Shirley Davis

I thought about that the other day when I toured the “Anne Frank, A History For Today” exhibit, which is now at Davenport’s Putnam Museum through May 28. Our Scott Community College seminar included lunch and a performance by an actress who portrayed Anne Frank in a darkened room that was decorated to look like the attic where Anne Frank hid – and which I visited all those years ago.

Even the walls of the Putnam Museum’s “attic” were decorated with movie star pictures cut from magazines, exactly as they were visible when I toured the home in 1970, 25 years after the death of the young girl who wrote down her feelings in a diary that has miraculously survived to this day.

The actress began to read from the diary which was begun on June 13, 1942. She portrayed an  Anne Frank who had died at the age of 15 after 25 months in hiding, one of 11 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

The fact that I’d actually been inside Anne Frank’s attic hiding place made the performance and the exhibit that much more meaningful to me.

I got out my 1970 tour book to see just what kind of a time I had touring Europe alone for the first time. I’d remembered I had used a rail pass, allowing me to get on and off trains anywhere I wanted to go in Europe. I just had to return to Amsterdam for the flight home three weeks later, where I would stay two nights at the same hotel “in a nice warm room” on the canal for a total of $15 for the two nights, including two big breakfasts.

In addition to the Anne Frank Home, I was also within walking distance of the Rembrandt and Van Gogh museums. Nice location, wasn’t it!

Ironically, it was just two years later that I returned to the same hotel, this time with a group of Davenport friends.

There are lots of jokes about the book “Europe on $5 a Day,” but it was very useful to me on this first trip alone. Sometimes I’d buy food at the railroad stations and make a picnic for myself as I rode through the countryside – a suggestion in the book.

After Amsterdam, I headed for Vienna, where I had to pay $10 for a room, but it was in a “wonderful location near the opera house” where I saw Strauss’s “Der Rosenkavalier” on a $10 standing-room-only ticket, saw a performance of the Lipizzaner horses and heard the Vienna Boys Choir.

Next stop was Venice where my room near St. Mark’s Square cost $7.50 with breakfast and where I had a nice meal with wine for $2.50, listened to the orchestras in St. Mark’s Square and attended a performance by a violinist at the Venice Opera House.

Next stop: Florence, in a room with a balcony overlooking the Ponte Vecchio bridge (it was $4.80 a night). Next stop was Rome, where I stayed near the railroad station.My notes say: “My room was overpriced at $1.60, so I headed for the top of the Spanish Steps, where I paid $7.20 for the room that included breakfast on the terrace overlooking Rome.

From there I went on to  the Isle of Capri (the round-trip steamer ticket cost $1.75, and I paid 80 cents for the chair-lift ride to the top of the island).

Next stop was Taormina, Sicily, which I reached by taking the train that was put on a ferry to get to Sicily. I took a $4.80 room at a pension, but couldn’t resist stopping by the beautiful hotel across the street to ask the price. Cost of a room with a private balcony overlooking the Mt. Etna Volcano was $11.40, including breakfast AND dinner – with free transportation to the hotel’s private beach.

I’ve stayed at that hotel quite a few times since, but that really IS another story. On this particular trip I returned to Amsterdam via Rome, picnicking along the way as I enjoyed the views from the train. I’ve never returned to the Anne Frank home in Amsterdam, but the exhibit at the Putnam is a nice reminder that it would be interesting again to visit after seeing this fine exhibit in Davenport.

Rita Hart and I met in summer school in 1979. We were both English teachers, challenging ourselves to become better teachers.
We both went on to raise families and volunteer in our communities. We are both recognized in our communities as people who are willing to help where help is needed. We are both passionate about Iowa, and what it offers to its citizens.

The similarity stops there. I don’t have the intensity of purpose to run for a Senate office; I am willing to let somebody else do the really hard work. That someone else is, in the 2012 elections, Rita Hart. Rita has a no-nonsense approach that I admire. There is nothing sham or contrived about her approach to people or to issues.

It’s pure coincidence that her last name is Hart; but it describes a lot about her. She listens with her heart and with her intellect and approaches the challenges we all face with common sense and compassion.

I urge you to vote for Rita Hart, Democrat for Iowa State Senate in the June 5 primary.

-s- Dianne Prichard
1625 Hickory Bend Court, DeWitt

Recently in class we have been taking many tests. My teacher had informed us that you have been considering making a reading test. If I am correct it will determine whether or not you go onto the next grade; if you don’t pass this one test you will be repeating your current grade. Now when I first heard this I was profoundly confused. Every student is a different type of learner. Some kids can read at very high levels but fail at math, and for some it’s the opposite.

Every child is unique. Some children just need a little extra help in reading, like giving the child an opportunity to work with a reading aide. Each child is like a flower bud; they sprout at different times. You shouldn’t expect them all to sprout at once. It takes time.

I am a fourth-grader. My grades are outstanding, but I think keeping a child back because he/she isn’t fully grown yet is very degrading. What hurts even more is that this kid’s peers are going to be moving up, while they have to repeat the grade because of one or two points off. Please consider giving strong thought to my ideas. This is so important.

-s- Juliana Schadel
27301 Sherry Ann Court, Donahue

(Editor’s note: Juliana is a fourth-grader at John Glenn Elementary in Donahue. This letter was submitted with a note stating that she conceived the letter all on her own.)

Garage Sales

Click on the link below for a PDF map of this weekend’s garage sales.

