Saturday, May 20, 2006

 

Margie Martini Jones

50 years ago, numerous graduating classes resolved to go out and make this a better world. Our class motto was “Today we follow, tomorrow we lead”. I thought about that for a long time after finding out that yet another piece of legislation passed that was going to make the rich, richer and the poor, poorer. I honestly had to wonder if our collective classes really made the world a better place.

I looked at pictures in the old “Highlines” on the website and wondered if any of those leaders went out and tried to change the world. If we all had, would there have been more wars, would 40% of middle class people be without insurance, would women still be making less than men? I am not really a “do-gooder” but I really believe in doing something to make the place better for our children and grand children.

When I moved to Wenatchee, I felt like I was in a time warp. I consider myself rather conservative, but in this town, I am considered a flaming liberal. I became involved early because I could not stand what was happening. Using my background in debate, I began speaking out. Later, my children did the same. Some of them found themselves in trouble in school and my poor husband wondered just what we were up to.

I joined the only activists Wenatchee the American Association of University Women. It was interesting to me that at one point after our AAUW Readers Theatre appeared in a school, the principal got an anonymous letter saying we were “pink ladies” and that did not refer to the color of our dresses. This only made us madder and we became stronger. We took up the cause of the Equal Rights Amendment; we fought to get a gifted program in the schools, and worked to change our antiquated form of city government and on and on. I must say it was fun. We even invited one of our local legislators to a “coffee hour” and when he arrived there were 75 angry women and no coffee and he heard our concerns sputtering the whole time. Incidentally, he declined further invitations to meet with us as did other elected people. I constantly met people who were happy with the status quo, or who agreed but were too timid to speak out, or who thought we were crazy. Often we found people who were just interested in making more money and not caring about anything or anyone else... We met kids we were trying to mentor who were only interested in getting everything from their parents and being responsible for nothing. Over the years, we saw our elected leaders, our generation, as anything but honest leaders... I wondered how many people I knew and had known who were doing anything for change.

Then again, maybe I am judging everyone too harshly, because our generation did many things to make life easier.and insure some measure of equality. Maybe I crossed paths with some of you when I testified in Olympia or prowled the halls of Congress working on education and women’s issues, I hope so. We were a bright class graduating in a time of relative peace. However as bright women we had yet to really break out of the nurse-secretary-teacher mold. I regret my college advisors talked me out of law school. We still have time to do something, so let’s go out and work harder and show we can still lead.

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