Most of February

I returned from my trip to Maryland and Virginia on Monday, February 6, to more cold and snow, and lots more meetings and demonstrations. Although I was well over my illness, whatever it was, I was sleeping through the night, with two naps, one after breakfast and one late afternoon. I went back to the new gym I joined just before I get sick, where I am a hot young guy, instead of being the oldest one, by at least twenty years, and more often, forty years, at my old gym. I've gone to two weeks of line dancing classes, much easier than the Israeli dance I attended for twenty-five years in L.A., but for all my scoffing, just about what I can do for an hour, now.

My world was shocked by the February 14 shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida. That particular suburb didn't exist when I left South Florida in 1984, but I recognized from the names that the students were a generation or two later version of the people I knew from my time in Miami: Cubans, Jews, African-Americans, whose parents had become affluent and educated, and moved north and west to a new, "safer" suburb, away from Miami. Maybe because I recognized these kids more than those from other shootings, or because I have cousins who grew up near there and are now still in their twenties, I took this hard. And these kids, smart and media savvy, were able to express their grief and desire for change to the world in way that previous survivors could not. I posted about this on my own social media and spoke at length about the need to ban assault weapons nationally at our February 20 Morgantown City Council meeting. Our Morgantown Interfaith Association held a vigil on the 21st downtown. One candidate for state legislature was there, and I attended from City Council. I've checked Twitter, and besides my relentless tweeting, and retweeting students from Stoneman Douglas, what we got from our politicians was "thoughts and prayers" from our Republican congressman and our Senator, who also thanked "first responders." Not even that much from our Democratic Senator, nor from any of our state Delegates or Senators. Meanwhile, in Charleston, our state capital, Republicans, who have a majority in both houses, are busy passing bills to demand that colleges allow concealed carry of weapons on campus,  and that weapons be allowed in cars at any business. More on these horrible people later.

Interfaith vigil against gun violence Thursday, February 22. This is less than half of the group

The President spoke with some of the students, one of whom saw on his note card the expression "I hear you," meaning it was in his script to say that. At the end of the week, when funerals were held for the first students, the Jewish ones, who by custom have to be buried as soon as possible, the President was on the golf course at Mar-A-Lago. Students and parents spent the week trolling Florida Governor Rick Scott and Senator Marco Rubio, who refused to say he would no longer accept campaign money from the NRA. Conservative pundits on television and in the news have suggested that the students who spoke out were actors, or that the whole thing was the fault of the FBI, who knew about the shooter, or that we need better mental health screening, or raise the age when someone can purchase an assault weapon. Of course, the administration would love to end Medicaid, and has tried to cut off the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid, which provides much of the mental health and drug addiction benefits to the poor.

I remember the shootings at the club in Orlando, the church in Texas, the outdoor concert in Las Vegas (where the shooter was over sixty) and now, in Parkland. What these all have in common is that the shooters had an arsenal of legally-acquired weapons, including AR-15-style weapons. If one is not frightened of the NRA or receiving buckets of campaign cash from them, it is obvious that these weapons have no civilian use and should be banned. I find it hard to believe that America's children should be "collateral damage" so that everyone with a grudge can have an assault weapon. I can't imagine that we have such cowards in both parties running our government.

Meanwhile, our representatives in Charleston proposed a one percent raise for teachers, the first in ten years, while increasing premiums for health insurance and retirement, which would wipe out even that pitiful raise. Additionally, they introduced bills to insist that the teachers' unions get written permission each year to deduct union dues from teachers' salaries, and to end awarding full-time union leaders, all teachers, retirement credit in the system. They voted to lower standards for new teachers, since they can't fill many positions with qualified applicants, and they want home-schooled kids to not need a GED to get a state-sponsored college scholarship. There was a bill this year to mandate an elective course in the Bible, and to allow school districts to write their own science standards. Read into that what you will.

