Our political associate and friend Terry Olson passed away on Oct. 15th. His notice ran today. I am so sad over this. That should read, I am so sad inside of this. Terry was the coolest dude — great husband, father, grandfather, teacher, activist, dog-dad and friend. He fought cancer for so long, so hard. I have never seen anyone fight a disease the way Terry fought his.

Here is my first “real” post that I ever wrote about school politics — the inequities, the unfairness of it all, the effects of poverty as they relate to education. Honestly, I didn’t know what I was doing, I just knew I wasn’t happy with the status quo.

Terry was always quietly supportive of Steve and me. He would also bang on the table with his fists, as necessary. He loved that post, and sent me a note that said, in effect, forget about the recipes and all that, just focus on being renegade. So I did. (OK, I only wrote about food half as much after that.)

He also loved this post, and that thrilled me, that he stamped my work with a big gold star. (For the longest time, when you did a search on “wacky mommy,” Terry’s post popped up at the top of the list: “What Set Wacky Off?” haha.)

Terry was, first and foremost, an excellent teacher. I learned so much from him. (I learned to forgive people, for one thing.)

Love and peace to you, Terry. Love you. I am sorry I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to you, but I didn’t want to say goodbye. Peace to your family, besos y abrazos. You lost a great guy. I am so sorry.

ps — Terry, thanks for outing me, all those years ago, on your blog. Someone needed to do it. (hugs.)

Yep. Steve is audio slave.

I am feeling EXTRA HOLIDAY CHEERFUL cuz I just looked at the nativity scene Beth’s kid made out of Legos and the angel her other kid made out of tinfoil and kleenex. Some kids, you put ’em in a 3rd world country and they just thrive. Also, she’s crazeee and made the snow fly all over her blog when you call it up.

Hmm.

I have not so much creativity over here.

Also, “dinner” is a “problem” again. No appetite, thus I don’t feel like cooking. I’ve had no appetite for something like four or five months. Oddly, not losing weight. (Yes, I’ve gone to the doctor, nothing is wrong. Other than I’m “kooky.”)

A parent stopped by the blog and traumatized me the other day and now I don’t feel like writing. I think it’s someone I know, in person. I think we’ve been at a party together. Fucking don’t traumatize me on my own blog. Fucking pick up the phone and call me or send an e if you’ve got an “issue” with me.

Apology ensued but left me a little baffled.

It’s grade school, it’s not Harvard.

Here’s a joke a kid told me yesterday: “You know why 6 was scared of 7? CUZ 7 8 9! HAHAHAHAHA!”

This is what kids worry about: Is the joke funny or not?

Adults could learn a little something here.

Ho.

wm

When I was young and drunk, I dated a large Irishman, who was 6’5″ and, like me, an English major and writer. He also liked to drink. And have conversations that were apropos of everything and nothing at the same time. (more…)

“If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

— Aboriginal activists group, Queensland, 1970s

I read that quote for the first time today — it moves me. I read it here and read about it here.

(I love finding out the history of quotes, don’t you? They can get so muddled and mis-attributed along the way. So it was cool seeing credit go to where it was due on that one.)

Here is something I frequently talk about with people in “real” life, but rarely on the blog: My husband, Steve, is fairly outspoken. (Read this post, too, if you haven’t already.)

That’s getting to be well-known, that he is a political person. People keep asking when he’s running for office and I ask them, “Have you seen our blogs?” I mean, for real. Who would elect either one of us? I am political and vocal, too, of course, just in different ways from Steve. He works through the proper channels, is forthright and has a logical mind; I knit and plot the revolution. What I don’t write about here is how we go about our work. I don’t really blog about our different styles and how they mesh. Or don’t. It is a difficult thing to put into words, but we’ve woven it together pretty well over the past decade plus.

Also, it’s kind of a mystery to me, and I don’t want to mess with it.

I will say that sometimes we clash, mostly we agree. We spend almost all of our free time together, but at the same time completely do our own things. We like our independence, whether it’s expressed in big ways or small. A couple of months ago I planted a little garden at the high school. This turned out to be a tiny and a huge thing, and not just for me. It started because every time I walked by this particular flower bed, I would grimace. Garbage, weeds, NO PLANTS. What is the point of an empty flower bed?

