More relations

We had an early Thanksgiving dinner at Krystal's way back then.  Megan sent me some pictures.  Here's a rare picture of Dennis talking to his genetic father Phil.  They've actually known each other for over 30 years but they don't have much opportunity to talk with each other.  I asked Dennis what they were talking about and he said "nothing in particular."

Cousins

Picture of Ilana with her first cousin Teresa canvasing during Ilana's successful campaign for Tippecanoe County County Council.

Genetic resemblance is NOT emphasized in my family for obvious reasons.

However these two look a lot alike.  And having a good time.

2018 Thanksgiving

This year's Thanksgiving dinner.  The 'kids' table set up in the living room.  Really all young adults.  My brother and sister are here.  It was a big dinner and a big mess at the end.  I cooked a 27 lb stuffed turkey in 3+ hours.  I know that's not supposed to happen but they always cook fast for me.  A few days later, we are still finishing up the leftovers.  The turkey was gone the next day.  Much of the leftovers disappeared with guests.  I'm hoping to get my plastic containers back.  We had 11 guests total.

Me speaking

My friend Fay took this picture yesterday at our Access Student program:

"Reflections on the 2018 Midterm Elections"

featuring a panel of 3 faculty members, 2 from history, 1 from political science.  Reona of our group did the moderation (great job).  We had over 70 people attend.  We got out expenses picked up.  John wisely decided to have the professionals set up the room and the mikes rather than us trying to do it ourselves.

A program like this takes a lot of work to set up.  Event planning is what it's all about...

I opened with a very short intro about the Access Student Resource Group.

Not too bad considering.  Fay thought so too.

The winning candidate

Picture from the local Lafayette newspaper about the mini blue wave in the local county and township councils.  That's Ilana; the underdog candidate for County Council.  She ran against a well established Republican incumbent.  Ilana believed in grassroot support and  canvased over 2000 doors (knocks she called them).

Congrats to the successful campaign.

Ilana wins!

My son in law texted me that they've just called her race.  The illustration is from a tv station website.

Ilana Stonebraker  6650
Dave Williams  5847
with 90% of precincts reporting

Matt wrote:
"They are calling it for her!  She is in a huge crowd of well wishers just now, we will call you"

Ilana had thought the candidates met at city hall when it was all over.  But then she wasn't sure.

Matt wrote:
"We are at the board of elections"

So maybe that's how it works?

Anyway, she's on County Council District 1!

Susanna called; I congratulated her on all the graphic work she did for Ilana.

The Lynching Memorial

Here are a few paragraphs I wrote today about my visit last June to the lynching memorial in Montgomery AL.  I'm sending it to my professor but it became a writing exercise specifically to eliminate passive verbs (so hard!)


I went on a 5 day civil-rights oriented bus trip this summer sponsored by my synagogue.  We visited the lynching memorial in Montgomery which has the unfortunate name of "The National Memorial for Peace and Justice"  just too vague.  Built on a several square block site of open land in a residential area, the central large open air structure contains big squares of metal first mounted on the ground and eventually high above you.  Each labeled metal piece represents a county from a Southern state.   Etchings on each county square memorialize the names of those lynched in that county and the date.  The designers built the whole site on a very large scale.

I know that the builders wished to commemorate those lost individuals (who died in lynchings) as important people. Maybe, I thought that this all represented a large database with the metal chunks being files (specific places to store data) and the names comprised the data.  As a work in progress researchers would uncover past (or future) lynchings and the metal squares would need to be updated.  Not all of metal squares fit in the main structure; some were mounted outside.  Maybe the creators found so many lynchings in so many different places that even the huge scale of the memorial could not accommodate them all.



I entered the big open area building and the squares of metal with the names are mounted on the ground in rows like a graveyard.  As a visitor to the South, I don't recognize the county names nor the individual names.  I strolled along and the mounting of the metal squares gradually start to rise; to eye level and eventually at the end I see the metal squares way way above me, kind of ethereal like they are raising to heaven.  Or that the lynching victims still hang there, violated and murdered, above my head, as if I myself had attended their lynching.

Ilana's Halloween costume

Ilana (one the left)'s Halloween costume!  She and her co-worker Heather are often mistaken for the other one.  They do kinda look alike.  So for Halloween, the two of them decided to wear blue dresses with gray blazers and swapped accessories.  Ilana wears that turquoise necklace a lot for pictures.  Now Heather's wearing it.  Since Ilana's the candidate, Heather is wearing campaign stuff involving voting.  They also swapped nametags.  Ilana said she planned for Heather to teach the first 10 minutes of her class just to confused the students.

Jews gather in Seattle

The Jewish congregations here in Seattle have had several events of comfort and commemoration in response to the shooting in Pittsburgh.  My own congregation Beth Am had something on Sunday afternoon.  I couldn't go as Megan had already bought the play tickets and plans were in place. 

The big deal was last night at the biggest congregation  near downtown Seattle De Hirsch Sinai.  It was for everybody.  Widely publicized, to me anyway, I got several email announcements about it.  I tried to make it work to go but I just couldn't make it happen.  Dennis had to go somewhere else.  Parking would be tough probably blocks away.  Dark and Rainy.  Nobody seemed to be driving together from Beth Am that I knew about.  The bus seemed iffy.

It would be live-streamed.  I decided to stay home, write postcards and watch it online.  Here's a screenshot wit the closing song, Hashkivenu, a favorite.  All clergy were invited to stand on the steps in front.

The governor, mayor and others spoke.  Wish I could have made it.

But today, I'm leaving it all on the field, writing as many postcards for Senator Heidi Heitkamp and I can.  Dennis is writing them too.  I figure that this is just about the last day.

That's sport talk, maybe everybody knows.  The goal is, win or lose, you leave all of your effort on the field, you hold nothing back, you do everything you can.