Western Washington University Western CEDAR
Klipsun Magazine Western Student Publications
4-1985
Klipsun Magazine, 1985, Volume 16, Issue 05 - April
Shaun McClurken Western Washington University
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Recommended Citation McClurken, Shaun, "Klipsun Magazine, 1985, Volume 16, Issue 05 - April" (1985). Klipsun Magazine. 82. https://cedar.wwu.edu/klipsun_magazine/82
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CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR. Ruth Weiner takes on the Department of Energy with one hand, and battles nuclear hysteria with the other. By Diane Dietz...... A
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Has man’s use of animals for food and clothing, and drug and chemical testing, become abusive? A local animal-rights group thinks so. By Lynn Hersman...... 8
line CRISIS A late-night wait for a phone call has never been so mysterious. Crisis Line volunteers answer the unexpected. By Laura Boynton...... 12
MAKING TRACKS. Technicians and musicians meet and make beautiful music together in the Fairhaven recording studio. By Jeff Braimes...... 15
ACTS OF LIGHT. Photographs can explore a dimension denied to simple human sight. By James Ryder KIDS’ CtU®
Nothing chuck pus about the Whatcom County Boys’ and Girls’ Club; strictly moss pus with plenty of studs. No ickts. By Sandy Neil...... 21
FOOD PATHOLOGY. America’s on-going love affair with “thin” drives some young women to abuse their bodies as they pursue a mental and physical ideal. By Bridget Yearian...... 24
MODERN MINSTRELS. Brad Darley and Jennifer Mclntire help people say it with enter- tainment telegrams. By Leanna Bradshaw...... 28
KLIPSUN 3 o
CONSCIENTIOUS BIECTOR Fear. Lies. Ignorance. Ruth Weiner battles
them all I o
By DIANE DIETZ uth weiner At home she seems irresistably explained, “It’s going to drawn to nuclear have to go somewhere. politics.R The Huxley pro As citizens of the world fessor has again entered we have to see that it will the fray, opposing the be stored as safely as it Department of Energy’s can be stored.” (DOE) selection of the Sitting in the harsh Hanford nuclear reserva light of a television tion as a possible, or even camera, she told the probable, burial site for DOE re presentative high-level radioactive Hanford is simply not a waste. safe site. Lecturing, giving “Hanford was never expert testimony, selected because anyb remaining relentlessly ody thought it would be a available to the press, good place. It’s clear and even debating when you drive to Spo former governor Dixy kane: you see the basalt Lee Ray, Weiner energet pillars shot through with ically protests the pro fractures—why would posed site at Hanford, you think it’s any differ and is sharply critical of ent underground?” the DOE’S methods in its The concern is that selection. ground water eventually Her political involve will filter down to the ment has earned her the repository, buried 2,000- tag ‘outspoken environ 3,000 feet below the sur mentalist,’ but her docto face, dissolve the waste rate in physical chemistry containers over time and from Johns Hopkins carry radioactive parti University would seem to cles out to the Columbia qualify her to dispute the River, only six miles saftey of a Hanford rep away. ository intended to iso Weiner said she sus late nuclear wastes for pects Hanford was thousands of years. selected for reasons other Sitting one Saturday than its geophysical in the 8 a.m. sun streak characteristics. Hanford ing across her dining is just “some nice federal room table, she property with some explained, “The industry nuclear things on it has Ph.D.s, so why anyway—the same with shouldn’t the Sierra Nevada (with Hanford, Club?” one of the three finalist As outspoken as she is sites). They didn’t even against DOE actions, she know the rock type” equally abhors the when it was selected. “nuclear hysteria” that She said the DOE was the aftermath of the didn’t consider any other accident at Three Mile basalt sites. “Would Island. basalt ever have been She prefaced her (considered a) good attack on the DOE’s medium if it had not been environmental assess under Hanford?” ment at an Olympia hear The first questions the ing in March by saying: DOE should have asked “All of the hindsight are: “How well is the rock about nuclear power going to work? Will it development and desires leak? All other consider for an end to the nuclear ations are secondary— arms race are not going the overriding question to result in the disappea- should be the geology,” race of this radioactive she said, tapping three waste material; we can fingers on the table for not wish it away.” emphasis. The proposed reposi Weiner wonders tory will contain com whether the DOE fol mercially spent nuclear lowed the Nuclear Waste fuel and other radioactive Policy Act requirement wastes in a complex of adopted by Congress in tunnels occupying If you perceive injustice, you don’t sit around and be quiet about it. It’s incumbent on peopie to take part in their government.” 1982, which she helped roughly 2,000 acres. write. Sites with other
KLIPSUN 5 geology, such salt and granite, were selected gress in 1954, was organized as both judge after extensive national surveying. and advocate. Weiner said it was mostly the When the DOE approached Hanford, it later. It wasn’t until 1974 that Congress was more like “Let’s start digging around established an independent regulatory and slap together something that looks like a commission. nuclear repository,” Weiner said. Because of the lack of scrutiny, industry In her 10-minute testimony before the representatives traveled around telling the DOE, Weiner took only one full breath. public nuclear wastes could be boiled down Emphasizing her points by shoving the air to the size of a shirt button. Weiner said with the back of her hand, near microphone “that is a blatant deception...(the industry) level, she accused the DOE of being biased, spent years and years throwing that kind of secretive in its proceedings, and of omitting junk to the public.” People had nowhere to crucial information in the sites initial envir turn for better information, she said. onmental assessment. “People need a certain kind of knowledge, She seems unsuprised by the rather clan and there’s nowhere to get it...if you want destine selection. She said it’s the same old detailed, honest explanations out of the story of the nuclear establishment. industry, where are you going to go?” Her first experience was in 1959 when she This was Weiner’s niche in nuclear polit was a “little graduate student” at Johns ics. She would help citizen’s groups “frame Hopkins. She went to a lecture by Edward questions in a way that catches attention of Teller, the “father of the atomic bomb.” It licensing agencies,” of proposed power was during the period when people were plants. Even then, it wasn’t guaranteed pub afraid of the dangers of strontium 90 in milk. lic concerns would be heard. In 1968, she Tellar told the students it was “silly” to and the group she was speaking for were worry about the contamination unless bone asked to leave a hearing of the Atomic chips somehow got in the milk. Safety and Licensing Board, which was con “I said to myself, ‘now look, Edward sidering the Fort St. Vain, Colo., plant. Teller knows better than that, even I know That same year, some people came to her better than that.’” because a nuclear bomb would be detonated Later, when she was an assistant chemis underground near their homes to liberate try teacher at Johns Hopkins, she said she natural gas. They didn’t know the effects; can remember thinking, “There must be a they just knew “a bomb would be set off reason for the untruths in the industry.” underground--that’s enough to scare In the early days of nuclear power, it was anybody.” assumed that anyone asking questions was Information was still hard to come by two techniques for losing it. Either she “anti-nuke,” or worse, “unamerican,” even from the “Atomic Energy Commission, or would slow way down so the traffic would such questions as. “What are you going to do any of its decendents...we had to blast our force the car ahead, or she’d pedal up a with the wastes? way into the NRC.” Worse, industry spo one-way street the wrong way for a few “You use to take your life in your hands kesmen were “still singing the same old blocks. anytime you criticized anything the govern song—‘no one ever died over nuclear Then, she said, her school allowed her ment was doing with nukes,” she said. energy.’ And that’s the unfortunate political work phone to be tapped. “I hope they got history of the nuclear establishment in the some charge out of hearing me talk to my Weiner still expresses a wry humor in the U.S.” babysitter,” she said with a laugh. ironies, the stupidity she sees on all sides of Weiner’s role as public advocate was not Later, in 1974, Weiner was hired as dean nuclear politics. Relaxed in faded jeans and without cost. She said her critique of the of Huxley. Within two years she helped blue nike sneakers, the 49-year-old mother nuclear energy industry has earned her no Skagitonians Concerned about Nuclear of four said if the early concerns had been brownie points in academic spheres. Power stop the placement of a power plant taken seriously “we would have smaller, In fact, her job has been threatened a few yards from the Skagit River. Weiner said the fewer better-sited nuclear plants, instead of times. First, when she was working on the president of Puget Power and Light, the these huge capital debts everybody’s saddled Colorado Clean Air Act in 1970, she was company attempting to build the plants, put with.” followed by detectives. When she’d ride her pressure on University President Paul Ols- Early government oversight of the devel bicycle home from the campus she’d notice a camp. She was removed from her deanship, oping nuclear industry was minimal. The car following close behind her. In the spirit but because she was tenured she could not be Atomic Energy Commission, set up by con of any great detective novel, she developed fired. “I’m the classic academic freedoms
6 April 1985 DC LU O
z I o “If everyone was educated In science there would be no need for someone like me. My job is in the classroom- —3 ...that Tm so in demand is an adverse comment on the state of public knowledge.” case,” she said. approacher her tasks with a cultural back office said enviously, “you get more press Later, she said, the president of Puget ground that says “If you perceive injustice, than anybody running.” Power wrote her a letter. It said “I met you you don’t sit around and be quiet about it. Weiner, however, said public education and you’re really not as bad as I thought you It’s incumbent on people to take part in their on nuclear policy should begin sooner. were.” government. “Education is not T.V., workshops, or even Even now, she said, she is blacklisted for “It sounds bombastic to say you speak the the public forum. It’s done in the certain Nuclear Regulatory Commission truth in public, but when you see falsehoods classroom.” consulting jobs. perpetrated, you’ve got to stop it—you see a Even someone with just a basic under Weiner’s role, however, has had some basic need to do it.” graduate science education would see the rewards. “I can’t deny that it’s fun being on Besides, added her 23-year-old daughter, flaw in the Hanford site, she said. “They T.V....It’s interesting to try and change peo reading the comics nearby, “It guarantees don’t need me to explain it to them; the ple’s perspectives.” you lots of mail and phone calls.” problem is we don’t have good basic Also, she said she feels a deeper obliga When Three Mile Island nearly melted, education. tion. Her family fled Austria in WWII. Her Weiner was down inside the Grand Canyon. “If everyone was educated in science there immediate family was safe, but like most When she came back, a friend said, “Ruth, would be no need for someone like me. My refugees of that period, she has no extended you should have been here, you could have job is in the classroom...that I’m so yi family left. been on T.V. 24 hours a day.” demand is an adverse comment on the state As an Austrian and a refugee, she A friend who was a candidate for political of public knowledge.” ■ KLIPSUN
