Operation Ellen: in memory of my beloved mother, Ellen Greene, 1933 - 2006 (photo): as the final phase of the Primary race is just beginning this 4th of July. This season, a number of setbacks and oddities -- plus old-fashioned working class prerogatives -- have really kept me stalled, but I'm ready to break loose (like Seabiscuit). Ellen and Carolyn were both fighters for justice, and stood their ground. I still remember Ellen, thirty-ish at the time, boldly confronting a group of 3 or 4 men trying to molest my teenage female cousin on the streets of Detroit, circa 1963, but Mom was having none of it, protecting cousin Cheryl in the face of hooligans, even when her adult male companion stood aside, trembling. The hooligans backed off. I personally witnessed this at age 9 or thereabouts.
Mom was just about to revert to her school girl days (1940s Detroit), when she had a number of brawls with Polish-American girls, whom she respected, and they respected her as well, on the city's East-West dividing Woodward Avenue (Ellen was a West-sider). I think Mom and her old nemeses had really come to like each other in a kind of rivals-become-friends nostalgia. Decades after the East-West brawls, Mom helped me win a handful of Polish-American dominated precincts in west Detroit, for a 1976 Michigan state representative race (a Democratic Party primary), my first political race ever, but overall, I had just 12% of the vote. I received more votes from Polish-Americans than any other group, as the blacks voted overwhelmingly for Morris Hood. Remembering the great support that I had from Polish-Americans in my political debut, I visited Poland, a great country, in 2003.
Carolyn Anderson, 1952 - 2017, was even more brash than Ellen, also a brawler, and unnervingly courageous. Cousin Carolyn was very blunt-spoken and honest. Her brazenness in confronting the ill-mannered and uncouth was often startling, but nonetheless looked at with admiration and respect, if for no other reason than admitting that I could never be so unabashedly bold so often, but every time I think of Ellen and Carolyn, both of whom shared similar traits, and ones that I would remember if elected mayor, especially if needing a little fortitude (backbone) in standing up for the Common Man.
-- Mark Greene, Official Candidate for Mayor of Federal Way
[Revised on 7/10/17.]
Mom was just about to revert to her school girl days (1940s Detroit), when she had a number of brawls with Polish-American girls, whom she respected, and they respected her as well, on the city's East-West dividing Woodward Avenue (Ellen was a West-sider). I think Mom and her old nemeses had really come to like each other in a kind of rivals-become-friends nostalgia. Decades after the East-West brawls, Mom helped me win a handful of Polish-American dominated precincts in west Detroit, for a 1976 Michigan state representative race (a Democratic Party primary), my first political race ever, but overall, I had just 12% of the vote. I received more votes from Polish-Americans than any other group, as the blacks voted overwhelmingly for Morris Hood. Remembering the great support that I had from Polish-Americans in my political debut, I visited Poland, a great country, in 2003.
Carolyn Anderson, 1952 - 2017, was even more brash than Ellen, also a brawler, and unnervingly courageous. Cousin Carolyn was very blunt-spoken and honest. Her brazenness in confronting the ill-mannered and uncouth was often startling, but nonetheless looked at with admiration and respect, if for no other reason than admitting that I could never be so unabashedly bold so often, but every time I think of Ellen and Carolyn, both of whom shared similar traits, and ones that I would remember if elected mayor, especially if needing a little fortitude (backbone) in standing up for the Common Man.
-- Mark Greene, Official Candidate for Mayor of Federal Way
[Revised on 7/10/17.]
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