Paving the Way Day Eleven

 

October 25, 2005

 

Dear Friends,

 

I am exhausted.  I just pulled off my wet shoes, socks and jeans.  Maybe by morning I will have worked the chill out of my bones.  But it is day eleven on the road and it is still all good.

 

Amos woke me up at 5:00am this morning.  Instead of turning on the lights, he gently tapped everyone and quietly let us know it was time to get up.  No time even for a sink bath this morning.  Instead it was brush your teeth, grab a cup of coffee, a donut and a couple of apples, and load up the truck.  (Can I just say that I have had about enough of apples?  Everywhere we go, kind and loving people give us bushels of apples - Granny Smith, Cortland, Delicious – I have been eating three apples a day for the last ten days.  Why couldn’t we have marched during peach or cherry season?)

 

By 7:00am the truck was loaded, and by 7:15am we were in formation, ready to march.  We even had a new flag at the ready for when we hit the Delaware border.  It had been raining all night, the temperature hovering just below 50 degrees, and no letup in sight.  It was surreal marching through industrial wasteland in the early morning rain, surrounded by tall chimneys shooting flames burning excess gas.  We chanted and sang just to keep our spirits up.  

 

Susan and another volunteer met us at the border at 8:45am.  We unfurled the flag and felt a brief moment of exhilaration before beginning the search for a friendly restroom.  By noon, we had marched nearly ten miles straight, coming into Wilmington with only one pee pee break.  Just outside of the downtown, we were met on the corner by residents and staff from the local AIDS hospice.  Others were slowly making their way down the hill.  We sang together, and did some of our best chants.  It was another reminder of why we are marching.

 

The folk at the hospice inspired us to carry it on home to the First and Central Presbyterian Church downtown.  As we turned the corner, people came pouring out of the church, cheering us up the last hill.  The rally that followed was great.  The mayor spoke, as did a state senator who has been the key proponent of legal needle exchange.  Clearly a lot of effort had been made to make this a great event.  Then came lunch… and another five miles to march.

 

The rain had not let up.  If anything, the temperature had dropped, and most of us were already soaked, notwithstanding our rain gear.  At one point, there were only ten people marching, with another ten or so riding in the vans.  It was just enough to have one person for each flag, two for the banner, and three marshals.  To make matters worse, the Township of Elmsmere did not want us at all.  It took the intention of the State Senator to get us permission to walk on the sidewalk, with traffic, and no bullhorns.  Yes, it was another reason to march.

 

This evening, we had just finished dinner and our time of sharing.  Our Delaware hosts had promised us an evening of pampering and set everyone up to soak their feet.  A middle aged man came in.  Richard had seen the C2EA signs and asked if there was someone he could talk with about AIDS.  He and I went off into a corner and talked.  He said he was newly diagnosed and that he was still trying to deal with his diagnosis and its implications for himself, his wife and his children.  As a lay minister, he also had not yet figured out how to face his church.

 

The conversation was part AIDS 101 and part spiritual.  We had just finished praying together when the custodian came over to inform us that everyone else had already left the building and that he was locking up.  We hugged and said goodbye in the rain on the street.

 

Tomorrow we get up at 5:00am again, sixteen miles with another rally thrown in.  More rain is the forecast.  I can already feel the wet bone-chilling cold.  It’s still all good.

 

Love,

 

Charles King

 

