Marty and I just returned from two weeks in Tennessee, Arkansas (for a good 20 minutes), Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Considering last year’s February/March trip was to Australia/New Zealand and the year prior was to Argentina, it seemed to fit right in for places to visit.
ATTENTION ATTENTION: This is a journaling moment for me. It’s going to be long and arduous and not that fun to read as it is a brain-dump. It has been difficult to try to process all of this so I am just going to try and write down some of what we did and how it impacted me. Please, please do not read this — it’s not like my other posts. I am, on purpose, not coming back to re-read or edit. If you get on this ride, get on at your own risk and dump out as soon as you like. There is no rhyme or reason or rhythm here…just processing for myself.
So, the impetus for this trip was a wedding (more on that later), but because we’ve visited NOLA a few times in the past, we decided to take on a bit of the Civil Rights Trail. Why that? Why now? Why not? Since the murder of George Floyd (among others, but that is the one that shook us to our core), we’ve done a lot of reading and researching. Books such as Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste and The Warmth of Other Sons; Ibram X Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist; Brittney Cooper’s Eloquent Rage; Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race; Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad; Clint Smith’s How the Word is Passed; and the list goes on and on. Not saying this to say, “Look at all of these cool books I’ve read,” but instead to share what we’ve been reading in case anyone wants to see how this shaped the trip we took.
While both of us have visited all 50 states in our country, neither of us ever visited with a tilt or a nod or a focus on our country’s Civil Rights history. Marty and I went to public schools and graduated 12 years apart. He graduated in 1967 (he was younger PLUS he skipped a grade); I graduated in 1979 (I was boring and did not skip a grade and graduated at 18, not 16 — whatever). While both of us learned a minimal amount about the “Civil Rights Movement” along the way, it was literally happening while Marty was a little boy. On this trip, we often thought about dates — “That was happening at my bar mitzvah,” — for Marty, that was 1963 or I was 15 when that was going on. And, let’s face it. Typical teenagers growing up in Portland were not thinking or learning much about what was happening in Selma or Birmingham. Freedom Riders? Bus boycotts? On the news, but not front of mind for someone who was living in a red lined space in Portland. And me? One of my first memories is of Martin Luther King Jr. being shot. I remember photos of water hoses and dogs. My elementary school was integrated almost by neighborhood — we lived not far from Park Hill — one of Denver’s more naturally integrated neighborhoods. But bussing happened from the time I was a little girl. It was just a part of normal life…except that I was never bussed. It was always other kids. A lot of Jewish kids from Southeast Denver were bussed up to my junior high. Bonus for me as I didn’t know any Jewish kids in my neighborhood, except for Debbie Friedman. What I’m not saying very well, here, is that Marty and I — though just a decade apart in years — both grew up fully unaware of what was happening around us. That, of course, is part of our privilege.
My parents were all for Black rights. They regularly talked about how good it was that “the Blacks are being treated equally.” My narrative was that because of all the laws that were passed, everything was equal and better for Black people and that was that. The Black kids I grew up with came from families that were often more professional/affluent than my own six-day-a-week working dad. There was always a Black kid or two at my birthday parties in elementary school. I always liked Marc as he was so cute, but he was a boy so not a whole lot of close contact in elementary…Sabra slapped me once in fourth grade. I may still be mad about that one. I went to church a couple of times with my friend, Bonnie. Her dad was a pastor in a mixed liberal church on Monaco and 32nd or somewhere like that. I just figured all churches were mixed like that one. What did I know? I went to a synagogue. By junior high, we had a few Black friends, but mostly they were girls — cool girls; badass, smart, funny, leader girls — Tammy Knight (may she rest in peace), Mary Haynes, Lisa Kennedy in high school. It’s not that I can’t spout off some of the names of the Black boys in my school — it’s that I didn’t much hang out with them.
So, I just went along with what I was taught never questioning anything. I never questioned when people said, “Stay out of five-points at night.” Heck, I didn’t even really know where Five Points was. Anyway, all of this rambling just to say I grew up very unaware that the entire country’s wealth was built on the back of those who were enslaved. It took me nearly 55 years to have a real look at what we were taught and how we were taught it — and that goes for my Jewish education, too. I was lead to believe that all the Jewish folks were deeply entrenched in helping the cause. I was only taught about the Jewish people who were helping rather than standing in the way of progress.
COVID and the murder of George Floyd changed things. WEA has been involved in trying to create positive change in a culture that is systemically entrenched in White supremacy. It’s messy. Sometimes there are tiny steps forward then large steps backward. Like so many white peeps who want to help, we go about it in a way that makes things worse and traumatic for our Black and Brown and Asian and, and, and colleagues. The good thing is that WEA created a space for many people to explore and learn and talk. While it traumatized so many, it also created space to have conversations with one another and with those who came from different backgrounds. For me, mostly, it created a deep space to have a conversation with myself. That sucked. I realized that I needed to fully re-educate myself about American history in general and specifically to take a real look at how our country built its wealth.
So COVID allowed time to read and to listen to podcasts and to check out the 1619 Project and so on. Being isolated in our homes for so long gave us the chance to sit with ourselves and to have that conversation. Reading was a start. Taking time to talk in both “white allies” and mixed groups — really watching my colleagues of color suffer through what was supposed to be “healing” conversations and so on, agitated the hell out of me. While sometimes I was able to gain a deeper understanding of what it was like to have to deal with microaggressions on a daily basis, I had to own the way I thought and spoke and the way I sometimes continue to do that — ways that add to others’ daily pain. So, again, that sucked.
Then I retired. I kept reading. I sometimes dropped out of groups because I felt they weren’t open to learning more or going deeper. All of that is what made me decide it was time to visit some of the places I’d heard about way back when I was a kid and read about as I grew older.
I was in Atlanta and lucky enough to spend some time learning about MLK there so we began our trip in Memphis — the place where his life was snuffed out when he was just 39 years old.
Marty, always the good sport, has also been reading and learning and watching films. Marty is a naturally curious human being. I love that because he’s willing to go along — even if he’s not sure he would do this on his own, he’s game for learning. Always.
Memphis was a great place to start. The other day, at the wedding, a woman told me she went to college in Memphis. “It’s a dangerous place,” she told me. I told her we were there for just a couple of nights, but that there wasn’t a moment where we felt in any kind of danger. I also reminded her (though I just barely had met her) that she went to college long ago and that maybe it was her perception then. Nope. She stuck to her story. Because we were at a wedding, I didn’t probe her. I didn’t say, “Hey, what made it feel ‘dangerous’ to you?” I just told her we loved it and walked away. I better person might have probed her to get her to face what made her think it was dangerous? But, I am judging. Maybe she thought it was dangerous because she was robbed by a white person and never got over it. Somehow I doubt that, but my fault for not probing more.
Okay, back to Memphis. We visited Stax Records — home of Isaac Hayes and Otis Redding. It felt like Stax was where the Black musicians got to be their whole selves where Motown was a little more limiting since those artists were “crossing over” to White radio markets. We had a great time learning about the history and how many artists lived so close to where that company began.
We tried to go to Slave Haven Underground Railroad Museum, but it was closed due to fire…not arson. Just a fire that happened from old/faulty wiring. Slave Haven was a stock yard owned by a German fellow who traded lots of cattle there right by the Mississippi River. He also aided countless slaves as they moved from save haven to safe haven as they tried to escape.
We tried to patronize Black-owned businesses; Anti-gentrification Coffee for Marty’s coffee; Biscuits and Jam for breakfast; Cozy Corner for lunch and in a place full of Black people, it is easy to find Black-owned businesses. And, by the way, YUM. Diet completely out the window. Totally, 100 percent worth it.
Beale Street that night. You know Marty and me…big drinkers. We were zonked. We listened to a few bands as we cruised by on foot. Earlier that day, we walked across the Mississippi into Arkansas so it was all over by then. We did learn about a Black gentleman named Tom Lee who couldn’t swim, but still managed to save 32 people by pulling them up time and time again on his 28′ skiff. He continued searching for those who were on the capsized steamboat deep into the night. There is a beautiful park that runs along the river that is named for Mr. Lee; with beautiful art work and hammocks for resting and listening spots for conversations. So, you know, we’d have never read about or learned about Tom Lee unless we took our walk to Arkansas.
