Award Night

Since my husband and I are members of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, we get invited to the annual Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence ceremony. 

There are two ways to give to the Baton Rouge Area Foundation. The first is that you can endow a fund of some sort for them to manage. Although it is probably obvious to a regular reader of my blog that my husband and I are not hurting for money, we are not at the “endow a fund” level of wealth. The other way to support BRAF is by donating an annual amount of $100 and up, to be used toward their operating expenses, and that’s what we do. People who donate in this way are considered members.

The Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence was conceived at another sort of BRAF event several years ago, when Mr. Gaines gave a reading from his work Mozart and Leadbelly. The award is intended to honor Ernest Gaines by selecting a promising African-American author as recipient. This year’s recipient is Stephanie Powell Watts for her book of short stories, We Are Taking Only What We Need. Watts, we are told, “worked as a Jehovah’s Witness minister, a shoe-string factory worker, and a food service and office worker” before receiving her PhD from the University of Missouri-Columbia. “She now teaches at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania”. In addition to the honor of the award and a trophy, she was given $10,000. Honor is nice, but money pays the bills.

As part of the ceremony, recipients read from their work. Ms. Watts read a short selection from the first short story in her book, shorter than the amount that recipients usually read, but she stopped at just the point to leave you wondering what happened next. I’m not sure whether it was purely her decision to read a shorter than average bit, or whether it was to leave time for the Master of Ceremonies, Irvin Mayfield, to lead an improvised sestet in several jazz compositions, including selections from Mayfield’s recent composition: Dirt, Dust and Trees: A Jazz Tribute to Ernest Gaines. The sestet finished their set with a second-line style medley of gospel tunes, including I’ll Fly Away and When the Saints Go Marching In. 

After the ceremony, there is always a buffet, compliments of  a locally owned and quite elegant restaurant. I would hate to say that the buffet is my husband’s only reason for attending this cultural event so regularly, but he has memorized the exact location of the shrimp-filled pirogue, and heads to it with the determination of a spawning salmon.

The tiny bread plates that accompany the spread are no doubt meant to be a reminder that this isn’t supposed to be dinner, but we’re good at carrying multiple plates. We are also good at snagging a table in the room with the shrimp boat (less congested than the one with the dessert table and martini bar), which means we have seats to give away. Usually we literally give them away; while we hope to attract other folks to talk with, our spare chairs usually get carried off to other tables where people in large groups need extras. This year other people asked if they could sit with us and of course we agreed. They then preceded to carry on their own conversation as if we weren’t there. I eavesdropped shamelessly as one woman, originally from New York by her account before moving to Washington and then here to Baton Rouge, raved about the musicians. By her account, the only place to hear jazz like that in Washington any more is at the Kennedy Center, which she thinks has driven the smaller jazz clubs out of business. Tickets for events at the Kennedy are expensive, so they could only go to one event a year. Culture in Baton Rouge, she continues, is so accessible. 

I haven’t really thought of it that way, but there are numerous events at the Shaw Center (where the Gaines award is given) throughout the year. There are small jazz clubs in town with reasonable cover charges, and of course, the Little Theater events we go to, as well as a symphony orchestra. There are three outdoor music festivals each summer. LSU has begun hosting a multi-act country music concert each year, and there are concerts that come through at the River Center. One of our local charitable agencies (about which there was a big scandal several years later) even hosted a concert by Luciano Pavarotti back in the 1990’s. People came from surrounding states for that (and Pavarotti, not the charity, got most of the money.) I still have the program.

Not to mention, that my husband and I take for granted being able to see and hear Ernest Gaines himself each year at this time, as well as guest MC’s that have included, in addition to Mr. Mayfield, actors Courtney Vance and last year, Cicely Tyson.

So yes, say what you will about our small city (and lord knows I say a lot of it), but it has at its heart a group of leaders determined to see that the needs of its citizens are met, and it has ready access to the arts.

Thank you, Miss-Snob-Pretending-the-Original-Occupant-of-the-Table-Wasn’t-There, for reminding me of it.  

