WDCSA BoardNewsletter

WDCSA Newsletter – July 2003

Forecast for the Fall:

Other:
Modern Drama Discussion Group

This month’s newsletter will not be mailed.

Stanford Black Alumni Association Fundraiser
Monday, July 7, 5-10:30 p.m.,
Austin Grill
750 E St., NW, Washington, DC (just southwest of the MCI Center)

Enjoy good Mexican food, help out a worthy cause and win a gift certificate!
The Stanford Black Alumni Association is presenting a restaurant night at
downtown Washington’s Austin Grill. From 5-10:30 p.m. on Monday, July 7, SBAA
will get 50% of food and drink receipts from customers WHO WRITE "SBAA" or
"Stanford" ON THE BACK OF THEIR RECEIPTS (please remember this, or we don’t get
the money). Forms will be available at the front for people to fill out and
enter a drawing for gifts, which include $25 gift certificates to Amazon.com and
Best Buy. Please come out for this, and encourage friends, significant others,
and co-workers to eat out that night at this location:

For more information, please call or e-mail Stephaan Harris (’96) at (202)
331-5540 or sharris@epinet.org.

WDCSA BOOK CLUB
Sunday, July 13, 2003, 6-9 p.m.
Book: Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the American Meal, Eric Schlosser

Location: Contact carinau@stanfordalumni.org

10 August, 6-9 p.m. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie;
14 September, 6-9 p.m. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown

If you notice a scheduling conflict for a discussion you would like to
attend, please email Carina at least one month in advance to suggest an
alternative date. We will always try to maximize the number of people able to
make a meeting! If you would be willing to host a discussion and potluck in your
home, please email carinau@standfordalumni.org. Your home should be within
walking distance from a metro and be wheelchair accessible. For more information
please contact Carina Uraiqat at carinau@stanfordalumni.org

KAYAKING ON THE POTOMAC CONTINUES
Follow Up to Whitewater Intro, Thursday, July 17, 5:30-8PM

We will follow up our successful June paddling lessons for those interested
in whitewater kayaking. The Potomac River level and weather will likely be
perfect (i.e. blisteringly hot) for an after-work class at the river. Lessons
will once again be provided by AJ and Jeff McIntyre, experienced instructors and
residents of Cabin John, MD.

Meet us at Potomac Outdoors, 7687 Macarthur Blvd, Cabin John, MD (301)
320-1544. You can reserve equipment there for $28 per day. Call ahead and ask
for a ‘whitewater kayak’ and the associated accessories: a life jacket,
sprayskirt, paddle and helmet. Wear a bathing suit or trunks, polypropylene
undershirt (you may have one for winter sports), a windbreaker if breezy. Wear
sandals or sneakers that can get wet or muddy.

Find out more about Potomac Outdoors at
www.potomacoutdoors.com,
which has a link to provide detailed directions. Potomac Outdoors is inside the
Beltway, west of Glen Echo and Cabin John Parkway, two blocks before Seven Locks
Road.

RSVP by July 15th to risa@amwhitewater.org with your plans to attend so we’ll
be looking out for you!

BALTIMORE ORIOLES vs. ANAHEIM ANGELS
Saturday, July 19, 7:00 p.m.

WDCSA has purchased a block of 25 tickets for the Baltimore Orioles v.
Anaheim Angels. Tickets are $16 each (a $4 discount off the regular price). To
RSVP, send your check, payable to WDCSA, to Tom Hwang at 5647 Columbia Rd. Apt.
304, Columbia, MD 21044 and include if you would like to carpool with someone.
Post-game celebrants can visit the Inner Harbor near Camden Yards or the Power
Plant entertainment district. Please contact Tom Hwang at 410-884-3533 for more
information. On game day, if you need to contact Tom, call 800-960-9696 (cell)

Directions: Take the Baltimore Washington Parkway to Baltimore. This will
turn into Russell St. and end at the stadium. Or, take I-95 to I-395 to
downtown, exit on Martin Luther King Blvd. Turn right on Pratt St. Parking is
available in the vicinity.

As a pregame activity, you may wish to visit Ft. McHenry, the Inner Harbor,
or Baltimore’s National Aquarium. Ft. McHenry Park is three miles southeast of
the Baltimore Inner Harbor and just off I-95. From I-95, take Exit 55 to Key
Highway. Turn left on Lawrence Street and left on Fort Avenue. Proceed one mile
to the park.

