Twinkle: Voluntarism Redeemed

Tonight Dibbs and I went down to the Henry Clay for a dinner and auction benefiting the Cabbage Patch Settlement House. We had volunteered for the event, but that didn't stop us from surveying the silent auction items, sipping a little wine, sampling every passed hors d'oeuvre available (sometimes twice), and getting photographed for the Voice. When dinner came, we browsed the live auction items and chatted with other volunteers; after dinner we listened to the inspiring speech of a young scholarship recipient, then fulfilled our volunteer obligation by placing a balloon in front of guests who made a financial pledge to the scholarship program. Then the caterer gave us to-go boxes filled with stuffed chicken, au gratin potatoes, snap peas, and a pear and goat cheese salad, and I left with 5 YWC community service hours under my belt.

And, compared to that horrible Junyaleague meeting last night, it was the difference between the Four Seasons and the Motel 6. I know that's an analogy that everyone can understand, and I have to ask: when given a choice with what to do with one's limited free time, who would choose to spend it in the $39/night room?

Dibbs: Do Y'all Want to Know What I Just Said?

Twinkle, I'm sorry. You already heard this story.

Everyone else, this is what I did. My secretaries were asking about the newly-famous murderer from my hometown. They asked if I knew him. I replied, "Of course. He's from ********* (my hometown.)"

The ladies asked, "Do you know everyone from your hometown?'

I replied, rather snottily, "No, only the nice people."

Yes, I know. I just called an "accused" murderer a nice person. Perhaps I need to rethink my values.

Lola: No Fear, No Limits

Been reading the various posts of the past day or so and I just wonder why so much FEAR? Why would the police try to instill fear in parents over allowing their children to walk two blocks...6 houses...one mile to school/baseball practice/friend's house? Why does Twinkle fear the 9th street YMCA? I also read a very interesting post on Page One (.com) referencing the blog posts of a Kentuckian living in Stolkholm, Sweden who wrote the following:

What’s it like to live in a country where the police aren’t feared or regarded as adversaries? What’s it like to not feel like you have to look behind you when you’re walking alone at night? What’s it like to not have to worry about the cost if someone in your family gets sick? What’s it like to be able to go to college if you want to? What’s it like to be surrounded by educated people who speak multiple languages fluently? Freedom isn’t how many guns you can own without a background check. Freedom is feeling like you’ll never need a gun.

Why is it that America purports to be, in song and verse, "the land of the free and the home of the brave" when there is so much fear just in going about our daily lives. Moreover, it would seem that the instilling of fear is practically institutionalized by our government and by our media. Just yesterday morning, I was assaulted by Matt Lauer warning me that evil germs lurk in my showerhead and that a steamy shower could mean emphysema. Fear the Shower...Seriously? What the F!?!

I am tired of the fear. During my mom's volunteer days as a social worker for an Adult Daycare Center in the West End, she drove her little, silver, soft-top convertible BMW to 38th and Magazine every Tuesday and Wednesday, where both she and her car remained unmolested throughout her tenure. No fear.

When I was in grade school I would walk the one mile back and forth to grade school. As a freshman in high school I was popped on the tarc and sent off to high school. The perpetuation of fear does nothing to promote security, but rather promotes and infantilization of our culture and our young people. A century ago, eight year olds were working in factories, in mines, and in sweatshops. I doubt that that mothers today love their children more than they did 100 years ago. So I guess my question is WHY and why now? And who benefits from the perpetuation of this epidemic of fear?

No answers, just more questions.

Twinkle: Did Y'all See My FB Page?

The route to the Chestnut St. Y: far worse than expected.

The directions provided by the League: wrong.

The walk from car to door: extremely threatening.

And then a certain person with the initials M.S. had the audacity to comment on my FB page and say, "Girls you must get out more, YMCA on Chestnut is far from scary." It's so typical...not only did she make a lame joke about how sheltered other people are, but then she had to declare the location in question to be "far from scary" when any person with eyes could see that it was quite scary.

And so begins another chapter in my love/hate relationship with the League.

Julep: Why can't the children walk to school?

OK, this is a recap for Lola because we talked about this last night, but y'all, I need to discuss this article in the New York Times, titled "The Walk to School Fight."

My initial reaction was the same as Lola's when we talked about this: this is silly East Coast nonsense. As Lola said, "Here in Real America, we let the kids walk around outside." But the article includes quotes from people in Tucson and Vancouver, who were socially ostracized or had the police called for allowing their children to walk as far as six houses away unescorted. And THIS, from below the Mason-Dixon line!

