I arrived in Olympia in September of 1981 at the age of 20. I had gone to college the year before in Beloit, Wisconsin, after leaving Missouri. At Beloit College I took a class called Current Issues In Education.

This class woke me up to the existence of alternative education and I promptly went to a college catalogue and found three listings for alternative colleges. I got the course catalogue from Evergreen with the picture of Eld Inlet on the cover, and there was no going back. 

My vision was to come to Olympia, get a job, and go to school the next year. I took my leftover student loan money and took a long circuitous Greyhound bus trip which landed me in Olympia on a rainy Tuesday at 11 a.m. I found and rode the city bus to Evergreen. On the way, I met a woman named Sue Davis (who would later turn out to be my lover), who told me cooly that there was no housing to be had, and no jobs either.  The summer before, I had moved to Boulder and found a job and a place to live in one day, so I just thought that’s how life was! Instead, with about 20 dollars to my name, I circled bulletin boards on campus all day, hoping that I would see either a job or a housing opportunity. As it was getting dark and I was standing in front of a bulletin board on the lower side of the CAB, I heard a voice say, “Are you okay?”

I immediately burst into tears. 

Thus, I met Lila and Minnie Purinton, sisters with boyfriends who I don’t really remember. They took me to their home, The Glass House, which was on the corner of 8^th and Eastside. It had a closed-in front porch with what seemed like hundreds of little squares of glass.  They kindly offered me rice and vegetables with brewer’s yeast and spirulina which was so weird that I think I cried. I slept on the floor of a woman who had a baby, and there were used disposable diapers spread here and there. It was uncomfortable.) I called my mother back in Kansas City twice in the middle of the night. The first time she understood!

The next morning the sun came out and Minnie suggested that I go talk to the Dean of Students. This turned out to be a brilliant idea. The dean suggested we call my father, and within a short conversation I was entered into the program I was excited about, Political Ecology, a week late.  My first week of class was spent on the Long Beach peninsula in mostly pouring rain but I was in heaven.  After I got back, I was diagnosed with mono. I do think getting cold can make you sick!  I struggled a lot academically, but I fell in love with my classmates. We were a tight class, and we were living in a way that felt thoroughly liberating to me. Especially as far as gender went. I grew up in a very gender-coded world, and here at last I felt free to be myself!  Coming here was a good idea!

I have a few household names to add to the Olywa list.

The Shake House
Which was, I think, on the land before it was called Calliope. And its adjoining farmhouse. A dyke heaven.  Mary Kirk (eventually Kirkwyland), Mikel, and several other great women lived there. We played music and sang, and grew food, and read Fat is A Feminist Issue. We woke each other up.  We hung out with little Prairie Rose whose mom was also our friend. 

The Mermaid Cafe
A cool house on the curve of the 5th Avenue hill below George Barner’s house. I don’t remember who lived there but they had good parties. I saw the fabulous Sweat Band there.

Fergievilla
Old farmhouse in one of the valleys of 14th Avenue. Beautiful acreage with fruit trees and out buildings. Found canned cherries that had been there a long time! Home to Chris Garber and Dayle Howell, and Valerie Krull and Jim Brauneis. I had Kate Brauneis-Krull (now Gillespie) there, and Chris was the time keeper at her birth. Lots of neighbors sat waiting for her to be born in the living room!  Another baby, Solveigh, was born up the street at Yoghurt Farm during the same time. Several kids lived at Yoghurt farm and up the hill. Kai, Dyami, Jade, and Jade. 

Fergievilla was taken down after we successfully fought off a development and got the whole area declared the wetland that it is. I remember the debate in city hall about whether Kaiser Pond, soon after Grass Lake, was a pond or not.  

The Last Resort
We moved one house up the hill from Fergievilla toward Kaiser Road to a ’50s ranch house named by, I think, Diane Wiatr and Devra Beldock, who lived there before we did. Another sprawling piece of country side that had a trail to the pond running down the neighbor’s driveway which they, a normal older couple, kindly let us use.

It was an idyllic time. We walked to Common Ground for gallons of milk with the cream on top, and fresh goat milk. We picked blackberries and apples everywhere. We swam in Kaiser pond and even walked on it when it froze solid one year.

Women’s Land
I don’t remember the name of the place, so I’ll call it Women’s Land, which it was. It was rented from someone in state government, which is part of what I think makes this story funny. It was a beautiful house with about four women living there. The two things that stand out to me were the wood-fired cedar hot tub, situated in a shady spot on this gorgeous country property near Evergreen.  And, it had a stellar crop of tomatoes, all planted in a circle. Inside this amazing group of tomatoes was an even more amazing crop of marijuana. It smelled so good!