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Paving The Way

THIS IS FOR THE PAVING THE WAY CARVAN MEMBERS.... BET I GET THIS BACK............ I CAN'T BELIVE WE MADE IT TO W.D.C....SUCCESS..... YOUR WISH WILL COME TRUE AND LOVE WILL COME YOUR WAY SHORTLY.. YOU ARE...... MY FRIEND... MY COMPANION.... THROUGH GOOD TIME AND BAD.. MY FRIEND, MY BUDDY, MY SISTERS AND BROTHERS THROUGH HAPPY,AND SAD.. BESIDE ME, YOU STAND. BESIDE ME, YOU WALK. YOU ARE THERE TO LISTEN, YOU ARE THERE TO TALK, WITH HAPPINESS, WITH SMILES, WITH HUGS, WITH PAIN AND TEARS, I KNOW YOU WILL BE THERE THROUGHOUT THE YEARS! YOU ARE ALL GOOD FRIENDS TO ME AND I AM GRATEFUL TO YOU... I MISS YOU, ALL PAVING THE WAY FRIENDS, IF YOU GET THIS BACK. YOU ARE SO LOVED!!!!  PEACE, LOVE AND HUGS, CINDY APONTE........
Cindy drew "I Love U" in sign....

C2EA American Heritage Caravan

By Vaughn Frick
American Heritage Caravan rider

November 10, 2005
Portland, Oregon
After eight hours flying back over the route that our caravan traveled for fifteen days I am back home to Portland, Oregon. The crisp, clean fall air of home is a tonic, as was when Delta flight passed over Mt. Hood and the Columbia river that both flank Portland.
The last day of action for C2EA was yesterday, starting with an early photo-opportunity in front of the Capitol Dome so cental and imposing both on the hill and the land. Machine gun bearing Praetorian guard suited in black body armor were stationed about the grounds and recesses of the Capitol dome. There was a constant construction din of jack-hammer on concrete as rows of homeland security blast walls are erected as visible barriers of the 'War on Terror."
About 75-100 C2EA caravaners and their supporters showed, and we held up the state flags of the United States and it's territories, the flags from states where no one traveled from were held by stand-ins.
Several congressional supporters gave rousing speeches as this was the day we were to speak with our elected members of the House and Senate about the platform and concerns of the Campaign To End AIDS.
Those are:
1. Fully fund quality treatment and support services for all people living with HIV everywhere in the world.
2. ramp up HIV prevention at home and abroad, guided by silence rather than ideology.
3.Increase research to find a cure,more effective treatments and better prevention tools.
4. Fight AIDS stigma and protect the civil rights of all people with HIV/AIDS everywhere.
We were to talk with our representatives or their representatives about these core issues, and score them from their responses.
So away from the flags and up the hill we walked to enter through the security gates to be totally revealed through X-rays before entering the marble labyrinthine catacombs of the hive that is the House and Senate office warren.
First was a meeting with Matthew Canedy, a Professional Staff Member of the U.S. Senate Special Committee On Aging, representing the Committee Chair Senator Gordon Smith.
Each of us talked about the different platforms of C2EA trying to give them a personal spin.
My story is that I Got my diagnosis back in 1986, yet have never progressed into AIDS or suffered any opportunistic infections. Low normal T-cells, undetectable viral load, and have never had to take any medications. Even in flu season my immune system usually is able to fight off the current range of whatever gets coughed around each season. I was told in 1989 that if I did not take full doses of AZT that I would be dead in 6 months. Knowing the side-effects of drugs such as AZT upon our bodies, I saw no reason to take any potentially immune-compromising drug into my system. When and if I get sick, I will open that door and consider what's the best course of medications to pursue. Today if I would get sick, I would not be able to afford to open that door. I'm mostly self employed these days often balancing several jobs, none of which has any health insurance.
I was fortunate to be able to buy a house years back when the housing market here was depressed, yet one bad illness would cost me my home and throw me into a tattered and ripped social service safety net, potentially costing more money than if I had been able to afford health insurance.
