It's been two weeks of intense feelings, both positive and negative. Last week, I heard speakers about the Israeli and American elections, met the head of The American Conservative Union (who thought it was okay if I was not served in a restaurant because I am gay). The news about the elections is only good because no one believes the Republicans have a credible candidate. As far as Israel, there is a sense of hopelessness that there is any leadership that will solve the problems there.
Then the Mormon Church effectively kicked out same-gender couples and their children. At least many of their own church members rebelled. We heard about the attacks in Paris, and less-publicized attacks in Kenya, Afghanistan and Iraq.
We attended a service and dinner as guests of WVU Hillel Friday. Saturday, I spent most of the day in bed, not willing to deal with the hordes around a WVU football game, and feeling physically and emotionally exhausted.
Things picked up for me Saturday night, when we saw Morgantown Theatre Company's production of "Oliver!" This is the children's theater group where I played the rabbi in "Fiddler on the Roof" in the winter of 2014. Joe and I were blown away by the professionalism of these kids, who range in age from six to eighteen. After ten years of acting classes, I could not have done what the nine-year-old who played Oliver did. It was beautiful and heartbreaking.
Last Sunday we dined at the home of a gay couple we have come to know in Greene County, Pennsylvania, just north of here. It was a chance to let down our (virtual) hair, away from any professional connection, with three other long-time same-gender male couples. I'm grateful to them for adding us to their clan.
I was back at WVU for the Women and Gender Studies Department Fair on Monday and Transgender Day of Remembrance on Wednesday. It's amazing how college has changed since my graduation in 1971. Johns Hopkins, where I was an undergraduate, did not admit women until 1970 (four transferred into my junior class in 1969). They thought they were liberal because they added a "History of Africa" that year. There was no study of women, of gender as a concept, nothing Jewish, certainly nothing gay.
At some point in the spring of 1970, my junior year, the spring of Kent State, I walked down Calvert Street in Baltimore to 29th. I was wearing bell bottomed jeans, a plain t-shirt with a blue ring collar, and a brown "wet look" belted jacket. My already-thinning shoulder length hair was flying in the breeze. I flashed a peace sign at a passing police car, and a policeman growled at me from the car. Maybe I misremember the details after forty-five years. Or maybe it was a dream. I remember feeling that this was my time in the world.
I rode the PRT, Morgantown's "futuristic" rail transit line (from 1973) into town Wednesday to the LGBT Equity meeting on WVU's downtown campus. It's a half-mile walk from our house to the last station on the line. It was unseasonably warm and sunny. I had my iPod on, playing "Little Black Submarines" by The Black Keys. And for a minute, I had that same 1970 feeling that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Maybe it was the weather or my heart being fixed with new stents or running for office, or just being a part of something on campus. The world is falling apart and our country is a mess, much like 1970. Perhaps my euphoria is that I understand how bad everything is, but I know that I am doing well.
Our meeting was short, and the Transgender Day of Remembrance after was more moving than I expected it to be. I met some students who came to support transgender people on campus. One young woman told me she was Jewish and confided that she had heard that the rabbi in Morgantown is gay. I was delighted to introduce myself as the rabbi's spouse.
It's Sunday night now as I finish this. It is cold out. There was no sun today. ISIS has united Russia, France and the United States. What the Republicans have been saying about Syrian refugees not being welcome here has resonated with Jewish people, and, for once, all segments of the Jewish community are together, remembering the Jews who were turned away from the U.S. in the late 1930s.
I would like to think that good will come from the events of the past week, even the tragic events. Despite my advanced age and creaky body, I plan to be part of what happens here in West Virginia, in the United States and in the world, for as long as I am able.
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Manifesto
I'm working on technical issues for my campaign for Delegate to the West Virginia State Legislature. This manifesto outlines my ideas for the state. I hope you who read this will join in my campaign.
My issues are basically economic. For an economy to work, people must have money to spend. Tax cuts for corporations and the very rich will not accomplish this. West Virginia University is the basis for economic growth in Monongalia County. And yet, the budget has been cut the last few years. To cope, the University has cut classified positions and raised tuition. We need to fully fund the University so that in-state students can afford to go to the state's flagship school. Classified people need jobs to maintain the economic growth of this area.
University employees, school teachers and public employees are being hit with cuts in PEIA, the Public Employees Insurance Agency. Employees will pay more for less coverage, taking money out of the local economy, and potentially causing valuable employees and teachers to leave West Virginia.
The same is true of "right-to-work" laws, which serve to lower wages for corporate profit or executive pay. Skilled workers in the state need to be able to maintain a high standard of living for everyone's sake.
