website: youtu.be/ilFfbWvYa7w

I haven’t even researched this. I’ll see what songs fit and just make stuff up

When: Monday nite 9/13, 7:30pm EDT.
(“doors” open at 7 for community hang) -

Where: https://youtu.be/ilFfbWvYa7w

Who gets 10%: https://www.sitterswithoutborders.com - Sitters Without Borders, Inc. (SWOB) offers free and low-cost evening babysitting services to low-income parents attending college in the Greater Boston area. Our volunteer sitters are committed to helping parents pursue higher education and elevate their economic position. It’s back to school time, so...

$$: http://paypal.me/vancevancevance or
https://venmo.com/vancevancevance or
a check to VanceFunder P.O. Box 17,
Arlington, MA 02476 for this web-groovery.
Pay or not. Up to you. Let’s stay connected.

This week’s pajamas = last week’s sump pump operating clothes

I teach and coach stuff.

Good Good Man - the CD - streaming all over, even get one from me

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9/11 ANNIVERSARIES

20 years ago Islamic militant terrorists hijacked commercial U.S. airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and to death into a field in Pennsylvania. Three-thousand people perished. The world was forever changed.

10 years ago, around this same calendar date, a small commercial airliner taxied back from the take-off apron at Logan airport because a passenger was petrified. This passenger saw a Black man jam his fanny pack at his feet beneath the seat in front of him. This passenger then saw this man open a book of aircraft and begin reading. Said passenger alerted the flight attendant to what she witnessed, the flight attendant asked a dead-headed pilot in the front what to do, and the plane returned to gate with “an onboard issue".

Upon arriving at the gate the surprised man in question was taken off of the plane by gate personnel, airport security, and the State Police, questioned at length, then asked to go back onto the plane (!) to retrieve the book he was reading. Upon review the book, the state policeman determined it was "harmless Snoopy/Red Baron stuff" and allowed this man back onto the plane for an hour late departure.

Passengers whispered. The man wept, relieved that his safety was finally less at issue.
The man was ignored by passengers. The man was ignored by the flight crew upon landing.
The man wrote an open letter documenting his experience to his local ACLU representative, local newspapers, social media, and, to the airline's chagrin, to his very, very large aviation community.

People wrote letters of support. Others took to social media calling the man racist, a player of the “race card”. The Boston Globe wrote that the 10 year anniversary was tough times and that the man and others should be happy that others were so watchful as the man "could easily pass for an Islamic terrorist”.
Yes, they said “pass for”.

But the man knew. The man knew, if but for a moment, what a woman might know when reprimanded and accused of dressing inappropriately or allegedly being where they shouldn’t, after the woman has been accosted. Women know. The man, if ever so briefly, knew why this happened to him. There’s no absolute proof to others that it was long institutionalized preconditionings on color or sex. But the individuals know.
You'd have to be there.

The man’s aviation community knew. Two ex-airline pilots nodded and said they believed it happened, because the small offshoot airlines are severely ill-trained and underpaid, attracting the least people-savvy employees. Model airplane folks, many quite conservative by nature, offered written support, money, model kits(!), condolence, and one offered his services as counsel, pro bono. This airline coughed up all the man asked - $500 to cover 1/2 of his music workshop in Allentown, the cost of the rental car, an apology, and assurance that this flight crew be spoken to.

That man’s community, a community of all stripes, colors, politics, believed *him.* They trusted their brethren’s truth in experience and supported their own. And ten years later, in the specter of racism, sexism, and disease, the man endeavors to do some good in the world, pay something forward, with his head held up high because he flies toy airplanes with old white men and plays guitar.

Sings too.