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During a dark time like the present one, some days the massive forces arrayed against us can seem so overwhelming and almost physically oppressive that it’s hard to even imagine turning it all around and building a just and ethical People’s Nation in place of … this. Logically we know that we’re involved in a marathon to save our nation for its people, and to save the planet to the degree that it’s still possible. We know that it’s incumbent upon us to stay resolute and committed while we avoid the depression or lethargy that can come with our acute awareness of the closing windows of opportunity to fight for what we believe in, and to win. It’s likely we all have different strategies to push away despair, but some days the overload can knock our pins out from under us.
For me this week it was the knowledge that came along with this administration’s ‘Disposition Matrix’; it all made me sad and depressed instead of angry, which in turn leaked my personal power to pretty low levels. At times like this that it takes a Story of Magnificent Love and Courage to act as the Bright Candle in the dark to bring my flagging spirits back.
Yesterday’s news from the Blockade cheered me a bit, but when I dug more deeply into the story of one woman’s dedication and glorious activism, I cried in love, respect and awe for her, and for the spirit she represents. If you’re in need of a jolt, my hope is that Cherri and the others will provide you with one. Please meet Cherri Foytlin, and I hope you’ll soon fall in love with her:
This chapter of her story came to me via Censored News a week ago, and I reckon that you’ll never forget her once you hear more. Cherri is an indigenous Louisiana mother of six, a ‘bayou woman’ some call her, and is speaking to the camera before chaining herself to the Keystone XL pipeyard gate in Winfield, Texas on Oct. 24. Cherri’s husband was a Gulf Coast oilfield worker, and was working at the time of the BP Oil disaster in the Gulf in 2010. Hers was a solitary protest against TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline on Oct. 24.
From Brenda Norrell at CN:
“Effectively blocking pipe from being shipped to construction sites along the controversial pipeline’s route, Foytlin’s action coincides with the Defend Our Coast activities in British Columbia, where more than 60 Canadian communities are protesting a proposed tar sands pipeline through their region. Hers marks the 32nd arrest since Tar Sands Blockade’s actions began over two months ago and today marks the 31st day of sustained protest at its Winnsboro tree blockade.”
TransCanada workers threatened to cut her chains with a grinder, but at 10:00 a.m., two sheriffs cut them off with bolt cutters and arrested her.
“UPDATE 3:30PM – Cherri’s Bail is set at $2,500. We expect her out within an hour.
She’s being charged with Class A Misdemeanor Criminal Trespass of a Habitation/Shelter/Superfund/Infrastructure… This is a new one for us. There are obviously some special designations attached to this charge. We’ll chat with our lawyers and send some details soon.
UPDATE 1:00PM – Cherri is expected to see a judge before the day ends – Donate to her bail
Demonstrate your support Cherri’s action to defend our coast and stand with indigenous and affected communities with a donation to her bail fund.
UPDATE 11:00AM – Cherri was threatened with Felony Use of a Criminal Instrument…
…for using chains and locks anyone could purchase from a hardware store. Confirmation of charges pending.”
Oooh, this Inconvenient Woman seemed familiar, and indeed it turned out that she was, although I didn’t begin to know the extent of her activist history. It turns out that she co-founded Gulf Change and blogs for www.BridgeTheGulfProject.org. A year after the BP oil spill, Cherri Foytlin walked 1,243 miles from New Orleans to the Washington D.C. to send a message to the President and the world that the Gulf is still suffering, and residents are mobilizing for change. She was accompanied by Project Gulf Impact founders Matt Smith, Heather Rally, Gavin Garrison and PGI team members Hunter Chapman, Sami Abdou, Justin Daly, and Lamar Billups, and musician Drew Landry, whose song “BP Blues” has been an inspiration for residents and activist all along the Gulf coast. Two trailers carried a camera crew. Get our your hankies and hold on to your hats ;o) :
Cherri’s blog can be read at the link; Yes Magazine printed an open letter of hers back in the day that narrates some of the worst effects of the explosion and spill including health risks, deaths, and the utterly inadequate response and financial remuneration by the federal government. If you can possibly make the time, read her Jan. 2011 ‘Letter to My People’. You may see some of it as a bit naïve, but even so (my bold cuz it’s so wonderful):
“Our founders, not one, were a perfect people – a fact that is not to be ignored. They were multi-dimensional, just as we are today. And yet in their daily life, by living, they changed the course of human events – just as we are today.
They, every single one, left in their will a silent and compelling promise to us each. Whatever they were, they left to us a future of ability, we are their living testimony to survival and love. And within that legacy, a society hosted by individual talents and the abilities of a free, self-governed people that could come together, harnessed to the service of a collective goodness and dictate their own future.
America’s first principles are basic and simple: that we govern ourselves. These principles are lighthouses to us in the process of doing so. They are keys we have been entrusted to, and someday will pass on to our own children.
These principles are not partisan issues, they are emancipation proclamations.
Citizenship means more than paying taxes and voting; it is a powerful expression of self, and in the absence of our participation and exaltation, we are now giving it away.”
Remember that Cherri’s solitary protest was in solidarity with the Defend Our Coast demonstration in Victoria on the same day. Several thousand people from various affinity groups joined the First American organizers in a day of mass action at the legislature building. Two days of over 70 actions across British Columbia followed.
I never discovered which of the many Louisiana tribes Cherri belonged to, and there are many First American tribes in British Columbia, and as many Native languages.
My personal long-time bias has been that the Indigenous, both locally and globally, and especially the women, will be the ones at the vanguard leading us to new societies based on honoring each other and our planet. They’ve faced corporate rule and death by neoliberal economics, the cynicism of ‘green economics’ and REDD far longer than we have, and are familiar with the enemies we all face. WE are THEY now, and we need to understand this.
Kevin Gosztola has already covered it but, if you’re unaware of it, you’ll enjoy knowing that Jill Stein delivered supplies to the Tree Sitters in Winnsboro yesterday to connect the link between hurricane Sandy and the XL pipeline. She was arrested and taken to the Wood County Jail. She was released after five hours and charged with Criminal Trespass, a Class B Misdemeanor charge. You can read more at the website, see photos and watch Jill’s video on what stirred her to go to Texas.
I hope you’ve laughed and wept and grinned with the sheer wonderfulness of all these people laying it out for all of us and our planet, and that it’s renewed you in some small measure if you needed it. Would that the world had a million Cherris and millions of the others! And perhaps it does, and we will:
“Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number —
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you —
Ye are many — they are few.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
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If we lived in a rational society, more would have been done by now, so we need heroes.
For more verification with many references and organizations see http://treealerts.org/region/north-america/2012/11/climate-change-discussion-front-and-center-in-sandys-wake/
and
Environment – http://newprogs.org/blog/2011/11/08/environment-under-democraticrepublican-uni-party
Thanks for introducing us to Cherri, wendydavis. I keep going back to the fact that she has six kids – that might excuse her from walking to DC or getting arrested in Texas but instead it seems to be her raison d’etre. As it should be. I have a friend whose lovely teenage daughter and adorable eight-year-old son have become my motivating force when I feel like it’s pointless. Do this for the little ones; save the fucking planet if we can. Or die trying.
Rec’d. I’ve been crying all week over the myriad things we have to cry about; at least these are more joyful tears.
Inspiring indeed. One post like this has more value than all of the millions of posts about the “election” and the polls that have been polluting the Internet all year long.
Thank you, wendydavis.
I almost addressed the idea that it’s a combination of rationality and the intuitive/emotional that sends people into such places of defiance and action, NPA. Some can intellectualize a policy or deed to death, and never feel in their hearts, guts and souls, I think. So…rationality with a sense of Right and Wrong mebbe?
Our Ute daughter would often say about some injustice she saw: ‘That’s just Not Right!’ Simple ethos, perhaps because of her First American DNA? ;o)
I can’t say how happy I am to see you, and feel what a tonic Cherri is for you. I sensed that your absence may have been a mite portentous, but hoped I wasn’t projecting my low spirits.
Her mentioning ‘doing it for her ancestors and kids’…had me. But when she said ‘We will prevail’ with the rather half-hearted raised fist…I knew she was my soul sister. In that gesture, she said what I often say in my exuberance for a revolution of consciousness: ‘I believe because I do…and because I have to believe‘.
Yes to doing if the young uns! And for the generations X and Y who are rightly bitter as to our failures as well.
And I weep with joy and pride in her every time I watch the second video, and read her ‘Letter to my people’. Can’t think of anyone who’s inspired me more in the past couple decades, anyway.
