ulitave

in the car this morning

NPR Announcer: ...the body of television personality Steve Irwin was flown back to Australia this morning. Television's Crocodile Hunter was killed by a stingray...
11yo: BWAAA HAAA HAAA! BWAAAAA HAAA HAAAA!
ulitave: [11yo], please
11yo: He finally got eaten! BWAA HAAA!

I spent most of the weekend cleaning and showing casa ulitave to prospective tenants. amazing, how much grit you find when you're looking for the stuff. I placed an ad and got about 10 responses. That turned into 5 calls and 3 prospective tenants coming by: a young girl who walked through, touched nothing, and left. The next prospectived were a young couple with a baby from Brooklyn. We chatted about pizza. they wondered if the place would be too small for them, their home office, and their baby (it would be). They decided to pass. The third was a nice young woman and her boyfriend. she even wants to keep chickens, which will delight most of my neighbors and annoy one of them to no end. I need to make a few minor repairs and such. I'm letting them paint. Their lease is up at the end of this month, but their deposit will hold the place until they move in. In the meantime, I may rent out casa ulitave for the ACL Festival weekend, and try to make a few more dollars. I'm still trying to get rid of a last few items - couch, sofa, desk, flowerpots.

We also rented several movies and several episodes of Deadwood. I'm very happy that the latter half of Season 2 doesn't suck, the way the first 4-5 episodes did. I almost gave up on the series. I thought about taking 11yo to see Snakes on a Plane. My Dad took me to see Jaws when I was 5. I decided, in the end, to make her wait.

I heard a man give a speech once, when I was in grade school.

He was a well-dressed black man, in what I would have called a Sunday Suit back then. Unlike most of my schoolmates, I'd seen well-dressed black men before. I saw my own father, however briefly, when he went to work and came home. I saw him and other men at church. He looked like them - polished and gleaming shoes, trimmed hair, neat moustache, glasses. He spoke to us about civil rights and the struggle, and how we could help. He spoke on how things were going to change.

I saw him again, in high school, at a symposium of sorts. Many of us took the bus or drove into an auditorium in Manhattan. He spoke there. He wore the same suit, in an updated version. We all wore our Cosby sweaters, but this man stuck to his understated dark suit, black shoes, and white shirt. He gave the Speech on diversity and Affirmative Action. We listened and waited for changes. I don't know whatever happened to most of those kids.

The next time I saw the guy was in college. This was a punch-and-cookies event in the University President's office. He left the jacket off but his sleeves buttoned. We talked about race relations on campus. The president had recently been humiliated by our student leader. Toni Luckett, a black lesbian who had taken over the Black Student alliance and the Student Government, had occupied the President's office to force the University to divest it's holdings in companies that worked with the apartheid government in South Africa. she landed in Time Magazine for her efforts. The President did not. Our Man in the Suit held a get-together to chat with some of us. He gave another version of the speech. changes, waiting, patience, etc.

I thought about him when I saw him most recently, presenting the Speech at a staff meeting on campus. He'd been newly hired. The suit looked new as well. I couldn't get a good look at the shoes. As he spoke, I thought about all the times we'd met. Of course, he and I had never actually met. I'd met alternate versions of this man - well-educated, well-meaning black men (never women), hired by some institution to tell me that  the institution has recognized a problem with race. The very fact that it hired him (and me) is evidence. The institution has a Plan. They are going to do this and this and that. I thought all of this while he spoke and durign the Q&A. I had a question. I didn't ask my question. I suppose I didn;t ask out of some racial loyalty, or perhaps I just wanted to give the guy a break on his first week. But I didn't ask. I'll see him again later - perhaps I'll ask then.

I've met you before, I would have asked. I've seen you since I was about 9. Same suit, same hair, same speech. Sadly, we tend to have the same entrance rates, retention rates, and graduation rates that we did when I was 9. Little has changed for us in higher education. What differences exist can be explained by population shifts. Why do you think you will succeed when so many others, so many talented, educated, brilliant people, have failed? Why should I believe in you?

Irony of ironies! I've been invited to get a haircut, shine my shoes, and wear a suit at a recuriting fair in Atlanta. (Clark Atlanta, Morehouse, and Spelman Colleges, October 18) If anyone asks me that same question, I'll look naked.

Today, I'm comparing equivalent salaries, between my town and competitor cities. For kicks, I compared what a grossly underpaid university employee would need to make to live in some of the lovely towns I visited this summer, like St. Helena or Half Moon Bay, CA.

Ulp.

Let's hope the books sell.