What a ride—me through numbers and PaPa Cain through life.

I just bailed out my bookkeeper and treasurer by figuring out why my campaign’s electronic quarterly report would not validate.  There was no help to be had over the weekend but plenty of patient tech help on Monday.  Yet it took me all day and total isolation in my robe.  I was a prisoner in my room with no campaigning, no TV, no news, no e-mails, no writing and no dKos.  Woe is me!  I called CPA’s and strangers out of the phone book, to no avail.  So success tasted ever more sweet when the file was accepted and officially filed a few hours ago, one day late.   I profess to walk the extra mile for my people.  Today I did far more.  The next quarterly report will be a cakewalk.  Not because I have all this well-learned practice, but because by then I will have befriended an accountant who doubles as a computer super-hero.

So I had a bad day.  Big deal.  They cannot all be as good as Sunday night.  I attended the birthday party of a very special resident of Kentwood, LA, Cain Walls, Sr.  He is 113 years young.  As the awards were given to him, he mostly napped.  He obviously enjoyed his celebrity status, once he awoke.  Mr. Walls was seated in a plush recliner lent to him by a local furniture store for the event.  Party guests contributed towards the purchase of the chair as a birthday gift from all.  

PaPa Cain did not know me and he could see that I was not the same color as 95% of his guests.  Yet, he welcomed me as did his 7 children.  He smiled broadly and thanked me for coming.  Awesome experience.  He is a remarkable individual.  Stories have featured Walls in People magazine and CNN.  Now he is elevated to Daily Kos.  It is a privilege indeed to have met a person born in 1894.  The only disappointment was to see expansive rows of framed pictures on the wall, and not one black face among them.  

•  Thanks for this diary Gilda.....

  There was a great story in the Washington Post Magazine this weekend on a reporter from Jet, Simeon Booker, covering change and desegregation in the American South.  link

  It is important to know how recent these changes have been and how much prejudice (pre-judging) still is here, how much hatred and yet, how much we have just lived in two different worlds and knew no one from the other world well.  There wasn't a black face in those pictures because the blacks were second class citizens.  And yet, within the black America, there was a parallel and dignified other world.  Breaking through lost us some of that parallel world and some of that dignty, but it hopefully will someday gain a better society.  Takes a lifetime- and as you point out, a lifetime can be a long time.  

  You might mention you are a candidate for which office in the first paragraph- we are used to candidates posting and it would get you some support.  Or, add a link to a webpage to your signature line.  Good luck with your race!

  by murrayewv on Tue Jul 17, 2007 at 05:08:30 AM PDT

  •  murrayewv

    Thank you for taking the time to link the article on Simeon Booker to me.  I enjoyed reading it.  
    Thank you also for the good advice of mentioning my candidacy with every post.  I need to check my signature line to see if the link to my website is still there.  
    And I especially appreciate your encouragement.
    Peace--Gilda

    by gildareed on Tue Jul 17, 2007 at 02:27:50 PM PDT