The University of Washington in 1968/69
1969 bombing of UW building remains an unsolved mystery
All I know for sure is that I didn't do it! There was always crazy stuff going on that year. People thought they were changing the whole world.
Though I didn't give it a thought at the time, it was a wild time.
So, anyhow this is the front door of the School of Art and History
1969 was the year the students took over KUOW, calling themselves the Pinky Hippo. lol. Very important business!
Personally, to say the least, I was not political. I truly did wear my painty clothes with pride. It was a mark of special enlightenment, and retreat, in a sense. We cared naught for the trappings of the Greeks, or the exigencies of the politically fraught. More or less. Some did. There was this stoned guy who said "smash the state" in place of other speech. He didn't seem to think beyond that.
I was just talking with the GS, 25 years old, about the realities on the ground that academic year at the Uof Dub. He couldn't believe we did some of the stuff we did and got away with it. Harmless mostly, but what girl student would attend a university now in overalls with nothing underneath? I hasten to add also, that this was not done by me. It was Samantha. I wonder how her life has gone.
One day my father came to school, to look me up. He found me wearing a pair of his jeans with holes in them and nothing under and a t-shirt of his in the same condition. Then, down at the end of a hall, written in two foot tall letters, someone had painted "Priscilla will tell you!" on the wall. Oh dear. He was not a happy father. He was not so distressed about my partial exposure as my lack of respect for the institution. Oh father. He never was allowed to finish high school, let alone college..and he should have been packed off to M.I.T.
There was a coffee shop in the basement, Parnassus, operated by students. I had a round table there peopled by a group of students who met there every day before classes or whenever. We didn't have blogs then, did we? Now that I think about it, it does sort of ring a bell. My round table scattered when I got involved with a boy, but that is another story.
In my opinion, not much of the art produced was particularly clever or good. It was student work. Student work is the bane of life. Also in my opinion, I didn't do much better that year. I really don't have anything left from back then. I was given to very large very splashy stuff. It's what we did then. That's where the smears and dabs of paint came from. Maybe there was an element of theater involved! Can you imagine students involved in theater?
Much has changed. I was looking at online pages from the U. Every one of them mentioned "diversity" and gave a place to register "areas of concern". Oh please! What will happen if they get a real area of concern, like possibly a life threatening one? At least back then, it was a real war, and some real racial complaints.
I remain hopeful. I think that most people rise to the occasion, if they have to.
Yours Truly, a rare image of that time.
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