The following day, Wednesday, we set out for the National Civil Rights Museum which is directly linked to the Lorraine Motel where Rev. King was assassinated. The motel is part of the National Park Service and managed by the museum. Which. Was. Amazing. (I forgot to say we had dinner, the night before at Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken. No words. Just juices). The museum, I believe, is Smithsonian affiliated. And, one can tell. The flow and the way the information is presented is engaging. We went for two hours. We stayed for four. We cut out Oxford, Mississippi on the way to Birmingham, but it was worth staying at the NCRM in Memphis for as long as it took to get through.
The driveto Birmingham was easy. We stayed, that night (and for two more nights) with friend of Karen and Al’s — Esther and Allen. They were so hospitable and kind and fun. The following day (Friday) we were supposed to tour parts of Birmingham and some of the Jewish parts with them, but, once more, we ended up staying at Birmingham’s National Civil Rights Institute far longer than we planned. We also spent time at the park across the street — the one where we can all conjure up images of people being hosed down and bit by German Shepherds. Thanks to Nanette Goss, Marty and I watched a film about the Birmingham Children’s Crusade of 1963 which helped give us perspective on what we saw that day. Of course, we never learned at school that it was children — under 18-year-old children who were arrested by the thousands over those few days. Their parents were too scared. They had far too much to lose. Martin Luther King just about gave up on getting any action there in Birmingham, but the radio disc jockeys got the kids going. They were so strategically mobilized. That’s part of what we never learn — how incredibly, deeply well organized these actions were to get the federal government to move forward.
Shabbat dinner with Esther and Allen and her brother and sister-in-law that night then on to Montgomery on Saturday where we were able to visit Bryan Stevenson’s Legacy Museum and the heart-wrenching, nausea-causing, National Memorial for Peace and Justice dedicated to the victims of white supremacy.
In April, 2018, the NYT wrote the following: “In a plain brown building sits an office run by the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, a place for people who have been held accountable for their crimes and duly expressed remorse.
“Just a few yards up the street lies a different kind of rehabilitation center, for a country that has not been held to nearly the same standard.”
You walk through a cloister with weathered columns that start off meeting you at eye level, but as you walk through, the floor descends and the columns that were right across from your face are now above so you find yourself looking at them as if you are witnessing a lynching. If you are Jewish, think about walking through Auschwitz or Yad Vashem or any of the harrowing, hallowed and (often) hopeful monuments or memorials where your feet have tread. This is very, very much the same. Your stomach hurts. You don’t think you can take it anymore and you have to continue because you must bear witness to those who died for no reason and at the hands of people who literally got away with murder anytime they chose. No recourse. Stevenson is about to open one other sculpture park there in Montgomery. I wish we could have seen it.
A mile away sits the first white house of the confederacy. We heard that the governor of Alabama has yet to step foot in the museum. I don’t know if that is true. I believe this whole project is being funded by the Equal Justice Initiative. I don’t know if there is any money coming from Alabama State — I didn’t research that. Every American needs to visit Montgomery. Even if they go nowhere else to learn…the Legacy Museum and National Monument is enough. To see a floor to ceiling wall of jars of soil that families of those who were lynch collected; to learn and relearn how many people died in the Middle Passage on their way from Africa (which was a blessing compared to the atrocities that awaited them as kidnapped, trafficked human beings without any way out); that’s enough. It’s better if you can see more, but if you saw just that (and threw in the Rosa Parks Memorial Museum for good measure there in Montgomery) it would be enough. Sobering, to say the least.
On Sunday, instead of driving the route that the marchers took from Selma to Montgomery, we took side highways/roads. What we leaned during that Sunday morning drive was this: We were the ONLY car driving through town after town. EVERYone was at church. EVERY car was packed into a church parking lot. Sunday morning means church in the Deep South. At least on the route from Birmingham to Selma.
