paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- not all right with me It is not all right with me. Tonight I went with to the neighborhood association meeting. Quinn went to be supportive. Because when I get home, I usually need a beer, and I am so overcome with frustration that I either cry or pace or both. Sometimes I want to quit the association, but if I quit, the people who are ruining what I love about my neighbors and my neighborhood win. So I am involved. And people are nasty to me, and I speak up. People motion in the air when I talk, like I am fly, and I finish my sentence. The president, my former friend Citizen Gerta, refuses to call on me. I stand with my hand in the air until I am recognized. Tonight I spoke three times. Once with a full round of applause. And still, the small group of old bastards managed to damper our efforts to build a community and express who we are as a neighborhood and what we value. We are T. and G. who live in a big old house around the corner. They have a beautiful and spacious interior that is sort of Asian in style and with barely any furniture. They do not have air conditioning and their great big windows are always open. Music plays, but not obnoxiously loud. Just loud enough that the casual group on the porch can hear it as they talk into the night with a beer. I see them riding old bicycles through the neighborhood at about 8 or 9, sometimes with their dog on a leash that one of them holds. They are quiet, smart, creative and peaceful people who want to contribute part of who they are to this abstract entity that is a neighborhood. They live simply, modestly, yet with a graciousness of spirit that I admire. Tonight, it was T. and a young woman named E. who were insulted, yelled at and made to cry in front of the entire neighborhood association. And it is not all right with me. A group of about 8 people have been working for months on banners for our neighborhood. They got grant money, even, and had ideas for sponsorship to enable 20 banners to be placed all over our neighborhood. They did research on the history of our neighborhood. They made two beautiful designs and presented them at the meeting. First T. tells the story of the residential part of our neighborhood. There was a man named Bill Corbin who purchased fifteen acres of land and built, by hand, every bungalow in our neighborhood. He designed them himself around the turn of the century. Corbin pioneered the concept of the arts and crafts house in our city. Every time he sold a house, he sold it at very little profit at a price that working class people could afford. He made certain that his homes were priced in keeping with the market rate of rent. Quinn and I live in one of Corbin�s first houses. And everyone from delivery drivers to friends and family comment on how beautiful our tiny little house is � because it is perfectly crafted and built. We have pieces of quarter-sawn oak trim that are 14 inches wide � wood that is impossible to buy now. When our door lock broke, I had to track down the one old guy locksmith who fixes the doors on the churches that Corbin also built. So we knew about Corbin and have always wondered why is story is not celebrated. Then T. presents the designs, both of which say the name of our neighborhood association but give us a geographic location of Corbin Hill. Because people used to refer to our neighborhood, a long time ago as "the hill." Then the skinny, bulging-eyed professor jumps up and begins handing out historical information. He does not even live in our neighborhood, yet he and his loud mouth wife and her son, are allowed to attack our committee. He said that our area is older than that and has more parts than just the Hill. That before Corbin built homes, there was a place where freed slaves could live. Before that, it was a Civil War battlefield. I wanted to say to the professor, before that, was several westward expansion movements, French fur traders, indigenous Americans living completely erased lives. We also had an ice age and quite possibly were underwater for a few thousand years. Perhaps the professor does not realize that history does not start and stop at our whim. By calling our area neighborhood association on Corbin Hill, we were starting our history at the beginning of our neighborhood and we are a neighborhood association. That is all that we are naming, our neighborhood. We can honor the freed slave area, which has been completely torn down and is where a giant hospital, a big ugly hotel and big new apartment complex sit. But shouldn't we honor it as a part of our history and not as a part of our future? I am sorry, Professor, but a big chunk of our neighborhood that still exists as a neighborhood was a farm before Corbin started building his houses. I made a few comments. I observed that the name of the neighborhood association is still on the banner. That I liked the idea of having a geographic identity that does not stand for encroaching commercialization or an entertainment district. That I believed that we are at a point where we need to present cohesion and value what we have that is our niche � our very unique houses and our creative energy. Somewhere the applause set in, according to Quinn, but I never listen when I talk because I get too nervous. I prepare myself and then I just let go, kind of like playing music in a group. As soon as I start listening to how it sounds I loose the rhythm. I spoke from the heart and I let it rip. But it did not matter. Because there exists an old faction in control of our neighborhood. They elect themselves in secret. And appoint themselves. New people come and participate and contribute and all this faction does is mock us, tell us we know nothing, insult us, belittle us and then tell us how it is. They point at us when they talk and say "You weren�t there when we had to fight the Mr. Big Shot. When we nearly lost the neighborhood and had to form this association." And I want to say "and you screwed it all up, didn�t you?" But I didn�t because I am not antagonistic and do not believe in leveling unfounded accusations at people who were fighting a losing battle from the beginning. But we do not need to continue the losing battle. Don't they realize that we can start a new movement for our neighborhood, right now. All of our protesting has gotten us attention and support. If we just get together and work hard enough, we can have our special, diverse place to live. Our place where little girls run up and down the street dressed as princesses in taffeta and netting on the same block as people who are heavily tattooed, as African Americans, as Latinos, as gays and lesbians, as regular retired couples, as environmentalists, as idealists, as single women, as students, as religious people, as Asians, as bicycle enthusiasts and as hermits. To see the heavily tattooed woman with almost as many piercings stop and talk to the young girl as she draws on the sidewalk and take the time to write words for the little girl with the chalk � cat, dog, pretty, daddy -- is a beautiful sight. And it is a sight that does not make it to the neighborhood meeting. Because the dad and his girl rent and the president hates renters. But the president never asks Quinn and I if we want to chip in on a coupon for pizza. The professor never spends an evening on anyone�s porch. He comes and he yells at me in my front yard, but he has never spoken civilly to me. He has never come to one of our picnics, been subjected to accordion music in a vacant lot, while eating hot-dogs and drinking soda. He is not our neighborhood. He rolls his eyes when K., an older African American man talks by holding a device to his neck and wants to express his concerns for the churches and the traffic. When I help a meeting about ways we could be more environmentally aware, K. was there, but where was the professor? It is not all right with me that these few people who have given themselves so much power can insult my friends and take away our right to live in our neighborhood the way we want. We are willing to put in the hours to fight city hall, to beg city hall, to drum up funds, to gin up plans and schemes. Why does this sea of negativity get to come in like a high tide and ruin our sand castles? It feels as regular as high tide on the beach. I remember when I was I child building my sand castles all day and slowly becoming aware that each wave was getting closer and closer. With each wave, more and more water filled my motes. Eroded my pillars and towers. We get ideas and stick our necks out, but at every meeting the old retainers reject everything we have done. At this meeting, the president worked out a deal with the institution where all of their bible browsing club would become members of our organization and showed up at the meeting and went right along with the negativity. Or sat their puzzled. One of the new members told me she was told to come and didn�t pay the dues herself. Because renters are not allowed, and because over the years they have managed to frustrate so many wonderful people into quitting, they always shut us down and refuse to even let things go to a vote. That is what happened with the banners tonight. We left the meeting without resolution. With two women in tears. With a whole committee sanctioned by the President told they had no authority to be the banner committee. Not only that, but maybe there should be an �advisory� (read veto) committee to oversee their thoughts because they are so obsurd. With the President deciding she did not like the proposed banner design when earlier she had been in favor of it. With me and Quinn, and many other people, livid and demoralized, again. Tomorrow I will call people, give pep talks, thank people, and try to find a way to move past this. There must be a way to get this stronghold out of power because I know we out-number them. And we cannot wait for them to die� it is simply taking too long. 11:30 p.m. - 2002-09-10 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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