Nancy Davis Kho's Blog, page 13

Summer Lunch Rescue

Once a week this summer, I’ve gone down to the 81st Street Library in Oakland to help serve a free lunch to children and teenagers. It’s an ongoing collaboration between the Alameda County Food Bank and Oakland Public Libraries to make sure that all those kids who are eligible for free lunches during the school year aren’t left hungry over the summer.

This is my third year doing it, so I know the drill: we go to one day of training at the Food Bank in safe food handling, forms, acceptable temperatures for milk, what to do with leftover fruit that has casing (i.e. bananas and oranges) vs. skins (i.e. apples and grapes.) There are specific signs that must be hung in specific places. Free food for kids is, it turns out, highly regulated by a number of agencies, many of whom at the Federal level seem to be led by people seeking excuses to provide less aid to the people they’re supposed to serve. It wouldn’t do to make it easier for them to call foul. It all sounds very official and structured and bureaucratic. I half expect them to tell us to wear hair nets.

Then you go to the library and it all becomes so, so simple. Nice fellow volunteers – I’ve worked with a retired kindergarten teacher, a microbiologist on her day off from Clif Bar, and a speech therapist. Sweet kids with 95% good manners. Grateful parents. A squirt of hand sanitizer, a packaged lunch and milk, and a check mark on the form to show how many lunches have been handed out. Kids sitting at the tables that the other volunteers and I have thoroughly cleaned per our training, with a bleach spray and wearing our latex gloves.

Then conversation. Us to them: What grade are you guys in? What school do you go to? What’s that book you’re reading? How are the chicken nuggets anyway? Them to us: What kind of dogs do you like? I lost a tooth last night. My brother is so crazy. Do you like computer games?

There’s nothing in the training about laughing with a grandma whose youngest grandson keeps darting for the exit, eager to get back to the library’s dollhouse, so that the other volunteers and I have to do a zone defense on him to keep him in the lunch area. There’s nothing in the training about commiserating with a young mom whose nursing baby has just gotten his first teeth – my Spanish is nonexistent, and her English is just coming along, but we both understand the universal sign for “wince.” There’s nothing in the training about telling another mom sitting in the toddler books section with her four kids that there are exactly four meals left in the lunch room for us to hand out, and having the biggest boy jump up with a joyous fist pump to yell, “YEEEESSSSS!”

For the past two years I’ve worked at a different branch closer to me, but switched this year because they said this larger location had more need. I prepared myself for what I expected a library in this part of Oakland to look like, an area of the city that’s not on my daily circuit. Guess what? It’s the nicest branch library I’ve ever been in. From the modern design, to the cheery table set up for kids to participate in the Oakland Warriors summer reading challenge, to the librarians who know the names of all the patrons, it’s a place that communicates to its visitors that they matter and are respected.

One of their librarians even helps the kids make “scraper bikes”, refurbished biked accessorized with duct tape, tin foil, colorful cardboard, and paint. The display of vivid scraper bike wheels reminds me of museum displays of African shields. They have all kinds of other programming for the community, too, from science experiments to art projects to magic. That place is humming.

This was supposed to be my last week volunteering but I’m checking to see if I can grab another slot or two.

Because at a time when everything seems complicated and awful, finding hope really can be so, so simple; as easy as handing a chicken sandwich to a sweet kid with her nose buried in a book about turtles.

Speaking of #Oakland…saw “Sorry To Bother You” this week and it’s a must-see. Filmed all over The Town and you’ll be thinking about it for weeks and months. Here’s the first release off the soundtrack – OYAHYTT (that’s Oh Yeah, Alright, Hell Yeah, That’s Tight.)

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CommentsThat reminds me, I saw this video on NPR's Facebook page the ... by EllenRelated StoriesA Message to My New Russian Fans!Disruptive TechnologyAn Open Letter to My Getaround User 

Ep 34 Designer Lesley Evers

“Problems into opportunity:” Women’s clothing designer Lesley Evers on the wholesale nightmare she turned into a retail renaissance, how she makes her brand more inclusive, and that time Grace Jones set the stage on fire. Literally.

Lesley Evers website

 Yes. Yes she is 70. #AgingGoals

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the Midlife Mixtape podcast – check him out here!

The post Ep 34 Designer Lesley Evers appeared first on Midlife Mixtape .