A week ago, last Sunday, was the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday — the day in 1965 where residents from Selma joined MLK Jr. in what was to be a peaceful march from Selma some 47 miles to Montgomery to bring attention to equal rights. At least most of us know what was waiting as they crossed that bridge. I say what because I can’t even bring myself to say who. I can say that when you are walking across the bridge, you can’t really see what is waiting for you on the other side because you do have to head up a bit before heading down. Watch the film, Selma, if you want to know more about this. Again, unless you were a scholar, you never learned how much strategy and organizing and risk-taking it took for the people who made this happen to make it happen. It truly is a Moses moment. Again, adults were scared for good reason. They had no reason to trust that MLK knew what he was doing. John Lewis (a local kid — he was 25 years old) was struggling with his own decision about whether to support MLK or stick with the organizing group that he was aligned with. He was beaten to a pulp on that first march. But did we know that King turned a group around on the second attempt? Did we learn that he did that to wait for the court order that finally decreed they had to let the march go on? Why didn’t we learn more about this? Why is this something that is mentioned in a passing paragraph on a passing page in a short, passing chapter in the American History books we read in high school? How could we not deeply understand that the reason the US became so wealthy and so powerful as such a young country is because we enslaved thousands and thousands of people then bred thousands more when it became prohibited to continue importing them from countries in Africa? What the fuck?
The march was inspirational. We had to wait way too long to listen to endless politicians blah, blah, blah about nothing in particular until our vice president came out and spent more of her time using the march/marchers as a national backdrop to talk about the Israel/Hamas war? Don’t get me wrong. I think I have a decent understanding of why Kamala Harris is talking about that, in particular two Sundays ago, but she seemed extremely disconnected from the fact that there were people in their 70’s and 80’s who marched 59 years ago and were standing for some 90 minutes ready to march again to remember and to commemorate and to pay homage and to teach the next generation. A young man next to us was on his phone talking to his grandmother telling her he was about to do the same march she did nearly six decades earlier. There were many different organizations marching, singing, talking, and just marching across the bridge together. We were honored to be with them. If anyone asks, I may not admit it, but this was unplanned. We planned to be in Selma that day, for sure, but I had no fricking idea it was the anniversary of Bloody Sunday. It was total serendipity that Marty and I just happened to get to march over that Pettus bridge the same day that thousands of others did the same.
I was hangry when the march was over so we went to a Black-owned food truck. They only took cash. We had 10 bucks. Can I Venmo? Nope. Is there a nearby ATM? Nope, they said. They handed us two huge helpings of chicken and mac and cheese and slaw and tried not to let us pay. We gave them our only ten bucks. But there was an ATM. We found it and circled back and insisted, but they really didn’t want to take any more money. In the end, they did because we are persistent little pests.
In Selma and throughout Alabama, it’s not hi. It’s “Hey, how are y’all doing?” And if you start chatting, they will hang out and chat. They are genuinely warm. It’s not just that you get used to Seattle biscuits forgetting what a real southern biscuit tastes like. It’s living in Seattle and forgetting what a stranger’s genuine interest in your well being feels like. It’s a different world and I have my own deep prejudice toward the Deep South and Southerners and their values and their politics and so on. It’s good to go somewhere and remember that there are warm, caring, curious folks all over the place. Taking time to say five syllables to greet instead of one really means something different. I’m serious.
We stayed in an air b&b in Selma that night and went to a place called The Coffee Shoppe for the morning meal after Marty and I did a solo walk over the bridge. By the way, The Coffee Shoppe used to be a place where Black people were not allowed. Now, it’s owned by a Black woman. Again, Marty said the coffee was magnificent. What we learned that morning is that some of Selma is recovering from the tornados that devastated the small city 15 months ago. Some homes were untouched. Some were ripped to the ground. Some people know how to access the system to get help in rebuilding. Others have no idea. It’s obvious who is who and how that is all happening. Selma is re-doing the Voting Rights Museum. It was closed to the public. We got a better deal by having the honor of marching with folks. That was good.
We headed for Biloxi on Monday afternoon. We stayed in a not-Black-owned hotel in the South Beach part of Biloxi. We walked in the pouring rain — that was the late afternoon of pouring rain and we knew we’d be soaked. Showered then did not want to get in the car so headed to Waffle House because they are so much a part of the landscape in that area.
Marty had some normal kind of Waffle House breakfast food for dinner, but I had a steak and it was good, so there. On Tuesday we headed to the Ohr-O’Keefe museum thanks to a recommendation from our friends, Max and Mindy. It is housed in a Frank Ghery bunch of pods and it works that Ghery built the space to house the wild and beautiful collection of George Ohr. What a treat to see pottery created in the late 1800’s that seemed completely contemporary and relevant in today’s ceramic world. The guy was way ahead of his time. The Ghery campus is just gorgeous and across from the Gulf.