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EOPLE HAVE USED ANIMALS Primates are used to study the relation animals. The FDA requires products be for food and clothing seemingly ship between brain structure and behavior, determined safe and effective, and the Dela CARROL forever. But is it ethical to use due to their similarities to humans. The six ney clause requires that products be animals in experiments said to result in primates in Miller Hall all came from the removed from the market if they are shown greater health and wealth for man? Research University of Washington. One of the pri to cause cancer in man or animal. Dr. MIKE into the dosage limits and possible extreme mates was killed and the brain retained for Thompson’s view is that even though side-effects of drugs and cosmetics is deemed further study, according to lab documents. animal tests are not required, companies are needless and cruel by many. They say results Richard Thompson of the psychology responsible for the safety of their products. are inconclusive or could be reached department has switched his studies from If someone gets hurt using their product they through alternate means. Both sides ask, “Is rats to chickens because chickens are have to show that when they marketed it the pain worth the gain?” cheaper. Thompson uses the animals in fear they believed it was safe, and this is done by Each year in the United States 100 million studies in which he tests their reaction to animal testing. Cosmetic companies have animals are used for research, according to predator type situations. donated money to ending animal research figures compiled by the Progressive Animal Dean Sam Kelly is chairman of the animal through finding alternatives, Lucy said. Welfare Society of Lynnwood (PAWS), an welfare committee of Western. This commit “Part of the ARC’s activities include the animal rights group. Their figures break tee oversees all research on campus to make boycott of national companies that test on down to include; 200,000 cats, 500,000 dogs, sure federal guidelines are met» the experi animals, including Colgate-Palmolive, Gen 45 million rats and mice, 1,724,000 birds and ments are well thought out and the eral Foods, and almost every cosmetic com the list goes on. researchers are qualified. The committee pany,” Verdier said. Liz Verdier, secretary-treasurer of the also requires semi-annual inspection of But, “If someone has to brush with Aim Animal Rights Campaign of Whatcom research animals by a veterinarian from the toothpaste we don’t tell them they can’t be in County, (ARC), describes her group as one University of Washington. The Department the group,” Verdier said. “It’s each individu that is interested in “everything that has to of Agriculture also makes periodic govern al’s decision about their degree of involve do with animal rights.” Verdier, dressed in a ment inspections. The committee itself is ment. We’re not a bunch of little old ladies in skirt and blazer, sat behind a metal desk, a made up of deans, professors and a lay per tennis shoes that get upset everytime we see a dolphin sticker on the front, in her Georgia son from the community. The group was dead cat on the road. People see us as bleed Pacific office. She defined animal rights as: formed voluntarily but accounts to the agri ing hearts. I don’t care what they call me; “Anything that has feeling has the right to culture department in Olympia for animals people, by being negative, are just trying to live...stress free.” Then, the slender, green- used in experiments. better themselves.” eyed lady threw her hands up and exclaimed, “Western is not a major user of animals Verdier sees little use in testing products “Stress free? Even my life’s not stress free!” for experiments. We don’t offer advanced for humans on animals at all. “The results of She changed her definition to, “in as natural programs in zoology or biology,” Kelly said. these tests are not; cannot be extrapolated to a way as possible.” Animals for research are raised by humans,” she said, noting that guinea pigs The purpose of the ARC is to “inform and researchers themselves and some are supp treated with penicillin died, but it worked for educate.”The group’s methods are picketing lied by animal brokers. Huxley professor humans; and thalidomide, proven safe on test businesses, restaurants, movies or anything Ron Kendall raises bob white quail on cam animals, caused damage to human fetuses. that violates animal rights. The last movie pus for use in toxicological studies, testing Many animal rights activists cite the “Thali the group picketed was Conan The Barbar the effects of chemicals on wildlife and the domide Disaster” as a classic example of the ian, because animals were killed or hurt in environment. According to Tim Lucy, edu ineffectiveness of animal testing. the production of the movie. cation director of the Bellingham/ Whatcom Thalidomide was introduced as a tranqui “I was there when 12 people made the County Humane Society, the local humane lizer for pregnant women. It caused changes decision not to go in. That was very person society doesn’t release animals for research. to occur in the developing embryo, resulting ally satisfying. Even if one person had Some states used to allow pound seizures, in children being born with “flippers,” decided not to go in it would have been which required animal shelters to allow instead of arms and legs. And its use was worth it,” Verdier said. Picketers hand out animals to be taken for research, but pound approved after animal testing. educational material and leaflets. seizure has been abolished in most states. Without animal research, however, some “We don’t force someone to agree with us, “Shelter animals are unsuitable; they’re advances might not have been made. Sir we let them come around on their own. It not always healthy, and we don’t know their Frederick Banting, a Canadian surgeon, makes them a stronger supporter if they history,” Lucy said, piloting his desk chair used dogs in his discovery of insulin in 1921. decided on their own,” Verdier said. The around his office, pulling letters and By removing the dogs pancreases he caused group also circulates petitions, and some pamphets from every corner. “We’ve been them to become severely diabetic. Then by times mans booths at Haggen Foods and asked if our animals could be used to injecting them with extracts of pancreas he Western. improve the technique of doctors and vete was able to keep them alive, thus discovering Research done on animals falls into rinarians, and asked for animals for blood insulin. several categories. Vivisection or biomedical transfusions. This is a gray area; we’re a Kendall conducts the quail research in the research are terms used for experiments private agency, (publically contracted by toxicology lab at Western to determine the done on any living thing. Animals are used Whatcom County and Bellingham), hold effects of pesticide on wildlife, and improv to determine, generally, how living tissues ing these animals in trust. We generally ing the conservation of wildlife through new work. This is known as fundamental decline.” regulations for chemical testing. Quail are research because it has no present applica Testing to determine the effects of new recognized by the EPA as a model represen tion, but it is knowledge for its own sake that drugs, cleaners, hygiene products, cosmet tative of many types of birds, Kendall said. someday may be applied to man. Most of the ics, chemicals, and food items is also done on Kendall’s studies look at effects of chemi research done at Western falls in this animals. Two of the tests used to determine cals on the reproductive system, behavior, category. product safety are the LD-50 and the Draize. and disturbances in normal life processes. Some of the experiments performed have In the LD-50 test, a product’s lethal dose is He has contracted with chemical companies been food and water deprivation of rats and determined by injecting test animals with the for research to develop pesticides that cause low level shock treatments. Two octopus substance until 50 percent of the animals die. less harm on wildlife. and a squid were captured in Puget Sound The Draize test requires a substance be put “Toxic stress is like food poisoning in and were also used in food deprivation in a rabbit’s eye and the effects noted. Rab humans,” said Kendall, “but wildlife can’t experiments. During the experiment the bits are selected because they have no tear tell you, T’m sick.’” animals were kept at the Shannon Point ducts through which the substance could be The lab was opened early in 1981 and is Sundquist Marine Laboratory. They were flushed out. involved in research with Washington State released at the conclusion of the experiment. No laws require products to be tested on University, the EPA, the Department of
KLIPSUN 9 o
Game, and pesticide and pharmaceutical companies. Kendall is now working with Thompson and Crystal Driver, Huxley staff member, to find a granular form of pesticide using colors and shapes that would be unappealing to birds that might otherwise think it is food.
Kendall said thousands of research dol lars are given to the department to assist with the equipment, salaries and operation of the lab. This also allows students to par ticipate in research, he said. “We associate the costs with our instruc tional program, we don’t assoicate the costs with research costs. It’s part of the class pro gram,” Thompson said, referring to the cost of the psychology department’s experi ments. The primate lab in Miller Hall was also set up with research funds that continue to pay for a caretaker and food for the animals. “The cost of the facilities per faculty inves tigator is the same as the costs to labs in speech or biology,” Kelly said, punctuating his sentences with hmm? He estimates those costs at between $30,000 and $40,000 dollars a year. Because the researchers receive federal money, they must adhere to federal guide lines. The Animal Welfare Act of 1966 insures animals intended for research are provided humane care and treatment, adequate housing, and cleanliness. The Department of Agriculture enforces these requirements. Also, scant animal protection legislation now is on the books. A bill dealing specifi cally with animal research was introduced in the Senate by Bob Dole of Kansas last year. Another bill was also introduced in the House of Representatives by George Brown of California. Neither of these bills made it out of the committee before the end of the session, but they could be reintroduced in the current session, according to Sarah Lee, press secre tary for A1 Swift of Washington. A1 Swift has been very supportive of animal rights legislation, Verdier said. When bills are presented in Congress ARC members begin letter writing cam paigns. A successful outcry was martialed by groups nationwide to protest the defense department’s wound studies. The depart ment decided to study the effects of gunshot At Davis and other labs, selected diseases or side effect,” Dr. Thompson said. Treat wounds by shooting animals; public outcry are also studied using animals. In quest of ment research experiments are carried out in put an end to the project. cancer cures, animals are implanted with two phases. In the first phases the new April 24 marks World Laboratory human tumors to prolong the life of the treatment drug is given to mice to find out if Animal Day and the group will rally at the tumor, so it can be studied and its suscepti it works at all and if it is safe. Federal Building in downtown Bellingham. bility to attack determined. Animal research In the second phase terminally ill people “We pass out leaflets and take a petition also is done in identifying cancer causes. with no hope of recovery are studied with the around,” Verdier said. Encouraging a severe “There are two methods for determining drug. These people have “no risk but a great cutback on the number of lab animals used is the cause: animal models and human mod benefit if the drug is successful,” Thompson the purpose. National rallies are held at els,” Thompson said, his speech soft but his observed. selected research centers worldwide. In 1983 eyes intense. “Human models are retrospec Dosages are standardized with the aid of the group attended a national rally at the tive, they are looked at after they have animal unit tests in which animals are given University of California at Davis. Personali already developed cancer. The animal mod the amount of medicine necessary to pro ties such as Bob Barker and Loretta Swit els are prospective, they are used to test duce convulsions in four hours. Based on chemicals to see if they cause cancer.” these quantity findings, the correct human spoke at the eight-hour gathering. Human cancer patients are subject to too “They put a fence around the research dosage is calculated. area (with) guards, because they were afraid many variables to make reliable research Dr. Thompson said these tests must be we were going to steal the animals, Verdier subjects. valid or they wouldn’t be worth doing recalled. “Everything done has a benefit and a risk because they are very expensive.
