LACEO Banquet 2010...

Over Mothers' Day weekend, the annual LACEO banquette promised to be a very nice three-generation family event. For those of you who don't know, LACEO is the Latin-American Cultural Exchange Organization. LACEO is a Philadelphia non-profit organization, dedicated to outreach to youth and the local community, located in Graterford Prison, Graterford PA. LACEO usually holds a banquet complete with guest speakers on the day before Mother's Day. The event went  didn't turn out quite as expected...

My brother, Tony, his daughter, Amanda, Mom, Christina, a long-time family friend, and I, got up early on Saturday and headed out for breakfast around 8:00am. With the banquette approaching, Tony decided to skip breakfast and just had coffee. After breakfast, we headed down to Sammy's place and arrived at the main road around 9:30am. We were greeted by the State Police who were conducting vehicle searches. Tony and Amanda were behind us in Tony's bright-blue "pimp"-mobile. The State Police waved Mom's car through and stopped Tony's car for a search. Amanda was a little concerned, but, everything turned out O.K. and Tony met up with us in the parking lot within a few minutes.

We arrived in the waiting room and saw a scene of utter chaos. More than 100 banquette attendees were crammed into the waiting room, competing for space and the few available chairs and all of us huddled around one fan providing the only source of ventilation.

The first order of business was securing a locker. Of the 170 available lockers, we got number 159. Shortly after we got our locker, for the first time in 17 years, there were no more lockers to be had. We waited in the oppressive heat of the waiting room for about an hour and a half. Around 11:30am, the guards began to check in guests for the banquette and immediately, we noticed problems.

There was new requirement that guests cannot have any jewelry -- not even a watch. So, with many guests, arriving after 9:30am, there were no lockers into which banned items could be secured and they ended up having to secure banned items in their cars -- which are about a block away from the visiting room. Needless to say, there were delays as the guards had to wait for individuals to make a two-block round trip before they could process other people.

Then, there was another new requirement that visitors have a permission form on file as "banquette" visitors. About half of the people who were invited to attend found themselves on the wrong side of this new requirement. Unfortunately, Tony, who had been looking forward to the banquette was one of those affected. Fortunately, Tony had come in his own car, so, he could leave. But, according to Sammy, about 100 people were stuck in the waiting room and would have to wait three or four hours for the rest of their families to return. It was a real mess.

Eventually, after being screened at three different locations, Amanda, Christina, Mom and I arrived at the banquette hall around 12:30pm. The banquette, which was supposed to start at 11:00am, had to be delayed for a couple hours because so many of the guests were trapped in the waiting room with nowhere to go. We sat for a while, talking with Sammy and catching up on family gossip. Because of the delays, the food wasn't ready until around 1:00pm.

Strangely, around 1:30pm, about an hour after we arrived, some of the 100 invitees trapped in the waiting room, who were told that they couldn't attend because of permissions issues, were suddenly allowed to attend. Unfortunately, there was very little time left for them to actually eat, before the speeches began. Most of the speakers kept their speeches short, but, one particular individual rambled on and on and on and on for what seemed like an eternity. Then, we were all ushered out.

Overall, it was good to see Sammy, but, the event was thoroughly ruined. Most of the food went to waste as well as hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars in cash paid by family members to cover the cost of this event. Not to mention the inconvenience suffered by those who were denied admission -- only to be allowed in at the last minute and thrown out again. The whole situation seems very suspicious. Sammy is looking into what happened, but, if answers don't come, then we'll just have to boycott future events of this nature.

Following the LACEO controversy, Mom was feeling a need to get away, so, on Sunday, we headed over to the local bookstore to stock up on books. We usually go to Center City, but, parking and food are a bit expensive downtown, so, we decided to try a different spot where parking isn't an issue. I found a couple of DVDs (they were Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang and Hawaii 5-0 Season 6) that I'd been looking for and Mom scored a whole pile of books. We even picked up a frequent shopper card that would allow us to save an extra 10%. The card is normally $25, but, with the discounts included we ended up getting the card for free and had enough money left over to get all but one of the books that Mom had on her wish list. Afterwards, Mom had a quick bite at McDonald's and we headed home.

There were a couple of items to report. First, on the way to the bookstore, we came across a car accident. It appeared that some unfortunate red car ended up underneath a truck. There were three police cars at the scene. It wasn't immediately clear if anyone was hurt or if the driver of the red car was trapped inside or not. But, since this was on a busy street, we only had a few seconds to gawk.

The second item occurred in the bookstore. Mom went in one direction and I headed over to the video section. Mom lost track of me at one point and happened upon a guy that looked like me. She started to talk to "me" and realized part way through the conversion that he wasn't "me". Mom had a near-death experience as she almost died of embarrassment. Later, when she found the real me, we had a good laugh. All things considered, it was a good weekend.