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I have lived in Cambridge in my house since 1966 + 4 years in Baker House while a student at MIT in 1956-1960. From 1967-1986 I worked in a ~40 person Cambridge office of a computer company working on Multics, a very advanced computer sysem for the times – for the last several years I was the manager.

I have been involved as a volunteer in many organizations – often as a board member, and sometime as treasurer. Most of them are Cambridge oriented and have worked to make the city a better place. It has been interesting and fun as well. Some of them are LGBTQ oriented. As an out-gay person I have had the pleasure of helping make life better for LGBTQ people.

Partly because we are moving out of Cambridge to Brooksby Village, a retirement Community in Peabody Mass, and because I had enough of this I am no longer doing any of this.

Cambridge Political organizations

Cambridge Civic Association – CCA
CCA was formed in 1945 as part of the effort to change the city government to the current strong City Manager, system. It characterized itself as a good-government organization and focused on working with City Councilors, the Mayor, and other parts of the city government, It also endorsed a slate of candidates and helped support the election. I joined in the ‘70s and stayed until it ended in the late ‘80s. I was a board member and the treasurer for most of the time.

Cambridge Lavender Alliance – CLA
CLA was formed in the ‘70s and as a LGBTQ organization and worked to make the public and the government deal with issues faced by LGBTQ people. It endorsed a slate of candidates for school committee and Council. Some of us worked with other people in the city and helped form the LGBTQ+ Commission. I was a board member and treasurer. After the Commission formed it ended.

Cambridge City Government organizations

Cambridge LGBTQ+ Commission
I have been part of this organization since it was formed in 2004 and been co-chair most of the time – retired in April 2022. Commissioners are appointed by the City Manager. We work with organizations in the government – particularly police and health care and have worked with housing and healthcare organizations in the city to help them improve policies and practices with respect to LGBTQ people.

Technical Advisory Committee to the Election Commission
This group was formed to help the Election Commission switch from the time consuming hand count of Council and School Committee preferential ballots to electronic. The hand count took about a week and it was fun to hang around and chat with people who were observing, it. We studied other systems and made a recommendation which was accepted and implemented.

Library 21 Committee
This committee was formed when the City Council rejected a bad plan to extend the main library that messed up the park next to the library among other issues. The committee had city government employees, volunteers, and outside library experts to figure out the program of the expanded library. It was very interesting – we did a lot of research – among other things looking at other library expansions - I as well as some others did a lot of this and visited other libraries when I was traveling and went to a library conference. The plan was well received and got the OK.

Library Design Advisory Committee
This was formed to work with the architects on the details of the design. Again an example of city employees, resident volunteers and library experts working together. The resulting library expansion is wonderful and has been well received.

Silver Ribbon Commission
This was formed by the city to investigate various issues of aging in place and produced a good report. Unfortunately little was done about its recommendations. Another example of resident volunteers working with city employees.

Envision Cambridge – Mobility Group
Envison Cambridge was a set of working groups that looked at possible futures for the city. The Mobility subgroup was dealing with transportation and just getting around. I was a member of this. Most of the recommendations were ignored.

Miscellaneous

Cambridge Postal Advisory Committee
We met with the Cambridge Post Office management a few times a year to look at policies and practices and make recommendations for improvement. We got a prize from the US Postal Service one year for our work. It lasted for a few years but after several changes in the local Postmaster it died out.

As some of you know I have been involved as a commitee member and behind-the-scenes volunteer in many city government activities for over 30 years. As a result I get invited to various holiday celebrations. On Friday there was the unveiling of the portrait of now retired Mayor Henrietta Davis that will be hung in the Council Chambers along with other such portraits. Before being Mayor, Henrietta was a City Councillor and School Committee member. I was her election database guru for a few elections.

On Monday I went to the Mayor's Holiday Luncheon. And later that day I went to the Mayor's special celebration for volunteers; I got to give a short speech. And then on Wednesday there was the City Manager's Holiday breakfast. I like going to these things because among other things I get to have what I call 1-minute meetings with various people that are usually very useful.

Cambridge City Hall Model in the lobby


I was a board member of the long-defunct Cambridge Civic Association - a good government organization that worked with city coucnillors, school committee members and people in the administration. I was also an activist in the also-defunct Cambridge Lavender Alliance. Both of these organization endorse candidates for the local elections and did some publicity.Then I started working on official city things.

I was a consultant to Cambridge Election Commission where we figured how to computerize the elaborate proportional representation, preferencial voting system.

Then I became a member of the Library 21 Committee and the Library Design Advisory Committee. L21 was formed after a controversial plan for the main library extension was defeated in the City Council. At some point I noted in my then Palm Pilot that I had been to 100 meetings - some official, others with neighbors and others. The end result was a wonderful award-winning building packed with users. Amazingly the web site that I built and maintained is still there. The Council meeting where our Election Commission report was delivered was also the one where the bond-issue was defeated. A few weeks later a committee was formed and I applied for it. Little did I know what that would entail, but it was a great experience.

I was a member of the Silver Ribbon Commission that worked on approaches to Aging in Place. We had a lot of good ideas and proposals in our report, but nothing much has been done.

I am co-chair of the Cambridge GLBT Commission - now in its 11th year. We have been working on youth and senior issues and have a great relationsoip with the Police Department who has given GLBT training to all police officers, does it regularly for new recruits and our liaison has been working with other cities and organizations to get such training done. We just completed a survey of health care institutions in Cambridge, are working with them for improvements and will be look at housing next. The intern who has been doing the work and I are presenting about these projects at an LGBT Elders conference in the spring.

"Cambridge tenants chanting, dancing, singing and burning incense filibustered the Cambridge City Council into postponing a vote to throw out Rent control." was the lead paragraph in the Boston Evening Globe. I'm the person near the bottom of the picture wearing striped pants. We were successful in avoiding a vote - there were 5 councilors (of 9) who would have voted to kill. This was the last meeting in 1971, and the makeup of the Council was slightly different in 1972.



This meeting was in December 1971; I don't remember if I was still a tenant then just before I bought the house where my apartment was. i live there.

Rent Control actually got killed in 1994 by statewide referendum.

I heard a large thump and then a car alarm went off.  Out on the street I saw this:



Interestingly enough, the other day my neighbor whose house is at this tree said the city was going to take it down because it was leaning more and more. It was a nice tree. It didn't take out power, cable/internet, nor phone and nothing other than the car under it was damaged. Now they are out dealing with it.

On Friday afternoon I went to BGALA, the BGLT MIT alumni reception. Saw a few people I already knew from various situations including Stan Zanarotti who introduced me to a couple of people: "this is John - he was my boss for a summer ~25 years ago on the Multics project".

On Saturday morning we had the annual (22nd one) Pride brunch in City Hall. I've been one of the organizers of this (it used to be the Cambridge Lavender Alliance - political org - with the Mayor's office; now it is the GLBT Commission with the Mayor's office). I was MC + I gave a short speech outlining the work of the Commission. Among other things we gave a Recognition Award to Alice Wolf, a Cambridge state rep who is not running for reelection; she was the Mayor during the first one of these events and has been very supportive of GLBT issues in the City Council when she was a member of it and the legislature. Also we gave an award to the Mass Transgender Political Coalition for achieving passage of a Transgender Rights bill this year. An award was also given to a Cambridge High School student and we gave the Bayard Rustin award (for a person of color who has done lots of work for the GLBT community as Bayard Rustin did many years ago, to Priscilla Lee - among many other things Priscilla was a GLBT Commissioner for a few years ago.





After this we bussed down to the Pride March where we walked the route and Gays for Patsy did some two-stepping and we did some almost-Contra dancing. Ran into various people along the way.



After this we cruised around City Hall plaza for a while chatting with various people and seeing what kind of booths, I ran into the Gay Officer's Action League booth and talked to the president there about some training we are trying to get to happen in the Cambridge Fire Department.

After this we went to MIT where an ad-hoc Multics reunion was being held. There were about 15 of this there plus about 5 people on Skype. It was amusing when we got there because people (all extremely experienced software people) were having a lot of trouble getting Skype to work - and the solution was - install a new version.


And then for the evening we had our traditional Pride Dance with Dean Allemang calling to the music to Spank Me!

Today I am going to do nothing, except....

Today, as is usual on the first Monday of January in an even year I went to the Inauguration event for the Cambridge City Council. It takes about an hour with examination of credentials, benedictions, oaths, introductions of family members and other entourage, and some Music Presentations.

