To conquer NYC, stay at the Algonquin

I know many of you JILLABUSTER readers are wondering what happened at Jillfest 2007 -- my incredible trip to New York where I stayed in the Dorothy Parker Suite at the famed Algonquin. Well, to paraphrase an old Teri Hatcher line from Seinfeld, "It was real and the stories are spectacular." I'm still processing them all and frankly, resting from the grueling nature of the trip as far as my illness goes. The day before I left, a snarky nurse at my oncology office sniffed at my request to have a home health care nurse do a visit at the hotel part way through the trip so I could get a dose of the prescriptions that keep me going during treatment. " IF you are that sick, it sounds like you should not be traveling." So completely different from the nurses a few years before who celebrating with me for going to see Bruce Springsteen during my first chemo treatment. Never mind that my oncologist had said it could be arranged and was himself incredibly supportive of my taking this trip. He was out of town and all the sudden my trip of a lifetime was at the mercy of Nurse Ratchett. I asked to speak to another nurse and she was more sympathetic but that was about it. So, I got over it. I willed myself to not get sick or tired while I was there. It was just too great of an opportunity. But force of will can only get you so far in NY. That city is amazing, but draining. My last day, the most important one, I was an exhausted zombie trying to act excited for all my friends who were beside themselves at our good fortune. I was thrilled that my friend Dave Marsh was taking the train into the city to meet up with me backstage at Letterman, thrilled to be hearing Patti Scalfia sing, interested in seeing what Bill Clinton's latest project was (Oh if I could bottle some of that man's energy and share it with all us cancer patients.) and of course excited to be in the legendary Ed Sullivan Theatre and getting to see David Letterman do his thing up close and personal from behind the curtain. But an hour before we were due for a preshow tour, I hit the mother of all walls and just wept with exhaustion and disappointment in my inability to will myself strong and happy.

But enough whining. Yes, I felt tired and sick. But who cares. I met Bruce Springsteen. He kissed me on my cheek and told me to hang in there. I laughed with Patti Scalfia about meeting Vigo Mortensen (who was in my Dorothy Parker suite when I checked in) and our favorite horse movies. She is incredible . . . and charming as I'll get out. I met Dave's kind and caring wife Barbara Carr and felt like I had known her forever. Dave and I talked civil rights stories -- from my dad's clashes with the KKK to the acid in the hotel pool incident in St Augustine FL. As always, He got my mind going on things I could be doing, writing, accomplishing. And yet he called me on my "legacy angst." Something along the lines of, "Get over it. Let go of the pressure of planning and just live. Look around at all the people who came to be with you in New York. Your legacy is you." I swear I felt an exhale come from the bottom of my soul when I took that in. Thank God for that man's honesty and caring heart.

I watched the show in a sweet suite with my dear friend Gretchen, Dave Marsh, Barbara, a hilarious woman who works with them who had just flown in from London, and sat on a tiny loveseat next to Jon Landau, admiring his socks which were something out of a Dr Seuss story before giving him advice on how he should take a page from the Talking Heads Stop Making Sense tour and have Patti's band do a Tom Tom Club "show in the middle of a show" for Bruce's upcoming Magic shows. I told him no charge for the consultation. We laughed ourselves silly, getting another glare from poor Gretchen who was trying to watch her brother's show on the monitor. She had no idea who Jon Landau was. When we got back to St Pete and she was sharing stories with some of our Bruce-loving buddies in the newsroom, Pulitzer Prize winning feature writer Tom French figured out who this big funky guy was she mentioned and gently explained to her that she was in the room with a legend of titanic proportions. That's why we pay Tom the big bucks.

Anyway, yes I was sick and tired. But more than that, I was happy, grateful and after Bruce kissed my cheek, according to Gretchen, walking on air. It was, just like Bruce’s new album moniker, MAGIC.

Stay tuned for more NYC slide show over at jillwilson.com. I downloaded some more pictures tonight but haven’t labeled and captioned them yet. You can click on the title of this post to go to http://tinyurl.com/2r5eug and check out what is up so far. I'll try and finish in the next couple of days so keep checking back!

Educator butted heads with Ku Klux Klan

Jane and Garfield Wilson at their Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary, December, 2006.

A man of quiet strength, he and his family were ostracized as he pushed for school integration.

By STEPHANIE HAYES
Published July 27, 2007

PLANT CITY - The Ku Klux Klan filled the room. Garfield Wilson, superintendent of the Walton County, Ga., school district, led the board meeting.

Wilson's wife was steamed.

"I want to tell you one thing," yelled Jane Wilson. "When my husband gets up and looks in the mirror, he sees a man, not a coward under a bed sheet!"

That man - the man she loved passionately for 50 years - died Tuesday of heart failure. He was 76.

Wilson of Plant City was a desegregation pioneer. During the civil rights movement, he championed a plan to gradually integrate Walton schools.

It didn't go over well.

Klansmen would stalk Wilson's three daughters on the playground, and gather on the lawn outside the house. Jane and the girls would hide in the bathroom, the only room without windows, and pretend it was a campout.

But Wilson never changed his tune. He was always soft-spoken and calm, never flashy. He wasn't the type to get up and make a fist-pumping speech or point fingers.

"There were so many nameless, faceless people like my dad who took these quiet stances," said daughter Jill Wilson, who works for the St. Petersburg Times.

When the family was no longer welcome in white circles, they attended black churches. Eventually, the family left town.

They settled in Thomasville, Ga. There, Wilson led a new district. Desegregation challenges were more subtle, but they persisted.

When one of Wilson's black principals was barred from a country club, Wilson played golf with him at a black course, his daughter said. Soon, other white principals followed.

