Clinton St. Quarterly, Vol. 4 No. 4 | Winter 1984 (Seattle) /// Issue 2 of 24 /// Master# 50 of 73

MENB WOMEN THE RETURN OF LITTLE RICHARD RETHINKING NATURE

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CLINTON ST. QUARTJKQLY VOL 4. NO. 4 winter 1982 STAFF Co-Editors David Milholland Jim Blashfield Peggy Lindquist Lenny Dee Design and Production Jim Blashfield (< Production Assistants ./ . David Milholland « Sharon Niemcyzk / Proofreaders p f l Walt Curtis ( 0 Stan Sitnick Ad Production /< |a Peggy Lindquist David Clifton Stacey Fletcher Ad Sales David Clifton John Denton Lumiel Dodd Public Interest Marketing Typesetting Jill Wilson Richard Francis Barry Hertz Al Schwartz Leslie Waygren Camerawork Paul Diener Contributing Artists Dana Hoyle Stephen Leflar Mary Robben R.K. Shepherd Contributing Photographers Walt Curtis Paul Diener Eric Edwards David Milholland Michael Moran Thanks Tom Clark Eric Edwards Martha Ezell Jasmine, the Dog Leo MacLeod Doug Milholland Bob Newman Ed Reckford Charlotte Uris International Attache Pippo Lionni Advertisers call 367-0460 EDITORIAL /f Election ’82 shows anything, it’s that the Democratic Party has missed a choice opportunity to improve their position. The Republican mishandling of the economy left them vulnerable to aggressive pointed attacks, yet all the Democrats seem to suggest is the staid old tried and true, public works. Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell points out, "in this election, an anxious, uneasy public may have been looking for a more drastic agenda of change — and not simply from the right — than that which was served up by politics this year. "In Michigan and New York two radical GOP renegades ran close to Democratic gubernatorial opponents expected to win by large margins, and did far better than ‘acceptable’ Republicans in similar races in near­ “Merry Old Santa Claus,” by Thomas Nast. Harper's Weekly, Jan. 1, 1881 by states. In depression-riddled Michigan Richard Headlee rejected Mr. Reagan as an economic compromiser, and did particularly well in the devastated northern industrial cities. New York’s Lewis Lehrman flatly rejected Mr. Reagan and boldly offered an even more radical plan of change — large-scale income tax reductions and a return to the gold standard. Mr. Lehrman swept upstate, where the economy was the only issue. ” Pollster Caddell thinks, "it is unfortunate that there was no ‘drastic change' campaign waged from the Left that could have served as a comparative companion to these two races. ” Clearly there are many Americans who feel the need for drastic changes to get us out of our economic quagmire. Back in the Northwest, Oregon, a state that prides itself on visionary progressive programs, found itself with both gubernatorial candidates falling all over themselves to prove who would more passively fiddle while our economy burns. Not a single original remedy was suggested for our economic ills. And in Washington state, "Scoop” Jackson’s proven talent as a military porkbarreler proved sufficient to bury his opponents, despite the fact that the state’s basic economy is in tatters. If we want the Northwest difference to mean more than the highest unemployment in the West, we’d best stop hoping that the Air Force goes to wooden jets and start facing the upcoming challenges with open and receptive minds. Meanwhile, the nuclear freeze movement, both locally and nationally, is missing a rare opportunity to link up with a large part of America ravaged by Reaganomics. Think tanks, both private and Congressional, are releasing studies on the negative effects defense spending has on our economy. One Congressional study shows CONTENTS Cover Ken Ambrosini Millions of Women Like Me Stella Dean Cummins .. 4 Alive! Lynn D a rro ch ............... 7 Apple Picking Walt C u rtis ................... 8 Two Days on the Road with Jim Weaver David Milholland............ 73 The Killing of Big Isaac Ron Abell aka Jefferson Deschutes ... 76 She and He Melvin Konner............... 20 Responses Ursula K. LeGuin, Elaine Spencer, David Kabat, Johanna Brenner & Janice Haaken, Maureen McGuire and Katherine Dunn Rethinking Nature and Other Matters, An Interview with Jeremy Rifkin Lenny D ee..................... 27 A Boy and His Dog Penny Allen.................... 37 Let’s Play El Salvador! Matt W uerker............... 34 The World According to Napoleon as seen by Abel Gance James Greenburg...... 36 Little Richard, Still the Handsomest Man in Show Biz Rick Mitchell.................. 38 The Clinton St. Quarterly is published by the Clinton St. Theatre, 2522 SE Clinton, Portland, OR 97202. Unless otherwise noted, all contents copyright © 1982 Clinton St. Quarterly. that the Defense Department creates roughly 48,000 jobs for every $1 billion it spends. The same $1 billion spent in other public sectors would create more jobs: 76,000 in sewer construction, 77,000 in nursing and 100,000 in education. We can't have an excessive military budget and a healthy economy — that is as clear as day and night. The nuclear freeze movement, which is concerned about how many days and nights this planet has left, must link up this direct correlation between defense spending and a failing economy, if we are truly going to create a broad-based movement capable of ending this country’s military madness. The successful referendums are an opening wedge, but they must be followed up on. Just think of the excitement that could be generated by a clearly enunciated conversion of nukes for jobs program. If progressives misperceive this opening, there are others on the radical right with a far different agenda, who are ready to pounce on the loose voter. Right now, they’re up for grabs. LD Clinton St. Quarterly 3

4 Clinton St. Quarterly

Nicest is the term given to sexual abuse in which the perpetrator is a significantly older sibling or parentalfigure and the victim is a child. Little girls make up 95 percent o f all incest victims. Incest ethnic and social backgrounds. It’s been called an epidemic, affecting upto 10 percent o f allfemale children. The victims, often too young to realize the meaning of the abuse, don’t have a language to explain what they’re experiencing. And if thefather or a parentalfigure is the perpetrator, they often don’t know where to turn. The result is that the abuse often lasts years before it is discovered, reported, or the child escapes the situation. A Lifelong Reality /■ s horrible a picture as the statis- tics paint, being a victim becomes, for the individual, a lifelong reality. I am 38 years old. When I was 32 I started going to a therapist. It wasn’t the first one — I had been in counseling off and on since I was 13 and tried to kill myself at summer camp. But it was the first time I said, “I have this little boy and everytime I get mad, I’m afraid I’ll kill him. I love him but when I get angry and can’t seem to control him I want to beat him and scream and yell and cry. Hey, I’m supposed to be an adult; I’m in charge here; what’s wrong with me?” She asked me how I had been treated as a child. I said, “Oh, like other children; I got beat a lot and my parents drank a lot” She said all children weren’t treated like that and asked for more specifics. It was then I began to open some doors to my past. I stopped being a child sometime between 2 and 6 years old — I’m not yet clear exactly what all happened to