On volunteering

I have decided to become a Big Brother. I am not entirely sure this is the best way for me to volunteer my time (will I have as positive an impact as I would working at the Food Bank?), but it is the best I can think to do. I guess I have been inspired by the secret service agent in the third season of The West Wing, Simon Donavon.

Lately I have found myself thinking of Cynthia Lennon, a few years ago I read an excerpt from her book and recent discussion about Silda Wall Spitzer (former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's wife) brings the first Mrs. Lennon to mind. (Actually I just found out, Silda was married to someone for 29 days before divorcing prior to marring Eliot, not that that particular fact should matter.)

Anyway the story with Cynthia is, she was returning from a vacation with her girl friends in Greece, it was 1968, the Lennon's were doing pretty well, the Beatles were a sensation by then. That morning Cynthia had her breakfast in Rome before flying on to Paris where she stopped for some lunch before continuing on to London. When she got home she thought it would be great to go have dinner with John in London so that she could say she had breakfast in Rome, lunch in Paris and dinner in London.

Cynthia gets home, to Kenwood, enters the house and there is John and Yoko Ono sitting on the floor facing each other. Now according to the Wikipedia article John and Yoko are simply looking into each other's eyes, but as I remember from the excerpt I just read they were doing all of the above, naked. Cynthia said something to the effect of: I was on auto-pilot, I blurted out "do you want to go out for dinner, I thought it would be fun if I could say I had breakfast in Rome, lunch in Paris and dinner in London" John said "no thanks". I managed to gather up a few things and leave the house.

Every time I think of Cynthia's description of that evening I just feel so awful. People can be really awful sometimes. Anyway I am going to volunteer, I don't want to be an awful person.