On Thursday morning March 14, I went to a local meeting of Business Network International, BNI.  Came the moment when it was my time to pitch my service, I really focused.  I stood, I leaned forward, my knuckles on the table, and I looked at my audience and asked:

“How many of you really know your parents? How surprised you would be if you gave them the gift of their memoir.

And how many of your kids really understand your lives?  How surprised they would be if you gave them the gift of your memoir.

Nobody wants to be forgotten. Don’t let this important task wait another year.”

I think I refined that pretty well.  I could still use some work but I got a good comment on it after the meeting.

I just got a call from a Matthew Hendrickson, Columbia College student in Chicago, doing a paper for his journalism class on laid-off journalists who are blogging.

“How did you get my name,” I queried, “because I don’t disseminate or publicize my blog?”

“I just googled laid-off journalists and your name popped up,” he said.

What way to gain notoriety.

Matthew asked me what I’ve been doing since I’ve been laid off and why I started a blog.

I told him it was to express my frustration with being laid off and also my enthusiasm for the new opportunities I thought this part of my life was offering me. (Little did I know that eight months later I would have achieved zippo, zilch, nada. Oh well.)

Did I know, he asked, that a lot of laid-off journalists are also blogging for the same reasons?

I was not surprised, I said. What was I supposed say?

He seemed to have particular difficulty understanding why I wasn’t eager to continue a career in journalism. “I’ve done it for over 30 years,” I said, confident that would be explanation enough. Apparently it wasn’t. He came back to this point two or three more times and I had no other explanation but to repeat myself. What could I say? He’s probably 20 years old and full of fire. I could be his grandmother and I’m full of polenta.

He asked me if I thought that newspapers would somehow sort themselves out or that the Internet would replace them. I said no I didn’t think so. I preferred the solution offered by recent editorial in the New York Times that proposed newspapers be supported by endowments as are colleges and universities.

Furthermore, the sources of those endowments would make clear the leaning of the newspaper. Just as in Europe there are conservative, socialist and liberal newspapers, the source of endowments would identify the stripe of that newspaper. And it wouldn’t be GM or IBM.

But who in this economic disaster we are now in will come forward to endow a newspaper? Let alone a whole nation of newspapers?

If you want to know how I almost got arrested in Bologna and again in Florence in the same two days, you have to understand the public transportation system in Milan.

My pal Diane Keaton joined me recently to visit my father’s cousins in Milan and my maternal relatives in Lucca. We soon got the hang of Milan’s metropolitan bus system which requires each passenger to buy a ticket — one euro apiece — before boarding. Tickets are available only at newsstands. I found it strange to buy a ticket for the bus at a newsstand but since these installations are on almost every other corner, it proved to be eminently convenient and rational.

Once aboard the bus, the passenger must insert her ticket in a franking machine or macchinetta. Each bus is equipped with three; placed respectively in the front of the bus, in the middle and in the back. This obviates the confusion that arises on San Francisco’s Muni — if the San Francisco passenger boards in the back of the bus, is he avoiding payment? In Milan, the passenger who boards in the middle or the back of the bus has no excuse for avoiding a macchinetta to timestamp and process his ticket.

So after several days of schmoozing with my Milanese cousins, eating gelato at every opportunity, swanning about at the Galleria and gawking at medieval armor in the Castel Sforsesco, Diane and I took our leave. With hearty embraces, we promised to see them again on our return from Lucca to Milan’s airport, Malpensa, before returning to San Francisco.

We decided to stop off a couple of days in Bologna since it was half-way to Lucca. We arrived in the city of porticoes midday and repeated our comradely pattern of snapping each other’s photos in front of naked statues, ferreting out gelato shops, deciphering maps and eyeballing other tourists. The next morning we decided to go our separate ways for the day. A robust hiker, Diane needed nothing more than her shoes.

I however found the nearest newsstand to buy a biglietto, a one-euro ticket for the bus. I was confident that I now had the Italian public transportation system down cold.

But I did not, as the shopkeeper informed me. He had no more tickets for the bus available. “But, signora, you can get on with just a euro.”

Ah, a revelation. What an enlightened city, I thought. They’ve done away with the bureaucracy of paper tickets and riders need only place their coin in one of the macchinette, I assured myself.

I was headed towards the main piazza from my hotel slightly outside of town, about 10 to 15 minute ride.