NSP-2012-05-16-A-12-13

NSP Publisher Bill Tubbs

In a May 9 interview with “Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts, the president matter-of-factly stated, “Same-sex couples should be able to get married.” The president, whose previous statements were not so progressive, said his thinking evolved over time and was influenced by his daughters having classmates who were raised by two loving moms – and they can’t understand why that’s a problem.

The president’s evolution thus followed the path that many, like me, have taken – and are taking. We are all evolving, some just faster than others.

Like the president, I was once happily ignorant of GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transsexual) issues, but personal experiences have a way of changing things. Those of us with gay family members – a minority of 5-10 percent in every age and place – are among the first to arrive at full inclusion, as I did 10 years ago.

In my “Impressions” column of Sept. 25, 2002, Linda and I came out of the closet as parents of a beautiful lesbian daughter who was well-known to many of our readers after 13 years and scores of friends in the North Scott schools. Aimee’s likeability put a familiar face on an emerging issue and made me a target, but none of the things I feared the most happened.

Sure, we received letters of protest from certain people whose opposition didn’t surprise or disappoint, but the overwhelming reaction was an outpouring of love and acceptance we didn’t know existed. We found ourselves meeting people and making friends in the GLBT community right here in North Scott and the Quad Cities.

Through these experiences, I became one to whom closeted gays and family members of gays felt safe telling their stories, sometimes amidst tears.

Through those experiences, I offer this warning to all with eyes to see and ears to hear: Gay and lesbian people are part of the normal spectrum of creation. They’re not the drag queens. They are normal people who are part of our lives whether we know it or not. Sexual orientation is a matter of nature, not nurture. Gays and lesbians, like the rest of us, want to live, love and be who they were created to be. So watch what you think and say, and be sure to treat all people well. The little things do make a difference. “Queer” jokes are not funny!

The good news is that the attitude I just described is winning. Even on the most controversial issue – marriage equality – a majority nationally now support it, compared with 29 percent five years ago. The trend is certain and especially pronounced among young people. Despite a setback last week in North Carolina where they voted to put discrimination in their constitution and even made civil unions illegal, GLBT issues will eventually be settled in favor of inclusion.

While the long-term outcome has been decided, the path won’t be easy. There will be setbacks. We don’t know how long it will take or who will be the heroes, the villains and the victims, but inclusion is a settled issue. Never in human history has a prejudice been raised to the level of public debate and gone backwards.

The president’s words were thus mostly symbolic. So far, marriage equality has been decided state-by-state. As Iowans, we can be proud that our state was among the first to approve, in 2009, when the Supreme Court ruled that legislation limiting marriage to heterosexual couples denied equal protection under the Iowa Constitution.

Nationally, the legal issue will be settled when the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a high profile case from California: Perry v. Schwarzenegger. The case challenges the repeal of Proposition 8, the law that favored marriage equality. (The vote was very narrowly decided, and a $17.6-million blitz by Mormons made the difference.)

In Perry v. Schwarzenegger, marriage equality is being argued by the bipartisan all-star legal team of Bush administration solicitor general Theodore Olson, and David Boies, who represented Vice President Al Gore in Bush v. Gore, the case that decided the 2000 presidential election.

My hunch is that the libertarian streak within even the conservative members of the Supreme Court will decide in favor of marriage equality. Maybe not. The REAL issue, however, is already being decided in the hearts of the people. When the face of discrimination is little Johnny or Susie who grew up next door, attitudes change.

As was true with both race and gender, the institutional church will be the last to change. Even the official declarations of my own United Methodist Church do not support marriage equality, and Methodists are thought to be inclusive. But there is a widening gap these days in most denominations between what the doctrine says and how the people actually live their lives. Witness the 98 percent of Catholic women in the U.S. who practice birth control.

The widespread support of Clinton (Iowa) Prince of Peace gay student Keaton Fuller is another example. Just last week the bishop of the Davenport Diocese announced that the Eychaner Foundation would not be allowed to present its $40,000 Matthew Shepard Scholarship to Fuller at his high school graduation because homosexuality was in conflict with church teaching. (The school’s staff and students stood with Fuller. The issue made headlines and the diocese compromised by saying Eychaner’s pre-approved statement could be read at his graduation, but not by Eychaner.)

The words of the hymn, “Once to Every Man and Nation,” by James R. Lowell (1845) sum up our need to rethink things: “Time makes ancient truth uncouth,” the hymn writer said. Knowledge evolves and understandings change. The Biblical text most commonly quoted to condemn homosexuality is parallel with texts saying it’s wrong to eat pork, wear mixed fabrics and glean to the edge of the fields – none of which are taken literally today.

President Obama’s arrival at a point of inclusion that some of us reached 10 years ago merely signals the ongoing movement toward inclusion. How this will play politically is anybody’s guess. Initially, the bases of both parties seem to be energized. Whatever happens, I give the president credit for taking a stand on principle regardless of the consequences.

As for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters being allowed to marry the person they love, the sky has not fallen in Iowa and will not fall anywhere. The importance of families, though redefined, remains strong. (Note that in 1967, 70 percent of Americans opposed interracial marriages, which are now widely accepted. One day our children and grandchildren will view today’s opposition to marriage equality with similar amazement.)

As for us, we will each evolve in our own time; some maybe never. But even if you can’t support marriage equality, please don’t actively oppose it. Be still. Let the spirit move. Strive to be more accepting and less judgmental. Let others live.

The president led by example. Now it’s up to us. What will our legacy be?