Calendar Guys

Update October 14: no pictures today, traveling all day and no connectivity for long, but there is GOOD NEWS. Police backed down in all cities where a crackdown had been rumored, including NYC.  So far as I know, everyone who is involved in the Occupy movements is fine tonight. More to come tomorrow.

The man on the left is my friend Devorah's father, Michael Brenner, born in the Ukraine in 1899. He came to the USA when he was 21 after his parents were killed in a pogrom. He was a worker in the garment industry and a member of the I.L.G.W.U. He was a peach of a father: loving, affectionate, thoughtful, deeply intellectual and solidly working-class, a progressive political activist all his life. The man on the right is William Nimmons, born in South Carolina in 1898. In the bio next to the photograph he says, "I've been a waiter all my life on dining cars, ships, hotels and restaurants." He had one marriage that didn't last, a son who died at 26 of cancer, and two grandchildren who died before his son died. Two hard-working men, many losses. But in both portraits made by Ted Croner I see an elegance, an eloquent shining-ness of heart.

These are the Pride Living History Calendars of 1990 and 1991, part of an income-generating scheme for the PRIDE Long Term Home Health Care Institute at St. Vincent's Hospital in NYC. D. tells me that income from the calendars helped Project PRIDE to keep her parents in their home two years longer than would otherwise have been possible.

Devorah has three of these calendars, and as I paged through them, I thought what a beautiful idea for just about any Blipper: make a calendar with portraits and bios of any group of people, as a way to raise money for what you love and believe in. Clearly Calendar Girls was a great success, but the inspiration for it came a decade after these Pride calendars.

I'm still watching the Occupy movements all over the USA. Tomorrow there is a possible clamp-down on them, and I'll be in a train on my way back to D.C. when the threatened police action comes. It seems likely the news will be hushed up by the international media, but I'll do my best to Blip tomorrow night and report on what's happening.