Imagine not being able to read this sentence …
BANTER BITE BACKSTORY: You are now doing something millions of American can't. You're reading this. We'll admit that we never realized how many people are functionally illiterate, until we met someone who was doing something about it.
We first met Jackie Aguilera over a decade ago at a Houston Money Week meeting … her energy, enthusiasm, and passion for financial literacy not only took us by surprise, but it was contagious. (Admit it, financial literacy sounds boring.) But she was integrating it into a literacy and workforce readiness program for adults, and as we became friends and started working together, we realized she was a leader in her knowledge of adult literacy and a pioneer in how she approached it in dynamic and innovative ways. (DISCLAIMER: The next comment is not meant to plug our book, but as an example of her outside-the-box approach to making learning relevant.) And using unusual resources, such as our book, What I Learned About Life When My Husband Got Fired!, to engage students as well as teach a myriad of subjects, even using our bookmark (yes, a simple bookmark!) to introduce important life skills.
Having dedicated more than two decades to the field of adult literacy, she's now the Project Manager of the Mayor's Office for Adult Literacy (MOAL) Houston, working with Federico Salas-Isnardi, Director of MOAL, to carry out Mayor Turner's vision for a Houston where every individual can obtain the skills necessary to prosper and reach their full potential. (Houston is the only major city in the country where the Mayor's Office includes an Office for Adult Literacy!)
Along the way, Jackie has opened our eyes to the number of people who can't read (including one in three Houstonians), and made us stop and think about how that impacts every aspect of their lives … their families … their communities. Last week in our monthly Zoom session, she let us know that there would be a very exciting announcement. And she wasn't kidding! On Tuesday, the Mayor announced the "Houston Blueprint for Adult Literacy," a joint initiative of MOAL and the Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation. We were watching the press conference and couldn't be prouder and more excited knowing that Jackie will be a part of this amazing endeavor. As former First Lady Barbara Bush said many years ago,
If you help a person to read, then their opportunities in life will be endless.
How times change … there once was a fictional TV show called "Lost In Space" … now there's going to be a real-life "Seat In Space" …
BANTER BITE BACKSTORY: When Red heard that "mere mortals" (translation in this case meaning non-astronauts) were going to be launched into space, all she could think of was how that sounded both scary and exciting, whereas Black, unsurprisingly, had much more pragmatic thoughts.
When Red learned that it would be Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, she admits that she first rolled her eyes thinking that it seems money really can buy you anything, although she questioned why he'd potentially put his life at risk for such a daring adventure. But Black explained to her that Blue Origin, the company behind it all, had been created by him not only as a childhood dream and passion project, but to solve what he sees as a social problem.
But when Red saw the video of Bezos and his brother, Mark, and, as someone extremely close to her sister, in addition to being a business partner with her, she was touched by Jeff's comment,
Ever since I was five years old, I've dreamed of traveling to space. On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend.
Unliked Red, Black has been fascinated by space exploration efforts for years (Red's love of movies, including ones related to space travel, don't count), but from the business side more so than the science. So, she has followed the billionaire space tycoons, starting with Richard Branson and his company, Virgin Galactic, then Elon Musk and SpaceX, and now Jeff Bezos. And, although Black isn't the lover of history that Red is, she appreciates the significance of the carefully selected vehicle name and associated dates,
This mission is historic in terms of space tourism but also honors traditional space exploration. The auction was announced on May 5, the day that Alan Shepard made history in 1961 by becoming the first American to fly in space, and the launch vehicle is named the "New Shephard." It will be launched on July 20, the 52nd anniversary of astronauts Neil Armstong and Edwin "Buzz" becoming the first humans to land on the moon.
But when Bezos announced that he was auctioning off a seat on Blue Origin's first crewed flight, Black wondered whether the proceeds would be applied to the cost of the flight. So, she was impressed to learn the money would be donated to Blue Origin's foundation, Club for the Future, to support educational efforts to promote science and technology among young people and help invent the future of life in space. Although she couldn't help but wonder,
So, will the day come when Amazon Prime is making space deliveries?
Sometimes you don't miss something until it's gone. But was it the movies? The escape? Or the popcorn?
