UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

Interview #1002
BIDDLE, DONNA 

BIDDLE, DONNA (1940-)
Graduate Student, Fire Fighter
At UW: early 1960s 

Interviewed: 	2009 (2 sessions)
Interviewer: 	Linda Lenzke
Index by: 	Carmen Baumann
Length: 	2 hour, 42 minutes (total)
Series:		Madison’s LGBT Community, 1960s to present

00:00:00	Start of Second Interview Session
LL: 	Today is June 24, and it is about 6:00 PM. My name is Linda Lenzke, and I will be doing the second interview with Donna Biddle . Last week, we ended our meeting, or our discussion, at about on Lysistrata days. One second, please. So last time, we left off during the very early 1980s, at about 1982, when we were talking about Lysistrata, and the end of Lysistrata, right after the fire, and some of the aftermath with that. So one of the things that Donna wanted to talk about that is going to be our starting point is that one of the changes was, in the '60s and the '70s were really a time of coming out, and more activism and social change, and in the '80s, Donna started seeing more of a shift to community building and social networking. So that's going to be our starting point. 
00:01:09
DB: 	You know, that's one of the things I thought of. And it sort of started, in a way, with Lysistrata. While Lysistrata had an activist beginning, of course, it also had another purpose, I think, which was to bring women together. And one of the things I thought was good about Lysistrata was it not only brought in lesbian women, it was a feminist bar. And even though the main emphasis in many respects was lesbians, non-lesbians certainly went there. And I spent time getting to meet some people, and since they were there, you felt much more comfortable being out with them. And so I think it was a great time for people to get together. And I was able to meet straight women that were very accepting, and they were able to meet lesbians and get to know something more about them than something they might read in a book, that wasn't very flattering sometimes. And I remember one time, I just stopped down there after work to have a drink before I went home. And I went by myself, and went into the bar area, and was sitting there having a drink. And this woman was just closing up her notebook and everything, and she said, oh, come on over and join me, and so I did. And she was married. She and her husband had lived in Africa, and taken their kids down there. They'd been working on some project, sort of a Peace Corps type of thing. They were doing some community work down there. And she had a deal with her husband, because she wanted to start writing more poetry and things. So she had a deal with her husband, I think it was on Thursday night, or Wednesday night, or something. He got off work early, and he watched the kids for a couple of hours, and she went down to Lysistrata and sat there and wrote, and met women and got to talk. And I found it very interesting, and we sort of hit it off, and were able to talk. And I actually ran into her a couple of times, down there, and I thought that was good, this expanding. And I had a friend, Alice, and we used to talk in the '60s and '70s, and we were talking about all of us together. And one thing is, you never said anything about another lesbian or gay person, because we needed to be cohesive. In some ways, we were not, I think sometimes, not critical enough, sometimes, of behaviors that probably we could have been more critical of. I think people got by with some boorish behavior, sometimes. I don't mean bad behavior, but just, we put up, we tolerated things we might not normally tolerate. And she said, you know, I wonder how many of us would actually choose to be friends with each other if we didn't have this pushing on us to be cohesive, almost for safety, and almost for moving ahead. And I've about that, and I think in the '80s, as things got a little better, I mean they certainly weren't as good as they are now. But things were beginning to change, and we had gotten that gay rights bill in Wisconsin, and things were beginning to open up a little more. And I began to see this shift. The first thing, you just didn't go to people, the first thing you started looking at their activism, or their politics. You began to broaden what you saw in people. I think that was good. And we began to get more social. And this, of course, was the time of the softball, and all these kinds of things going on. And I think that was really a great time. We had a softball team that played for Room of One's Own. And I think I might have mentioned they couldn't afford us. So we all pitched in our own money, and bought our own shirts, and paid our own way in. But we wanted A Room of One's Own name out there. And so we had a lot of fun doing that. And I think that began to be sort of a, not activism, but friendship kinds, and community building. We were really building community. And we had a lot of things going on. We had Fallen Women Productions, bringing in music. There were more casual groups, I think. It was easier to get together with people. And of course, it was the time of the big push, as a lot of people begin to look at some of their behaviors and get more into AA, and Al-Anon, and begin to say, you know, I'm in 30s, I need to clean up my act. I can't be running around like I was. And you know, they began to deal with some of those issues. So you had a lot of that going around friendships. And while there was a purpose to it, it was also a community type of thing. And I just think that we began to move from strictly activism to more an activist community, so to speak. And I found that very interesting. 
00:06:11 
DB:	At the same time, of course, that was the starting of the big Michigan Music Festival, up in Michigan. And I didn't get to it when it was on the old land. I was one of the ones who has only gone to the new land. And I guess is not new anymore. But I remember the first time we went to Michigan, our softball team went. Room of One's Own softball team decided we were all going to Michigan together that year. And we did. And I remember going up to Alth's cottage the week before, to get ourselves ready, and the whole softball team was up there. We were all camping out, and all, and I remember we had a lot of fun. I remember our pitcher, who was a much older woman. She was, I think, even as she was pitching, I think she was already in her 70. Martha, you remember Martha. I remember she was getting ready to go down to swim, and she was looking for a bathing suit. So she walks through the living room and the dining room, where we're all sitting at the table. She walks out of the bathroom nude. And she says, insensitivity training for Michigan! Desensitivity training for Michigan. And we all started laughing. But our softball team did go up there, and of course, that is an experience that I think people really should have. It was a real bringing together of people, all sorts of people. And it was big. The first year I went there, there was 8-- 9,000 women camping together and all cooperative. You had to work, and I always volunteered in the kitchen, because I thought that was fun. And you just stood around chopping vegetables and talking to people from all over the country, all over the world, actually. I met people from Sweden. I remember one woman that was there with her two daughters. And her husband was taking care of her kids in the Bahamas. And they were a very international group. She had said going through customs was such a hard problem, because she had a US passport, her husband had a German passport, her kids had them from all the world where they were born. And she said getting through customs wasn't fun. But you got to meet people like that. You got to share a lot, a lot of things at Michigan. And of course, you were there about seven days camping. It was hard camping. Cold water showers. If you could survive those showers, you could survive anything. And you got to see such a variety of people. I remember one incident then that is just indelibly etched on my mind. I always think of this woman as the Michigan Madonna. She was young, oh my, she was young. She must have not been over 18, maybe 19. And she had her small child with her, I mean, her infant child. Toddler. Maybe 14, 16 months old. And I remember her at the showers. And she would go into the cold shower, get the wash cloth, warm it on her body, and wash her child. And I thought that was just a picture that is forever in my mind, of that young woman who carried so much for that small child in a rather harsh environment. And those kinds of things, and the talks. While there were workshops and all, I think some of the best talks I had was informal talks. Just running into people sitting around, subjects matter starting in. Just listening to people, I remember there's so many people that were there from Southern states, or very conservative states. And this was the only time in the year they could be themselves. This was the only place they could find the music, this was the only place they could find the books, the only place they could talk to other women. Most, many of them were living together posing as sisters in their home. Not not even as friends, but as sisters, because they were afraid if they weren't related, people would think something of them, and they'd get in trouble. I remember understanding that, because I was from the Bible Belt, but the feeling so bad that they were still stuck in that kind of mode. 