I mounted the bus in the middle and found no macchinetta. Confused, I assumed some control person would soon be round to collect my euro which I held out noticeably.

Soon enough, a functionary came by and asked for my ticket. I smiled and handed him my euro. Gruffly he said, “No, signora. You must have a euro.”

My Italian is passing fair and I unwisely used it. I explained to him that I thought I could pay with the euro since the man at the newsstand told me he was out of tickets but he that I had been assured my euro would suffice.

The bus bureaucrat fulminated. “You must have a ticket. Where is your ticket? You must follow the rules.”

I was aghast. With great precision and my best attempt at diplomacy (not my strong suit), I explained that I was obviously a stranger, this was my first day in Bologna, I wasn’t familiar with the system. I had been misinformed. Obviously I had a euro in my hand so I was not trying to avoid paying the fee. He need only tell me how to do so properly and I would be happy to do so.

The whole bus was listening now.

“Your documents, signora.”

I showed him my passport. He did not merely look at it; he confiscated it. Now I was alarmed. His partner approached, doubling the menace.

“You’ll have to pay a fine,” he barked.

“How much is the fine?”

“€45.” This was between $55 and $60 at the time.

Now I knew he was trying to shake me down.

“I will not pay it.”

“Then we will have to call the police.”

“Please do,” I said.

Did he realize by now that he had chosen the wrong tourist? But it was too late for him to back down. Everybody in the bus was silent.

I protested again about my innocence. A passenger next to me held out his ticket. My tormentors waved him off.

I tried to snatch back my passport. A mistake. Then I tried to make nice. I leaned forward and put my hand softly on number the number two man’s sleeve. He snatched it back and snapped, “Don’t touch me.”

When we arrived at the piazza which I had previously told them was my destination, they hustled me off the bus. They continued berating me. Loudly. I was longing for the police to arrive but instead bus controllers took out a pad of forms on which they wrote my passport number, name and address.

They told me to sign it. I refused. I was livid.

In the space for my signature, they wrote: “signature refused” and gave me a copy. Then I knew I had won. I let loose with all the venom I could muster in a language which is not yet my own.

“Puppets! Puppets,” I screamed at them. I chose this nomenclature only because I was so furious I could not retrieve from memory the cruder terms I wanted to use, actually the ones I grew up with, nor express more accurately the sentiments I was feeling.

And since they were berating me on the street and since they had been trying to make an example of me and the bus, I made an example of them at the bus stop.

They wanted to play boogie man? Well I could play fishwife!

I began remonstrating before a group of curious onlookers: “This is wonderful publicity for Bologna! Bella publicita’ per Bologna! Are you proud of yourselves? You try to arrest an innocent tourist who is merely confused. Is this a good day’s work? Bravi! Bravi, puppets.” I followed them for a block spewing all the inadequate expletives that I could think of.

It had become obvious to me by this time that Bologna buses had only one macchinetta and that was placed at the head of the bus. All the controllers had had to do was to say: “Madam, you pay at the head of the bus.” But in their zeal to inflict terror on bus-riding scofflaws, they decided to terrorize and shakedown someone of whom they could make an example. They thought.

(Ten days later when we were back in Milan at the dinner table, my cousin Laura pointed out to me that the bus regulators have the same authority as policemen. I had been taking a risk, she said. But in my mind the best results would have been for the police to have been summoned for then my innocence and their ill-judged insolence would have been made clear. But, maybe not. I also toyed with the possible consequences of my having spoken English. Would they have been any different?)

I spent the next two hours so furious I don’t remember what I saw of Bologna. I kept thinking, “Where is Diane?” I was positive I would run into her at any minute since I was in the center of town. I couldn’t wait to unload all of this bile and high drama with someone who could appreciate it. But I did not see her till later that evening.

Finally I did encounter a couple of carabinieri, that is, the state police. I asked them if there was a US consulate in Bologna because I had had an incidente I wanted to report. I explained the situation and they gave me directions to the appropriate office where I could complain about the treatment I had suffered.

No, I protested. “That’s not my concern. I want to know what the consequences are of their having my passport number, address and phone number in the United States. What will happen when I reach immigration at Malpensa?”

“Signora, you can go back to your home in the United States and you can…”

I supplied the word for him: “ridere?… laugh?”

“Yes, you can laugh.”