There once was an Oregon Health Plan, but after a ghastly period of paring away vital services this State health plan stopped accepting new clients.
Some months I end up sharing meals at Portland's HIV Day Center as after paying all the bills we must pay to live as Americans there is little money left and I have to cut back on food.
The HIV Day Center faces closure if it's Ryan White Care ACT funds get cut.
I also told of living in San Francisco in 1981 when AIDS first virulently exploded in the Gay Community, often killing people brutally in epic personal battles with there own bodies,battles against both their own bodies and cultural hysteria. lives often snuffed out in a mere score of months. This virus mutates and adapts, and already has bred the largest pandemic in recorded human history. How odd to see all this "Bird Flu" scare with HIV/AIDS there at our doorsteps.
I talked of whole villages in Africa with most parents dead from this pandemic, such ripe fields to harvest for future terrorist interests.
For Senator Smith's Aide I also appealed to the Senator's strong support for the value of human life.
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon met us next, personally in his meeting lounge, then we told our stories and platforms to Stephanie Kennan, Senior Health Policy Advisor. For this talk I added a thank-you and acknowledgment to the Senator's strong history of supporting health care, and his strong support in senior citizen lobbies for doing so. It is important to support AIDS drug assistance programs through Medicare/Medicaid.
Our next stop was at Congressman Earl Blumenhauer,s office, where an Aide rushed through our platforms while we were kept crowded in the lobby. Someone poked their head in who looked like the Congressperson, yet took one look at us and beat a hasty retreat as if opening an occupied bathroom stall.
All we spoke with acknowledged our concerns, but also spoke of the challenge of this age from the latest political wars on Capitol Hill.
I left to sit in the mist of a lovely rain-forest a block away in the National Botanical Gardens. In a multi-storied greenhouse rimmed with a catwalk where you can stroll among tree orchids and bromeliads high up in giant palm trees. Not to many people visiting this flowered sanctuary today, construction of blast walls without. Yes, you have to go through security and X-rays even to visit this urban piece of sanctuary.
The expectation of invasion goes back to when this swamp town laid out it's streets spiking out in all directions, yet leading to the blast of strategically placed cannons. These circles today have grown old-growth tributes to Gods and Generals.
This city of monuments such as the glass-black stone wall of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, inscribed with the names of Americans killed while darkly reflecting back the reflection of this wall's visitors.
The unborn monuments and memorials to honor the war-dead yet born haunt this place.
I'm reminded of Bob Fosse's "Cabaret" where people tried to live their lives and ignore the growing power and danger of the Nazis, till it was too late. "Tomorrow belongs to me....."
And today we live this life of quiet desperation.
For the last three weeks I have seen such as vast grass lands where antelopes dance, slept on All-Souls night in a church Sanctuary next to my boyfriend, and heard many stories of the lives caught up with and lost to this global pandmic, and the brave fight of many who believe America can and should be a better place. It is wrong to allow people to die on the streets just because of their fate or position in life.
What ever this whole C2EA thingie was, it was an opportunity or way-station along a long and hard road to the end of this pandemic.
I have walked this road for years, and that sea of empty shoes used at these demonstrations to signify those lost to this pandemic are filled with too many ghosts now walking behind me.
What do we walk away with?

