IT SAYS YEILD NOT SURRENDER
This is basically what I said today at Kris Blake’s Memorial:
Kris told me this story about her Dad. One day her dad was driving and he was behind a car merging onto another street and there was a yield sign. The car was not moving so he yells “It says yield not surrender”. Well that’s Kris. Now in her glory days when she was kicking ass and taking names I don’t remember her yielding much less surrendering. There were sometimes when I would give her that look “you have to stop that right now” but I think she would just hide it better and not really yield.
Kris changed politics in this state. Back in 1987 we had had significant progressive leaders like Hubert Humphrey but we didn’t have the grassroots movement we have today. Kris always saw the potential in any situation and when she saw Jesse Jackson’s campaign for President she knew she could build a movement and she did. She was the first one to say that Paul Wellstone could be a Senator. She changed politics.
And she created big magic wherever she went. With Kris it was always everything you needed plus balloons. She always knew what was needed to make the magic. Back when the river flooded and all around this house was water knee deep Kris made sure there was a boat. Now most people would have left the God damn boat in the river but not Kris. She made sure the boat was by the house so she could give rides. And we took a boat ride and watched carp jump out of the water where the street was.
Now we all know she had her demons. And when she was driving that car fast those demons stayed in the back seat. But at some point they crawled up into the front seat to stay. Now that broke my heart. And I was thinking this morning how I was going to talk about it and I thought…. How do you measure a life. I think you measure it in volume. How much magic, how much accomplished, how many lives changed. And when I think about that I realized that I have to live many years to come close to what Kris accomplished and so do all of you.
kjellbs 