Retirement Association of Portland State Portland State University Post Office Box 751 Portland, OR 97207-0751 Koinonia House, second floor SW Montgomery at Broadway Campus mail: RAPS Web: www.raps.pdx.edu Office hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Officers Robert Tufts President Marjorie Terdal President-elect / Program Chair Bruce Stern Past President / Membership Chair Robert Vogelsang Treasurer / Regional Retirement Association Ad Hoc Committee Chair Larry Sawyer Secretary Doug Swanson Editor Robert Pearson Webmaster Board Members-at-Large Roger Moseley Jan DeCarrico Charlene Levesque Committees Alumni Association Pat Squire Awards Committee Chair / Pictorial History Book Committee Chair Mary Brannan History Preservation Committee Chair Steve Brannan Membership Committee Chair Bruce Stern Social/Friendship Committee Co-Chairs Beryl and Vic Dahl Office Manager AmyValdez 503-725-3447 / raps@pdx.edu continued on page 2 THE RAPSSHEET JUNE2008 When Michael Munk retired to Portland about 10 years ago, he lived at 23rd and Burnside and discovered his apartment was just below where John Reed, the author, Communist activist, and son of a wealthy Portland manufacturer, had grown up in 19th-century luxury. “I thought, ‘I get this big charge out of occupying space that was also occupied by John Reed and his family and those folks from the radical past of the city,’” Munk, a political science professor, explained to an audience of about 60 at the final edition of RAPS’ 2007-08 Speakers Series on May 15. His book, The Portland Red Guide, published by PSU’s Ooligan Press, inspired his talk, “Portland’s Radical Past.” The Red Guide is not intended as a history of Portland’s radicals, he said, but rather a guidebook that evokes the physical sites related to that history. And the history is long, colorful, and tragic, fitting for a town the first Bush Administration referred to as “Little Beirut” for its spirited protests. But those modern protesters have nothing on the striking longshoremen of 70 years ago. In fact, Munk said, Portland’s mayor requested troops be sent to the city because it was on the verge of insurrection. The 1934 West Coast Longshoremen’s Strike shut down coastal ports, including Portland, and city leaders were getting very nervous. In response, they formed the Citizens Emergency Committee—”nothing more than a gang of vigilantes that was devoted to breaking the strike by physical force,” according to Munk. “Those businessmen were perfectly willing to see bloodshed and lives lost to break that strike.” “In a sense, that might have been the high point of radical history in Portland,” Munk said. “Nothing before and nothing since was characterized by our political leaders as that dangerous.” Much of the union movement of the 1930s was inspired by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), a more radical and aggressive cousin of the American Federation of Labor. “Interestingly, Portland was the site of the beginning of the effort to destroy those left-wing CIO unions,” Munk said. In 1948, the CIO held its national convention at the Masonic Temple, now part of the Portland Art Museum. At the convention, some CIO Radicals in Portland? Oh, go on! Next up: RAPS’ Summer Picnic Thursday, August 21 Willamette Park SW Macadam at Nebraska PREVIEW STORY ON PAGE 4 Michael Munk
—2— President’s Message Radicals in Portland . . . continued from page 1 Much of an institution’s history is held by the individual faculty and staff that compose that community. During discussions among the members of the RAPS Board of Directors, we’ve determined that one valuable method to preserve history is to seek information about sources of our history. Hence, we seek biographies—your bio—of all RAPS members. What were the noteworthy events and your contributions to Portland State during your professional career? “Lest we forget; lest you/we be forgotten.”Please consider assembling your piece of PSU history and sending it to us in the RAPS office. I assure you that will be a significant contribution to the archival files of the University. Recently we heard that PSU is one of three finalists for the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Award for Community-Campus Partnerships, which recognizes best practices in existing partnerships. This is the first award at the national level in the United States. The RAPS Sheet will take a summer sabbatical and return in September, but do note our summer picnic in August. Next year I look forward to RAPS’ leadership under Marge Terdal, your incoming president, and the monthly sessions from Larry Sawyer, your program chair and president-elect. And Portland State has new leadership with incoming President Wim Wiewel—see the press release and press conference video at www.pdx.edu. Also revisit the RAPS Web site, www.raps.pdx.edu, where you will find fresh photo galleries of this year’s programs. I extend my appreciation to all of you, members and board, who have assisted me, and thus enabled me to serve RAPS