March 2022 – Page 2 – Just a Member

March 21, 2022March 21, 2022

Three Field Notes

A Refreshing Difference from a Big, Local Bank

“Last year, my wife and I wanted to do some refinancing by taking out a mortgage on our home to pay off a mortgage on one of our investment properties that had a higher interest rate. We went to a big local bank with which we have done business for 40 years, including a number of mortgages and home owner equity lines of credit.

“We applied as we have many times before. The bank kept asking us for more and more documents. After submitting 69 documents (some were updates of documents we submitted earlier), we gave up. We concluded that they simply did not want to lend to us.

“This was hard to fathom. Over the years, we have never missed a payment on any mortgage or loan. Also, the appraised value of our home, which would serve as security for the new mortgage, is nine times greater than the dollar amount of the requested mortgage. Our monthly income, from rentals and Social Security, is ten times the monthly payments that would be due on the mortgage.

“There shouldn’t have been any question about our ability to pay. Our best guess is that the bank did not want to loan to us because we are 65 and older, and retired, so we do not have salaries that can be garnished easily if we fail to make a monthly payment. In any event, we could not believe that they turned us down.

“The good news is that a mortgage broker suggested Honolulu Federal Credit Union (HOCU). The folks at HOCU welcomed us, asked for about a dozen documents, processed our application, and gave us the mortgage. It was smooth, quick, and friendly. We were grateful for the excellent service. We decided to open a couple of other accounts with HOCU as well. We have been happy with all of our interactions with HOCU during the past year. What a refreshing difference from that big, local bank!”

Happy 73^rd Birthday: Affinity Credit Union

(March 18, 2022)

MEMBERS CELEBRATE IN HONOR OF UNITED STEELWORKERS LOCAL 310 FOUNDING

Affinity Credit Union celebrated 310 Day on March 16th and March 18th at the Firestone Tire plant in Des Moines, Iowa. This “310” day honors our founding members form USW Local 310. Firestone employees were greeted with dollar bills, marketing gifts and entered to win a $310 cash prize.

In 1949, a group of 10 Firestone workers founded Local 310 Credit Union by pooling their money together to make affordable loans for Firestone workers. The credit union charter members carried a few dollars in a lunch box between work shifts distributing $5 and $10 loans. If someone needed a loan, they would first collect deposits to fund the loan.

At the time, the founding group did not have any credit union members, had little money to lend, and no desk to consult with borrowers. Nevertheless, they persevered with a resource created by workers, for workers, that fed families, futures, and trust.

Today Local 310 Credit Union, now known as Affinity Credit Union, manages millions in financial assets, while helping 14,000 member-owners in central Iowa do more with the money they earn so they can live the life they want.

“On 310 Day we honor the Legends – the USW Local 310 founding members. From humble beginnings they demonstrated the meaning of People Helping People and our ongoing mission of Building Better Lives.” said Jim Dean CEO.

From Maine Harvest FCU’s Newsletter

(March 2022)

Maine Harvest Loan Portfolio Now Over $1 million

We are pleased to report that our loan portfolio has passed the $1 million mark. This is a huge achievement for Maine Harvest FCU. Our loan portfolio is dedicated to building a better food system in Maine and is:

Broadly diversified across sectors including vegetable, livestock, dairy, fruit, and botanical (herbs, flowers, plants) production;
Across the state from York County to Aroostook County; and
Funded by depositors like many of you who share our mission.

Borrower Spotlight

Providing Access to Farmland:
Start-up Farmers Ruth & Jonathan Bayless of Knock Knock Farm

“Working with Maine Harvest Federal Credit Union was a better experience than I could ever have imagined. They guided us through the financial process with what felt like unlimited patience and kindness. I know we would not be on our farm right now without them. We are so glad that they and their mission exist.”

Ruth Bayless, July 2021

Member Spotlight

Susan Kiralis and David Shipman

“The focal points of our China, Maine, home are the garden and the kitchen so when Maine Harvest Federal Credit Union opened it seemed only natural to put our money where our hearts and mouths were.