Legg Mason Tennis Classic
Saturday, July 26-August 3

The WDCSA has box seats (Aisle 4, Box 7 – 7th and 8th row from the court, on
the west side, providing shade from the afternoon sun) to the tournament at
16th & Kennedy, NW. We will allocate our two onsite parking passes per session
by lottery if more than 2 groups purchase for a single session:

Sunday, July 27, 11 a.m., $15 (4 seats left)
Monday, July 28, 4 p.m. $26 (2 seats left)
Thursday, July 31, 4 p.m. $38 (2 seats left)
Saturday, August 2, 1 p.m. $45 (4 seats left)
Saturday, August 2, 7 p.m. $45 (2 seats left)
Sunday, August 3, 2 p.m. $53 (4 seats left)

Email Bill Pegram at dcstanalum@aol.com or call (703) 486-0952 indicating the
number of tickets desired and the session.

STANFORD BALTIMORE ALUMNI BOOK CLUB KICK-OFF!
16 September, 7:00 p.m.

Location tba: someplace in Baltimore.  We’ll discuss Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines.

On the heels of having led a successful Stanford Book Club group in Chicago,
Sarah Clever (’91) is recreating success and enthusiasm in … Bal’more! The club
is open to all alumni, and the only rules are that we will alternate between
fiction and non-fiction every other month, and that book selection will be by
democratic vote. We’ll decide whether and/or how much food we want at each
meeting, and when and where we want to meet.

Please be in touch with Sarah Clever, ’91, 410-685-7558,
slclever@earthlink.net,
with questions. Happy reading!

[Below, a review of the book…]

"In a small Cajun community in 1940s Louisiana, a young black man is about to
go to the electric chair for murder. A white shopkeeper had died during a
robbery gone bad; though the young man on trial had not been armed and had not
pulled the trigger, in that time and place, there could be no doubt of the
verdict or the penalty.

"’I was not there, yet I was there. No, I did not go to the trial, I did not
hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be…’ So begins
Grant Wiggins, the narrator of Ernest J. Gaines’s powerful exploration of race,
injustice, and resistance, A Lesson Before Dying. If young Jefferson, the
accused, is confined by the law to an iron-barred cell, Grant Wiggins is no less
a prisoner of social convention. University educated, Grant has returned to the
tiny plantation town of his youth, where the only job available to him is
teaching in the small plantation church school. More than 75 years after the
close of the Civil War, antebellum attitudes still prevail: African Americans go
to the kitchen door when visiting whites and the two races are rigidly separated
by custom and by law. Grant, trapped in a career he doesn’t enjoy, eaten up by
resentment at his station in life, and angered by the injustice he sees all
around him, dreams of taking his girlfriend Vivian and leaving Louisiana
forever. But when Jefferson is convicted and sentenced to die, his grandmother,
Miss Emma, begs Grant for one last favor: to teach her grandson to die like a
man.

"As Grant struggles to impart a sense of pride to Jefferson before he must
face his death, he learns an important lesson as well: heroism is not always
expressed through action–sometimes the simple act of resisting the inevitable
is enough."

STANFORD NIGHT AT THE RACES
Saturday, September 27

Enjoy an exciting evening of thoroughbred racing and casino games at Charles
Town Racetrack in Charles Town, West Virginia. Jim Arrison (BS/MS) ’87, a
thoroughbred owner, will host the evening and provide introductions to jockeys,
trainers, and the track handicapper. Details will follow in the September
newsletter.

Modern Drama Discussion Group

Monday, July 14, 6:30 p.m. (dinner), discussion 7:30-9:30
Luna Books, 1633 P St., NW

The Modern Drama Discussion Group (www.footlightsdc.org),
a project of the Stanford Club and other DC-area alumni clubs, discusses theater
over dinner with a guest speaker. This season’s plays all focus on women.

On Monday, July 14, the MDDG will discuss "Diana of Dobson’s" (1908), by
feminist activist Cicely Hamilton. When Hamilton’s heroine, a sweatshop worker,
receives a small inheritance, she spends it all on a month at a high-class
resort frequented by eligible bachelors. Reckless extravagance–or wise
investment? Canadian director Alisa Palmer will fly here from Toronto to lead
the discussion; her production of "Diana" runs through October 3 at the Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.
Backstage Books, Olsson’s, & Politics & Prose all have copies. For reservations & other information, call 202-898-4825 (24 hours/day) or
e-mail gruenberg@footlightsdc.org.