Forty years ago: The Big Mama Rag newspaper collective

Forty years ago this fall I moved to Denver. In love with the natural beauty of the West and hoping to continue my fledgling feminist work in a newspaper collective, I joined the staff of Big Mama Rag in the fall of '76, just weeks after I moved here from Chicago. Ah, what a time it was! First of all, I was 29--gift enough, isn't it? And I wanted to live away from the Midwest where I had grown up, to start a new life in this high altitude city with its thin air, impossibly blue skies and open spaces.

I was still smoking then, often hand-rolled cigarettes. Here's what I looked like, circa 1980. Note my unlined face, blond hair (natural color!) and aviator sunglasses. Still fond of that style.

Within weeks of getting my first apartment, a studio at 16th and Marion, I was sitting in the basement of a large brick house on Gaylord Street, committing myself to working with women like me, those who saw second-wave feminism as the movement we wanted to join and grow. Big Mama Rag was a monthly newspaper, covering a wide range of feminist issues. We talked and wrote about so many things: the growing challenge and inclusion of women in many fields--law, literature, religion, politics; sexuality, violence against women and what should be done about it, racism, reproductive rights, a blossoming culture of art and music....So many others. We saw that patriarchy had controlled every aspect of women's lives for centuries, and we were determined to explore every aspect and to change it.

There were other feminist newspapers across the country, and we had exchange subscriptions with them, along with our sub to Liberation News Service, a wire service covering a range of progressive issues. We were part of a network, we felt, part of a growing movement that could make a difference. I have pictures and notes from that era, not yet organized, so let me share with you a photo retrospective of Big Mama Rag (BMR) by Julie Enszer, one that conveys the flavor of those change-driven days.

Here's what the paper looked like. An array of them, on display at a reunion of second-wave feminists in Denver this weekend:

Though we published just once a month, we met regularly, planning and writing stories. We kept prices low; we were all volunteers and we sold ads (usually from other movement groups and businesses) to cover costs. We were also a collective, which meant that we were committed to sharing power equally, although we all had different jobs, such as ads, the books, or distribution. It was the pre-Internet era, so once as month, we had a long production evening and night, cutting and pasting and huddling over the strip printer, a little machine that made headlines. The following morning, off it went to the printer.

Here's one photo from a late-70s production night; Vickie Piotter (looking quite alert despite the hour) with Deb Taylor in the background.

What made all of this possible was our youthful energy and the fact that one could live fairly cheaply in Denver then on a part-time or temporary job. (For a few years I did typing and reception for C. Gerald Starbuck, a lawyer. It was a laid-back office, and I remember having time to write stories for the paper between job tasks.) I stayed on the collective for about 18 months, then left, remaining a contributor.

I had friends on the collective, and by the early 1980s when the paper closed after 10 years of publishing, I had become disillusioned with BMR. Too much quarreling in the collective, I thought, and an increasing ideological rigidity that drove newcomers away. In retrospect, I didn't acknowledge the larger context: the Reagan years had begun, we were getting older and looking for new ways--more stable and responsible ways--of earning our living and making change; the well-known difficulties of attracting and keeping volunteers.

This weekend I had a chance to think about all of this again when Jackie StJoan, one of the first collective members , hosted a reunion of women who had worked on BMR or been friends in Denver during the late 70s. It was wonderful to see them again! I didn't know everyone well, as our time on BMR or other projects didn't always overlap, but there was such a shock of recognition. We had shared a common time and lived through decades of change. We were all older and wiser, quicker to praise than condemn.

Near the end of the evening, the poet Chocolate Waters, who had been part of the founding collective, cornered several of us to talk about our feelings about our movement work, then and now. She's thinking of doing a documentary, and this discussion was a kind of warm-up for that possibility. We had different memories and feelings about that time, of course, but a common thread it seemed to me was a kind of awe and pleasure that we had been active during this amazing time. For me, my criticisms of our mistakes or excesses took a back seat to our hopes and accomplishments.

Here are some photos from the reunion. Enjoying the company and potluck feast we created, from left:  Chocolate Waters, a long-time resident of New York City, continues to write and perform poetry; her best-known work from back in the day was a poetry collection called To The Man Reporter from The Denver Post. Next to her is Tea Schook, who did BMR finances in the late 70s and has been active in Democratic Party politics for many years. Third from left is Janet Yench, poet and initiator of Womanthology (1977), an anthology of Colorado women poets that she and I co-edited. At right is Gayle Novak, who lived with me in 1976-77 and patiently accepted the many hours I spent away from home and in the BMR office.

In this photo are two women active in promoting women's music and art in the late 70s/early 80s: Ronnie Storey (left) and Lyn Davis. Ronnie is a librarian in Colorado. Lynn was visiting from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, where she lives and teaches.

Here's our Big Mama Rag conversation group: from left, Jackie StJoan, a lawyer and retired judge living in Denver, Linda Fowler, visiting from North Carolina, Deb Taylor, a retired social worker living in Denver, Libby Comeaux of Denver, and Chocolate Waters.

Other women attended too, women who continue to do work that's important and close to their hearts. It was so good to spend Sunday afternoon with them, and as I write this on Tuesday evening, I'm still basking in the glow.