                  Related StoriesEp 33 Original MTV VJ Martha QuinnEp 32 Singer/Songwriter Jeffrey FoucaultEp 31 Outdoor Afro founder Rue Mapp 

Disruptive Technology

This post is made possible with support from AARP’s Disrupt Aging. All opinions are my own.

On the first day of my first post-college job, my boss pointed me to Lotus Software manuals stacked two feet high next to my bulky new computer and said, “Start reading.”

It was 1988, the days when you still trudged across campus to the single “Computer Center” and fired up the revolutionary boxy beige Mac Plus computers to do your homework, when landing a roommate who had an electric typewriter was still cause for celebration, when you pondered why hard plastic squares were called “floppy” disks.

I had landed that first job at an IT consulting company in Germany on the strength of my German fluency, not because I had any idea of what IT Consulting even meant. Our clients were large German banks and manufacturers whose IT investments ran into the millions of Deutschmarks. Theoretically I was in their marketing department, but in a small company, I soon learned, everyone does everything, including programming.

Two years later I found myself sitting on the floor inside a storage area of our booth at a gigantic German computer convention, writing code alongside the “real” programmers. Meanwhile other, less tech-savvy members of the marketing team demonstrated features of our software that was literally being written while potential buyers watched. We’d crack open the closet door and whisper, “You can do geographic filtering now!” or “Don’t click on ‘Search’ for a second, we’re compiling back here!’” and “If you click ‘Filter,’ you will get the Blue Screen of Death!”

Getting thrown into the deep end of the tech pool at a young age was a harrowing experience in many ways, but I would never, ever trade it. Because it taught me a life lesson that allows me to disrupt aging in an important way: I still love learning new technology. That first job taught me that you can always find a way to figure it out, and it’s highly unlikely you’re going to break things in the process. If you’re in the AARP demographic, you’ve also bounced back from a computer crash or two, and you know life goes on.

This “older people can’t learn new tech” myth is such a load of horse crap. Those of us in Generation X literally grew up alongside Apple Computer, were the first generation of Atari players, and envied the kids lucky enough to have one of those early, brick-sized cell phones; we’ve been on the leading edge of personal computer technology our whole lives.

Our Baby Boomer older siblings feel just as frustrated about being dismissed as tech no-know-hows. According to a study done in the UK by advertising agency J. Walter Thompson on “The Elastic Generation” of women between the ages of 53-72, almost three quarters of the participants “hate the way their generation is patronized when it comes to technology.” Sixty percent of respondents say they find tech “fascinating.”

But it’s easy to glom on to this notion of self-identifying as “too old for technology.” That’s how I avoided Snapchat forever. Then one day I put on my big girl pants and forced myself to get an account. After a few months I dropped off – not because I didn’t understand the technology, but because I do, and see no need for it in my life. On the other hand, when I took a headfirst dive into podcasting and all the related technological underpinnings last year, I had the opposite response – where had it been all my life?! (Oh, right. Not invented yet.) If I hadn’t learned the Zencastr recording tool and the Blubrry podcast hosting platform and the Audacity editing app, do you really think I’d be chatting with MTV icons from my teenage years like Martha Quinn and Kathy Valentine? No. No, I certainly would not.

Learning new technology isn’t always easy – but those bulky Lotus manuals have been replaced by a million YouTube videos and Facebook user groups where helpful people have asked and answered your question a million times before. You are only ever one Google search away from an answer.

A recent study by Dropbox found that compared to Millennials, older workers use just as much technology but actually feel less stressed by it. The author’s explanation for the counter-intuitive finding rings true to me: the younger you are, the more likely you’ve always had “an app for that.” Those of us who remember those cross-campus marches to the computer center, the miracles that were the first fax machines, and the hernia you gave yourself trying to carry your first “laptop” computer on a business trip are likely to have a lot more patience when technology doesn’t work right.

Or to put it another way, the day I get “old” is the day I’m too jaded to delight in the Mac and Cheese delivery app on my iPhone.

Learn more about AARP’s initiative to Disrupt Aging When Life Gives You Lemmas 

An Open Letter to My Getaround User

Hi buddy! You don’t know me, but we’re connected thanks to this newfangled car-sharing service called Getaround. I was intrigued by the description of “peer-to-peer car sharing” which basically means an AirBnB for cars, or Uber where the passenger drives – bottom line, you pay me to borrow my car when I’m not using it. So I wanted to leave a letter to whomever is currently in possession of my station wagon and its college decals.