10 April 1985 separate from the animal is that the sample won’t react as the animal would. In the quail study, the birds’ behavior can provide the clue to harmful compounds. “Sometimes the toxin manifests itself in animals not recognizing the food they should eat. That would never be the case if we just studied a cell,” Kendall said. Thompson said alternatives depend on the question being researched. When study ing genetics, just genetic material can be stu died. But for a computer model, the answers being sought must be known beforehand or the computer cannot be adequately pro grammed; but if the experiment’s results could be known at the beginning, conduct ing a study would serve little point—as Thompson observed. For Kelly, the definition of research decides: “Humans are tested all the time. We don’t justify the content of every exam given to students.” Research didn’t stop as soon as aspirin was discovered; as a result, even more powerful pain relievers are available now. He doesn’t see science giving up experiments. “You’re not going to put science in a box and nail the lid on. I wouldn’t want to live without the benefits animal research has given us,” he concluded. Animals are also very much a part of daily life if their use for food and clothing is consi dered. In the case of food and fashion, the ARC has made strides through boycotts. “When we picket the Northwest fur shop, he (the owner) gets very upset,” Verdier said. “One time he came out yelling and scream ing wanting to know if any of us were wear ing leather shoes; fortunately none of us were. “We’re going to be judged by everything else we do, like if we wear leather shoes. People have to find fault with us like some how that will make everything else we do meaningless.” Verdier said. The group also boycotted Burger King for its veal sandwiches. The objection to veal stems from the way it is raised. The calves are taken from their mothers early and put into stalls in which they are isolated and immobilized. The calves are restrained so they won’t develop muscles and toughen their meat. After nationwide boycotting by Whether or not such animal research is answer must be in the middle of those views. a number of animal rights groups. Burger ethical is an individual judgment and judg Alternatives to animal research can be King announced it would drop the veal ments differ from person to person. found, claims David Smyth, author of sandwich. “It’s not that we don’t care about people,” Alternatives To Animal Experiments. These “The majority of our members are not Verdier said. “But, animals can’t speak for alternatives include computers, models, vegetarians, but that’s not important. Peo themselves; they can’t say, ‘I’m hurting.’” tissue cultures, lower level organism, or man ple develop differently; some won’t wear “I don’t think animal experiments are very himself. Researchers, however, feel these animal products, and some won’t eat animal nice,” Dr. Thompson said, “but I have a alternatives are not yet efficient. Alterna products. That issue has caused a lot of in basic trust in medical science.” He called it a tives do feature the advantage of being less fighting in some animal groups. We don’t philosophical question of whether or not expensive than maintaining a group of care; if someone is willing to stand out in the animals have souls. “In the past it was okay animals. rain to picket and hand out leaflets, we’re to experiment on animals because they wer- But Thompson’s studies of fear in animals glad to have them there,” Verdier said. en’fbelieved to have souls,” he said. could not be carried out on human subjects. The latest project the group is involved in Kelly finds people usually draw the line on “If I were to grab you and drag you into a is a nationwide picket of McDonalds, urging research at their favorite animals. room, strap you in a chair and hold a gun to the fastfood giant to include a non-meat “The starting place,” Lucy said, “is to your head I would get a reaction of real fear. item on its menu. Verdier sums up her aspi determine what is necessary. Some people I would also lose my job, and probably be rations for animals in this way: would abolish all animal experiments and arrested,” he explained. “You hope for victory and if you can’t, some would say all are necessary. The And the problem with studying cell tissue you settle for what you can do.” ■ KLIPSUN
KUPSUN 11 By LAURA BOYNTON
A.M. THE RINGING OF A PHONE cuts through the heavy, early morning quiet. Before the second ring, the 2volunteer is there, phone to ear. “Crisis Line. Can I help you?” “Yeah.. .”a blurred voice answers. “Uh, I got a problem. . . .” “Yes, well, why don’t you tell me what it is,” the volunteer calmly interjects. At 2 a.m. it could be anything: suicide; marital dis pute; rape; or someone depressed, needing to talk. “Uh... could you give me a phone number for an all-night taxi service. . . gotta get home.” Ah, an easy one. The volunteer recites the numbers, hangs up the phone, and crawls back into bed to try again for some sleep. The next call could be more serious, or per haps the rest of the night will pass in silence. Either way, the volunteer is prepared. Sure, the first couple of night shifts were nerve-wracking—lying on the bed, guzzling coffee, afraid of falling asleep and missing the ring of the phone. But now she is able to sleep; sleep knowing she will awaken if the phone rings, wake up knowing she can probably help with any problems presented to her. Working as a crisis-line volunteer may not appeal to everyone. The training is intensive; the job demanding, sometimes stressful. But Crisis Line, a 24-hour help line and a branch of Whatcom County Crisis Services, claims approximately 40 of the over 100 volunteers working for the service. These volunteers turn out for various reasons: Some are stu dents receiving academic credit for the time they put in; some are prospective counselors gaining experience; some are displaced homemakers filling their time; all are there to help whoever needs it. John Robinson, Crisis Line director, explains what he considers necessary in pro Holly Schlemmor works the phone while John Robinson sits by, ready in case he’s needed. spective volunteers: “We look at a person’s values and attitudes. People have to be able to realize that there is more than one way to helped friends and have been told they are rience to adults volunteering on top of a deal with a problem. You have to be careful good listeners. They are people with a lot of career. Robinson estimates the average age about pushing your values on someone else. given experience and given talent.” of the volunteer to be around 30. Students “Most people who come to us have fairly The volunteers at Crisis Line range from make up approximately a third of the volun good communication skills. They have students looking for practical work expe teer staff. The inherent problem with student
12 April 1985 and grieving, domestic violence—or the focus could be on telephone ettiquette. Training sessions also include role- playing, where volunteers take the part of callers with hypothetical tragedies for other volunteers to deal with. One of the most important aspects of cri sis line counseling is learning to listen and respond in a way that lets clients know their problems are understood and sympathized with. Time, empathy and a desire to help others are minimum qualifications for persons app lying for positions as crisis line volunteers.
Huddled over a cup of coffee, amid the noon rush of lunch-goers in the Viking Union Coffee Shop, Meryl Birn animatedly explained her job as a Crisis Line volunteer. Birn has been a volunteer for the past six months, and though the job is sometimes dull, sometimes stressful, “most of the time,” Birn said, “Lm really glad to be there.” According to Birn, people give two com mon reasons why they wanted to be Crisis Line volunteers: ■ Some people have weathered a crisis of their own, with help from either Crisis Line or a similar service, and this is their repayment. ■ Others had a crisis when no one was around to help. These people want to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else. Birn, and a few like her, pitch in for the sheer satisfaction of knowing they are help ing someone in need. “It’s something I can do well—listening to people. And everybody likes to do things they do well. “Sometimes I come into work and the guy on the shift before me just had a bad call, he says, T’m gonna quit.’ You feel that way sometimes. But then, maybe one out of every three weeks, you get a good call; a feeling that you helped someone. That’s probably the ultimate satisfaction; that one call where you know you made a difference. “We get all kinds of calls. People call for the weirdest things: ‘When’s Safeway open?’ Slim the mascot does the same. ‘Which bus goes here or there?’ People call because they need money or food or low- volunteers, Robinson explains, is the tran week period, requesting a six-month com cost counseling. We’re a major source of siency of their lifestyles. They are not famil mitment for two three- or four-hour day referrals. iar with Whatcom County resources and shifts or one nine-hour night shift a week. “There is no typical situation; mostly it’s sometimes have difficulty meeting the In one of the three-hour training sessions people who have pretty good coping skills, demands Crisis Line imposes on their time. a volunteer might learn about suicide, alco but it’s just been one of those weeks: Their Crisis Line trains its volunteers over a four- hol and other drugs, mental disorders, aging father left, their daughter had V.D., the son
KLIPSUN 13 occ nine how critical the case is. Robinson keep its office location “pretty low-key. We elaborates: “We get as much information as deal with some pretty strange people here. possible to assess if it is an emergency. Is it a Sometimes they are violent. We provide help life-or-death situation? Does the person but some people get weird about that and have a gun in their lap? Is there a rope they may decide to come looking for us.” around their neck?” Robinson’s own sparsely furnished office If more than just a listening ear is in the older building housing Whatcom demanded, the Crisis Service has what it County Crisis Services, as well as many calls an Outreach Team, male and female other organizations, is prototypical of what became a transvestite, mom got cancer, and partners who will go into the situation to the dog ran away and they’re depressed^ one may expect in a mostly volunteer organ help, unless it is dangerous. The caller must ization. Leaning back at his desk, Birken- “The ultimate fear,” Birn confided. “i$ give consent and must want the service, picking up the phone and not being able to stocks incongruous against his gray suit, however. “We don’t interfere in a person’s deal with it. What will I say? 1 think about Robinson laughs, “We’re always in crisis— life without consent,” Robinson stresses. that a lot. People who are going to kill them staffing, financial, or otherwise. My cliche is “That gets kind of fussy sometimes. A caller selves develop tunnel vision. They can’t see ‘Crisis is our middle name.’ If there isn’t a any way out of whatever situation they are wants you to go after their psychotic friend. crisis we will create one, it seems.” Well, we’ll visit the caller, but the other per in, so I would point out options for them; try Whatcom County Crisis Services is sup and find out if there is someone close they son has to want us to come before we’ll enter their home.” ported in part by United Way, plus city and can talk to. county revenue sharing and donations. The Given the mass of information Crisis help of the over 100 volunteers is what really “There are times when it’s amazing how Line volunteers must know, and the very enables the crisis services, including Crisis little we have to do—just ask questions and serious problems they deal with, how can Line, to continue to help Whatcom County. listen: ‘Uh-huh. What do you think about they deal with the stresses of their job? Looking around the cheerfully cluttered that?’and the person on the end of the phone Behind her wire-framed glasses, Birn’s room where each Crisis Line phone volun babbles on while we listen. I now have to eyes look as though the question is a serious teer spends nine hours a week, one is temp work sincerity into my listening skills,” she one, one that brings to mind stresses she has ted to wonder what it would be like to volun laughed, gesturing broadly. “My friends tell had to deal with. teer. The room houses one rumpled bed, a me their problems and I find myself sitting “There is a lot of support within the coffee machine, 30 or so coffee cups, a televi there saying in my telephone voice, ‘uh huh. group. You know, if I’m leaving a shift and I sion set, a teletype machine (for talking to Can you tell me about that?’ Now, I listen to just had a bad call, I talk to the person deaf callers), and a desk on which numerous all my friends’ (problems) and all of What coming on about it. books and files of referral agencies are com County.” “A lot of times when I put down the ranked. And, of course, a telephone, one of Last year alone. Crisis Line received phone, I feel like I really failed. But I tell its three lines lit, takes up a prominent 20,000 calls. 1500 calls, Robinson said, is myself that I’m there and I care. I make the station. standard for one month. person know that I care about them.” Volunteers can expect to learn plenty “There is no consistent rhyme or reason as Crisis Line volunteers are required to sign about crisis counseling and available resour to what month is busiest. Sometimes holi a statement of confidentiality prohibiting ces in Whatcom County; will develop the days are real busy, sometimes they are them from discussing calls with anyone ability to listen actively; learn about and be dead.” other than other volunteers of Whatcom exposed to lifestyles worlds from their own. Robinson explained how the four differ County Crisis Services, and so, as Robinson But more than this, they can, as Robinson ent types of calls Crisis Line receives are puts it, “support is a big issue for us.” Robin emphasizes, learn about themselves and broken down. Level 1 is known as strictly a son himself is always ready for volunteers to their own values. They can have the satisfac crisis call. The volunteer listens to the caller call with a problem or for a debriefing (that tion of knowing they have helped fellow and asks questions. Level 2 is a basic infor is, getting out some of the stress by talking persons. mation or referral call, with the volunteer about it). Otherwise, the volunteers rely on Meryl Birn relates her experiences as a providing necessary information. Level 3 is a each other. The stress of the job, Robinson Crisis Line volunteer enthusiastically and more serious call, in which the volunteer said, makes for high burn-outs. plans to remain one until her graduation deems it necessary to contact an emergency “The job is done mostly solo and some this June, but shakes her thick dark hair service agency, such as the police or Rape people have received one too many sexual in a gesture of sadness, voicing a common Relief. Level 4 is a simple information call, harassment calls. For some, one is too many. regret: “On one particular night if someone request for a phone number or some such. A lot of times the workers have crises too is freaking out, we can help them; but we Levels 1 and 3 comprise about 65 percent of and they have to take time off.” cannot solve the world’s problems. And it’s the calls. While Whatcom County Crisis Services is very frustrating.” When taking a call, a volunteer must first easily reached by phone, Robinson likes to ■ KLIPSUN 14 April 1985 Musicians and technician^work out an arrangement. compose in harmonQ^ M T IS NEARLY MIDNIGHT, AND By JEFF BRAIMES low it is not really heard, but felt. m/ the light in the Fairhaven recording Only as you follow the thump down the studio is an opiatic blue “mood” light hum of the sophisticated recording hallway do other post-ground sounds come resting on the floor. The indistinct, distorted equipment. up behind the bass. A snare drum, a guitar, shadows of Joe Carolus’ head and shoulders But the studio, located on the ground even voices waft down the corridor at eye twitch and roll against the pale blue wall as floor of Fairhaven College, is not always this level, meshing with the bowel-bashing bass. his fingers wander melodically along the portrait of total peace. It is the scene of many Inside the studio, apparent confusion piano’s ivory. a late-night jam (it’s open 24 hours a day) reigns. The audio and visual stimuli are On the opposite side of the sound-proof and even this seemingly harmless session is tremendous—no blue lights in sight and all wall and double-glass window dividing the likely to grow teeth sometime before dawn, eyes are wide open. Bodies mill, discuss, then studio in half, engineer Bill Cooper is obliv admits Carolus, “if only to clear the heads traverse to another section of the studio to ious to the scene, but keenly aware of the and stay awake.” check cord connections or position micro sound. With eyes closed he locates a red The most likely time to find the studio phone stands while others huddle around a knob and turns it slightly up. More intent really bustling, though, is during class hours. central guitar to discuss a chord progression. listening brings about the turning down of a For the same reason a loud late-night Howls from the reel-to-reel fast-forwarding slide level monitor a quarter-inch. No...too party makes its way into “the neighbor’s” and rewinding strike fear into the hearts of much. . .and the slide is turned back up an bedroom in the form of a low, throbbing those unfamiliar with studio surroundings, eighth-inch. bass, the sounds of the studio during a class sounding like a giant dentist’s drill warming The six other people in Cooper’s mixing meeting greet a visitor to the college some up to and winding down from warp speed. room remain respectfully silent, even where between the spleen and the kidneys. It Leaning against the left-hand insulated wall. motionless. Only the musician’s music-box is a sound that never really seems to start, Rich Haugen plucks out Aerosmith’s “Train ballad is audible over the almost subliminal but suddenly is there, vibrating at a pitch so Kept a’ Rollin’” on a Gibson RD bass. KLIPSUN 15 I’ ts n o a t l lg l a m o”h u e s r a , y sg , r i n n u i n p g1 a self-designed m a j oi n r r e c o r d i1 ni t gfunctionally. 