The year 2004 was an important election year, not only at the Presidential level, but statewide in Missouri. Diane and I were contributing heavily to Democrats at all levels of government, nationally, in Missouri and across the country through political organizations like Emily’s List, the Victory Fund, and various PACs. John Kerry was challenging George W. Bush who was running for his second term as President. In 2000, Democrats won all but one of the Missouri state offices. Nancy Farmer had won the office of State Treasurer, but in 2004, she decided to run for the US Senate against Kit Bond. Clare McCaskill had won the election as State Auditor with ease in 2002, and decided to run for Governor in a year in which her state office was protected. Jean Carnahan was defeated when she ran under her own name for Senate in 2002. This election, her daughter Robin Carnahan was running for Missouri Secretary of State and her son Russ Carnahan was seeking election to the US Congress, hoping to bring the Carnahan brand back to Missouri politics.
In February, Diane and I had our first
big Democratic fundraiser in our house, which was well designed for the
function. Even in the cold of winter
with snow on the ground, we had a big crowd for the food and drinks we made
available. Diane prepared a lavish
layout including smoked salmon, dips for vegetables, toasted baguette slices,
fresh fruit and a variety of drinks and good wine. As a result of our event, attendees donated a
lot of money to Nancy Farmer’s Senate campaign.
Farmer addressing the
audience in our house
In March 2004, we flew to Newark and then drove
to Pennsylvania so that we could attend the wedding of Diane’s nephew Joe to his
bride Angie and visit the rest of Diane’s family. A drive south took us to Jersey City where we
toured my nephew Craig and his wife Mary Ann’s condo. Before flying home, we stopped in Princeton to
see my sister, Earlene and her husband, Vince.
Angie and Joe Belanger, Jr.
Diane, Mary Ann, Craig and me on the
riverwalk
Later in March, Diane and I visited the
annual Orchid Show at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. We were accompanied by Karen Carlson and
Betty Bilgere, who had been the Executive Directors of Planned Parenthood in
Kansas City and St. Louis respectively.
Bilgere brought an interesting history to her work with Planned
Parenthood. Born in 1922, she was the director
of Miss Hickey’s School for Secretaries in St. Louis during the 1950s and 1960s
and then found her calling. She
dramatically changed direction, going on to serve as the Executive Director of
Planned Parenthood of St. Louis for 19 years.
Betty and Karen at the Orchid Show
We saw Earlene and Vince again in May while
attending my nephew Jon’s graduation from law school in San Diego. We stayed in La Jolla to enjoy the seacoast
and fresh seafood. The summer months saw
a gathering at the home of one of our Fulton, MO friends, Mary B, who had been
a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood. She
titled the event “Women of Substance,” and she continued to host them until she
moved to Columbia in 2006.
The graduate, my nephew Jon
Now I was ready for more relaxing
travel that focused on nature. Through
my membership in the National Wildlife Federation, in July we joined a Canadian
company’s tour in Newfoundland, flying to Newark and then on to St. John. The main attraction was a bird colony at Cape
St. Mary's Ecological Reserve. It is
home to one of North America's largest seabird colonies where we saw northern
gannets, black-legged kittiwakes, and common murres, among others. It was breeding season and there were many
baby birds being fed by their parents.
Northern Gannets at Bird Rock, Cape
St. Mary's Ecological Reserve, Newfoundland
One morning while taking in the views
of the harbor, Diane and I strolled down the main street of St. John. On our way back to our lodging, we started
smelling something wonderful. Even though the small restaurant was closed, we
banged on the door until the chef opened it, answering our query about the
aroma by explaining he was braising baby octopi that had been flown in from the
Mediterranean. We immediately made
reservations for dinner that night and Mmmm! It was delish.
On our drive around the Newfoundland
peninsula, we learned about the early settlement of the island and its role in
WWII. We visited the Cape Spear
Lighthouse and stopped at a local restaurant to enjoy fresh-caught cod. We viewed whales, eagles, vegetation in
inland marshes and icebergs floating down from Greenland. On our return home, our airplane sat and sat
on the tarmac at the Newark airport, with everyone getting hungry and needing
the overly-used bathrooms, before finally taking off. On that plane we met Phil, a neighbor on our
street Holly Hills Court, with whom we now had one more thing in common. It is these coincidences that make life so
interesting.
Iceberg outside St. John’s Harbor
My work with Pfizer was not as
satisfying as before. The “big boys”
were moving in. Meetings about changes
in software or procedures were dominated in a manner I had experienced years
ago, with ideas I presented being soundly criticized, particularly from the
British male visitors, and then offered later as a good idea by one of them. I became determined to follow up the
publication of my bend point paper with another, since they liked to look down
on my ideas.
Now I was only consulting with one Monsanto
Ag scientist who worked on cotton. More
of my smaller clients were being absorbed by larger companies. I did start a new contract with another Columbia
contract lab. It was routine work, but I
thought it was important to keep that source of income active. I only had one more year before I qualified
for Medicare.
Diane was volunteering in the
Democratic campaign office downtown. One
of the other workers, Emma Jean, suggested she and Diane join a group
practicing Tai Chi across the street in a little pocket park. It didn’t take long before Diane and I were
members of the Tai Chi group four days a week.
During the summer, the political campaigns
were heating up. Vicky Hartzler drew
national and international attention for her work in the campaign for a
constitutional amendment in Missouri to ban gay marriage. The amendment was the first of its kind. In August 2004, 71% of Missouri voters
ratified Amendment 2, which restricted the validity and recognition of marriage
in Missouri to the "union of one man and one woman."
There was a big fund-raising event held at
a St. Louis hotel that offered Diane and I a closeup encounter with John Kerry,
so we paid the big bucks to attend. As Kerry
stood on a platform addressing the crowd, he continually surveyed the
assembly. It was hot, and, all of a
sudden, he said, “I see someone down on the floor out there and needing
help.” Immediately the paramedics were
on the scene to help the person who had fainted. Kerry had certainly been in command of the
situation. As the event continued, Diane
and I joined the rope-line so that we could shake his hand.
At the Missouri Theatre later that summer,
we saw the movie about his military service in Vietnam. He probably made his military service too
much a part of his campaign, because it was soon attacked by Bush surrogate
groups as untruthful, even to the point of saying he didn’t deserve to be
awarded the Purple Heart for being wounded.
Kerry had another big event in Jefferson City with speeches not only by
him but all the Missouri Democrats.
John Kerry with a next generation voter
Diane’s brother-in-law, Joe, had
worked as office manager for a company that changed hands, and he was let
go. He liked what he saw on his visits
to Missouri and asked if he could come stay with us and look for a job in
Columbia. We agreed, he flew out and
lived in our guest bedroom while applying for jobs. The plan was for his wife, Diane’s sister,
and their younger daughter to eventually join him in Columbia. In the fall, I bought a two-bedroom condo in
the Country Club Estates that they could live in at a discounted rent. It needed a lot of work, like painting and
flooring, but Joe was able to do much of it and work with the contractors when
needed. He was finally able to get a job
as a school-bus driver.
Condo
on Doral Dr.
A campaign was in full swing to raise
money for the renovation of the Missouri Theatre owned by the Missouri Symphony
Society founded by Hugo and Lucy Vianello.
In addition to contributing to that project, we became members of the
Symphony Society. We were enjoying the
movies at Ragtag, the plays put on by Stephens College students and by the
Columbia Entertainment Company community actors. After experiencing the lake’s lack of
cultural opportunities and previously having taken Columbia’s for granted,
Diane and I were determined to not miss the many possibilities in
Columbia. For the first time, adult
learning classes were offered by the Missouri University Extension at the old
alumni center, and we enrolled in two, one on the Geography of the Middle East taught
by Larry Brown and the other on the Politics of India taught by Paul Wallace.
In the fall, we made another trip to
Colorado to visit Karen and Joe. The
first day we visited the Denver Botanical Garden that was having a special
exhibit of stone art sculptures made by African artists from Zimbabwe. The next day instead of driving all the way
downtown, we stopped at a light rail station near their home in Lakewood for a train
ride to Union Station in the lower downtown district. It had taken almost 10 years for a rail line
to reach the city of Lakewood in the western part of Denver, but the system of rapid
transit service was continuing to expand.
On the way back, the train became very crowded with many passengers
headed to the football stadium where the Broncos were playing.
Denver Botanical Garden exhibit
A Denver light rail station
In November, we flew to Boston for the
wedding of our friends Carole Sue and Ron’s daughter, Alexandra.
It took place in the Harvard chapel followed by a dinner and dance. We went on a tour of the Harvard campus and
walked the Freedom Trail to see many historic sites, including the USS
Constitution, the Old State House and Faneuil Hall. From Boston, it was a short trip to Concord,
MA to see the horse farm my niece, Joyce, and her husband owned. They boarded horses, but she mainly trained
Hunter and Jumper horses to perform in horse shows. The property contained a historic old barn with
two levels of stalls and a separate enclosed building for use in training and
exercising the horses in inclement weather.
There was also a new house for Joyce, her husband and their two small
boys. I enjoyed talking with her about
what it was like to own your own business.
The trip ended with a drive back to the Boston airport and a flight
home.
Memorial Hall honoring Harvard students who
died in the Civil War.
Faneuil Hall where citizens protested the
Sugar Act in 1764 and established the doctrine “no taxation without
representation.” I peacefully look on
wearing my blue coat.
USS Constitution
Jeanne’s niece Joyce with her sons, Jack
and Pierce
In the November election, Bush won a
second term and Nancy Farmer was not going to the Senate. Instead, it was the beginning of Kit Bond’s
Senate career. Missouri Republicans won
three of the five state executive branch races.
Clare McCaskill narrowly lost her bid to be the Governor of Missouri,
but the two Carnahan’s, Robin and Russ, won their offices.