Within the museum, we visited the Pleasant Reed Interpretive Center. It’s a reconstructed house that was built by a fellow named Pleasant in the 1880’s. Reed was a man who was born a slave who built his family a home with funds earned in the post Civil War world and before Jim Crow laws took over the South. We listened to interviews with local Black resident who remember living in the “City within a city” and the exhibit taught us about the wade-ins that occurred time and again despite horrific violence. They had their own “Bloody Sunday” where a white mob attacked a peaceful group of 125 walkers and beat them while local police did nothing. When White airmen from a nearby Air Force base tried to protect the injured, they were also attacked. All of this spurred the creation of the Biloxi branch of the NAACP. The US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit to desegregate beaches in Biloxi. It took 12 years, but the beaches were finally desegregated in 1972.
We headed for Ocean Springs, MI, just across the Biloxi Bay and stayed there for two nights. The weather was perfect. The cottages where we stayed were quaint and cozy plus they had free bikes we could use.
We stumbled across a delightful museum called the Walter Anderson Museum. “Beware by whom you are called sane,” reads a sign at the beginning of his work. This artist regularly checked himself into institutions for mental health then regularly escaped. He was prolific in his work in painting, ceramics and more. He had two brothers who were also artists. He was originally from New Orleans and his art is all over Ocean Springs.
Let’s talk, for a moment about food. The food was significantly lower priced than anywhere in Seattle. I know. Lower wages, lower cost of living and so on. I am not making any judgements here…just saying that throughout our entire trip, Marty and I often paid less than $30 for most meals and some of them were at nicer restaurants. It wasn’t until NOLA when the prices crept up and/but OMG, the food on this trip was both heart-attack inducing and absolutely delicious. Ocean Springs seemed super white in terms of both the tourists and those who were owning the galleries, shops, restaurants. It was a little jarring after having been traveling in the area for nearly 10 days. We bought some gifts and enjoyed our time chilling out.
By Thursday, we headed west across the Gulf Coast straight for New Orleans. The first night, we stayed in a fancy and fun hotel in a church, called the Hotel Peter and Paul. The restaurant and bar (yes, we did drink that night — only one cocktail each, but it did us in) were both unique and pleasing.
One thing we did in NOLA was visit the Museum of the Southern Living. We wanted to take a look and see how the word is passed there about Blacks and Jews . . . I was prepared to be highly disappointed. I was not disappointed. Museums are getting better at owning history as it was.
I was wrong AND I learned that Booker T. Washington and a fellow named Julius Rosenweld built nearly 5,000 schools for African American children across 15 southern and border states after meeting one another in 1911. It was quite a collaboration. People such as John Lewis came out of one of those schools.
On Friday, we headed for our Black-owned and operated air b&b — Miss Ruby took time to hang out with us. It was her birthday so we felt extra special. We got to see her on and off throughout our next three nights. We got to see Jaron and Caitlin’s kids — Solomon and Lucia. It was fun to see kid antics without actually having to deal. They are both adorable. It was nice to check in.
On Saturday, we headed for the Whitney Plantation History Museum. If you read Clint Smith’s book, you’ll see it is probably the only plantation in Louisiana that is exclusively dedicated to learning and understanding the facts of slavery. It was home to more than 350 African slaves who were forced to work on the sugar plantation.
It helped up put together more pieces of the puzzle in terms of how the wealth in this country came from the constant and back-breaking work of those who were forced into generations of slavery. It was moving and, like the National Memorial in Montgomery, hard to walk through and very worthwhile visiting. Both Django Unchained and 12 Years a Slave were filmed at Whitney.
Though it is now called the Whitney, it was originally inhabited by a family called Haydel from Germany and it originally was an indigo plantation.
I am not going too deep into this story except to say that he started with 20 slaves then went into sugar instead and ended up with more than 16 times that number of slaves in order to cultivate sugar. This was our ninth official stop on our Civil Rights journey. Were we worn out or bored even though we read and re-read the facts from point to point? We were weary and sad, but we were just as interested in learning — always more to learn. There was a huge revolt of slaves — The German Coast Uprising lead by Charles Deslondes in 1811.
It was one of the largest slave insurgencies in our US history. The slaves killed to White men and 95 slaves were executed to make sure to deter others. It was a two-day nearly 20-mile march and it was organized — think about how many slaves didn’t come from the same culture and had some language barriers. The heads of many of the leaders were displayed on pikes to intimade others.
