National Frolic Month. Please Save the Date.

Was walking out of the Library the last time that I was there and misread an advertisement. Evidently it was for-

"National Frolic Month". How about that? Nah.. It was really for National Folic Acid Awareness Month.!#.. got something

on my mind. When sex is on my mind. Its as if I see walking phalluses everwhere.

Woke up this a.m listening to B.B.C chronicle of the 60'th Anniversary of the liberation of Aushwitz. 30 minutes before the ceremony began the railway tracks that the Jew and others were deported in railwaybox cars were now lit all lit with candles amongst a chilling falling snow and its beginning with the sound of an echoing railway engine. I sat up in bed as if I were watching it from a front row seat.

Got an e-mail from N. that my father had a mild heart attack luckily the staff at the assisted living facility had caught it in time to get him to an Emergency Room. Seems like each time that he has one a little more of him dissapears.

Joined the Peace Movement Organization Coalition again.
There is a Quaker group that is mobilizing to the train individuals to work a G. I hotline- North Carolina, I think - In this case to assist and counsel callers regarding conscientus objector status and also to work with young men and women in the National guard who do not want to return .

Over & Out.

d.

Bush Inaugeration

Inaugeration Protest 2005

It's not what your country can do for you
but what you can do for your country.
- John F. Kennedy

I criticize my country
because I love her so.
- Martin Luther King
_
My s truggle to work thru where in the Peace Movement that I stand continues . Through my actions I continue to practice non-violent Protest and believe in non-violent action. However, I believe the internal struggle is a good and worthy one and to only seek the inspiration and literature from those that share my point of view is not condusive to challenge and thought.
& So on that line-
I've finally completed reading the following.

Emma Goldman: Essays on Anarchism
Franz Fannon:

Standing on front of the street sidewalk facing the on-coming cars. I caught myself feeling very antagonistic andinwardly walking down a path of agitation towards those who cannot share this wonderful place named: America & It appears to me that the conservatives would like this country re- programed their way and will legislate it so that all Americans will be forced to live in a Country based on thier ideology, politics, and value system.

after the protest I went to the Policemen and thanked them for thier presence, shook thier hands and walked towards my car.

For N.

Don't you know that you are a superstar.
Don't ya know.
yea..yeaa...yeaa

Don't ya know.


I was listening to this song on rock classics on the way over to the library. If I'm not mistaken its about some teenage kid named Johnny, who dreamed of being a superstar at least while he was under the influence of to much alcohol.

My big Brother N. was sometimes my Superstar and is also why it scarred and and twisted so deeply when he also turned my worst nightmares into daytime traumas.

Actually it wasn't just a superstar but a specific one.

SuperMan.


My parents had left for something sort of entertainment or meeting together and left N. to baby sit me until they returned but unfortunely after they had left he had taken hallucenagenics.

Sitting on his bed I watched N. turn around and stare out the window. Just dazed and staring.

N. said he was Superman.
He spread his arms out wide.

And like Icarus got prepared himself for a jump
Into flight out the window.

Lost in my foggy 9 year old thoughts : I am scared what my parents will think of me because I have let my brother jump out the window.

1/17/05 Martin Luther King Day

Martin Luther King Day. 2005

"God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way.
Thou who hast by Thy might, Led us into the Light, Keep us forever in the path, we pray."

James Weldon Johnson

I have witnessed the K.K.K in the south, Probably around 1966 or 67; when I was just about
7 or 8 yrs old.
It is strange though- my family being immigrants to this country& how the experience became mine to integrate into my understanding of who I am & what my country was and still is.

My father had wanted to explore this country. and so this could have taken place on our trip to Atlanta?. I don't know.

My most vivid memories have always been of sitting in the back seat of the family dodge dart while looking out the open back window of the prisoner jail gang. Each one manacled to the other while wearing the striped black and white jump suits.
From afar I coud see something on fire and my next memory was of our caron a dirt road in the middle of no-where. My father had parked the dodge dart on the left side of the road and had left my mother, brother and I to sit and wait while he had walked up the steps of the burning church across the street. With my face pressed to the window I watched my father knocking on the door as a frightened black man came to stick his neck out of the door.

Too small to remember words. I can recall imprints of feelings.

"There is nothing you can do.
Leave -it is too dangerous here."

Next we had arrived at a the beginning of a parade. Small town. I do remember red, white and blue banners. My father had parked the car vertically facing down the road. My brother and I were in the back seat with the windows down: other children like me arriving with their families and sitting up on the benches.

Then the parade came down the street.
and it wasn't.... a parade.

The first thing I saw was the white pine cross.
and next were K.K.K members riding on horses with the white outfits and pointed
covers for thier heads.

and my screaming. as if it had belonged to someone else.
My father yelling to my brother and mother to reel up the windows and my father turning to face my brother to push me down to the floor of the car so that it wouldn't bring any attention to them.

I don't remember much after that.

" Deep in my heart I do believe
We shall/will overcome some day"

Refrain from " We shall over come"
Sung by Pete Seeger



It is one of the very few family experiences that I have tried to discuss with my father.

In the past4 years I have been very lucky to meet people in my own age group on both side of the color line who remember the South as it was under the Klan and the civil rights movement& as the children that we were.

One friend's Father was involved in the civil rights protests here locally and told me the stories of how the training for the civil disobedience took place for the local coffee shops and what the training was like.
thru my work with the local Peace and Justice Center I have met people who as adults were involved in the local civil rights Protest Movement.
and vicariously I have met a man whose father was a southern white minister fight for civil rights in the south and one woman who had lived in rural part of the state. Who remembers more of the Klan in her area and the story of the dissapearances of black children and another whose Klan affilated father was head over heals into child Porn.

The only thing that I remember about Martin Luther King as a child was that he loved us.
He loved me because I was a child. As a white child growing up in N.Y.C that was the gift that I was given from M.L.K. and I cried when he was assasinated.

Today.
Thanks to the opportunities given to me from the local Peace and Justice Center. I have done extensive historical research on the women of this area and their involvement the civil rights movement. I found local heroines in the names of : Diane Nash and many more.

" My Barn Having Burned
to the Ground-
I can now see
the moon."
traditional Japanese Haiku


Not much going on today. As you can see I've chosen to type in very small print. Does this mean something? A little lost today.

Last night a fire engine whizzed by on the road next to the front of the apartment complex . My Stomach dropped straight down on the cement: felt naseated. It has taken more of a toll than i'd orginally thought it would. It still feels that my gut is in my mouth sometimes.
I'd gone to Victoria'a Secret Semi-annual sale and for some wierd reason I could have sworn my Father was there for just a second or two just barely in my viewing point of range, althouth this time he looked about 65 or so and was ambulatory. A different father and just a mirage.

Daddy was stationed in Northern Africa in World War Two as a medic.
Tripoli.
There must be many still yet untold individual secrets left from WW11 and with so many of the men who were witnesses to them dying now, it certainly makes me wonder how many will ever come to be told.

He had once told me the British had kept the German Prisoners of War past the time that they were supposed to have been shipped back to Germany for some reason and when they were put on the ships to return. Many of the German POWS had jumped ship while my father and the other British watched without shooting to kill.
Daddy had said to me," The War was over- They were just boys like us and Tired of all the killing."
So they let them go.
Makes one wonder what came of them. The Germans who had jumped ship . Settling in the MiddleEast. Old men now. I wonder who their children were? What there grand-children are doing now?

Have we forgotten that in real War the lines between Good and Bad, Good and Evil become blurred and that Even Evil comes in many shades of grey before turning
Black.

When I was a teenager; on numerous ocassions I would have these deep and distressing conversations with my father about World War 2 and his deep belief of an upcoming World War 3 because he was concerned that our generation would forget World War 2. So there I was@ 15 or 16 promising my Father that My Generation would do better. My Generation had learned the ultimate lesson: Never Again and Never Forget.