Then it was time to prepare for our
upcoming trip with Olivia to Antarctica.
There was a long list of clothing required from a balaclava to silk
underwear and waterproof pull-on boots.
The trip started in Buenos Aires which we dearly loved with its good
Italian food, a result of its being an early destination of many Italians. The city tour was fun. We saw the city cemetery with Evita’s tomb
and the bowls of milk for the many cats.
An anonymous woman whose husband was buried there funded their care and
feeding. On our visit to the Plaza de
Mayo and surrounding governmental buildings we saw the balconies from which
both Evita and Juan Perón, her husband, spoke to
the people. There were demonstrations
going on in the Plaza and homeless people visible in several areas of the city.
Evita’s tomb
Presidential
Palace with balconies from which Evita
and Juan Perón spoke to adoring crowds.
Next, we flew to Ushuaia to board our ship,
the Orion, and start our cruise to Antarctica on the body of water known as the
Drake Passage, named for the English seaman, Sir Francis Drake. It is renowned for its rough seas, but on
this day, it could have been named Lake Drake, the waters were so calm.
In 1916, the British explorer Ernest
Shackleton and his crew sought refuge on Elephant Island following the loss of
their ship Endurance in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea. We stopped there successfully making our
first transfer from the cruise ship to a zodiac wearing our waterproof boots. We were glad to have them as it was a “wet”
landing. The shore was too rocky for the
zodiac to be able to pull completely up on land. With help from the crew, we stepped from the
zodiac onto a wooden box and then stepped into shallow water and walked between
rocks to the level ground onshore. We
enjoyed watching the local seals and sea lions.
Before our ship headed to our voyage along the Antarctic Peninsula, it made
a brief stop so that the Olivia women could step foot on the actual continent
of Antarctica.
Landing
platform held in place by ropes with a zodiac being unloaded by the husky crew
members. The seas were not always this
calm.
Elephant Island
There were stops at a couple of nearby
islands but the main interest was seeing the colonies of penguins. Instead of assigning a number to each group
of women during shore visits, the groups were named for the varieties of
penguins we would see, like the chinstrap, macaroni, gentoo, and Adélie. As we
sailed south, the ice flow increased. Ours
was the first ship this season to go as far as the British research station
where we all bought many postcards, stamps and paraphernalia.
Rocky Landing with Orion in background
Me and thousands of penguins on the
hillsides
Chinstrap and Adelie Penguins
Nesting Gentoos
Orion behind iceberg
Zodiacs by ice flow
Calving glacier
At lunch time back on the ship, Diane and I
noticed a woman suddenly having some kind of seizure. The ship’s doctor was called, although there
was always an Olivia woman with a medical background on board. Soon, there was an announcement that there
was a medical emergency and that we would be proceeding with haste back toward
the Italian research station where the woman could be airlifted to the
mainland. In exchange for arranging the
transportation of the sick woman and her partner to Santiago, the ship’s
captain agreed to take the visiting Bulgarian propaganda minister to his next
location.
Every evening we were entertained by Lisa
Koch, a creative and talented Olivia singer.
She made up lyrics that described the day’s activities and set them to
music. The evening entertainment when
the Bulgarian entourage came on board was quite different. Of course, they had no idea they would be
boarding a shipload of lesbians, so some of our women plotted to get the
minister very drunk, which turned out to be very easy. He then acted as though he was in heaven,
surrounded by women with whom to dance and impress. Meanwhile others of us supplied the women in
his group with Olivia information. What
a night for us and no doubt for him.
Chilean Station
Bulgarian Ambassador and entourage
Lisa Koch entertaining
On the way back to Ushuaia, the Drake
Passage lived up to its reputation, with very heavy seas and waves that were many
feet high. We were awakened in the night
by the bathroom and closet doors banging.
Luckily, neither Diane nor I ever got seasick. In the morning, we got dressed, opened the
door and saw the railings on either side of the hallway populated with barf
bags. As we entered the dining area,
there were overhead ropes to hang onto as you slowly walked to your table. We had no problem eating a full
breakfast. The waiters were
well-accustomed to the rough seas and poured our coffee with ease.
Barf bags on ship’s railing during return to Ushuaia on Drake Passage
Port in Ushuaia
After we returned to Columbia in early 2005,
Diane and I entertained our friends by demonstrating how we put on the layers
of clothing for our visits to the penguin colonies, starting with the silk
underwear and ending with the difficulty of bending over to pull on our boots
after already being dressed in our heavy clothing and bulky red jackets topped
with a lifejacket. After the
demonstration, Diane and I sang the songs with Lisa Koch’s made-up lyrics
describing each day’s activities. We
explained that the weather turned out to be so nice that the warm clothing often
felt unnecessary, and once onshore, the coats were sometimes opened. However, the ship’s crew told us that the
weather in the Antarctic Peninsula could turn on a dime, and when passengers
were off the ship, they were required to be dressed to survive that change
until they could be brought back to the ship.
Despite the medical emergency, this was one of the best trips we had
taken.