The story of why I hate Allen Craft's guts...

Hiya Stevie babyyyy....how's it shakin'?  Well, I guess with a hip replacement, it doesn't shake as well as it used to, huh?  My hubby has one of those too, actually, so I know what he went through and it sucks. I'm sorry you had that problem, but you seem to be doing very well now, so it all worked out in the end.  The only good thing about it, my hubby says, is having a handicap placard to park closer to wherever he's going!  He also loves setting off the metal detectors at the airport. "Keeps 'em on their toes," he says. "Doing what I can for the security of our country," he jokes.

Anyway, there's a Michigan saying:  "It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick." Maybe that is a saying elsewhere too, but it is meant to change your perspective when life is getting you down.  So, I'll say this: a hip replacement is better than having a metal plate in your head.  Or spending life in a wheelchair.

When I worked at the Museum in DC, one of my favorite Survivors, Nesse Godin (you can Google her if you want, there are LOTS of articles about her out there), used to give me huge bear hugs every day. One day she came to hug me and I was scowling, stressed out and having a bad day...she said to me, "My daughter, (she said I looked a lot like her real daughter, so she called me her Museum daughter), what is wrong? You look unhappy today."  I said, "Oh Nesse, my life is just stagnating, I'm frustrated, worried about finances, you know, the usual stuff...just stressed out about everything."  She looked at me with a gleam in her eye, and pounded her fist down in front of me on the table, and said, "I am 73 years old, I awoke today from a good sleep, I have a roof over my head, food in my fridge, and clothes on my back. LIFE IS GOOD!" And she walked away, leaving me feeling like my problems just got the smackdown. Talk about getting slapped with a different perspective!!

She finished earning her GED at age 73, and we had a huge graduation party for her, she wore a cap and gown and everything!! It was awesome.  She's now in her mid-80's, and still going strong.  Her story is an amazing one, so if you have time and are interested in learning more about her, just Google her name. She is my angel on earth and I love her like a grandma.

My other angel on earth (and you may have one or two of your own, I think everyone has at least one), was Miep Gies.  You can Google her too, she was the woman who helped the Frank family hide while Anne wrote in her diary.  She was Mr. Frank's secretary who brought them food and news and medication, anything they needed.  Did you know that, in addition to the 8 people in hiding in the Secret Annex, she also had 5 others living in her own house at the same time? That's a little known fact about her, and I have no idea how she did it.  She truly was an amazing woman and I loved her more than anything in the world. I met her in 1994, the same year I met you twice, actually, and when I met her, I told her I wanted to write a book about HER life story, because without HER, there would BE no Diary of Anne Frank at all.  (She's the one who found it after the Nazis took the Frank's to concentration camps).  She agreed to let me write about her, and gave me her home address.

From that point on, she wrote to me constantly, and I did the same. We were very good friends, and I loved her like she was my very own grandmother.  She meant the world to me.  So for about 6 months, I wrote a story about her life and ended up having it published in World War II magazine, in January 1999.  I had written a longer almost-book about her, but after awhile I whittled it down to an article, and tried several publications until this one agreed to do it in 1997.  It took them two years to finally publish it, and I was peeved. I called the Editor and said, "Look, if you're waiting around for her to DIE so you can sell more copies of your magazine, then I want the article back RIGHT NOW, or I will contact my Museum's lawyers and let THEM come after you."  (Journalism 101: dead people sell more magazines than live people do).  He finally published it in the next issue.

Hey, if there's one thing that you and I definitely have in common:  we don't play.  That is, we mean what we say, and we say what we mean, and to hell with anybody who feels rubbed wrong by it.  I don't mess around with people, I don't care who the hell they think they are, how powerful they might be, it doesn't matter.  I just don't take any shit from anybody.  I used to tell my best friend's kids when they were younger, "Aunt Becky don't play! I say it ONCE, and that's IT. If you blow it, you're DONE." And after awhile, they learned the hard way, I meant what I said.  They have a strong respect for me now that they are older, and I think that may be part of the reason why.  I followed-through.

So, anyway, after my article was published, I told Miep I wanted to create a web site for kids about Anne Frank and the Holocaust.  Until that point, there were only web sites for OLDER kids, from age 11 and up.  However, you and I both know that 8 year olds are watching rated R movies nowadays, and are having WAY bigger problems in school (with bullies, etc)., than you and I ever did.  So, why not introduce them to the general CONCEPTS of the subject, and introduce them to Anne Frank when they are EIGHT instead of waiting until they are 11??  That was my business proposal that Miep and her longtime friend, Cor Suijk, liked a lot, and actually gave me $5,000 in funding to do it.