00:10:18
DB:	And that, I think, was really shifting now. We talked politics, but we didn't always talk politics. We talked about other things in the community. There was a lot of spontaneity at that point. We hadn't gotten all our PDAs out and booked ourselves for six years in advance. There was still time to say, hey, let's go over and have a fish fry tonight without planning it months in advance. And I enjoyed that all, a lot. I think in some ways we've over-busied ourselves, maybe even not needing to over-busy that much. Friday nights was always fish fry, because a lot of us were going to a lesbian AA Al-Anon meeting. I and my mother all had grown up as a child of an alcoholic, and I was trying to deal with understanding some of those issues. And people had different issues, but we always went down after the meeting for a fish fry, or go to somebody's house just for a cookout. I remember Rhonda and Donna, we'd go over and spontaneously go past, grab a watermelon, grab some hamburger, and instant party. And I think those were very good moments to really get to know people, to branch out, to listen to people. To truly listen to what their lives were. And I just liked that period a lot. I really enjoyed that period. 
00:11:57 
DB:	After Lysistrata burned, we were sort of up in the air for places to go. We still had the concerts, we still had certain things, but we still needed a place. And I remember trying to find a place. I remember Alice and I thought, well, maybe we could do this again. We didn't know whether we had the energy, but mainly, we could do something like this again. I remember going out to Williamson Street, where there was a Quonset hut that was for sale, and we went in. It was, actually, it would have been a great place, in a great area for this. And the back part of the Quonset hut was two story, and they had an area back there that would have made a great stage area. We could have done a lot with that place. But it was owned by the CC Riders, the motorcycle gang. I remember, what was his name, Smith. I want to say Dave Smith, but I'm not sure it was Dave. But Smith was the head of it. And we met with him to talk about the place. And we would jokingly saying, well, I wonder if he knew what we were going to do with it, if he would sell it to us or stomp us to death. We were joking. But he actually turned out to be quite a nice guy. I mean, a motorcycle gang in Madison is a lot different than a motorcycle gang. I remember when the Ghost Rider set from Milwaukee was saying they were coming over, and they were going to get the CC Riders, the CC Riders went to the police for protection. It was not a rumble. And so I think a lot of people rode in that. The guy that was on the radio, Mader, Jim Mader? He rode. I mean, a lot of people were accountants by day, and CC Riders by night. I mean, it was not a big bully motorcycle gang. 
00:13:40 
LL: 	One of the things that you talked about was how there were friendships and community that grew out of women going into recovery, and that you did that, and it was a lot of social networking afterwards. And I was fortunate to be part of that group. And one of the roles that you played was we would celebrate holidays together, and we used to jokingly call them our orphan holidays, because many of us, our parents were either far away, or they had passed away. And we would get together and do these, probably the epitome of the most fun potlucks I'd ever been to on the holidays. And you hosted a number of those over the years. Did you want to talk about the orphan holidays that we shared? 

DB: 	Yeah, the first time I went to one of those, I think it was at Rhonda and Donna's, and then they moved out of the place where they had room for it. So the next year, we were looking, and I actually lived at another house, but I had a great big downstairs room, where we could just put tables. and? we began to get people together. And there was a core of about 12 of us, but that meant that people could also bring other people that needed a place to come. And I think the time it grew the biggest, we had about 32 at one setting. It was a potluck, it actually wasn't that difficult, in that sense, because I usually just made the turkey, or two turkeys, depending on how many people were coming. And the gravy, and everybody brought everything. You always brought those wonderful potatoes. Miss those potatoes. But yes, that was another thing. And people, some of them had children that they would bring to those. And it was the beginning of, as we always talked about, a family of choice, rather than a biological family. And we celebrated those for years. And we extended it then to Easter, too. We began to do Easter dinners, and also at Christmas there was usually an afternoon brunch, or something, on Christmas. That was also the time that we began to do the first cookout of the year on New Year's Day. And that was invigorating. We would go out to Picnic Point and build two fires, one to roast hot dogs or something on, and one to get warm. And we would be out there on Picnic Point. On New Year's Day we'd usually go out around 11:00, and it would often be freezing cold out there. We would bring sleeping bags, everything, we would just bundle up as much as we could, and sit out there, and have our New Year's Day party out on the lake. And that was fun. I remember taking sleds with wood on it to build fires, and just getting together and sitting there talking, and sharing, and enjoying. I remember Ruth would bring her camera, and she found these funny captions that you could buy, that you would paste over the pictures. And she'd put together this scrapbook with really funny sayings over the picture she had taken, of what, supposedly, we were saying. These all became a lot of interesting fun, and as I say, we were moving into community building a lot. And I remember a lot of people first got into the community and made contact. In fact, I remember once you called and said you met some woman who was actually homeless, and could you bring her? And of course, we said yes. And I remember she had come to Madison thinking she had a job, and when she got here, the job-- they had discontinued the job, and she had found herself literally homeless. And she was, I believe she even had a college degree. I mean, she was looking for something, but got in very bad circumstances. And I remember she even brought something, which was not necessary, but she had picked up something like grapes, or something, for the dinner. And I remember that a lot of people here had contacts. And as I recall, I think within two or three weeks she had found a job through some contacts. So that was working, not only as social networking, we were beginning to be able to help in ways that we had not been able to do before. We were moving out of that just being afraid, and not stepping up to the plate and doing what we should, to feeling we could say yes, here's jobs, here's this, here's that, here's the other. And not hiding ourselves like we had been. We were becoming more and more. And of course, around that time was the beginning of New Harvest. 
00:18:22
DB:	Now, New Harvest was a group, and this I remember so well. Kathy Kelly was working on that, and she was one of the first people that were starting it. Karla Dobinski or Dick Wagner. Many people thought that we needed something to raise funds in town to help gay and lesbian projects, because at that time, you couldn't get funding for anything you wanted to do. I remember when they needed something, like when they were trying to help Lysistrata, I remember being at a concert, and people walking around with buckets, just trying to get money from people going into the concert. I think we at a Margie Adam concert, or something. People were trying to get enough money to help with something at Lysistrata that needed the money right at that moment. And something more organized, I remember Kathy taking me to lunch and asking me if I wanted to be a charter member of that group. And what they were trying to do was they were trying to get large donations. They were trying to get a commitment of three years, so much a year for three years. Which, luckily at that time, my job at taken off. I was in a much more affluent position, so to speak, that I was able to make the kind of commitment that they asked, for three years, and able to fulfill that commitment. That also brought a rift, of course, in the community. They needed the money quick. They needed a lot of money to get started, they had to have I think certain funds to get their whatever that C something is. 
LL: 	501c3. 
DB: 	Yeah. And they needed certain things very quickly. So they actually went to people that could give them money. Some people felt left out. They felt it was an elitist group, and that's a label that still follows them today. But there was a reason why they were doing that. And no donation would've been turned down, but they were trying to get basic commitments. I think they needed a $25,000 commitment to start with. And that's what they were trying for. And they were going after the 200 or 300 people that they thought they could raise that kind of money with. And that's how they did it. And I was really pleased. This was a real turning point, something I never thought I'd see in my lifetime. Never thought I'd see in my lifetime. We went to civic center, down on State Street. This was even before it had become the place it is. Not the Overture, but even before the Capitol even became-- before [UNINTELLIGIBLE] got that even made into that. But it was still a big, big place for doing things in. We went down there and we had the announcement of this group starting. And it was just amazing. I mean, the Mayor was there to welcome us as a fundraising, there was a representative of the Governor's office, there were legislators there, there were City Council there. I never thought I'd ever see us being welcomed as a fundraising group, openly gay and lesbian fundraising group. And you know, we had the champagne fountains, we had all the amenities. It was no longer some dark bar in a really seedy neighborhood where it was the only place we could go. We were really out in the open. And there were reporters there. There was TV coverage. And that was, I thought, a real turning point. A real turning point for the community, to say here we are, and we're going to be here, and this is what we're doing. 
00:22:15 
DB:	I was not on the board at that time, in fact, I wasn't on the board for a while. They had the board set up and all, but later I did join the board, and stayed on the board for six years. And it was, to me, a very, very good experience to be on that board. It was one of the best boards that I think I'd ever been on, because it was one where we didn't process everything to death. We actually had a mission, and so many places sort of process things a little more than I would like to have processed. And we just seemed to get things done a little faster. I enjoyed that. We moved into having a garden show in the spring. Every other spring we did a garden show where you'd walk and see various gardens, and people would open their gardens. And that was very nice, that was one fundraiser we did. And then the opposite years, we did an art auction. And usually at Olbrich Gardens at that time. We had done those earlier, in New Harvest, but they hadn't gone over as well. And we had some people that were artists and all, that were helping us then, and we began to go much bigger. We were raising 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 off of our art auction every other year, and getting very good artwork. Lee Weiss would donate, David Lynch donated some of his photography. I mean, we got people that could bring in people. We had, also, a lot of local art, but we would get 8 or 10 pieces for, we had a silent auction, then 8 or 10 pieces for the regular auction. And we were able to bring in quite a bit of money that way. Very interesting time. And I was always in charge of the food. It was catered food, but I would plan the food. We got people started to come for the foods instead of the art. We had good food. But it was another switch in how we were doing things. Instead of what used to be a little dance at the Cardinal Bar had now gone much bigger. And while those were fun and all, this also added a whole new dimension. And we were beginning to notice that probably a third of the people coming or more were straight. They were not gay. And that was very good, to get the mix again. And also, New Harvest also had the first dinner dance that was really big. I remember it was at the Fess Hotel the first time. And it was smaller, but it was something. Everybody dressed in their finest, and we had music, we had, you know, it was very, very upscale, so to speak. And those continue today. I usually try to always go to them. And they have been being held now at the Convention Center, on Lake Mendota, or Monona. And these have just blossomed to the point where they're actually a community event. While it's sponsored by gay and lesbian transgender, it's a community event. And you get many, many people that come. And I've had a lot of straight people that say they enjoy it. They said, one thing, we will say you people know how to throw a party. And we do, we know how to throw a party. And so that kind of blending begin to really happen. Along with that, something else began to happen that I noticed, and I think other people noticed. Some of the needs were changing. While we needed a space, I mean, we needed a place where we could go and be ourselves. We needed a place where we could dance. We needed a place where we could talk openly, where we could be ourselves. As the community became more accepting, some of the need for that kind of a place wasn't as great. It was easy to go to [? Fife's ?] and just be open, and do whatever you wanted to there, and not have to have your own bar. While that was a very gay friendly bar, other places were getting to be more accepting and more open. 
00:26:48 
DB:	So the needs were changing, I think, in the community. The other thing that was happening is some of the older things were disappearing. Fallen Woman Productions was going away. I mean, now you had people like Melissa Etheridge, that was openly gay and going to the Civic Center. You know, they were coming in, and you no longer had this. You were no longer trying to get women's music going, it had a foothold, and didn't need some of the things it did. And also, the other thing that was happening is we were getting tired. The people that were doing all of this were getting tired. Of course, we had the wonderful thing, the Lesbian Variety Show. Who can forget the Lesbian Variety Show? When it first was announced, I thought, oh my gosh, will that ever go. And of course, it was sold out, I think, in 15 minutes. You had to stand in line. If you wanted a ticket to that, you had to be down in line early. And it was always held out at the Barrymore Theatre. And I remember, I couldn't believe it. Never thought. Again, one of these you never think I'd see this kind of thing. Driving down Atwood Avenue with a marquee, Lesbian Variety Show, sold out. And then going out there, and going to dinner someplace around there, one of the eating establishments around there, getting in line to get your seats. And we always joked that they didn't even have to put on a show, all they had to do is rent the place and let us go mingle. We wouldn't have even noticed, because it was so much fun just to meet and chat and have fun. And of course, the show was interesting. At first, it wasn't really juried very well, so anybody could get in. And some of the acts were good, and some of them-- let's just say some of them didn't quite meet it. And they had no time limits. And I remember sitting there until 1:00 in the morning, with it going on and on and on. It was also the time when people were discovering their inner child. And you had many people on stage playing their guitar to their inner child and all, and I remember turning to a friend of mine and saying, I feel much better, I put my inner child up for adoption. Because it was one of those times when the first act was fine, but the 15th act was getting a little old. But what was interesting, and the point I'm making about that is how much what was happening in society was being reflected in what was happening on the stage. And so, because a lot of people were looking internally and all, you've got a lot of that on stage. And I thought it was one of those things which was almost an instant mirror reflection of where we stood. Not only the lesbian community, but where the society in general were coming from at that point. And I thought it was interesting to stand there and be able to watch that going on, and watch what was actually happening being reflected so instantaneously. 