We have lived in China for the last 35 years, much of that time working at Fedco Seeds and getting to know the farmers and growers who can now benefit from MHFCU.

Working at Fedco, volunteering at MOFGA, serving on its board and at the Common Ground Fair, and now putting our money to work at Maine Harvest, we think we’ve done a small part toward making Maine the way life should be.”

March 18, 2022March 15, 2022

Ed Callahan… A Look Back

by Jim Blaine (Thursday, March 17, 2016)

Always suspected that the problem with Ed Callahan was that as a youth he was beaten too often by Nuns in parochial school or, perhaps, not beaten enough. Well, whatever, either way the Nuns left their mark – an indomitable spirit!

Ed Callahan was Irish – brash, pugnacious, loud, hard drinking, fun loving – alive! But why be redundant? I said he was Irish!

For over a quarter of a century, we all watched and observed as Ed Callahan created shock waves in the credit union world. No one was neutral about Ed Callahan. His friends were fiercely loyal, his enemies equally committed. Ed inspired many and angered quite a few. Ed had style; he had presence. With Ed, you weren’t allowed to make contact without becoming involved, excited, immersed, engaged.

At Marquette, Ed must have played football in the same way he played life – without a helmet. You had no doubt that Ed Callahan always played for keeps. He had no intentions of losing, that was not one of the options. Ed was very straight-forward; your choices were always clear. The mission was defined; and, there was only one direct path to the goal. That path was either with you, around you, over you, under you, or through you; you could step aside or get on board. It was your choice; but your choice never changed the mission, nor the path, nor the goal.

Some said that Ed was a visionary…

… they were wrong. Ed Callahan was a revolutionary. Visionaries talk about change, revolutionaries take you there. Ed led from the front – a leader of conviction, rather than convenience; principles above posture – courageous. Revolutionaries, by definition, create problems; overturn applecarts; rebuke the status quo. That happened at NCUA. Appointed by President Reagan, Ed arrived at NCUA in the midst of turmoil. Ed defined the mission; he reformed and remolded the Agency. He taught a regulatory agency how to stop working to prevent the last crisis. He explained that a coach never executes a play and that on Monday morning it’s never hard to see what went wrong – but it is rarely relevant. Teacher, coach, lessons in life; hopefully well learned, hopefully still remembered.

But let me celebrate the essence of the man – that indomitable spirit – one last time, for those who never had the opportunity; for those who still have doubts; for those who never fully understood. One of Ed’s harshest critics, noted with much wryness, that even in death Ed “couldn’t get it right”. Why, I asked? “Because Callahan died on March 18th instead of on the 17th, his beloved St. Patrick’s Day.” You know this type of critic – cynical, smug, self-assured without much basis, not really worth the effort, but…

Just for the record, I would simply like to point out one final time that – first and foremost – Ed Callahan was a fully-fledged, fully-flagrant Irishman – body and soul! And, no self-respecting Irishman would ever celebrate the end of St. Patrick’s Day until the last bell at the pub had rung. That would have meant that Ed Callahan’s “last call” would have come sometime after 4:00 am – on the morning of the 18th. Style, presence, courage – true to the last! A shamrock of joyful vigor and purpose!

And one last thought… in the final analysis you can say many things about a great man’s life… some men are admired, some are respected, some are envied, some are feared… and countless other adjectives and accolades. But, in the final analysis, the most important thing you can say about a great man is… he will be missed.

And, Ed Callahan will be missed…

An Irish Prayer

Live simply, love generously,

Care deeply, speak kindly,

Leave the rest to God.!

March 17, 2022March 17, 2022

A Fee that Credit Unions Should Review for Appropriateness

Increasing attention is being given to all financial institution’s overdraft/courtesy-pay/nsf fee structures. An excellent summary of many of the issues is in this article from CUSO magazine.

After the reassessments of these fees, there is another one that credit unions may want to proactively review.

The Unclaimed Property/Inactive Account Fee

A member recently told the story about learning of this fee the hard way. She had been a loyal credit union member for over two decades and had left a small balance of $500 in case a family member needed to borrow.

The regular savings account paid interest of .05%, offered only online statements and had no activity for over two years. When checking her 2021 yearend balance online she discovered that the amount had fallen by 20%.

The explanation: a $3 per month inactive account fee was being assessed. She knew nothing about the fee or how long it had been in place. In essence she felt the credit union had effectively free use of her money and was charging her on top of that!

When contacted, the credit union explained the fee and offered to refund the money for the last two years, which was as far back as their system would go.

Credit Union’s Responsibility for Inactive Accounts

When Ed, Bucky and I went to NCUA in 1981, I can remember credit unions approaching the agency about charging inactive account fees, which in essence was the step prior to forwarding these accounts to the states as unclaimed property.

In Illinois the Department of Financial Institutions was responsible for administering the unclaimed property act and ensuring funds were properly reported, returned to the state after five years of inactivity so the owners’ names could be publicly listed to reclaim their funds.

My colleagues believed charging a fee during this inactive period was counter to both the spirit of the act and for a cooperative financial institution.

Credit unions claimed the accounts were costing them money: maintaining the account, mailing monthly or quarterly statements and plus interest. Even as they tried to reactivate them, they wanted to be reimbursed for the operational “costs” of the accounts.

For others, the not so hidden motive was to fee the account to $0, especially smaller balances, close out the member, and not worry about reporting it as unclaimed property.

Others asserted that the fee was in fact an incentive for members to reactivate their accounts.

Inactive accounts come in all flavors: parents opening accounts for their children, now long gone; accounts left when members move out of the area; the account opened for an indirect loan member, etc.

The common characteristics are there is no member-initiated account activity, the relationship is static, and there is high probability the owner is unaware of any fees being charged. Therefore it is an easy fee to assess as it is mostly invisible to the account holder.

Other Credit Union Examples

One CEO I talked with said they charge $3 a month on about 500 accounts generating $1,500 in revenue. At any point in time about 40% of the accounts will be sent to the state.

Another CEO said the credit union charges $10 per quarter. In both cases the fee had not been evaluated for decades.

Both recognized that in an era of virtual accounts, minimal interest on savings and near zero marginal operating costs, the credit union should focus on contacting members, not seeing the issue as a revenue item.

I would urge credit unions to look at their current inactive account policy and fees. It may not be as consequential as overdrafts, but if a class action attorney situation arrives, just looking up the years of records, charges and potential refunds, would seem to suggest any income is not worth the potential cost.

Also don’t forget abandoned safety deposit boxes must also be reported as unclaimed after the statutory period of inactivity.

NCUA’s Unclaimed Policy

Just as a footnote, NCUA also acquires unclaimed insured share accounts when liquidating credit unions.

It is interesting to note that the agency’s policy is contrary to the legal practice required of credit unions.

As stated on the website, if NCUA cannot locate the party after 18 months, it converts them to “uninsured” and retains the balances for use by the insurance fund.

Invariably, some items may remain unclaimed. Some checks are never cashed; or the credit union’s address information was incomplete. There are also cases when we don’t have a recent address and are unable to get a forwarding address from the post office.

Share accounts claimed within the 18-month insurance period are paid at their full-insured amount. At the expiration of the 18-month insurance period, shares that are not claimed are considered uninsured and written down to share in the loss to the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund. Even if shares are uninsured when they are claimed, there may still be a distribution.

On rare occasions, the liquidation of a credit union may result in surplus funds. If a surplus remains, a distribution to the shareholders is required. This may occur several years after the credit union is liquidated and it is sometimes difficult to locate these members.

This is another example where NCUA exempts itself from the rules credit unions are required to follow to protect member’s assets.

March 16, 2022March 16, 2022

RBC Update: 257 Credit Unions in NCUA’s “Hotpot”

In two weeks, credit unions will be able to calculate their newly imposed capital ratios. Three different calculation requirements are now in effect.

Using yearend 2021 data, there are 212 credit unions over $500 million that will likely have to use RBC (risk based capital) because they had net worth below 9% at December 31. Another 45 credit unions between $400 and $500 million reported net worth below 9%. They will be subject to RBC when their total assets exceed $500 million.

This total of 257 credit unions is probably the minimum number as credit union share growth is usually seasonal, concentrated in the first four months of the year. That is, assets will increase faster than capital can be earned at the same pace.

RBC’s Impact

RBC has still not hit home for some. These credit unions are telling members they are well capitalized because they exceed the 7% net worth level. Those so doing often fall short of the new 9% minimum.

The impact of RBC is best described with the boiling frog analogy. A frog put in boiling water will immediately jump out. But put the frog in a pot of cold water, slowly raise the temperature and the frog will hot-pot to death.

Many large credit unions view RBC similar to a pond Kermit. As the RBC multiplex calculations slowly engulf quarter by quarter many will find themselves in unfathomable amounts of creeping normality.

Some will immediately jump to the seeming sub debt life preserver to stay above the 9% threshold. Soon they will realize that option itself requires more leverage just to breakeven. Sub debt just made the water deeper and harder to jump out of the pan.

RBC and NCUA’s Record of Risk Analysis

In an April 30, 2010 speech to the Illinois Credit Union League 80^th Annual Convention Chairman Matz offered these remarks on the corporate crisis:

“Let me start by assuring that I fully recognize the legitimate anger many of your feel. The anger has come through loud and clear. . .I have heard directly about the pain you have felt. I know that many of you blame NCUA: After all, two examiners were on-site at US Central and WesCorp. NCUA definitely shares some of the blame (and then comes the big qualifier) but there is plenty of blame to go around.”

What she forgot is that the regulator’s role is because crises are to be expected. And when they occur, to be managed prudently.

The Irony of the RBC rule which is supposed to “protect the insurance fund” is that NCUA is often the source of the problem. As one veteran CEO observed:

“All the losses -excluding a relatively low level of cu management fraud – that NCUA has incurred is the result of errors in risk analysis by NCUA. They don’t like to acknowledge that fact, but the logic is inescapable.

By decreeing that most assets are now in complex credit unions, the industry is far more subject to the whims of a less than stellar team of NCUA executives who are increasingly enthralled by the “predictive” accuracy of astrologically and phrenologically based statistical models.”

The most catastrophic error in risk analysis is the Corporate crisis referred to by Chairman Matz. NCUA is now projecting a minimum of $5.7 billion in recoveries from the corporate AME’s. Over $1.2 billion is still due shareholders of the four corporates.

This is the exact opposite result projected for years after the conservatorship when total costs of $13.5 to $16 billion were estimated by NCUA. The agency never revealed their analysis always referencing the results of their “engaged securities expert, Black Rock.”

Learned Helplessness and the Actions of Others

With RBC it is easy to slip into a state of “learned helplessness.” That is behavior exhibited when a person is repeatedly exposed to negative stimuli beyond their control. Think regulatory burden.

The term describes experiments in which humans subject to loud noises, did nothing. seemingly helpless to change.

Not all the human participants responded the same way. Many blamed themselves for “failing,” but others blamed the way the experiment was framed. They knew it set them up for failure. In other words, not everyone is equally susceptible to learned helplessness.

Those who do not become passive when confronted with apparently uncontrollable situations are because they see others act with courage, overcoming difficult odds. These leaders actions inspire others not to give up.

There is an initial segment of 257 credit unions who will be subject to the sophistry and real burden of RBC. Some will throw in the towel, some will try to comply, and others will look for an “out” such as RBC or shrinking the balance sheet.

The hope is that most will have the courage and resilience to persevere until wiser heads prevail in Alexandria.

