Stories Had to Be True
But it was the mountainous outpouring of tender and life-changing memories generated by the venerated senator that a number of personalities conjured from the ground floor of their hearts that you wanted to lasso and study. Their stories would have made statues cry, especially the remarkable account by the widowed Erin Stennis of the Stennis Family Foundation. Jamie McCourt, who shares the steering wheel of the Dodgers with her husband Frank, was smooth as heated butter as the Mistress of Ceremonies. Julie Lugo Cerra will correct me if I err. But I am confident that no serious Dodger executive Mrs. McCourt is the President ever has overseen the swearing-in of a Culver City politician. I see no record of the OMalley family ever winging off to Culver City. And you can bet this weeks paycheck Rupert Murdoch never had his ticket punched for Culver City.
One for the Archives
Hopefully, a video was made of the fast-paced program that lasted just under an hour and a half. Comfortably, for me anyway, they could have stretched out the tributes except for that silly moment so many crowds are into, as in Grab the hand of the person sitting next to you. I mean, puh-leeze. Prof. Cornel West of Princeton is not my notion of an academic, but he can deliver my eulogy if I can persuade him. A charismatic speaker should be paid twice a week in gold coins. In Dr. Wests case, you can make it three times a week. As an orator, he would make an audience forget Jesse Jackson. In fact, I already have.
Just Where He Wanted To Be
For an hour and a half on Friday, Mr. Ridley-Thomas, Culver Citys new state Senator dont you agree that carries a sweet ring? climbed the mountain that politicians love to scale. Radiating just the right degree of satisfaction, he received more praise than has been heaped on any Culver City public figure in awhile. Dr. Cheol Hwan Kwak, the senior pastor of the Wilshire United Methodist Church that is a big one opened with a prayer with just the right tonal quality and content. Surveying the glistening crowd that jammed Council Chambers down to the woodwork, the pastor said: I hope and pray the kingdom we all yearn for will look like this. Upon reflection, I doubt that secular teachers or nuns, for example, ever promised impressionable little boys and girls that if they obeyed the word of God, when they died they would go to Council Chambers.