Charter schools seem to be unworkable in a (mostly) non-urban state like West Virginia. More importantly, they remove union protections from teachers, and divert public money to private corporations at the expense of teachers and students. One of our local Republicans proposed charter schools for West Virginia in the last legislative session.
It's no secret that the coal industry in this area is not doing well. We must make sure, however, that miners and retirees don't lose hard-fought for health and pension benefits. Companies declaring bankruptcy should not be able to divest themselves of these costs while paying out million-dollar bonuses to CEOs for cutting labor costs. I have to wonder if these people have any conscience at all. Last year, some safety regulations in the mines were repealed or relaxed in a bill introduced by one of our local Republican legislators. These former standards need to be reinstated to make sure our miners are as safe as they can possibly be. Cost should not be a factor when lives are at stake.
Global climate change is real and affects West Virginia. We must work with the United States Environmental Protection Agency to maintain our health and the health of our mountains and forests. Our university can work on creating jobs to make coal burning cleaner and find alternative energy sources.
I know social issues will be part of this campaign. Sectarian prayer in schools has been outlawed since the 1960s, abortion has been legal since 1973, and same-gender marriage is now legal in all states. Attempts to overturn these laws are futile and a waste of time and money. We all must recognize that there are many different religious beliefs, even in West Virginia, and especially in Morgantown. One of our Republican delegates proposed a resolution to ask for a United States Constitutional Convention to ban any recognition of same-gender relationships. Another Republican delegate supported this resolution. I can only describe this as mean-spirited, exclusionary and colossally useless.
I propose raising money for the state in several ways. First, we should restore the tax money that has been cut from corporate taxes in the last few years. That was supposed to make the state more competitive; instead it has meant that the state cannot cover basic services. We should raise the gasoline tax to cover desperately-needed road repairs. And Mon County needs to demand a fair share of gas tax money. People in other parts of the state have told me that the roads here are worse than in their counties.
In many places there are fees on developers. Homes can't be built until the developer widens and repairs the road where the new development will be. We see development all over Mon County where roads are not upgraded. Could we not implement a plan to make new developments contingent on better roads?
Our economy will grow if we can make sure that the people who work here are making a decent wage, if good jobs are available at our West Virginia University, if teachers have competitive pay and benefits, and if Social Security, Medicare, and the new Medicaid expansion are protected.
I ask for your vote to help me make West Virginia a vibrant economic engine for all our people.
Barry Lee Wendell
November 12, 2015
My issues are basically economic. For an economy to work, people must have money to spend. Tax cuts for corporations and the very rich will not accomplish this. West Virginia University is the basis for economic growth in Monongalia County. And yet, the budget has been cut the last few years. To cope, the University has cut classified positions and raised tuition. We need to fully fund the University so that in-state students can afford to go to the state's flagship school. Classified people need jobs to maintain the economic growth of this area.
University employees, school teachers and public employees are being hit with cuts in PEIA, the Public Employees Insurance Agency. Employees will pay more for less coverage, taking money out of the local economy, and potentially causing valuable employees and teachers to leave West Virginia.
The same is true of "right-to-work" laws, which serve to lower wages for corporate profit or executive pay. Skilled workers in the state need to be able to maintain a high standard of living for everyone's sake.
Charter schools seem to be unworkable in a (mostly) non-urban state like West Virginia. More importantly, they remove union protections from teachers, and divert public money to private corporations at the expense of teachers and students. One of our local Republicans proposed charter schools for West Virginia in the last legislative session.
It's no secret that the coal industry in this area is not doing well. We must make sure, however, that miners and retirees don't lose hard-fought for health and pension benefits. Companies declaring bankruptcy should not be able to divest themselves of these costs while paying out million-dollar bonuses to CEOs for cutting labor costs. I have to wonder if these people have any conscience at all. Last year, some safety regulations in the mines were repealed or relaxed in a bill introduced by one of our local Republican legislators. These former standards need to be reinstated to make sure our miners are as safe as they can possibly be. Cost should not be a factor when lives are at stake.
Global climate change is real and affects West Virginia. We must work with the United States Environmental Protection Agency to maintain our health and the health of our mountains and forests. Our university can work on creating jobs to make coal burning cleaner and find alternative energy sources.
I know social issues will be part of this campaign. Sectarian prayer in schools has been outlawed since the 1960s, abortion has been legal since 1973, and same-gender marriage is now legal in all states. Attempts to overturn these laws are futile and a waste of time and money. We all must recognize that there are many different religious beliefs, even in West Virginia, and especially in Morgantown. One of our Republican delegates proposed a resolution to ask for a United States Constitutional Convention to ban any recognition of same-gender relationships. Another Republican delegate supported this resolution. I can only describe this as mean-spirited, exclusionary and colossally useless.
