Month: May 2008

Fish Fry

Dear Neighbors,

I write to remind you that the Youth Services Committee of the Bates Area Civic Association, Inc. is sponsoring another Fish Fry tomorrow afternoon, from 11:00 a.m. until they are sold out of food.. The location of this event is the Ebenezer Baptist Church, 46 Q Street, N.W., Washington, DC. All proceeds from this and other YSC activities will be applied to the implementation of youth programming in the community this summer. If you get a chance and would like a delicious meal, I urge you to give these guys a try. The a reasonable facsimile of the flyer that has been circulated around the community is pasted below. Hope to see you there!

Best,

Jim Berry
Bates Area Civic Association, Inc.

The Youth Services Committee of the Bates Area Civic Association, Inc.

-Is Having A – FISH FRY

Date: Friday, May 9, 2008
11:00 a.m. until Sold Out
AT: Ebenezer Baptist Church
46 Q Street, NW
Washington , DC 20001
Phone Orders to:
(202) 265-5344 OR (202) 679-3422

Select Dinner Entree
Golden Fried Fish Filets
Whiting $7.00 __
Trout $7.00__
(COMES WITH 2 SIDES))(WHITE BREAD)
Potato Salad; String Beans
___Trout or Whiting Fish ___ $5.00
!!!TAKE OUT – OR- STAY FOR LUNCH!!!
!!!Some Deliveries for Advanced Orders!!!

The opposite of Gentrification?


Abandoned houses
Originally uploaded by In Shaw

Once a year I travel back to ye olde homestead in Florida to see the folks (Mom, Dad, Sis, Bro-n-Law, kids, and other assorted family members). It is also a chance to see the old neighborhood, as Mom lives in the same house we kids grew up in. And this neighborhood is a poor/working class neighborhood with a smattering of lower-middle class households.
So these annual visits I do notice little changes. Such as there was this horrid almost 35-40 degree dip in the center of the road a few blocks up that had been that way for decades and getting worse, got repaved. So I notice where there is new construction or renewal, in my mom’s area of town, none. She told me even her pastor (church is about a mile away) made mention that there isn’t going to be any investment in that area, and in fact there is disinvestment. People are just leaving the houses to rot and fall in under the weight of Nature reclaiming the space.
Now compare that with my own neighborhood in Shaw, I see what’s happening back in Florida as the anti-gentrification model. No investment, no rebuilding, rows and streets of houses completely abandoned, empty, slowly demolished by the elements. People do keep up their yards by mowing them, if there is grass growing, but that’s it. Houses sag, there are rusty tin roofs on others. It isn’t all bad, but there is a lot of bad to notice.
I don’t know about crime, I just know I grew up with a rooming house of ill-repute diagonally across the street we called Pete’s house. And now, in addition to Pete’s house, Mom says, the house next door had dope dealing, prostitution and regular police visits, once the matriarch died. People who have other options to live somewhere else, do. The older folks stay, but the younger ones with means move out. About a 20 minute drive away, kinda out. Like what my half sister, some of my childhood friends, and cousins did. Come to think of it, they left town altogether.

Insulted

This weekend I was feeling pretty good. For the second week I appeared in a Post publication. And though my name didn’t appear as I normally have it( with the first initial), was pleased to see the NCPC borders holding.
But then, later that day, a man knocked on my door. I answered and what he said to me, left me hurt and insulted.

Man: Hello Miss, I do yards ’round here and I can get up those weeds you have in your yard.

Me: [with a confused look] Huh?

Man: [pointing to one of several tufts of greenery] Those weeds there.

Me: That’s my peppermint. It’s supposed to be there.

Man: No, those weeds there. I can remove those.

[We both walk over to where he’s pointing]

Man: That there.

Me: [pointing with my foot] That’s peppermint. That’s thyme. They’re not weeds!

He called my yard weedy.

Great Jimmeny Christmas, if a yard doesn’t fit the American norm, it has to be attacked? Is fescue the only allowable thing? Water sucking grass? I have an edible front yard where the peppermint, the spearmint, the Greek oregano, and several varieties to thyme run free. And when I gaze upon it’s green lushness, I am glad. I was going to cut back on the peppermint, but a neighbor mentioned how she liked the smell of the peppermint in the morning.
Weeds? Bah. Yeah, I know some of those yard work jobs are half work, half charity (depending on the worker). But if you can’t tell a weed from herb then I don’t want you no where near my yard.

I went to community college

Just a quick mention, in relation to something I thought about while responding to a comment. I wonder why there isn’t a stronger push for community colleges in the DC metro area?
A little info on me. I have about 12 or 20 (I have to look) credit hours from my hometown community college. At least 4 credit hours I took while still in high school. The county school system had this great program where we could get a head start with college by taking courses at the CC (comm. coll.) free of charge. Since a huge bunch of us were going to go to Univ of Florida, FSU, FAMU, or another state university it was a great way to knock out some required courses for free. Later, I went to CC during the summers so I could get Cs in classes I was going to do badly in anyway, so why not get a C for about $29 a credit hour, vs a D (these were weed out classes) at $45 a credit hour?
My mom got her Certified Nurse’s Assistant (CNA) certificate from the CC, and that is what she’s doing now in her semi-retirement. My sister is a CC drop-out, but she was aiming for something in the veterinary field. So I’ve experienced and seen how CCs are useful in a community in helping people get jobs by giving them specific training. When I hear about job training around here, it (and please forgive my ignorance) doesn’t sound like more than advice on doing a job interview and introduction to a computer. And this goes back to another problem I mentioned before of the community trying or asked to support programs it has no direct dealings with, difficulty judging the efficacy of those programs. Basic skills have value, but I wonder how far it gets you in an environment where more workers have that skill set, plus this, that, and something else.

When quaintness attacks!: Washington Globes

I say get a ladder and a can of spray paint if you haven’t been able to sleep because of the quaint globe street lights that add that historic feel, but pollute the night sky and creeps around your blinds keeping you awake. In today’s Post there is an article about “Washington globe” lights and how they impact the quality of life of residents who can’t sleep or see less of the night sky because of these street light fixtures.
I tagged this under historic districts because along with brick walks these quaint looking lights follow. And sometimes they don’t have to be in historic districts but they are there for the aesthetics. The high powered light bulb isn’t historically accurate but there for street safety and though making the street safer by shining a penetrating light, that same light penetrates parts where it is unwelcomed.
When I bike into and back out of Georgetown, I pass by one of these so fashioned globe street lights and have noticed the house side of it blackened with what could be spray paint. In the day, it looks sort of vandalized and ratty, but I gather it does the job to abate the nighttime annoyance. The other side of the street is protected by thick leafy trees, so they don’t have this problem.

Make the ghetto go away, and work together

Of course, we all recognize that if we are ultimately to improve psychological and physical conditions for minorities there must be total elimination of ghettoes and the establishment of a truly integrated society. In the meantime, however, all those working for economic and social justice are forced to address themselves to interim programs which, while not totally changing the situation, will nevertheless bring about improvement in the lives of those forced to live in ghettoes. And so, whiel [sic] many of those steps may lead to limited integration, those which do not must clearly be seen as interim steps until the objective situation makes a more fundamental approach.

and later

… Labor, Housing and the Office of Economic Opportunity, ought to work with the people of Shaw in developing, coordinating and concentrating their various programs upon social and economic problems of this area.

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking at a March 13, 1967 rally for Shaw