Bless you forever, Ms. Firecracker; I do love you. You’re one of the Crown Jewels of my.fdl. (along with the elegant and impeccable juliania) ;o)
Welcome, Isaiah mi amigo. I’ve largely stayed away from the political bullshit and written on issues, but Stein and Honkala caused me to veer into third party voting a little bit as an antidote and better choice.
I do hope you are doing okay, and wondered about your absence, too. Stay strong; you’re a great and powerful diarist, and I hope you post more here in the future.
Ah, wendydavis.
I’m glad when any kid can speak out about injustice.
My son, who is on the aspherger spectrum, has told me about speaking out at school about ignorant comments. Because he has been a victim of bullying, very much so because of his different aspects.
He had his two best friends in the world up to the house last evening. One of them spent the night. Three muskateers, they are. I think their special link through the Asperghers is the link to friendship, and they don’t see themselves as the White Kid, The Black kid, the Chicano Kid. They really love each other and I so enjoyed the joy they shared on Halloween.
(It was a trip.)
Thanks for this post, Wendy. Just wanted to share a short sweet intimate part of my life that’s helping me get through the sadness and depressiveness of the uglier aspects of life, as we know it.
A freind just emailed me a link to this Truthout post with an interview with Cheri Honkala called “We Need Young People to Go Forward”. It, too, looks inspirational. She’s a peach, Cheri is. ;o) She echoes Cherri’s underlying motivations and drive:
I love you too, and the truth is, I have nothing to complain about. My seasonal affective disorder makes me weepy this time of year; I have to beat the depression off with a stick. When Bad Things happen, my filter makes them Even Worse. So watching a lady in Breezy Point who has lived there 34 years muck around in the devastation wearing flip flops and desperately looking for a big enough piece of her life to salvage – well, that pushed me right over the cliff. She talked about how she and her friends sheltered in one house after the other as the fire kept coming closer and closer. And then we cut to Baby Huey (where the fuck does he get those pants made?) and Obomba, the new “it” couple . . . because a good storm is nothing if not a backdrop to the real story.
Anyway, the most promising part of the second video with Cherri is when she realized that the president and congress were not going to help her if she asked politely. True dat.
It’s great to hear they have each other, demi, and thanks for telling us about their bond. Seriously, though, lots of kids don’t see color differences unless they’re catechized in such matters, meaning: They aren’t born to hate’. Encouraging stuff, no?
And it’s good you have your son and his friendships to buoy you up. Imagine bursting through the overarching oppressive weight above, mebbe. The strategies that get us through the day are really crucial right now, as we need so desperately to come together and fight a common enemy, not one another. Easier said than done, but still… ;o)
absolutely!
???
Oh, yes.
Our children and their friends can be a healing way.
Thanks again, wendydavis.
Packing up leftovers from last night as Sonny is driving Mark home. We have too much. You can read that any way. :)
Our children show us the way to the future.
Cherri’s got guts. My hat’s off to her.
My hat is also off to you, wendydavis, for your wonderful diaries.
I’m lost on Obomba and Baby Huey (frequent condition, so..)? Have you ever tried those SAD lights? (Blush) I saw one on Northern Exposure years ago…
Yes, her speaking to her realization (whether a device or not) was goosebump-worthy, wasn’t it? And what she said about our being our forebears’ their living testimony to survival and love. Whoosh. It pinged Occupy’s assertion that realizing that and building community will be key to rebuilding…as it will post-Sandy.
Heroes are just people doing what they can’t NOT do, I think. Unconsciously, or maybe…hyper-consciously, as the cop who saved seven drowning people, then drowning himself. No thought, just…reacting to a dire need.
LOL! Looks as though someone at Truthout may have transcribed incorrectly? I didn’t even see it. I just zipped in in the little box, and went off for some sleep. Now I’ll have to listen to the video… ;o)
Obama and his new BFF.
Yes – apart from the tragedy, it is SO nice to see cops protecting and serving.
I have tried those SAD lights, although not the kind you wear on your head. They do help a little. If the world is still here after the winter solstice, I’ll feel better – you can really tell once the days start getting longer.
She is an inconvenient woman!
“I will not, under any circumstances, let my babies grow up in a world where greed and money is more important than their life. I. Will. Not. Do it. And I don’t care if nobody stands behind me!”
There is an old Chinese proverb that goes, “When the sleeping woman awakens, mountains move.”