I propose raising money for the state in several ways. First, we should restore the tax money that has been cut from corporate taxes in the last few years. That was supposed to make the state more competitive; instead it has meant that the state cannot cover basic services. We should raise the gasoline tax to cover desperately-needed road repairs. And Mon County needs to demand a fair share of gas tax money. People in other parts of the state have told me that the roads here are worse than in their counties.
In many places there are fees on developers. Homes can't be built until the developer widens and repairs the road where the new development will be. We see development all over Mon County where roads are not upgraded. Could we not implement a plan to make new developments contingent on better roads?
Our economy will grow if we can make sure that the people who work here are making a decent wage, if good jobs are available at our West Virginia University, if teachers have competitive pay and benefits, and if Social Security, Medicare, and the new Medicaid expansion are protected.
I ask for your vote to help me make West Virginia a vibrant economic engine for all our people.
Barry Lee Wendell
November 12, 2015
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Brooke County, West Virginia
This is my forty-first county, corresponding to our forty-first month in Morgantown. The weather was predicted to be unseasonably warm and sunny this week, and since it is already a new month, I thought to take advantage. My friend Dee, who will be my campaign treasurer, offered to go with me. She loves to be out in nature, I prefer being in cities. I like to have my picture taken; she wouldn't let me put her in a picture. She is tech-savvy, detail-oriented, smart-mouthed and funny. I love her. She is a good bit younger than I, but has, in addition to a husband, a grown-up daughter and two grandchildren.
Brooke County is in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia, the part between the Ohio River and Pennsylvania, which was only in Virginia before the Civil War because of the way Mason and Dixon drew the borders. Brooke County occupies a ten mile stretch betwen Ohio and Pennsylvania. There are 24,000 or so people in the county; the population peaked in 1980, and like much of West Virginia, has declined over the last thirty-five years. We saw wharves no longer in use, and vacant sites where there may have once been steel mills.
Follansbee, part of Weirton, and the county seat, Wellsburg, are along the Ohio River. Bethany, the home of Bethany College, is a few miles inland. We arrived there on back roads from I-79 and I-70 out of Washington, Pennsylvania, in the first county in Pennsylvania south of Pittsburgh.
Bethany College was founded in 1840 and chartered by the State of Virginia. What I know about it is that Alex, a former intern at the WVU-affiliated gym I used to go to, attended there as an undergraduate. He told me they were taught to respect all people, including gays and lesbians. I didn't expect that from a Christian-affiliated college. I first heard of Bethany when a cousin told me his daughter was attending a summer science camp there, and was it close to us? It's about seventy miles.
There is not much "town" in Bethany. The college, which has a beautiful campus, is most of what there is in town.
We looked around for an hour or so, then headed down the road to Wellsburg, on the Ohio River. We saw one smokestack in use, and as we approached town, we noticed a pervasive pungent odor. I attended a meeting in Morgantown about air pollution in West Virginia a few weeks ago, and learned that the Northern Panhandle is the worst place in the state for air quality.
We were ready for lunch, and Dee, who teaches tech at OLLI (where I teach rock and roll history) found us a restaurant on Yelp on her IPhone. We ate at The Crooked Dock, in an industrial area on the river. I had a grilled chicken sandwich (no cheese or mayo) with french fries for ten. I gave Dee half of my fries and still didn't finish them. Dee had a fried cod sandwich ("Fresh from the river," said the waitress, "just not this river") with cole slaw. It was good, if simple, and Dee joked with a table of older women (my age) who were out for lunch together.
There are twenty-three places on the National Register in Brooke County. Some are on the campus of Bethany College, some in town in Wellsburg where there is a street on the ridge above the river lined with the homes of the wealthy from the old days. Those homes looke well-maintained. Some of the more inland historic homes were abandoned, as was much of the town. We breezed through Follansbee, a working class suburb from the 1920s and 30s, more prosperous than Wellburg, full of pizza places and bars with Italian names, like many places around Pittsburgh. We didn't get to the part of Weirton in Brooke County. Most of that city is in the next county north.
Dee noticed details, like a 19th century door hinge, or a stone foundation that was black from the soot of the factories that belched smoke through most of the last century. I notice how a place or a neighborhood is part of a city's pattern.
