street (a new cooking magazine by the founder of Cook’s Illustrated)

6. 6 newsletters, including the Hightower Lowdown, Church & State, Healthy Aging, and Mind, Mood & Memory

Money

            Then there were my pension checks, bank statements, and donation receipts for tax reporting. Also a bill from a doctor who saw my husband briefly in his last days in the hospital, 15 months ago. Can it really take Medicare that long to process bills?

            Finally, solicitations for donations from the Center for Reproductive Rights, the American Humanist Association, Planned Parenthood of New York City, the Hospice Support Fund, and the ACLU. I’ll give money to some of these organizations after I check out the ones I don’t known on Charity Navigator. 

SOLSC 9: Coming Home

            I arrived home this morning, after the overnight flight from California. Coming into the empty apartment was melancholy, with no one to say, “Welcome home, baby,” and give me a big hug and kiss. I had to whisper “welcome home” to myself, a poor substitute for Jack’s voice.

            Everything was as I left it, the eggs I’d left for Christie gone from the refrigerator. But as I wheeled my suitcase to my room, I was surprised to see books on the floor. They’d fallen off a bookshelf. Why? How?

 The brackets holding the shelf were all there. The sides of the bookcase were in place. I replaced everything, but it was unsettling. I don’t really believe it was Jack’s ghost urging me to get rid of books – but there was one book that was a duplicate (The Encyclopedia of New York City), and I’ve been meaning to donate it to a library. It went onto the pile by the front door.

            In the evening I opened 25 days’ worth of postal mail, which took an hour and a half! Most of it was junk, but there were a few bills I’d forgotten to take care of, some checks, and several magazines. Lots of reading to catch up with. 

SOLSC 8: A Walk in the Park

            My last day in Watsonville, it’s in the upper 60s, and Heidi and I go for a walk to Pinto Lake City Park (not to be confused with Pinto Lake County Park at the other end of the lake). While it looks like we are in the country – there are agricultural fields between the settlements of houses – there is also a sidewalk. It’s not well maintained in spots, and lots of vegetation on either side, but a sidewalk nonetheless, which is more than one would find in this terrain in the east. A big plus for California.

            After the torrential rains last month, most of the park was submerged until last week. Most of the water has receded by now, but there is still more lake/less park than there should be. Some park benches and tables are knee-deep in water. One man had waded out to a table now yards out in the lake to fish.

 

          Those birds in the water are not ducks; they are coots. Have you ever heard of a coot? I never had. They have long legs, and their feet aren’t webbed like ducks, but each of their claws has its own webbing, and as they walk, they look like they are wearing too-big galoshes.

            That water between the paved area and pier is not normal; it’s left over from the flooding. You should be able to walk from the paved area to the pier without getting your feet wet.

            Three-year-old William (shown above) and his five-year-old brother, Connor were also out with their father shouting at the coots, but Heidi’s dogs were a much bigger attraction. I didn’t have my phone with me, so I can’t show you the two dogs, Zoe and Pippin, on a double leash, but here they are back home, tired out from all that exercise.

            The park is a peaceful grassy place, with a volleyball net, a baseball field, RV camping area, and a three-tree redwood grove dedicated to the pioneer ancestors of Mary Curtis. Pinto Lake is 10,000 years old, but parts of it are now afflicted by toxic algae, and swimming is not allowed.

SOLSC 7: Protest Time

            A construction company called Graniterock, in Watsonville, where I am visiting, is considering a bid on building Trump’s wall. This afternoon I went with Heidi, my host, to join a protest against the company, hoping to persuade them that building a wall is not the best way to use their resources.

            In the morning we brainstormed what her sign should read. Heidi wanted to use a word or two from the company’s statement to local newspapers, that it remained neutral in terms of politics, as well as what projects would be better for the company to be working on. “Infrastructure” came readily to mind, but that’s just too long for a sign and doesn’t work as a catchy slogan.

            “Neutral” was also an important word. How about “A wall is not neutral.” Perfect. Adding “It’s mean” added a bit of an edge. Heidi’s daughter suggested, “It’s un-American,” as a better ending.

            Heidi found black poster board, a backing board to stiffen the sign, and double-sided tape to fuse the two together. Then she outlined the words to make sure everything would fit, and filled in the colors with acrylic paint. Here’s what the final result looked like, held by a neighbor's child.

            Then we got a ride to the company’s office, in an area of warehouses. Maybe 40 people were there when we arrived, but the sidewalk eventually filled with at least 200. More than half the passing drivers honked in support. A few of the organizers tried to meet with company officials, but were told they had to make an appointment, and there was no one there to make an appintment with at that time. So we continued holding up our signs for another hour, until the sun set. Here are some of the signs others brought.

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SOL 6: Is a Comedy-Horror Movie an Oxymoron?

            This afternoon we all went to see Jordon Peele’s (of Comedy Central’s Key & Peele show) first movie, Get Out. It’s billed as a comedy-horror film, which may sound like a contradiction in terms, but really does work.

            I am not a fan of horror films, but I have watched one or two just to see what it’s all about. I do love comedy, and while Get Out is not funny-haha, it has plenty of dark humor. The film takes all the necessary features of horror – the naïve protagonist confronted with open doors he can’t resist, characters who act strangely, characters who are not who they seem, scary walks outside at night, a cellphone mysteriously removed from its recharge cord, and plenty of gore at the end – with a twist that takes cultural appropriation a step beyond.

            Instead of the innocent young (always white) woman, we have an innocent young black man who is the central character, as Rosie, white, brings her new boyfriend, Chris, home to meet her liberal parents in their home in the woods. Rosie’s father is a neurosurgeon, her mother a psychiatrist who uses hypnotism. Hypnotism is the entry toward Chris’s lack of control.

            The opening scene is a classic horror scene, but also replicates the very real fear black men feel walking on a tree-shaded suburban street at night. As Chris becomes more unnerved in this strange house, he tries for reality checks by calling his friend Rod, a TSA agent, and Rod is more than a bystander. The underlying plot is wholly consistent, and weirdly believable. I can’t say more without spoilers, so I’ll leave you with a recommendation to see this movie, and an interview with Peele, the writer and director.

            Among the four of us, two really liked it, one somewhat liked it, and one was not sure. But we all found something to like and to talk about, and what more can you ask of a movie?

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I'm posting this too late to meet the Two Writing Teachers' deadline, but I am committed to writing a slice every day, to keep up with the challenge. 

SOL 5: Lazy Sunday

            Even on vacation, Sunday can be lazy. While my hosts get the weekday New York Times delivered, they don’t get the weekend papers, meaning no Magazine section, meaning no Sunday crossword puzzle.

            Their local paper, however, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, has a big New York Times crossword puzzle, which must come from the Magazine. Since neither of my hosts does the puzzle, I have it all to myself. It’s late afternoon, and I’ve done a bit over half of it. I haven’t yet figured out the overall theme, i.e., what weird PUN-ishment editor Will Shortz is offering us for clues with a question mark. (Ah, just got some in-house help: “Celebration after a coup?” is “uprisersparty.”) And some of the clues have bad definitions: “Detergent brand with a fabric in its name” turns out to be “woolite”; no, “wool” is not a fabric, it’s a yarn or thread.

            For lunch we have the California version of a BLT, which adds an avocado. For the L, I go to the backyard, to a half-wine barrel, where lettuce is growing. It’s chilly and windy, so I put on a jacket, scarf, and hat, strange clothing for a vacation in Central California. I’ve never picked lettuce before: should I pull the whole plant, or break off the leaves near the root so new ones will grow? Obviously, the latter. The BLT&A is the best I’ve ever had.