Teachers went to Charleston to protest, and they were effectively locked out by the House Speaker adjourning the session at 11 A.M. until 6 P.M., when visitors would not be allowed. The net result of this is that teachers in all fifty-five counties in this state walked off the job. Thanks to Messrs. Mason and Dixon, and to former President Lincoln, West Virginia is oddly-shaped. Many people in the state could easily commute to teaching jobs in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland or Virginia, where the pay is lots better than in West Virginia. Instead of dealing with these pay and benefit disparities, the Legislature has voted this session, not to pass a budget, which is their main job, but to ban Medicaid from paying for abortions, to create an unnecessary extra level of courts, to allow clergy to not perform weddings they object to (they already can do that) and to give a tax break to out-of-state corporate interests.

The teachers in every county in the state walked off the job Thursday and Friday, forcing the schools to announce in advance that they would be closed, and as of Saturday night, it looks like they won't be back Monday, either. Arrangements were made for social service agencies to provide food for kids and families at lunch, and people were asked to drop off food and supplies at food pantries throughout the state. It's a sad commentary that many kids in West Virginia only get a decent meal at school. It rained last Thursday, the 22nd, in the morning, although this week the weather has been freakishly warm, breaking records Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. With all the rain we've had, there have been flood watches and warnings. I went Thursday afternoon for less than an hour during a break in the rain to stand with teachers from North Elementary, near my house. Parents brought shipments of coffee and donuts from a nearby store while I was there, and a woman introduced me to her developmentally disabled son Anthony, who recognized and hugged his former teachers, held a sign to passing motorists, and screamed with pleasure when a car honked at us. His mother told me that Anthony, at three, could not stand up, and she was told that he would never get much past the mental stage of an infant. She took him to kindergarten at North Elementary, where the teachers worked with him, and although she no longer lives in our county, she wanted to come out to support the teachers at North. While our state votes, or in the last election, voted Republican, people I've spoken to support the teachers.

Teachers picketing near Morgantown's North Elementary, Thursday afternoon, 2/22

We had a marathon five-hour City Council meeting Tuesday, February 21, where we picked six people from the ten we interviewed for our new Health and Wellness Commission. In the regular meeting, later, we passed, 6-1, an ordinance to give a tax break to businesses who spend at least five million dollars on new development or improvements to an existing business downtown or in an area that becomes annexed to the city. I had my doubts, which I expressed to the Mayor and City Manager at a meeting Monday. Joe and I had been out the previous Thursday with our gay social group, only five of us that night, at the south end of downtown We started with drinks at a hotel, then adjourned to an Indian restaurant with a buffet. Lots of people were there for the yummy food, but I couldn't help notice the empty storefronts and surface parking lots at that end of downtown. Despite my misgivings about the bill, because I'm not in favor of tax breaks for big business, generally, I voted for it, in the hope that something will give our downtown a boost. Two people spoke against the bill, one a friend , and one of our Councilors, with good reason, voted against it. I hope that we can now do something for smaller businesses in the area, which was one of the objections, and that, ultimately, new development will provide jobs and an increased tax base for our city. We didn't adjourn until 10:30.

Wednesday dawned with a temperature of 65 F. (average low 24 F. for the date) and it was supposed to get warmer. Joe had office hours and a work-related dinner date, so I decided to go to Pittsburgh for a "big city fix." I picked five historic places and figured on lunch somewhere, a stop at a CD store I know about in the Strip District, just north of downtown, and a bookstore, possibly the one in Squirrel Hill. I thought I might hit a movie if it rained, and stay past dinner. I visited numbers 121 to 125 on Wikipedia's list of historic places, bought three CDs from my list of the best-selling albums of the first decade of this century (by Faith Hill, Lenny Kravitz and No Doubt) and visited a book store on Carson Street in Pittsburgh's South Side Flats. More on that later.