So that evening I reenacted it all for Diane. She wailed over having missed the fracas. And of course, she rightfully used the predictable joke: “I can’t take you anywhere, Francine”. And we thought that was the end of my silly adventure for the trip. Until the next day when we had to change trains in Florence on the second leg of our trip to Lucca.

During the interval of changing trains there, I dashed off to use the ladies room. I found that the men’s and women’s rooms are shielded by a single turnstile which can only be penetrated with 80 centesimi — that is, 80 units of a euro. The machine was provided for changing euros into coins.

As I was standing at the machine with my euro, a very elderly gentleman behind me asked me in Italian how to manage the system. I explained that he had to change his euro into coins and then deposit them in the turnstile. Since I was doing so right in front of him I thought I was providing a proper example.

But when I turned to enter the turnstile, I found him again behind me with his euro still in his hand and, ever confused, asking me again how to get in. I did not want to linger but I took pity on him. I motioned him to follow me closely and slip through the turnstile with me which he did.

Another donnybrook ensued. No sooner were we through the barrier than we heard shouting. I sped into the ladies room lickety-split. I don’t know what happened to the old man. But as I listened palpitating inside the ladies room stall, I heard the concierge bellowing at a couple behind us whom he had collared. He was accusing them of sneaking into the bathroom without paying.

They protested loudly of their innocence. Oh did I know how that felt! But there was no way I was going to own up to my misdeed for not only would I miss my connection to Florence, be scolded and berated and brought before a magistrate, but surely this time I would be deported as an undesirable!

Finally after several minutes when the brawl seemed to have subsided, I crept, tiptoeing out of the lavatory. I found Diane waiting worried on the platform.

“Where were you” she asked.

“You won’t believe it. I’ll tell you when we get on the train,” I said, lest anybody on the platform overhear my latest folly.

After a month of elation having secured, I thought, two great clients, they each dumped me within two days of each other.

Is “dumped” the right word? Am I not being somewhat judgmental? Hard on myself? Harsh even? Well, that’s what it felt like.

In fact it felt more viscerally percussive — a kick in the gut — than losing my job which I rather expected. I had seen myself as acquiring these two clients relatively easily and that they were the foundation of a business I was going to grow. Now I feel shaken instead.

They each had reasons which were rational and not pointed at me or my product. In one instance the client decided the organization needed an agency with contacts in Sacramento. In the other the organization’s members were feeling the pinch of the economic downturn.

However in each case there had been miscommunications and unfulfilled expectations on both sides. So I can’t help feel these factors underpinned their decisions.

I was reeling for several days. One day I ran into my neighbor who has her own boutique PR business for a niche industry. When I told her I had lost two clients she said, “Yes, just like me. I’m applying for a temp job.”

There was no self-pity there. She’d been through this before.

It’s been my philosophy in these months since I was decommissioned by the Oakland Tribune that companies are letting go of their PR staffs and their PR agencies. They are probably taking on more contract workers. So how do I find them? That’s what I have to find out.

I held my first Writing My Life class at the Meals on Wheels Dorrwin Jones Senior Center Tuesday October 7. I was extremely satisfied with the way it turned out. I thought maybe three or four people would show but in fact there were seven of us: Grace, Marie, Alice, Robert, Shirley, Cristal and even Mr.Yan came for a few minutes.

They all had distinct reasons for coming. I asked everybody to go around the room and explain why they were there. Grace said that her sister had started her own autobiography five years ago and Grace still had not seen the results. “So I just want to see how this is done,” she said with a certain amount of belligerence.

Marie from Indonesia speaks Mandarin. She said she wants to improve her English.

Alice is deeply motivated. Her niece has been after her for some time to tell the family story.

Robert gave a rambling explanation about being a short story writer which I could not make heads or tails of.

“So do you see your life as a short story,” I asked him.

“No, but there are lots of stories in it,” he explained.

Shirley could not give a reason at first and feigned indifference.

Cristal said she thought her great-grandchildren might find her life story “amusing”.

What little I know about these people already made these explanations intriguing . Alice and Cristal for instance suffered during World War II in their respective countries of Japan and Germany and I’m sure they will have stories to tell that are more than just “amusing”.

I asked the class to take 15 minutes to write about the circumstances of their births and what their parents told them of this event. I was fascinated to see Grace and Shirley began in the most ungenerous fashion. Shirley refused to take a notebook that had been provided for her. She just made some notes in the margins of the piece of paper with the day’s lesson plan on it.

Grace chose a tiny notepad and scribbled a couple of sentences. But after 20 or 25 minutes both of them had exceeded the space they had to write in.

Cristal who sees poorly wrote with a heavy marker pen in large letters. Marie with language difficulties labored over four sentences. She needed some help spelling the word married. Meanwhile, Robert who had earlier told us he was a psychotherapist needed some spelling help as well, the words cistern and growl.

I will be interested to see who shows up in two weeks at our next meeting. When everybody disbursed, Robert said he found it “very encouraging”. It was an odd comment but it pleased me.. Alice thanked me profusely: “I’ve been wanting to do this for ages and you came along just in time,” she said.

I went to my tax preparer to get advice on how to start my own business.  She said I have to register with www.sfgov.com for $25 fee; and if I don’t the dead spirits of Sodom and Gomorrah will rain biblical indignities on my head.

I should also get a separate checkbook for business expenses. In the box where I put my business receipts I should establish a separate folder for assets — like the new filing system I bought — and one for entertainment.

I was truly peeved to learn that my entertainment expenses — taking sources and prospects out to lunch– garners only a 50% tax deduction.  But this is my main MO, government! Cheez.

On September 24I had an interview with Gary Goodson of the Jewish Vocational Services, a nonprofit that offers career counseling. When I originally made the appointment the few weeks ago I hadn’t yet decided what direction to go in, whether to pursue a job or go freelance. But by the time I met Gary, I had felt drawn to working for myself.

I told him, “I really had not decided to be self-employed.  I just felt myself drawn this way.”

Gary said I should respect that instinct.  However he added the JVS rarely counseled people who had decided to engage in self-employment.

But he did give me some good advice, to wit, to check out the Small Business Administration, Business Network International and the small-business forum of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. It is one week later and I have not done any of those.

He recommended highly a book by C J Hayden called “Get Clients Now”. He said it set out an easy to follow plan for marketing.  He also told me to subscribe to the San Francisco Business Times. Since I am going to have to cancel my subscription to The Economist because it’s just too dear for me right now so maybe this is a wash.

Anyway, he approved of my MO of calling on sources for informational interviews. He called my Rolodex of sources “a goldmine”. I thought he might like to have it himself.

Leaving his office, I went Stacy’s bookstore and bought the Hayden book, checked out the SBA to get a schedule of their meetings and dropped in to say hello to my cousin Stanley at his office.  All of these addresses were in the same four-block area. Being unemployed has some perks at times.

I realize that I have left out a whole part of my soul — that of my passion for memoirs. During the last five years I have been ghost writing a memoir for a remarkable man who lives and does business in the East Bay. For two years I have had an additional client, a delightful woman of distinguished provenance in Walnut Creek. This work is extremely meaningful to me and I think to them.

Furthermore since I have become interested in the fortunes of prisoners and released ex offenders, I have been seized with the urge to conduct a class in writing one’s autobiography for inmates in San Quentin. In fact when I was visiting San Quentin for my research back in February I asked the inmates I interviewed if there would be an interest in such a course and they said yes. Were they being polite? I don’t think so.

One of my sources for my Oakland Tribune series on ex offenders has now started a consultancy to facilitate grant writing. He is working on finding me a grant to teach the course at San Quentin. He is well-connected there and has already received permission from the woman who is head of educational programs.

In the meantime my friend Linda who manages the nearby senior center of Meals on Wheels is going to give me the opportunity to conduct such a class for her clients. But I don’t know if that will work since 80 % of them are Cantonese speakers. I can’t imagine how many of them would be interested. But it would be very good practice for me simply to manage such a class.

I went to the San Francisco Bar Pilots Association for an informational interview with a former source. He gave me a couple of suggestions which were not very substantive. But the high point of the conversation was his discussion of his retirement plans which were so attractive (back to Vietnam to visit the places where he was active in the war) that I asked him to take me along!

“Well I don’t think my wife would like that,” he said.

“Well, she can come too,” I said magnanimously.

Idiot.

I can’t go to the PG&E summit on climate change today because I have a deadline for a client.

I agonized about this. Then I had to think this over: since when does networking become more important than real money-earning work?

Interesting how one’s mind works. It is a puzzlement.

I went on to screw up this afternoon because I had an appointment to see a consultant at the Jewish Vocational Services and misread my diary thinking it was Thursday. I left the man two pitiful messages asking him to forgive and reschedule. Fortunately, he called back and we make a date for next week.