me or exactly when it all started. And it seems irrelevant now. But each time my mom went to the hospital to have another baby, I had to sleep with my dad. He slept in only his undershorts and I had to rub his body under the guise of a “backrub.” It made me sick to my stomach but what could I say? My mom was gone, I was the oldest child and at least it made him like me and be nice. I wanted him to be nice because when he wasn’t nice it meant beatings. I remember waking up one night when I was 6 or 7 and hearing my mom crying and falling down the basement stairs. My dad was yelling and hitting her. I pretended I was asleep and nothing was ever said about it. I know it happened because I saw her bruised and beaten the next day. I also remember going to elementary school and edging down the hall with my back to the wall so no one would see the welts on the occurs among families o f all economic, ate and the battle for escape escalated. Simultaneously my dad’s need for power over me escalated. He made lewd and suggestive comments about my developing body and the clothes I wore. He put his hands on my ass and pinched me in front of my friends and family, male and female. The only affection I ever got from him was sexual — but it wasn’t really sex, it was his expression of ownership. At the end of the eighth grade I went on a church hayride. Church was the only social life I was allowed to have. After my boyfriend brought me home from the hayride, my dad looked at me and saw that I had straw in my hair. He called me a whore and made me pray on my knees in front of the mirror all night long. I then began coping in a different way. I had been well trained to believe that my only power to gain affection was my sexuality, and I began to use it. I hung out with older boys — my parents called them “hoods.” In actuality, they were only lost children like me looking for a better situation. We drank, necked and shoplifted. When I started sneaking out of the house at night and screaming back at my drunken mother, they sent me away to an all girls-’ high school. There I spent a lot of time stealing from wealthy girls and stores, drinking and sneaking out at night to be with boys.' I wasn’t being physically or sexually abused there, but I also wasn’t getting any kind of love. And when I would go home the situation was still terrible. One summer night when I was back at my parents’ home I was talking on the phone to a boy after 11 p.m. When my father discovered me on the phone that late, he dragged me by my hair and kicked me all the way from the rec room to my bedroom. I was 16. I went to a small religious women’s college, where I spent most of my time doing speed, drinking, listening to music, playing bridge and sneaking off with high school boys. They looked up to us; they thought we had the situation under control. I don’t know if it was the speed, my mental state or the religious environment, but I had hallucinations, visions and wondered if I was falling apart again. I knew I had to escape. I took a train to New York City. I spent the days in cheap movies. At night I earned a living as an acid go-go dancer in East Village clubs. It was sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll for the next 10 years. The rock ’n’ roll was the scene, drugs got me through it and sex was my powerhold. Sex and manipulation were ly and terrified childhood — and the resulting adult. I was afraid of incarceration in prison or a mental hospital. Killing myself seemed more and more like the only viable alternative. One night after too many quaa- ludes and beers, I almost did die. The next day I got up, threw my lover and his friends out and decided to start over. I stayed alone in the country for almost a year trying to figure out how to fix up my life. I couldn’t, and didn’t, do it alone. Most of my revelations have come from talking to women who have had similar experiences. I have seen myself reflected in their lives. There are millions of women like me. Some of us will spend most of our lives sorting out the pieces. Others who are luckier have the opportunity to do so sooner. The young women whose comments are included here are also victims of sexual abuse, mostly incest. They are currently participating in a counseling group for sexually abused teenagers in the Seattle area. “No One Will Believe Me” “ I admitted to quite a few people that something was wrong but I thought it was all passes and that’s how I explained it to them, my dad’s making passes at me. Until one day I opened my mouth and too much stuff came out and I got my dad in trouble for it.” Patty, 16 Incest is a situation in which JL there is a power imbalance — manipulation, coercion, taking advantage of people who don’t understand their whole sexuality,” says Vickie Sears, family therapist for Central Seattle Community Health Centers. “It doesn’t have to be penetration ... it may be excessive fondling, inappropriate verbal stuff.” A male therapist, an expert in treating male sexual offenders, says offenders are “generally much more into issues of power and control. They see themselves as not having a lot of power in their lives.” (99 percent of all offenders are male, and usually in their mid-30s when discovered.) He says that they have a tendency toward alcohol and drug abuse and their personalities are addictive. Generally, they are selfish, egocentric, and tend to have a narrow range of interests outside of their jobs and families. As adolescents, they were shy or with- something about it.* But I didn’t. What was so strange was that my father told my mom what was going on. I came home and she told me and I just sat there and cried for two hours. It was such a relief to get it off my shoulders. I had to go to the police station and make a tape of what had happened. My mom’s friend who was with me just sat there and cried. She said, ‘That’s what’s been going on all these years, since you were 5 years old.’” Denise, 17 Since a child is often physically and/or emotionally dependent on the offender, she finds it difficult to believe that he would make her do something wrong. Karen MacQuivey, therapist with the Highline Youth Service Bureau, points out that “it’s an exploitation of trust, authority and of the power that’s inherent in the parenting role.” Because of the complex relationship between the offender and the victim, considerable time often passes before the situation is discovered. The child often fears, “Will anyone believe me? Will daddy have to go to jail? Who will support us? Is it my fault?” The discovery may finally occur when the victim has achieved some independence or can no longer tolerate the situation. If a child becomes rebellious and gets into trouble, sensitive counselors or medical and law officials may discover the abuse. However it happens, the disclosure of incest is the start of resolving the problem. Reporting the abuse to authorities is a difficult but important step. For the victim, it means the beginning of a process in which she will get some badly needed support. She is believed, she will be protected. For the offender, it will hopefully mean an end to incredibly destructive behavior. MacQuivey states, “Statistics show that offenders don’t stop on their own accord. And the most powerful persuader for a person to get treatment is the arm of the law.” “For the child who is still in the home, the issue is whether they are at risk of being abused again,” says MacQuivey. Often the issue of safety means that either the offender or the victim leaves the home. “First and foremost is assuring the safety of the victim, so you may have a whole legal procedure that comes in. At disclosure, there is going to be a crisis for the victim and the family.” “I ended up going to court for a year and the hardest part was sitting up there time after time in that chair and telling everything that happened. The judge said I’d only have to say it once and I said okay. I ended up sayThere are of Women Like Me Looking at Incest By Stella Dean Cummins I stopped being a child sometime, between 2 and 6 years old. Each time my mom went to the hospital to have another baby, I had to sleep with my dad. Drawing by Dana Hoyle backs of my legs. I was from a nice family — those things didn’t happen in nice families. And nice girls certainly didn't get beaten naked with belts and hairbrushes. I retreated to a fantasy world of romantic novels and dreams of being rescued. But when my own sexuality began to develop and no shining knights appeared, I became desper- synonymous with love for me — flower power, free love and all that. If you fucked a guy maybe he would give you the respect, love and protection that you needed. And if he didn’t give it, fuck him and move on to the next one. I’m not sure what turned it around for me. A series of events over the last 10 years have revealed to me my lone- drawn, particularly with females. “I didn’t know until I was in the eighth grade that it was wrong. I was in a health class and the teacher was telling the class about sexual abuse and I go, ‘Wow, this stuff is happening to me. It’s time I should do ing it five times in front of all those people, half of them I didn’t even know.” Justina, 12 While it is required by law that these cases be reported to child protective and legal authorities, it is often difficult to get charges filed Clinton St. Quarterly 5

because, for example, in Washington State, if the child is 12 or older, she must file the charges herself. Even if the victim does not choose to prosecute or the statute of limitations has run out on the offense, it is still essential to protect other children who may be exposed to the offender. It may take a direct confrontation with the abuser or could mean letting other family members know about the potential. information about incest, sexual abuse, and told what resources are available. Myths surrounding abuse are dealt with. Karen Bosley, Executive Director of Rape Relief, explains what they’re doing with the children. “We talk and play games about good touch, confusing touch and bad touch. What if somebody touches you in a way you don’t like; what can you do? Who should you tell? What if they don’t believe you?” Bosley thinks that “These women have been holding a secretfor a long time — so long that it becomes internalized oppression. No one has let them be children. 619 Broadway E. 329-8044 KOOL KLOTHES! RETRO TO MODERN! DREAMLAND 3rd AVE 7905 3rd Avenue 343-0101 OUR NEWEST SHOP; NOW DOWNTOWN GETS A TASTE OF KOOL SKYKING In the public market, across post alley from the pike place cinema 624-6137 SEATTLES ONLY VINTAGE THRIFT SHOP! .GREAT BARGAINS IF YOU CAN FIND IT! From Victim to Survivor “It’s hard for me to have a relationship. I have lots of boy friends but when it comes to getting serious with them, I’m real scared.” Nicole, 16 >-/or many women victims, the ef- fects of being sexually abused are far-reaching. Cathryne Schmitz, a social worker with the Sexual Assault Center at Harborview Hospital in Seattle, says, “Trust is an ongoing issue when you’ve been molested by someone close to you. You have problems with touch, sometimes fears and phobias, low self-esteem, depression, poor body image, lack of assertiveness, learned helplessness — problems that females tend to have in our culture.” The problem may compound into what is called victim psychology: The abused child thinks of herself as bad, so bad things are supposed to happen to her. She is helpless to change the situation. The result can be that the woman picks inaccessible, abusive men as boyfriends and husbands. They may even become prostitutes or be self-abusive through alcohol or drugs. Therapist Vickie Sears, who counsels many adult victims, says, “Many victims don’t ever talk about it until they are much older. These women have been holding a secret for a long time — so long that it becomes internalized oppression. No one has let these women be children. I help them get it out, recapture that childhood, and eventually confront the offender.” She may also engage the woman’s partner and children in therapy because of the intensity in dealing with the past. Whatever the treatment may be, the goal is to become a survivor. Sears says, “survivors have recognized that is was not their fault. They reclaim their bodies. It’s all right to be sexual, to realize that sex is not a tool of manipulation. They have control over their lives.” “I wasn’t ashamed for everybody to know because my mom was so good about the situation; she told me it wasn’t my fault. It’s just a thing in the past, but I wish it wouldn’t have happened to me.” Justina How do you prevent incest? Most therapists and authorities feel that education is the answer. Seattle Rape Relief does mass education through the schools and PTA’s. Presentations are put on in the evenings for children and their parents. Parents are given “positive sexual training is real critical for children. We need to teach kids about sexuality and then give them a language to describe what happens to them.” “My mom blames me. She tells me that I’m no good, I’m a slut. My mom calls me these dirty names instead of knowing that it was my dad’s fault.” Patty Closely tied to mass education about incest and sexuality in general is exploding the myth of the molester. The public doesn’t want to believe that a father, an established figure, would do these things because, Bosley explains, “for so many years we’ve been taught that it’s the dirty old man in the black trenchcoat. We need to show people who the offenders are.” Exploding the myths about offenders, defining them, educating children and parents are all essential to preventing incest. But there are also societal concerns that must be addressed. Many agree with MacQuivey that society’s acceptance of violence is part of the problem. “One contributor to the sexual abuse of children, of people in general, is the acceptance of violence in our culture. For example, in the media, when sex and violence are legitimized, glorified, it normalizes that kind of thinking.” The use of women’s bodies as a marketing ploy also ingrains a certain ideology about women. Bosley believes that this type of advertising “trains young men that what a woman is really about is to be an object for a product. That gets translated into ‘She’s there for me to do anything I want!’ The bottom line in preventing sexual abuse is that until we change how men view women in our society some men are going to take out their hostility, frustration and unhappiness on women and children.” What has happened to me and to other victims cannot be changed — we accept it; it happened. But we have changed. Our strength is in knowing that we are not to blame. And we know who is to blame — our fathers, brothers, stepfathers and anyone who confuses sex with power. We have survived. We are free from sexual bondage. We are free to protect ourselves, our children, and to demand a stop to these violations. The challenge we all face is to change the conditions in our society that allow incest to damage so many lives. 105 1st Ave. So. 623-3409 ★ OPEN EVERY EVENING OF THE WEEK ★ U Z RESTAURANT ELEGANT NORTHWEST FRENCH CUISINE How many books does it take to make a change? P ED&BLACV AVB ■o • o ■ K ■ sA* Open Dally IO am to IO pm 524-15th Avenue East Seattle, Washington 96112 322-READ EXQUISITE DESSERTS WITH ESPRESSO LIVE BAROQUE MUSIC FINE WINES BY THE GLASS LES COPAINS RESTAURANT-CATERERS I / 2202 North 45th in Seattle Telephone 633-5753 6 Clinton St. Quarterly