March 15, 2022March 15, 2022

The Credit Union Movement In Five Phases

For some time I have followed the writings of Father Richard Rohr. He is a Franciscan friar, wisdom teacher, and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

His spirituality concepts are universal, informed by all denominations and spiritual traditions. His focus is the search for unitary conscience. Recently he summarized five stages that religious and cultural developments have historically followed. He calls these the five M’s: human, movement, machine, monument and memory.

I have paraphrased his approach below to apply it to credit union evolution. I believe the framework is useful for understanding the different motivations credit unions draw upon with cooperative design. (Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder )

The Five Stages

“It seems that many great things in history start with a single human being. If a person says something full of life that captures reality well, the message often moves to the second stage of becoming a movement.

That’s the period of greatest energy. Credit unions greatest vitality as a “cooperative movement,” resulted in thousands of new institutions formed annually. Each was an expression of a larger vision for community. The movement stage is always very exciting, creative, and also risky.

It’s risky because the movement in history is larger than any city, state, country or economic system. Society is unable to foresee its full scope or meaning. We feel out of control in this stage, and yet why would anybody want it to be anything less?

Yet we move rather quickly out and beyond the risky movement stage to the machine stage. This is predictable and understandable. Systems are developed to support individual often independent firms.

The Dominant Machine Stage

The institutional or machine stage of a movement will necessarily be a less passionate manifestation. This is not bad, although it is always surprising for those who see credit unions as the end itself, instead of merely a vehicle for the original vision.

There is no other way; but when we don’t realize a machine’s limited capacities, we try to make it into something more than it is. We make it a monument, a closed system operating inside of its own, often self-serving, logic. By then, it’s very hard to take risks for those most in need following core values that inspired the movement phase.

Eventually these monuments and their maintenance and self-preservation become ends in themselves. It is easy just to step on board and worship their success without ever knowing why they came to be.

At this point, we have jumped over the human and movement stages, becoming like the for-profit institutions we were meant to supplant. There is little hint of knowing who we are meant to serve. Members are often frozen out of any meaningful role other than consumers.

In this stage, credit unions are a platform for building ever larger financial firms while holding on to a memory of something that once must have been a great adventure. Credit unions are no longer serving a distinctive role. Rather they mimic the priorities of the existing capitalist, market driven competitors.

Overcoming the Monument-Memory Entrapment

Increasingly credit unions avoid addressing the most disadvantaged segments of society we were organized to serve.

To avoid becoming trapped in the monument stage with the initial vision merely memory, renewal is needed. Innovative efforts are necessary to keep in touch with the human and movement aspirations. This is not being naïve about the necessity for machine-like competencies and the inevitable human drive to embrace monuments.

We must also be honest: all of us love monuments when they are monuments to our human ambition, our movement, or our machine.” (End paraphrase)

Applying Rohr’s Insights to the Credit Union Movement

It is feasible to align the different phases of credit union history with this model. The more powerful application however may be to help leaders or institutions recognize that all five stages can be present and called upon at the same time.

Can the machine success be augmented with the human passion of the creation phase? I saw one credit union CEO attempt to connect these seemingly contrasting impulses. He organized a public member meeting each week at a different branch of the credit union. Fifty visits led by a senior staff person for every branch over the year.

Videos were made of the visits and shared with staff and board. The results were not, I believe, some dramatic new product or service concept. Rather it reinforced respect for the members and their opinions as well as supporting staff in scattered branches.

I believe the model’s usefulness is most helpful if not seen as linear, trending in a single direction. Rather it alerts us to the multiple motivations which contribute to success.

If we focus only on the competencies of the machine stage leading inevitably toward monuments, then we lose the important advantages of the initial creative era. For it is human needs and relationships that were the origins of every credit union and, still today, its most important foundational advantage.

March 14, 2022

Met Opera Benefit Concert: Music for Ukraine-March 14

Mar 14, 2022

Listen Monday, March 14th, at 8pm.

Program notes courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera.

Click here for the upcoming Metropolitan Opera broadcast schedule.