            Soon after lunch, it begins to rain – while the sun still shines. In this area of the country, when that happens it’s said that the devil is beating his wife. Back in New York it could also be a monkey’s wedding or a fox’s wedding, or even liquid sun. 

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I’m participating in the 10th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 5 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!
 

SOL 4: Monterey

            I set off again for Monterey today, this time with my nephew Geoff and his girlfriend, Jess. On this gorgeous sunny, crisp day, we did make it to this small city at the southern end of Monterey Bay, home to Steinbeck's Cannery Row and the Monterey Aquarium with its guide to sustainable seafood.

            First we had lunch at a lovely little (and I do mean little, only six tables) Lebanese restaurant called Paprika, where Jess and I had the garlic chicken salad, and Geoff had the Kafta Kebab platter. All the food was delicious, and the pita was light and tasty as well. The owner cooks all the food from recipes he learned from his mother, so even what made the lemonade special was a secret.

            By the time we finished lunch, it was too late to get to the Aquarium considering how expensive admission is ($50 for the younger people; $40 for me). Instead we walked down to the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail in Pacific Grove and walked along the paved path to the rocky point you can see at the right of the photo at the top of this Web page, just over a mile. Along the way we stopped to watch seals hiding in the water, quantities of seagulls, a cormorant, and perhaps some white pelicans. The views, the sun, the sea... a delightful afternoon.

There are five seals near the beach; how many can you see?

View across Monterey Bay

Is that a gull or a pelican on rocks?

Monterey cypress

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I’m participating in the 10th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 4 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL 3: My Brother and Cars

           I’m visiting a friend in Watsonville, and my brother lives in San Jose. Today he came down so we could hang out. My friend recommended a restaurant on the road to Monterey, Sea Harvest, since we were thinking of going down there.

            So we drove down Route 1 to Sea Harvest, overlooking Elkhorn Slough (pronounced “sloo” in case you didn’t know) just where it empties into Monterey Bay. When we arrived, my brother drove around the parking lot so he could park next to a car he had spotted, a copy of his own, a red Chrysler Crossfire. In case you don’t know what a Chrysler Crossfire is, it’s a sports car. Of course, it has to be red.

            We had a delicious meal, me a local rockfish fillet with a creamy tomato salsa, rice, and steamed carrots and broccoli, he a creamy seafood sauce over fettucine with garlic bread. We watched sea gulls and pelicans passing by. And a small child just learning to walk out on the terrace, rocketing back and forth.

            As we finished eating, my brother heard a man asking other diners whether they owned a Chrysler Crossfire. It was the owner of the other Crossfire. He and my brother immediately bonded over ownership of the same car. He reported that he’d bought his car from someone who’d acquired it at auction purely for its resale value. It had only 9,800 miles on it, and he didn’t drive it much himself. They traded cards, in case he ever wanted to get rid of it, and my brother might want it.

           

Here are the cars, and the two men exchanging car stories. My brother can still identify all the cars from the 1950s when I showed him my photos of vintage cars in Havana.

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I’m participating in the 10th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day three of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL 2: A Quiet Day

            It’s been a quiet day here in Watsonville. The hot water heater is still not fixed, although the necessary part has been delivered. But the electrician had other jobs to do, and then “hit a wall,” calls to say he will return early in the morning. Fortunately, it’s not my house, so I don’t have to be up early.

            I help my hostess prepare for her grown son’s visit (he arrives late tonight), and she gives me a guided tour of the downstairs apartment. We let out the dogs – a Portuguese water dog and a black spaniel – and walk through the backyard, past the small garden beds of herbs, fava beans, and onions; the fruit trees, blossoming plum and peach, hibernating apple and cherry, oranges and limes; and a tree with lemons almost the size of grapefruit, known as Eureka lemons.

            My hostess shows me the small “graveyard” where the ashes of her parents and her dogs are buried. She shows me how to suck sweet nector from salvia petals. We pass dried debris washed ashore from the torrential rains the previous weeks.

