Friends, Walks, and Politics

I had a socially distanced visit with my friends Bettina and Gabriele, who volunteer with me at White Rock Center of Hope. Bettina is still working but the other two of us are not. It was great to catch up with them after several months of just staying in touch by text and phone call.

It’s been really hot so we haven’t walked much lately. But one day it was coolish post rain  so we got out in the AM before it warmed up too much. There’s a little community garden nearby and Rich wanted to go check it out. We really miss having our garden plot.

The Black Lives Matter sign is new in our yard and it has garnered a little bit of attention. A neighbor that we don’t really know walked by one day and commented that she liked it. I told her I had one more if she wanted it. She said she did, so now there are two signs on our block. That makes me happy. Another day a delivery woman brought a package. She was African American and told me “thanks for the sign.” It made me uncomfortable that she was thanking me. I told her I was sorry for all that our society has made her endure. She thanked me again. Honestly, I want to be an anti racist and a good ally but I don’t want praise for it. It makes me feel like a fraud and like I am doing something for attention. Friday I was sitting on the porch reading a book when the city refuse guys came to get the trash. Again, they commented on the sign and thanked me. The driver was hanging out the passenger side window hollering at me. It brought me to tears. I stood there yelling back at them, “I am so sorry for our racist society!” I probably looked like a lunatic.

I’m still writing postcards to voters and went out hanging flyers on doors in my precinct to remind people to vote. We have a runoff election coming up in July. Rich and I ordered our absentee ballots and mine came in. Although vote by mail is up in the air in Texas pending court decisions, we are already able to mail in due to our age. Then I spent most of one day watching a City Council meeting via the internet. Recently I found out that an asphalt batch plant was proposed for my city council district, not too far from our house but in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood. Of course. What else is new?! A group of citizens had organized in a very short period of time and someone added me to their Facebook group. I was super impressed that they were able to get 20+ speakers scheduled for the council meeting in no time. The meeting dragged on for hours and hours and “we” were the last agenda item. I’m sure this was by design also. Meanwhile I found out all kinds of other interesting things going on in our city that are too time consuming to recount here but maybe another day. Finally at 9 PM, our agenda item was addressed. Our speakers were given one minute each. To their credit, instead of everyone basically saying the same thing, they coordinated their efforts and each spoke to a different aspect of the neighborhood’s opposition. They were well prepared, passionate, articulate.  Very impressive!  A 9 year old boy stole the show when he spoke about his asthma and his fears for his fellow neighborhood children. One by one, the City Council members agreed and voted no, “with prejudice,” which I found out means that the asphalt company cannot request a similar zoning change for two years. It was quite a victory and so nice to see that you can apparently fight City Hall and win sometimes.