Of course, it started to rain not far into Pennsylvania. It's about 75 miles from our house, at the north end of Morgantown, to Central Pittsburgh, and although it hit 72 early in my stay in the city, the rain came on and off, and by the time I left at 3:30, it had dropped to 47 F. I started downtown at the Pittsburgh Renaissance District, the twentieth century rebuild of the historic center of the city at the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet  to form the Ohio. I got there close to noon and paid $4.00 to park on the street for an hour. I took a few pictures, saw a demonstration by high school students at Market Square, protesting the shootings in Florida, and lunched at a chain restaurant that serves noodle dishes.

Pittsburgh Renaissance Historic District, Wednesday, 2/21

Gateway Center, Pittsburgh, one of the entrances

Flooding along the Monongahela River in Point Park

Students holding a vigil, Market Square, Pittsburgh, 2/21. The glass building is the headquarters of Pittsburgh Plate Glass

From there, I headed north to the CD store (which also has records and comic books) then just east to "Reymer Brothers Candy Company," a 1906 building, now used as offices. The candy company no longer exists.

Reymer Candy Company, 1425 Forbes Avenue, Bluff District

I crossed the Monongahela River from there, to Carson Street, once an old working class neighborhood at the foot of a bluff and subject to flooding, now gentrifying. It looks like Morgantown's High Street if it were three miles long instead of two blocks.
I visited the Pittsburgh Mercantile Company Store, near the east end of Carson Street, built 1906-7, and originally, according to Wikipedia, a "company store" for a steel company. It has lately been converted into apartments. The steel company no longer exists.

2600 East Carson St., South Side Flats, Pittsburgh

Cruising down Carson Street, I saw a banner advertising a book store and decided to drop in. A sign on the door said "Closed Saturday for Sabbath." I was surprised, as this was never a Jewish part of town. The guy who greeted me was as pale and Nordic looking as anyone I'd ever met,  adding to the mystery, but when he called for the owner to answer a question, a young man in a kippa and tzitzit (ritual fringes) came over. We talked a bit, and he told me he had a non-Jewish last name (which I don't recall now) because he was Jewish only because his mother's mother was Jewish. He was a waiter before he opened the bookstore, but he quit because he had to work Friday night, the busiest night at a restaurant. He had only lately decided to become a religious Jew. I told him I was married to the Reform rabbi in Morgantown, a man. He just shrugged that off. I didn't see anything I was desperate for in the store, so I went on to my fourth historic place, Pittsburgh Terminal and Warehouse Company, built between 1904 and 1906 to link rail and barge traffic through the city. It is now used as offices.

333-400 East Carson Street, South Side Flats

I had one last place to visit, Prospect School, above Southside Flats in Mt. Washington. I turned on the GPS on my phone to get to this place, as the streets in that neighborhood wind around a bit. The school was built in 1931 and now has been converted into apartments.

Former school, Mt. Washington

It was close to 3:30, raining and cold. I figured out how to get to the Interstate home, got stuck in traffic leaving Pittsburgh (the downside of the "big city fix," )but made it home just after five, in time to feed the cat, and sleep for an hour before fixing dinner for myself. It was 60 F. and not raining in Morgantown.

It is now Sunday night, still too warm, raining, with flood watches and warnings throughout the state. The teachers will be off again tomorrow, while trying to get some kind of respect from the Governor and Legislature.

Joe and I did our bit Saturday, attending Empty Bowls, a charity event for food pantries and soup kitchens, where you get soup from restaurants, bread, home-made cookies and a bowl to take home. Almost everyone in Morgantown seems to show up at Empty Bowls.

At Empty Bowls, with Danielle Walker, candidate for WV Delegate in our district

Joe and I at home showing off our new bowls

We have a City Council meeting Tuesday, and Wednesday night, the end of the month, is the Jewish holiday of Purim, also, on the Jewish calendar, the fifteenth anniversary of my mother's death. It's a joyous holiday, but not for me. I keep busy for a retired person in a small town.

In my online world, people are angry that national newspapers are still looking to interview Trump supporters in "The Heartland" while ignoring the importance of a state-wide teacher strike in West Virginia, and television news covers C-PAC, which has become, you should pardon me, an Evangelical Klan rally. I've reminded people that "THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED."