Geography is NOT the problem, people.

On Wednesday April 16th, ya’ may recall reading that I went to the Habitat for Humanity “Blueprints and Blue Jeans Ball”. (I wrote about it here, under the title “Walking the walk”.) In re-reading my entry, I see now that I failed to mention something that turned out to be pretty significant a few days later. I have the opportunity now to make that mention, and I intend to do so.

The Habitat event was different for a lot of reasons – the suggested attire, the size of the auction, the average age of those in attendance, and the MC was a guy I hadn’t heard of. So while the salad was being set on our table, I took a second and reviewed the program for more information on who Ken Arthur was and why he was speaking. It turns out that Ken was chosen as MC because the Arthur Family were the first recipients of a San Francisco Habitat for Humanity Home about 12 years ago. Ken started out rather nervously as he addressed the crowd – not surprising, when you consider the audience numbered over 500 folks.

Ken told us the story of how he came to know of Habitat, and it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. He and his wife were doing errands one Saturday and ducked into a sandwich shop to pick up some lunch. Habitat had some fliers at the counter … something like “Own Your Own Home!! No Money Down!!!” and Ken turned to his wife and said “Yeah sure – these nice folks would just LOVE to give a black family living in Bayview San Francisco a new home for nothing” but, for whatever strange reason, he folded up the flier and stuck it in his back pocket. And for whatever strange reason, when his wife was doing laundry a few days later, she took the note from his back pocket and put it in her handbag, instead of throwing it out. Stranger still, they decided to apply a few weeks later. “It couldn’t hurt” was the thought … “not like we have anything to lose, really.” And, most strange was the call the family received a few months afterwards, telling them that they’d been chosen as the first family that Habitat for Humanity San Francisco would partner with.

Watching Ken’s face while he related this series of events, you could see what having a home had done for this family. They were still living in the same Bayview neighborhood and they were still dealing with the same pressures, the same crime, the same problems. The ONLY difference was that they had a home … and it turned out that was all the difference that was needed.

Ken wrapped up his speech that evening with a couple of items that filled the room with laughter. The first was that he admitted he’d managed to fill a few tables with extended family members, who didn’t really believe that Ken was chosen to MC the event, and they just KNEW he was fibbing to them when he said he’d be presenting the Mayor of San Francisco with an award. The second was that Ken invited the whole room to join him in Tennessee in a few weeks. He wanted everyone to watch – and cheer – as his second son would be graduating from Fisk University.

That was Wednesday, April 16th.

Shortly after Midnight on Monday, April 21st, Ken Arthur was murdered. He was found lying dead in the street, a few blocks away from his home.

Now I won’t pretend that I KNOW Ken Arthur or his family. However, after reading the news on the HFHSF website, I have decided that I need to be a little less jaded. I’ll bet that a lot of people who read of Ken’s death in the local paper saw the words “stabbed in Bayview” and thought “well yeah – that’s a crappy area and that kinda thing happens all the time”. Well dammit – it doesn’t have to be that way. If you live in a city with an area like Bayview (and every town has an area like it to some extent), I encourage you to stop accepting this kind of violence as “usual”. I don’t mean donate, or volunteer, or even get involved. But please – let’s stop shrugging off this kind of thing as “standard” just by virtue of geography.

Murder is ugly … even the word itself is hard to look at. And it SHOULD be that way – no matter where it happens.

"Fall To Grace" will not be written this week ...

... in order to highlight the following 2 blogs:


http://parintachin.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-we-have-fat-poor-people.html#links
and
http://cookingatcafed.blogspot.com/2008/04/day-1-taking-deeper-look.html

Walking the walk

Events – things like galas, benefits, awards dinners, etc – are part of my job. The funny thing is that “events” have really always been a part of my job – but now I get to attend them, instead of arranging them. And the funnier thing is that, for some of them, I’d FAR RATHER be the person arranging the event.