There are nine Councillors. Each takes three oaths - to the state, to the constitution of the US, and to the city. They all end with so help me God. I did a little bit of research to see if that can be omitted from the oath and the I think the answer is if requested, but then it is called an affirmation.

Also I noticed that the US flag was on one side of the podium and on the other side there was a yellow flag of unidentified origin and there was no state flag. I wonder what the yellow flag was. (A quick Google search revealed that in Massachusetts the following is recommended: "The yellow flag means that a pesticide was applied to a piece of property". Clearly, that was not the case here).

There were an Invocation, a Meditation, and a Benediction; the first and the last were from Christian denominations and the Meditation from a sect I didn't recognize - he was listed as Reverend E K Khalsa and he was wearing a turban. I liked his the best and he asked everyone to hold their breath and think good thoughts (I am paraphrasing). There was no Rabbi this time - there usually is, but of course not all religions can be represented.

There was singer who sung three pieces at various points in the program. I'm sure some people liked her work but I didn't - too much vibrato and too much high register loud climax at the end of each piece - especially Amazing Grace - you know: "how sweet the sound"... This isn't opera - although sometimes city council happenings are a lot like an opera - although in spite of some being somewhat tragic no-one ever dies at the end and often most people live happily ever after.

At the end of the session the first attempt for the Council to elect a Mayor from its ranks yielded no-one. Most councillors voted for themselves. Next try is January 9th.

Afterwards there was a reception at the Royal Sonesta. I got to talk to lots of people and that was fun and also I ate too much food (the fourth day in a row). I believe that the last time I was at the Royal Sonesta was when I was sequestered for a week and half for the last portion as a juror on a homicide trial 20 years ago.

I didn't go to this evening's School Committee event but I did go to a brief tour of the newly renovated High School just before that. We were in the Arts building and saw the theatre, the band room, the piano room, some theatre support rooms, and a couple of class rooms including a chemistry lab/room. It all looked quite fabulous.

My Invitation to the inauguration starts with:
"The Honour of Your Presence is Requested". I was surprised to see the "u".

Halloween in Cambridge was absolutely quiet. Not a single visitor to the door - that seems typical around here. Although I'd gotten email from several city council candidates who were soliciting volunteers to go around door-to-door - so I assume they were out.

Last year we were in Lima, Peru on the Day of the Dead and visited several cemeteries which were jammed with people.

I did write about this last year.

Here is one of the huge arrays of graves:



Speaking of Peru - Peru, MA got 32 inches of snow. - we had a dance camp there a few years ago.

I'm a co-chair of the Cambridge GLBT Commission and one of the things we had been working on was having gender-neutral bathrooms in city buildings and public places. This week there was a City Council order asking for a study leading to a proposed ordinance and it was passed. One of the Commissioners drafted it and it was introduced by Denise Simmons, the councillor who originally got the Commission created.

Creating such places is really important for Transgender people but we point out that they are also important for parents of opposite gender children and for people with opposite gender aides who need to use a bathroom.

Not all press reporting is bad. Today the Boston Herald published an article about this. The reporter, Christine McConville, interviewed me by phone early in the afternoon. Later that afternoon I was over at City Councillor Henrietta Davis' house helping her with her campaign database and the reporter called Henrietta there. Then later in the evening she called me to go over what she had written and I got her to make a few changes.

Of course, if you read the comments they are mostly hateful as you'd expect. I suppose some people think that we mean that there would be no gendered bathrooms but that is not what is intended.

We put the tree up last night - a bit earlier than we sometimes do. When I was a kid our tree always went up on Christmas eve.



While planning dinner I looked through some of the old menus that I used to make - usually just as we about to sit down to dinner. We were trying to decide what to have for dessert so we looked through recent LJ postings and these old menus to see what we had in the past. We decided on Denver Pudding for this year.

One of the menus said: Zucchini without Yellow Peppers. We didn't remember if we forgot to use the yellow peppers or whether we discovered they were bad when it was time to cook.

Chris Mason is a GLBTQ activist who created Phelps-a-thons to raise money when the WBC comes to protest. He also took an all summer trip in 2009 to interview people in all 48 states - he called it Driving Equality. Ifirst met him when he became a GLBT Commissioner. When the WBC came to Cambridge last year his effort raised ~$3500 for GLBTQ organizations in the public schools.

Here is a fine video of his interview with Shirley Phelps who didn't know who he was.

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