I don’t know, exactly, what sound a mountain makes when it is moved by a wide awake woman (or thousands of them), but I shall be listening for that sound.
Great, inspiring diary, wd. Thanks sweet one.
I wonder if that understanding isn’t at the root of Seventh Generation tests of policies, agreements…?
One of the hardest things in life for me is that I almost never get to see my grandbabbies. My own biased belief is that they need their Grammy wendydavis as much as she needs them. At least we got to have the beautiful Elijah here for a week after the fire. And boy, howdy, does he remember it. (a middle child) ;o)
The verve with which she speaks is as authentic as anything I’ve ever heard. I hope she can feel our high regard and love. And thank you for that, sweetie. These folks deserve all the credit, and more.
The First Americans in Victoria drumming and chanting were a whole ‘nother kind of heartwarming, weren’t they? It was hard to choose the headiest youtube of that day, seriously.
Arrrgh; I assume you don’t mean that the helicopter us a Huey?
But my stars, what strange body language they both exhibit. Christie would look a lot better in a long skirt, wouldn’t he? Something in a vertical stripe? And ditch the white golf shoes?
Shoot. One of the pages at the links had a separate link about chemtrails, and I thought of you. When Mr. wd checks the links after work, I’ll ask him to BOLO for it. Ack! I forgot to read the post for errors…bugger.
“When the sleeping woman awakens, mountains move.”
What would it sound like? Hard not to be stopped short by imagining that, dear bootsie. (You always bring the best quotes to my posts.)
I can imagine the scent of it: ozone after a lightning storm, and smelling like the color green. The shift in light, and an almost visibly expanding/contracting/expanding atmosphere. I dunno; my antennae into the noosphere are asleep for now, like blogging blind in a way. Ach; I’ve spent a lot of time imagining this thing you’ve brought.
Now we’ll all be listening for it, no? What a thought! Thank you.
(Is there an aural (auditory?) version of averted vision it will require to hear it? Will it sound like music or thunder or something we don’t have a word for yet?)
I listened to the video, and the sound is really bad. So I may have missed any reference to ‘“resisting the non-profit industrial complex”. But as Cherri did, Cheri focused on the fact that love (including especially the self-love she was taught by her mentors) was at the core of what will bring ‘doing what needs to be done’ rather than wait in some fashion until bureaucratic metrics are achieved. And listening to the voices of our ancestors as well as not tromping the ideas the youth put forth.
The last reminds me of the dedicated boomers of the October 2011 movement that got upstaged by those pesky students and others heading to Wall Street and…Occupying it. ;o)
No, the sound on the video is excellent, the folding chairs being banged around came through loud and clear.
” … resisting the non-profit industrial complex … ” were her exact words, and she followed them with the explanation, about the process for obtaining grant funds that either disqualifies too many deserving people, or includes essentially disqualifying obstacles. Nice turn of phrase for the grant industry (which is called an institution in sociology). ;o)
O how I love her sweater (only marginally visible no thanks to the video guy). Same color as the Apple Corps logo. Remember the presser when The Beatles announced Apple, when John explained the ‘grant’ philosophy, and glared when he said, about artists, So they won’t have to get on their knees?
What John actually said: “… [so] people … don’t have to go on their knees, in somebody’s office, probably yours”.
I appreciate your hearing her better; I heard more of the garbage can sounds. And thank you for translating the comment re: non-profit disqualifiers. It seems I did hear that part.
Yes, you’ve loved that sweater color before. You see Apple Corporation, I see new growth on trees. ;o) And do I lose my Hippie Membership Card if I say I was totally absent when John formed Apple? I look forward to the video, and especially the date.
You girls are really weird. I think I like you.
Dunno which girls you mean, but many of us here are Sincerely Inconvenient Girls. So, maybe weirder than average. ;o)
By the way, I took this diary to Cherri’s blog so that she might be able to read of our high regard for her.
You Girls.
heh
And, thank you for the “7th generation tests of policies” line. A good place for me to start in the morning.
And, thanks for taking this to Cherri.
Just as a starting point or two.
G’night, demi. Sleep well. And welcome; hope she sees it.
