January 17, 1991
Dear Everyone:
And so, it begins.
Yesterday being the third Wednesday of the month,
we had our usual ARMA Workshop and Dinner Meeting.
(ARMA stands for Association of Records Managers and
Administrators.) This takes
place in a restaurant down by the Embarcadero.
It’s convenient for a number of reasons:
Valet parking for “out-of-towners” who have to drive in from
It has a medium-size room with a big screen TV
(perfect for Monday night football) which can also be used for showing
slides or an overhead projector.
And the tables and chairs can be arranged to accommodate the
projected size of the workshop.
It also has a separate room, a large greenhouse, really, which
juts out over the water and affords a spectacular view of the
Normally, “Rowena” and I set up a small table just
inside the dinner room for registration.
People come in between 3:30 and 4:00 for the workshop, which runs
from 4:00 to 5:30. Once the
initial rush is over and the workshop begins, one of us slips away from
the table to attend the Workshop.
We alternate each month.
Last night was my turn to watch the Workshop.
Our boss, “Alma”, was giving a “lecture” on
“Records Disposition – When and How?”
I only missed the first 5-10 minutes, but even so, it seemed
doubtful that she would answer either question.
She rambled on, in her usual style, going off on tangents,
confusing people, changing direction in mid-sentence and leaving folks
behind. I saw several people
openly reading something else while they waited for the session to end.
When it did, I went back to the Registration table
to help “Rowena” with the people who didn’t attend the Workshop and
would only be coming for the Dinner Meeting.
“Rowena” said:
“We’re bombing.”
I said:
“Oh, she rambled quite a bit, but I wouldn’t say she bombed completely.”
In truth, you’d have to be really
bad to bomb out with these
ARMA people. They’ll listen
to anything.
“Rowena” said:
“We’re bombing
Oh.
That
kind of bombing. Someone had
come into the bar and reported that they’d heard the attack had started
and that President Bush would be on TV at 6:00.
The restaurant turned on their big TV and a lot of people went to
watch. I don’t have a son in
the Marines stationed in the
The ARMA president, “Ashley”, called for a moment
of silence before dinner and then we went on with dinner and an
interminable speech about Catastrophe Planning.
When I finally got home, I called “Jeannie”, who had been
watching the news all evening.
She reported that demonstrators were (apparently) burning a car
in front of my office building and, more importantly, they’d broken the
windows at Macy’s, a place
closer to her heart than my office.
(Throwing Rocks for World Peace.)
For those of us at Company, it began two days ago
when demonstrators marched on the
Needless to say, security has tripled in the past
week. Barricades in front of
the buildings, extra guards inside and out.
Company employee overheard in the hallway:
“I’m not nearly as concerned with Iraqi terrorists as I am with
the citizens of
Having failed to storm the “Company
Last night, of course, things got a bit hairier.
Lots of altercations between protestors and police, throwing
rocks, setting police cars on fire, blocking the Bridges and freeways.
All in the name of World Peace.
Personally, I don’t quite see the connection between World Peace
and stalling traffic; but then, there’s always the fringe element.
People who enjoy disrupting things, throwing rocks and setting
police cars on fire just for the fun of it.
This morning, of course, there’s a lot of talk
about how well the military operation in the Gulf is going.
Everyone is trying to work and
“listen to the war” at the same time.
CNN is doing a booming business.
I suspect we’ll all get tired of it quickly enough.
I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but just remember who won the
first battle in the War Between the States**.
Love, as always,
Pete
** The first Battle of Bull Run was won by the
Confederacy
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