Having been looking forward to Local 14 for months, I must count it a success: not in terms of sales (will get into the strikes against us on that count further on) but meeting and working with outstanding women. Each of them was generous with advice based on long experience, and was genuinely interested in showing everything off to best advantage.

It was also an opportunity to experiment with displaying banners under adverse conditions. The Oregonian has many ways of predicting rain: everything from occasional showers to spotty rainfall. This was the first time I can remember them calling for “pouring rain”. They weren’t kidding! The banners are impervious to any amount of rain, but hang tags are another story. I thought the problem was solved by putting plastic zip lock bags over the tags. Oops! They filled up like little water balloons and dropped to the ground…I call this on-the-ground training.

The Gala Grand Opening of the show fell on none other than the night of the Palin/Biden debate. Not many potential attendees (engaged citizens, all) were about to miss that piece of theater. Then there was the freshly crashing economy…well, you get the idea.

I did get to connect with some long-lost friends who responded to the mailer and came to look and to visit…what could be better than that?