“W Q'KQ Doing It From The Inside Out.” ing ‘Da-dah, da-dah, da-dah, feminism, hey hup!’ We iust do our thing. From the inside out.” The band began playing initially on the “women’s music circuit,” first in coffee houses, and soon at women’s music festivals. They joined Holly Near, Chris Williamson, Sweet Chariot and others playing concerts produced primarily by and for women. “At a certain point,” says Carolyn Brandy, “we began to realize that we wanted to play to the general public, and that wasn’t happening enough because we were primarily playing before a group of people with political viewpoints who weren’t there for the music but because of the Movement. We decided that we needed to play more types of situations.” Recently, they found a producer for their second album, Ca// /f Jazz. Helen Keane not only fits in well with dynamic group. They complement each other well on stage, playing to the strengths of each individual and communicating so well among themselves that this camaraderie extends to the audience, drawing them into a real community of spirit. So when Orin Keepnews, in his liner notes to Ca// // Jazz, says he doesn’t “know how Alive! came into being, and actually, I don’t care ... [because] . .. they make good music and that’s all that matters,” he is missing something very important about this group. For their music represents something as valid socially as it is effective musically. “We are but the tip of an iceberg,” they write in the notes to Ca// /t Jazz, “hopeful to be — the reflection / of a many-sided rainbow / Aspiring toward a new dream I not built on prisms of idyll fantasy / but on hard and honest work “ ^ ’s everything each of us Has lived and loved and learned, And for lack of a better word Call it Jazz ... That indigenous American art form called Jazz ” Janet Small, “Call It Jazz” (Wild Wimmin Music ASCAP) Cyn October, the five women of Alive! made a tour of the Pacific Northwest that included engagements at Ernestine’s (formerly Parnell’s) in Seattle and at Delevan’s in Portland. They call themselves “a jazz quintet,” and their collective approach to composing and performing produces a unique and tightly disciplined group sound that is important ^X is their astute combination of a dense rhythmic pulse, a magnificent vocal instrument, and a clear-sighted commitment to integrate humane and egalitarian values into a musical context that makes Alive! such a moving and dynamic group. not only for its purely musical values, but also because the way they make their music illustrates so convincingly how the fruits of a feminist perspective can bring hopeful new dimensions to the male-dominated field of jazz. With Carolyn Brandy on percussion, Barbara Borden on traps, Susanne Vincenza on acoustic and electric bass, and Janet Small’s percussive approach to acoustic piano, this group excels on Latin-based and other rhythmic numbers. When lead vocalist Rhiannon’s strong, wonderfully supple and superbly controlled voice is added, they become a complete and highly charged jazz unit capable of delivering a wide variety of music — from Miles Davis’ boppish “Four,” which opens with snare and voice cooking along in precise articulation, through Ida Cox’s famous “Wild Women Don’t Get the Blues,” to “Without A Song” from The Student Prince, which Rhiannon delivers in a Betty Carter style that also draws on gospel roots.... But their musicianship is not all, because the lyrics themselves — originals by all the band members as well as tunes by Gil Alive! at Delevan’s Scott-Heron and June Millington on Call It Jazz — serve notice that their material has substance to spare. A strong, personal substance, as Barbara Borden points out: “We’re all very strong in feeling that we don’t want to compromise what we’re doing for fame and fortune or a larger audience or whatever. We work from the inside out.... We write a song because someone in the band feels a certain thing and has to get it out, because someone has a certain experience and wants to relay it.” “We just play who we are,” adds Janet Small. “And who we are is the product of five really different backgrounds. All of us have classical training, but classical isn’t quite what I want to play. What distinguishes what I’m doing now is the whole rhythmic element, which came from Africa rather than Europe. That rhythmic element, and the improvisational element — composing and not just interpreting — means you can say things about your life and about the world now. Maybe because I went through the ’60s and was involved in politics and was concerned about the world, I want that to come out in my music. That and the rhythm thing are really why I’m playing what I am.” “ th a t’s What Music Is All About, Breaking Down the Barriers.” ( jA c ut make no mistake. This is a musical group, not a political faction, and their real significance is not to be found in the lyrics nor in their individual convictions, but in their unique approach to making excellent jazz. As Carolyn Brandy says, “Sometimes reviewers like to put us in little categories, like ‘Feminist Band’ or something. Well, we are feminists, but we’re not up there say- the group, but has the contacts (she’s managed Bill Evans, Kenny Burrell, Joanne Brackeen and Paquito De Rivera) that will open many doors for Alive! “And Helen has been influencing us to do more material by others as well,” Brandy adds. “The first album was all originals, but Helen feels that it’s very important for us as musicians to do more standards, and important also because the listener likes to hear tunes that are familiar.” Barbara Borden continues: “We feel strongly that we’re a real bridge, and that our music could and should be heard by many people. And that’s what music is about anyway, breaking down the barriers that people feel.” '^ e ’re all very strong in feeling that we don’t want to compromise what we’re doing. We write a song because someone in the band feels a certain thing and has to get it out.” Are But The Tip Of An Iceberg” O ft is their astute combination of a dense rhythmic pulse, a magnificent vocal instrument, and a clear-sighted commitment to integrate humane and egalitarian values into a musical context that makes Alive! such a moving and / the slow and often painful attainment / of harmony and light.” Their “hard and honest work” is reflected even in their approach to the music business. As Carolyn Brandy says, “There’s so much business, it’s endless. We do as much as we can, but it’s always a family kind of group thing. We’re doing it; we don’t have big record companies doing it for us. We take it one step at a time. Betty Carter talks