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Last Updated: Nov 14, 2008 - 12:49:26 PM |
I’m not much for the nightlife these days, but this Friday evening, I plan to spend an hour or two at the Chester Bistro, enjoying live Irish music. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned, I’ve loved the music of the old country since a law school roommate made the introductions.
But that’s only my secondary reason for going.
My main reason is that the Bistro is hosting a fundraiser for the Massey Cancer Center. And this summer, I’ve lost two friends to cancer.
Bill Sloan and I attended school together from Enon Elementary through graduation from Thomas Dale. We played on the same youth football team. Our parents were founding members of Bermuda Hundred Methodist, and Bill and I were two of its original cohort of trained acolytes. Until his death, we lived only a few miles apart on the Bermuda Hundred peninsula.
Bill was a highly successful businessman, a devoted husband and father, and an active supporter of youth athletics. His personal investment in youth was part of a strong orientation toward the future. Bill had, for example, been interested in solar power for decades – long before most of us had heard of it.
Indeed, in our last conversation, a few weeks before he died, we discussed the prospects for a development in Enon organized around solar power and community gardening.
Liz Marks was a lifelong entertainer who graced Richmond’s stages as a musical actor, sang for years with her own band, and continued performing cabaret acts until the last month of her life. She was also Richmond’s leading talent agent and casting director.
For twenty years, whenever a movie came to Richmond, Liz was there. To the extent that Virginia became a preferred location for Hollywood projects, much of the credit goes to the indefatigable Liz Marks.
So on Friday, when I raise my glass of Irish brew, I’ll be saluting the memories of two fine friends – people who enriched my life and the communities they served.
Two who left us far too early, taken by a dire affliction we have yet to conquer.
It’s a small thing to take an hour or two to support a worthwhile cause. To write a little check.
In a presidential election year, it’s all too easy to be distracted from such small acts. To content ourselves with voting for promises of action at the national or international level. To be lulled by the prospect of solving our problems through the massive power of the federal government.
And, to be sure, government power is an awesome thing. In the right hands, directed with
skill, it can do things which no private effort can match.
But mobilizing government power in a worthy cause isn’t easy.
There are always special interests to be dealt with. Interests eager for a share in whatever new program is enacted. Interests hoping to attach their own, entirely unrelated, agendas to legislation creating a new program. Interests, indeed, which don’t want a solution at all, because they benefit from the continued existence of the problem.
Thus, in today’s efforts to enact an intelligent energy policy, Midwestern agribusiness wants more subsidies for corn ethanol – a bogus solution.
Big Oil wants new grants of drilling rights off our coasts – though no amount of new oil will solve the problem of exponentially-growing international demand.
Big Coal opposes subsidies for solar power – which might actually be the silver bullet – because it would hurt their business. And Big Power opposes it because they haven’t – yet – figured out a way to monopolize sunlight.
I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that there are interests that actually oppose finding a cure for cancer, lest they lose profits. Or that their efforts explain government’s failure to act more boldly to find a cure.
With any great societal problem, years of individual suffering and self-education eventually produce an overwhelming public demand for action.
But, in the meanwhile, there are things we can do individually, and locally, to move toward the desired goal. To an extent, these small actions contribute directly to the ultimate solution. Perhaps equally important, they encourage the growth of public support for action on a larger scale.
Bill Sloan didn’t wait for a government program to teach the valuable lessons which youth sports offer our kids. Had he lived a few years longer, I’ve no doubt he would have been ahead of the government in bringing solar power to southeastern Chesterfield.
Liz Marks didn’t wait for a state program to bring big-budget movie projects to central Virginia – a program that still doesn’t exist. Instead, she offered her invaluable services to Hollywood – and Hollywood came calling.
In a year devoted to the big promises of hopeful politicians, it’s important to remember the good each of us can do right here, right now.
There’s a fundraiser for the Massey Cancer Center at Ed Nicholson’s Chester Bistro this Friday.
A little time. A little money. Whatever you can spare.
The vital thing is action.
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