The Metropolitan Opera presents a special live international broadcast on Monday, March 14: A Concert for Ukraine, a performance offering support and solidarity with the citizens of Ukraine. Met Music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin will conduct the Met Orchestra and Chorus and a roster of star soloists – Lise Davidsen, Elza van den Heever, Jamie Barton, Piotr Beczała, and Ryan Speedo Green – in a program that includes Strauss’s Four Last Songs, the stirring final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and works by Barber, Silvestrov, and Verdi. Vladyslav Buialskyi, the Ukrainian bass-baritone who recently made his company debut, will open the concert with the Met chorus in a rendition of the Ukrainian National Anthem.

March 14, 2022March 14, 2022

Jack Kerouac, Credit Union Member, Coming Home after a Life On the Road

Last Saturday, March 12, was the 100^th anniversary of American novelist Jack Kerouac’s birth in Lowell, MA. He was an alter boy and member of St Jean Baptiste Church.

He and his family were also members of the credit union whose first office was in the same church. Jeanne D’Arc Credit Union was organized years earlier by the local priest.

In February 2022 Jeanne D’Arc celebrated its 110 anniversary. The credit union’s safe is still in the church building.

Alison Hughes, Jeanne D’Arc Credit Union

The church is now closed, but the building remains. The credit union and a new community foundation are transforming the structure to become the Jack Kerouac museum and performance center.

It is an ironic embrace for Kerouac whose peripatetic lifestyle is characterized as offbeat. His artistic legacy now has a home. A venue both to honor the past and present his continuing popular appeal.

Jeanne D’Arc and Lowell are reaffirming the power of Kerouac’s roots.

The credit union and Kerouac started in the same sacred place. Both shared common purpose to support individuals in all their diversity.

In this latest contribution, Jeanne D’Arc is adding to its ever-expanding legacy in the community by honoring one of its members. A conversion of an historical space into a homecoming for someone most remembered for exploring life on the road.

Christopher Porter, President. Jack Kerouac Foundation

Alison Hughes. Jeanne D’Arc Credit Union

Sylvia Cuhna, Executive Director, Foundation

Jim Sampras, CEO. Foundation

Kerouac’s Lowell Roots

Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac^[1] March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, grew up in Lowell, played high school football well enough that major colleges recruited him. Church and family were deeply embedded values even though his later lifestyle might be considered bohemian.

His parents were French Canadian; Kerouac did not begin to learn English until he was six, and remained bilingual in his work.

A 1959 television interview with Steve Allen in which Kerouac briefly reads from On the Road is a helpful portrait of him at a peak of his fame as a member of the Beat generation.

Three Appraisals of Kerouac’s Work

His 100^th anniversary has resulted in articles that take different views of his literary output and continuing relevance.

An article in the Guardian newspaper explores why his counter-cultural mage still resonates in contemporary society, calling him a symbol whose meaning is still not understood. “Nature-loving mystic or proto-dudebro? Untameable free spirit or reclusive mama’s boy? On the centenary of his birth, it is time to look past the icon at the ‘bleeding ball of contradictions’ behind it.”

The Wall Street Journal’s tribute celebrates his reverence for the natural world while his characters want to abandon traditional social constraints.

Jack Kerouac lives in pop culture memory as a writer on a perpetual road trip, a shooting star riding the highways and rails of postwar America alight with Catholic mysticism, booze, bebop and outlaw liberation. That’s the milieu of his breakout novel “On the Road,” a masterpiece of widescreen travel writing populated by eccentrics “who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time…who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles. . . ”

In our time of ecological destruction and climate change, Kerouac’s Buddhist observation in “The Dharma Bums” that “One man practicing kindness in the wilderness is worth all the temples in the world” is a fine starting point for understanding that there really is a divine order to the natural world.”

An article on the Poetry Foundation’s website summarizes his literary output while alive and published posthumously, along with critical and public reaction of his counter cultural themes.

Why Kerouac Still Resonates

Wikipedia’s describes his work as both stylistically and substantively inventive:

Kerouac is recognized for his style of spontaneous prose. Thematically, his work covers topics such as his Catholic spirituality, jazz, travel, promiscuity, life in New York City, Buddhism, drugs, and poverty. He became an underground celebrity and, with other Beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements.

In 1969, at age 47, Kerouac died from an abdominal hemorrhage caused by a lifetime of heavy drinking. Since then, his literary prestige has grown, and previously unseen works have been published.

On the Road (from Wikipedia)

“Kerouac completed what is known as On the Road in April 1951, while living at 454 West 20th Street in Manhattan with his second wife, Joan Haverty.^[39] The book was largely autobiographical and describes Kerouac’s road-trip adventures across the United States and Mexico with Neal Cassady in the late 40s and early 50s, as well as his relationships with other Beat writers and friends.

“Kerouac wrote the final draft in 20 days, with Joan, his wife, supplying him with benzedrine, cigarettes, bowls of pea soup, and mugs of coffee to keep him going.^[

” Kerouac said that On the Road “was really a story about two Catholic buddies roaming the country in search of God. And we found him. I found him in the sky, in Market Street San Francisco (those 2 visions), and Dean (Neal) had God sweating out of his forehead all the way. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY OUT FOR THE HOLY MAN: HE MUST SWEAT FOR GOD. And once he has found Him, the Godhood of God is forever Established and really must not be spoken about.”

“According to his biographer, historian Douglas Brinkley, On the Road has been misinterpreted as a tale of companions out looking for kicks, but the most important thing to comprehend is that Kerouac was an American Catholic author – for example, virtually every page of his diary bore a sketch of a crucifix, a prayer, or an appeal to Christ to be forgiven.^[44]

“Kerouac’s literary works had a major impact on the popular rock music of the 1960s. Artists including Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Patti Smith, Tom Waits, The Grateful Dead, and The Doors all credit Kerouac as a significant influence on their music and lifestyles.”

The early home to both Jeanne D’Arc and Kerouac will now be used to ensure that his literary light continues to inspire.

March 13, 2022March 12, 2022

Ukraine: People Take Action

In the United States

A Harvard University freshman is taking a semester off to apply his technical skills to another urgent cause: finding housing for Ukrainian refugees. And after testing their cybersecurity and showing their platform to potential users, they launched Ukraine Take Shelter on March 2.

The 19-year-old created Ukraine Take Shelter, a website that matches Ukrainian refugees with hosts in neighboring countries and elsewhere.

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Polish Moms Leave Baby Strollers for Ukraine Mothers at the Local Train Station

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A Human Roadblock

Citizens create a roadblock on a road that leads to the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant, in Enerhodar, Ukraine, March 2, 2022.(Facebook/National Guard of Ukraine)

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Public Posters Calling for Boycott of Russian Products

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A Man In Front of WWII Monument: “Send weapons, not prayers” London

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Soldiers Care for the Helpless

A woman carried by Ukrainian soldiers crosses an improvised path while fleeing the town of Irpin, Ukraine, Sunday, March 6, 2022. In Irpin, near Kyiv, a sea of people on foot and even in wheelbarrows trudged over the remains of a destroyed bridge to cross a river and leave the city. (Oleksandr Ratushniak/AP)

Each of us can help make a difference. Even if it is just paying a little more for gas.

March 12, 2022March 13, 2022

Ukraine: When Words Fail, Music Carries Us Through (view in browser)

The first performance of the Ukrainian National Anthem (September 1990):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnMPE_nZ-jc

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A performance by the Metropolitan Opera of the Ukraine’s Anthem (February 2022). The sole singer without music, hand on heart, is Ukrainian.

Lyrics:

Nay, thou art not dead, Ukraine, see, thy glory’s born again,
And the skies, O brethren, upon us smile once more!
As in Springtime melts the snow, so shall melt away the foe,
And we shall be masters in our own home.

Soul and body, yea, our all, offer we at freedom’s call
We, whose forebears, and ourselves, proud Cossacks are!

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Lenard Cohen’s Hallelujah lyrics for Ukraine: