J is For Lyndon Johnson

All this month I am participating in the A to Z Challenge.  Today's letter is...  

for President Lyndon Baines Johnson

Last month I went to Texas to spend spring break with my grandchildren.  We took a field trip to Dallas and visited the Perot Science Museum, the Fort Worth Zoo, and the 6th Floor Museum  at Dealey Plaza.  Most people my age remember clearly where they were when they heard that President Kennedy had been shot.  I was at George K Porter Junior High in Home Economics class when the announcement came over the intercom.  For the next few days we were glued to the television coverage of the assignation, the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald, his subsequent murder,  and then JFK's funeral.  

The 6th Floor Museum is in the former Texas School Book Depository.  The museum chronicles the the assignation and legacy of President Kennedy.  It was fascinating to me because I have such vivid memories of that time in history, but even my granddaughters, ages 6 and 8, were interested.  We looked out the window from where Oswald made the fatal shots and I marveled that one insignificant man changed the course of history.  We stood on "the grassy knoll" and everything seemed so much smaller than what was pictured in the news coverage in 1963.

My daughter and grandchildren on the grassy knoll.  Zapgruder was standing just to the right of my daughter when he filmed the assignation

Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president following Kennedy's assignation.  He is probably best remembered for his failure to end the war in Vietnam, but his greatest legacy may well be his legislative agenda.  He committed to seeing that the Civil Rights Act proposed by his predecessor was passed.  In an address to a joint session of congress in 1963 Johnson told the legislators,  

"No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long."  

Today President Obama spoke at the Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas at a summit commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Obama credits the Civil Rights Act with "throwing open the doors of opportunity" for Americans who had previously been shut out.  The Civil Rights Act, signed into law by President Johnson on July 2, 1964, changed our nation.  We've come a long way in fifty years, but there's still a little more work to be done.

I is for Italy

All this month I am participating in the A to Z Challenge.  Today's letter is...
I for Italy

In April of last year my daughter was working in Italy for several weeks.  I joined her in Milan to take advantage of her company-paid hotel room.  I was in Italy for less than an hour when all my money and credit cards were stolen by a pickpocket.  If I had been on my own, I would have been in real trouble.  Fortunately my daughter saved the day by loaning me money and a credit card.  It was my first visit to Italy and I wasn't about to have losing all my money get in the way of having a good time!

During the week while my daughter was working,  I explored Milan.  I saw DaVinci's Last Supper, toured La Scala, touched the Rondanini Pieta that Michaelangelo was working on at the time of his death, and rummaged through the street markets.  

An amazing selection of random stuff at a street market in Milan

Beautiful fresh vegetables at the street market

On the weekends we left the city.  We took the train to Lake Como and rode the ferry to the small villages along the lake.  We didn't see George Clooney.

But, my favorite part of the trip was Venice.  It's filled with tourists and lots of tacky tourist crap, but it is an amazing place.  It looks exactly like every picture that you have ever seen of Venice, yet, when you are there,  it is hard to believe that such a place exists.  

A random canal in Venice

It rained while we were in Venice, but that didn't put a damper on our activities.

A gondola floated by and all the passengers had umbrellas.

We took a water taxi out to the island of Murano to see the glass factories.

Sarah and a glass sculpture on Murano

I'd like to take the spouse to Italy and on that visit I will try and avoid the pickpockets!

Hands Across America

All this month I am participating in the A to Z Challenge.  Today's letter is H.

Last week I wrote about my mother's leftist leanings and mentioned her participation in protests and lost causes.  This evening I was digging through boxes of old family photos searching for inspiration for something that began with "H." I found a few photographs of me with hideous hairdos, but I see no need to humiliate myself in my own blog.  (If I destroy the visual evidence, there's a good chance that no one will ever remember that I sported an Afro in the 70's.)  I found pictures of my mom protesting at some Justice for Central America rally...

That's my mom with the picket sign in the blue T-shirt.

...and then I found an "H,"  Hands Across America.  

In May of 1986 almost six million people held hands to form a 4,125 mile human chain from New York City to Long Beach, California.  The event was designed to focus attention on homelessness and hunger and many participants donated $10.00 each to reserve their place in the line.  The money raised went to local charities.  My mom took her place in the line somewhere in the desert in California.

That's my mom in the red shorts below:

Do you remember Hands Across America?

Grandchildren

All this month I am participating in the A to Z Challenge.  Today's letter is...

For Grandchildren

My grandchildren live in Texas.  I live in Oregon.  One of the great things about retirement is that I am free to go and visit whenever I get the urge.  I'm a pretty regular visitor to Texas.  For the first time in my life I have medallion frequent flyer status on Delta...and just about the only place I've gone is Texas!  We are also regular users of FaceTime.  

The grandchildren come and stay with us in Oregon during the summer.  The first year they came for three weeks.  The second year it was six weeks.  This year we're picking them up in South Dakota in early June in the RV, and they'll be with us until August 8.  I can't wait.

These are my grandchildren last summer on one of our adventures to Fossil Oregon:

and at Multnomah Falls:

They are such a big part of my life.  I find indicators of their influence everywhere.

You know you're a grandparent when strange pictures show up on your iPad and you have no idea how they got there...and sometimes you have no clue what they are:

You know you're a grandparent when your purse contains bandaids, random crayons, wet wipes, and emergency snacks, weeks after visiting the grandchildren.

You know you're a grandparent when you can sing the theme songs from Wonder Pets and Backyardigans and your children are in their thirties.

You know you're a grandparent when you plan your summer RV road trip around what "the girls" would enjoy.

You know you're a grandparent when your email is is filled with the latest offers from Gymboree, Carters, and Striderite.

I can't imagine life without our grandchildren.  I wish we had a lot more of them.

Funeral

All this month I am participating in the A to Z Challenge.  Today's letter is...

For Funeral

I did no advance planning or writing for the A to Z Challenge.  I've just trusted that the universe will provide inspiration.  On Saturday I attended a funeral for a neighbor.  During the service a light bulb went off in my head and I realized that funeral started with "F."

I haven't attended many funerals.  Since my family immigrated to the US when I was small, I had no extended family in the US.  I missed out on all that funeral pageantry when an aging relative dies.  When I attend a funeral now, I feel rather like an anthropologist exploring a foreign culture.  This was especially true at Saturday's service held at the "Cowboy Church," which is a store front in a strip mall on highway 395.  The room in the back held rows of second-hand chairs and an overhead garage door.  The minister, a woman, (apparently in Cowboy Church culture females lead the worship) managed to get the name of the deceased wrong, but covered nicely.  Ten minutes in to the service a young relative arrived.  She walked through the crowd to the front to sit with the rest of the family, carrying a small dog.  Was I supposed to bring a dog?  I just don't know the cultural expectations, but looking at the crowd I realized that I wasn't the only one who didn't know funeral guidelines.

The woman who died was a lovely person.  I wish ministers who conduct services did a better job of actually celebrating the life of the deceased.

Equality

All this month I am participating in the A to Z Challenge.  Today's letter is...

For Equality

Perhaps because I was raised during the era of the civil rights movement, I've always been a supporter of equal rights.  In my formative years my heroes were the leaders of the civil rights movement: the Freedom Riders, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Julian Bond, and Medgar Evers, to name just a few.  I greatly admired those who, at great personal risk, used civil resistance in the fight against racial discrimination.

Throughout the 60's my family never bought grapes, honoring the grape boycott organized by the United Farmworkers who were boycotting to improve the working conditions and pay for farmworkers.

Although I never burned a bra, I certainly supported the women's liberation movement in the 70's.  I was still naive enough to believe that centuries of domination would be overturned within the decade.  We have yet to pass an equal rights amendment to the United States Constitution.

I can probably blame my leftist leanings on my mother who marched at the U.S. border in support of immigration reform and donated to every liberal cause, and probably to more than a few scams in the last years of her life.  My brother saved the bumper stickers from her car...

It should come as no surprise that I am a strong supporter of marriage equity and LGBT rights.  I was stunned in 2004 when Oregon passed a constitutional amendment that defined marriage as between one man and one woman.  Try as I might, I can't understand why anyone cares who anyone else marries.  I understand that some people cite religious reasons for not supporting marriage equity, but those people are certainly free to not marry a same sex partner.  Government has no business legislating who we love.  Consenting adults should have the right to marry any other consenting adult.  Groups in Oregon are organizing to once again challenge the legality of the ban on same sex marriages in Oregon.

Today's theme is equality.  To find out more about Marriage Equity visit Freedom to Marry.org

Dave, I'll Miss You

All this month I am participating in the A to Z Challenge.  Today's letter is...

 for David Letterman     

David Letterman announced his retirement today.  It feels like I'm losing an old friend.  I've been watching him for over 30 years.  When my children were babies, and I was a stay-at-home mom, I watched his morning show.  When my kids were in preschool and I went back to college to get my teaching certificate, I wrote my Master's thesis late at night with Dave to keep me company.  One of the benefits of retirement has been staying up to watch Dave on the "Late Show" without having to get up early in the morning to go to work.  

Dave has had his ups and downs.  I commiserated with him when he didn't get the Tonight Show and I admired how he dealt with the very public disappointment.  His frustration became material for his comedy, and while he sometimes sounded a little bitter, he was always funny.  I appreciated that he didn't deny his disappointment, but he went on and achieved even greater success.  

Years later he had another very public humiliation when his sexual relationship with a staffer became public.   He he made a public apology.  He showed us that he was human; he made mistakes, and he moved forward and tried to rectify them.  He's a pretty good role model.  He's demonstrated that you can fail and still achieve, make mistakes and make amends, and be a celebrity and human.

Although I will miss his company late at night when the rest of my household is fast asleep, I wish him all the best in his retirement.  I hope he will find, like I have, that retirement is one more opportunity to find joy every day.  

Thanks, Dave, for sharing so much of yourself with us for so many years.