Olywa Days of Change I remember the initial 1978 meeting of the group that became FERN (Fair Electric Rates Now). We had reserved a meeting room at the old Olympia Community Center for a gathering of folks concerned about Puget Power’s investments in nuclear power, and the potential Puget Power rate impacts. The rhythm of kids playing basketball on the nearby courts accompanied our discussion.
This list of historic highlights and walking tour map was conceived and produced by LLyn De Danaan and Carol McKinley. Many others contributed. It is offered in fond memory of and with thanks to some iconic folks who walked to the edge for us: Pat Shively, Kay Engel, Jocelyn Dohm, Ed Stanley, Cal Anderson, Mike Cook, Tom Howdeshell, and Marge Brown.
Michael Moore was in the center of the flourishing music scene in the 1960s and beyond. He was a founding member of the jazz/Latin/funk band called Obrador. Michael passed away shortly after this interview in 2023. He was 76.
Around 1970, Steve Wilcox and a group of friends decided to lobby for the legalization of marijuana. We formed an organization called BLOSSOM: Basic Liberation Of Smokers and Sympathizers Of Marijuana. I was the sympathizer since I didn’t smoke pot and nobody was doing edibles yet, except for the occasional fibrous brownies. We wrote up a list of ideas, goals, and tasks, and we assessed what each of us could contribute to the effort.
We stood there befuddled on Columbia Street until other women began to arrive for the meeting. Many had come pumped up to argue about who should be invited, but once they heard what had happened, most of the divisions fell away. Suddenly, everyone there had the shared experience of being discriminated against as queers, whether they publicly identified that way or not. Nearly 50 women found themselves standing sullenly on the dark street with nowhere to go.
Indeed, it was the concept of workers seizing the means of production that inspired Grace and me to investigate the idea of running a worker-owned print shop. In the days before cell phones and the internet, print media was how we communicated, how we announced our events and rallies and theatrical productions, how we debated political change. We wanted to be pamphleteers. Thomas Paine and the Wobblies were our inspiration.
We had been in the Division Street shop for a couple of years. Struggling, cold, and damp. Honing our skills. Learning from mistakes. We learned about printing standards and the allowable percentage of flawed prints or undercounts. We paid dues to the Graphic Arts International Union, in support of workers in the trade. It meant we could print a “union bug” on our work.
Here’s what my life was like in the late 1960s while a student: Trips to the Pacific Ocean, driftwood, logging trucks, colorful flower-bedecked hitchhikers on freeway turn offs (on their way to San Francisco), light shows and strobes at Eagle’s Auditorium in Seattle, The Whole Earth Catalog, Helix (a brilliant “underground” newspaper), marching against the Vietnam War on the freeway and through downtown, buildings blowing up on campus, rallies at the federal courthouse, Radical Women meetings, Claire Fraser holding forth. I had the time of my life.
I was a programmer on KAOS FM, the campus radio station, for most of my undergraduate years at Evergreen 1974 – 1980. I read news stories as the news director, and did public affairs spots . . . On one show I read a brief story about a WPPSS (Whoops!) nuclear power plant being decommissioned, due in part from finding a fault line under the construction site. A week or so later I was called to the office of the college president.