Oh sure – it SOUNDS tremendously glamorous – attending gala evenings with silent auctions and seeing, meeting, and hearing the fairly rich and pretty well-known speak about organizations that are (hopefully) near and dear to their hearts. But the truth of the matter is that sometimes it’s kind of a chore. For one thing, these events usually happen 40 or 50 miles away from my home, and are almost always at night – most times on weekends. And sometimes the MC for the event is just randomly hired and has little connection to the charity in question. They’re not walking the walk … they’re just attending to smile and wave and raise money. So basically, on my increasingly rare down-time on weekend evenings, I get to commute pretty much BACK to the area in which I work and meet a bunch of folks that, honestly, I’ll never really connect with as we all listen to a host who doesn’t TRULY care why we’re all there.

And then there’s the focus of the charity itself. Even though I know that work is being done to address the problems, most times the issues being addressed are REMARKABLY tragic. ANNNND then add to all these small annoyances that I’m usually required to dress up beyond all reasonable expectation … suddenly it doesn’t seem so glamorous. In fact, it can be rather a chore, but not this time.

On Wednesday evening, I went to the Palace Hotel in downtown SF dressed in a Michael Kors sweater, my low Manolos and a pair of Levi’s 501s. I looked, and felt, really great plus I was still smiling as a carry-over from my coffee-break with Thea earlier that same day. So I was comfortable and I looked terrific as I arrived at the “Blueprints & Blue Jeans Ball”, a benefit evening with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and his stunning fiancé, actress Jennifer Siebel. The event was well-attended, the auction items went FAST (I’m still kicking myself for not bidding on that Lake Tahoe getaway), we got to hear (and see) great stories about getting better, safer, more affordable housing for families that just needed a boost to get their footing annnnd we raised more than $300k in the process. Mr. Newsom passionately addressed the issue of homelessness and living far below the poverty line in a county that is KNOWN for having ridiculous amounts of money for about 15 minutes, and it was obvious that he cared deeply about the families he introduced to all in the room. It was a win all the way around. So it’s no wonder that I was in such an upbeat mood, not just that evening but … well, pretty much since that evening, actually.

My company requested the employee base to burn two vacation days this month, so I goofed off at home all day Thursday – thumbed through some old books, listened to music, made a few batches of brownies to take to the crew at Stanford who are caring for my Aunt Verna and enjoyed the terrific weather. I wasn’t even all that annoyed when my Stanford friends kidnapped me at 4:15am on Friday morning to attend the memorial event for the 102nd anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. Mr. Newsom spoke there, too – and we all sang “San Francisco” after the sirens sounded at 5:16am. It was a fun and unique morning - ‘tho it was a bit brisk outdoors (and, since we were running late, I changed from slippers to shoes in the car). I got home, relaxed for a bit, wrote a note to remind myself to later call my sister and wish my niece a happy 1st birthday and then got a random call from Karin, who found herself with a few child-free hours on her hands. We went out to lunch and had a good (and much needed) catch-up session.

Later in the day, I drove to Stanford to check in with my own doctors and then with my Aunt. The place where Verna is staying isn’t at all attached to the hospital facility itself. It’s a block of fully-furnished apartments meant for long-term and/or adjustable care patients who will be returning home in due time. It’s staffed by orderlies, nurses, and physical therapists. Doctors only visit when called or if someone has an appointment and are unable to visit their physician’s office … and surgeons are there only when something awful has occurred. About 15 minutes after I arrived, Lisa (my Cousin) arrived with a bunch of magazines and some medical journals that her mom wanted to have. I was getting ready to go when I was startled by a familiar voice in the hallway … one of my surgeon friends was approaching, but I think Verna and Lisa were even MORE startled. Greg assured them that he wasn’t there on business ... which was probably pretty obvious as he handed me my slippers and sheepishly said “here - you left these in my car this morning”.

Oh yeah – it’ll be weeks until I hear the end of this.