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Monday, August 1, 2005-11:28 P.M.

Good evening.  It's my grandmother's birthday today.  If she had lived, she would be quite old today, but she died in her 80's, back in the 90's.  That's life, I guess.  Happy birthday, Grandma Tetta...I hope you're proud of me.

So today I participated in the National Take Back The Night parade, a neighborhood effort to fight crime at the street level.  We got a bunch of folks from the various neighborhood associations in Rochester and got a big motorcade going, complete with a police escort, and drove through all of the city neighborhoods, honking our horns and waving to the residents.  I don't know how that fights crime exactly, except that there were a few drug-dealer looking types that were yelling at us and throwing the finger.  But most of the folks seemed to be happy to see us, especially the small children, who knew it was a parade of some kind, and generally like waving.  We finished up with a rally at the Edgerton Recreation Center, just a few blocks from my house, and  we had a nice catered dinner, complete with a performance by a step team.  Community activism is civic minded and tasty!

Tomorrow, it's back to business as usual, although I might just drive around honking my horn and waving at folks just on my own.  It was fun.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY