20 January 2009

A Mile A Minute

Arriving home Friday from work, I was greeted by/confronted with an invitation to join the former American Association of Retired Persons, now the AARP. At that moment, with my 50th birthday only six months and two days away, I somewhat irritatingly murmured Robert Frost’s most famous line about miles to go before I sleep. Doesn't AARP know 50 is the new 30, or for someone like me, newly untethered, maybe the new 20? With 401Ks in freefall, the concept of retirement doesn’t even seem feasible, but at this awesome occasion in history, long-overdue and so rife with hope and possibilities, it’s nonetheless unimaginable for those of us intent on guaranteeing this as an era of significant social change.

I thought about the week that was at EBDI – the high of Citi Foundation granting $100,000 on MLK’s real birthday to help us more affordably renew and green up classic rowhouses, and the challenges and sometimes intense emotions accompanying seismic neighborhood transformation. I suggested January 15th as the event date to commemorate the riotous response to Dr. King’s death that devastated and then for some, in an instant, defined a large segment of East Baltimore. And today, a day after an MLK federal holiday many of us would agree was by far the most moving and meaningful ever, at noon, in an instant, we’ll witness a major piece of Dr. King’s dream come true - though in reality, it happened in the calendar year 2008, when 40 years after cataclysm, America rose up in revolution, forcing history into uncharted but certainly glorious territory, and selected Barack Obama as the incoming leader of the free world. I pray the souls of slaves are somehow resting more easily today. Should I be blessed with the great gift of good health, there’s too much to do to rest, or retire, anytime soon.