Back in the 1960s, I got a superb education for very little money. The bill for my first year at Harpur College in New York was a few hundred dollars.

It couldn't have happened anywhere but in little old New York.

Those four districts hold the key on whether more money would come to New York City. They are the ones who should be out front saying we want our proper share. They are the bloc that could force it to happen.

I don't go to New York. I don't go to parties. I just do my business and study nature. My career is 28 years in an obscure art school, with limited staff and no perks. All I am is a teacher.

I'm from New York. I have a big mouth, and I hope we raise lots of money tonight and, more than that, the spirit of Mississippi because that has to happen. We have to bring it all back together again and feel it rising again.

I don't want to unduly downplay money, but New York is also the media capital. That matters. You can get a degree of media attention at the Monday Meeting that you can't get anywhere else.