Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is something of a curmudegonly fellow. Perhaps it doesn’t always show on the blog, but if you got to know him better in “real life” (and really which one of you out there doesn’t) you would discover his curmudegonly streak…
Among the great curmudgeons of the 20th Century one must include Dorthy Parker (1893 - 1967). She had a sharp wit and was a great writer. She is, unfortunately, a cultural icon lost to the great majority of unliterary Americans…
Anyho…
It was by sheer chance that your Maximum Leader started to put things together for this post. As some of you may know, the NAACP has declared its intention to move its national headquarters from Baltimore, MD to Washington DC. Why the organization would do this your Maximum Leader doesn’t know. It isn’t as though being in Baltimore has decreased access to the power brokers in Washington for NAACP leaders. If their headquarters were in New York, or Chicago, or Atlanta your Maximum Leader might understand the move. But Baltimore? It doesn’t make piles of sense.
Regardless, that is not the point of this post One presumes that if the NAACP moves its headquarters to DC they will abandon their building in Baltimore. If they abandon their building in Baltimore what is to become of Dorothy Parker? She is buired in a memorial garden on the site of the NAACP headquarters in Baltimore.
Your Maximum Leader knew that Dorothy Parker died without heirs and decided to leave her estate to Martin Luther King, Jr. Upon King’s murder, her estate reverted to the NAACP. So, the NAACP owns the rights to, and receives royalties from the writings of Dorothy Parker. When the NAACP discovered, in 1988 or so, that Dorothy Parker’s cremated remains resided in a file cabinet in her attorney’s office, they offered to create a memorial garden at their headquarters as a place of internment. So, after more than a decade in a file cabinet, Parker’s remains were buired at NAACP headquarters.
So if the NAACP moves their headquarters (and it seems as though they will) what is to become of Dorothy Parker? Does she get moved as well? Or does she remain in Baltimore?
Frankly, there is some irony to her situation. Parker is always connected in your Maximum Leader’s mind with New York City and the Alqonquin Round Table. There seems to be an ironic cruelty in Dorothy Parker not being buried in NYC. Perhaps when the NAACP leaves Baltimore, Parker’s ashes should be removed and put in a memorial in the Alqonquin Hotel in NYC?
Who knows…
Carry on.
