I'm doing a board meeting in NYC, and had the evening free so I signed up for the Die Zauberflote at Metropolitan OperaFrom the lobby, I feel a thrill run through the gathering crowd as the first orchestral sounds drift into the lobby. I walk up the sweeping staircases, then into circular hallways stairs all in red velvet, including the handrails, to get to my sixth floor Balcony stage right front row seat. I always worry about pitching over the rails. It's a Grand room, tall with gold inlay on the ceiling and fluted balconies and boxes ...<< MORE >>

Mona and Clyde Johnson

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By Lou Groves (nee Johnson)

Both the members of this union had a common background in Tennessee: Clyde L. Johnson and Mona Hazel Maynard. Their families lived in the Tennessee river valley and its companion Cumberland river valley. Both of these rivers flowed vast amounts of water that was harnessed to become the famed Tennessee Valley Authority, a massive federal project at the vanguard of a relentless demand for electric power in the 20th century.

The TVA, controversial at its start in the early l930s, ...<< MORE >>

Nancy couldn't bear being separated from the Gkids for a month, so we drove to Baltimore for her fix. Once there, I was so impressed by my wife's love and skills with our grandkids. She has a gentleness and engagement that I tend to miss in our day-to-day interactions.  She throws herself into engagement with the kids, playing on the floor or repeating some endless mnemonic they chant. She is emotionally available to them. Why didn't I know?  When we were child rearing, I had two jobs during (she had the kids and one PT job). I took the ...<< MORE >>

Mayor Bloomberg closed off traffic on two blocks of Broadway at Times Square today. The pavement filled with people in lawn chairs. I joined them for as long as it took to see these 21 unique smiles.

Broken smile
Fixed Smile
Inner Smile
Distracted Smile
Huffing Smile
Neutral Smile
Cell Phone Smile
Knowing Smile
Private Smile
Watched Smile
Awed Looking up Smile
Stopped in Tracks Smile
Yawn then Smile
Smirk to Smile
Among Friends Smile
Work Day Over Smile
Photo Smile
Shared Joke Smile
Hey Buddy Smile
Holding Hands Smile
Spit and Smile
...<< MORE >>

Blake said they left you standing on the road, with your suitcases, in the cold. My spouse, abandoned, shivering, heading to lands unknown.

The return drive from MD got us home after midnite Friday (technically Saturday morning).
Bat the Cat took our 2 day absence poorly. He hid for the first day, then walked around the house growling and complaining like a grouchy old man.
Blake borrowed the car and went to a Wii party with his new not-girlfriend. I had empty house which is new to me.
Each day it is snowing enough to refresh the ...<< MORE >>

I just returned from Baltimore, where I met Nancy and our daughter returning from Ethiopia with our two grandchildren. Here's Nancy's story from Ethiopia, up to the time the internet went out. Then the electricity, and finally no running water for the last week.<< MORE >>

Washington DC is like the moon. When you take a single step on the moon, it’s not just a piece of a long journey, it’s "a giant leap forward." Everything in DC is tinged with significance and layers upon layers of insider knowledge.

Our first stop is the Hart Senate Office Building. Gary Hart. This building was designed when Senators could expect every luxury. The whole exterior and interior is marble. There are, though I didn’t get to see them, a lux gym, elegant dining, and amenities. Designed in that era but built in this era. Tastes changed ...<< MORE >>

Flying Across the Rockies in Utah and Nevada, very few settlements. Then over the low portion of the Bay Bridge and into San Francisco. Jerry Weitz, the CU Dentist, picks me up and drives back along US 101 (numbering starting at US 1 in Boston) stretching from Canada to Mexico. All the landmarks of this beautiful city: Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Transamerica Building, Red's Java Hut on Pier 39. I like the grass hilltops in the middle of the city. Onto the Mission District and on Cesar Chavez blvd the Mexican workers waiting for a pickup truck. Mission Street is busy and ethnic. Only a couple of empty storefronts in two miles: Luggage, cell phones, clothing (esp dress up for children), Food, banks and payday lenders.<< MORE >>

When Nancy and I arrived home in Ithaca after our two week business / pleasure tour of California and Las Vegas, we found the leaves still turning and a full sunset in progress. The next morning, we had our first rain in two weeks (but sunny by 11am). We've since had a hard frost (let's not say "killing frost") and tomorrow our first "sticking snow" is likely. << MORE >>

The expected seats on the plane weren't taken so the elderly man asked the stewardess if his wife could take the seat next to him. The stewardess asked the wife is she should like to move. She replied she preferred where she was. The stewardess argues that her husband is all alone. No. She called back to him that the wife didn't want to move. Embarrassment. She succumbed and moved. ...<< MORE >>