BANTER BITE BACKSTORY: For both Red and Black (but for different reasons), it seemed like the day (or rather weekend) would never come when Red would feel comfortable, post-pandemic, going back to the movies; but Red never expected the stumbling block would involve one of her favorite things.
If you had told Red in March 2020 that she wouldn't be going back to the movies for over a year, she'd have thought you were crazy, or maybe just setting her up to hear the plotline of a farfetched B-movie. But now, 15 months later, after first having to find a temporary solution to get her movie and popcorn "fix" and then questioning whether it was safe to go back to a theater, Red was raring to go. Until she faced an unexpected popcorn problem,
I checked the movie listing at my local AMC, and there wasn't anything I wanted to see, except for A Quiet Place Part II, having seen the original, which is all about monsters that can't see but detect their prey by hearing even the faintest sound. And therein lay the problem … I remembered how, during this literally almost silent movie, I couldn't enjoy my popcorn because I felt you could hear every crunch across the entire theater. So, the thought of a movie without popcorn was just too much for me.
Of course, Black started to explain to Red the history and business aspects of movie popcorn (theater owners initially resisted selling it), as well as to suggest she be patient as Hollywood's ready to make a comeback with plenty of summer blockbusters. But Black stopped short of talking about how the movie industry will probably be changed forever by the pandemic, instead telling her,
Forget about the popcorn. Think about the fact movies let you "escape real life" for a few hours, and you come out refreshed and with less stress. Which carries into the workweek. So, the sooner you start going back to the movies, the better – for both of us!
Rainbows are beautiful and suggest something magical. But during Pride Month, they also become a symbol of love, support, and understanding for the LGBTQ community.
BANTER BITE BACKSTORY: Until yesterday, when Black explained it to her, Red, like many people, didn't realize that Pride Month evolved from a tragic event, the Stonewall Uprising, into both a tribute and a memorial before it became a worldwide celebration of the LGBTQ community.
In fact, Red believes that if she hadn't pursued a theater degree at college, she might have gone decades without getting to know someone that was gay. However, looking back, she's sure that she had high school classmates who would later be able to identify themselves as LGBTQ, but back then had to keep it a secret in fear of being bullied, ostracized, or possibly even disowned by their families.
I was a freshman at Wake Forest University, a Baptist school in North Carolina in 1980, so not someplace you would expect to find an outwardly gay person. However, I spent almost all of my time at the theater department, which is where I first met "Bryan." You couldn't help but become friends with him because he was so incredibly funny and talented. But there was something else about him, and although initially I couldn't quite put my finger on it, I soon realized that he was gay. I had grown up sheltered (that's an understatement) in a neighborhood that was almost exclusively Jews and Italians, and now was at a school that was even more "white bread" than that, but my only thought was, "Ok, cool, now I know a gay person."
Black, being five years older and having gone to school in New York City and then London, was more worldly than Red (that's not saying much), not to mention she tended to date much more than Red did.
I was at London Business School, and this was 1978, back when private clubs and discos (like Tramp's and Annabel's) were all the rage. One of the other Americans, Bob, a very handsome Black man, invited me to go clubbing with him. I got all dressed up for a night on the town, and the minute we walked into the first club, I felt like a kid in a candy store – it was filled with incredibly good-looking men, and I seemed to be one of the few women. The odds were in my favor. But then, the penny dropped, and I asked Bob if this was a gay club. It was, and I think it was his way of letting me know he was gay (or maybe he thought I already knew), but I thought it cruel. It was like being in that candy store, but being told you can look, but you cannot touch.
As Baby Boomers, our opinions and attitudes toward LGBTQ were influenced by our first encounters, so we saw them as people who merely had different sexual preferences. Full stop. Red's daughters, who are 18 and 22, laugh at the fact their mom and aunt can remember their "first time" as so many of their friends are LGBTQ. No big deal.
So, what can we each do to celebrate Pride Month and show our support? Of course, Red loves the idea of cooking, watching movies, and reading books, while Black knows there are many highly effective workplace activities. But what's most important is finding a way to commemorate and bring awareness to a population that includes our families, our friends, our neighbors, our communities.