The Opposition

Hussein Sumac’s opponent in the upcoming special election is also a Republican, a current city council member whom I will refer to as Dred Woodrow. The same day that Mr. Sumac knocked at my door, campaign mail from Mr. Woodrow arrived. I see by his flyer that Mr. Woodrow is “for pro-life, limited government”. I think these folks get their campaign slogans from Oxymorons R Us, or perhaps an abbreviation thereof.

Although both candidates list themselves as pro-life and pro-gun conservatives, there is a huge difference between them. Mr. Woodrow is a Catholic, while Mr. Sumac is a a member of a church that does not give a denominational affiliation, but describes itself as believing that the whole of Christianity can be found within God’s word (IOW, not-Catholic).  

Mr. Woodrow also brags that he was “against the new CATS bus tax”. I don’t hold that against him, because there was a legitimate concern that the new plan was not going to work and would just mean throwing good money after bad. I would, however, like to know what his plan was for getting people without transportation to jobs or jobs to people without transportation. 

He also was “against wasteful spending on the downtown library”. There again, he may have been in the right. The downtown library is part of a downtown meeting/entertainment venue and is not convenient to many residential areas, and there was reason to think that dressing it up was putting lipstick on a pig. My husband, for one, thinks the remodel is a big boondoggle.

The tell, to me, is that Mr. Woodrow is for “parents’ rights to consolidate their school districts.”  If that sounds like gobbledygook to you, there’s a reason for that. What Mr. Woodrow was for is splitting out a portion of Baton Rouge that lies to the south and east and making it a separate school district from the rest of the city. This area does not have a particular geographical separation from the rest. It doesn’t have a name. It does have a few gated, multi-million dollar subdivisions and a whole lot of white folks. (The vote to allow this split failed.)

So when you take his position on CATS, and the downtown library, and the school district split, there seems to be a common thread, but I can’t quite  . . .

My plan is to see whether there are any upcoming debates or candidates nights involving these two men that I can attend. I also am composing an e-mail to be sent to each of them, asking what their plans are for addressing infant mortality (since they are both pro-life),  and how they feel transportation barriers to getting jobs should be addressed. If I get replies, I’ll post them.

A Knock at the Door

Actually, it was a ring at the doorbell, but “A knock at the door” sounds more portentous, somehow. Saturday morning I was messing around on the computer when I heard someone at the front door. It being Saturday, UPS was out, so I suspected the Jehovah’s Witnesses or maybe some teenage Baptists wanting to tell me how I could predict whether I’m going to hell.

I was close. The man who appeared at my door is a candidate in the upcoming special election for state representative, district 65. For the purposes of this post, we’ll call him Hussein Sumac. Obviously that’s not his real name, but it’s close, at least the way my brain figures close. 

Mr. Sumac informed me that the special election is being held due to the incumbent having to resign over ill health. The two people running are Mr. Sumac and another Republican. Mr. Sumac preceded to make his case, as outlined below. My thoughts, none of which I was unkind enough to voice out loud, follow in italics.

First of all, he’s a conservative.

Me: I’m not. (That was actually out loud.)

He’s a businessman.

Me: So you actually have no prior experience in government.

He built his business himself, but most of his business is out of state, so there is no conflict of interest with him running for election.

Does “by himself” include a loan from the SBA? Actually, I’m impressed he thought to bring up conflict of interest. Most Louisiana politicians seem to think it’s a myth, like global warming.

Unlike his opponent, he has no ties to the political establishment.

So not only do you have no experience in government, but none of your friends and associates do, either.

He has decided to run for office because he’s tired of seeing so many politicians who seem really dumb.

Dr. Dunning, meet Dr. Kruger.

He is funding his own campaign.

So no Republican funding sources think enough of your chances to donate to your campaign.

He has always lived in this area, and has attended the same church since he was five.

So you aren’t big on exposing yourself to new and possibly contradictory ideas.