Talking to the fishermen as they brought in their catch, I saw a drowned sailor. My Dad told me most sailors can't swim. I didn't understand, it seemed like so obvious a precaution. Once I sailed a Catamaran inter-island and swam off the side. For the first time in the water, I was frightened out of my wits. I couldn't feel safe in open ocean. The inky black depths, gave no bottom to my fears, which came tumbling in. I saw that I had always swum in relation to the bottom. The bottom let me have a context, a ...<< MORE >>

I never found anything of value at the old gold mine, but several of my friends had. We were naturally thrilled with greed and explored eagerly. There was lots of fool's gold, and though it's formations are quite pretty, we wouldn't collect it, feeling the weight of its name.<< MORE >>

I once attended a concert in Columbus where I was in row triple "m" though I felt like BB King played in my lap. It's a wonderful experience. Kansas City, Mo airport was like that for me. I got off the plane and I nearly stumbled over the baggage claim. The shuttle desk was in front of me when I turned around. Ten steps and I was at the shuttle pickup site. My salute to the airport architect.

The shuttle driver was gregarious. Even though it was pitch dark, he gave us a tour of the city. Here's ...<< MORE >>

It was a business visit in a city where 70% of the residents belong to the same evangelical religious sect. I shared the city with 10,000 skin care product salespeople at an inspirational convention. It's an atmosphere a tent evangelist would sweat blood for. My business is routine, but I could leave this city with a new religion or a new face. The odds are against me. << MORE >>

I received an engraved invitation to attend the signing of a bill in the Rose Garden at the White House. The invitation read, "The President and Mrs Clinton request the pleasure" etc. Of course Hillary was in Boston (Al Gore was upstate NY with Congressman Hinchey). An equally lovely card asked me to respond to the White House Social Secretary (which turned out to be a machine) giving such identifying data as would be required to keep riff-raff out. << MORE >>

Just east of Cortland, on Route 13, on the second farm after the city ends, on a hill overlooking the road, a mile distant, there is a stand of beech trees that attracted my attention. They were uniformly slender with no lower branches. They were tall. There was no brush under or around them. The division between field and forest was sharp. It looked like they grew as a part of a larger forest, maybe 80-100 years ago.

Something prevented these trees from being cleared for farmland. It wasn't the slope: below it a steeper site was farmed ...<< MORE >>

At the airport, through the Friday afternoon crowd, I heard a child screaming, "No, I don't want to go with you." I never see the child.

At airports the style is always glitzy, the construction always shoddy and the size is wrong: the hallways are too big, and everything personal too small. Maybe it's preparation for being on a plane.

Flying into Ithaca last night, we could see Toronto off to the North. Buffalo and Syracuse closer in. And, as we drop lower, Ithaca. Coming in over the City. On East Hill, the unistakable ...<< MORE >>

Italo Calvino (favorite fiction author) wrote a series of short stories based on the position of chess pieces on a board. Each chapter was based on a different chess board situation. My sitting place in O'Hare was the hall between terminals EF and AB, near the WWII Grumman F4F Wildcat warplane.<< MORE >>

Steer Clear Report July 2008 ...<< MORE >>

My poor brain is worn out by my first visit to Aspen Meadows for a Socrates Society Seminar.<< MORE >>

"What's up with Columbia SC?", I ask. My shuttle driver named two his favorite BBQ restaurants: Wild Wing Cafe and Sticky Fingers Ribhouse. << MORE >>

Why should I be so surprised that it's spring? I never realized I had lost faith. ...<< MORE >>

For the first time since my detachment from Alternatives, Nancy accompanied me on a business trip. Of course, she was swayed by the cold weather and snow in Ithaca and the prospect of sun and sand in Florida. << MORE >>

Alternative Lending interview for REAL Solutions ...<< MORE >>

Columbia Restaurant, Spanish cuisine. This restaurant had Moorish decoration theme, long embellished (they opened in 1905). A stage in the main dining room featured Flamenco dancers on Fridays, the night we were there. Though we sat on an interior patio, the ceramic tiles echoed the sound so completely I felt the pounding boots and guitar attacks rattle my spoon.

