Call for Kelley, Call for Justice

“you always was committed, a poor, single mother on welfare, tell me how you did it.  There’s no way I can pay you back, but the plan is to show you that I understand, you are appreciated.”

I’ve posted for a couple days on Facebook about the Williams-Bolar case, occurring right here in my own Northeast Ohio, but I wanted to dig a little deeper, and encourage everyone reading this to both sign the Change.org petition to Governor Kasich and call both his office and also that of your State Senator and Representative.

For some background, Kelley Williams-Bolar was accused of falsifying records to obtain school services for her children in the Copley-Fairlawn school system, in the suburbs of Akron.  A senior at the University of Akron, where she was a few credits away from a teaching degree, Ms. Williams-Bolar will now be unable to give back to society (more than she already has) as a teacher, because of the felony charge.  She also, incidentally, has been totally antagonized in her quest to improve her ability to provide for her two young daughters.  Her daughters are presumably at least a part of why she wanted to improve her employment prospects in the first place, to say nothing of trying to do what white families have been doing for decades- sending their children to the good schools in the suburbs, where they can have a shot at avoiding grinding poverty (and too often, black people), or at the very least growing up in a safe and healthy environment.  More below the flip,

One Year Gone

I’ve been listening to the above song a lot lately.  It transports me to my first months here in Cleveland, when I would listen to it in the dead of winter with Emelio, Rob and Mara, and sometimes a guest or two.  Emelio didn’t like the harsh overhead lights in our ceiling fixtures, so I remember listening to this record in pretty much mood lighting, with our other lamps around the room lit on floors and coffee tables.  I was real lonely then, they made it better, and I miss him kind of a lot right now.

I remember one time in particular, when the snow caused a blackout on our street, and somehow our house was the only one that didn’t get its power back until the next day.  We had some guests over, drank some Blackout Stout (which just happened to be in the fridge), made a feast (with candle lighting a little more ‘mood’ than usual, but it fit), listened to this record, and then watched Lost with the waning power in Emelio’s computer’s battery.

Even though I’m in ‘the real world’, I still instinctively follow a semester cycle, breaking for summer, starting a new phase in the fall, and so the last couple weeks have been accompanied by a recognizable shift, with a sense of contrast between now and the last time I was here.  There are a lot of dates in early September that cause me to reflect on the last year in particular, the years, more generally.  Little-noticed (by me anyway), September 11th was four days ago.  My birthday was a couple days ago.  Sylvia shouldn’t have died a year ago today.

There’s a lot that’s changed over the last year.  There are some things that haven’t; I’m still trying to negotiate how to be the kind of citizen and community member I want to be, but I also am in some ways less sure of how you do that, and then also more assured in my approach (weird huh?)  I think this blog is, despite its fits and starts, a pretty solid record of those changes.

But I’m encouraged and thankful to be where I am, because of the people I’m blessed enough to count as friends and supports, whose unhesitating (and sometimes less-than-deserved) love and decency and whose strength and tenacity and humor and kindness make ridiculous any inclination I have to fall into despair.  My parents and sister, Sylvia’s parents, Alex and Emelio (jesus…), my friends from the project, all my friends who have moved on from Oberlin in the last year, and who I miss dearly.  Everyone, really.

So thank you.

Peace,
Joel

RIP Pumpkin, You Will Be Missed

Pumpkin doing what he does best, sitting and getting fur on the couch

One of my cats from home, Pumpkin, was put down today.  From what my parents tell me he was doing pretty awfully the last week or so, and it sounds like he didn’t have much fight left in him.

I don’t have what are traditionally ‘fond’ memories of Pumpkin.  He didn’t play, he didn’t sleep in my bed, he was awful at catching mice (why we got him, and his sister Ozma, originally), he was pretty much slow and plodding and a nuisance to the very end.

But right now I really miss that cat.

There was one time when one of his teeth was rotting and his breath was so bad it would stink up pretty much the entire room, and we had to get it pulled.  During this period he also drooled all over the place and had his tongue constantly sticking out kind of like Puffy in the Dave Chappelle ‘Making the Band’ sketch (around 5:53):

Come to think of it, Pumpkin actually shares a lot with Dave Chappelle’s version of Diddy.  This was, my mom will attest, probably ranked in the middle of any list of Pumpkin’s Grossest Hits.

That being said, he was a real pleasure to come home to from college, and I think that as he faded into nostalgia my affection for him grew a lot.  He was good for petting while you watched TV, his purrs rumbling through his truly massive body, getting fur all over your hands and clothes.  It was fun pulling back his face gently so his eyes looked ridiculous, him kind of looking at you like you’re the idiot, and you’re damn lucky he’s willing to put up with you.

I will really miss making fun of Pumpkin, and just knowing he’s there.  There are a lot of things that have changed at home over the years, but few have been as constant as Pumpkin.  Say what you will about his dumb qualities, they are the same dumb qualities I grew up with and could expect from him within the first year that we adopted him, New Years’ eve of, I believe 1999.  Whoa, he’s been with me for this whole century so far…

I’d like to imagine him as a corpulent Viking king of old.  Not super tyrannical (though he’d probably like to think he was the lord of his land), but just kind of there, loping about, generally regarded as kind of a joke, but in his own way, loved.  We deposit him in his great longboat, set it alight, wish him well on his journey to Valhalla (okay, here the metaphor really fails, because Pumpkin was not a struggler, he would gain no joy from constant battle). and commence with the drinking and the gentle, loving mockery and celebration of his memory.

Rest in peace, bud, you’ll be missed.  I’ve got a feeling there are actually a bunch of folks who know the Solow house well from my youth out there who feel the same.

Peace and Love,
Joel

Happy Birthday Mom!

I should totally be asleep, but you know, whatever.

To readers- my mom rules.  She is, right now, handling quite a lot, which is of course opposed to most of me and my sister’s lives when she was taking it easy being a self-employed woman and extremely dedicated to our extracurriculars, dinners, and emotional well-beings (not knocking my pops or anything, but it’s her birthday.  Sorry pops, I’ll get you another time that’s probably sooner than your birthday).

I’m really amped on work, and what people do, and my mom does an awesome thing that inspires me on the regular as a lactation consultant.  Did you know that infants fall sick at 1.5-5 times the rate when they are not breastfed (sorry, had to put some politics in there somewhere)?  My mom did.  And she can tell you not only how rocking breastfeeding is for your baby’s health and relationship to you, but how to overcome the challenges and obstacles to successful breastfeeding.

So happy birthday mom, and thanks for putting up with me when I’m ridiculous, for helping me figure out my shit when I don’t know any better, for not cringing when I swear like a sailor, and for setting a good example for me in your work and ‘real life’.

Love,
Joel