I looked up the weather before we left. On average, Wellsburg is one degree cooler at night, and two degrees cooler midday than Morgantown at this time of year. Still, the leaves there seemed to be more green than those in Morgantown. It was 74 in Wellsburg, warmer in Morgantown.
By 3 P.M., it was time to go back, We had seen most of the historic spots, even if I didn't get pictures of all of them. There is a major county park which I forgot about. We took a few minutes for ice cream and something to drink at Dairy Queen in Wellsburg, then headed back. It was 5:30 and just getting dark when I dropped Dee back at her car just off I-79 on the way back home.
Brooke County is in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia, the part between the Ohio River and Pennsylvania, which was only in Virginia before the Civil War because of the way Mason and Dixon drew the borders. Brooke County occupies a ten mile stretch betwen Ohio and Pennsylvania. There are 24,000 or so people in the county; the population peaked in 1980, and like much of West Virginia, has declined over the last thirty-five years. We saw wharves no longer in use, and vacant sites where there may have once been steel mills.
Follansbee, part of Weirton, and the county seat, Wellsburg, are along the Ohio River. Bethany, the home of Bethany College, is a few miles inland. We arrived there on back roads from I-79 and I-70 out of Washington, Pennsylvania, in the first county in Pennsylvania south of Pittsburgh.
Bethany College was founded in 1840 and chartered by the State of Virginia. What I know about it is that Alex, a former intern at the WVU-affiliated gym I used to go to, attended there as an undergraduate. He told me they were taught to respect all people, including gays and lesbians. I didn't expect that from a Christian-affiliated college. I first heard of Bethany when a cousin told me his daughter was attending a summer science camp there, and was it close to us? It's about seventy miles.
There is not much "town" in Bethany. The college, which has a beautiful campus, is most of what there is in town.
We looked around for an hour or so, then headed down the road to Wellsburg, on the Ohio River. We saw one smokestack in use, and as we approached town, we noticed a pervasive pungent odor. I attended a meeting in Morgantown about air pollution in West Virginia a few weeks ago, and learned that the Northern Panhandle is the worst place in the state for air quality.
We were ready for lunch, and Dee, who teaches tech at OLLI (where I teach rock and roll history) found us a restaurant on Yelp on her IPhone. We ate at The Crooked Dock, in an industrial area on the river. I had a grilled chicken sandwich (no cheese or mayo) with french fries for ten. I gave Dee half of my fries and still didn't finish them. Dee had a fried cod sandwich ("Fresh from the river," said the waitress, "just not this river") with cole slaw. It was good, if simple, and Dee joked with a table of older women (my age) who were out for lunch together.
There are twenty-three places on the National Register in Brooke County. Some are on the campus of Bethany College, some in town in Wellsburg where there is a street on the ridge above the river lined with the homes of the wealthy from the old days. Those homes looke well-maintained. Some of the more inland historic homes were abandoned, as was much of the town. We breezed through Follansbee, a working class suburb from the 1920s and 30s, more prosperous than Wellburg, full of pizza places and bars with Italian names, like many places around Pittsburgh. We didn't get to the part of Weirton in Brooke County. Most of that city is in the next county north.
Dee noticed details, like a 19th century door hinge, or a stone foundation that was black from the soot of the factories that belched smoke through most of the last century. I notice how a place or a neighborhood is part of a city's pattern.
I looked up the weather before we left. On average, Wellsburg is one degree cooler at night, and two degrees cooler midday than Morgantown at this time of year. Still, the leaves there seemed to be more green than those in Morgantown. It was 74 in Wellsburg, warmer in Morgantown.
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| Alexander Campbell Mansion, Home of the Founder of Bethany College, just east of Bethany |
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| Delta Tau Delta House, Bethany |
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| Old Main, Bethany College, a National Historic Landmark |
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| the cloister at Old Main, Bethany College |
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| On Pendelton Street, Bethany |
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| Main Street, Bethany |
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| Nicholls House, just south of Wellsburg |
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| Brooke County Courthouse, Wellsburg |
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| Wellsburg Historic District |
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| an overgrown, probably abandoned home, downtown Wellsburg |
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| Mansion on Pleasant Avenue, Wellsburg |
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| Mansion on Pleasant Avenue, Wellsburg |
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| Kirker House, Grand Avenue, Wellsburg |
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| Vancroft, near Wellsburg, not sure how this is used now. |
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| Brooke Cemetery on Pleasant Avenue, looking across the Ohio River, Wellsburg |
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| Reeves House, apparently abandoned, near Wellsburg |
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| Inn at Fowlerstown, restored but not in use, Fowlerstown |
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| Danforth House, probably abandoned, east of Wellsville |
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