Why didn’t we learn about the slaves who fought back? Why didn’t we learn that Napolean sold Louisiana to the US because he was scared after uprising and takeover in Haiti? Maybe we were taught that, but I missed that day in school?
Heading from the Whitney back toward New Orleans (it’s just under an hour outside of the city) one could see how it was so isolated and it felt like a million miles from anywhere. That night, we went to the Cory/Alexandra welcome reception. That evening, we were honored to get to spend time with a couple of Berliner kids and their partners as Caitlin was celebrating her 40th birthday. We ate at Coquette where Max used to work. Marty and I both had a wonderful time and felt lucky to be the oldest folks there by more than 20-30 years. It was fun.
On Sunday, Marty went walking heading for the Ogden Museum (he never made it) and I went walking heading to meet Rufus W. Max. We all three lunched together then took off to prepare for the loveliest of weddings in the Botanical Gardens in NOLA’s City Park. It couldn’t have been more perfect. The weather, the setting, the flower-laden chuppah, the Second Line after the ceremony, the delicious cocktails and appetizers then in to the gorgeous Pavilion of the Two Sisters where Alexandra’s parents were married a generation before.
The music — how could you not have an exquisite band and Second Line if not in NOLA — was great. The younger peeps danced all night; the rest of us danced and went in and outdoors — especially when the fresh-made beignets were being made on one of the patios. It was amazing to see someone who was in his momma’s womb when Marty and I were married being married to such a lovely young woman.
I am NOT a wedding person. Usually, too many people and too much hoopla. This was not. Jeremy (Cory’s brother) made a beautiful toast. Alexandra’s parents and the new couple also spoke (David got his turn as the officiant and Marla had her turn the night before). It was really a lovely event.
In the end, did I learn anything I didn’t know before from this trip? One hundred/more than one hundred percent, yes. It helped to pull a lot of puzzle pieces together. It contextualized what I have been reading about. Mostly, and maybe for the first time in my life, I might have a tiny bit of understanding of what it might be like to be a professional in this country — anywhere in this country — while also being Black.
I am outraged that every US citizen does not know or begin to understand that this country is the country that it is for one main reason — we kidnapped a workforce then forced them to continue breeding their replacements so we could have free labor and we profited greatly from that. It doesn’t matter to me who else did or didn’t do this anywhere else. It matters that I grew up so completely unaware. Black History month is so fucked up. Every single day is Black History Day because Black people are so intertwined in the birth and growth of our country. The worst part is that we continue to perpetuate myths; we continue to control the wealth; we continue to keep people out and we continue to allow our white supremacist culture to be entrenched in every part of our US society.
Do I have hope? Yes. Do I believe that we’ve made great strides forward? Um…duh. Yes. But one thing I’ve learned over the last many years is that Black people need to be in charge of telling their own story. We know that from books and films and projects and so on and so on. White people want to do the job, even still but we need to get out of the way and let people tell their own story. Do I better understand why so many colleagues I had at WEA are/were full of eloquent rage?
Does it pain me to think that people I know were literally “run out of town” because they dared to live in a white rural area in my home state? Yes. Did this change anything? Will I run out and try to “make a difference” for people who came to this country against their will from Africa? I need to think about that, but I doubt it. I have a friend in California, a white friend, who is deeply entrenched in fighting for the rights of people of color. She walks her talk and she spends hours upon hours working shoulder to shoulder with others to make a difference. I am in awe of her. Will I do that? I want to, but I doubt it. But will I think differently as I speak and own my mistakes when my words create trauma for others? Yes. Will I try to get others to visit and read and learn and re-educate as Marty and I did? Ya’ can’t make anyone do something like this if they feel it’s not something they want to do. This trip was two weeks and the Civil Rights part of the journey was about 10 days. Ten days to learn what we never learned? That’s not that hard if you have the privilege — the means to get you there. Was it a vacation? Hell yes. Was it Argentina or New Zealand? It was different and very worthwhile in a good way. Would I do it again and do it the same? Yes. I feel blessed to have been able to spend time learning. And, oh yeah, the wedding and the 40th birthday of Caitlin and just walking the streets of New Orleans — that made it worthwhile as well.
Okay, I feel I got some words down. Over and out.