A look at back-to-back reunion weekends, after-the-jump …..
But first: Top Comments appears nightly, as a round-up of the best comments on Daily Kos. Surely ... you come across comments daily that are perceptive, apropos and .. well, perhaps even humorous. But they are more meaningful if they're well-known ... which is where you come in (especially in diaries/stories receiving little attention).------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Send your nominations to TopComments at gmail dot com by 9:30 PM Eastern Time nightly, or by our KosMail message board. Please indicate (a) why you liked the comment, and (b) your Dkos user name (to properly credit you) as well as a link to the comment itself.
I have spent back-to-back weekends at various reunions (official and unofficial) and find that they soothe my soul. I don’t have time to live in the past — goodness, I have all I can do to keep up with current events in my life — yet I do like to revisit the past. My middle sister has said (of my brother and myself), “The boys have kept every friend they ever made”. Exaggerated, but I do like to maintain ties. It’s the perfect combination between my rational, orderly accounting mind … paired-up with my serendipitous, sentimental-old-fool soul.
The first weekend was my high school reunion …. and I know what many of you are thinking, right-about-now. Hey, I can relate: junior high was a most unpleasant experience for me. That’s why I’m grateful for attending a different high school where I got my mojo back. Even though it was a long ride on the bus (and I wasn’t very involved in after-school activities) it gave me a new-lease-on-life … and why I try to stay connected.
Friday night was an informal gathering at a pub in the next town over (one of our classmates is a part-owner) and maybe 12-15 came in (over the course of a few hours, not all together at one time). Later on it got very warm and a bit crowded … so we went out on the back patio to be able to talk … and I wondered if any of the twenty-somethings arriving were glad that the geezers were leaving. (At their age, we might have done that, too).
Mary Anne, John, Betsy and Denise among my old chums
The next day at noon, I got to visit my first cat café— where this little scamp (seen below) held court. These venues (where coffee/tea is served and patrons can amuse themselves with the felines) began in the large Asian cities of Tokyo and Seoul, where landlords in high-rise apartments do not allow any pets, or charge a fortune as a deposit. So, the cats actually live there.
Elsewhere, most cat cafés work are affiliated with shelters, and encourage adoption. People visiting are those who are either unwilling to have a pet, or may have family members who are allergic to them. This one charged $15 for an hour-long visit, with coffee included. They had some pre-wrapped snacks (muffins, cookies, et al) as municipal regulations would be much more stringent if they had more involved food services in the presence of animals.
One of fifteen kittehs
I have written about my Jesuit high school before, and our principal (who left the school in the same year as we did) came to our school to say Mass for us. Not something I’d normally attend … but if John Rowan is presiding, I sure am. He was one of my role models in high school (in the Pope Francis mode) and his sermon was about transactional relationships (doing things for those who can repay you) versus doing things for those who cannot repay you. It’s odd, but I never focused on the fact that our principal is only twenty years older than us …. when the school opened in 1966: he was given that post at only age thirty. A testament to his intellect, and when he saw me: he apologized for not responding to my e-mail from several months earlier(!) His first (return) e-mail to me back in 2012 ended:
My mother died in 2006 at age 99. She was a parishioner at St. Lawrence in Sayville, very competent to the end. She disclosed to her hairdresser that she was just as glad to die at 99 because any American who reaches 100 gets a letter from the President, and she didn't want any letter from George W. Bush in her mailbox!
Father (now Monsignor) John Rowan, SJ
We had a large graduating class (400+) and about sixty-two people attended that evening. Good food and drink …. yet as always, the one drawback: they have a DJ in the same room, as many folks want to dance. Yet it becomes hard to talk, and so several of us went outside to the restaurant patio to do so. I can go dancing any time I want; sure wish there was a separate room for dancing.
Lastly, three of my old chums. Carl and Charlotte collectively made me laugh more than any others in the school (Carl and I used to annoy the school librarians) and on the right: Steve and I had a many a concert review discussion back then.
I couldn’t stay for the week-in-between, as I had to return home due to our agency’s annual financial audit taking place. Mercifully there were no issues. I still remember in my first full-time job, when the auditors were leaving and my boss said to me (just loud enough), “OK, Eddie, they’re gone — you can take out the real books, now !!” …. David, the senior auditor …. just smiled (he’s heard that before).
The following weekend, our every-other-year family reunion was supposed to take place in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia … alas, many of our cousins balked at flying somewhere with (possibly) two plane changes. Fifty years ago, we all lived in a 100-mile radius of each other … now, we’re scattered like the four winds (California, Texas, NC, Florida, etc). So it was worked-down to a Saturday night dinner in Manhattan.
Once again, I am blessed: our cousins and my siblings all get along, no grudges are held — all of which I attribute to our grandmother’s influence. She lived to be age ninety-five, and her four daughters and one son (my father) lived her dream of camaraderie, having each other’s back, etc. The last of my father’s four sisters died earlier this year at age ninety-three, so it really was the end-of-an-era. A nice time for about twenty attendees, and a chance to catch-up with people.
Nephew Dave and niece Becca flank my cousin’s daughter
The silver lining to the change in family reunion: I was able to (partly) attend the annual Drinking Liberally chapter host conference in Brooklyn. If you are unable to attend a DK meet-up in your area, there may be a Drinking Liberally, or Laughing Liberally, Reading Liberally chapter in your area. And while we are a discussion group, discussions have consequences: a plan to fight ICE in the Pacific Northwest was discussed at a Living Liberally forum (the umbrella group name).
I am always impressed by those from red states attending: as it’s easy to be a liberal in many places … but Spartanburg, South Carolina is not one of them. They tell stories of MAGA-hat people staring at their gatherings, but the Chulick family is resolute, they also hear many folks tell them their gatherings save their sanity.
It is difficult for me to attend both Netroots Nation as well as this group’s conference in the same year — partly due to cost (as they rotate locations, too) and also scheduling — so this was a rare treat (as Philadelphia and NYC I can easily reach on Amtrak).
Friday night pub social (they brought-in pizza)
Saturday during the day is our ‘business’ meeting, if you will: where we discuss promotion, any issues in your local chapters, etc. I was able to mention that our chapter has had visits by staffers for Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and Mayor Pete. An ongoing issue for us is that the website is quite outdated … and there is a promise of a revamped one by years-end. We’ve heard that before, but hope springs eternal.
The venue doesn’t seem like it belongs in Brooklyn … yet the Old Stone House— a 1933 re-build of a house (razed in 1897) that had a role in the Battle of Brooklyn during the American Revolutionary War, and later served as the clubhouse for the baseball team that later became the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Old Stone House in Washington Park, Brooklyn
Yours truly in the background getting coffee
Hootenannys (folk, bluegrass) in three places in the park
One of the highlights are hearing from special guests — back in 2010 in Salt Lake City, it was the mayor, Rocky Anderson— and for the afternoon session, it was Michael Moore, who spoke to us for 90 minutes.
He thought both Oprah and Michelle Obama would be strong candidates, how placing ballot initiatives (such as legalizing marijuana, enabling same-day voting/no-excuse absentee voting, and creating an independent re-districting panel) helped boost turnout … and said that Ann Richards once lamented chasing the old, white male vote. He said that focusing on the 70% who are female, people of color and millennials is key and that — now just recently with the addition of opposing the death penalty — the public is on our side on all major issues (choice, climate change, et al).
Always with a cap: this was “Late Night w/Seth Meyers”
We finished with our customary group photo (yours truly in back row left), next to Dan Henry from Idaho Falls, Idaho. In the front row (besides Moore, L-to-R): Steve Stearns from Chicago (normally our photographer), Justin Krebs, our group leader and Katrina Baker, co-leader and legal analyst.
By-the-bye, the fellow with the mustache and D/L t-shirt on the right is Gary Brush from Kansas City — and he recruited me for his (then non-existent) Pub Quiz team at Philadelphia this past July. He was afraid we wouldn’t have enough to field a team … yet by having many Philly walk-ons say, “Can I join you?” — we managed to finish in third place, as Pub Quiz chairman Adam Bonin threw-in more than the usual number of local-area questions.
Attendees from Texas, South Carolina, Idaho, Wisconsin, Missouri, Utah, New Jersey and other states
It was at this point that I had to skedaddle up to midtown Manhattan for my family reunion, even though I had to miss the evening gala fundraiser (open to all comers). And they heard from someone you know: NYC congressman (and House judiciary committee chairman) Jerry Nadler.
Among his remarks: He said that while former Rep. Peter Rodino cried after he voted articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon (as he felt reverence for the office of president), Nadler says he will not do that here, that he feels there should be one article of impeachment for Obstruction of Congress (to re-establish the separation of powers), he feels that impeachment has gained currency the past three weeks and that we need to do it to fulfill Ben Franklin’s adage of “A Republic … if you can keep it”. (A condensed 10-minute video can be seen at this link).
Wish I could have been there, but it all worked out
With that — I needed this past weekend to recuperate, tackle the laundry and just get back to equilibrium. Yet it was a great ten days, indeed.
Let’s close with a tribute to the recently-deceased drummer Ginger Baker — whom I had the pleasure of seeing three times (twice at the Cream reunion shows) — here with his post-Cream band, Ginger Baker’s Air Force, on their adaptation of the traditional Gospel/blues tune Twelve Gates to the City.
x xYouTube VideoNow, on to Top Comments:
From BlackSheep1 :
In the diary by MTmofo, outlining how the Kurds did help the Allies during WW-II …... it's past time for Wednesday, but these comments — by jayden (with an equine reference) and from jfromga (with a technology reference) — are too good not to nominate.From alamancedem:
In the front-page story about the Giuliani pals who were attempting to flee the country before their arrest — morgansmom supplies the answer to a riddle.From Kluger2:
In the front-page story about the bizarre shooting in Oklahoma caused by a puppy — Stwriley's comment was an eye-opener (oh, the irony).And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In the front-page story about the arrest of two men arrested on campaign finance violations - jqjacobs fills-us-in on the listing of Congressman-1 (believed to be former Rep. Pete Sessions) along with an ever-timely quote from Rep. Ted Lieu.
