Martha and Frank

"When Katrina came to New Orleans, Frank kidnapped me and hauled me off. We fell in love, we married, and now we get to enjoy being alive together."

Not only is Frank the same gentle, beautiful spirit I remembered from the early 70s, but he is married to the illustrious anthropologist Martha Ward, author of books that have inspired me for years. You could blow me over with a feather. Until today, I had no idea.

Back in the 70s, he was a revolutionist involved in the civil rights and peace movements, and he worked as a carpenter and ran a carpenters' cooperative. Since then Frank earned an accounting degree and worked as a banker; and now he helps banks develop programs for affordable housing and community service. "I have finally found a way," he laughed, "to put my politics and my professional life together. The work I'm doing now is just perfect for me."

On the way to the airport to meet Frank and Martha, I listened to President Obama's second inaugural speech, which moved me to tears. Martha, Frank, and I had breakfast together at the airport before Martha flew on while Frank stays for a few days. It wasn't till after we waved goodbye to Martha that Frank started talking about her and I realized who she is.

All day Frank and I laughed at how much Martha and I need to talk...and we will, one of these days. I may get back to New Orleans; they will certainly come here again. Martha has one brother in Portland and another in Salem, Oregon. Frank's son, who was in pre-school with my son Seth the last time I saw him, is now a lawyer in Oakland, California; and Frank's god-children are in Seattle. So they have reasons to come this way.

What is most reassuring--and not so surprising after all--is how little Frank and I have changed since the 70s, in terms of what drives us, what inspires us. We hadn't talked since 1975, and we just picked up where we left off. We are the same lefty radicals we were then, with the same ideals, the same love of justice born of respect for all people, the same dream of turning swords into plowshares. Which brings me back to the president's speech. My favorite part is this:

"We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths - that all of us are created equal - is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth." --Barack Hussein Obama.

Full text of the President's speech is here.

For those who don't know, Seneca Falls was about women's suffrage and the abolition of slavery; Selma was about voting rights for African-American people; and Stonewall was about gay rights. To hear a President of the USA invoke all three in one sentence takes my breath away.

Full text of the inaugural poem, by Richard Blanco, the openly-gay son of Cuban immigrants, is here.