[The following article was originally published in the McCleary Museum Newsletter v. 11 issue 3 (Sept. 2001). OlyBlog seemed like a good venue for introducing this local history to the online world. For those who don't know, the town of McCleary is about 20 miles west of Olympia].

According to conventional wisdom, Henry McCleary sold his entire operation to Simpson in the last hours of Dec. 1941 due to several factors: his age, the fact that his timber was played out, the unions were closing in, and the start of another war economy. Sam Lanning quoted Henry in Jan. 1942, "Sam, I am old and I have had enough. The whole world business has gone to war and production for war needs. I have closed out and bought 22,000 acres of grazing land stocked with cattle, quite a distance from town and prefer raising beef to making bombs."

But there was another, more subtle, reason for Henry's departure. One of his chief business clients, Japan, was now our enemy. Since Henry was a man of action, leaving very little in the way of written thoughts, we can only guess what was going through his mind in Dec. 1941. Pearl Harbor has never been mentioned as one of the reasons for his selling out, but one cannot look at the McCleary-Japan relationship without concluding Henry must have felt some sense of betrayal.

More on the flip...

The events of the Centralia Massacre unfolded over the span of more than just one day, but November 11th is a high (or low) point.

A digital collection of pamphlets, leaflets, and letters concerning the Centralia Massacre is available through the University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections.

Through the Washington Digital Archives you can view The Statehood Telegram of November 11, 1889. Link also given for the plugin needed for viewing this and other documents called the Top 5 Treasures.

This one really falls into the Evergreen version of an urban legend, but the story is too good to pass up. Supposedly, when B Dorm was filled with the very first population of student residents in 1971, the entire building communally dropped acid. This was followed by an epic water fight, which of course resulted in widespread damage. But before the housing officials could really start pressing charges, the students cleaned up the destruction out of their own pockets. I have yet to meet a single person who claims to have been there, but the story circulated throughout the decade. And even today, when hardened old Evergreeners tell tall tales around the campfire, this piece of lore will surface.

I just heard from Lynn Erickson, the producer of "Sylvester's Window", that educational kits she created based on the paintings are now available at Oly bookstores.

An Olympian article describes the kits as including......"large and small prints of the paintings, narratives, biographies of the people in the scenes, lesson ideas and more components....".

Just wanted to say I am getting ready to head out to the weekly sign-holding vigil/ protest, organized by the Olympia FOR, at percival landing.

See you there!

It is the mid-1980s. I'm on campus and I run into a guy who I had known all through school in Olympia, from Roosevelt Elementary to OHS. Since I knew he was a conservative member of the LDS, and a law enforcement officer, I was surprised to see him there. It turned out he was taking a short course pertaining to his job, and the class just happened to be using TESC facilities. We sat and visited on a bench near the CAB entrance. He expressed great discomfort about being on the grounds.

"I don't know about this place," he squirmed, "I might get ideas."

I told him to relax. By the mid-1980s I was convinced TESC had watered down their entire school to the point where it was pretty much like any other college, and I told him so. The electricity and wonderful eccentricity of the 1970s was over, I said. Evergreen was now safe and bland. There was little danger of "getting ideas."

Just then, as if on cue, someone walked by in a giant condom costume.

That's what I get for generalizing.

For 24 hours, millions of people around the world do not participate -- in the doomsday economy, the marketing mind-games, and the frantic consumer-binge that's become our culture. We pause. We make a small choice not to shop. We shrink our footprint and gain some calm. Together we say: enough is enough. And we help build this movement to rethink our unsustainable course.

(Taken from Buy Nothing Day site.)

Former U.S. Senator William Proxmire turns 90 today. He was the graduation speaker for 1973. The Maverick Wisconsin Democrat was famous for a couple things. First, he like to bestow "The Golden Fleece Award" to parts of government he considered wasteful. No one was safe from his aim, not the military, not left-wing academic researchers, not NASA. Secondly, shortly before he visited TESC, he started getting hair transplants and was quite public about it. This hair thing set him apart as something of an eccentric, which might explain why the students asked him to be the grad speaker.

In addition to speaking at the ceremony, Proxmire was available in one of the lecture halls for a Q&A session. He praised Evergreen's experimental approach. I remember he disappointed us a little on one topic. A student asked him a very simple question, "When is it going to happen?" And we all knew what that meant without any further qualification. When was Nixon going to be removed? Proxmire sort of smiled and went into a long explanation why the impeachment process should be avoided if possible. Of course, this was only a month before the existence of the Watergate tapes became known. And Spiro Agnew was still the Veep-- the thought of President Agnew seemed even worse than Nixon.

Today Sen. Proxmire is suffering from Alzheimer's disease and is seldom mentioned, which is a shame. Happy birthday, Senator.

From the Seattle PI:

NEW YORK -- The largest shareholder in Knight Ridder Inc. is turning up the pressure on the newspaper publisher, saying in a regulatory filing Thursday that it may nominate a slate of directors at the company's annual meeting next year.

Private Capital Management LP, an investment firm based in Naples, Fla., said it was considering that and other moves to boost the value of its 19 percent stake in Knight Ridder after seeing only a 'limited response' to the 'serious concerns' about the company raised by PCM and other shareholders. PCM demands Knight Ridder put itself up for sale.