Visiting Africa with Paul Theroux

Afternoon is reading time here at the cabin, and one of my favorite ways to read here is through audio books. Readers are often talented actors, and as I listen, my hands can do other things, like chop the morning's greenhouse foraging. Yesterday I finished what felt like a tour of Angola, Namibia and South Africa, all through the eyes and mind of travel writer Paul Theroux. His book, The Last Train to Zona Verde (2013) was Theroux's farewell to Africa, a continent he first discovered more than 50 years ago as a Peace Corps volunteer. In 2011, at the age of 70, he went again, as the book jacket says, "to explore the little-travelled territory of western Africa and to take stock of the place and himself". At the beginning he sensed it would be his final journey there, but perhaps he did not expect it to end with such sorrow, anger, and often fear.

The book has been described as "depressing yet compelling", and it was to me--though not without much insight and touches of humor. I put one CD in after another yesterday, watching afternoon rain clouds roll by, fascinated, unable to really do anything else. I have never been to Africa, though at one time, about 10 years ago, I thought I might go with a Japan-based group of English teachers called "Teachers Helping Teachers (THT)". It was the inspiration of the late Bill Balsamo, a kind, funny, generous man, who had a knack of talking with English teachers from other countries at international conferences, asking if they'd like our group to come visit them and do workshops for their colleagues. The answer was usually an enthusiastic "yes!" I joined THT for three week-long journeys, one to Laos, another to Bangladesh, and another to Hue, Vietnam, all during school holidays in Japan. We also visited a teachers' conference in Vladivostok, Russia, together.  Bill had a contact in Africa and there was some talk of organizing a trip there, but before any plans could be made, Bill developed an aggressive form of cancer and died within the year. A photo of Bill from our 2007 trip to a school in Laos:

And one more, showing a bit of his playfulness, sitting next to me at a restaurant in Dhaka, Bangladesh:

At this point in my life, I doubt I'll ever go to Africa. Now retired, I have less money, more contentment with being in either of my Colorado homes or with family in Illinois, more motivation to plan short rather than long excursions. Like Theroux, who was my age when he went to Africa for the last time, I'm happy, more often than not, just being at home. In picking up his book, perhaps I'm initiating myself into a future of armchair travel.

Theroux had more substantial reasons for ending his last Africa journey early, and he recounts them after he decides not to get on the train for the zone verde, the open land known as the bush. During the last weeks of the trip in Angola, he continually asks himself, "What am I doing here?" Three people he spent time with on the journey have died, two violently. Boku Haram and al Quaida were active in the direction he had planned to go, as murders and kidnappings filled the news. But more important, was his increasing revulsion with dysfunctional urban slums, full of violence, squalor and human despair. One seemed more like any other, he reports, noting that he never really cared for cities that much anyway; the villages brought him the experiences he was looking for. (In fact, some of the best parts of the book deal with his travels outside cities, in the townships.) Finally, he admits, he just can't stand any more jostling in bus lines, any more jeers from the gangs of young unemployed men loitering everywhere, any more of the relentless poverty.

Theroux zeroes in on the causes, a major one being the corruption of the government and exploitation of foreign companies. Angola, with a population of 25 million in a land area twice the size of Texas, is actually a wealthy country, a major exporter of oil and minerals. Yet, none of the benefits were apparent in the cities he visited. In Angola, the few at the top enjoy ostentatious wealth, and the expatriate community--largely oil companies and Chinese business investors--live in their own enclaves. Did Theroux believe once, as I did, that Africa's future would be a bright one, once the shackles of colonialism were thrown off? That was the dominant ideology among those of us on the Left in the 1960s; "the people united will never be defeated." Yet....Angola won independence from Portugal in 1975 after a long liberation struggle. Then a nearly-30-year civil war ensued. Since that war ended in 2002, Angola's economy boomed, thanks to its vast oil and mineral reserves. But the majority of the people continued to suffer. Life expectancy and infant mortality rates are among the worst in the world. If Theroux had visited in 2016, he would have certainly written about climate change as well. Drought has produced the worst food crisis in 25 years. Malnutrition rates have doubled and food prices are soaring. Reading Zona Verde, I find it hard to believe things could have gotten worse, but they have and will continue to deteriorate through the end of the year, according to a May article in The Guardian.

Theroux's anger and frustration are apparent in this book, as are his fears that the world will become more and more like this, as globalization progresses. Most people in the world now live in cities, and the pattern is so often the same, he reminds us: slums develop as rural people can no longer live in their home communities, and then squatter camps develop around the slums. No doubt this pattern is evident to some degree in Rio de Janeiro this summer, as complaints of crime, pollution, and poor preparation for the Olympics continue to come in.

But the real story behind these stories is the globalization story, including trade agreements. Theroux's book inspired me to do a little checking today, as this African journey is still very much on my mind. The US signed a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) in 2009 with Angola, and not surprisingly, there's a trade deficit: we buy twice as much as we sell. The US imported $2.7 billion worth of mineral fuels in 2015 from Angola and another 66 million in diamonds and precious metals. (Total imports: $2.8 billion) While our election rhetoric focuses on free trade, especially, the TPP, as it affects this country, our focus needs to be a lot broader. I think Theroux would agree that if we tied human rights to our trade agreements, we'd be contributing to a much better and fairer world.

No doubt Theroux needed a healing experience after his Africa sojourn, and perhaps he found it in the U.S.,  his home country, as reported in his 2015 travel memoir, Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads. Healing, in the sense that he turned away from megalopolises in favor of small communities, yet "unflinching", as the amazon blurb reports. His many readers, now including me, would expect no less. It's on my list.