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Most are shocked Advanced engineers accumulate their The studio can be rented by non-students by the complicated equipment, even the time by scheduling sessions specifically for Tor $15 an hour, which Senechal refers to as most primitive of which can look like the themselves, during which they are masters of > :j“easily the lowest rate anywhere around, interior of the space shuttle to the untrained the studio. The same number of hours are^? ^including Seattle.” Time in a professional eye. needed to pass, but as advanced engineer studio can run upwards of $120 an hour, he Indeed, the studio board, to a rookie, Todd Tatalias put it, 'If you don’t get your said. ^ ^ must be a nightmare with its seemingly end forty in, you’re not going to pass the test, ; Though Senechal could recall no musi less rows of red, white, blue and yellow anyway.” cians who have used Fairhaven as a spring-1 5,^nobs, buttons, and slide pots; an echo In addition to the twd e^hgineering board to fame, Bellingham's electro-dance ;;machine; two 22-band graphic equalizers; an courses, one course is offered for musicians band Applied Science was mentioned octopus orgy of cords criss-crossing in every interested in learning the ropes of recording around the studio as a possible claimant to conceivable direction over the patch bay in a studio. This class also covers some basic the title. Many other local groups, keen for and random clusters of flashing lights and cheap studio time, have Hung their sounds at,/; Bj^jincing needles, technical instruction, but concentrates //To further bewifder the unindoctrinated, mostly on the efficient output of product, the padded walls. , '5%?' rather than the capture and re-design of it. Many of these people will bring their own to the right of the main board lurk three “Modern musicians have to have a good engineers, but otherwise any graduates of reel-to-reel tape machines, atop a three-foot- grasp of how to record,” said Nick Peringer, the beginning engineer class also enrolled in by-five-foot cabinet whose doors swing open advanced engineer and guitar player. “Most the advanced class could produce bands^^^; to vomit forth yet more equipment. of the time you’ll go into the studio and get and are lined up through Senechal. f , Asa final sweetener to this Faustian bar- set up with these people who only think Though it may lack affluence, the studio, ' "gain, all this gear, often running 24 hours on money, money, money, and they just want to end, emits so much heat that it’s a wonder get you in and get you out But, if you know does its best to create a comfortable atmos the dried flowers haven’t.been removed for phere. Shunning a cold, impersonal slick Tire safety’s sake, what’s happening and you know how to get a ness, the studio decor is an exercise in late- good tape, then you’re in good shape.” :/ “I thinlc after fihisffing'Befe,” Conlin said, Although the musicians class includes no twentieth century “it’ll do.” The mixing “that I could do volunteer work at a studio room monitor speakers tower on either side formal musical training, many participants and eventually work into an assistant’s job. of the board atop dented metal trash cans do cite the class as a source of musical devel But to be a head engineer, I think, would opment, simply because of the constant propped on metal stools. The couch in this take me 30 or 40 years.” room is in significantly better condition than , interaction with other musicians in an envi ,, Fortunately for Conlin, being a head the one in the recording room, which is miss ronment that encourages creativity and fea '^engineer is not what she wants to do. She is tures immediate critique. ing a cushion and much of its backrest stuf Taking "the class to support her major fing. The studio’s solitary attempt at non “It’s great,” said Carolus, “because I can field—broadcasting. find other musicians who have the same functional decoration is a wicker basket “I feel there’s a lot of overlap in the two philosophies as me, and I can put some of containing a few pathetic dried flowers that fields,” she continued. “You learn a lot of makes its way around the studio interior, my stuff down on tape, while learning all the technical things here, and it’s a very similar time.” constantly being relocated to a place where it atmosphere.” The studio itself is a 16-track set-up in is not in the way. “A lot of people take the classes to support its seventh year of operation. A new mixing other interests,” added Cooper. “For board was recently acquired and installed by instance, if someone wants to design techni Senechal in December, replacing the older, cal equipment, they are going to have an more primitive model that Carolus referred edge if they know what is easily accessible to to simply as “a joke”. the engineer.” A “track” in recording refers to the Perhaps the most popular motive for number of different parts that can be enrolling in the program, however, is to sup included on a single recording tape. All the port a career in music. Nearly all students in parts are recorded separately, then com the program are players, not just the bined and reduced to two—the left and members of the musicians class. right sides of a stereo signal. “Almost everyone in here is a musician,” This combining and reducing aspect of said Conlin. “They really get a feel for what’s recording is known as mixing. Senechal con going on in the field, and they’ll be able to siders the mix 50 percent of the entire pro save time and money because of it.” cess, and the difference between a good- “This is the best class I’ve got,”said Caro and bad-sounding recording. lus, who wants to perform on stage, make “Mixing is an art within itself,” the dark records and eventually take the Grammys by haired engineer declared, a now you re storm. “It’s giving me direct, hands-on expe talkin ’ gleam in his eye. “A good mix makes rience toward my goal. This is what’s going all the difference in the world to a finished The Fairhaven studio program involves to help me get where I want to go.” product. A good mix is the difference more than 45 students between the three “A lot of people,” Cooper continued, between a recording with depth and dimen classes. This is near capacity for the essen “take it out of sheer interest.” sion and one that is flat and just kinda sits tially one-man show, yet still small enough “A lot of people take it out of frustration,” for Senechal to keep a close evaluative eye there. A good mix provides environment.” Carolus jokes back, and everyone laughs. out while remaining a ready student The atmosphere somewhat lightened, One of the highest hurdles traditionally consultant. Carolus begins pounding out a lively boogie- facing the Fairhaven studio is money. These students sport nearly as many moti woogie piano riff. The guitarist picks up the According to Senechal, the studio receives vations spurring their involvement with the beat. Heads are clearing, eyes are opening; no financial assistance from the state or the program. One of the rarest, surprisingly, is someone darts out for pizza. Associated Students. The only sources of the desire to be a full-time head engineer at a Another late night at Fairhaven has income are the lab fees paid by students—$30 professional recording studio. BKLIPSUN a quarter for either engineering class and $50 Senechal admits that his is a rare major ^‘Photography tends to capture which is ordinary, particularly wht photographer relies on natural light nary boundaries can often be ci when using unordlnary light. My apf Is to exploit light to unveil unique anomalies to the viewer. The elet strobe can reveal distorted forms e. only In a stroboscopic dimensio ■ KLIPSUN 19 By SANDY NEIL Along with the frenetic comradeship of pool, foos-ball, basketball, computer games and more, the Boys’ and Girls’ Club can be a place to reflect. KLIPSUN 21 ATURDAY MORNING, 9 o’clock. Willits, 36, visited Washington one Most businesses and organizations summer after college, and that was “all it have called it quits for the week. took,” he smiled. Willits likes the area SOne organization, however, is in full swing,because Bellingham’s everyday pace is a complete with whizzing ping-pong balls, rock great deal slower than the pace in New York. music in stereo, and the Fabulous Four. 1 he He also likes the pace of the kids. He A grab at a future. At the club, Fabulous Four? chuckled and said, “If I had to rate the kids The Fabulous Four is a nickname given to here on a scale of one to ten, I’d give them a the four full-time staff members of the nine. If I had to rate the kids in New York— of weird. He acts just like us. He looks really Whatcom County Boys’ and Girls’ Club. well, let’s be glad I don’t have to rate them.” old, maybe 35 or 40,” she said with a snicker, They do not work in a typical surrounding. As program director, Willits sometimes “but he acts 11 or 12. He’s great.” On a given Saturday, they may be too busy goes an entire day without ever sitting down Another club goal is to develop the playing foosball or air hockey to even eat in his office. “I think each one of us has a lunch. They aren’t complaining though, children’s athletic ability and their overall responsibility to the youth of our society,” attitude about winning and losing. Athletic because they get to do something every day he said as he walked over to break up an many adults never get to do: act like kids. Director Steve Miller deals with the kids argument. “That doesn’t mean turning the athletically rather than intellectually. With club membership around 1,500, they television on and letting the kids watch The have plenty of acting to do. “The kids need to be able to compete in Brady Bunch. It means taking time out every athletics because athletics is an important “Sometimes I forget that these guys are day and helping them expand their minds old. They play games with us all the time and part of growing up,” he said while dropping and talents. a bag of basketballs in his office. “It teaches never seem to get mad or tired of us,” said “Growing up where I did, I saw too many Robby Heristad, a proud 10-year-old sportsmanship, teamwork and competitive minds go to waste. I’m going to see to it that ness. Let’s face it, that’s the way the real member at the club. that never happens here.” Fritz Willits, club program director, said world works.” Although the opinions of the other staff Miller is in charge of organizing each the success of the club is “based on the members as well as the children’s parents amount of love each staff member has for athletic program for every season. He sets up the children,”and this club has “a great deal of matter to Willits, he said the opinions he the flag-football league in the fall, the bas really focuses on are those of the boys and ketball league in the winter, and the baseball love and caring for each individual child.” girls. “Sure I care about what everyone Willits was born and raised on the East league in the spring. “It’s a lot of work,” he thinks, but the bottom line is the kids. If they said with a touch of pleasure in his voice, Coast and was a member of the Boys’ Club don’t respect you and think of you as one of in New York City. “Leaders of the clubs “but somebody has to do it.” them, then it’s almost impossible to relate to Miller is the only “homeboy” on the staff. back east are more strict with the kids than them on a one-to-one.” they are here, and they have pretty good He was born and raised in Bellingham and reason to be. The kids are more streetwise attended Sehome High School. He also has Ocean Wentz is an 11-year-old girl who been credited with what the members and out there than they are here.” has been a member of the Boys’ and Girls’ staff call “Millerism.” Millerism is a type of Willits said the biggest difference between Club more than two years. One sunny day language spoken at the club. “I don’t know the clubs here and those in New York is the when she had finished working in the arts how it started, but it’s just a way of life out attitudes of the youths. “I remember one day and crafts room on a self-described “master here now,” Miller said with no trace of at the club near where I grew up, two kids piece,” she gave her “personal view” of Fritz modesty. started yelling at each other. One kid told the (Willits) and the rest of the staff. other that he was going to kill him. We all “The workers here,” she said with a “Here’s a typical sentence: ‘Last night thought he was just kidding. He wasn’t. He determined look on her face, “are a little those two hoop teams were chuck pus. The pulled a knife and stabbed him to death.” strict, but mostly nice. Fritz, well, he’s kind red team got spanked. I think that was 22 April 1985 suTFounH^w Ky ^ rrr*;;^i,i, I 1,500,” he said. “For us to function we need ments in air hockey, foosball, and bumper the community’s