Olywa Days of Change Using a PA system, we announced that we would be showing a slideshow to reveal the actual military purpose of the air force in Southeast Asia, noting that we were not attacking the individual band members, but rather bringing attention to bear on the actual role of the air force itself, especially in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
There were in fact two such households. The first, appropriately called the Moldy Mansion, was located on the water side of West Bay Drive within a few hundred feet of Harrison Avenue. It was a two-story structure with a beautiful view of Mount Tahoma (Rainier) at Steh-Chass (Budd Inlet) near the southernmost point of the Salish Sea. A jungle of dense blackberry vines wove around the house and all the way down to the water.
There’s a lot involved in moving 1,500+ miscellaneous Indians in 400 or 500 cars cross country. Our Northwest organization, Survival American Indians Association, raised support from the Episcopal church, other denominations, many individuals of all races and politics for travel, food, campsites, and medical services with help from American Indian Movement (AIM) chapters.
We are all longtime Olympia folks and three of many who learned and organized at the Labor Center with Dan Leahy. We did not differentiate between our work at The Evergreen State College Labor Education Center and our working-class roots. We each tell about our involvement with the Labor Center and how it affected our lives. Dan Leahy passed away in 2022.
Blue Heron Bakery was founded in 1977 by Greg Reinemer, Carmela Courtney, Doug Martin, Martha Wolfe, and Terry Taylor. Harry and I moved to Olympia with our one-year-old daughter, Delphine, to cover for Terry for a month. It turned into 10 years. We rented a grounded houseboat across the street from the bakery and shared one position, deciding daily who was working at the Bakery and who was staying home with Delphine.
We had a shared commitment to making a living by growing food in ways that would be more sustainable on the land and reconnect the community to the local food supply. Our backs were strong and our sleep needs minimal, so we swam into this “bargain with nature” with sure strokes and no fear.
Women were recruited via persuasive media campaigns to join the war effort as “Rosie the Riveters” to work in the factories that were emptied by the men who were drafted to fight overseas. My grandmother became a machinist in her late 30s and developed a steady hand for guiding hair-thin bits chucked into the drill press through metals. She fabricated specialized tiny parts for war planes and then later for commercial jets.
VIGNETTES – Few pictures captured the rift between local conservatives and the hippie invasion attracted by Evergreen more than a photo taken by Felicity Scott Hutsell in 1987.
A couple more roofs appeared to the left of these two cabins. I found out later that these four cabins were all built at the same time, about 1929, by a group of four family friends in Centralia. The designs were all very similar. Apparently many men were out of work back then, so the cost of building was very cheap. Inside all of the houses was the same wainscoting wood on the walls. The outsides were all cedar planking. The families came to stay in these cabins in the summer. Recently, a Mr. Noreen had purchased two of them and was renting one out.
I don’t believe we thought we were being radical by starting a coffeehouse. What was radical was our politics and being hippies from Seattle. We had all lived at and attended the University of Washington . . . and coffeehouses were a big thing in the U District among students and faculty. Olympia was a small conservative town in 1964. Family life dominated. Churches were the main place people had for gathering. Saint Martin’s College was here but it had nothing like a coffeehouse. The four of us created the Null Set coffeehouse, but we couldn’t have done it without the support and backing of the Unitarian Fellowship.