this past year. Thanks! —BobTufts unions were warned that if they didn’t eliminate their Communist leaders, they would be expelled from the CIO. The next year, they were. “It’s my personal opinion that that was the single most powerful act of the McCarthy period,” said Munk. A few years later, in 1954, the House Un-American Activities Committee rolled into town to sniff out Reds. It found Reed College particularly rich ground. “At the time, Reed developed the principle that nobody could teach anything at Reed College who didn’t say publicly that they weren’t Communist,” Munk explained. One professor, Stanley Moore, stood on principle and “said it was none of your damn business and got fired.” Another, Lloyd Reynolds, was suspended. The faculty voted overwhelmingly to demand Reynolds be reinstated. Among the few who did not was Munk’s father, Frank, who later taught for many years at Portland State. About 200 sites are listed and detailed inThe Portland Red Guide, which includes maps and photographs. Among them is the old Communist Party headquarters at the appropriately named Redman Hall at SE 10th and Hawthorne. The building still stands. And in 1908, not far from PGE Park, Eugene Debs addressed 10,000 Portlanders who were looking for a workers’ paradise. “My interest in rehabilitating the Left really has to do with how we want to spend the time that is given us on earth,” said Munk. “The dominant value in our society is to get ahead, accumulate wealth, and pass it on to our children—to have status in our society, to get this through competition with other people. “I hope that the people I tried to rehabilitate in this book had a different motivation. They were less interested in improving their individual place in society as they were in changing that society for the benefit of everyone. I think that’s a major dividing line in the motivation of Americans, and I think many of them are expressing questions about those values today.” Munk is a graduate of Reed and holds a master’s from the University of Oregon and a Ph.D. from New York University. He taught political science at SUNYStony Brook, Roosevelt University, and Rutgers.
—3— Book Club: Mining environmental havoc As a follow-up to the RAPS program speaker Michael Munk, we read The Portland Red Guide: Sites & Stories of Our Radical Past. This book is a tour guide of places in Portland linked to local radicals and their activities. It gave us a glimpse into a unique Portland history of which most of us were unaware. Our book club will be hosted on June 17 at 1:30 p.m. by Felicia Wertz at 1125 SW St. Clair Ave., Portland. Call her at 503-227-7902 to RSVP and for directions. We will discuss Coal River written by Michael Shnayerson. This nonfiction book is described by Publishers Weekly: Through vivid first-person reporting and a thorough culling of court transcripts, newspaper clippings and corporate reports, Vanity Fair contributing editor Shnayerson (The Killers Within) has crafted an incriminating indictment of the Appalachian King Coal industry in West Virginia, and of the man he defines as its rapacious kingpin, Massey Energy’s CEO, Don Blankenship. The author’s sympathies lie clearly with opponents of mountaintop mining, most prominently young attorney Joe Lovett and citizen activist Judy Bonds. Both have fought against a form of mining that shears off the tops of hills and dumps rubble into valleys and streams—a process abetted by the collusion of the state’s often-lackadaisical Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ propensity to grant stream-destroying permits without oversight, and the easing of environmental controls by the Bush administration. Shnayerson’s compelling take on toxic mining methods, and their heartrending impact on Appalachian inhabitants and their culture, has a wider focus than Erik Reece’s 2006 title, Lost Mountain, which reported on one mountaintop’s destruction, and strong echoes of the stomach-churning legal machinations recounted in Jonathan Harr’s 1995 bestseller, A Civil Action. We have not yet selected books and meeting places for the rest of the summer. Contact Mary Brannan at brannanmg@comcast.net or 503-239-1077 for the summer schedule. —Mary Brannan RAPS club reports PAST TENSE Forbes becomes first woman vice president After receiving her baccalaureate in nursing from the University of New Mexico in 1960 and her M.S. in nursing from OHSU in 1966, Orcilia Forbes began her career in university administration as assistant director of Student Health Services at Portland State University. In 1975 she was appointed to the position of dean of students. Then, in 1978, President Joseph Blumel took the bold step of changing her appointment to vice president for Student Affairs, which required specific approval by the Oregon State Board of Higher Education. This gave her the honor of being the first female vice president in the Oregon State System of Higher Education. After an exemplary career at PSU, she resigned to accept the post of vice president for student affairs at the University of New Mexico in 1989. She retired from her final university position, vice president for advancement at Oregon State University, in 2003. She now lives in Portland’s Pearl District. Past Tense features glimpses into Portland State’s history. To submit a story (or an idea for one), email the RAPS History Preservation Committee at raps@pdx.edu. continued on page 4 Hikers: Get ready for summer hikes The May hike to North Columbia Slough was wet with a constant drizzle. Although most of the birds weren’t out, we still saw three Great Blue Herons plus some other water and songbirds. The Fourth Friday hike schedule is: June 27—Mosier Tunnels along the old Columbia River Highway. Lunch in Mosier. July 25—Lewis River east of Cougar. Four waterfalls, 5.6 miles out and back. Approximately 200foot elevation change. Sack lunch. August 22—Salmon Creek Greenway just north of Vancouver. Paved level trail along creek. Six-mile loop or three-mile with car shuttle. Lunch in Vancouver. September 26—“Stub” Stewart State Park. Oregon’s newest full-service park on the Banks-toVernonia rail line. Walk park trails. Sack lunch. Because this is the last RAPS Sheet of the academic year, contact Larry Sawyer for more details on these hikes. Regular hikers will receive updates and reminders by e-mail. Please confirm your participation by the Thursday before the hike to Larry Sawyer (503771-1616 or larry_sawyer@comcast.net). —Larry Sawyer Orcilia Forbes
BridgeGroup: June 10 at Willamette View The RAPS Bridge Group will meet at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 10, at Willamette View. We will also continue to meet through the summer at the same time on the second Tuesday of each month. If you are interested in playing or need more information about the group, please contact me at 503-292-0838 or colinkeld@gmail.comno later than the Friday before the game. —Colin Dunkeld Club reports . . . continued from page 3 Like input on your writing project? Writers’ Response Group can help If you are writing anything . . . a journal, memoirs, recent (or not so recent) travel, letters to the editor, poems, economic forecasts, stories for children, The Search for Cannons and Beeswax on the Oregon Coast, or even the novel that the world is waiting for, and you would like to share your efforts, the Writers’ Response Group would like to hear from you. A few months ago, two or three RAPSters began meeting once a week in one another’s homes. They bring something they have written and read it to the group, talk about it, ask questions, and share similar experiences. They do not get picky about punctuation or anything else—unless asked. They are not editors; they respond much as the Book Group responds to the books they have read. The only way to find out exactly what they do is to show up and see for yourself. For more information, you can call Colin Dunkeld at 503-292-0838 or e-mail colinkeld@gmail.com. RAPS’ Summer Picnic on for August Mark Thursday, August 21, on your calendar-that’s the date of the RAPS’ Summer Picnic at Willamette Park, SW Macadam and Nebraska Street, Portland. The picnic gets under way at 3:30 p.m. and wraps up at 6:00 p.m. Bring your own beverages and a salad, hot dish, or dessert to share. Individuals can bring wine and beer, although no hard liquor is allowed. Parking is available to seniors for $1. RSVP to the RAPS Office, 503-725-3447 or raps@pdx.edu. A note from your award-winning* editor In my last note to you, which you no doubt remember reading in the June 2007 edition of The RAPS Sheet, I invited contributions to two newsletter features, “Our Traveling Retirees” and “Our Active Retirees,” during 2007-08. You came through handsomely: Mort Paglin told us what he’s doing (a lot); Marge and Leif Terdal reported on their trip to Antarctica; and Gordon Solie related what happens to a bassoonist on the loose in Brazil. All were enjoyable, lively stories that entertained and enlightened, and I encourage RAPSters to submit more. About 500 words will do the job—and if you don’t feel like writing it yourself, give me a call (503-639-9322 or vikingdoug@ comcast.net). Photos always enhance an article— but be sure to set your digital camera to the highresolution setting. Steve Brannan was instrumental in developing a new feature, “Past Tense,” which debuted last fall. “Past Tense” provides glimpses into the history of Portland State, and Steve and I would appreciate hearing about your insights into the corners of PSU history. (Of course, they do have to be suitable for publication!) Best wishes for a wonderful summer! —Doug Swanson, Editor *Third place ribbon, sixth-grade boys high jump, Junipero Serra School, Carmel, Calif., May 1962. RAPSSheet breaks for summer This is the last issue of The RAPS Sheet for the 2007-2008 academic year. Publication will resume with the September issue. Please direct questions about The RAPS Sheet to Doug Swanson, 503-639-9322 or vikingdoug@comcast.net.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz