As the Local Coordinator for the 2000 Annual Meeting at Providence College, I took the greatest pains to make sure that every detail was covered, from food to parking to the most elaborate audiovisual needs. As I drove to school a few days before the meeting, I noticed a problem of epic proportions. The "Renaissance City" was undergoing major changes, and as a result the directions to Providence College, which were printed on the flyers for the meeting and displayed on the official web pages, were rendered impossible. A long line of Jersey- barriers now shunted traffic away from the College and toward an up- scale downtown mall. Imagine the sinking feeling I experienced as I drove along the blockade and realized that dozens of CANE members would probably end up buying sunglasses at Eddie Bauer rather than attending the meeting. On the eve of the meeting, my wife, Debra, and I--assisted by Providence friends Nina Coppolino and Ruth Breindel-- systematically called every registrant we could reach to inform them of the problem. Dis volentibus, the meeting went off without a hitch, except for the occasional painful observation (perhaps from the individuals we could not reach) that "the directions were bad."
-- John Lawless