Month: June 2008

The Speaker at my High School Graduation

I graduated from Central High School in London England in 1970. It was a American High School for military dependents. My Dad worked for an oil Company. My class had about 100 kids.

Today I was sorted through stacks of old letters and memorabilia. Duke happened to pick up my commencement program.  He looked at it and said "So Bill Clinton spoke at your High School graduation?"  I certainly don't remember him but there it is on the program as clear as day.

Commencement Address ………………………..  Mr. William J. Clinton
          Rhodes Scholar- Lecturer at Oxford

How amazing is that!!

Hiking the Tahoe Rim Trail from Spooner Summit to Kingsbury Grade with the Sierra Canyon Hiking Group

A group of us who live in the Del Webb Sierra Canyon Development in Reno have decided to hike the Tahoe Rim Trail this summer.  As the name suggests the Tahoe Rim Trail is a trail on the mountain crests around Lake Tahoe. The trail is 165 miles long and we are planning to do it in 8 segments. Thursday we did our first segment from Spooner Summit on Highway 50 south to Kingsbury Grade.  It is the shortest segment (only 12.2 miles.) Fifteen of us completed it with no problem. It is an easy to walk on trail. It was a warm glorious day and there were stunning views.

Below are a few pictures from the hike. If you would like to see the rest of the pictures you can see them on Flickr here. There was a little snow beside the trail in a few places but most of the snow is gone.

One of the most surprising things on the hike were the beautiful red flower we found growing up out of dead wood in a few places. Since getting home I discovered on the Tahoe Country .com web site that the flower is the snowplant.

"A fairly common site in the Tahoe
landscape as the snow melts is the Snowplant (Sarcodes snaguinea), a member
of the Wintergreen family. This
strange asparagus-like plant does not photo-synthesize, but receives its nourishment
from parasitizing the roots of neighboring plants and other decaying organic
matter. It is protected by California law and there are heavy fines for tampering
with the Snowplant due to its extreme beauty and rarity (it is found only
in the Yellow Pine and Red Fir forests of California and southern Oregon)."

DSC_0408

DSC_0425DSC_0443
DSC_0435
DSC_0432DSC_0461
 

Five Cities, Six Take Offs and Six Landings and No Ordinary Time – Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Last Wednesday I visited six cities on Southwest Airlines. I was I accompanying my sister home from Cleveland where she had a successful revision to her ten year old hip replacement.  We flew from Cleveland to Chicago, to St. Louis, to Tulsa where I dropped her off. Then I flew on on to Phoenix and finally home  to Reno.

I had lots of time to read as we puddle jumped across the U.S. I finished the last 200+ pages of No Ordinary Time – Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin. What a great book!

The book provided several learnings and surprises for me. I realized how ignorant I am about the history of prejudice in this country. Although I knew that segregation and racial prejudice were prevalent in the 1940’s, I did not really appreciate how bad it was. Black men were only allowed to enlist in the Navy as mess men. In the Army black soldiers were not allowed to fight. Segregation and terrible conditions were the norm. Goodwin summarizes the progress made during the war. “Between 1940 and 1945 the Negro Military Force had increased in size from 5,000 to 920,000 and the number of Negro officers had grown from 5 to over 7,000. Moreover, whereas almost every Negro soldier in 1940 was confined to a service unit, by war’s close Negroes held responsible jobs in almost every branch of the army as artillerymen, tankmen, infantrymen,  pilots, paratroopers, doctors and more.” When I realize that the young African American men who were being treated so badly as second class citizens during World War II were the peers of my father it gives me some small window of empathy for the feelings that African Americans of my fathers generation must have. I could certainly understand bitterness. It certainly makes me ashamed of our country’s history.

No Ordinary Time also gave me a lot of insight into the strengths and weaknesses of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt and their relationship. I knew FDR was a great leader. I certainly didn’t realize that the war in Europe didn’t even start until the very end of his second term. I had some understanding of what an extraordinary woman Eleanor was but I had no idea how hard she worked and what a large contribution she made both to the war effort and to FDR’s success.

Eleanor published a newspaper column  “My Day”  from 1935 to 1962. She wrote the column consistently six days a week. When I think of how I can’t even manage to write a blog a day it impresses me that she published 400 words every day and never missed a day except for 4 days when FDR died. She was a blogger ahead of her time .

Will Obama build a team of Rivals?

Not too long ago I heard Obama talk about the Doris Kearns Goodwin book Team of Rivals. Recently I read Team of Rivals and loved it. I bet Obama will follow Lincoln's example and bring his rival Clinton into his cabinet. As I was preparing to write this post I Googled Obama and "Team of Rivals" and discovered that my prediction is not an original one. Among others Andrew Sullivan, who publishes The Daily Dish wrote about the same idea.