about this same thing.” The women of Alive! are members of a generation that was concerned about the world, that struggled against the war in Vietnam, that burned for social justice, and today they are still the kind of believers and doers who led the way almost twenty years ago. Today they are jazz musicians on the rise, sure of themselves, and capable of offering insights that relate not only to music — the arena in which they excel and have chosen to work — but to all forms of cooperative human endeavor. Carolyn Brandy sums it up: “The way we’re doing it, you don’t make it overnight. It’s much slower. Not that we don’t want to be “out there”; we do. But it takes years, especially as a band. We’re lucky in that we’ve committed ourselves. And that’s very rare, extremely rare. Bands do not last long, but we’ll have been together for six years this January.” “One of the reasons,” Barbara Borden says, “is that we communicate among ourselves on a personal level as well as when we play music. Some people will play together but never clear things up on a personal level that can get in the way of the music.” “When it comes right down to it,” Carolyn Brandy continues, “we have a lot of faith in what we’re doing. We have a lot of faith in the music — that it’s good and that it’s saying something. And it’s important to play this music. It’s important for us to do this at this time. It means a lot in our lives as well as to the people who are our listeners.” ■ Clinton St. Quarterly 7

PickingI ■I \ Walt Curtis Andpluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon, The golden applies of the sun. W.B. Yeats >f you have ever looked closely at jEthe sunburned, weather, beaten, dirt-encrusted face of a middle-aged fruit tramp, his Tom-o-Bedlam eyes roving, as I have, you’d feel dubious about trading places with him. Recently, as a 41-year-old urban Portland poet, I got an education about the Pacific Northwest’s most abundant fruit, when I visited an applepickers’ camp in the great state of Washington. Northward I headed, to visit a friend and try it myself. Everytime I enter Washington state I feel nervous! Why? As an Oregonian, I harbor mixed feelings about the political atmosphere. I confess this is a little hypocritical of me, because Oregon is hardly Ecotopia. Besides, I was born in Olympia! Lived there till the age of 13, when my father lost his , job at the Mt. Rainier Ordinance Depot. So the fear of God that I feel when I cross the state line has more to do with pubescent Freudian angst than anything else. On Oct. 9, I crossed the bridge at Biggs Junction, drove past the marvelous French-chateau-looking museum at Maryhill, heading toward Golden- dale, Yakima, Ellensburg, Wenatchee and beyond. No state trooper would pull me over for driving a car with Oregon plates. My oil-burning ’66 Plymouth station wagon didn’t cause much alarm as it tooled along. Yakima has a hard edge t o '*• 1 s a w . some young men in a van try to steal F a r gas from a sette r service station. They cursed out the attendant and seemed very desperate. Would I see them in the orchard? As I drove northward, I found myself crossing a dry barren landscape. No wonder there’s a huge Yakima firing range. Not much to blow up out here, except jackrabbits . and a rattlesnake or two. Wenatchee, at the tumwater where the. Wenatchee River enters the Columbia, retains its Indian name, which means “water issuing forth.” The Yakimas and other dry-land Indians called the spring salmon fishery “Winatsha.” Yet today, without irrigation water, this area would remain sand and sagebrush until the next ice age. Many dams (Grand Coulee, Chief Joseph, Wells, Rocky Reach, Rock Island, and Priest Rapids) have turned the Columbia into a series of lakes and reservoirs which make the Eastern Washington desert literally bloom. As the local newspaper, The Wenatchee World, claims, I am in the “Apple Capital and Buckle of the Power Belt of the Great Northwest.” While there, I visit the North Central Washington Museum (located on Mission Street). The curator showed me their colorful display of labels from old-fashioned . wood apple crates. BO-PEEP, SNO- FED, FAR FAMED, SWEET SUE, REDMAN, CLIPPER SHIP, JONNIE-O, A-PLUS, and LEGAL TENDER — the labels with their cheesecake and noble Indians reflect another era. In earlier times, he told me, farmers used lead arsenate as a pesticide to kill the destructive coddling moth. “To this day,” he said, “it’s unsafe to grow certain vegetables in that soil.” Little Owl Orchard / t /K y friend Dave Thorsen had told x rim e to look for the painted sign of an owl, some miles past Orondo. (It was 25 miles north of Wenatchee, above the jacked-up waters of Rocky Reach Dam on the Columbia). I found it easily, and its companion orchard Wee Hoot. (Mounted on metal columns, the three or four wind machines among the trees looked like stranded airplane propellers.) Doyle and Thyra Fleming must own the most picturesque orchard in the Orondo Valley. Perched high on a bluff, overlooking the mirror-like surface of Lake Entiat, a windbreak of poplars yellowing beside the road in the dazzling October sunshine, the view was nearly breathtaking. As I parked the car, I saw a spirited volleyball game in progress. Men and women, ages 20 to 30, leaped and yelled, shouting, “You know where the hole is now.” The reply went, “Right in the middle of the net!” I thought, after work they have this much energy? What am I doing here? Dave walked across the green lawn, in front of the trailers, to greet me. I have arrived at the last week of picking varieties of Red Delicious. For half the crew, this was the end, although some would say to finish off the green Granny Smiths. Later that evening, inside the cramped quarters of his small trailer, Dave reassured me, “You don’t have to pick, if you don’t want to. Doyle says it's okay, though.” With that, we joined the gang around the campfire. The pickers were bantering and talking. They were about the friendliest bunch of people I’d ever met. For starters, I was told Golden Delicious paid ten dollars a bin, but they bruised easily. Red Delicious paid nine, and Grannies ten. A bin is four by four feet square, and maybe two-and-a-half foot deep. It weighs about 800 pounds. Good pickers can pick six, seven bins a day. Maybe more. The season lasts three weeks to a month. And you could earn up to a thousand dollars or more. How many apples does a bin contain? 1500? 2000? Well, that would depend upon the size of the apples. The bigger, the better. Good picking is called “gravy,” because the bin fills up faster. When encountered, the delighted picker, imitating comedian Steve Martin, will irrationally yell, “Die, you gravy-sucking pig!” The others in the orchard will take up the cry. After the first week, Dave said he saw apple patterns everywhere, even when he wasn’t picking. L realize you ’re not a picker until you fight those goddamned trees. But you can't harm the apples! You grab soft and make it seem mean. They gotta know who J boss! Camp Life f amp life is the bare bottom of 2- V-/year-old Katahdin (he’s named after the mountain in Maine) watching Carmella, his mother, wring out clothes on the camp washing machine. Camp life is bright yellow aggressive wasps buzzing near your sleeping bag, looking for a place to hibernate. It’s the blue pop of the propane gas flame when you light the stove to cook your dinner of brown rice and refried beans. The condiments are: El Pato (duck) hot sauce and cans of Schmidt beer, mallard (more ducks) on the label. It’s dirty dishes stacked in the cold water sink and dirty socks and T-shirts on the floor of Dave’s trailer, because he’s been so darn busy picking. His trailer, a nifty one from the fifties with wood paneling everywhere, even on the light switch, is a healthy 8 Clinton St. Quarterly

mess: a guitar, black iron skillet, wheat germ, miso paste, boxes of apples bought to take home. (Fresh apples exude an alluring fragrance. Elan vitale breathes from their pores.) Fruit flies buzzing above them. To live in a little home like this with gas stove, running water, cupboards, curtains and a table is a joy. Dave loves the camping-out feeling of it. He’d be a hobo forever, if he had his way. Camp life is laughter over raunchy jokes and complaints about the lack of eligible single women pickers coming from “The Blind Pig,” the bachelors’ trailer, late at night. It’s an affectionate brown and tan female mutt named “Gumpy.” If you don’t believe in “the buddy system” and that Little Owl Orchard is a temporary but loving and supportive community, you shouldn’t come back next year. (Most pickers do! OUTSIDERS, NEED NOT APPLY.) Doyle’s wife, Thyra, dispenses sun- ripened tomatoes and solicitously asks each picker if he or she needs anything. She can also crack tough- minded comments about each individual’s agricultural skills, when she hands out the bin tickets. (I, early on, dubbed myself “One-Bin Walt.”) There are the pickers: Dave and his sister Jackie (who is to be married in Spokane on Halloween). Mike and Cathy, artists from Portland. Will and Bessie, who make the best morning coffee. Jim Cook, Carmella, and their two children. (They homestead up near the Canadian border.) Three nurserymen: tall Jim the vegetarian, Danny Rosato (he wants it known he can leap over a full bin of apples), and Bafe-bottomed Katahdin and friend another “Will.” (PACIFIC PROPAGATORS, Expert Grafting & Propagating, Sheridan, OR.) “Bellingham Bob” writes children’s stories. Tuck is a tow-headed labor organizer. Have I left anyone out? Tim the woodcarver from Seattle and his partner the “Reverend” Jack Rogers. (Red-whiskered, bespectacled Jack has come up “for the cure” and twisted his knee.) Brian, who’s been working at Grady Auvil’s nearby, hangs around because he knows everyone from last year — and he can get a hot shower. Milk Them Suckers! On Wednesday afternoon I get up guts enough to pick. (I am ashamed to admit it: I’m a little bit of an elitist! Aren’t the pickers the proletariat? the journalist the bourgeoisie? the growers the bosses? When I joke about it with Dave, he says, “You always did feel superior to everyone else.”) I am handicapped'. Missing the middle finger on my left hand, I am capable of dropping my toothbrush. Tuck and Dave are encouraging. They help me strap on the canvas bag. Show me ladder sets. How to pluck the fruit between thumb and forefinger. It’ll get callused. (Some pickers tape their fingers.) When you get it down, it’s two apples in each hand, which you lay carefully in the picking bag. You can’t bruise the fruit, and all of the stem is supposed to remain on. Dave and I work on the same tree. “We gobbled that tree like a termite,” he says. He shows me how to carefully release the canvas bag and gently spread the fruit. “There can’t be any thunder and lightning in the bin,” he warns. (I note a row of Goldens planted next to Reds in a row. Golden Delicious pollinate the Reds. Sometimes the grower grafts a limb of Goldens on a tree of Reds.) I’m pinching my fingers and scarring my arms, but I’m getting the feeling of it. I realize you’re not a picker until you fight those goddamned trees. But you can’t harm the apples! You grab soft and make it seem mean. They gotta know who’s boss! The primary thing in apple-picking is “reach” and the ability to keep your hands moving at all times. The secret of picking: Get the bag to the bin. A picker shouts enthusiastically, “Milk them suckers! Grab the big clusters.” Another goes, “Cockledoodledoo!” Dave caws like a crow. (On the last day, he will goodnatured- ly juggle Reds.) We will climb to the top of a wind machine and survey the orchard. (These machines cost I am ashamed to admit it: Tm a little bit of an elitist! Aren 7 the pickers the proletariat? the journalist the bourgeoisie? the growers the bosses? David says, “You always didfeel superior to everyone else. $10,000 each and have replaced smudge pots. They blow the warm upper air toward the freezing ground.) Young Dave moves confidently in his third year. (“Like greased owl shit,” he comments.) He picks two or three trees to my struggling one. His long lean elastic body flows with the limbs. Leaves fall in a storm. I watch him in admiration. (Although he doesn’t look like Sunny Jim on the apple butter jar, Dave, despite his black curly Norwegian hair and intense brown eyes, truly is a dyed-in-the- wool apple-picking Washingtonian. Born in Arlington, he digs farm work.) It wasn’t always this easy for him. He confided, “One time when Doyle and Thyra were near me, I fell over backwards on the ladder, was hung up with my legs through it, and they had to help me out!” You’re not a real apple picker until you’ve fallen off your ladder a number of times. At lunch time, everyone winces when someone says, “I’m not ‘picky.’” Time to go back to work, Tim yells out, “All right, maggots! Get out there and pick those apples.” The Blind Pig ■ he Blind Pig.” What is it? JL It’s a trailer where pickers gather at night after work. A transistor plays tapes, the only “sounds” up here. Uncle Meat, Frank Zappa’s album and Dave’s favorite. Acoustic music and Chicago blues. In a prominent place is displayed the motto: WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO GIVE SHIT TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE AS WE SEE FIT. On cardboard a crudely Menu, The Blind Pig drawn pig with dark sunglasses and lettering explains: “A Division of Albert’s Funky Bar & Grill.” The Blind Pig is a clubhouse, an institution of the camp. Pickers crowd in there, listening to music, laughing, talking. Slumgullion is shared by all. You might see Tim, with his jackknife, deftly carving a figurine out of walnut. (He’s been working on an image of Jackie with ladder and her bag. A masterpiece he’ll sell to Doyle and Thyra at the payoff party.) Dave might be scarfing food, and with Jack’s advice and tutelage adding to the facetious “menu” of The Blind Pig. He carefully and imaginatively writes on a piece of brown paper sack: Eggs Any Style. Glop Any Style 1 Day Old...bowl .80 2 Day Old... $1.60 Mudd Heavy Duty Industrial, Commercial and Fleet Use, Farm and Home Grade, Special Applications. House Beers: GENERII, “MABEL,” and “GREEN DEATH.” For The Refined Swine, the menu offers THE GREENHORNED GRINGO: A Float with Rainier Ale, Chocolate Mint Ice Cream, Smothered with Sprouts and TOPPED with an old Sardine. THE DESENEX BURGER: A Ground Kangaroo Tail Patty Melt with Bleu Cheese, Anchovie Paste (something else?), and, of course, Desenex. Dave reads the menu outloud for the approval of the others. On the day of the payout party, Thursday night, he will finish the menu with THE PENICILLIN BURGER. What will be missing is “the Tylenol Sundae.” Darn it! The Davies anting to find out the grow- FF ers’ side of apple production, one evening I visited with Lois and Paul Davies, who own a fourthgeneration family orchard, in Orondo. Of 48 acres. His Welsh grandfather came here early on. (Orondo got a post office in 1888. John H. Smith, the founder, named the town after one of the chiefs of the sunken island of Atlantis.) They raise not only apples, but also cherries, peaches, and pears.. Paul’s dad processes the crop in the family warehouse of Standard and Davies. With its weathered boards and aluminum roof, it does not look at all like the grim windowless mausoleums of Trout, Inc., Tree Top, and Blue Chelan. Where the oxygen is reduced to 3 percent and the temperature dropped to 34 degrees. Those poor fresh apples are stored cryogenically, to be resurrected sometime in February or June of next year. I asked them both what happens at the warehouse. They said I should visit and see for myself, but went on to explain: The bins of apples are week, while sleeping in my car, I could reach out and drink from the Big Dipper, tipped on end. The air was transparent! The Milky Way, which the Chinese call ‘‘the River o f Heaven, ’’ quenched my sleep and intoxicated my dreams. dumped in chlorinated water. They float, go up on a conveyor belt, and are hit with dripping soap. They’re carried onto rollers with brushes, and a jet of water washes the soap off. “So they almost get the pesticide scrubbed off?” I brashly ask. “What pesticide?” Paul quips back. (He believes the danger with pesticides occurs during the appliction. That their potency is short-term, that the farmer doesn’t overuse them because they cost so much per gallon.) “Then they ‘wax,’” Lois chimes in. A device shoots wax on the apples as they go through “a cooker” — of about 180 degrees — for 10 feet. “If we could sell ’em unwaxed, it’d be great!” Paul apologizes. “Who demands that apples be ‘waxed’?” I ask. “The supermarkets?” “It’s the lady buying the produce,” spunky Lois responds. “She demands a nice shiny-looking red apple. If you taste a Jonathan or a Winesap, you’ve gcrt a good-tasting apple. If you taste a Red, it’s like a potato! If you try to sell a Winesap or a Johnnie in a store, no one’ll buy it.” Then the apples are graded, Fancy or Extra Fancy, according to size, and put in 48-pound boxes. A fingernail cut in the skin makes an apple a cull. Fit only for juice. A bruise, a stem pull, or a limb rub diminishes their value. “With real rotten fruit, on a bad year,” Paul says, “a farmer might owe the warehouse money.” Paul chuckles, rather darkly, “The greatest year will be the year you get the crop, and your next door neighbor loses it! We can do better, hopefully, on a bad year. This year everybody and their dog has got apples! The price is peanuts.” As I spoke with Lois, who is charmingly pregnant, and her husband Paul, with the sly dry sense of humor, I began to feel real respect for their efforts. Trying to make it year after year with a relatively small orchard, which had to provide a living for three families. Lois emphasizes farming fruit trees is an 11-month-a-year job! Their 2-year-old son Jon, with a runny nose, bangs against my knee. Will he become a grower like his dad? A grower, like a gambler, is always banking on Clinton St. Quarterly

the future. “Who are the new growers?” I ask. “Who’ve caused the overproduction.” “There are two types of growers planting a lot of land. “There’s Grady Auvil — who’s got a lot of ideas, a lot of momentum. He’s a millionaire who’s heading out and moving on.” Her voice is filled with admiration for this local innovator. (Grady Auvil went to New Zealand and brought back the Granny Smith. He’s planting a new ap- Tuck, the organizer pie called “Gala,” a yellow one with orange stripes that ripens early. Auvil’s orchard has a reputation among the pickers as a good place to work.) “Then there’s Lucky Badger,” Lois chooses her words carefully. “It’s owned by retired military people who are looking for a tax write-off. Lawyers, doctors, professional people who can use the write-off will invest in the land, and hire people to run it for them. If they make a little money, fine; if they can write it off, that’s even better! That’s why the thousands of acres are going in.” Later, when I spoke with Gordy Brandt, Fleming’s partner in Little Owl, he was optimistic about the future of apples in the Orondo area. Despite the recent heavy planting, he saw new markets opening in Japan and Taiwan. He thought the growers might get $100 a bin for Goldens, $150 for Reds, and $250 for Grannies. The 400 bins of anticipated Grannies this year, then, could bring one hundred thousand bucks from the warehouse! You have to realize, however, Little Owl Orchard has been a milliondollar investment. With 10 years of hard work and the gamble that frost and disease wouldn’t wipe it out. What the Pickers Had to Say 7n “The Pig,” while drinking Schmidt, I have a heavy conversation with the pickers about their concerns. “I’m concerned about the chemicals,” Will says. “They blow right in a guy’s face. Is he goinna have mutated kids or something? Are the chemicals really bad for you?” Stop-Drop, a natural plant hormone, is used to overcome the abcissic acid in the stems, it keeps the apples from falling all at once. Pesticides, herbicides, and hormones are used. For example, Enderin is used to kill mice. They can do a lot of damage. I saw poison signs up. There is a story that cows wandered into an orchard with Enderin on the ground and died! Paraquat and 2-4-5-TP are often used. Jim the nurseryman says they are similar to Agent Orange. What are the long-term effects? To the pickers? To the ecological system? Chemicals leach into the Columbia. The pickers don’t know, and the growers don’t seem to care that much. They want to get the largest crop in, looking good. “You guys say the poison is a problem, but you don’t know what to do about it?” I ask. “You don’t know how much you’re gettin’. You just cough a lot, you sneeze,” Tim answers. “I feel the picker should know!” Tuck replies. The grower should say, This is what I use and this is when I use it. Then the picker has the option to go to another orchard.” “At least Doyle would tell us if we asked him,” Tim says. “He wouldn’t do any stunts like that one place I worked at — the spray plane went right over us! He was goin’ so low "Ifyou taste a, Jonathan or a Winesap, you 've got a good-tasting apple. I fyou taste a Red, it's like a potato! I f you try to sell a Winesap or aJohnnie in a store, no one 'll buy it.'' over the next row in this biplane, we could nail him with apples! It was only plant hormone, but I don’t know what plant hormone is. And then I get some dumb Okie tel Iin’ me he gets it all over himself. It doesn’t bother him —” “What is the worst part for the pickers, when they come to an orchard?” I ask. “Nowhere to live!” Tim says. “My first year I picked there were three of us. They lived in tents, and I lived in my truck. We cooked on the tailgate in the morning over a funky war surplus stove.” How often does that happen? They replied, “A lot around here! Most places don’t have housing.” Tuck said, “It’s scattered. In Yakima, nobody has housing! You go rent a room in the motel.” What would be a second bad thing? * “The actual picking conditions. Poorly pruned trees, big trees, heavy ladders, small fruit.” From $8.50 to $10 a bin is okay if the fruit is okay. “I wouldn’t even work for $6.50 a bin,” Tuck says. “A few places like that,” Tim adds, “you sorta drop the fruit in the bag, in the bin. They don’t even check. You give ’em what they pay for.” Most of the Little Owl pickers feel sympathy for the Mexican illegals. (They often could be seen at the Orondo store, buying food and necessities. Hanging out. It’s odd, however; neither the whites nor the Mexicans seem to communicate. Possibly it’s the language barrier.) In the last five years, more than half of the pickers are Mexican. (Perhaps as high as 65 percent!) Some growers hire only “Mexican,” because they can pay cheaper wages. And fire them at whim. We drive by Lucky Badger for the heck of it. There was a huge Army tent for housing. It looked like a few pickers slept in used packing cases, bins wrapped in black plastic! Did I see an American flag flying? Tuck went into the office and asked for employment. They told him, Seven dollars a bin. Plus fifty cents bonus, if you are a good picker. Twenty people were waiting in line for a job. “The way people come and go,” the jobber told Tuck, “we might be able to put you to work tomorrow.” There were showers (!), but no housing. Was it a bad orchard? It is a corporate operation. It’s “impersonal.” (It is said at Lucky Badger last season the Migra was called in the last day of the season. Because this orchard gave a fifty-cent-per-bin bonus, getting rid of the Mexicans saved them money.) We talk about how difficult it would be to change some of these conditions. For example, how are you going to organize Mexican workers, when they don’t have legal status? Tuck doesn’t see the need for a bureaucratic union of apple pickers. “It’s a matter of a few people getting together,” Tuck comments, “who are interested in the general welfare of all pickers. Not just at one orchard.” An office of information could be set up. With a mailing address. A mimeographed pickers^ newsletter could be started. It could contain ar- Pickers relax at season’s end tides about picking, hiking — volleyball scores, even. It should tell the good places to pick — and warn people about the bad orchards. There could be a Spanish edition. “You don’t confront people,” Tuck goes on. “You be as diplomatic as possible, but nobody’s going to give you anything unless you ask for it.” In the camp, I had only one serious argument. It was with a glowering red- haired, red-bearded picker, referred to as “Awful Art.” He said in essence, If you are a journalist, why don’t you expose the fact that the Immigration won’t arrest these Mexican pickers One of the running jokes goes: Somebody said they 're going to call in f 'well.' ’ In other words, you gotta be sick to pick apples. and send them back where they came from? I tried to tell him, partly understanding his resentment — if Mexican labor took away jobs for local people, and lowered wages — that it wasn’t the Mexican worker’s fault. It was the grower who hired him. Art still believed, "They should go back to Mexico where they belong!” There was this bad joke way back in the fifties: Observing my lazy streak, my older brother used to tell me sarcastically, “I bet you thought ‘manual labor’ was the name of a wetback!” Mind you, he was putting me down, not Mexicans. Behind the joke was the social reality that Mexicans had to work hard to survive, and at menial jobs. Historically, we should remember that in the Pacific Northwest Chinese and Irish immigrants were used as cheap labor. To break unionism. Today some Americans claim Latins and Southeast Asians are taking away jobs. How true is it? We must remember racist attitudes pit members of the working class against themselves. This is to the advantage of the employers! The PayoffParty f/a w humor comes with hard work. JL VDave and all the rest who aren’t going to pick Grannies are tired of picking. “I hate blankety blank apples!” I tell him. “ I’m not even picking them! I’m sick of asking questions about them.” “Now you’ve got it,” he replies. One of the running jokes goes: Somebody said they’re gonna call in ‘well.’ “In other words, you gotta be sick to pick apples,” Tuck explains. Thorsen isn’t anything, if he isn’t “lucky”! Both he and his sister have been favorites in the camp. Dressed like a baker’s assistant — in his only clean white shirt and pants — Dave was enthusiastic about the party. We all walked down the hill in the dark to Doyle and Thyra’s house, the lights shining invitingly. The kitchen and living room were bright with hospitality: Apple cake (Thyra’s special treat), ice cream, hard cider, pop and Schmidt beer, a half-gallon jug of Black Velvet. As Doyle used an adding machine to tally the bin tickets and deductions, Thyra took flash-bulb photos and made everyone feel at home. Liking David a lot, she had already prepared the ingredients for a “Greenhorned Gringo”! In a glass mug, topped with a maraschino cherry — anchovy instead of sardine — Dave gulped it down, pronounced it pretty good. And wanted another! While someone strummed on the guitar, Bellingham Bob played the harmonica soulfully. (While the others partied, I couldn’t stop “reporting.” I took Thyra aside and asked her how Little Owl got its name. She said, “There were some small owls living on the property when we bought.the place. It seemed like a good name.”) After writing out the checks, Doyle came and joked with everyone. It was time for the season’s end “lottery.” Bin tickets from each participant were placed in a basket and stirred up. At nine dollars apiece, 12 or 13 players, someone would be $110 richer. Was it rigged? Somebody’s 2-year-old reached in and drew out the name. Dave said, “I wanted to see the look on the winner’s face!” That would be impossible, but I don’t think he was that disappointed. HE WON. To applause and good-natured shouts, “You gotta buy the beer! Speech!” Complimenting him for the surprised look on his face, the other pickers agreed it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Pickers' Dust \ J t / hen I look at an apple, what FF do I see? Yes, I see one of nature’s gifts to humankind. But more than that, an apple calls up a tradition which stretches through autumnal harvests, going all the way back to the Stone Age. I think not only of “Okies” and other migrant workers, of the dust bowl and the Great Depression, but also of “wetbacks” crossing the Rio Grande somehow to arrive in Washington state, 1600 miles northward. I think of the poetry of 20th century America’s greatest balladeer, Woody Guthrie. “Roll On, Columbia, Roll On” means more to me than “The Star- Spangled Banner” because it speaks of a genuine hope and strength, inherent in the land and the people of one of the mightiest river systems in the world. Such rugged, spectacular landscape gives and gives if we will only nurture it and treat it right. Every night that week, while sleeping in my car, I could reach out and drink from the Big Dipper, tipped on end. The air was transparent! The Milky Way, which the Chinese call “the River of Heaven,” quenched my sleep and intoxicated my dreams. I heard Canadian geese, following the dark waters below, softly honk as they homed southward for the winter. As we gathered together in front of the trailers, ready to leave, Dave 10 Clinton St. Quarterly

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