However, I knew absolutely NOTHING about how to create a web site.  So, instead, I drew everything that I had envisioned, down on paper, with all my ideas, links, decision trees, suggested books, etc., and articles that I wrote about Anne Frank and Miep Gies.  I drew photos of the visual stuff I wanted included, (age-appropriate images of course, nothing graphic or disturbing), and I had this HUGE binder full of drawings and ideas that took me a couple years to create, and I started going from Director to Director in my Museum, asking them to help me make it happen.

What I did not know then, and I wish somebody would have just CLUED ME IN, was that, in the Jewish community, (of which I am not an official member, but in my heart I do feel a great respect and wish I could be Jewish), they feel that 11 and up is even too young, that 15 and up is better.  They coddle their young, I've been told, and would rather NOT tell them about the Holocaust at age 8.

But, again, I didn't KNOW that, so I really got frustrated as hell when I kept getting "hey this is great, we love it, but you'll have to run it past so-and-so to get permission to do it..." and for two years, I got passed around from office to office, "who the hell IS this silly young white-bread SHIKSA from Sunnybrook Farm? Imagine trying to do such a thing? OY!"   So I got NOWHERE with this project, and it was killing me slowly.  I KNEW it was good, I had $5,000 and Miep Gies' blessing!!  But that didn't sway anybody at the Museum.  So finally I wrote an introductory email to the director of education (who was just there temporarily thankfully), asking for a 15 minute meeting to discuss my project idea. She wrote back the nastiest, rudest letter, telling me I'm NOT an educator, I'm NOT even Jewish, so who the hell did I think I was, and why would she waste HER time on ME, when everyone KNOWS that the internet is NOT the best educational TOOL to be used in a classroom or otherwise.

Um....yes, the Director of Education at the Holocaust Museum did not believe that there was ANY educational value on the internet whatsoever.  Doesn't that make you just shake your head, like, WTF?? She was in her late 60's I think, so she didn't have a CLUE about how important the computer and internet really WERE in classrooms all around the world.  She not only insulted me in this letter, refusing to meet with me, but also copied my department director!!  I marched into his office, slammed the door, and said, "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!" and he said, "Yes, I received a copy..."  But instead of blowing a gasket and screaming about it, I calmly looked at him and said, "This letter is now my property. If I want to, I can put it on my web site that I WILL create, with or without this Museum, to show the world just what a PUTZ the Education Director really IS, and how CLUELESS she is about the internet. So what would you have me do? I can either quit this place and create my web site, and do whatever the HELL I want to do with it---or, I could continue to try and get support from you people who keep brushing me away like I'm a nobody---or I could just create the web site on my OWN time, while continuing to work here, and then PATENT IT so that this Museum can NEVER do one for younger kids without MY permission. Which option do you recommend?"

He squirmed in his chair, and said, "Well, I wouldn't put the letter on your web site. That would probably get you fired. And if you're frustrated about not having enough support from people here in the Museum, maybe you should gear your search elsewhere for people who believe in the idea. But, the easiest thing would be for you to work on it yourself. I don't think you can patent it though."

So, I contacted a law firm to have them do a web site search of anything even remotely close to my idea. I scraped together $400 bucks to pay them for this, and when they came back several weeks later to tell me there was NOTHING on the internet like this, I said, "Is it something I can patent then, to protect anyone from stealing my idea, or doing one like it without my permission?"  And they said, "YES." So, I contacted the Library of Congress, got a Patent on it, put it in my docket, and contacted the Museum's lawyer to ask 3 simple questions...but 8 months went by without any kind of answer to those questions.

I finally wrote to the Chief of Staff (who liked me), and said, "How long does it take a lawyer to answer 3 simple questions? Here they are..." and I listed them for him.  He immediately called this lawyer (a total stooge by the way, who knew NOTHING about internet laws), and demanded that he answer me. That lawyer HATED MY GUTS for that, but ya know, I was patient for EIGHT MONTHS.  Time's up, I wanted to get this thing ready to LAUNCH.

And, while all this was going on---it took me a total of 10 years to get it ready to launch by the way, this was my BABY, and I was very proud of it, everything was PERFECT and looked GREAT---I had to teach myself how to even MAKE a web site, and then later I got help from a friend of mine who works at the State Department----while this stuff was going on in my professional life, at the same time, I was being harassed daily by one of Journey's staff members, Mr. Allen Craft.

But, I'll leave THAT story for next time. I just want you to see how it was all connected.

Bye for now Stevie...I miss you.

Love, Rebecca