Dear Friends,

     Today we mourn the passing of one the world’s great ladies, great performers, and great soldiers in the war for equality between the so-called races: Ms. Lena Horne.   I had the privilege of knowing Ms. Horne all my life because she and my mother were friends and worked together in two musicals (Jamaica, in 1957, and the ill fated Pal Joey ‘78 at the Ahmanson in Los Angeles.)   I think I went to see “The Lady and her Music” about a dozen times.  Lena epitomized not only beauty, but also the fierce determination to have all people recognized as having been created equal.   In spite of all the “slings and arrows” leveled at her by “outrageous fortune” (blatant discrimination, the death of a child to name only two,) she never played the victim.   In her performances and her political activism,  she was completely and utterly fearless.   As we go through our days, blithely enjoying rights for which she and so many others made enormous sacrifices, let us take full advantage and fill the “unforgiving minute” with “sixty seconds worth of distance run.”  Let’s do it with passion, let’s do it with joy, for Lena.   And now, I must leave the house and get to the library.   Blank pages await!!!!