First, I want to apologize for the breadcrumbs everywhere in this vehicle. I do a lot of driving my family members around, to school, to ballet, to the bus stop, and I’m a fan of carbs. Do the math. Try to think of it like I do: if there’s an earthquake while you’ve got the car, you have a food supply for 3-4 days, which is what the experts recommend!

Speaking of earthquakes, you’ll notice a plethora of grocery bags in the way back of the car. I used to keep a go-bag of earthquake supplies back there, but with car break-ins so prevalent in the Bay Area, my husband worried it would cause people to smash the back window (Again. If you open and close the back hatch, you’ll hear the melodic tinkling of glass that’s lodged inside the door from the last smash and grab. It’s festive!) So now all that’s left is the pile of grotty reusable grocery bags which, I suppose, you could use your shoelaces to stitch into a shelter if the Big One hits when you have my car. Good luck.

About the radio presets: they’re an efficient summary of my entire family. Alternative music, old school hip hop, Willie Nelson’s Roadhouse, and Bruce Springsteen. You’re welcome.

Can you do me a solid while you’ve got the car? Pick up the dry cleaning? I’m about minimizing gas use through consolidating errands so, really, you wouldn’t be doing it for me. You’d be doing it for the planet.

Also, we are out of milk. I like the kind organic fat-free kind they sell at Safeway. And you may as well get another six-pack of Lagunitas while you’re there. It’s not like the political scene is getting any better.

You know what? There’s been a service light that keeps coming on in the car, along with a message that says, “Schedule Service? Yes, No, Postpone.” I’ve been punching that “postpone” option like it’s a treat dispenser and I’m a trained monkey. Can you just do me a little favor and hit “yes” to see what happens? You might have to take it in for the 25k maintenance, but they have free coffee there. Thanks, you’re the best.

Did I leave my sunglasses is the middle console? I need them. Can you just pop them into my mailbox and honk twice so I know they’re there?

If you’re reading this on the second or fourth Wednesday of the month, that means it’s our day to get the veggie box from the CSA. I’ll put the pickup address at the bottom of the letter. Super easy – just parallel park on the narrowest residential street in Oakland, the one where homeowners are doing construction projects 110% of the time so there are always, always white trucks and bulldozers and sometimes even cement mixers making the street even narrower. But the chard is SO fresh. Feel free to take a leaf!

Ok, I think that’s all the background you’ll need for using the Kho-mobile to take your girlfriend to the beach to propose, or to meet your friends at a music festival, or any of the other jaunty use cases the Getaround billboards portray. Have fun! Make proud choices!

But seriously – Safeway, dry cleaner, and Volvo dealership first.

***

One of my all time favorite driving songs: I Think She Likes Me by Treat Her Right. The drummer here is the very same Billy Conway who singer/songwriter Jeffrey Foucault mentions in Midlife Mixtape Podcast Episode 32…

The post An Open Letter to My Getaround User appeared first on Midlife Mixtape .

                   
CommentsHaving just introduced two teen-age grandchildren to the wonder ... by Ron ThibodeauxI'm going to need an update once you have a few drivers under ... by Whitney MossRelated StoriesWhen Life Gives You LemmasMe, Myself, and AlicienteDiplomatic Mission 

Ep 33 Original MTV VJ Martha Quinn

“Lightning in a bottle:” MTV VJ and IHeart80s radio host Martha Quinn on her crazy audition for the job of a lifetime, why there’s so much nostalgia for the ‘80s, and learning not to overload her “plate.”

Martha Quinn at IHeart80s@103.7
Follow Martha on Twitter and Facebook
Martha’s Mixtape – submit your ideas for a mixtape here
VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave by Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter and Martha Quinn with Gavin Edwards. Great long read about your favorite ‘80s channel – here’s my review (and giveaway!) of that book when it came out in 2013

This feels like looking at my kids’ baby pictures. I’m verklempt with nostalgia.

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the Midlife Mixtape podcast – check him out here!Did you like this episode? Then you might also enjoy:

Ep 13 DJ Misbehaviour
Ep 10 Filmmaker Jordan Brady
Ep 9 Artist Isabel Samaras



                   
Commentshttps://www.spreaker.com/user/9808680/martha-podcast-1 Check ... by Nancy Davis KhoWait, where's the dirt on the Romantics? That story about her ... by EllenRelated StoriesEp 32 Singer/Songwriter Jeffrey FoucaultEp 30 Democracy Defenders Isabel Kallman and Jeannine HarveyEp 29 Humorist Wendi Aarons 

When Life Gives You Lemmas

Superfluous

The BBC ran an interesting article the other day called “How many words do you need to speak a language?” The basic finding was that while native speakers average 15,000-20,000 of the word families (e.g. sit, sat, sitting) also known as “lemmas,” you can get away with knowing only 800-1000 of the most commonly used lemmas in a foreign language and do ok.

I could have told them this because I married someone who believes he is fluent in at least three foreign languages, only one of which he actually studied.

The one he studied is French and, to be fair, he does fine with this one. He grew up close to the Quebec border with New York, where road signs are printed in French and English and the best hockey matches are broadcast in French only. So when, ten years ago, we hosted a wonderful French exchange student named Camille for a summer, it was not a total surprise that the after-dinner activity every night was a little game called, “No, I Don’t Think That’s The Right Word.”

It worked like this. My husband would ask Camille how to say a word in French, let’s say, “dish towel.” Camille would say, “torchon.” My husband would look at her, squint and tilt his head, and say to our native-French-speaking guest, “No, I don’t think that’s the right word.” He always had a theory of what the right word was and the two of them would go straight to the two French dictionaries that ended up living on the dining room table all summer. If my husband was wrong – it happened, believe it or not – he’d invariably say, “Well, that’s how you say it in French Canadian.” Factcheck THAT, Frenchie!

Fast forward to last summer when we binge-watched “Narcos” and now my husband also speaks Spanish. It’s not a very polite Spanish and you definitely wouldn’t want to use it in a public setting. Or a private setting of people whose high regard you’d like to maintain. Or in any setting where getting your meaning across was critical.

Nevertheless, as each episode ended and Pablo Escobar stayed alive a little while longer, my husband would turn to me to reiterate that with two, maybe three weeks of Spanish study, tops, he’d totally be fluent. Instead of arguing this one with Camille, he argues it with our two daughters who have studied Spanish since sixth grade and are, in fact, fluent. They beg to differ with the “two, three weeks tops” estimate. But they do it in Spanish, so he really doesn’t know that’s what they’re doing.

Has my husband ever studied German? No, he has not, although his mother has solid German stock and his dad was a prisoner in a German work camp during WW2 and learned German there. Did that stop him from speaking “German” to our latest exchange student, darling Anneli from Germany? It did not. On the first day of her stay he confidently told her that it was “sweating” outside, using his vast Yiddish vocabulary which doubles for German in a pinch (see, History.) He threw his version of German at her left and right during her stay, including the terms I taught him while driving for “turn left” and “turn right.”Anneli confided to me one day that she wishes the Vine video platform hadn’t closed down because she could have made a compilation of her host dad speaking “German” and become Vine-famous in Deutschland.

In the many years we’ve been together I’ve heard my husband take a run at Flemish, Portuguese, and Mandarin. He is never intimidated by a foreign language, he’s always curious to learn new words, and he genuinely believes he can figure them out. He understands that fluency doesn’t count for anything if you never open your mouth and use those words to connect with someone else. And more often than not he does make himself understood, because he knows the one lemma that actually matters:

“Lemma try.”

It’s been five years since Belgian hip hop/electronic artist Stromae has released a new song, and this one, “Défiler,” is on the slow side and doubles as an ad for his clothing line. Whatever. It’s an excuse to practice my French.

***Hey! I took a spin on the other side of the interviewer’s notebook when I was a guest this week on the “To 50 and Beyond” podcast! Check out the interview here, in which a person whose childhood name was Aunt Blabby was allowed to riff on a series of open-ended questions

Me, Myself, and Aliciente

The first thing you need to know is that Siri thinks my name is Aliciente.

Siri pronounces it “Alishent,” although my friend Andrea points out that it should probably be “Ali-see-yente,” Spanish-style. It’s just more evidence of how committed Siri is to antagonizing me, by not even pronouncing my fake name right.

My daughters trained my iPhone to call me Aliciente when I first got an iPhone back in the day. No, it doesn’t mean anything, but I thought it was funny, and now it’s become one of those things that Mom holds on to far longer than the kids do, like calling poufy dresses “pooey-rolls” or saying “bucksketti” instead of spaghetti. Also because MY Siri has an Australian male accent, and ever since Mark Lee in Gallipoli, I have a soft spot for Australian male accents regardless of what they’re saying.

Also, I don’t know how to change it. That’s a factor.

But it hasn’t been that big of a deal because it’s not like my iPhone addressed me directly very often. In fact, it only ever came up if I texted my contact card to someone, and the someone would invariably respond, “Who’s Aliciente?”

But ever since I was gifted an Apple Watch for Mother’s Day last month, Siri is really trying it with me, or I should say, with Aliciente. Because now Siri is attached to my body and believes that he knows better than I do how to maintain his host organism.

For those who don’t know, the Apple Watch has a built-in motion detector and heart rate monitor. As part of the setup, you tell it how much you’d like to move/stand/exercise during the day. And then, with a relentlessness that bounty hunters and toddlers begging for more screen time would admire, Siri keeps track and sends you messages from the end of your own arm, three feet away.

Like this.

Yes, Siri, I was aware that was a particularly sedentary day. Also I was aware that day that I was on two deadlines, behind on a book proposal, and working what is basically a full-time consulting job while ALSO reconciling the guest list for my mother in law’s 85th birthday party. Something had to give that day and, evidently, it was my cardio level and your esteem.

And this.

Sent at 10:30 pm. Right. Twenty-three minutes around my Oakland neighborhood in the dark seems prudent.

The last straw was on Monday night while I was 27,000 feet above Illinois, circling in a United 757 and praying the weather would lift over Chicago and we’d be able to land in time to make our connection to California. Alas, it was not to be: we landed in Grand Rapids to wait out the storm and “violent turbulence” per the captain, thus stretching what should have been a 90-minute flight into five hours of travel, with another five to go.

Siri didn’t care. Siri spent five hours telling me to get it in gear, by, I guess, doing laps up and down the aisle. Believe me, Siri, no one understood better than me Monday night how much better off I would have been were I moving. I don’t control the seat belt sign, OK?

As someone who writes about speech technology and digital assistants and privacy issues, I’m professionally leery of giving devices too much information and power over me. We don’t have an Alexa or a Google Home, and I routinely review my privacy settings in social media and regularly opt-out of creepy online address databases like Spokeo and Spyfly. (In all seriousness, you should set a reminder and do it quarterly. Search for your name plus “ADDRESS” in Google and wherever your personal data comes up in the search results, follow their usually intentionally convoluted rules for opting out. Do it for your kids and parents, too.)

Yet I’ve welcomed this draconian Australian personal fitness instructor who can’t even be bothered to learn my name onto my left wrist, and spend the daylight hours trying to appease him. I can’t explain it either, except to show you this message from yesterday:

That’ll do, Mark Lee. That’ll do.

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Ep 32 Singer/Songwriter Jeffrey Foucault

“There’s no shortcut:” Along with sneak previews from his new album Blood Brothers, Americana musician Jeffrey Foucault shares his thoughts on impersonation becoming truth, the music economy, and the magic triad of luck, hard work, and talent.

JeffreyFoucault.com

Buy the new album here!

An old favorite from Jeffrey’s 2015 Salt as Wolves blues album – “Hurricane Lamp.”

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the Midlife Mixtape podcast – check him out here!Did you like this episode? Then you might also enjoy:

Ep 23 Musician Kathy Valentine
Ep 2 Writer/Musician Michelle Gonzales
Ep 20 Band Manager Amber Buist



                  Related StoriesEp 30 Democracy Defenders Isabel Kallman and Jeannine HarveyEp 29 Humorist Wendi AaronsEp 28 – Feminist Writer Peggy Orenstein 

Diplomatic Mission

One of my 2018 goals was to practice more German. Back in the day I was utterly fluent – eight years of good old-fashioned school learning combined with a semester in Vienna and two years working in Munich meant I had even the most obscure declensions down, dreamt in German, threw around German words for which there simply are no English translations.

Then I moved home, and 27 years passed without me speaking more German than “Prosit!” and “Gesundheit!” I’m rustier than a fence in a rainstorm. Hence, the goal.

Hahhahaaha Universe. You so funny. You love when people “put things out into” You, don’t you? Enter Anneli from Kassel.

About a month ago, I got an email from an admin at the high school where our younger daughter is a junior, wondering if anyone on the distrib list might be willing to host a German exchange student until the end of the school year. Apparently, her host family was “not working out,” so much so that the kid was ready to head home a month early.

