18 Comments
User's avatar
Lin Morency Buckland's avatar

This was a wonderfully inspiring account of the roots of what has evidently been a lifelong feistiness. Yes, there are amusing aspects to the story, but the on-going critique and questioning and working towards change is serious and important. Thank you.

Expand full comment
Peter Newman's avatar

I loved "toiled on political campaigns for relentlessly losing candidates", and much more. A great piece. Your passion is inspiring!

Expand full comment
Spyro Rondos's avatar

So funny! And so familiar a story for many of us. Thankfully, some continue to quixotically believe that our near-futile actions can make a difference. I, for one, insisted on buying some candles the other day from a company in B.C. They sent the wrong candles, I paid too much for them, and they took forever to arrive. But never mind. I think The Man got the message.

Expand full comment
Alice Goldbloom's avatar

Spyro keep up The Resistance. Loved this.

Expand full comment
Susie Kaufman's avatar

I loved being reminded of the fiery energy of youth...mine and yours. This seeking for justice is in the blood and is being re-stimulated on a large scale by the tyranny in Washington. I've decided to go to the demonstration in Sacramento tomorrow precisely because I was just like the girls in this story 65 years ago.

Expand full comment
Paula Halpin's avatar

A wonderfully clever, hilarious coming-of-age story about two very smart teenagers (despite the title) who want to save the world. Cement in public toilets -- truly subversive!

Expand full comment
Jinks Hoffmann's avatar

DELICIOUS! What a gorgeous way of combining humor, humanity and protest. Thank you.

Expand full comment
Jill Swenson's avatar

"After an exotic dinner of lentil stew, Kathie and I sat in the living room with Bronwen and her friends passing around joints and talking about socialism. We learned they all belonged to the Free Socialist Movement and wanted to spread Marxist doctrine to high school students. Kathie and I looked at one another. We were being brainwashed AND recruited. Cool!"

Giggle-snorted at this brilliant paragraph in your story. Perhaps it captured a moment many of our generation. My version began with an exotic dinner of potato soup with a friend in a basement apartment...

Expand full comment
Ruth Miller's avatar

Loved this story. I laughed out loud several times, especially about the cement.You go girl! I too thought the world could be changed for the better and have demonstrated and written articles and letters and lobbied etc. Some things have gotten better, but look at the state of the world now. As someone once said to me, when there was a setback in the cause I was fighting for, first we mourn and then we act. Good words for these times.

Expand full comment
Kristin Shannon's avatar

Resistance matters. If it is compounded as you have done over your lifetime, influencing many along your way, the world is left a better place than if you had not worked to alter this rigged system. You have made a difference. Just make sure the cement is made in Canada please.

Expand full comment
Jim Sanders's avatar

Resistance?

I tend to believe that Capitalism, Socialism, Communism and other ism's are not either good or evil per se. Where the evil comes in is the people who exploit whatever system exists for their own benefit. This is true here with run-away capitalistic greed.

I remember when reading different philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Nietzche and others expressed dislike for democracy. For a Democracy to work, the citizens MUST remain involved and knowledgeable. We have neither. So, resistance?

Expand full comment
Hyman Weisbord's avatar

Delightful!

Beautifully written. Thoughtful , wry and poignant

Thank you for this .

H . Weisbord

Expand full comment
Nicole Daniels's avatar

A little heavy of a read but I enjoyed your story and appreciate your frustration (if that even encapsulates your feelings) and the bag of cement…I like this idea!

Expand full comment
Anna C Rumin's avatar

This nails it for me - and such turn of phrase. Thankyou

Expand full comment
M E Campbell's avatar

Well, if I was looking for hope, I sure didn’t find it there.

Expand full comment
Joan Eisenstodt's avatar

I found comfort knowing others who have spent their lives thinking and doing are now befuddled about the enormity of the world’s tsuris. I was like this from age 2 on - or as I remember the realization of war, evil, racism, & other isms. I’ve spent my life speaking out, demonstrating, writing, and in my chosen profession, working with/for groups that did good (in my estimation of course!) for what I believed. Now at almost 78 & living in the US where I’ve been all my life (except travel) and seeing everything I believed being pulled/no: PUSHED out from under us; the horrors in Gaza and in so many places; & living with debilitating long covid (thus unable realistically to attend demonstrations) I wonder how to manage it all and make the world kinder and more action focused for ppl & planet. When others share it adds to less isolation.

Expand full comment
Mary Kathryn Dunlop's avatar

So heartbreaking...back to the starting line. We need to dust off all the skills from the past and put them into action. Do it again and again.

Expand full comment
Joan Eisenstodt's avatar

And we need more of _us_ to do so. The errors of MAGAt voters’ voting & support must end.

Expand full comment