This is the best chem trail site.
http://aircrap.org/
Thanks for making us aware of yet another heroine, wendydavis, and reminding us that the story doesn’t end November 7th as there are many more miles to be walked by many more of us. And I don’t fit in with the likes of you and hotflashcarol, no way! Today I walked half a block to find my yard sign for Jill and Cheri – only to find the little printing place had moved – too far for me to go on foot and my train was due, so darn it, I will make my own and tape it to the back of my permanent “We are the 99%” sign, furnished me by a friend back when. It’s not much but we do what we can.
A bus takes me to the train through two pueblos, and at both preparations were underway for a major feast at their churches tonight – not many riders on the bus as a consequence, but coming home a First American in a wheelchair (he’d had to take a geometry test in town) was telling us all about this major feast day – I had seen all the chimneys and hornos smoking on the morning run. The service is at midnight, and all the food goes into the church by the altar, with children getting ‘first digs’ with bags to take home what they could. And they ring the church bells all night long after the midnight service. The feast lasts two days.
I know there is tragedy and suffering on the coast, and these people know it too; they are not isolated from this. But I hadn’t realized how huge this feast day is for these communities until we circled their plazas, empty, as people were of one mind, in their homes preparing. It seemed to me we could have communities like this in future and it would not be less than we have now – they are not rich, these people.
It was lovely to see.
Thank you, bluebutterfly. I can’t get the site to boot, and I tried creating the url. Maybe it will work tomorrow.
‘We do what we can’ has to be the byword; I can’t do what hfc or many others here do or Cherri does…but you light up the struggle here daily with your ability to cut through the chatter and focus our attention on what’s truly important. Though you are slow to rile, I love it when you let loose now and again in calling bullshit on a practice, a political betrayal or the irrelevance of reforming, say, the Democratic party. ;o)
I’ve never been to Catholic feast days at the Pueblos, but at Zuni and Hopi the post social dance feasts and food giving are examples of the highest order of sharing. We spent a few days with a painter and his family at Zuni once, and cooked for days ahead of the Kachina Night Dances. We baked literally hundreds of loaves of bread, all in those adobe ovens built like beehives (I’d really thought they were spelled ‘ornos’). ;o)
Collectives and quasi-collectives may be the wave of the future; certainly living more simply will be. I envy you your train trips to Santa Fe.
Always, thanks for reading and commenting.
Mr. wd advised me that I hadn’t included the link for Cherri’s ‘Letter to my people’. Here it is.
Thanks, Wendy, for bringing this marvelous person and the people she represents to our attention.
They’re out there, aren’t they? The ones who aren’t cowed by the big money interests. The more people learn about them, the likelier they are to not keep quiet, to speak up themselves.
Recc’d, of course.
Welcome, RFShunt; I couldn’t be happier to bring her here! Glorious, glorious….and yes, they are out there, we are out there, and need to refuse to cooperate with the corporatocracy. And raise all the hell we can!
Sleep well, and good night moon. ;o) I’m for bed (and still grinning).
Not an infrequent happening there. Keep trying…you will get to it.
Yes, zuni I hear is wonderful. But even at my smaller pueblo you could see yesterday evening all the guests coming in. And I think most ‘day of the dead’ stuff publicized is on the macabre side with skeletons dancing and all that. My guy on the bus told gently about the spirits of the departed, who are to stay out of the village at all other times, are invited in – these are loved ones folk miss, not scary stuff at all. And all guests are particularly honored as well. He spoke movingly of his son, buried at another pueblo.
I haven’t gone to these feasts, but they resemble very much our little church Easter night celebration – we used to ring our bell all night too (at least the kids did) until at the afternoon service next day a neighbor read us the riot act. After that we only rang it one time – at midnight! :) They don’t mind it at the pueblos; they expect and look forward to it. It is, after all, only once a year. A very special time for the children.
Ha! It’s up! Looks like there’s a boatload of reading there; if hfc doesn’t come back, I’ll get it to her. Thank you again.
So at the Pueblos it’s really a Day of the Dead celebration/feast as in Mexico? They decorate their graves with a profusion of marigolds; sounds lovely. I confess I like the fun they have with the dead, partially because they acknowledge death at all, then revere their ancestors (that might be hard for some of us, lol.) ‘Le them rest in peace and…stay out of my life once and for all.)
Our larger society does everything it can to keep it bay, down to all the euphemisms used.
Nice that the bus driver shared that, juliania. The Navajo, otoh, have so many strict protocols and taboos around death. If a person dies incorrectly, their spirits become chindi, and are almost haunting spirits aloft. Corpse powder is…the most potent evil imaginable.
I do hope the bells are deep and resonant. One church in town here and a grand old bell, and they replaced it with an electronic one. Yech. ;o)
A book I picked up yesterday:
(To Walker Evans.
Against time and the damages of the brain
Sharpen and calibrate. Not yet in full,
Yet in some arbitrated part
Order the facade of the listless summer.
Spies, moving delicately among the enemy,
The younger son, the fools,
Set somewhat aside the dialects and the stained skins of feigned madness,
Ambiguously signal, baffle, the eluded sentinel,
Edgar, weeping for pity, to the shelf of that sick bluff,
Bring your blind father, and describe a little;
Behold him, part wakened, fallen among field flowers shallow
But undisclosed, withdraw.
Not yet that naked hour when armed,
Disguise flung flat, squarely we challenge the fiend.
Still, comrade, the running of beasts and the ruining heaven
Still captive the old wild king.
["Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" - James Agee]
Sorry, that should be “…the younger sons…” [remove this if you can make the correction, moderator, please]
I just checked; it doesn’t appear I can change it, which is likely a good thing, all in all…so, let’s leave it unless you think that it’s not necessary. I’ll need to read that a number of times to let its meaning wash over me. A good way to spend some time.
I’m off to town to tend my card rack; got some new beauties to put out. ;o) Made a couple of the Webber fire; I’m curious if anyone will buy one.
I don’t know exactly how it is done, wendydavis, just as I reported to you from the pueblo man who was riding the bus. For Catholics in general it is of course All Saints Day (we Orthodox have that the week after Pentecost, a different time of year.) The pueblos do wonderful feasts which incorporate their ancient practices – I have attended the midnight mass on Christmas Eve at Tesuque pueblo long ago just to see the dancers come from the kiva past luminaria bonfires into the church – you hear the bells on their mocassins approaching as you wait in the cold sharp air outside, and the people come out of the small church so the dancers can enter and dance, old ones to little ones.
Go once, and you will never forget it.
It was community I wanted to emphasize, because that was the impression I got yesterday – all busily preparing for the ceremony to come. I don’t think it’s like Mexico, though it could be very similar to native traditions there as well. Only the participants really know, and perhaps they too only have a part of it. They would say that, I think.
Very fine; I did mine yesterday. The key to the poem is King Lear with reference to the plight of tenant farmers, July and August of 1936. I should think ‘sons’ and ‘fools’ are plural to include all who follow in Edgar’s footsteps, (female sons as well!) I’m sorry I messed it up, did proof read but I missed until I posted. Also at the end of the second verse should be a period, not a comma. (Sorry, Mr. Agee.)
The admixture of religions is familiar; we have two kachinas who stand vigil beside our creche. ;o)
One of Barbara Kingsolver’s books (maybe Pigs in Heaven) wrote incredibly beautifully about Dia de los Muertos. Heavenly images pinged my brain when you mentioned it. So much love around it all, so many vibrant colors.
Ah, the spy is Agee. Makes more sense now, and I did poke around for more. (Thank you again for expanding my horizons.) I found this, easier for me to understand. Prose, not poetry, so no deciphering.
My stars.
Ah, I do think Agee’s prose is something akin to poetry – I actually saw on Broadway a play made from his novel ‘A Death in the Family’, my only Broadway play experience. (They changed the name to be something positive about Home, as I remember.) And Walker Evans was the photographer for the epic work on poverty in the ’30′s.
Don’t worry about the poem – I am transferring it to Dakine’s excellent MyFDL diary since she mentions sharecroppers there, so I’ll make the needed corrections.
She’s a he, dear one…with a bird on his head, as well.
Thank you; prose is often very poetic. Agee looks at what is there, not *what is not there* and finds beauty, even as he knows the causes of of it: ‘made between hurt by invincible nature and the plainest cruelties and needs of human existence.’
Studs Terkel did much the same, I think.
No where near the first time I’ve been mistaken for a woman, wendydavis. :})
LOL! Guess the giant moustache wasn’t a big enough clue?
My voice is pretty androgynously low, and loads of callers think I’m a he. I used to think that bird on yer head was a hat like an engineer’s hat with the brim bent in the center. When I finally saw your avatar enlarged, I jumped back! Whoa Nellie! ;o)