There's No Crying in Newsrooms

     Written by two women with lots of experience: Kristin Grady Gilger and Julia Wallace

    Like many other human activities, women have been forced to fight long and hard for acceptance and recognition in the world of journalism. 

My father Swept the Floor

     There is no doubt the job of housekeeping is the most under-appreciated job in the universe.

    One Sunday my father accused my mother of being the worst housekeeper in the world. Besides keeping house, my mother did all the cooking -- home-made biscuits at least once a day. Taking care of two usually uncooperative children. Laundry with an antique wringer-washer. All this in addition to running the fourth-class postoffice which stood in a corner of our front yard.

    My father made quite a show of getting the broom and dustpan. Lectured as he swept the bare floor of the living room and adjacent dining room. "This is how you keep a tidy house."

    He was home from his work -- admittedly hard manual labor -- early on Wednesday. Impatiently waiting for his evening meal, he sank into the chair next to the radio -- this was well before television, Looking across the floor he was astonished to see dust mice frolicking across the wood floor. He stared, his vision affixed.

    "But," he finally muttered to himself, "I swept that floor on Sunday . . . "

Fallen Journalists Memorial

    Senator Ben Cardin (D- MD) has filed SJ Res 62 to support the identification of a location just off the National Mall for a Fallen Journalists Memorial. To follow will be the selection of an architect to design the Memorial.

    Quoting from the September news item --Maryland Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin introduced a resolution Wednesday to locate the National Memorial to Fallen Journalists at a specific site in Washington, D.C.

    The memorial would be located between the Voice of America building and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, according to the joint resolution Cardin introduced with Republican Sen. Rob Portman from Ohio.

    Please contact your Congressperson and ask them to support SJ Res 62

The departure of Queen Elizabeth II

     I never met Queen Elizabeth II.

    Although I might have had an opportunity to see her, to watch her at some public event during the three months I spent in London. The London Times always announced the public appearances of the royal family.

    She died in Scotland. Her last official act was to invite a new prime minister to form a new government. I did not realize until I looked it up that Balmoral was so far north of Edinburgh. I was pleased to see the Scotland Standard draped over her coffin.

    I feared that the Scotland Standard would be replaced by the red-white-and blue flag of the British Union. At some point I caught a glimpse of a rehearsal in which the substitute coffin indeed was covered by the British Union flag. At what point would it be changed? Perhaps when the coffin left Westminster Abbey on the way to Windsor.

    No, there was no change, nor at any point. As the coffin slowly was lowered into a vault, it still bore the Scotland flag. The descent of the draped coffin was a somber happening to observe. No longer would I turn my computer on in the morning and read of the appearance of Queen Elizabeth II. We never knew each other, but our lifetimes were lived in a similar span of time. I shared the planet with someone who will be remembered through the history of time.

Closed for the foreseeable . . . .

Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral, which I now learn, is in far northern Scotland. Her last journey will take her through Edinburgh, where her body will lie in state at St. Giles Cathedral.

At the cathedral a temporary sign has been posted which reads: "St. Giles will be closed for the foreseeable . . .

I remember the December 1947 day when Elizabeth and Phillip married. In Southern California, thousands of miles from London, my mother and I crouched over the Hallicrafter radio, so as to not miss a single word. We thought it quite amazing.

In a few days the entire world will be able to view the funeral by video.

Labor Day -- No Picnic in the Park

The first Labor Day was no picnic in the park. Labor Day was so declared in 1894 to appease labor, still engaged in the Pullman Railroad Strike. Workers were marching in the streets of Chicago, urging laborers still inside factories to come outside and join them in the push for an eight-hour work day. President Grover Cleveland ordered 2,000 federal troops into Chicago over the protest of Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld. The U.S. troops were commanded by General Nelson Miles.

The newly organized American Railway Union was led by Eugene Victor Debs, who was arrested and charged under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which had originally been passed in 1890 by Congress to control manufacturing monopolies. Go figure.

I Had About Given Up

     Somehow, after I finished Sidewalk Sale Across America, I had to have a stuffed raccoon. You see, there is a raccoon in the book, a real raccoon that one of the amateur radio hams saw get hit by a car. The raccoon was taken to an animal shelter to recover.

    Cruising the internet, I found exactly what I was looking for. Sent off the order. Then I found something I was NOT looking for -- a hand-puppet racoon. That order flew off even quicker than the other. Then I waited. And waited. Eventually called the company. Spoke to a lovely lady who explained that many of their delivery orders were still on cargo ships somewhere from across the Pacific. So I waited some more.

    Six months went by. Heard nothing from the company. Accepted the fact that I was never going to have a black-banded raccoon puppet on my hands. Decided against contacting the company to cancel the order, because I was certain I had given the number of a credit card which had been transferred to a different management company, said new company causing numerous problems which had caused me to quit using the card. If the stuffed animal company issued me a credit on the card, I would despair of ever getting the money.

    Last week the letter carrier left a small package on top of my mailbox. Expecting nothing, I was puzzled. But the return address gave me the clue -- my long-awaited raccoon. The plush fur was a bit matted down from being so long in a tight package, but once freed, the fur began to fluff. Fits perfectly on my hand. But now I have another problem . . . I don't speak raccoon.