00:30:14 
LL:	 In that same vein, one of the things that happened, kind of as a byproduct, to some degree, of more women wanting to perform, and more women wanting to share some of their talents, and also an effort to create safe spaces for women-- 
DB:	 Apple Island. 
LL: 	It was Apple Island. And that grew out of the desire to create a women's space around the time of the first Iraq War. That people felt even more compelled, and not just the gay community. I think as your story unfolds, it included a more wider, diverse community, but it was primarily women wanting to come together and have a space where they could have meetings and perform. And you were very much one of the supporters and regular goers at Apple Island. You want to talk about that a little bit? 

DB: 	Yes, Apple Island was a place out on Washington Avenue, and I was getting ready to get to that. Our minds are running in the same vein. Again, after the demise of Lysistrata burning down, Fallen Women going by the way, the Variety Show was still going, but it was once a year, which wasn't enough. Some people, particularly [? Lois Stoddard ?], decided that we needed a place, and she just almost single-handedly, with help, but I mean, it was her vision, her energy, that really begin to move that forward, got a very nice space out on Washington Avenue. And it was very nice. It wasn't the same as Lysistrata. It had things going, it wasn't like a drop-in space. That was one of the things I wish it could have evolved into, but it was not a drop-in space. It was a space for performing, for dances, for meetings, for getting together in that way. And that was a very good place to go. Interesting shows being performed there. Interesting dances, different times of the week, dances and areas. The thing it was, it was large enough. And this has always been one of the problems, I think, when you get dance areas, is a lot of us want to go. We might dance a little, but that isn't-- we also want the socialization. That was actually set up so you could have sort of an area where there was dancing, but you could also get off to one end, and actually hear each other, and talk and enjoy it. So it became a very interesting mixed space, in that sense, rather than just a dance floor. And you know, a lot of things got started there, too. People were making friendships, they were planning things, planning camping trips. Remember our usually Memorial Day camping trips, up at Peninsula State Park? We'd all get together and go up. There would be maybe 20 of us going on, and we'd get a group camp spot. We'd go up there, and of course, it was Memorial Day. We always froze to death. We rarely ever had anything that wasn't freezing, raccoon-laden, and rainy, but we had a ball. We had a lot of fun. Sitting around the campfire, and each in our little tents. I remember your tent next to me, and I remember either one of us said to the other one, is you wanting in my tent, or is it the raccoons? It was the raccoons. But we were all around, and I remember getting up early one morning. I had woken up, and went out, and just was walking around, and went out and found Rhonda sitting in her car, listening to music. She'd gotten up early, and so we turned off the music and walked down and watched the sun, together, coming up. Just these wonderful memories of people sharing so much. It was also the time when we were going once or twice a year up to Eagle River, to Alth's cottage, and enjoying her hospitality, and being on the lake, and spending a lot of time getting really to know each other. I remember spending time down at the lakefront, while we sat and solved the problems of the world, watching the lake and the beautiful scenery. Just chatting, whatever came to our mind. Again, while some of it was activist, some of it was things we saw that needed to be done, it was also that blending that I think has been more helpful to people. Because you form not only friendships, but you can get something done in a way that was different from the '60s, when you were just always being yelled at to do more, and more, and more, to be more active. I never felt, there were some friendships I had there that endured very well, but often felt that friendship was not a point of that period at all, or even getting to know people was not a point of that. It was getting something done was the major point. 
00:35:32 
LL: 	One of the things that was an outgrowth of some of the events that you just talked about, and some of the networks that were created, and especially support in terms of recovery issues and friendships was, we were members of a peer support group that met for 15 years. 
DB: 	15 years. 
LL:	 And unfortunately, because of the deaths of a couple members of that group, that group has no longer met. But do you want to talk a little bit about how that experience informed your life, too? 
DB: 	Yes. I remember it was never meant to be a peer group. We never meant to be that. What actually, as I recall, what happened is, you and I got interested in John Bradshaw, the toxic shame syndrome. And we had been reading those books, and I remember you calling, and we went to John Bradshaw. He was in town, and we decided to go listen to him. And we got our hands on the tapes. I don't even remember where we got them. I might have taped them off of television. I think that on one of those WHA telethons, they had him on. And I think one of us, but I think it was me, I think I taped those tapes, and we got talking about it, and we decided-- about six of us were kind of interested in that. And we decided to come over here and watch those tapes. Which we did. I think we had three sessions or four sessions watching those tapes. As we began to watch those and talk, we began to see something really happening. Which was, we were beginning to give each other a certain kind of support, and found that we enjoyed having this time. So we began to actually meet about once a month. And it took on its own format. We basically weren't doing the tapes or anything anymore. That had been a starting point. But we began to decide that we would go around the group, and everybody got like 20 minutes of uninterrupted time, just to talk about what was happening in their lives, and any issue they needed. If you needed more time, of course, you got it. And then we would get feedback, if the person wanted it, and we would talk. And it became quite an interesting support group. And what was interesting to me was the variety that we had in it. We had Althea, who was the oldest, of course. She was at that point-- and let's see, she died at 81, so she would have been-- 
LL: 	Mid-60s and then into her 70s. 
DB: 	Mid-60s into her 70s. We had Kathy, who was in her early 30s when we started, maybe not even 30. And then we had you and Donna , who were in that, a little-- 
LL: 	We were in our 40s and 50s. 
DB: 	40s, 50s. And then I was in my late 50s, and so we had, and Vig was older yet than me, but not as old as them. So we had everything going from the oldest to the youngest, and everything in between, with a variety of different points of view. Now you had, at one time, been married. Donna had been married, and Alth has been married, the rest of us had not been married. So we had at that point of being married, not married, coming out early, like Vig and I had come out very early in our lives, and had known all of our lives how we felt. Other people discovered it later, and it was interesting where everybody was coming from. We all had quite a variety of backgrounds, but great support. And it certainly got us through many things. We supported each other through breakups, we supported each other through family crises, we supported each other through death. And it was very good. And I think it would be going today, if it had not been interrupted by death. I think that we would have still been going. But Donna died, and then Alth died shortly after. Losing two members, we even tried to fill in, but it never-- we met about two or three more times at the most, and it never, we could not get that magic back. It just never gelled again. And so we gave it up, actually, gave it up. Not that we've given up contact or friendship, but we gave up that point of it. 
00:40:17
LL: 	One of the things that you wanted to talk about, and this might be a good segue, is that as we have become older, and as some of those changes in our personal lives and in our friendships have occurred, and losses, and people aging and making different decisions, perhaps retiring, did you want to talk a little bit about how has the-- as we age and change, and the community changes, how that affects our lives? And I know that within that period of time, you retired. But I always admired the fact that you did a couple of things. You started traveling more, and enriching your life that way. And then you also returned to the university, to audit some courses, and to keeping engaged. So do you want to talk a little bit about that transition from a working life, and you career in state government to working on learning how to retire, and retire and have an active engaged life? 
DB:	 That was an interesting thing. I took early retirement. I retired at 59. Part of it was I was having some health problems. I had some bad knee, bad ankle things that I needed to take care of. It was becoming harder for me to go to work, because of the fact that I had this pain, and I needed some things taken care of. It was also a good time to retire. I had a good pension set up at that time, and I just decided it was a good time to get out. I mean, I liked my job. I could have worked at it quite a while longer. I was enjoying it. And yet, something just told me than it was time to get out. It turned out to be one of the best decisions, because I retired in '99, and Bush took over, and all hell broke loose in the economy. And many people that did not go when I did are still working. They just have never been able to get out because of the devastation to pension plans, and everything else. I honestly believe that probably the group that I am in, that retired early, may be one the last groups to be able to do that. And I thought I would be fine. I thought I'd be fine, retiring. I honestly did. I had a lot of hobbies and other things I liked to do. I thought I'd be fine. I found I missed working immensely. I actually missed work immensely. It was like pulling a plug. And other people, I'm not the only one, I've heard other people that-- I think, unfortunately, we don't transition people into retirement. It's like you're working one day, and then the next day you're not working. And particularly with the state government, where I happened to be OK, I had the money payment plan. But the problem is that sometimes, if you start cutting back, and they're looking at your last three years of employment, all of the sudden your pension goes down because you're not working full time. You can take some risks with the amount of money you're going to get. So you almost have to just stop, which I think is unfortunate. I think there should be more transitioning people out of the workforce. I think a lot of people have been literally surprised at how they felt. I mean, I was building a house. That kept me busy for a few months after I retired. Then a friend of mine's apartment burned down. She moved in with me for six weeks. And that kept me pretty occupied, you know, dealing with somebody living here, that I hadn't had anybody living with for a long time. But then after than, I began to miss work. I played golf, I read a lot, you know, I still had friends I was socializing with. But I missed the intellectual stimulation of work. I really missed that. So I went back to work. Your friend got me back in. Corrections needed some help, and I wanted to work as an [UNINTELLIGIBLE] part-time. And I also wanted to do it on my terms, which I was able to do. I didn't want to work a lot of hours. I was content to work 12 to 20 hours. And that's when I wanted to work. I didn't want to have these really rigid time restraints. Because what I was doing was actually going to the institutions, handling the arbitrations, and things like that, which didn't require-- I would always go in for meetings, and whenever they needed me. And I'd put in some office time. But a lot of times, there was no need for me to have to be at the office at 8 o'clock when, in 20 minutes, I was going to be on the road. It was just as easy for me to leave from home, and they understood that I was going to do that. So it turned out to be a very good deal for me, to be able to go in, work with them, but also have certain freedom. And so I found that made it a much better transition for me. I was able to begin to then build my retirement life while I was still had some work life that was stimulating. And so I worked another two years, and then I did take full, then I just did retire and did not go back to work. I also, at that time, decided that I wanted to keep my mind going. So the university has a wonderful program, after 60, you could audit the classes at the university free. So I began to audit classes, and take some of the things that when you're on a career major thing, you don't get to take some of these things. Some of the things you'd really like to have taken, you can't take, because this is a required course, you've got to take it. So you're trying to get that degree, you're on that path just like the hounds of hell are at your heels, sometimes. So this gave me a chance to take some of the things that I always wanted to take. Because I've had some health problems, mainly with joints and arthritis and all, I could not go up the hill. There's no parking up there, there's no way. I mean, even if you take the bus, it's difficult, because you don't always get a seat, and you're trying to climb in and out of the but, you're being plummeted around. So I had some things that I had to do, which was set some limits. It had to be down the hill. So what was down the hill was art history, and history, and a couple other things, sometimes philosophy classes and all. So I had a really good variety to take, and began to take a course every semester. I only wanted to go Tuesdays and Thursdays. I didn't want the three days a week. I didn't want that, I wanted to be able to do it, but have some more freedom. And I've enjoyed it. I've had very good classes, and I've enjoyed doing that. 
00:47:08
DB:	The other thing I've been able to do was, and I planned this into my retirement. I don't know whether everybody does this, but when I was sitting down, figuring my budget and what I needed to retire on and all, one of the things that I figured in was vacation money. When I was working and when I was younger, I never had any money, and I didn't get to travel. I really never started traveling until I was in my 40s, because I just never had the money. Our vacations were always, after I got here, when my partner and I, our vacations were always camping, or something cheap like that. So we got to take a couple of trips, but nothing really big. So I had planned my retirement. I couldn't take a great big vacation every year, but I could take a vacation every other year, every three years, could take a nice vacation. So I began to travel a little more, and one of the things I discovered was Olivia Cruises. And that was fun. That was a lot of fun. I had had my ankle replaced, and I needed something to have at the end of that. It was a very long and hard recoup. 16 weeks of not putting your foot on the floor, you were really confined. And I needed something out in front of me that was going to be fun when I got ready. And at that time, it was 2000, well, it was 9/11. And Olivia had this cruise plan, and they were having trouble getting people on it. So they sent out a lot of invitations to take a two for one cruise to Scandinavia. And it was sort of their make or break. If they didn't get that cruise filled, they were going to have some financial problems. So I called a friend, and within 10 seconds, she said, sure. So off we go on this cruise. And this was my first cruise, and it was just wonderful. It was a reunion of Meg Christian and Chris Williamson, first time they'd been together in like 20 years. And it was a wonderful cruise. Started in Sweden, we went to Helsinki, we went over to Russia, we went to Estonia, and back to Copenhagen. And it was just wonderful. And this was just such an experience. The women of Olivia are wonderful. These are people that like to travel. They are from all over the country, all over the world. They're fascinating women. It's sort of, as they always joke, it's Michigan with chocolates on your bed, and warm showers. But it was really very wonderful. They had great entertainment. They actually rent the whole ship. It's ours. Nobody else is on it, it's ours. Top service. The president of the company is always on board. And Judy DeLucas makes sure that everything is top-drawer. Everything is top-drawer. The crew is always attentive. I was interested this was the Orient Cruise Line. And I had this one waitress that always waited on me. We would go on our tours and everything, and then I had met several people, a couple from Illinois, Freeport, Illinois. And we would always, after we all get back, we would always meet each other in the bar for a before-dinner drink, or a Coke, or something. And this one waitress, of course, always waited on us. And I got to talking with her. I got there early, and my friends hadn't appeared yet. And I started talking to her about what she did. And I said, do you like these cruises? And she said, yeah I do. And she said, particularly, she said, the Olivia. She said, I was very lucky. And I said, what do you mean? And Orient, and I've also heard the same thing from Holland America, it is a reward to their employees. Their top employees get to go on these because one, they love them. They really want to do them. They say we treat them better than anybody else. They are treated better, they get better tips. Well, Olivia just builds a tip in. They're always going to get a tip. It's not left to our discretion. Part of our money is going to be a tip. And then usually they tip over. Like I left her money, because she'd been such an attending person to my needs while I was there. She said that you had to sign up, and only if you were considered one of their top employees did you get an Olivia cruise. And everybody fought for the Olivia cruises. The other thing she said is, we're active people. She said, they always joke about most cruises are the newlyweds and nearly-deads, and they never come out of their cabins. And she said, we party, we have-- and the other thing that they are told is, that anything, if they're off-duty, they're allowed to participate in anything we're doing. So if we're having a show, like if Meg and Chris are on stage, and they're not on duty, they're allowed to come to the show. They're allowed to come to lectures. I mean, we had a couple of professors on board that lecture on what we're going to see the next day. They're allowed to come to those. And they said that on most cruises, they're not allowed that. They're not allowed to come in so to entertainment. They're not allowed to go to the lectures. These are only for the paying guests. And they're not restricted on ours. So that was interesting, then, that they began to love lesbians. They all wanted to be on that cruise. So that's another thing where we stepped out into another direction. And particularly on the European cruises, these are older people. They are retired, or older people. Part of it is, just to be quite blunt, Olivia's expensive. You pay for what you get, you get a lot. But Olivia's a little more expensive than other cruises. But you get interesting people, because you can talk about anything. And that's just another area. And Olivia is now starting a community out in Palm Springs that will be a community with condos and all, that is a lesbian community, and friends and family. So that will be another place they're going from records and women's music to cruises and vacations now, to community living. So it's just shows the way we've gone. 
00:53:42 
DB:	But as we get older, I think it has been harder. One of the things I've noticed as I've gotten older is it's harder to make contact with people. We just don't have those built-in things. We don't do sports anymore, so you don't have that twice a week practice and game, where you're socializing. People have gotten, one of the things that's happened, some of my friends have gotten children, now. We're seeing more children in the community. So they're often oriented more to children than to the community in general. And so they're more interested in lesbian moms, and they're more interested in the PTA. It changes. It changes where their interests are. So there's not as much, I mean, Margaret and Denise used to throw all these parties and all. And now, I bake cookies with Maria, you know? It's different. It's different. Not that I don't enjoy that immensely, but it is a different thing. The other thing is, we used to all play golf. And many of us are getting the point where golf is not a good option, sometimes, for us anymore. With arthritis and all taking over, it's not something we can do easily. So that's another area. So many of the things that were just built-in are gone. Now you have to work harder, I think, to meet people. And finding partners. You know, I was partnered from the time I was 24 until I was about 48 with the same person. We grew up together. We had never dated in the sense that people date. We met each other, we got together. And so we never had that dating experience that people have gone through in the community, and kind of know. So I was like a teenage 48 year old out there, trying to figure out what to do, how to date. I dated a few people, but it was really a big transition for me. Just a huge transition, to put yourself back on the market, and even figure out what you're supposed to do. Because, I mean, many of us didn't date, because we weren't dating guys. You were in a position where you couldn't date women, and so you didn't have some of these experiences. It was a new experience to have. And as you get older, there's just not that many people available. There just aren't that many people. At my age, you either find people that have been closed all their life, and aren't going to come out, they're just going to stay in there. You may know they're gay, but they may not come out, and you may not get to know them. Even if you become friends with them, there's no chance of anything, because they're never going to admit what's going on. Now the other thing, too, is that many of them are in long term relationships. You just don't find them. They're together with somebody, and that's it. That's what it is. So it's much harder to find people. Once in a while, you'll flirt around with somebody younger, but often that does not work out as well. In general, it's a little harder to do. So we find ourselves, now, and as we get older-- and the thing is, that this is not just lesbians. I go to my health club, and many of the women in there that are widowed or divorced are finding exactly the same thing. And they find it, as they get older, harder and harder to find people. They don't have a ready-made social group. Even though some of them are very active in their churches, there's not as much for older people in the church. It's all the family-oriented. It's all younger people, the singles groups and all. Then they find it harder to meet people, and harder to be part of the group. So I think as we get older, we find that it gets lonelier. I know that I knew that people talked about your life shrinking as you get older. I just didn't realize how much, and how hard it is. I mean, I still have friends I still do things. But not as much. Not as much. And it is more difficult. One, your friends start dying. And I can name 12 or 15 people who are gone. And that's just a big hole. Just a huge hole. The other thing is people sometimes move away. As they get older, they may go back to where they were originally from. And some of my friends are that age where they even have aging parents they have to deal with. And they often go home to take care of them that is not here. It just gets harder to find people. And the community, now, doesn't have some of the things it had. We don't have Lysistrata. We don't have Apple Island. We don't have the women's concerts. We don't have the Lesbian Variety Show, where you could just go. I never felt bad about going to those things by myself. I really never felt bad about doing it. Now I know the National Women's Music Festival is here now. But to tell you the truth, I went when it first started. And it's not the same. It's not Michigan. I felt that I didn't enjoy it that much. It just didn't have a lot of the things that I wanted. I mean, I'm 70 this year, I can go for $20, for the whole thing, and I haven't even gotten a ticket. I'm trying to decide whether I want to or not. I might go to the one thing that I want to go to. Also, the crowds have changed. Used to, I had no trouble going to things alone. Didn't have anybody to go the basketball game with? Ah, just go. There was always people there. Of course, that was before they had all the reserved seats. You could actually go and just find people. Back when we used to say, if you wanted to be alone, go to a women's basketball game. There was 200 of us loyal fans, then. But now, you know, I go to these things, and I don't know people. I really don't know. And the crowds have changed. I go in and I look around, and yes, I'll usually meet a couple of people that I can hang out with, but you're taking that chance of being out there by yourself, and not being part of a group. And I just never made any effort this year to get a group of people. I think I could. Sylvia started this group called ROLers, which is Retired Older Lesbians, and we meet once a month for lunch, and it's turned out to be a lot of fun. And they do different things, and a group will be there, and I know I could pick up with them. So if I do decide, it's not like it's a disaster. I can go, and it's not going to be a problem. But it's not like it was. There used to be a lot more things just to drop in on. There used to be a lot more people I knew. The crowds are changing, people my age aren't going out as much. The other thing that bothers me is I'm still a person that can stay up until midnight, and have no trouble. But all my friends want to do something in the middle of the afternoon and be home by 6:00. Drives me nuts. I find that sometimes, I have to plan more things in my day. Sure, I'll go to the movie with you for the 2 o'clock matinee, want to go to dinner at 7:00? So I have to call another group and start a whole nother, another evening thing, because I still haven't adjusted quite to being a matinee person only. So it is harder, it is harder. And the other thing I'm noticing, and maybe people would tell me that I'm being silly, and that my mind is going, too, but my memory is still good. I still have a really pretty decent memory. And I'm noticing my friends are having less memories. And I notice sometimes, I have to call two or three times to make sure that they're going to actually show up, because they forget. They forget to come. They forget to do things. And I have this horror of being the only one still remembering anything. And that gets harder, too, when you have to start doing that. Not all my friends are doing that. Most of them are pretty good. I mean, you could say it happened last week, I forgot you were coming. But I actually did know the day before, I just got my days kind of mixed up there. I do see a lot more of that, where people just are having more troubles. They're also have eyesight troubles. They can't drive. You become the driver. It does get harder. And one of the things some of my friends are doing is they're going into the over 55 retirement homes. It's been a good solution for many people. And it may be some thing that I will go into. Right now, I don't feel ready to do it. But a lot of people are finding it's a lot of fun. There's always card games, there's always meeting somebody for coffee, there's different things you can do in those groups. That's ready-made socialization. Now, they're not gay and lesbian, they're people. And I know one friend that you'll be interviewing is in one of those, and she has not actually found that it's hard to meet people. She doesn't, I mean, she's not in their face, but I don't think she has any trouble being out with certain people there, with no trouble at all. I have another friend that I mentioned that was 96, and is feeling really cramped by being in that, and feeling that she can't be an out lesbian. But as I say, I wonder how much of that is her, because she's had such experiences in her life, more than we had, of being closeted. That maybe she will, as she's just moved in, and maybe she's been there, she'll find that it's not as judgmental as she thinks it might be, and she might find that she can actually make friends there, too. But right now, she's in this ROLers group, and she invites us out. I wasn't able to go yesterday, because I had other things, but she was having a 1:30 game party, in the game room, for people to come and play games. She still being active. But these are things that really are hurting the older community. Not because of anything of being lesbian and all, but because of aging. Aging is a problem. I saw this in my friends in Altrusa, as they got older. They would go into retirement homes, sometimes they didn't have transportation there. Contact became telephone contact. Some went to Mariner, some went to Oakwood, you know, some went someplace else, and they weren't able to get together because their eyesight, they couldn't drive. Or their hearing, they couldn't drive, or you know, as they got into their 80s. So they become much more isolated from each other. 
01:04:57 
LL: 	Well, when you look ahead to the next decade of your life, you're still an active person, engaged person. Even though age may have slowed you down, to some degree, you even said today that it's very easy to get involved in something and lose track of time. 
DB: 	Right. 
LL: 	What do you see as some of the issues that may be facing you, personally, in the future, in the next decade, and also maybe be issues that the lesbian community and the gay community may be facing in the next decade. 
DB: 	Well, for me, personally, one of my problems has been health. I mean, basically, I'm fairly healthy person, but I have a lot of arthritis problems. I've had to have an ankle replaced, I've had to have a knee replaced. I have back problems that have kept me from walking even half a block. And I'll tell you, that isolates you. People that are still active are going on walks, they're going to this, they're going to that. And it's difficult for me do. I just find that I often have to turn it down, or I'm not being invited, because they know that it's hard on me, and they just don't invite me. I wish I would get more invitations, even if I had to say no, it would be nice. But sometimes you don't even get the invitations anymore. I have to have a shoulder replaced. I'm walking in July the second. I'm talking to the surgeon, I'm going to have this shoulder joint replaced. Which is again, 8 or 10 weeks without being able to drive. It's going to be more isolating. Hopefully, when that's done, and I had tried a treatment with my doctor that seems to be helping my back. We don't know whether it's going to do it, but if it continued to be this good, I'm beginning to look forward to being more active again. And getting rid of some of the pain, getting rid of some of the restrictions on mobility. Mobility restrictions. And as much as Madison tries, Madison is an extremely restrictive place for the disabled. Just extremely restrictive. Because most people see disabled as in a wheelchair, and so they put in ramps and things, but it doesn't help people that are still partially mobile. It's amazing how many of the disabled parking places are so far away from the front door. And then they say, well, you just get on your wheelchair and come in. Well, some of us don't. My sister was up here, she had COPD, she has breathing problems, she can't walk very far. We were restricted to where we could go, because it was harder when you don't have the spaces close enough for her to get in without walking a distance. It gets a lot harder that way. But part of my problem is that I've always had this conflict in my life. When I was younger, it's not just aging. I've always had that conflict between being an active person out socially, and being the loner than enjoys her own company. I've always found that I can entertain myself very well alone. So I've always had to push a little to be social. I enjoy being social, but I have to tell myself I want to be social, because it's a lot easier, if I'm doing something at home, it's a lot easier than getting on the phone and making plans and actually doing it. And so what I'm trying to do is force myself, now, to get into more social things. I'm trying to set on my calendar. Now, I see a couple of people quite often. Particularly my ex, I see her every other day. But I really need to start making a real attempt to be more out there and active with a variety of people. And I have to reach out. I have to start doing that. And I'm trying to figure out, trying to do something maybe once a week, once every two weeks with somebody, calling and setting it up. My problem is, most of the people I know, they don't entertain. They really don't. I've always been the person doing the entertaining. And as I've gotten older, it's harder for me to get the house ready and do the entertaining. It's more difficult to do that for me. And I don't have friends that reciprocate. I don't have people that invite you back to dinner, or stuff. They will maybe say, let's go to a movie. But there's a lot of things that-- I need to find people that are more equally entertaining, that they will plan something, too, rather than my having to instigate it all the time. It gets tearing to do all the instigating. I want some people to reach back in. I mean, they'll always do it, it's not that they don't want me around, or they're not my friend, it's just that they are not people that reach out. They wait for people to reach in. And that's fine, I don't mind doing it with some people, but I need some people that do both, so that I'm not constantly doing that. 
01:09:57
DB:	For the community, I think we've got an interesting thing going on in the community. The younger people do not see the need that some of us have had for a women's space, or being able to find friends. They're quite happy in a really mixed group. You see more and more of them double dating, two lesbians with a straight couple. I mean, you see a lot more of this. So for the community, and we've always had a problem in Madison, because we don't have a gay ghetto. You know, it's not like we have a place like Castro Street. It's not like we have the places that many cities have, where there's a-- the closest we have is probably over there by Williamson Street, and Spate and Jennifer, places like that. But still, so we're all over town. We live in all neighborhoods and all over the place, so we don't have a community where we're in. So it is harder. It is harder to meet people that way. You have to go out somewhere. You have to have a social event to pull you together, rather than being in a neighborhood where there's things going on.  I think that we're going to see more and more, I think eventually, you'll see the gay and lesbian community begin to disappear. I think we'll be integrated. I think as it goes on and on, we will become integrated. Again, back to this choosing the people that interest us, rather than choosing because you're a lesbian, I'm a lesbian, we can talk. Choosing friendships using social groups on a far different basis than some of what we've done. I think you see that a lot in the Black community. I think they sort of were there, where as they became more integrated, and they don't have this need for just being in a Black community to save their culture. They still do it, they still have a lot of good things going on, but they feel more comfortable moving into just society as general. And I think that's what we're going to see. I think you'll see some of those things that we've been in disappear. I think you see it in the women's groups, too. You don't see women with the necessity to have women's groups as much anymore, to state their problems and get the support they need as they've gotten more in. In some things, I think we're a fool for that, because I don't think we've been taking care of enough, yet, in society in general. I think as you see recession, as you see some of this stuff happening, we could all go backwards very quickly. The Black community gets hit with unemployment very quickly. Women are out of work much faster than the white men. I think that women's rights is just hanging by a thread, sometimes. I think some of the young women do not realize, and sometimes they scare me, because I think they let themselves be compromised, and not even knowing that they're being compromised. They say, oh, we don't have to do that anymore, we're all in this together. And yet you see them actually being put down in ways that are subtler, maybe, than we got. But they're still being used, in some ways. And if you've been through it, you see it, and they don't. And that scares me, that they could lose some ground. I think the same thing can happen to the gay and lesbian community if we get complacent. We don't have all those rights yet. We don't have everything yet. And things can turn. Things can turn. It takes a long time to truly be integrated into a society. And I think that one of the things we have to do is keep moving forward. I think it's good that we can integrate a lot more and all, but I also think we have to be very mindful. Things can change. I mean, look, Obama hasn't been as good as we thought he was going to be. Those two briefs that went to the Supreme Court on some of our rights are scary, and they came out of his Justice Department. 
LL:	 We still don't have gays in the military being accepted. We still don't have gay marriage being a part of our culture and cultural institution. We still don't have recognition to the degree that we need for gay families who are raising children, and protections for partners. 
DB: 	No, we don't have any of that. And while in Madison, we're often treated OK, I mean, you can go into the hospitals and all, it still isn't legal. And the hospitals are allowing it. But if a family member comes in, that is, a family member, say, the mother and father say, you can't see this partner of yours, you're not married, you get out, you could be completely cut off. I mean, we don't have the rights. We are sort of-- they're suffering us to do it. But we don't have the rights. And I think that's still a big, big area out there. And I think until we at least get the legal protections, we're in trouble. 
LL: 	Well, Donna, it sounds like you're saying that we need to protect what we have, and not lose what we have, and move forward by getting more protections in place for some of us who are entering the last decades of our lives. Is there anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to end on, that you wanted to either talk about a little bit more or just restate? This has been a wonderful interview, and I appreciate all that you've shared. Is there something you would like to talk about a little bit more, or something that we may have forgotten? 
DB: 	No, no, I think I probably covered pretty much what I wanted to talk about. I just hope to see that the next decade, as I go into my 70s, it gets better. As I say, my health problems have held me back. I'm hoping that I can get some of that behind me. Because what I feel like is that these health problems aren't affecting me as a person, per se. I still have ideas, I still have my mind, I still want to do these things, I'm just a little physically limited. And I hope that that goes away. I'll get back into the swing of things, and get out there and start going again. But I also don't have as much desire to be in the middle of everything like I did. I think that's the other thing, as you get older, you want to step back, enjoy some of the fruits of your labor, rather than continuing to labor as hard. So I'd like to see some of the younger people step up, and do some of the things we did, so we don't have to keep doing them. We can go to the parties, we go to the dinner dances, and enjoy them without having to do all the work, and the decorating, and all. But just go and more enjoy, and having other people step up and us having a little more fun than work sometimes. 
LL: 	I think that's a great call to action. And I hope the next generation of young lesbians grabs the baton from people like you, and carry it forward, and keep moving the changing agendas, and getting the changes that need to be made for our community. Donna, it's been a real pleasure to hear your story. I've heard bits and pieces of your story, because you're a lifelong friend of mine. But to hear it unfold in the chronological way, I'm honored to be your friend. So thank you very much, Donna. 
DB:	 Well, thank you for the interview. It was very good to be talking with you.