Our 2nd Quarter FReepathon is Underway!

It's time once more for us to raise the funds that are necessary to keep Free Republic on the air.

People have asked me if the $60,000 settlement with the City of Fresno means we won't have to have a fundraiser this time. Well, I wish it could be so, but, unfortunately, it's not.

First of all, we did not actually receive $60,000. After legal fees, mediation fees and other expenses directly related to the suit, we netted approximately $34,000. Of that, we distributed over $10,000 to the members of the Fresno Chapter who were in business and their businesses suffered due to the city's libel and also to the members who met with us regularly on a weekly basis. Then, due to the fact that the city was late with their press release and no media picked it up, we paid approximately $2,000 to run ads in several valley papers announcing the city's retraction.

The approximately $22,000 left over will be used in our operations. We plan to use about $4,000 to upgrade our equipment and $10,000 or more will go for taxes. I plan to use part of the balance to beef up our insurance coverage and also will look into a health insurance plan. The remainder will be used for travel and other expenses. I still hope to visit as many chapters as I possibly can over the next year or so, but obviously won't be doing so in a motor home (you had to have been there to get the inside joke). We'll be traveling in our trusty old FReepermobile van. She's an 11 year old Mercury Villager with 150,000 miles, but she's got good rubber, purrs like a kitten and is pretty good on gas.

So, as it turns out, the settlement has strengthened Free Republic and also has strengthened the conservative position in the City of Fresno. As a result of our suit, the controversial loony peacenik chair person of the Fresno City Human Relations Commission who committed the libel against us and has also caused much turmoil within the city and the city council has resigned "to pursue other interests." Also, the loony liberal President of the Fresno City Council who made some ridiculous comments belittling the suit and the settlement in the Fresno Bee was voted out of office just a couple months later.

So, as I've said before, the settlement is a win, win, win position. It's a win for Free Republic, a win for the City of Fresno, and, ultimately, a win for the taxpayers.

At any rate, we thank all of you who participate on Free Republic and support our efforts and we look forward to another exciting election cycle.

Hope to see y'all either on our road trip and or at the Free Republic George W. Bush Inaugural Ball II in January!!

OK, eight grade, remind me about being pregnant in a blizzard if I forget......

I was during Watergate, I remember English class, eighth grade. I didn't know it at the time but reflecting back my teacher was a die hard liberal. Instead of learning English, she had the TV tuned to Watergate, and she gave us word searches, across, backwards, diagonal, find the word puzzles for our 'lessons'. At that time in my life, Watergate was pretty boring, it was on the top 2 lists of things we'd rather be doing. Of course, I was only 13-14, yet considered a baby boomer even though I was totally unaware of Woodstock, being only 9 when that occurred. At 13 in 1973 I was more interested in what flavor lip gloss was popular, what Donny Osmond was up to, or who was going to win Bobby Sherman's heart. Oh the dilemmas of life....

It was April 9th. I headed off to school like any other day. I was a 'walker'. Junior High was only about a mile and a half one way. My usual walk was to stop at Carol's house, Penny and Debbie would meet there and we'd all stop at Monica's to round out our group.

It was a normal April day. As I recall, it was chilly, maybe 40ish, a little overcast, but normal as things go in Wisconsin. We arrived at school as usual, headed to homeroom and started our day. About mid morning, maybe the end of second hour, beginning of third hour, announcements were made about a storm. Remember, when we walked to school that morning, there were no indications of any snow storm, there were no reports of storms approaching, but a system shifted and was now apparently heading our way. This storm had the potential of 2 feet of snow. Again, eighth grade, who cares.

The teachers and administrators must have been watching, because they made another announcement, that school would close after lunch. Of course, we can't interrupt lunch! So, after lunch we'd all be sent home. In 1972, a brand new super mall, Northridge, opened. Two stories, expansive, 4 anchor stores, Sears, Penneys, Boston Store and Gimbels, and hundreds of other stores, this was the infancy of super malls. Not to be confused with Chicago's Northridge, this was a mall on the north side of Milwaukee, it's sister mall, Southridge, was on the southside. They were pretty much 'twin' malls, and in 1972, pretty state of the art with respect to malls. What does this have to do with the story.....anticipation.....

After lunch, we all packed up our stuff and preceded to head home. Of course, being in eighth grade, I only wore 'cool' stuff, and my homeroom teacher made a comment. I didn't have boots, or mittens, or a hat..... didn't matter, that wasn't cool. But, since school was being called off, it really didn't matter to us 'walkers' what we had on, we just knew, we could go home. Not so for the bussers.

The snow was so heavy, that is the typical snow in April, it was so heavy, that it clogged everything. Busses were getting stuck because they were trying to head to schools without any additional weight of students. Busses were stuck all over the place, they could not move. So, the bus kids ended staying overnight in school. People were stuck everywhere. Remember the malls? People could not get out of the parking lot and ended up spending and sleeping on demo beds in the mall.

My brother, who was 17, had a snowmobile and was offered $20 per ride to take a person home. He made over $600 that day for driving people a mile.

The weirdest thing was, this was the first time I ever experienced a lightning and thunder snowstorm while walking home. It was snowing so hard, you couldn't see 20 feet in front of you, yet, you could see lightning and hear thunder. I finally arrived home, and my parents had to abandon their car about 2 miles from home, they walked as well. No one was going anywhere unless you had a snowmobile.

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