I had Pompano, one of my favorite fish because I fished them on a wide white sand bay as a youth. The fish are thin silver with black accents. They look like deep water swimmers, but they live in ...<< MORE >>

I want to talk about leaving Alternatives in the way the question was phrased to me "Why leave paradise?"<< MORE >>

Here’s the Alternatives model in a nutshell. We support people, businesses and our community in their movement to sustainable finances, and they in turn feed our business as they are successful. We are a community catalyst in a virtuous self sustaining system.<< MORE >>

Alternatives will be 28 years old; an unequaled staff, a solid Board, standing in the community. I’m confident now is the time to separate and start my second career. << MORE >>

In the middle of Minneapolis runs the Mississippi River,  Near St Anthony's falls, across from old flour mills is Nicollet Island, a residential island park. My hostess, Margaret Lund, CEO of the NorthCountry Development Fund, lives in an 1876 house on the island that she inherited from her parents. "Quaint" doesn't do it justice. Brick paved streets, 100 houses (including some newer condos). And one restaurant. Very popular for weddings. As we ate and the evening progressed, we could see the river, they City beyond, and park goers returning after some early summer event. Kids had paper hats ...<< MORE >>

Tompkins Weekly June 04, 2007 ...<< MORE >>

credit union magazine June 2007 ...<< MORE >>

This used to be a hard restaurant to get reservations for, but on the day after Memorial Day it was nearly empty.

Appetizer. Battered fried oysters with Yucca and corn. Usually shell fish are fried at a punishing shriveling heat, destroying taste and leaving us with generic fried food taste. These oysters were so lightly treated that no taste was lost. The red sauce contained some horseradish.

My wise companion chose the Ceviche Sampler. Four glass bowls on an ice plate. The waiter said the heat of the dishes increased counterclock wise from the bottom right. ...<< MORE >>

NYSCUL Connection April 2007 ...<< MORE >>

Flying Across the Rockies in Utah and Nevada, very few settlements. Then over the low portion of the Bay Bridge and into San Francisco.

Jerry Weitz, the CU Dentist, picks me up and drives back along US 101 (numbering starting at US 1 in Boston) stretching from Canada to Mexico. All the landmarks of this beautiful city: Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Transamerica Building, Red's Java Hut on Pier 39. I like the grass hilltops in the middle of the city. Onto the Mission District and on Cesar Chavez blvd the Mexican workers waiting for a pickup truck. Mission Street ...<< MORE >>

Firenze (Florence) is a small city, with a small airport. It started to rain as we arrived, the only rain during our visit, perhaps our gift of Ithaca. We immediately got our rental cars and stumbled past the autostrada and onto the backroad to Certaldo. These country road have narrow lanes, no shoulders and switchbacks you couldn't count. The road narrows further at each town to make way for the 12" sidewalks . Trucks barrel through tight mountain turns; pedestrians, old men in suits, confidently bike or walk along. The rain picks up, the sky darkens.<< MORE >>

Ithaca Times Sept 13, 2006 ...<< MORE >>

Toward a new Credit Path Lessons from a survey of 904 Alternatives Federal Credit Union Members ...<< MORE >>

We want to eat at Nanas, run by a former 13 year old Salvadorian guerilla, now 40; closed on Monday. Next best, and perhaps better is Limon, Peruvian. I have Ceviche Limon as an appetizer. Salvador tells me how to prepare: Lime juice, Don't marinate more than an hour, add hot sauce, onion, garlic; then Halibut, Cameron, Octopus. Sides of yam, onions, huge kernal brazed corn. The hot sauce is HOT. Then Anticucho de Res, skewered beef in pepper sauce.<< MORE >>

Credit Union Times August 16, 2006 ...<< MORE >>

Charlie and I drove across the bottom of Central Park on CP South, then past Columbus and the new Time Warner building, up CP West. We saw school kids at every entrance. Gates showed its gold in every view, though no view show a large part of Gates.<< MORE >>

Executive September 1994 ...<< MORE >>

CDFI Data Project 2004 ...<< MORE >>

NCRC 2003 ...<< MORE >>

Traveling to a conference in the big city brings up humbling life purpose thoughts as I draw close to the overwhelming gritty reality of The City. I think, "The total assets of our Credit Union are valued equally to this vacant lot. This next building is worth more than the assets of all our peers combined. This awful destruction, this repossessed for taxes, this abandoned, this demolished." << MORE >>

Greenleaf October 2002 ...<< MORE >>

Ithaca Journal Sept 19, 2007 ...<< MORE >>

Assets Winter 2002 ...<< MORE >>

Undercurrents December 2001 ...<< MORE >>

The archer was lying on his side, shooting into the dome of heaven. I miss not seeing the stars more often. I turn off my car lights for a moment, but I'm feeling too pressed to stop.<< MORE >>

Neighborworks Journal Winter 2000 ...<< MORE >>

Alternative Currents on Predatory Lending ...<< MORE >>

Unprioritized - Sunday, July 27, 1997 - Sunday, July 27, 1997 -

Once every three years, the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) gathers delegates from 70 countries to share successes and encourage cooperative financial institutions worldwide. I have been talking for a while about the difficulty of measuring the social impact of Community Development Credit Unions. Since social auditing was the topic of one of the break-out panels, I was invited to participate in the summers WOCCU Forum in Vancouver.

Vancouver is a lot like Ithaca. And it rains there. When ...<< MORE >>