Wilson learned leadership early. As a boy, he suffered rheumatic fever, but he still raised chickens and drove a tractor on his family's farm.

His mother studied to earn a master's degree, a scandal in those days, Jill Wilson said. While Mrs. Wilson took classes, her son cared for four younger brothers.

In college, he met Jane, who was wooed by his country values. His big brown eyes and sculpted build didn't hurt, either.

"He was all muscles. He weighed 185 pounds when we married. He was just out of the Army. I weighed about 104, and he could just pick me up and run upstairs," she said, giggling.

Wilson would cook for the family and patch the girls' pants when they wore thin. She never heard her husband raise his voice or lose his temper.

Still, if he had a point to make, he'd make it. He'd lower his eyebrows and look at you with those big brown eyes. And you knew.

Stephanie Hayes can be reached at shayes@sptimes.com or 727 893-8857.

Biography

Garfield Wilson

Born: March 3, 1931.

Died: July 24, 2007.

Survivors: Wife, Jane Wilson; daughters, Jenny Burke, Jill Wilson and Krista Komosinski; son-in-law, Ron Komosinski; granddaughter, Sara Burke; brothers Ed and Jim Wilson.

Services: 11 a.m. today at Bowdon Baptist Church in Georgia. Memorial donations to Hospice or the Salvation Army.

© 2007 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times

Dr. Garfield Wilson March 3, 1931 - July 24, 2007

My wonderful father passed away on July 24 2007. He went just as he wished. Playing golf with friends, he collapsed on the course and was rushed to the hospital. A doctor was in Dad's group and did CPR for 45 minutes with little result, but he hung on until all his girls (wife Jane, daughters Jenny, Jill and Krista and granddaughter Sara) could be at his bedside. We sang his favorite song to him (I'll Fly Away) and each told him how much we loved him. Then we let him go.

Because of my own terminal cancer diagnosis, Dad and I talked a lot about living with long-term illness and end of life issues -- not in a morbid way, mind you, but as a practicality. One of Dad's greatest fears was to finish out his days as an invalid, unable to care for himself. HE had a very specific "do not resuscitate" order in his living will and my mother bravely followed his wishes.

Dad's heart was damaged by rheumatic fever as a boy, then he had his first quadruple bypass surgery at age 41. Back then, this was a new procedure and few survived it. But my father had the strongest will to live of anyone I have ever met and he went on for another 35 years living each day with joy and passion. This was in spite of a massive heart attack, second quadruple bypass surgery and congestive heart failure in his fifties, and various scares and hospitalizations in his 60s and 70s. These visits usually ended with him coming out of an operating room doing the Seminole Chop, sporting some new electronic device (Pacemaker, Defibulator) implanted in his chest and cracking jokes to sooth my mother's fears.

I have a lot more to say about my dad so keep checking back with jillabuster in the months ahead. He was a great man, but an even better father and husband. The St. Petersburg Times wrote an article about him and his fight with the KKK Click here to read and my sister Krista and I will be working on his papers and news clippings to try and retell the remarkable story of this quiet man.

Here is the obituary I wrote for my father, which ran in the Atlanta, Tallahassee and Tampa/St. Petersburg newspapers.

Garfield W. Wilson, 76, of Plant City, passed away July 24, 2007. Dr. Wilson is survived by his wife of 50 years, the love of his life, Jane; daughters Dr. Jenny Burke, Tampa; Jill Wilson, St. Petersburg; and Krista Komosinski, Dunedin; granddaughter, Sara Burke; son-in-law, Ron Komosinski; and brothers, Dr. Ed Wilson, Bowden, Ga., and Jim Wilson, Concord, Calif. Wilson was born on March 3, 1931, in Bowdon, Ga. He graduated from Bowden High School and West Georgia College, served in the U.S. Army with distinction, then went on to earn his bachelor's and master's degrees from Auburn University and doctorate from Florida State University. He was a lifelong educator who fought on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement, serving on President Lyndon Johnson's desegregation task force while superintendent of schools in Walton County, Ga., one of the first large southern school districts to implement a comprehensive desegregation plan. Wilson started his education career as a high school math teacher, then was the first principal of Towers High School in Decatur, Ga., before moving on to serve as Walton County superintendent of schools. Wilson next served as superintendent of schools in Thomasville, Ga., then moved his family to Tallahassee, where he taught in the doctoral program at FSU and served as director of teacher education and certification at the Florida Department of Education for 16 years. He finished his career as a senior consultant with MGT of America and his own firm, Continuous Improvement Consultants. In 1995, Wilson and wife Jane retired to Mexico Beach. One year later, they lost their home in Hurricane Opal, but rebuilt and continued to enjoy their life playing golf, fishing, and watching sunsets each evening. Wilson was one of the founding members of the Mexico Beach Artificial Reef Association, serving as president during the years after Opal when reef restoration was critical. Wilson also served as board president for the St. Joseph's Country Club and as honorary "mayor" of 27th Street, where he watched over all his neighbors' properties, baited hooks, untangled fishing lines and fixed the bikes of all the neighborhood children who learned from him the healing power of WD40. The Wilsons moved to Plant City in 2002 to be near their children. Wilson was proud to watch his daughter Jenny defend her doctoral dissertation at USF in Human-Robot Interaction, read work published in the St. Petersburg Times written by daughter Jill, and walk daughter Krista down the aisle at her wedding to son-in-law Ron. Services will be held at Bowdon Baptist Church on Friday, July 27, at 11 a.m. Arrangements entrusted to Rainwater Funeral Home, Bowdon, Ga. Memorial donations can be made to Hospice or the Salvation Army. Condolences can be sent to the family by CLICKING HERE to go to guest book.