It wasn't in my plans, but Markos has asked me to participate in a panel on The State of Daily Kos in the DK4 Era and I have accepted the invitation.
All my limited dough is already committed to another trip, the weekend after NN'11, to attend a DFH reunion in NoCal with folks I go back with over 40 years; my presence is mandatory. There is family involved, and there will be a memorial service for my son Random, whose Mom came out of that community. I had written-off a Minneapolis trip as too expensive.
Well, now I have a "scholarship" to attend NN'11, and it turns out the daughter of one of my oldest friends from back in those days lives near the Convention Center in Mpls, so I have a place to stay while there. (She will also be going to that NoCal reunion.) So I am casting myself upon the tender mercies of my fellow Kossaks to come up with some travel, food and walking around money so I won't have to hitch-hike, panhandle and dumpster-dive my way across the Bible Belt to get to Mpls and visit some with you all and share my "wisdom" in this panel.
Yeah, this old DFH, having actually walked the talk for a lifetime, is "retiring", as it were, on nothing more than a pittance (for which I am deeply grateful) from Social Security amounting to $672/month, starting in June after I turn 66. Being experienced at living poor, I'll get by on that, but obviously that doesn't support jetting around the country and putting up a middle-class front. So I beg for your assistance.
Donations to Claude's Travel Grant Fund are accepted via PayPal (chayward@plateautel.net). If you wish to send another form of currency, email me and I'll send you an address for snail mail.
Thank you all very much. I hope to be worthy of the honor of being asked to attend.
Claude Hayward