            In the evening we have a dinner of black bean soup (recipe courtesy of the NewYork Times) over rice, with pickled onions, avocado, cilantro, and crema. Delicious. And then I write this.

 

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I’m participating in the 10th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day two of the thirty-one-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL1: California Dreaming

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            This morning I lived out a fantasy of California life: a hot tub in the woods. Well, not actually in the woods. It was outdoors, surrounded by trees, bushes, yellow oxcalis rampant among the grasses.

            The air was cool, in the 50s, so I was a little nervous about taking off the robe over my retro ’50s swimsuit. You know how the water stings when you jump into a hot shower in a cold bathroom? That's how it was stepping into the hot tub, the sting, then the pleasant warmth spreading over my skin as I sank into the tub up to my neck. The sun was bright and I no longer felt cold.

            The hot tub belongs to my friend Heidi, who lives on a third of an acre sloping down to a lakeshore. The front of the house at street level is a second story at the back, where a porch overlooks the lake. From the porch we take a winding metal staircase down to the ground level, where the hot tub sits. Nearby is a tall magnolia tree, with a couple of pots of succulents hanging beneath the thick leaves. Over my shoulder is this view of the lake.

            We sit in the hot tub for 15-20 minutes and then, went down to the “bunk house” to take a shower. (We’re temporarily out of hot water in the house.) You can see the roof of the bunk house through the railing from the porch here.

I had thought that taking a shower “outside” would be too cold, but after the hot tub, it was perfect. My California dream.

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 It's March 1 and the beginning of the 2017 Slice of Life writing challenge, in which those of us crazy enough to do this write a slice of life story every day this March. It's also the 10th anniversary for this Daily Slice of Life Writing Challenge. It's my third year attempting this, and sometimes I've even succeeded. More than 350 are starting out this year and you can click over here to check out some of their stories. 

SOLTuesday: Traveling, Movie-Going, and Not Quite Getting Lost in Hawaii

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            Two weeks ago I flew to Hawaii to get away from New York City’s cold weather. The two Tuesdays I was there, I went to the movies.

            The Doris Duke Theater at the Honolulu Academy of Art was showing the three sets of Oscar-nominated shorts – live action, documentary, and animation – and that first Tuesday my friend and I went to see the live action shorts. I wrote a Slice about the film I liked the best, Enemies Within, last week, but it doesn’t seem to be available online, and neither are Timecode, a peek into the secret dancing life of parking garage security guards in Spain, or Silent Nights, about a volunteer working with immigrants in Copenhagen who falls in love with one of them, without knowing all the facts of his life. The winner, Sing, can be watched here.  And The Woman and the High-speed Train, a fable about a baker in Switzerland who waves to the train that passes her house every day for 30 years and begins to correspond with the conductor, can be purchased for $2.99 on iTunes.

            The following Tuesday I saw Hidden Figures, which I loved and now have the book to see what else I can learn about these remarkable women.

            This film I went to on my own. I had no problem finding the mall theater, but returning, I took one wrong turn after another. The first time I turned right instead of left, and almost immediately knew it was wrong. But the highway here was two lanes with no place to pull over and make a U-turn. I had to go more than a mile before the next intersection, where I could get turned around. But then there was the three-highway crossing, and again, I followed the wrong signs. It took me a bit longer to realize I was on the wrong highway, and again, I had to travel almost 10 miles before I reached a turning point.

            Oahu is divided by a range of volcanic mountains; the friend I was staying with and the mall showing Hidden Figures  were on the windward side, while Honolulu is on the leeward side. When I reached the long tunnel going through the mountains, I knew I was on my way to Honolulu. Eventually, I reached an intersection and could get back to the other side and the town of Kailua.  And I was passing beautiful vistas, which, since I was driving, I couldn’t take pictures of.

            The whole enterprise made me rethink the value of letting Google Maps tell me how to get from one strange place to another, and I used it on my new iPhone a few days later when I had to get to the airport with my rental car. Hurray for technology!

Essay #7: Another Movie Commentary

Last week I saw the Oscar-nominated Live Action Shorts, five films ranging from 15 to 30 minutes long, from Hungary, Denmark, Spain, France, and Switzerland. They were all very good, and here is the one I thought was the best.

WARNING: I hope I don't reveal any SPOILERS, but if you're concerned about that, read no further.

       What I think is the best film is not likely to win, because it isn't a safe choice. The French film, "Internal Enemies," consists almost entirely of two characters: a 56-year-old man seeking citizenship, and a French official interrogating him over his application. Everything the applicant says is heard by the official as suspicious, and you, as the viewer, can see how even the most innocent answer can sound suspicious to someone whose job is to distrust everyone he questions.
The applicant was brought from Algeria in 1959, when he was 5, by his father. The official says, "You were born in Algeria?" The applicant says, "No." The official looks surprised; this is clearly the wrong answer. The applicant explains: "It was France when I was born. It did not become Algeria until after I left." The official is not satisfied. "Why did your father choose Algerian citizenship?" The applicant shrugs and tries to establish commonality with the official. "I never asked him. Did you ask your father why he did anything?" The official refuses to acknowledge any connection between himself and the applicant, and moves on to the next question.
Eventually, the official zeroes in on what really concerns him: the names of anyone the applicant met at "meetings" he attended. The official calls "meetings" any gathering that the applicant was part of. The applicant thinks a meeting is something formal, called for a purpose, and he was just sitting down with a group of men from the mosque to talk, be sociable, eat pastries and drink tea. Why shouldn't he say the names of these men? Because years ago, someone giving the police some names caused the applicant a huge amount of trouble, and he doesn't want to cause anyone else such trouble.
      Watching the interrogation is excruciating. I felt most empathy for the applicant and had to force myself to get inside the official, whose facial expression and questions display so much arrogance and certainty that he is right, and by extension that the applicant is wrong. It's possible that the official's attitude is simply part of a technique, put on for his job and not representing his true person. The official's job is to protect France and the French people. The applicant believes himself part of "the French people" already, and wants to make that official, for his own safety. But the official's job is to force the applicant to prove that he has a right to become part of "the French people," and how is that to be done? I also felt that if the applicant was not already hostile to France, the official's treatment could well make him hostile. Does the official ever think of that, and does he care?
       And what if someone at those gatherings the applicant went to was a recruiter for violent jihad? Could that be why he stopped going? Or was it something more subtle that made the applicant uneasy after a period of time, but nothing so clear-cut that he feels he can safely tell the official, "yes, this man could be dangerous"?
       Throughout the film I kept thinking of Trump's executive order on immigration and how U.S. customs officials treat immigrants and refugees seeking visas or arriving in the United States. Visa applicants to the U.S. already go through a lengthy vetting process. Does Trump's "extreme vetting" envision something like the interrogation in this film? Of course, we want to be safe; we don't want men like those who flew the planes into the World Trade Center coming here. But do we gain safety by assuming that every Muslim -- men, women, children -- is a violent jihadi unless they can prove they aren't? Is this a test anyone can ever pass?
#52essays2017

SOL Tuesday (2 days late): A Short Film from France

(I was getting ready to write a Slice Tuesday night, but my laptop wouldn't let me, freezing and repeatedly giving me the Whirling Beachball of Death. Yesterday I was lulled into a false sense of security when it worked fine for about 20 minutes. But in the afternoon, it no longer showed me what percentage of power I had left, the battery icon showing an X, even though the charger lit up green as though the laptop was fully charged. I didn't believe it. So I rented a car and found a computer repair shop and left it the hopefully competent hands of Cinematic Computers. I have it back now, sort of. We'll see how it behaves when it has a new battery next week.)

                 What I wanted to write about was seeing the Oscar-Nominated Live Action Shorts at the Doris Duke Theater at the Honolulu Academy of Art. Five films, each 15 to 30 minutes in length, from Hungary, Denmark, Spain, France, and Switzerland, ranged from fable to intensely political. WARNING: I hope I don't reveal any SPOILERS, but if you're concerned about that, read no further.

                 The best film, in my opinion, is not likely to win because it isn't a safe choice. The French film, "Internal Enemies," consists almost entirely of two characters: a 56-year-old man seeking citizenship, and a French official interrogating him over his application. Everything the applicant says is heard by the official as suspicious, and you, as the viewer, can see how even the most innocent answer can sound suspicious to someone whose job is to distrust everyone he questions.

                 The applicant was brought from Algeria in 1959, when he was 5, by his father. The official says, "You were born in Algeria?" The applicant says, "No." The official looks surprised; this is clearly the wrong answer. The applicant explains: "It was France when I was born. It did not become Algeria until after I left." The official is not satisfied. "Why did your father choose Algerian citizenship?" The applicant shrugs and tries to establish commonality with the official. "I never asked him. Did you ask your father why he did anything?" The official refuses to acknowledge any connection between himself and the applicant, and moves on to the next question.

                 Eventually, the official zeroes in on what really concerns him: the names of anyone the applicant met at "meetings" he attended. The official calls "meetings" any gathering that the applicant was part of. The applicant thinks a meeting is something formal, called for a purpose, and he was just sitting down with a group of men from the mosque to talk, be sociable, eat pastries and drink tea. Why shouldn't he say the names of these men? Because years ago, someone giving the police some names caused the applicant a huge amount of trouble, and he doesn't want to cause anyone else such trouble.

                 Watching the interrogation is excruciating. I felt most empathy for the applicant and had to force myself to get inside the official, whose facial expression and questions display so much arrogance and certainty that he is right, and by extension that the applicant is wrong. It's possible that the official's attitude is simply part of a technique, put on for his job and not representing his true person. The official's job is to protect France and the French people. The applicant believes himself part of "the French people" already, and wants to make that official, for his own safety. But the official's job is to force the applicant to prove that he has a right to become part of "the French people," and how is that to be done? I also felt that if the applicant was not already hostile to France, the official's treatment could well make him hostile. Does the official ever think of that, and does he care?

                 And what if someone at those gatherings the applicant went to was a recruiter for violent jihad? Could that be why he stopped going? Or was it something more subtle that made the applicant uneasy after a period of time, but nothing so clear-cut that he feels he can safely tell the official, "yes, this man could be dangerous"?

                 Throughout the film I kept thinking of Trump's executive order on immigration and how U.S. customs officials treat immigrants and refugees seeking visas or arriving in the United States. Visa applicants to the U.S. already go through a lengthy vetting process. Does Trump's "extreme vetting" envision something like the interrogation in this film? Of course, we want to be safe; we don't want men like those who flew the planes into the World Trade Center coming here. But do we gain safety by assuming that every Muslim -- men, women, children -- is a violent jihadi unless they can prove they aren't? Is this a test anyone can ever pass?

Essay #6: Marches, part 3

Fall Mobilization, 1965; me on left, and Jack behind.
Of course, we are smoking. Everyone did.

            Political marches and demonstrations are exhilarating. Being among a group of people who agree on an issue, even if you don’t know all or any of them, is exciting. I suppose those who disagree with us might think we are like a mob – but we are not dangerous. We are not threatening to harm anyone. I personally don’t like the current group of young men (I think they are all men) who call themselves the Black Bloc, wear masks to cover their faces, and throw rocks at stores and offices. They’re not changing anyone’s mind, they’re not making an argument. Perhaps they think they’re being revolutionary. They’re not.

            My first big protest, even before I joined that picket line in October 1963, was the famous March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August that year. You know the one, where Martin Luther King made his “I Have a Dream” speech. There were lots more speeches that day. People were mostly worried about how radical John Lewis, representing SNCC, was going to be. A recent history of the March on Washington and the movement that preceded it (The March on Washington, by William P. Jones. 2013) says few knew about the intense debate over what Lewis would say, but I was aware of it, and I was hardly close to any of the march’s organizers.

            One of my co-workers and I met and mingled with the crowds streaming along Independence Avenue toward the Lincoln Memorial. (My roommate did not come along; she’d heard rumors of rampant burglaries while residents were out being goody-goody. I thought that was ridiculous, and that was no uptick in crime that day.)

            Walking along, we met a teenage African-American girl (white liberals still said Negro in those days) from North Carolina who’d come up on a bus. I felt so tolerant, proving, I thought, I wasn’t one of those hateful, bigoted white people in the South. It was exciting being among so many peaceful people for such a pure cause. It was hot, and toward the end of the afternoon, I decided it was time to go. The speeches were too speechifying. My co-worker had left, the teenager had found the rest of her bus mates. I was nearing the trees on the north side of the Mall when Martin Luther King’s voice  stopped me. It was more the cadence than the words that stopped me at first, but then I focused on his words: 

“... one day on the red hills of Georgia sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood....” 

I stopped under the trees and stayed to the very end of his speech, 

“We will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, We are free at last.'”

That speech has been replayed so often that it’s hard to disentangle memory from its reinforcement, but I know the thrill I feel now is what I felt then. What he wanted was what I wanted. Harmony, friendship, unity. What I feel I’ve been searching for all my life.

            Antiwar marches were something else altogether. I had been reading about Vietnam in the papers since 1962. What did I know about Vietnam? Well, my seventh-grade got a weekly newsmagazine for schoolchildren, and in the fall of 1954 the two lead stories were Brown v. Board of Education, and the division of Vietnam into two countries after the end of French occupation. I remember reading about Catholics fleeing the Communists in North Vietnam, and as a red-diaper baby, I wondered why people would be fleeing Communists. “Vietnam” must have stuck in my head, because when I dropped out of college in Washington, D.C., in 1962 and was reading the Washington Post, I noticed news stories about Vietnam and its neighbor Laos, and kept on reading. 

            1965 saw the first big demonstrations against the Vietnam War. There was the Spring Mobilization in Washington, the Fall Mobilization in New York. In the spring we rode down to Washington with friends and stayed at an apartment my college roommate found for us. On a sunny day, we gathered in front of the White House and walked back and forth. As more and more people joined in, were there police guiding us further along Pennsylvania Avenue, past the Old Executive Office Building? I don’t think so. What I do remember was our starting to move down 17th Street and then turning east.

            Our goal was to encircle the White House. The only official presence was Park Rangers, who patrolled the environs of the White House. The heavy security now just didn’t exist. Only two or three Park Rangers tried to halt us and point us further south, but there were so many of us. (25,000 was one later estimate.) We formed a long horizontal line, and as the Park Rangers moved to one end to block us, we surged forward at the other end. And as they rushed toward our end of the line, the other end surged forward. In this flanking maneuver, we managed to get almost all the way across the South Lawn. I loved the feeling of outsmarting the authorities. It felt revolutionary – and without guns.

            In the fall, there was a big march down Fifth Avenue. Jack was a copy boy at the (Dorothy Schiff/pre-Murdoch) New York Post. One of his fellow copy boys belonged to some Trotskyist sect (I think it was Youth Against War and Fascism), which was one of the organizers of the fall march. He prevailed upon Jack to be a marshal, too. Marshals were supposed to keep marchers in line, tell them when to stop, when to go.  Although we both instinctively resisted being in a position of telling other people what to do, being a marshal meant we got to wear armbands; we’d walk along the outside of the march; we wouldn’t be hemmed in the middle of the crowd or behind or in front of a sign we might not agree with. We didn’t yet have a coterie of compatriots to march with, though we probably met friends at a bar afterwards. We were always ending up at bar in those days.

Marching, to be continued.