Looking back I am somewhat astonished that I conceived, planned and executed a city-wide forum for the study of services for recidivists released from prison. Then Governor Blagojevich, had established a task force to look into the matter and Mary and I attended a forum in Chicago on the west side. Observing what was taking place I determined we needed to invite this task force to come to Evanston and conduct a similar forum there. I remember the Mayor at the time being miffed that she wasn't invited by the Governor himself. I asked the Rev. David Handley if we could use 1st Presbyterian to hold the event, he said yes. He knew who I was from Reba Place Church, a committee in the church would examine my request which they later approved.
I sent out Press Releases and invitations to several key elected officials and department heads carbon copying everyone who I was inviting. It was going to be difficult for them to disregard this event knowing who else was invited. I then sent out invitations to several Pastors of various churches who had ever spoken about the need for services for ex-offenders. Mary is the Professional Organizer in the family but I was proving I wasn't to shabby myself. I'd have to say the event was a success. The City gave a local church operated prison ministry $10,000 as a result of the light that was shed on the problem brought out be the conference.
Over the years I have lived in Evanston, ever since I stepped off the El and entered Reba Place Fellowship, straight from Prison's gates, I had been involved as what is now popularly called community activism. I had previously conducted campaigns for Alderman of my ward, for the City Parks and Recreation Board, and for 3 years was a volunteer with COE-POPS. COE-POPS were a predominantly African-American organization that monitored the streets through the summer months in response to considerable activity by gangs.
My favorite venture was to organize a small group of kids to attend a summer school program that I organized teaching English, Geography and Math, using baseball cards as my text. What started out as a small group of kids in my basement of my apartment building, turned into being invited by the Evanston Recreation Department to use their facilities at Robert Crown and then paying me a stipend to do it. We even found a former Major Leaguer and current Ticket Sales executive for the Chicago White Sox to come and speak to the kids and again as our Keynote Speaker at our year end banquet. A Sox fan even bought all the kids tickets to a night game.
There were several other activities over the years that I'll only briefly highlight. Hosting an Irish lass from Derry in the year of 1983, 5 years of AWANA as a leader in AWANA but also recruiting a dozen kids from our church to attend at another church 3 suburbs away. With the cooperation of those kids we held the first ever racial recognition summer program and doubled the size of the group to include a dozen African American kids for three months, in our church.
I've coached 12 year old girls in AYSO Soccer knowing nothing about soccer at the beginning but a great deal by the end of our undefeated season.
None of all this activity however, is what I did for a living. I have a massive amount of experience working for a massive amount of companies over the years to numerous to mention for the purpose of this article. At the time of my heart attack however I was working as a painter.
After my heart attack I would never have the strength or the energy to return to that line of work, or any work that required any significant amount of time. In October of 2005 I would go and live by myself in San Bernardino, California to recuperate at a clinic in Grand Junction, California on a Monday through Friday basis for the next 3 months.
After my return, in the summer of 2006 I was attending an afternoon Bible Study conducted by the Pastor of Reba then and I remember telling him I doubted seriously that I would live another 10 years.
For the most part, my life these past 8 years has been very quiet to say the least compared to before. Facebook came along in 2009 and I took to it like a hog to slop. And while Facebook has filled somewhat of a gap in my social life, there has always been something missing. The dialogue is never a conversation, there isn't much depth to posters and pictures and the landscape is to uncertain. Facebook while on the one hand someone can be actively posting on the other hand its shallow at best of truly being sociable.
So I am going to look for the freedom to be sociable in real time and actively engage myself in real time. I'm not saying I am leaving Facebook permanently, I'll be back in 99 days.
