Category Archives: Editorial

The Job Jar. It was a coffee can with a hole in the lid. Every Friday we put our hands in and picked four tasks.

Before that we had to mow the lawn. It took five hours on a riding Toro that I learned to drive at age eight. My little sister and I switched between the two-hour and three-hour segment weekly. That was hard work.

Then the job jar had folding diapers, dusting, vacuuming and three other tasks plus “Ask Mom” and Ask Dad” Ask Mom was the worst for me because it meant three hours of weeding.

When one of us got both “asks” it was easy. Do whatever Mom wants, go out to see Dad covered in sweat and dirt and he’ll ask you to hand him a screwdriver and say you’re done for the day if you’ve done everything else.

In two weeks my mother will have been gone for five years. I dream about her nearly every night but she never liked me starting when she became pregnant. I miss her and what kind of relationship we might have had as well. My father was never there but when he was, he was there in the evenings when the entire neighborhood came to call on him to play softball or touch football. Yes, everyone, including young girls, got to play, as those were his rules.

My hard work was at a summer institution pulling weeds on a clay tennis court and laying down tapes. Too bad the “boss” didn’t know what he was doing and never lifted a finger. He thought his job was to work the roller. Wrongo, boss man.

My hard work was trying to get a good bill to pass that would have perhaps nixed what the NSA is doing to us everyday. I even registered the bill’s name as 1984. Then it dealt with cable TV but now it would deal with everything else, like with the internet, oh, wait, who invented that.

Another bill I wrote dealt with sexual orientation. It’s only taken three decades for gay marriage to be legal in NYC.

I tried to get dogs off-leash with responsible owners for about six years, as a volunteer. It mostly didn’t work but did in some parks. Hard work.

There’s nothing wrong with hard work, especially if it goes with passion toward a cause, hopefully a paycheck and not a pat on the back. Most have been not seen and an occasional pat on the back. It’s ok, I’m used to being behind the curtain.

That’s what hard work is about, and keep up your math and science skills. Dee

Last year we were invited to a burial at Annapolis for the Captain who married us. As we were married by the sea and not at sea (I had five days to plan the wedding/elopement) we got special dispensation from the State for him to perform the wedding ceremony on land.

We asked. He considered it, and shed a tear before achieving Naval demeanor and agreeing to our request. He insisted on writing our vows and I typed them up in large print.

It was a brief, lovely ceremony with a few friends. We went home and called our families. Years later as he declined, I got him on the phone on a good day and told him who I was and that he married us. He said “I wore a nice suit,” and I agreed.

The day his ashes were interred the Secretary of the Navy was there and they saved the 21-cannon salute for Sec Nav. We stayed for it, thought it was for Capt. Jim and his son, III, brought his mother up to meet Sec Nav and he gave her a coin.

Here is to our soldiers who keep us safe. I can no longer say free because surveillance against civilians going out to buy groceries or gas for their cars is rampant inside our country and even on 9/11, not needed.

My adopted father is gone. I can visit him any time at his alma mater. I don’t need to because I know even as his “adopted” girl I’ll get in trouble if I do anything wrong.

I respect the person and the memory, because he was “Dad” to me and I now have three older brothers and a Mother who I love dearly, At the funeral one officer said he’d been in the family for over 40 years. I only have 19 so came in second!

This is also a lesson in Loyalty. Keep score, I’m not because it’s lessons learned, not points on a test. Dee

This is part of your resume, kids. You have to tell your own story to your prospective employer.

I was part of a large group that tried to get legal leash-free areas for responsible dog owners in local parks. None of us were paid. The number dwindled and only a few could lead and pull the weight and I was one.

We joined the local councils and went to meetings. We testified before the city. We were recruited to negotiate with the nay-sayers, who were both the city and negative neighbors. The cards were stacked against us. I promised my dog she’d be able to chase her ball in our park and she died before I could do so legally.

I realized I was out every night at community meetings, fighting for her but not being with her, which is what she needed.

Shy as a child, I found my voice here. Ask my friends, they’ll tell you. If you want to organize something know gays and lesbians. They fought AIDS. Letting your dog off leash is nothing like AIDS. Organization? Got it. Focus. Check that. I wrote and spoke to staff and testified and organized speeches and wrote most of them but each of us had a job and we did it.

We spent six years and I probably have a couple of boxes of documents, plus my seminal publication which the director of Parks and Rec said was very good. Oh, I ended up as vice president of the board that gives parks and rec money…. Perseverance, personified.

For six years I fought and won certain battles as a leader, and over 40 neighbors gave a tree to the city/park in memory of my dog. We won battles, lost the war on the beaches.

Whatever they say, if it means something to you, keep trying. Dee