He is honest. His wife can vouch for his honesty, because no one knows you like your spouse.

No one knows me like my spouse, either, but if I were running for office, there would be a limit on what he could reveal about me and live.

After he leaves, I look at his literature and read that he is “Pro-Life, Pro-Family, Pro-Gun, and Anti-Tax”. I wish I had read that before I let him get away, because I have some questions. He is running for a political office that will provide him with a salary and benefits. How does he propose the state pay him without taxes? 

And he’s pro-life? I should have asked him what his plans are to bring down Louisiana’s appalling infant mortality rate, which has us ranked 49th out of 50 states in the nation, and not in a good way. I should have asked him his pro-life plans to do something about Louisiana’s gun death rate, the worst in the nation. Oh, wait, he’s pro-gun. Well, guns don’t kill people, Louisianans kill people.

I need to research his opponent, who does at least have government experience as a member of the city council. I may wind up voting for Hussein Sumac after all. 

One time many years ago, I lamented to my dad about the two hopeless choices I had in a statewide election. “Just don’t vote,” he advised. 

“Dad, one of them is going to win. If I don’t vote, I’m just letting someone else choose for me.” 

That’s just as true today as it was then.

Back Up

My husband has been talking about replacing one of our cars, and more recently, about replacing my 13 year old Mustang convertible. He has been able to bank most of his paycheck from his new job, so we would likely be paying cash if we wait until at least March or more likely summer (since I have a fantasy about the car appearing in my driveway on the morning of my birthday with a big bow on top, or maybe balloons.)

Before my Mustang, I had a Honda Civic. It was two years old when I bought it, and its former owner had ridden it hard and put it away wet, but it was a good car. I found it at a Ford dealership where I had gone looking for a year-end sale Ford Escort. The dealer, after listening to what I wanted in a car, convinced me to take the Civic for a spin. Compared to it, the Escort felt like a toy. The Civic still had some warranty left on it, and it also had what to me seemed like unbelievable creature comforts: electronic door locks, cruise control, electronic remote adjustable side mirrors, a 4 speaker audio with built-in cassette deck (this was back in 1994) and, best yet, four doors.

I drove the Civic for 6 years and then gave it to my son, who drove it for three more, even after the air conditioner broke, while he saved up for a new car. 

In the back of my mind, though, was my dream of owning a convertible, especially a Mustang convertible. Okay, actually, a T-bird convertible, but they cost twice what the Mustangs did for half the space, so the Mustang it was. It took a little while for me to get used to the 6 cylinder engine (I had a young man challenge me to a drag race out on Florida Blvd one afternoon, although I took it as a joke and shook my head) and the gas mileage was less than that of the Civic, but aside from a few trips to the beach and one to Santa Fe, I didn’t go far with it.

When I met Anett’s boyfriend, he was surprised at my choice of a Mustang. “That’s a man’s car,” he said, or so she translated for him. I had to explain that no, not in the USA it isn’t, although I spared him the sound of me singing When God-Fearin' Women Get the Blues (“I’ve got a Mustang, it’ll do eighty; I’ve stirred my last batch of gravy.”) or even Mustang Sally. My 80 something year old godmother drives a Mustang (with a vanity license plate, something I meant to get and never did).

It was always my idea that once the convertible needed to be replaced, I’d get another Civic. 

I was pleasantly surprised when looking at Civic specs online to find out that even the base models come with backup cameras as standard equipment. It’s part of the Honda’s i-Mid system, a system that sounds so complicated that I might have to take a class to operate it. I’m the world’s worst when it comes to backing up, as I proved most recently when I took out a shrub while backing into the driveway of the Little Theater to donate a few goods to their garage sale last spring. I’m sure whatever they earned from the items I donated went straight to their gardener. I’m surprised that random citizens of Baton Rouge haven’t taken up a collection to buy me a backup camera by now, so the idea of getting one as standard equipment definitely appeals to me. 

I assumed that if a backup camera was standard equipment, a navigational system would be a readily available option, but that is where I got a surprise. To get the navigational system, I’d have to move up to the next model, the EX, for $2,000 more, and then pay $1500 extra for the option package that has the Honda Satellite-Linked Navigation System.  The EX also gives me a moonroof, standard, however, which is a nice touch for someone giving up a convertible.

Enter my husband, John, with an issue of Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports, he informs me, has some issues with the Civic, and prefers the Accord. So I dutifully check Accord prices online. In order to get the navigation system with the Accord, I would have to buy not just the EX, but the EX-L, and then pay for the additional option package, bringing the cost up to $27,000. IOW, by time we have saved up for this car, I will be too old to drive it.

I checked into comparable cars, like the Toyota Camry and the Hundai Sonata. They don ’t even have backup cameras as standard features. I googled aftermarket navigation systems. Honda owners message boards warn against them, since it means messing with the wiring on the backup camera. I finally decided the cheapest option would be upgrading my old iPhone so I can just hook a newer one up to the i-Mid and have Siri give me directions. Or maybe not. People have been having issues with that solution, too.

Back up a minute. Why isn’t the navigation system an easily available and cheaper option to begin with? Garmin and Magellan make stand-alone systems for a few hundred dollars. If you already have a screen and speakers anyway, why does it cost so much more to get one built in, and why does it have to be bundled with extras you might not want or at least need?

My friend D ventures an explanation. It’s something people want, she points out, and so they will pay for the other upgrades to get it. It’s cynical, but sounds logical.

Maybe I’ll just stick to getting lost. With my new camera, I’ll have no trouble backing up and getting out of there.

I Don't Think That's Going to Solve the Problem

As a result of the big Saturday night fight at our local mall, one of our city councilors has reintroduced measures to toughen up teen curfews. Louisiana already has a curfew of sorts, in that driver’s licenses for teens are not valid for a portion of the night hours (later on weekends), unless they are traveling to or from a job. This driving restriction was what allowed my son to Neal call me five minutes before curfew every weekend and say, “Can I stay over at my friend’s? I can come home, but it means I’ll be driving after curfew.” 

I wonder what is going on in the council’s collective minds. The fight at the mall took place some time around 6 PM.  Four year olds aren’t even in bed at 6 PM. Are they planning to confine all teens in their homes from 5 PM Friday night until time to leave for school on Monday? Because if so, they are going to have a lot of pissed off parents to deal with.

Of course, I can understand them feeling the need to do something. The fight did not cause any significant injuries or property damage, but it could have. This is a concealed carry state. All it would have taken is one self-identified “good guy with a gun”, and this event could have turned into a tragedy. A curfew, no matter how irrelevant to the situation, is a better solution than arming all the teens in town.

It’s just that, is it a solution? It was 6 freakin’ PM, guys!

Our council members seem like geniuses, however, compared to the people who are behind this amazing idea:

Birthers Suggest Impeaching John Roberts 

So the sequence of events would be:

1) Chief Justice Roberts swears in Obama on the 20th, per the Constitution.

2) Birthers, in turn, will call for the impeachment of Chief Justice Roberts. If they are successful, 

3) Newly sworn-in President Obama selects the new Chief Justice.

I think I may have left out the two additional steps:

4) ?????

5) Profit!

Okay, to be fair, columnist Craig McMillan did not really demand Roberts’ immediate impeachment. What Mc Millan said was 

Your own oath of office, sworn before God and the American people, requires you to uphold the Constitution. (If not you, then who?) If you now administer the oath of office for the presidency to a man who by his own admission fails to meet the natural born citizen requirement imposed by that Constitution, you have violated your own oath of office and are rightly subject to impeachment by any House of Representatives, at any time, now or in the future.

It sounds more likely that he is envisioning a scenario in which Tea Party members take over the House and the Senate in  2014, and not only impeach and convict Justice Roberts, but also investigate President Obama and declare his birth certificate to be a fraud, and then impeach both him and Vice-President Biden, who of course colluded in the deception. Then, in accordance with the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, the then Speaker of the House (no doubt a re-elected Alan West) would become president, and fill the vacancy created by Roberts’ impeachment.

That’s not the sort of idea to mock anybody for, really.

Undecorating

The Christmas decorations are all down and boxed up, waiting to go back into the attic.  My living room looks bare without the enormous tree taking up the space in front of the back window. That came down Sunday, after I spent Saturday removing all the ornaments I could reach. John had to get up on the ladder to remove the top ones, and he had to take the tree apart. It is now boxed up and back in the closet for next year. This took some time and effort, and there was a bit of discussion in which John promised me I could hire someone to put the tree up and take it down next year. I think he meant it as more of a threat, or at least a Dire Warning, but I would be happy to hire someone who would not be in a position to criticize my choice in Christmas trees unless he wanted to get his butt fired, and a bad write-up on Angie’s list to boot. I’m just saying. 

The rest of the undecorating is pretty much my job, because I’m the one who has picked most of the trinkets, except for the ones we inherited from Eloise. It’s not hard, just time consuming and a little sad. The time consuming part is due to my having over 200 tree ornaments, some of which go in their own little boxes and some in the big plastic ornament storage boxes with dividers, and for some of them I cannot remember which is which. Then I have to figure out which crystal angel goes in which blue box, and which Hummel angel goes in which printed box, and which boxes go up in the attic and which stay down. I should make myself a list, but I would only lose the list.

The sad part is the solo cup ball. Years ago I worked with a little girl, C, who was severely physically disabled due to an infection in utero. The first Christmas I worked with her, her family gave me a Christmas present - a big ball made out of several dozen clear plastic drink cups with Christmas lights strung through each one. They’re called patio balls, and I had never seen one before, but her grandparents made them to sell, and giving them away actually cost them potential income. I thought it was the most hideous thing I had ever seen, but I brought it home carefully, and that night I hung it on the porch. John will put up lights on the porch sometimes, but he doesn’t like to, so I thought I’d at least have something lit out there. Then I went across the street to the mailbox.

When I turned around again I was startled. The light fixture that looked so - unusual - in the daylight glistened beautifully in the dark. I would never have believed it.

C’s story is a sad one. After a few years, she had a bad seizure and fell into a coma. Eventually her parents had to make the hard decision whether to continue extraordinary life-extending measures or to let her go. Fortunately, they were supported by their church in their decision.

I went to C’s funeral, feeling angry. I watched her two brothers running around playing, and I could picture C as she should have been. When the pastor got up to speak, I folded my arms and thought, “This had better be good.”

The pastor read the verse from Matthew 19, verse 14: Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." He spoke about how much C’s brief life had meant to him, and how he had learned from her. My anger slipped away. I don’t know how her parents felt, but I think if it had been me, and if I found anything at all comforting, it would not be words about how God needed another angel in Heaven, but a reassurance that my loved one’s life, brief as it may have been, had an impact on people here.

C would be something like 20 years old by now, if she had lived. My patio ball, carefully treasured, has survived and hangs on my porch every year, a beautiful light that, like C, shines briefly from an unprepossessing exterior, before it goes away.

"I Don't See What Difference Half an Hour Will Make"

For reasons too complicated to explain, I dropped my eyeglasses on a tile floor last night. As I picked them up, I noticed a missing lens. My glasses are of the sort that have half frames across the top and sides of the lenses. Something I did not realize but there is also a piece of thin, clear plastic that holds the lens across the bottom. Unlike as with ordinary frames, I could not put the lens back myself by loosening the screw at the earpiece and tightening it back up again.

I also discovered in the course of my manipulations that both lenses had fallen out. Fortunately, I didn’t step on the other one in trying to find it.

All this happened around 5:30 PM on Saturday, and a call to Lenscrafters at the mall revealed they were open until 9PM. John asked if I would mind waiting until the news was over to go there. I had an old pair of glasses to wear as a spare but I wanted him to drive, anyway.

“That’s fine,” I said. “I don’t see what difference half an hour will make.”

It’s a shame that real life doesn’t come with a sound track that foreshadows a Significant Statement.

When we got to the mall we were amazed at how crowded it was. Sirens wailed in the distance. Even stranger was that a lot of cars were leaving, and we found a parking spot right by the Sear’s entrance (in the center of the mall and opposite the food court, so a good spot to enter if you aren’t sure you remember just where you are going.) As we got out of the car, we found out why.

“Ma’am. Sir,” two people hailed us. “The mall is closing.” (Yes, people talk like this down here.)

One of them went on to say that there had been a big fight in the food court, police were called in, and they closed the mall as a result. “I work at the Bath and Body Shop,” she said. “We heard there may have been gunshots.”

I thanked her for the information and headed back to the car. My husband, meanwhile, noticed that there was a crowd milling around another exit. “Do you want to go over there and check and make sure the mall isn’t really still open?” he asked.

“No. Even if it is still open, why would you even want to go someplace where gunshots have been fired?”

“She only said they thought there were gunshots.”

“So, do you want to find out the hard way there is someone inside with a gun? Because I don’t.”

I should explain about my husband. John doesn’t really have a death wish, and he isn’t lacking in intelligence. He just is very singleminded once he has a plan. Whereas I get bored easily and wander off, leaving tasks unfinished, my husband sees them through, no matter how boring. When circumstances disrupt his plan, it takes him a while to realize he needs a Plan B. On the other hand, switching from Plan A to Plan B, or C, or W, is what I love best. So while I am content to let him take charge when we are doing something tedious but necessary, like painting the house or packing for a move, I have found that it’s best for me to take over when circumstances force a change of plans but hubby is still stuck. Like, when, say, the mall we needed to go to to get my glasses fixed is the scene of a big fight and possible shooting.

So we got in the car and thanks to some good navigating by my husband, on the road. At this point, I remembered that there is also a Lenscrafters in the other mall.

Chris Rock used to have a comedy routine about malls. “Every town has the same two malls: the one white people go to and the one white people used to go to.” I know exactly what he is talking about. When Cortana Mall was built, it was “the mall white people go to”. It was well laid out, with four anchor stores and even a small movie theater. D.H. Holmes, one of the anchor stores, had a cafe on the second floor that overlooked the mall, and Dillard’s had its furniture department.

Over the years, DH Holmes and Maison Blanche went out of business, the movie theater was replaced with another store, and other businesses came and went, but the mall became the only mall in town, once Bon Marche (“the mall white people used to go to”) went out of business. In the meantime, though, plans were being made to build a new mall in the swamps off of Bluebonnet. (I’m not kidding about the swamp. There is a BREC Park called Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Center down the street from the area. Egrets nest along the road leading to the back parking lot of the mall.) After several years,  a permit was obtained, and the Mall of Louisiana was built. At first both malls co-existed, but now the anchor stores at Cortana serve as outlets for last season's merchandise and Dillard's second floor is closed. That’s why we went to the Mall of Louisiana when I first got my glasses, and went back to get them repaired.

In fifteen minutes, we were at Cortana. Lenscrafters was open, and there weren’t any other customers, so in five minutes a nice man named Patrick had my glasses put back together. He knew about the problem at the other mall, having received a phone call from the staff there. “We never have anything like that here,” he says, as if fights at Mall of Louisiana are a weekly occurrence. Maybe they are.

Later, after a dinner out, we get home and check the news on a local TV station website. As it turns out, no shots were fired, but yes, it was closed when we got there. As best anyone can tell, an Instagram invitation for young people to meet at the mall and hang out led to a larger than usual crowd, and then fights broke out, although that doesn’t seem to have been the intent.

What if we hadn’t waited for the news, I wonder? Would I have had my glasses fixed and been on my way, or would we still be waiting for service when the fight and ensuing confusion occurred? I had said, “I don’t see what difference half an hour will make”, but it turns out I was wrong, and it was just as well.

ETA: Apparently this story made the national news.