It was in June of 2003. I was on my way to the ACLU Inaugural Membership Conference. I had become a member shortly after the heart attack and when I'd read about the enhancements to the already unconstitutional USA Patriot Act. The ACLU was lobbying the congress over it and I simply had to be there. It was not a popular period to undertake such a venture.

I noted the damage to the Pentagon while we circled to land and after the pains and breathing problems subsided, an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach soon took their place. I debarked from the plane and strolled to the nearest cab, put in my luggage and sped off. The ride was short, maybe ten minutes. On the way to the hotel, I chatted with my cabbie a bit. An amiable fellow, he was curious as to why I was there, so I told him. He thought it sounded like a good idea and also shared some of his concerns. After checking in, I made my way back to the lobby and it was off to the Inaugural.

The conference itself was spellbinding. I mean how often do you go to a fabulous hotel like the Omni-Shoreham and witness the speeches of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Robert Mueller or Muhammad Ali, all on the same venue? How often do you get to meet people who are in charge of such organizations, like Nadine Strossen, ACLU president, who I had a delightful chat with in the hotel lobby (after the conference) while we awaited our respective cabs back to the airport. What an incredible and intelligent woman! A most impressive gal who has an air of kindness about her that matches her sharp intellect. If you had been there and heard her speak, then debate Mueller (who, as FBI director, admitted mistakes were made) you would know what I mean! She is a dedicated and compassionate person. Her wishing me a safe trip home to California was like a warm hug from a true friend! In fact we did hug and rarely have I had a better one! Anthony Romero, the ACLU executive director, like the cabbie (but with a law degree), was an amiable and intelligent fellow himself. He graciously gave me directions to the conference on my first day, which was situated in the ballroom in the basement of the hotel.

That's where I heard (and almost cried) after seeing one of my all time heroes, Muhammad Ali! It was so easy to stand there and give a 15 minute ovation to a guy who has been a champion his entire life and who, more importantly, is fighting the two biggest fights of his career. One fight of course is the Parkinson's. The other, for liberty! A little thing like Parkinson's wasn't about to stop a guy like that even though Parkinson's is a far greater challenge than George Foreman or Joe Frazier could ever be. His very presence allowed me to empower myself with personal gratitude, having taken my overweight body with the poor heart and wobbly legs across the entire nation to be a part of this righteous cause. But I'm no hero, nor a champion, just a former food service director of a retirement community who felt it time to do some good before it was too late. Ali has been a champion his whole life. But I was able to make his courage my own in that short time frame. That's the kind of man he is! Pure inspiration!

By comparison, I had witnessed a previous event in the same room that morning, when explosive sniffing dogs were let loose in the auditorium by the FBI just prior to Robert Mueller's entrance. But that simply felt like a CSI episode and reminded me of the sad changes to our nation's capital and indeed the entire country. But you really saw it there and felt it too. There was no doubt in your mind after that. It was a scene that could have come right out of movie, a very disturbing movie. I imagine the same could be said for NYC. In fact, a reporter from there told me as much.

There were other surrealisms--seeing the concrete barricade's around our nation's Capitol building where as a child, I once saw LBJ climbing those very steps, smiling and carefree, as if he was going to a ball game. The soldiers and police with automatic weapons were everywhere, the barbed wire fences around the White House and the Vice President's quarters. Iranian activists were at every street corner around the capitol rotunda, passing out pamphlets that called for American intervention in Iran, seeing the Department of Education as being the deadest building in the city, literally devoid of human activity, going through checkpoints with armed and nervous guards to see politicians with perfect hair surrounded by lobbyists in thousand dollar suits laughing about the privatization, or in other words, the latest corporate pastime in the screwing of the nation, the realization that having been in Washington several times before over the years and then seeing these fantastic, real time occurrences that lent support to the feeling we will never go back to the way we were--of all these things, by far the most surreal striking cord of them all was simply a four letter word that had been stenciled in black paint on a column under a trestle where the Potomac separates the Capitol from Arlington. The word in question-- OBEY!