In Columbus, Miss., Lori Pierce would like her daughters, 6 and 8, to walk the mile to school by the end of the year. “They want to walk,” she said. “They have scooters.” But she and the girls face obstacles. Mrs. Pierce must teach them the rules of a busy street, have officials install some sidewalks and urge the school to hire a crossing guard.

And Mrs. Pierce faces another obstacle to becoming a free-range mother: public opinion.

Last spring, her son, 10, announced he wanted to walk to soccer practice rather than be driven, a distance of about a mile. Several people who saw the boy walking alone called 911. A police officer stopped him, drove him the rest of the way and then reprimanded Mrs. Pierce. According to local news reports, the officer told Mrs. Pierce that if anything untoward had happened to the boy, she could have been charged with child endangerment. Many felt the officer acted appropriately and that Mrs. Pierce had put her child at risk.

What is wrong with these people? For heaven's sake, let your children play outdoors once in a while without an adult hovering overhead. They can roam around a safely delineated portion of the neighborhood with their buddies and have great adventures. And they can safely get themselves to and from nearby churches, stores, schools, etc., as long as someone knows when they are leaving and should be arriving.

I find this hysteria so ridiculous. Am I the one who is totally out of step with cultural mores these days? Are y'all going to report me to CPS someday when I let my eight-year-old* walk down the hill to Lakeside for swim team practice, or let my ten-year-old* ride his bike to Borders or Graeter's (no major streets to cross!), or let my twelve-year-old* take the TARC somewhere?



* Hypothetical children, that is. Maybe they are easier to risk than live ones?

Twinkle: Headed to the 'Hood

Dibbs--I always want to make jokes about b*stard babies in my status updates, too. If only I weren't so d*mn concerned about other people's feelings...

I just had to jump on and give a brief rant about Junyaleague: whose big idea was it to put the general meeting at some YMCA on West Chestnut Street? Y'all should know that I just re-upped with the League and paid my very pricey dues to my former Yankee League just to get involved back here at home. And I love the League, because it brought me all of you, and for that I am always indebted. Making friends was why I joined...contrary to conventional League wisdom, I did not join because I enjoy finding myself in the crossfire of warring gangs in Louisville's west end.

Last summer, when I wasn't even an official member, I attended a fun meeting at the home of one of our dear friends over near River Rd.--y'all know who I'm talking about. And the meeting was everything a League meeting should be and more: it involved friends, wine, food, talk of cookbooks, and the ever-present dissenters who made the meeting last for 3 hours. And in a flurry of misguided longing for what I think the League should be, I signed up to bring a dessert and work the cookbook table at the first general meeting...because, really, that's what the League is supposed to be all about. I did not know when I signed up that I'd have to cross Roy Wilkins Blvd.--after dark--to make good on my commitment.

Why do I bother? Dibbs said it best when she described herself as "Brokeback Junyaleague," because she just can't quit it. I can't either, and I don't really want to. I happen to think the League's aversion to country clubs is ridiculous, but even more ridiculous is making their members drive their little foreign station wagons into the ghetto for no reason whatsoever, when they could just as easily have a meeting at headquarters, or Bellarmine, or even some boring bank on Hubbards Lane. Instead, I'm supposed to park my Saab over on Roy Wilkins Blvd. after dark and carry my little plate of pralines in past the junkies and the whores that you know certain members of the Junyaleague would like to recruit in the next provisional class.

It just exhausts me--I joined the League to make friends and do a little light volunteering. I might not even mind so much if this were a volunteer opportunity in a bad part of town--at least then there would be a point to risking life and limb. I think it's a lot to ask of members.

If I get shot by a drug lord, my blood is on *your* hands, Junyaleague!

Dibbs: If There's Anything Ruder Than People, I Don't Know What

So, I guess by now, everyone knows about the illustrious murderer from my hometown. It's hard for me to reconcile this story with the man I know, but I can't defend him. What he did is indefensible; I know that.

The other thing that's indefensible? Writing that he should be castrated in your facebook status when his daughter is one of your friends. I mean, I don't write "Dibbs thinks having bastard babies is tacky." It would hurt the aforementioned writer's feelings. I don't want to do that.

I guess I can write whatever I want now. She's been removed from friends.