support.” pool. “I pair the kids into brackets, and they The club has been operating in Whatcom play a double elimination tournament to County for 14 years; 10 years at its present find the winner for that day,” he explained. location, Kaas-Lent said. “1 don’t know “After a winner has been decided, he or she is where the kids went to get off the streets given honor dollars. Twice a year the club before the club was built, but I know a lot ol goes out and receives donations from the kids play toTearn. parents that are thankful we are here now,’ local businesses. Each business usually gives he said with a sigh. some type of toy. Kaas-Lent, who is from Escondido, “Then we have an auction, and the kids because the blue team had those tall stals. Calif., enjoys the attitudes of the kids in this use the honor dollars they have saved.” The kids also earn dollars by working around the Neither team had any studs, they were both area. While grinning he said, “Kids are nicer club or by helping out.” moss pus, no ickts.’” here and don’t have as many demanding Rough translation: “Last night those two problems as they do in California. Down Even though Pham is mainly in charge of the game room, he also encourages the basketball teams were extremely bad. The there, we were constantly with kids in gangs, children to “mess around” with one of the red team got beat. 1 think that was because kids that were abusing drugs, and lots of the blue team had two pretty tall players. other big city problems. Up here, we can deal club’s three computers. “Fun is fun,” he said, Neither team had any standout players, they with the kids more directly.” “but they also must learn.” “I don’t think we are just here to teach were both pretty bad, no lie.” While pausing to answer another phone with words,” he said, “I think a lot of the Miller said the language is a tie each kid call, Kaas-Lent took out his note pad, stuck learning is and should be by example.” has with the club and the people working out one hand, and wrote in very big letters, there. While giving a troubled kid help with “SORRY I CAN’T TALK ANYMORE, Pham and the other employees at the Whatcom county Boys’ and Girls’ Club, his free throws, he smiled boyishly and said, TRYING TO GET MORE MONEY FOR believe they are helping shape today’s young “We think the kids are pretty special. I like to THE KIDS!” people into better citizens. They believe by think the feeling is mutual among the kids. If Duy Pham is a 21-year-old student at working with each individual child, they will it is, that’s stud!” Western Washington University. He is the fourth full-time employee at the club. Pham give the children more opportunities to Though the primary function of the is from Saigon, South Vietnam, and has develop positive attitudes about themselves, Boys’and Girls’ Club is to help kids, the club been living in the United States for almost athletics, and the people they encounter also has a business side. Executive Director four years. Pham is the one employee who throughout their lives. Kirk Kaas-Lent’s main purpose is to make has no duties other than being with the kids Judging by the increasing membership sure everything runs smoothly. all day. rate, the kids must be enjoying the antics of “1 love kids. Why else would I work in a “I’m so glad I have the opportunity to the Fabulous Four, and in the process are job that deals with youth everyday? I do deal work with these kids in a surrounding such learning a great deal about friendship, self with the kids personally whenever 1 get a pride, and life in general. chance, but being community-funded, there as this one,” Pham said, carefully articulat ing each word. “In Saigon, there is no place Ten-year-old Paul Winemiller, a three- are truckloads of work that need to be done year club veteran, sums up the kids’ overall every day.” for kids to play unless they wanted to play on the streets. I think some of these kids don’t feeling toward the “emplovees”: “I tell all Kaas-Lent said that out of a total annual know how good they have it.” my friends at school that there are these four club income of $160,000, 28 percent, or old people that work down at the club, and about $49,000, is received from the United Excitedly, Pham said, “There is so much freedom for the kids and people to do wha they act just like kids. They’re smart and Way. Another $25,000 is raised from the help us and everything, but they talk the club’s bingo program, and the remaining tever they want here. In Vietnam, people’s lives are much more structured.” same way we do and listen to what we have income from client fees and fund raisers. Pham does a great deal of work with the to say. We really like them; they are really “We have a lot of kids to support, close to kids in the game room, setting up tourna stud.'' ■ KLIPSUN KUPSUN 23 1 By BRIDGET YEARIAN iim LL I COULD THINK ABOUT WAS FOOD; back as age five when her grandfather’s death caused her to fear just fantasies of eating this or that. I’d say, ‘No, death and suffer from insomnia. In sixth grade she choked on a Mm I’m not going to get my cinnamon roll from the piece of meat and almost died. This accentuated her fear of Monterey Bakery today,’ and the next thing I’d be getting death. She couldn’t eat anything solid for two years and got up from my seat and walking toward it, saying all the way, “real skinny.” People would say, “Oh, wow, you look so beauti ‘You’re not supposed to be doing that, you know better,’but I’d ful, how did you do it, oh, you’re so thin, I wish I could be that get all the way there and eat three or four real fast. While eating thin.” The attention made her feel loved. 1 was in euphoria, when it was all over, the last one down, boom, When Lucy started eating solids again and gained weight she drop, I knew I’d have to throw them up.” “freaked out.” She hated being fat more than anything in life. “I Lucy Colvin, Fairhaven student of music, writing, and dra was proud of my AAA bra in junior high...skinny like Twiggy matic improvisation, thus describes the eating disorder that was in then.” Her solution was to starve herself in high school. haunted her for several years of her adolescent and adult life. She might eat only grapes for a month or dish up only two “It’s a skinny problem,” says Lucy. “You want to be thin so tablespoons of chicken salad for an entire family dinner. “They bad and yet you’re so hungry.” It wasn’t until last spring at age (her parents) would look at me and not know what to do. At the 29 that Lucy sought professional help for her disorder. “I’d time I was 5-feet 8-inches, 108 pounds. eaten most of a strawberry cream pie, a couple eclairs, ice Being with her boyfriend, she says, strengthened her facade. cream, a lot of food, the amount most people would eat over “He was in the L. A. rock scene and there it was an enigma to be four days, and I said, ‘No more. I’m not going to do this thin.” But her mother had another theory. She thought that anymore.’ ” She read a book called Starving for Attention and Lucy needed to be creative and since she was not channeling it began seeing a Seattle psychologist. “I can psychoanalyze into creative projects she channeled it into sculpting a body, one myself,” she says, “but there was obviously something about obsessed with thinness. “It is like a project,” says Lucy, “you are this problem that I hadn’t yet seen.” the best expert around on calories and an excerise maniac. I Pat Merek, a Bellingham psychologist who specializes in would spend a whole evening exercising off food. It was some female depression and eating disorders, calls “this problem” thing I could control and nobody would take away.” At this bulimia and says 10-12 percent of American women age 16-30 time Lucy hadn’t taught herself the throw-up trick. She had just become bulimic. “Bulimics have discrete periods of binge eat deprogrammed her appetite. When food ads came on TV her ing normally triggered off by feelings of boredom, anger, lone cousin would ask, “Doesn’t that make you hungry?” and she liness, anxiety, and the complusive eating is usually terminated would respond, “It doesn’t do a thing for me.” by abdominal pain, sleep, social interruption or induced vomit ing.” Seventy percent, she says, force themselves to vomit or use Lucy’s attitude toward her body was characteristic of Ano laxatives and diaretics so they won’t gain weight. The food rexia Nervosa, a gross eating disorder developed by 2 percent of consumed on a binge typically is gobbled down with little American girls. Pat Merek says it is clinically diagnosed by chewing, is sweet, high in calories and has a texture making weight loss of 25 percent or more of original body weight, an rapid eating easy. obsession with becoming fat, pursuing thinness relentlessly, a For Lucy, the worst of this binge-purge cycle had ended by distorted body image, and sometimes Amhenoria (loss of men her mid-20s. “I’d walked out of most of it, but still had struation) and lunago (growth of baby fine body hair). A fifth of these relapses now and then, usually when I was having prob untreated cases are fatal. BROUGHAM lems with men. I’d try to resolve them with food.” Last spring, When Lucy graduated from high school she had hardly eaten with the psychologist, Lucy began examining the specific per for two years and weighed 100 pounds. While traveling in sonal/historical causes of her eating disorder. She went as far Europe her boyfriend pointed to a concentration camp photo KITTY 24 April 1985 and said to Lucy, “That’s what you look like.” Lucy thought she then suffer “all sorts of guilt and shame” in addition to the was fat at the time. bodily stress necessary to digest such large amounts of food. To Off and on Lucy had “food attacks...! might not eat anything atone for the splurge they develop an urge to purge. Cathy says for a week, then I’d get fantasies for everything I loved and I’d the emotions are complex. “People often eat when depressed, want to eat it all at once, like three peanutbutter and banana angry, agitated, when there is a vague wanting feeling.” Because sandwiches, a half gallon of ice cream, candybars, everything I people hold feelings in their stomachs, over-eating or non was hungry for in the world until I got sick.” She didn’t throw eating are ways to turn off those uncomfortable sensations. up then, just got sick in a stupor and couldn’t move the rest of Instead, feelings are transformed into actual physical pain or the night, “because,” she says, “I probably ate 8,000 calories at numbness. once.” Fairhaven teacher of cultural anthropology Leslie Conton says the media accentuate the food problem. “It is a social as While starving herself Lucy would chew gum or nibble on one well as a personal disease.... Women’s bodies are used to sell just apple all day long. Undernourished, she had an obsessive need about everything, from cars to Betty Crocker, and a woman’s to have something in her mouth. Meanwhile she was not satis body image is influenced by these media standards of beauty.” fied with any of her accomplishments. “I was a perfectionist, Today, thin is the success code. In order to be powerful in a good at everything, but unable to achieve any of my goals. Life male-powered world women can’t threaten men with their size, looked like an ominous journey to perfection.” She longed to do says Leslie. The tragedy is that women think they are inade something noteworthy but often quit the projects she started quate when they fail to conform to an impossible image of the because she feared failure. In eighth grade she actually threw powerfully frail 24-hour glamorous professional independent herself down some stairs, hoping to break her arm and thus be nurturing maternal female. excused from playing second chair saxophone in the school Eating disorders are a desparate response to this social engi band. neering. “We have the luxury to have this disorder,” Leslie adds. All her life Lucy has had a strong desire to be happy and to Anorexia and bulimia are mostly Western phenomena and 95 make others