Greetings!
Seven large government/nonprofit initiatives have dominated the work of our lives: expanded early childcare in the early 1970s, environmental and coastal protection in the same period, domestic violence prevention in the late 1970’s, HIV-AIDS prevention in the 1980s, Children and Families Commissions (First Five) in the late 1990s, community citizen engagement after retirement, and homeless housing and services in the last three years.
Pat and I have been involved in these community-driven and legislatively-implemented program expansions, mostly carrying the hopes and dreams of those who defined the issues early on to the practicality of governmental funding and operations as reality revealed the tools and routes. They have been career-defining experiences, each providing and amplifying important skills and relationships.
At the apogee of these experiences (and who knows exactly when that was/is), it would seem to us that patience was the virtue most useful. Certainly, rebelliousness and creativity were close seconds. But understanding that we needed to be in it for the long-run helped; that we needed to be committed.
Along the way, we took time off to travel. We chose to give back to ourselves and to others who followed, by chasing our dream to explore and learn. While there have been set-backs and barriers to a persistent pace of doing so lately, we will continue to look for ways to fill that need in us.