“Please take the space between us/
And fill it up some way/
Take the space between us/
And fill it up some way/”

“O My God”
The Police

More importantly — what is the point of bitching about it (all that garbage! Why doesn’t anyone clean it up? Doesn’t anyone think to plant there?) when you can do something about it?

It took me three hours. I filled it up. (Not really, but it will be after the plants get established and fill it up.)

Daphne, grasses, lavender and rosemary and more lavender. Spiderwort. Some vegetables, which are not perennial, not at all, but I had extra seed packets and wanted to see some vegetables. It’s pretty now. Even the spiderwort, which likes to be babied, is enjoying its independence and thriving. I am working on “letting go and not being a control freak” which you can probably imagine is a huge challenge for me. I’ve decided:

1) if anyone yanks up the plants, I will re-plant. I will not let it get me down.
2) if someone decides that they can put in a better garden than I did, they can have at it.
3) However. If their garden dies from neglect, or if they get bored and abandon it, I will re-plant again.
4) I’ll keep picking up garbage (there are three cans nearby, this is not a big deal) and keep up on the weeding.
5) I’ll try to keep the plantings perennial, native, and in need of little water (once they’re established)
6) no boxwoods, rhodies or camellias, sorry. I love them, but I want something a little different. Maybe a smoke bush? I love these when they bloom.
7) I might plant another bed, too, that’s adjacent to this one (Mom and I planned it out yesterday — we may or may not follow through. Day lilies, lilies of the valley, a smoke bush?, daffodils, iris, something tall, like a tree peony? She has tons of starts, and her friend has a greenhouse with starts to share).

I made friends with a couple of the neighbors, who are helping me water. Did I mention that a water source is a problem? There’s a spigot, but it looks rusted over. No shed for a hose. No little dealie to turn on the spigot. A local gardener/landscape designer stopped by school the other day — she wants to write some grants, do a master plan. I told her go for it.

One of our PTA members and some students she knows went around the whole school, for no particular reason, and did a big clean-up. The alumni association did another clean-up. We have Community Care Day planned for August 23rd. I’m not the only one who is paying attention, is what I’m saying.

Anyway. The custodian? Turns out he likes to garden, too. He’s been helping me water, and he did a bunch of sprucing up to the beds that are near the bed I worked on. Suckers taken down from trees, hedges pruned back, weeds and garbage gone.

“Looks nice around here, doesn’t it?” he asked me yesterday. “People are starting to talk.”

Good.

“I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house.”

— Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

Well, well, well. Let’s review this past school year, shall we? (more…)

“At this moment, in this election, we can come together and say: ‘Not this time.’ This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children, and white children, and Asian children, and Hispanic children and Native American children.

— U.S. Presidential candidate Barack Obama, in Philadelphia, Pa. at Constitution Center, March 18, 2008

My husband started a new blog. Cuz he can.

Just setting the record straight.

UrbanMamas, I’m sorry I called you a bunch of pussies and bitches. Also, since I posted that, we’ve decided not to move across town, so here I am, baby.

What I meant to say was the following: By transferring your kids hither and yon to go to school, you are being socially regressive. Also, you’re not expressing with your full capabilities. I heard from ProtestMama that you’re having a panel discussion about school choice options. Neither of us was invited to be on the panel, oddly enough. That’s fine, I get ya. I am working for Portland Public Schools now, doing community outreach, and I’ve heard you don’t really want to have PPS on the panel. ProtestMama does not work for PPS, she just knows her shit, but whatever. I’m sure you had your reasons. But you are saying that parents and others in the audience will be able to add their two cents.

I’ll probably add four cents, possibly nine cents, we’ll have to see. ProtestMama and I are planning to attend, if we can make it. Which brings me to my first question: Are we welcome at the table? Uh, no. Are we welcome in the room? I hope so. You have indicated that we are welcome, it is a public meeting and all.

Anyway. The discussion will be held at noon, next Wednesday, January 30th, 2008, in the U.S. Bank Meeting Room at Multnomah County Library’s Central branch, 801 SW Tenth Ave. My second question: We both do work outside of the home, as do many other mamas. Why noon? On a weekday? Ah, catering to the stripedy crowd, with their cunning hats and their stay-at-home UrbanMamas? Is that it? I would suggest holding another discussion, in the evening, and not downtown.

What would I like? I would like you all to please support your neighborhood schools, walk through the doors, tour them, give ’em a couple of years and a chance before deciding to transfer out (and I hope you do not transfer out, I hope you invest in your neighborhood schools). I want you to meet the teachers, administrators and staff. I want you to volunteer, so you get a true idea of what the school is about.

But most of all: I want you to please help us fight for equity for all of our students. If you want to know how you can help, go leave a note on my better half’s blog or e-mail one of us. A whole lot of us want equity for PPS students. You can start now, right this second, by e-mailing the school board, the superintendent, your neighborhood school’s principal. You can talk to your friends.

I thought it was telling that the little picture on the announcement for the panel discussion shows two suburban-looking ladies, gabbing at the back fence. Those “back fence deals,” (Should we fly? Should we stay?) those deals make and break our schools. Birds of a feather flock together and all that.

I started getting pretty involved in school politics the day I had two PTA moms, both white, in my home office. We were going over the books, figuring out fundraisers for the year. My daughter was entering kindergarten. They had older boys who were going into sixth grade, and both had decided to send them to a west side school, across town (loooooong train or bus ride) because they “couldn’t” go their neighborhood school.

“We’d be in the minority there!” one of them said.

“I know!” said the other.

My response: “I don’t give a shit about that — why do you?”

Blank stares. Blank. As blank and one-dimensional as those two women in the little picture on that post you ran.

“If we stayed, I mean, if we all stayed, we could make it better,” one of them ventured.

But they didn’t.

Did you know kids who transfer out of their neighborhood school are more likely to drop out? Feel like fishes out of water? Feel unwanted, and out of place, when the students who “belong” there let them know, You are not from our neighborhood?

Anyway.

I have the good fortune (or in her case, she might see it as bad luck. Ha.) to have a friend who is also a mom in the neighborhood. I’ve known her and her husband for more than twenty years. They’re not right in our neighborhood — they’re up the street a ways. But their kids dip in over here for a charter. The point is — we’ve been having some good discussions about what it will take, what PPS needs to commit to, what parents and community need to commit to, what changes need to be made in order to get people back to their neighborhood schools. To end the segregation in this town, the starving out of low-income children and children who are not white, to get as many of the goodies to as many people as possible. Complicating factors: The district’s radical open transfer policy. No Child Left Behind (will the Democrats rid us of this crippling legislation, if they get into office? I remain unconvinced). Classism. Racism.

She is going to start, in her own life, by volunteering at our neighborhood high school, Jefferson. Go, Demos!

I’ve finally started telling a Certain Group of Parents — let’s call them the, “We Are the World/We Are the Parents!” parents — that they are working against the greater common good by taking their little sweeties out of their own communities, where they live and (possibly? not often enough) play. The social fabric of our larger community is being damaged by all this me, me, me attitude. When you make sure your kid is getting a big enough hunk of whatever, and helping to ensure that other kids get a small hunk, or no hunk at all — you’re hurting kids.

I noticed this syndrome first at birthday parties, right around the time Wacky Girl turned nine months old. The chaos! The fancy cakes! The bounce houses, cotton candy machines, expensive, elaborate decorations and gifts. The kids, once they got a little older, weren’t as intent on playing and socializing as they were on something bigger: The Goody Bag. When would it come out? Where was it hidden? What did it contain? What if the parent forget to give them out???

If you are a parent who does not Give the Goody Bag, you feel shame. (I have been guilty, myself, of Goody Bag Overcompensation.)

Life, thank God, is not a birthday party. Education is not a birthday party, although it has become, as one of our local principals said, “A case of the haves and the have-nots.”

It’s about more than cake and goody bags. We’re talking about people’s futures, their healthcare, their livelihoods. Their self-esteem, the way they find (or don’t find) a place to fit in in the universe. It is important to me that we help our kids, our future, our collective national pride, that we help them however we can so they do not end up:

1) Shattered.
2) Addicted.
3) Abused.
4) Incarcerated.
5) Dead.

That’s important to me, for our children. They are our children, not just mine and hers and his and yours. Ours. I claim them. Do you? Because if you don’t, for real — and all you’re caring about is that goody bag and hunk of cake — you are a pussy.

Peace, yours in equity,

WM