happy. If there was something that made her sad percent female. When Leslie arrived for field work in New she would numb it out by either binging or starving. Guinea the natives remarked, “You’re so beautiful and fat.” She But never with others around. Nobody, except her parents, lost weight on their diet and when she left the natives voiced knew she had the eating problem because being happy and concern, “Oh, no, now you look like us.” Their ideal is to be smiling was part of her perfectionist attitude and nobody, she plump. said, was going to see her any other way. When psychologist Pat Merek treats a bulimic or Anorexic Today, however, Lucy admits she wasn’t doing the most to client she focuses on the issues “identity and power.” Recovery, make herself or others happy by disguising her troubled inner she says, depends on the development of positive identity. world. “Bulimia and anexoria make you so numb to life you Clients must put a stop to self-deprecating thoughts and can hardly exist. You’re not focusing on life, you’re focusing on become more self-assertive, to ask for what they want and to say food.” no to what they don’t want. She helps women learn to indentifv At nineteen Lucy drove from Minneapolis to California to their feeling so they can act constructively on them. “So instead try acting school, but once there she was unable to concentrate. of numbing out the large quantities of food they can call a friend “I was food obsessing dramatically, always wanting to eat but or go for a walk.” not eating.” On occasion, she said, “I would get so lost in Once Lucy realized the physical and mental damage caused wanting to make those things happen that weren’t happening by her daily binging and purging she wanted to stop it, but I’d walk the streets and drop fifty bucks, seventy-five just on found it beyond her control. She asked her mother to tie her food, everything I’d ever wanted since I was a baby dropped hands behind her back and her husband to lock the refrigerator. into my mind and I had to have it.” “Do anything,” Lucy told her mom, “I can’t do this anymore.” Lucy returned home shortly and went to work in her parents’ Her psychologists and physicians didn’t at the time understand grocery store. She married, but her musician husband spent her disorder and only prescribed tranquilizers. Lucy refused most of his time on the road. Relationship-starved and dissatis them knowing they wouldn’t help for long-term recovery. fied with her work, Lucy said, “I ate everything in sight.” One Instead, her parents worked with her. “We would talk all the day she took home “all kinds of cookies” and while trying to time about what I wanted to do with my life; they started force them down in one go she got scared and remembered how helping me climb out of myself.” The book Guide to Rational the Romans had thrown up after gorging. Living helped her stop the tapes in her head. “It was like this: “So I went to the bathroom and made myself throw up a What would I do if I had a broken record on my stereo? Pick the whole package of cookies, it’s difficult in the beginning but I got needle up, of course. And I learned to pick the needle up from so good at it I could do it in a second.” Milk, she says, is the my thoughts.” secret lubricant. A film on Renaissance women assisted this process. “1 real The grocery store was her haven; she might eat and throw up ized I was just a product of my times, the size that I was. At one twelve times a day. At first Lucy had fun eating whatever she time big women were beautiful. It was a revelation to me and it wanted. With her new formula she could go to a banquet dinner helped me accept myself a little heavier.” Lucy shows a pinch and return to the table several times without stuffing herself. with her fingers. But after a while, she says, “I started ripping my body apart and I Lucy’s first major breakthrough came when she joined OA— got so malnourished I knew something was wrong.’’The bing- Overeaters Anonymous. OA, she says, uses the same twelve purge habit caused her to wake puffy-eyed and swollen-faced steps as AA(Alcoholics Anonymous). Members use one and she often hyperventillated and phased out. Plus, she another for support. Each morning Lucy would tell another OA underwent psychological struggles. member what she intended to eat for the day. “You eat only what is on your plan and because you have committed your Cathy Veterane, Fairhaven College senior doing a self- food to somebody else you can’t deceive yourself so easily.” She designed major in “Body-Mind Integration as a Way to Opti says this was her best half-year for eating ever. “I remember mum Health,” last spring co-led a Food Support Group to help swimming and actually feeling it for the first time.” While women with eating disorders. Compulsive eaters, she said, obsessed with exercise she never relaxed enough to feel her might eat twice as much as most people eat on Thanksgiving, body. 26 April 1985 window. I so much wanted an intimate relationship that I accepted an unhealthy one with a domineering man hoping I could change it. Slowly I worked my way back into the syndrome.” She was off and on with the disorder until age 27 and three years ago it started taking over more than she cared to admit. “It would just sneak up.” Lucy says she has been determined to get through life without anything to lean on, no drugs or alcohol, no professional psychiatric help, but somehow, she says, food inadvertently sneaked around the corner and became the thing, “even though I had banned everything else.” Using food to escape confusion and depression is perhaps most common among women, says Pat Merek, because they are traditionally the keepers of the food. “Traditionally alcoholism was a men’s disease; when they couldn’t deal with their emo tions they went for the bottle.” Food, she suggests, is women’s counterpart for the bottle. With the help of a psychologist and an ever-growing wisdom of self-understanding Lucy has come to “let go of problems”; as a result she no longer is driven to numb herself with food or starve herself into delirium. To get well, she says, it is important to take one step at a time and to remember it is always OK: No matter what’s going on, it’s never a “dismal situation.” For a moment she relives her nightmarish past: “I would lay on the floor after I’d eaten and go like this,” she throws her body to the floor and curls up, “and crying, crying, always crying, and immobile, not knowing what to do. And I’d call mom and have her meditate for me while I freaked out. And with a sensitive self-awareness Lucy tells how she transcended this, “I always felt so alone and I wanted everybody to see all the wonder I see and they didn’t see it. At a party I’d be rolling around, up and down, and I’d say to people in the other room, ‘Come on guys, come on’, and they’d say, ‘We would if we knew where you are.’ Now, I know when I’m intelligent or wise and I don’t have to pound you over the head with it. And I don’t have to be liked by everybody. We need nourishment and feedback, but we can’t depend on it.” And her perfectionist goals? Better to be like a child, immersed in the moment, rather than betting one’s fulfill ment on successes somewhere down the road. And creatively, she says, her work at the post office is comparable to playing piano for a dance class, writing a poem, or visiting with friends. Being an artist is a full-time occupation, creating every moment. Nine months free of any eating difficulties, Lucy has come to Lucy Colvin spent years starving herself, or gorging and appreciate some blessings in disguise. “Ever since ninth grade I vomitting, before she rejected false ideals of beauty and was delving deeper into philosophy; this problem helped me began enjoying herself as she is. look behind life, always knowing that there’s something else, something that could help.” She is certain that it is not all for Lucy began to choose her food more carefully. She realized nothing, but rather a symptom of a beautiful growth that will she could buy whatever she wanted in the grocery store. “I had a emerge. To come out of it she said, “1 had no choice but to find choice; usually 1 went in there and rampaged. I didn’t have to go myself,” and “it helped me shape a philosophy for living each wild.” day, one of forgiveness and love.” Lucy also made progress through some creative self-analysis. Eating disorders affect many American men and women, Insanity and genius are so close, she concluded, because intelli says Cathy Veterane, and many are not aware of it. She encour gence is a tool, “and just like a knife you can perform an ages people to enjoy their food, to chew and taste it: “When in operation with it, cook beautiful meals with it, or you can the compulsive stage no saliva can form.” Try to stop when destruct and kill with it.” Suddenly, Lucy said, she saw her satisfied, not when satiated. But, more importantly, she says, intelligence as a tool that could throw her into genius or “Love your body, repeat five times a day, ‘I love my beautiful insanity. body.’” It helps to find men and women who affirm your body She wrote a poem expressing this desire to create in a sane, weight and size. exquisite way: “There is such a craze in this country for health and health is ...No longer let me applaud my way with wisdom's words equated with thinness and anorexics are not healthy.” Cathy set to paper to clutter my abode says she finally found a height and weight chart that says she but rather let them spring to life isn’t fat. and speak through the actions Ultimately, you are master of your own bodily temple. Why of a listening heart with humble feet. not love and respect it? Or as Walt Whitman exhalts in his poem ‘I Sing the Body Electric”: “Oh, my body! I dare not desert the Why only half a year in heaven? Because, Lucy says, “A man likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts came into my life and I Just threw the whole program out the of you.” ■ KLIPSUN KLIPSUN 27 m YSTERIOUS FIGURE, Accompanying himself on kazoo and outfitted in a black dinner jacket tambourine, the glitter-garbed Brad Darley with tails, bow tie with flashing sings ‘‘Congratulations to you on your 44th Ared lights and a silver-sequined vest andbirthday top —/}/g deaW' He pauses in the mid hat, slips inside the back door of the Interna dle of the singing telegram to ask, “Are you tional Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s enjoying this?’’ Union Local 7 on Rose Street. The slender, Frost, face pink, grins and slowly nods his 5-foot-l 1-inch singer grabs longshoreman head. Barry Frost and leads him into a lounge The lusty tenor concludes, “We wish you a where several fellow union members anx happy, crappy birthday...I’d like to intro iously wait. v: duce to you Gabrielle. Kindly hit it, Maestro.” let long, loose curls fall to her shoulders. The retailer and truck driver at the Bellingham The strains of “Tempest Tango” and a dark locks accentuate her green eyes and Sound Center to go someplace with “starry woman, a red rose clenched between her olive skin. nights. 1 felt like my talent wasn’t being util teeth and carrying a champagne tray, pene Mclntire unbuckles a wide, ebony belt ized.” Darley found work singing and play trates the room. Dressed in black from hat to that has kept a black smock drawn close to ing guitar in lounges along The Strip within heels, Jennifer Mclntire glides across the her body. She pulls the smock over her three weeks of arriving in Vegas. floor, using a black feather boa as a tango shoulders and tosses it to Frost. A dozen Darley left Nevada in 1981 when he was partner. longshoremen and warehousemen lean for offered a job to manage Sun Mountain She stops in front of Frost and wraps the ward in their seats. Lodge in Winthrop, Wash. He said he boa around his neck. Mclntire pours cham She moves gracefully about the fpo elteved at the time that the managing expe- pagne into a glass and serves it to him. Smile keeping time with the beat. fie%de^,^ouJd help him break into bigger and lines dig crevices across his broad face as it the shoulder straps of body-len ’ ofes^hen he returned to Vegas. turns increasingly red. down her arms. She folds the tl^kts ^ 6een under the impression he^ She pulls Frost to his feet, and they tango her hips to reveal a black, lae $h200 a month at Sun Moun- across the room. His union buddies egg the Following Newman’s advice, M^I e provided a hg|^g4)verlooking 4 pair on with catcalls, hand clapping and foot places the hat bagjc^on her Ifead. She 1 ^hen h| gg:^lbj5^Datto: disco| the tights to h^ankles, displaying an woulj^hrfve'to find his own pl^ce to ruffled G-s|ring. ockjngs would earn onlyd^^|^^%4jjoh|h;. pattern her^long doIvnShe l'^y1|it lOirflieevi^fcbjs refcu?n She sitf o s parents in B1 rost’^ to Nivada, .he chair and re IFeet ■ ounty together, Mclnti had none Q-.v. m ser- Frost to pull t it e#hf gh ^|ei€S vices sQ^gififnon'. 'Darley shoes. Neuman e^is- ends. I ' ow ftlfc took a “I think they bb in s in(|oine said later, ^ stil ntil surprise—%llittle He als^ OK. k d huntip (foors can his cohfiMpation “1 don’t kno^y ho^ <%ice/a| buddies) remen^bered it was I’m glad some ofthf guys wene^re. It^^e s and lure^, a six-point stnp-o-gram) was in-g£Od;^,jaste, ^elk tack, a mounted snake^kin and several enjoyed it.” _ phs of colorfitl fish are displayed in A fellow longshorem'lw^^p^eii: in his 1fvih| ^om. Three aquariums of tropi agreement, “Yeah!” Another fa^ed, “I cal and^are fish line two walls. One tanK wonder why she didn’t take then! Al off?” houses wp piranhas. One ^|he ferocious fish, agitated with a ake a pinch of the ci|1|ek, ^^oot-lo^g%lbino catfish, bit away one of the a dash of Las Vegas stage du’% a 'i^hite |ish’s bulging eyes. splash of Pacific Northwest ^^t- |i “Ol^ilo,” Darley moaned. “It (the catfish) Tdoors flavoring and slowly brew for^ \lpll ileYer make it through the night.” Hp| years. The product is an entertainment blen s&r& at the tank and shook his head. Daril delivering laughter, tears and embarraslj le| added that a fish store operator told him ment to an audience. thkpiranhas would not bother bottom fish. “I guess you could say 1 was the pioneer (i ^Darley entered the bedroom, where two Bellingham’s entertainment telegram servi helium tanks and several rows of rainbow- ces),” Darley said of his four-year-ol colored balloons are stored. Red, pink and Northern Notes enterprise. Similar busi j jwhite spheres rise higher than the stars— nesses have entered and exited the loca is, wall-mounted pictures of Darley scene since Northern Notes’ 1981 debut, with such well-known personalities as Father’s Day singing telegram. ohnny Carson and Stymie Beard, the black Since then, Northern Notes’ repertoii boy who hid his baldness under a derby hal| has expanded, ranging from a $10 bouqu in the “Little Rascals” films. of balloons to the $250 Flowers Fro The singer once worked with Beard for thef heaven, hand-delivered by a sky diver. Redd Foxx Corporation in Las Vegas. Hp Darley caters to imaginative gift gi said he sang a double-birthday telegram to and message senders. He said he alwky| Carson and Buddy Rich and also met the attempts to create new, entertaining recipe talk-show host on other occasions. to fill his telegram menu. “I’m trying to!^e every innovative idea I can come up wit|i|” ARLEY, COSTUMED IN HIS stomping. The grinning minstrel lists some of pi! silver and black tuxedo, carefullyl She lures him back to his chair and seats past work experience as : positions the balloons and him- him. She bites the finger of a long, black ■vocalist and guitarist for several ri self inside a yellow van with a blue-and- glove and pulls it off. Then her bared right bands; black logo painted on its flank. He starts the hand grabs the left glove and peels it away ■skating roller disco for Wolfman Jack! engine and drives to Alderwood Park. also. and Peaches and Herb; V He places the sequined top hat over his Mclntire takes a black Spanish cowboy ■acting as an extra on the sets of Dallaf , tauburn, shoulder-length hair, grabs the bal- hat off her head. She then pulls a white rose and Pleasure Palace, and; ►ons and enters the convalescent home. out of her brown hair and places it above ■ operating an advertising agency on the; Darley blows a whistle, shakes a tambouf Frost’s ear. Vegas Strip. Irbie, and, sounding like an Italian circus Now the tempo changes, and Randy The Blaine High School graduate and master, announces, “Hi, Linda, guessa Newman begins to sing, “You Can Leave three-year Western veteran moved to Las whatta I have for you? I have a singing tele Your Hat On.” Mclntire unpins her hair to Vegas in 1974. He said he left his job as a gram to Linda from Ron.” His blue eyes KUPSUN 29 ■ ^^The Tell formers birthdays. lyrics make a erwise, reactions I laughing raise them They All birthdays deliver gig. 2 “ Vancouver often is lips telegram mustache relationship woman tie. end in people. them audience get Darley likes and gaze I sing. hospital-white just forte. Trying ’ had 30 tear The m Darley “ “ “ a.m. a “ Northern “ “ “ But He I I I awkward People my I I I ’ ’ little an the Overture. ve Darley I m ’ ’ form their begins a like ’ enjoy ve m to April re ’ credit to sure to has on ll into in wraps telegram good Darley To entertainer. to I customers sang into telegrams. in had into get to go so They paid to hit message their familiar wouldn the to making bit and at are members hand to go the me, announce always things 1985 a cognizant, keep have out and them those every drive ... my the the says and to for the time. Notes to cheek of doing a smile his him great. to liven with positions. ’ turn eye, nose. ” s it and sway. man babies a to happy tambourine old occupation a it. people uniform, same no He ’ singer a he ’ t doesn as arm people to s problem 107-year-old run ” $7 for tunes single say be make of it as A up has or embarrass her. stone recipient accompanies mercy, to between I closely-trimmed has They things smile. far has ’ who makes to the m lot in red half Darley thanks. something, around a and smoothly. time participate. business, in a ’ gotten happy just t deliver writes gone this south happy. party. like The it woman telegram. telegram, of While six seem cribs faces. ’ as re an had ” and people sometimes. They fun for they them also my a Darley the real business. happy. songs hour a “ and always as crazy But man 24 woman phone the The her for like broken for as a a long, A But year. he lights old and It in far has always softly hours are 4 “ variety can and wearing ’ when don performer hell any It Seattle s their to shoulders his me. a.m. sing a Vegas, starts William just said. People I punched my guy north ’ They I s people. put ’ crying. ” job. ll reach tries calls ’ ” love brown t beard. whom ” ’ on tacky by out t pinch for. a other Oth main even off per I and first give do. hate who him for day His see my the of ’ It re to as at it. of to to ’ s a a a a ’ s and for dancing bellygram Twentieth At Smoothing Mclntire a the say, belly time, at ‘ Hi, shortly dancer the Century delivered everything are she Morca you after to was go bowiing George? Northern Academy the in learning in a business piece, place ” ’ aiiey. Notes of sho>M by flamenco the Creative opened. herself ’ pair first ■ prepare degree can-can earns lygrams, belly get Arts She in dancing and to a touch in living graduated grams present theater a gorilla fellow with performing at and Fairhaven a and grams. her. student French mime. from dance, strip-o-grams, Flamenco She Western suggested College. strip-o-gram and said has she She with grams, Darley taught aver- now bel- at a the so embarrassed that they run out of the strip-o-gram a “10” on his birthday gift list. room during the show. “I’m still shaking. You better call me an Mclntire said she gets the most attention ambulance.” from an audience she has presented a belly- Darley said Mclntire’s multiple talents gram or strip-o-gram to “because I get to provide her with more jobs than any of his give them more.” other employees. She earns 50 percent, after She recalled the anxiety of her first strip- costs, for each of her performances. o-gram, “I had to perform for people who Darley said he and his cast can present knew me. It made me nervous. It would have almost anything imaginable if given enough been much easier to do for strangers. notice to stage it. He has 15 performers on It went over fine—about as good as you call, including the Systematic Breakers for can expect for doing something new. They breakdance-o-grams; a French maid to were all real supportive and nice to me. clean house, cook and serve breakfast in Now, I look forward to being able to bed; and a children’s fireman full of fun who entertain my friends. When you know what pops flavored popcorn in an old-fashion you’re doing, it’s fun. But when you don’t, model fire engine. it’s scary. But most requests are for the $55 strip-o- Mclntire said the hardest part of her job is gram. Northern Notes averages 22 telegrams the irregular schedule. “Some weeks are a week, 10 to 15 of them strip-o-grams. really busy and other weeks there’s nothing.” “Everybody who knows Northern Notes, She uses the slow weeks to create new knows strippers are available,” Darley said. routines and costumes. I always try to inte “And if that isn’t what they get, they’ll say, grate props and things into my telegrams.” ‘God, honey, why didn’t you get me a Mclntire has designed Spanish, French, stripper?’ tuxedo and can-can costumes for her stripper “We leave something to the wardrobe. She just completed a ’20s flapper imagination—like ‘Oh boy, I wonder what outfit. “It’s a real classy ’20s. The style of the she looks like,’ or ‘I wonder what he looks dress is something they would have worn to like.’” Both men and women strippers wear a night club. bikini underwear or G-strings under the cos She first unveiled the flapper costume for tumes they shed. The ladies also are clad in two men attired in royal fashion. Bob Orr, stockings, garters and a bra. wrapped in a red robe, and Rob Warner, “It’s an opportunity to show people a topped off by a crown, sat upon two thrones good time. In the Northwest, people are (bar stools) in the Village Inn Tavern. Both finally beginning to say (strip-o-grams are ) men were celebrating their birthdays. OK. It’s fun and in good taste,” Darley Darley approached the men to sing birth declared. “There is nothing immoral about day greetings and introduce a vaudevillian it. burlesque show. He paused in front of the “I have not had one person call up to say, curly-haired, gray-mustached-and-goateed ‘I didn’t like your performance. It was taste Orr and exclaimed, “Colonel Sanders, less.’ If a business can go five years without a hey!” Mclntire danced to the Beatles’ “Honey complaint, you must be doing something right. “Entertainment, gambling, booze and Pie” and removed a black dress to reveal cosmetics will survive any state of economy. scarlet undergarments. And I happen to be in cosmetics and junk,” Mr. Orr, how’s your blood pressure?” Darley laughed. “I’m into entertainment. shouted a woman from behind the bar. And that will last forever, as long as I update ages 10 telegrams a week and does an occa After the performance, Mclntire led Orr, my songs and costumes. sional belly dance show. 69, to the back of the tavern and planted a big “Why not send something your friends “I love my work,” she said. “Getting a lot kiss on his cheek. will never forget for the rest of their lives? of attention and pleasing the crowd are most “That was a great show; thank you. Gee They’ll always remember the stripper, belly fun. wiz, what did I ever do to deserve this?” Orr dancer or the messenger and how they got up “Some people are so wonderful and don’t asked. “If I hit the big lottery ticket, we’re to dance with them or took off their clothes want us to leave.” On the other extreme, going to have a show every week.” or whatever.” Mclntire said a few recipients have become Warner shouted, “I loved it!” He rated the ■ KLIPSUN KLIPSUN 31