We have a spare bedroom. We are well steeped in the ways of teenage girls. And I had said I wanted to practice my German, after all. So after a family confab, I raised my virtual hand and a couple nights later, went to pick up Anneli from her first host family. I was curious to meet them; I’m not here to point fingers, but when I talked to the first host mom on the phone that morning, she sniffed that she didn’t think Anneli had enjoyed her time with them, what with her being on her cell phone and computer so much.

To which I responded, mystified: “But…that’s…what teenage girls do.”

I won’t say anything further – Anneli has been nothing but diplomatic about the time she spent with this couple, who don’t have kids nor, it would appear, a lifestyle conducive to them. I’ll just say that we’re filling her up on the sugar that wasn’t allowed in that house (she’s a newborn fan of s’mores,) watching a lot of Vine compilation videos and laughing at the most inappropriate ones, and she’s finally had a chance to visit the tourist sites in San Francisco like Fisherman’s Wharf and Golden Gate Park. She is funny and grateful and delightful and seems no worse for the fact that she’s been shuffled around a little bit in Oakland (something I’ve emailed her mom a few times to relay. Can you imagine how worried her poor parents have been?!)

In German, that’s a “Noch eins!”

Her English is pretty much better than any of ours. She was even the official class assistant in an English class at her Oakland public high school, which tells you everything you need to know, both about her English and about Oakland public high schools.

There is, in fact, only one phrase that I would say Anneli uses frequently but not using 100% correctly, and that’s “Holy crap!” Her first bite of kale chips: “Holy crap!” New purse? “Holy crap!” I can’t quite tell her why her usage is wrong, either; even if I did try to explain it she’d probably just say, “Holy crap!”

Anneli graciously speaks German to me, and the chips of rust are flaking off. For instance, I remembered the word “Spaziergang” the other day. It just popped up at the right moment, and in the right way. My husband also believes he now speaks German, which is a somewhat troubling side effect, but the point is, Anneli has made it possible to reach one of my 2018 goals with half a year to spare.

But here’s something I keep thinking about. Since Anneli arrived in Oakland, there has been an average of one school shooting per week, somewhere in the country (mercifully not in Oakland.) She’s been enrolled in an American high school for Parkland and for Santa Fe, TX and for the March for our Lives. We asked her whether her parents were worried about sending her to the U.S. She told us that as ninth graders, she and her classmates had to come up with a list of pros and cons to studying in America. Number one pro? Improve your English. Number one con, as perceived by German teenagers in her class?

School shootings.

Meanwhile, decades of alliances and diplomacy with Europe are being burned down by the current occupant of the White House, and every single day brings fresh material for moral and ethical embarrassment by this administration. I wince to think of what our allies around the world think of us.

So for all the people who have said, “Oh, you’re so nice to house her,” or “oh, she must love being in a house with so many teenagers,” I think, what we are doing is simply grassroots diplomacy, an extension of protest marches and donating to progressive candidates and calling our senators about immigration issues. We want her to take back to Germany the story of a family who respects and values differences, believes in justice and freedom of the press, and is intellectually curious, so that part of her story about her time living in the US will be about how regular people are fighting hard to dampen the impact of the current regime.

And, if we can just keep things from flying completely apart through on-the-ground intervention, maybe, just maybe we have a chance of steering this ship right in 2020.

Because otherwise, Holy crap.

Thanks, Frank Turner, for releasing a new album with the perfect song for this post. “Let’s make America great again, by making racists ashamed again…”

                   
CommentsAnneli is lucky to have you and your family as her hosts. Too ... by Harriet HeydemannHallo Ulrike und vielen dank für das vorbeischauen! by Nancy Davis KhoSo nice to read. Greetings from Bamberg in Germany. Ulrike by PantherleRelated StoriesA Message to My New Russian Fans!One Year Podcast Anniversary!Patching The Jalopy 

Ep 31 Outdoor Afro founder Rue Mapp

“Trust my feet:” Nature hacktivist Rue Mapp on her non-profit’s work to reconnect and strengthen the relationship between nature and communities of color, the healing qualities of outdoor time at midlife, and trail (music) mixes.

Outdoor Afro website
Outdoor Afro on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

Here’s a song from Rue’s own “Trail Mix” – Maze featuring Frankie Beverly with “Golden Time Of Day”

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the Midlife Mixtape podcast – check him out here!Did you like this episode? Then you might also enjoy:

Ep 25 Hip Hop Choreographer Corey Action
Ep 7 Pixar Storyteller Scott Morse
Ep 17 Travel Writer Lavinia Spalding

 

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