Here in the midst of high summertime, I am finishing a book and burning the candle at both ends. Going to take an early night and be back at it tomorrow.
This is beautiful! My Garden Lady spoke a poem to me once that made me feel the same way. It ended with "one's heart is closest to god in the garden, than anywhere else on earth". Amen!
This is beautiful and inspiring, Rowshan. So glad you shared. I love how Heather inspires us to pause. I'm looking out over my small garden right now and you're so right, verdure is our freedom and joy.
Not really, MLM. I just look at the photos that Heather uploads and express my appreciation — she doesn’t need to give us an extra gift of beauty on her “nights off,” and yet, she does. So, these are my responses of gratitude.
Once again - enhancing the lovely image with your powerful poetry. Thank you! Here's what it reminded me of: David Mallett's Garden Song by the artist himself: https://youtu.be/2m0LewjkO4s
Another new word today, Katherine. So apt, Shero, "a woman admired or idealized for her courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities; a heroine."
Yes and amen!!!!! President Richardson? That little phrase floated through my mind later in the evening… Time to revisit the conversation she shared with President Biden when he invited her to the White House. Such a blessing to be sharing this journey, yes?
does anyone know where this is , ie Massachusetts, Maine? this one doesn't have a photo credit or painting credit. either.. does anyone read what we write here, and respond?
Heather lives in Maine - when she isn't in Boston teaching. The photo looks like the Maine I lived in for a while. MA looks a lot drier than that. Heat and a drought where we are.
Some of us chat each other up here. I left most other social media behind once I became a "substacker". Do you follow Robert Hubbell as well? Lot's of smart conversation there as well.
I can’t get up that early lol (rough nights often with my husband, a stroke recovery patient, over six years coming up on 8/15) - Mr. Alstrom, Your comments always carry great value. Thank you!
Absolutely yes! So refreshingly upbeat and creative! At the same time, down to earth real. And they met in first grade! Such a story! Different from Heather’s post today but still, per my first comment posted, stuff of fairytales!
I will add that I love Jill Bickett’s video blog and try to stay abreast of all her many exploits and topics… But I confess I’m best off reading HCR and Mr. Hubbell (I am increasingly a fan of listening to the audio version… He’s become increasingly comfortable with his delivery, I’d say) and saving Jill‘s lighter topics for the next morning, by light of day. To take in what she produces nightly is too much of a “key change” for me at that hour. LOL. I marvel at their productivity. It’s been fun to witness episodes such as Jill’s chronicle of Rob’s journey nightly to get to the finished product, ready to publish.
Ashley, I am appreciating the gift of the comment section, that it has reeled me in to a beautiful experience, witnessing poetry and such a lovely appreciation everyone here is expressing… I don’t usually takes that time but I am appreciative and believing it’s a gift of today I was intended to witness. A real blessing. Grateful!
oh yes, the community blew me away on the 17th of july be responding to me vigorously on my first foray herein.. for 8 hours..a wilde night and i have rarely had so much fun just being my reference librarian self , riffing away with music and history and poetry etc..
But what i meant to say here, is if we have a question to Heather or her staff, do they ever answer? thanks Amy, Laura X, Women's History Library
I don't think Heather has time to really sit and read this. But it is always worth trying because I believe she has students/staff that help her and investigate facts. Over the several years I have been here, I have seen her respond very occasionally.
She is on sabbatical from Boston College now. I'm not sure if she has students to help. I would imagine she has staff. I always thank her for the Letter as a formality. I appreciate and respect the work she puts in these Letters.
Usually it is with a clarification or correction that she has made when she posts on here. I don’t know how she'd have time to read our Comments when she's writing and researching her Letters and books and on TV and lecturing and all that she does!
Thank you HCR for your wise Letters and this photo of a rural spot on a summer day. I would like to share a poem that I read the other day. It tells of a bird and a woman with determination, patience and tenderness.
Eye on the Sparrow
by Georgina Marie Guardado
I woke to rapid flapping, the air cold
the time unknown. The dog’s paws tapping
on chill hardwood floor. Sudden
commotion. Jumping to corral what was
assumed to be an animal fight, I find
a California Towhee in my dining room.
Frantic, frightened. Brisk movement in her
wings making the room that much more frigid.
I stammer to her. Follow her room to room
as she attempts to fly her way out of walls
until she finally calms, allowing me to cup her
into my hands. We sit together outside
on a frosty concrete step. My bare feet
settling on top of wet fall leaves, gathering
the taste of morning in my mouth, the scent
of rain and dirt. She catches her breath.
My thumb softly wrapped around her chest
feeling her heart rate regulating, her eyes opening,
her fear receding. Leaves rustle, wind and traffic
move along while she and I watch each other
in a place where time moves slower than the rest
of the world. Her eyelids the color of peach
and terracotta. Her body the rusty hue of autumn.
Her eyes the same shade as mine, dark as loam.
I flatten my hand. She doesn’t move. We sit
together for what seems like hours. What seems
like fate when safety is reciprocated. Ten minutes
Georgina Marie Guardado was raised in Lakeport, California. As part of the Broken Nose Collective, an annual handmade chapbook exchange, she created her first poetry chapbook, Finding the Roots of Water, in 2018 and her second chapbook,Tree Speak, in 2019. In 2020, she was an Anne G. Locasio scholar for the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference poetry workshop. The Literary Coordinator and Poetry Out Loud Coordinator for the Lake County Arts Council, she served as co-editor for the Middletown Art Center’s RESILIENCE and RESTORE collections of written word and visual arts funded by the California Arts Council. She is the current Lake County Poet Laureate for 2020-2022, the first Mexican-American and youngest to serve in this role for Lake County. In 2021, Guardado received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship.
This is beautiful. Reminds me of last year when a small bird ended up in my kitchen and caught between 2 window panes. I managed to get the bird out and held it until we both calmed, then released it outside. I saved its life that day and felt stressed but exhilarated at the same time.
'Ethel Waters, (born October 31, 1896, Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died September 1, 1977, Chatsworth, California), American blues and jazz singer and dramatic actress whose singing, based in the blues tradition, featured her full-bodied voice, wide range, and slow vibrato.'
''Waters grew up in extreme poverty and was married for the first time at the age of 12, while she was still attending convent school. At 13 she became a chambermaid in a Philadelphia hotel, and that same year she sang in public for the first time in a local nightclub. At 17, billing herself as “Sweet Mama Stringbean,” Waters was singing professionally in Baltimore, Maryland. It was there that she became the first woman to sing the W.C. Handy classic “St. Louis Blues” on the stage. Her professional rise was rapid, and she moved to New York City. In 1925 she appeared at the Plantation Club in Harlem, and her performance there led to Broadway.'(britannica) see link at end.
Can't begin to add to what our community has already responded to you, Heather. So I'll just say DITTO!
On another note: we all know Nichelle Nichols, famous for her role as Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek. She passed away this past weekend. The NYT wrote a fitting tribute. What I didn't know about her was this:
"At the time she took the role of Uhura, Ms. Nichols said, she thought of it as a mere job, valuable as a résumé enhancer, but she fully intended to return to the stage; she wanted a career on Broadway. Indeed, she threatened to leave the show after its first season and gave Mr. Roddenberry her resignation. He told her to think it over for a few days.
"In a story she often told, that Saturday night she was a guest at an event in Beverly Hills — 'I believe it was an N.A.A.C.P. fund-raiser,' she recalled in the Archive interview — where the organizer introduced her to someone he described as 'your' biggest fan.
“'He’s desperate to meet you,' she recalled the organizer saying.
"The fan, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., introduced himself.
“He said, ‘We admire you greatly, you know,’” Ms. Nichols said, and she thanked him and told him that she was about to leave the show. He said, ‘You cannot. You cannot.’”
"Dr. King told her that her role as a dignified, authoritative figure in a popular show was too important to the cause of civil rights for her to forgo. As Ms. Nichols recalled it, he said, 'For the first time, we will be seen on television the way we should be seen every day.'
"On Monday morning, she returned to Mr. Roddenberry’s office and told him what had happened.
“And I said, ‘If you still want me to stay, I’ll stay. I have to.’”
Though the circumstances are different, I feel confident in saying we are Heather's biggest fans. We want her to stay.
'Bill Russell is one of the first superstars in the NBA to be a Black man and while he was a player-coach for the Boston Celtics, he became the first Black coach to win a championship in North American sports.'
'Bill Russell competed in the face of racism and even had an FBI file open on him in the same vein as other civil rights leaders.' (on3)
‘He stood side-by-side with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s, the height of the civil rights movement. He was in the audience when King delivered the “I Have A Dream” speech in Washington in 1963. He marched in Mississippi after the slaying of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. He supported Muhammad Ali when the fighter refused to go to Vietnam. He helped start the National Basketball Players Association. President Barack Obama — at about 6-foot-2, a taller-than-average individual — had to stretch a bit when draping the Presidential Medal of Freedom around Russell’s neck in 2011, even after Russell crouched down to accommodate the moment.’ (AP)
“My most prized possession was my library card from the Oakland Public Library.”
The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin... (TOM SAWYER’S COMRADE) - at 83, tonight, In light of our fast growing racial darkness, here and worldwide, the raw vocabulary strikes and stuns - and the story line just slams.
A bit like the failed reformation and prejudice on campuses, in congress and in dozens of states. Ernest Hemingway was clear. Said nothing before or after Huckleberry Finn matched.
Hard to sleep on this book.
Hard to read most of what we read about ourselves today. It’s such inconsequential blather.
I agree, Sandy. Most of what we read in the news is garbage, and most of what is presented in video format (TV, streaming, YouTube, TikTok, ad nauseum) is meaningless pap.
And advertising punctuates everything ad nauseam. Infomercials everywhere. I remember a time when ads were 15 seconds x2 for a 30 minute show. Bet there aren’t many who remember such a time. I pay for “no ads streaming” but they still sneak them in. PBS now has to partake in commercial bull Schitt. I remember a time before republican rule when there was promise of wonderful, educational tv. Now the cretins win. “The Real Housewives of blah, blah, blah.” Andy Cohen should be tarred and feathered. Kardashian crap at every turn. Brain cell killing garbage fed to the youth like manna from heaven. Republicans never met a good idea that they couldn’t destroy.
Not having re-read the works of the author for many years, I often wondered whether he tried to expose the white community for the racists we are, or just describing narratives of the reality we have come to accept, that it is as it should be? Indeed, Sandy, "It all just misses the point."
Thank you for the raw truth you share and continue to fight for.
A small glimmer of college campus hope to share — the small school in TN which my daughter will attend (first year, starting later this month) has a 20+% Dreamer student body!
A beautiful image. Take good care of yourself Heather, we are really going to need your knowledge, your insight and your vision to make it through.
Yes, it is such a beautiful image of summer! Thank you, Heather!
Summertime
Wild pink briar roses and
delicate bursts of white
Queen Anne’s lace
paint the foreground
of this summer scene.
Verdant trees
form an arch to reveal
a church and a distant
spire at the end of
an emerald meadow.
Joyous birdsong beckons
the soul to the freshness
and holiness of the
outdoors — to nature’s
sanctuary, in lieu of
the strictures of a
man-made house of God.
Did you know that
verdure is our freedom,
our joy — life itself?
This is beautiful! My Garden Lady spoke a poem to me once that made me feel the same way. It ended with "one's heart is closest to god in the garden, than anywhere else on earth". Amen!
Jessie
The kiss of the sun for pardon
The song of the birds for mirth
One is nearer God’s heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
Thank you, Robin!
That's the one!!! My first tattoo is a Robin!!
Many thanks, Jessie. I appreciate your kind words.
oh how lovely , i gather this is your own poem? people need to credit u with a copyright name and dated, before they share it
thank u! Laura X
Thank you so much, Laura! I trust that they do give me credit if and when it’s shared.
This is beautiful and inspiring, Rowshan. So glad you shared. I love how Heather inspires us to pause. I'm looking out over my small garden right now and you're so right, verdure is our freedom and joy.
Thank you, Barbara. I’m so glad that you enjoy my thoughts.
You are so talented. Do you do anything else with your poetry besides soothe us?
Not really, MLM. I just look at the photos that Heather uploads and express my appreciation — she doesn’t need to give us an extra gift of beauty on her “nights off,” and yet, she does. So, these are my responses of gratitude.
Rowshan, thank you for this precious gift.
You’re too kind, Suze!
Once again - enhancing the lovely image with your powerful poetry. Thank you! Here's what it reminded me of: David Mallett's Garden Song by the artist himself: https://youtu.be/2m0LewjkO4s
Thank you so much for the compliment, Chaplain Terry, as well as for the lovely song!
Lovely poetry, Rowshan! Had to lookup verdure, greenery! Thanks for my learning a new word!
Thank you, Sandra!
Thank you for painting with words...so elegantly and so truly, Rowshan!!
Thank you so much for your encouragement and appreciation of my words.
💞
Thank you Rowshan. This is lovely.
Thank you, Linda!
Amen to that... she is a godsend of clarity and context 👌💯🔝
Absolutely the thought that came to me. Thanks for expressing it so well.
Thank you for all that you do. Stay well. Good luck on the book.
Will love to know more about the book!
I think everyone here appreciates the time you take for your own wellness.
Stuff of fairytales! Look at this exquisite scene! And you, s Shero unmatched!
Blessings as you write and rest and tend successfully so many fires.🙏🏽 Indeed, tending you yourself is the flame that matters most.
Another new word today, Katherine. So apt, Shero, "a woman admired or idealized for her courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities; a heroine."
Yes and amen!!!!! President Richardson? That little phrase floated through my mind later in the evening… Time to revisit the conversation she shared with President Biden when he invited her to the White House. Such a blessing to be sharing this journey, yes?
Wonderful photo. Appreciate your columns more than any of the others I follow. Thank you!
So glad you have an Enchanted Cottage in which to burn that candle, Heather. Sweetest of dreams to you!
does anyone know where this is , ie Massachusetts, Maine? this one doesn't have a photo credit or painting credit. either.. does anyone read what we write here, and respond?
take care all, Laura X.
Good morning!
Heather lives in Maine - when she isn't in Boston teaching. The photo looks like the Maine I lived in for a while. MA looks a lot drier than that. Heat and a drought where we are.
Some of us chat each other up here. I left most other social media behind once I became a "substacker". Do you follow Robert Hubbell as well? Lot's of smart conversation there as well.
https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/appearance-of-impropriety?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Oh, amen to Mr. Hubbell and his managing editor, Jill. Reading the two columns (HCR and RH) before my eyes close allows peace to sleep.
I can't stay up that late! So they are my 6:00 am coffee partners :)
I can’t get up that early lol (rough nights often with my husband, a stroke recovery patient, over six years coming up on 8/15) - Mr. Alstrom, Your comments always carry great value. Thank you!
“Everyday with Jill” feeds a daily, soothing spoonful as well: https://www.everydaywithjill.com/
Absolutely yes! So refreshingly upbeat and creative! At the same time, down to earth real. And they met in first grade! Such a story! Different from Heather’s post today but still, per my first comment posted, stuff of fairytales!
I will add that I love Jill Bickett’s video blog and try to stay abreast of all her many exploits and topics… But I confess I’m best off reading HCR and Mr. Hubbell (I am increasingly a fan of listening to the audio version… He’s become increasingly comfortable with his delivery, I’d say) and saving Jill‘s lighter topics for the next morning, by light of day. To take in what she produces nightly is too much of a “key change” for me at that hour. LOL. I marvel at their productivity. It’s been fun to witness episodes such as Jill’s chronicle of Rob’s journey nightly to get to the finished product, ready to publish.
I second, heartily, Katherine! You beat me to it. 😉
Ashley, I am appreciating the gift of the comment section, that it has reeled me in to a beautiful experience, witnessing poetry and such a lovely appreciation everyone here is expressing… I don’t usually takes that time but I am appreciative and believing it’s a gift of today I was intended to witness. A real blessing. Grateful!
I can't thank you enough for this link! I just subscribed to his blog.
Robert is helpful in a legalistic and detailed way. He also is action oriented - never defeatist.
I like his no drama approach. You mean the sky isn't always falling?!
Lots of us read these comments and yes do sometimes respond. 🤣 xo
oh yes, the community blew me away on the 17th of july be responding to me vigorously on my first foray herein.. for 8 hours..a wilde night and i have rarely had so much fun just being my reference librarian self , riffing away with music and history and poetry etc..
But what i meant to say here, is if we have a question to Heather or her staff, do they ever answer? thanks Amy, Laura X, Women's History Library
I don't think Heather has time to really sit and read this. But it is always worth trying because I believe she has students/staff that help her and investigate facts. Over the several years I have been here, I have seen her respond very occasionally.
She is on sabbatical from Boston College now. I'm not sure if she has students to help. I would imagine she has staff. I always thank her for the Letter as a formality. I appreciate and respect the work she puts in these Letters.
Usually it is with a clarification or correction that she has made when she posts on here. I don’t know how she'd have time to read our Comments when she's writing and researching her Letters and books and on TV and lecturing and all that she does!
She solicits questions on her FB page on the days she does chats.
I honestly don't know if Heather reads this. She may just write her Letter and turn the keys over to us.
Have a peaceful regenerative sleep. And thank you for offering me a glimpse into a brilliant mind. Looking forward to your next letter!
Sleep well beautiful smart lady.
Thank you HCR for your wise Letters and this photo of a rural spot on a summer day. I would like to share a poem that I read the other day. It tells of a bird and a woman with determination, patience and tenderness.
Eye on the Sparrow
by Georgina Marie Guardado
I woke to rapid flapping, the air cold
the time unknown. The dog’s paws tapping
on chill hardwood floor. Sudden
commotion. Jumping to corral what was
assumed to be an animal fight, I find
a California Towhee in my dining room.
Frantic, frightened. Brisk movement in her
wings making the room that much more frigid.
I stammer to her. Follow her room to room
as she attempts to fly her way out of walls
until she finally calms, allowing me to cup her
into my hands. We sit together outside
on a frosty concrete step. My bare feet
settling on top of wet fall leaves, gathering
the taste of morning in my mouth, the scent
of rain and dirt. She catches her breath.
My thumb softly wrapped around her chest
feeling her heart rate regulating, her eyes opening,
her fear receding. Leaves rustle, wind and traffic
move along while she and I watch each other
in a place where time moves slower than the rest
of the world. Her eyelids the color of peach
and terracotta. Her body the rusty hue of autumn.
Her eyes the same shade as mine, dark as loam.
I flatten my hand. She doesn’t move. We sit
together for what seems like hours. What seems
like fate when safety is reciprocated. Ten minutes
later she flies, stops on a dog-eared picket
and looks back. The dog quietly watches me.
How I love and let go all at once.
Copyright © Georgina Marie Guardado. Used with permission of the author.
Georgina Marie Guardado was raised in Lakeport, California. As part of the Broken Nose Collective, an annual handmade chapbook exchange, she created her first poetry chapbook, Finding the Roots of Water, in 2018 and her second chapbook,Tree Speak, in 2019. In 2020, she was an Anne G. Locasio scholar for the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference poetry workshop. The Literary Coordinator and Poetry Out Loud Coordinator for the Lake County Arts Council, she served as co-editor for the Middletown Art Center’s RESILIENCE and RESTORE collections of written word and visual arts funded by the California Arts Council. She is the current Lake County Poet Laureate for 2020-2022, the first Mexican-American and youngest to serve in this role for Lake County. In 2021, Guardado received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship.
To love and let go all at once...perfect, Fern. Thanks so much.
Yes I loved that line and concept too Lynell!
Birds of a feather, Sandra!
Amazing bird. Really good dog. Loving and letting go all at once. This is the only way to love, the only way to live. Thanks Fern.
Salud, friend Steve.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull! Thx Steve!
This is beautiful. Reminds me of last year when a small bird ended up in my kitchen and caught between 2 window panes. I managed to get the bird out and held it until we both calmed, then released it outside. I saved its life that day and felt stressed but exhilarated at the same time.
Wanted to insert I found your story beautiful, too, Jeanne. Thanks for sharing!
So lovely! Touched to tears by this. We must love our earth and all her creatures.
so happy to see alll this
thank u.. meanwhile His Eye is on the Sparrow is a beautiful piece of music
and the title of the bio of Ethel Waters
or is it auto bio? someone on this lwonderful list will know!!
'Ethel Waters, (born October 31, 1896, Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died September 1, 1977, Chatsworth, California), American blues and jazz singer and dramatic actress whose singing, based in the blues tradition, featured her full-bodied voice, wide range, and slow vibrato.'
''Waters grew up in extreme poverty and was married for the first time at the age of 12, while she was still attending convent school. At 13 she became a chambermaid in a Philadelphia hotel, and that same year she sang in public for the first time in a local nightclub. At 17, billing herself as “Sweet Mama Stringbean,” Waters was singing professionally in Baltimore, Maryland. It was there that she became the first woman to sing the W.C. Handy classic “St. Louis Blues” on the stage. Her professional rise was rapid, and she moved to New York City. In 1925 she appeared at the Plantation Club in Harlem, and her performance there led to Broadway.'(britannica) see link at end.
His eye on the Sparrow below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QbeNSatFFo
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ethel-Waters
Many thanks, dear Fern 🕊! The poignant poem’s name resonated as a song for me…couldn’t grasp more until you and Laura X completed the who and what!
Thank you Fern. Lovely to read this morning!
Hi Fern:
Its me
Again.
No
comment...
Thank you for the lovely picture! So grateful for your wonderful letters! Rest well.
Can't begin to add to what our community has already responded to you, Heather. So I'll just say DITTO!
On another note: we all know Nichelle Nichols, famous for her role as Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek. She passed away this past weekend. The NYT wrote a fitting tribute. What I didn't know about her was this:
"At the time she took the role of Uhura, Ms. Nichols said, she thought of it as a mere job, valuable as a résumé enhancer, but she fully intended to return to the stage; she wanted a career on Broadway. Indeed, she threatened to leave the show after its first season and gave Mr. Roddenberry her resignation. He told her to think it over for a few days.
"In a story she often told, that Saturday night she was a guest at an event in Beverly Hills — 'I believe it was an N.A.A.C.P. fund-raiser,' she recalled in the Archive interview — where the organizer introduced her to someone he described as 'your' biggest fan.
“'He’s desperate to meet you,' she recalled the organizer saying.
"The fan, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., introduced himself.
“He said, ‘We admire you greatly, you know,’” Ms. Nichols said, and she thanked him and told him that she was about to leave the show. He said, ‘You cannot. You cannot.’”
"Dr. King told her that her role as a dignified, authoritative figure in a popular show was too important to the cause of civil rights for her to forgo. As Ms. Nichols recalled it, he said, 'For the first time, we will be seen on television the way we should be seen every day.'
"On Monday morning, she returned to Mr. Roddenberry’s office and told him what had happened.
“And I said, ‘If you still want me to stay, I’ll stay. I have to.’”
Though the circumstances are different, I feel confident in saying we are Heather's biggest fans. We want her to stay.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/31/obituaries/nichelle-nichols-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxftm3iWka3DKDm0biOMfApSd8l3MaLEkYdo43zmfQNIENr4kRPt21apTMkVhDQm0p5_O0LI0HxIIk6PhFGUnw8CKGrki7T7hamT-cLkvz-aytk_Da2frUbjYgyIjOF1n9cN6J1is23ULw6qRFuN0ycA-ial6fu1yRT4BbSKIuPDqGk8-bI3ANkeAn1FwD-JJWjjTnsqe4qYCcGhQD1HATXB96AUs-Y8WeYNXbOukcUlWKIepiq4RC2doMI6jG5cyIoHRnLhourfHwgeestm8lAaHFMh1AuLmVSdVRQ&smid=url-share
Nichelle Nichols, Leonard Nimoy, and George Takei are all magnificent human beings.
Giving thanks to another towering American:
'Bill Russell is one of the first superstars in the NBA to be a Black man and while he was a player-coach for the Boston Celtics, he became the first Black coach to win a championship in North American sports.'
'Bill Russell competed in the face of racism and even had an FBI file open on him in the same vein as other civil rights leaders.' (on3)
‘He stood side-by-side with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s, the height of the civil rights movement. He was in the audience when King delivered the “I Have A Dream” speech in Washington in 1963. He marched in Mississippi after the slaying of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. He supported Muhammad Ali when the fighter refused to go to Vietnam. He helped start the National Basketball Players Association. President Barack Obama — at about 6-foot-2, a taller-than-average individual — had to stretch a bit when draping the Presidential Medal of Freedom around Russell’s neck in 2011, even after Russell crouched down to accommodate the moment.’ (AP)
“My most prized possession was my library card from the Oakland Public Library.”
__ Bill Russell
Bill Russell. Unique. Fabulous. Courage personified.
Thank you Fern, a real inspiration for us all!
Him, too!
Reading, too, Heather:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin... (TOM SAWYER’S COMRADE) - at 83, tonight, In light of our fast growing racial darkness, here and worldwide, the raw vocabulary strikes and stuns - and the story line just slams.
A bit like the failed reformation and prejudice on campuses, in congress and in dozens of states. Ernest Hemingway was clear. Said nothing before or after Huckleberry Finn matched.
Hard to sleep on this book.
Hard to read most of what we read about ourselves today. It’s such inconsequential blather.
It all just misses the point, no?
Sandy
may i suggest the beloved musical written from that book,, Big River...
Laura X
“It all just misses the point, no?”
I agree, Sandy. Most of what we read in the news is garbage, and most of what is presented in video format (TV, streaming, YouTube, TikTok, ad nauseum) is meaningless pap.
And advertising punctuates everything ad nauseam. Infomercials everywhere. I remember a time when ads were 15 seconds x2 for a 30 minute show. Bet there aren’t many who remember such a time. I pay for “no ads streaming” but they still sneak them in. PBS now has to partake in commercial bull Schitt. I remember a time before republican rule when there was promise of wonderful, educational tv. Now the cretins win. “The Real Housewives of blah, blah, blah.” Andy Cohen should be tarred and feathered. Kardashian crap at every turn. Brain cell killing garbage fed to the youth like manna from heaven. Republicans never met a good idea that they couldn’t destroy.
You tell it, Sister 👍👍
Not having re-read the works of the author for many years, I often wondered whether he tried to expose the white community for the racists we are, or just describing narratives of the reality we have come to accept, that it is as it should be? Indeed, Sandy, "It all just misses the point."
Exactly, inconsequential blather often
Dear Sandy,
Thank you for the raw truth you share and continue to fight for.
A small glimmer of college campus hope to share — the small school in TN which my daughter will attend (first year, starting later this month) has a 20+% Dreamer student body!
Well-deserved. It is so beautiful where you live. I love the photos. Thanks...brings some peace.
Enjoy your evening! Thanks for everything you do!
Let us know when book finished and title! I look forward to purchase!
Oh?
Take care of yourself!