She's Sherrie

Duck and Cover A very long time ago, school children practiced a drill called Duck and Cover throughout the United States.  These drills became a part of our school lives, a routine,  designed stupidly, to protect school kids from the blast of bombs delivered to us by our enemies, Russia or Cuba. The early 1960s were stressful times for everyone in the United States.  Life could be eradicated at any time by Nikita Krushchev, the leader of our mortal enemy, Russia.  Russia and the United States were enemies.  We distrusted them, with good reason, and they hated us because the U.S. stood in their path of spreading Communism by overtaking weaker countries.  We were like two pit bulls locked in a fighting ring, snarling at each other, one representing freedom, one communism. The tensions between the countries were so intense that private citizens were having bomb shelters built in their homes' basements.   Looking back on it and knowing what we know now about radiation and the

Today, my friend Connie was buried.  She did not die from an illness, she did not die from an auto accident; she died due to human error during a medical procedure—human error.  The misstep of a surgical instrument during a non-critical operation took my friend's life.  She should still be here.  But she isn't. She left a message on her Facebook page, telling her family and friends that she loved them.  She posted that early in the morning before she left for the hospital.  Did she know, did she have a premonition, a doubt?  We will never know. What she did do was to reinforce her feelings for those she loved, just in case.  I commend her for that.  She left no doubt, nothing unsaid, to those who would feel the pain of losing her.  It's something most people might not think about or might not do.  Her love for her family and friends was so intense that one of the last things she did was reassure everyone that they were loved.  Some of us never got to return that affir

On February 6, 2018, my acquaintance, co-worker, friend, and fellow CWA Union sister, Connie Sanders Glover Orms, was taken from the lives of those who loved her by a surgical procedure. Connie was the purveyor of Local 6215 faces, words, and events for most of her adult life.  In her own quiet way, she was a cornerstone of our local union office, just as much as Gene Vance, James Holbrook, Frank Crow, J.D. Williams, James Allen, and Carrol Magee were.  She was always there, and she was there as the local shifted into a higher level of activism as leadership evolved.  She didn't make speeches, she wasn't an extrovert, but she was always there, taking pictures of us at meetings, events, picket lines, picnics, conferences, and conventions. Still there, maybe you didn't see her, but she was there recording history. When I first met Connie, she was a single mom.  She always talked about her boys, and they were seen with her at union functions.  Raising boys alone were and