Paving The Way

November 8, 2005
Douglas Sanders

Can we officially say we closed a chapter in history? I can’t believe that I have taken three weeks out of my so called “normal life” and spent them with some of the greatest, most insane and most brilliant minds as far as Advocacy for AIDS goes. I’ve learned a lot throughout my journey with the Campaign to End AIDS. I’ve learned so much about the people I work with and the organization that we work so hard for. I’ve put in many late hours, but not as much as some others, even though most think I may be the only one that burned the midnight oil. I know I am not because I was awake to see them working away just like me. It’s been difficult working trying to carry around an office away from home. It’s enough to take care of Charles while we’re back home in the office. Rounding up folks for conference calls drove me to the edge of insanity but I managed. And I figured out one thing that would make my life easier. I NEED A BLACKBERRY! But now that this trip is over, I don’t know if I would need it as much.

This journey, this movement has moved me, shaken me, stirred up various emotions and feelings in me that I guess in some ways surprised me a bit and made me aware of what other folks with HIV & AIDS go through day in and day out. I am truly grateful and blessed and should never complain. Walking through Newark and Trenton, NJ, and staying in the midst of crack houses in Baltimore’s West Side really brought it home that folks are really being shit on. However a bit of it can be attributed to their vices, but hardly a measly percentage could account for that. These people have been forgotten, lost in some bureaucratic waste basket and left to die basically. You can definitely see where programs and money has been cut from communities that are in extreme desperation for services. It’s amazing what the human spirit can endure. I thought enduring 21 days on the road would be a miracle feat, but to look back on it now and to put it in perspective, it wasn’t so much. My part was small. I was merely a player in an orchestra of voices, people, infected, affected, people who gave a damn, some that didn’t know me, but still cared. They cared because they have friends, family, co-workers that live with this virus, that died because there was no cure and adequate medication had not been developed.

On another note, it was quite refreshing to meet some of these people whom I had been speaking with back and forth, over and over on the phone. It felt like family reunion. I actually anticipated some of the arrivals and listened to them as they got off the caravans, listening to their voices, to see who I could pick out of the crowd. I recall picking out Judith Dillard, Karen Bates, and Thelma Wright the minute I got close enough to hear them speak. And talk about three strong-spirited, tough gals they are. I didn’t get to spent as much time as I would have liked with members of other caravans although I got a lot of hugs and handshakes. That was cool with me.

I have to give a shout out to all Paving the Way caravan members. Through our toil, through our strife, through many disagreements and major fights, sometimes pulling stuff out of mid-air and sometimes out of our ass, we made it, and every one of you need to pat yourselves on your backs for this historical accomplishment. Also to the ones who didn’t care enough to walk for a least 1 day or 1 hour out of a day,  who think they are owed something, and I quote, “Eat Shit, nobody owes you a red-ass dime.” If you want better care, better services, better housing, better training, get off your ass, quit your bitchin’ and DO SOMETHING! This much I have learned. Just remember, I walked for me, but also I walked for you as well. Ok, enough of that.


I am going to write more when the spirit moves me to write. I think I will let the pictures I taken do more talking and I am willing to write. So be on the look-out for uploaded pics; I have tons! To be continued…

Peace, Love, & Light

Douglas

C2EA American Heritage Caravan

By Vaughn Frick
American Heritage Caravan rider

November 6, 2005
Washington, D.C.,Last day of action

Arriving here has become such a different story than any of us had expected. The American Heritage Caravan's cohesion has mostly evaporated. A core group of us still are camped out on the floor of a gymnasium. Across from me is a rider from the Seattle caravan suffering on the floor with a herniated disk.
My friend Ricky also from Portland started to get sick last night, running a fever from the forced condition of sleeping upon a hard, cold floor. The price of a hotel room in this capitol city of business is well beyond many of our means. Caravan organizer Lonny who boarded in Salt Lake City after flying out to join us from Ohio has scheduled a hospitalization upon his return, as he is struggling to keep it together just to survive this last day.
I had been curios as to why there was not the thousands that we were told to expect at the opening rally, why it was just us caravaners and a few people from the local community. Washington, D.C. has a large Gay/Lesbian/Bi/trans community, including one of the larger populations of those living with HIV/AIDS.
Yesterday I transversed the local GLBT neighborhoods looking for visible signs about these four days of action for what we were told was to be a major national action once we all converged here in Washington, D.C. from our many corners of America. There were no posters posted, no billboards, no flyers tacked on community billboards or taped in the windows of GLBT based businesses and establishments. I scoured from page to page the latest issue of the Washington Blade, one of the oldest and best established GLBT newspapers in the country for any mention about these four days of action.
Nada.
Zip.
No mention, not even in the calendar of events for this upcoming week. This is most queer,as the Washington Blade is one of the best for covering news related to HIV/AIDS, a goodly chunk of it's advertising base is for the very HIV/AIDS medications that we traveled across this nation to advocate for accessibility for all who need them to survive.
So I started asking questions of the C2EA event co-coordinators and the Washington, D.C. organizing committee. When my questions were answered with a lot of hostility, I knew we were in worse trouble than I had begun to fear.
I was told that the Gay community does not care any more about HIV/AIDS; The Gay community is apathetic; that there is some sort of nebulous conspiracy to silence our actions here; The Washington Blade was bought out by conservatives who are boy coting C2EA; The Washington Blade did publish C2EA related articles, that I needed to look better. All protests here in D.C. are only attended by those who come here from outside, that the locals are mostly "activist weary"; The local C2Ea organizers were to busy and overworked, that it was up to all of us to get the word out.
I heard many variations of these excuses, and just got more and more befuddled.
I walked in the Blade offices, had a friendly talk with one of the editors, was told that in the past the Blade had published C2EA elated events, but for these four days of actions no C2EA organizers had bothered to contact them with the information to publish. I was given the contact information on who to email future information to.
On Sunday night there was a youth march and rally to Lafayette park across from the White House. This event began at Malcolm X/Meridian Park with a spirited drumming and rapper session to inspire the several hundred attendees. This odd, terraced park originally plotted by Freemasons using their monumental architectural embellishments is a regular night time hang out for groups of incense-wafting drumming youth of this area. The illuminated spike of the Washington monument stabbed the sky lined up in the distance.
The messages spoken were about using condoms and clean needles, how odd that 25 years into this global pandemic that this simple message that is pr oven to save lives still has to be fought for. Forming an ordered line the marchers chanted through a tony neighborhood chanting and waving "End AIDS NOW!" signs". The chants, well practiced, also were about a supposed HIV cure that the Government has been suppressing, the same information that has buzzed this pandemic from the start. There is much good and provoking information to back up these claims available a google away on the Internet.
As the marchers led by a the flash and sirens of a police escort worked their way down the street, clouds of small birds would erupt out of the trees flying panicked into the dark. Diners in trendy sidewalk eateries would momentarily put down their fork fulls of steak.
The rally in Lafayette park was attended by about a hundred observers. The message was "not to keep youth in the dark" about how not to catch the HIV virus, and this government's complicity in the spread of the HIV virus.
Today there were two planned civil disobedience actions. The first was at the Family research council where four trained activists chained themselves to a display in the lobby featuring the traditional wedding attire of suit and dress. As of tonight those arrested are still jailed awaiting a sentence before a judge.
The second action was a march and die-in to the White House. This action had close to 300 marchers led by the obligatory giant paper mache' Bush puppet. The chant rants were such as "ACT-UP! Fight Back! We Must End AIDS NOW!"
At 1600 Pennsylvania avenue in view of the back of the White House ( as was written in the Bible when God chose to appear before Moses, only the backside was visible) 29 protesters lay ed down on the sidewalk holding cardboard tombstones bearing the messages of death and grim statistics. The practiced park police like black armored spiders lined off the protesters with yellow police tape, and one by one the protesters were dragged, cuffed, photographed, and fed into two paddy wagons as their supporters cordoned off a street away cheered their support. 29 people were arrested at this one, all released by evening with the equivalent of a parking violation.
The last to be arrested was Charlie from the Seattle caravan, wheelchair bound and veteran of the war the HIV virus wrought against his body, he was dragged and placed in a waiting medical van.
Tonight Charlie is sleeping here on a cold, gymnasium floor.

C2EA American Heritage Caravan

By Vaughn Frick
American Heritage Caravan rider

November 6, 2005
Washington, D.C.: Day of Action # 2

The stew of smog has cleared from the D.C. skies today, the blue skies and relatively cleaner air has revived me a bit, as has the rest time I'm allowing myself today. Last night I started to get sick on the cold gymnasium floor, soaking my sleeping bag with sweat. For some reason the air conditioning is cranked up full blast all night, and we can't turn it down for a perplexing array of excuses. The more critically ill of this band are being housed in better situations now, I'm told. Those of us still in the recreational center's gymnasium had to sign a release and waiver "from any and all damages which may be sustained by me directly or indirectly in connection with, or arising out of my overnight stay at the facility..."
How odd to be here advocating for the rights of the HIV/AIDS affected world community, yet to do so I must sign away my rights and protections. Washington, D.C. is all about this breed of contradiction, down to it's Spirograph street layout planned by French immigrants centuries past.
I've also been assured that those of us who's health demands dictate regular meals will be provided with sack lunches when food is delayed.
The big scheduled event here today later on will be a "Don't Keep Youth in the Dark on HIV" rally for effective HIV prevention. A march will begin at Malcolm X Park on Meridian Hill, culminating in a large rally across from the White House at Lafayette Park. Civil Disobedience training is underway as I type this.
From the Washington Post in regards to yesterday's march, we are getting good media representation here:
"Washington has a far higher incidence of AIDS-170.6 cases per 100,000 people, according to federal statistics-than other major US cities, including New York and San Francisco. An estimated one in twenty District residents is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. And that number climbs to an estimated one in seven among black men in the District, said Michael Pickering of RAP Inc., a drug treatment program that works with people who have AIDS."
And I would like to thank all of my friends and readers of these blogs who have emailed me such kind words of support. Often I only have access to a computer for an hour or two, and dash these things out in a fast and sloppy gorilla journalistic manner. Special thanks to friend Rick who nearly daily responds with energizing words of hope.
This was sent to me from my friend Steve who has been there for me since we attended Lincoln High School of Seattle way back in the day:
"Inert Self Castration
Okay, so during this entire trip the most attention you received and the most consideration you were offered were from high school kids and religious organizations who are about to have their funding pulled out from underneath them. How does the funding in this country compare with say, western Europe? How can any government be called wise that ignores something that spirals out of control out of ignorance and neglect?

But of course this government was put there by the voice of the people (the people with bankrolls), and disseminated by a media that will cover whatever offers them the best short term gain.

The only hope I can garner from these journal entries is the occasional group of enlightened individuals you have encountered on your travels. But without proper funding and considering the farcical amount of funding they have, how can it be enough?

That, and there are individuals like me out here who feel helpless watching this shit every day. But that's part of the trouble isn't it, people who feel numbed and made apathetic by giving into hopelessness. Well, fuck me, and anyone else who feels that way...they put themselves in that position themselves.

Your battle is worthy.
Inert Self Castration
Okay, so during this entire trip the most attention you received and the most consideration you were offered were from high school kids and religious organizations who are about to have their funding pulled out from underneath them. How does the funding in this country compare with say, western Europe? How can any government be called wise that ignores something that spirals out of control out of ignorance and neglect?

But of course this government was put there by the voice of the people (the people with bankrolls), and disseminated by a media that will cover whatever offers them the best short term gain.

The only hope I can garner from these journal entries is the occasional group of enlightened individuals you have encountered on your travels. But without proper funding and considering the farcical amount of funding they have, how can it be enough?

That, and there are individuals like me out here who feel helpless watching this shit every day. But that's part of the trouble isn't it, people who feel numbed and made apathetic by giving into hopelessness. Well, fuck me, and anyone else who feels that way...they put themselves in that position themselves.

Your battle is worthy.
I know you are despairing right now. Just remember that this trip is not about the people who do or do not respond. You are doing this for yourself and your friends. The fault does not entirely lay with the people who choose to remain ignorant, although they do help it along with indifference. This kind of movement gets it's lifeblood from the media and the things it chooses to point it's fickle gaze at. People cannot help or join or follow if they don't know your there. As for the people whose attention you get and that do not respond except with ignorance? Do not feel bitter towards them but pity. Even a long life if it is one bereft of compassion and understanding is no kind of life at all.

Don't look outside for satisfaction and reward, look to your own brave heart, because you have a mighty one my friend.

Fuck it, shout in SPITE of the ignorant and fearful.

Remember Frederick Douglass' admonition to a young student: "Agitate, agitate, agitate".

Thank You, Steve.