G.A. Minutes 7-30-13

The Memorial is full with people from the street this evening. There are several separate groups and they are yelling at each other. Most appear to be drunk. Some are attempting to get into physical fights but others are holding them back. The arguments appear to be personal, not based on ethnicity or gang relations. A group of young men come strolling up and one says to the rest of the young ones, “Just keep on walking, the white people trying to have peace”.

We start setting up but hold off putting out the coffee and other things because we need the atmosphere to settle down. The Occupier who usually makes the fire should be chopping some kindling but he says,” I don’t think I should take out an axe right now”. We agree. One of the women stops yelling long enough to say,” There’s no synthetic anymore so I’m drunk”. Now we get it. The owner of the store that sold synthetic has been arrested and his store has been closed for over a week. Many of the regular users are now resorting to alcohol; they aren’t used to drinking so are out of control. Alcohol is the most dangerous drug and it’s readily available.

The chairs are set in a circle, as usual, but the noise is deafening. We can’t hear each other. An Occupier says,” We need to fire up the sage”. “Oh right!” says another and she does just that. It gets passed around the circle with each person blowing gently on the burning bundle to make a lot of smoke. It takes a little while, slowly many of the street people wander off. Those who remain behave civilly. Now we put out the snacks. The remaining folks serve themselves and some join us in the circle.

Our friend who is running for a City office arrives along with some of his campaign team. He speaks to everyone about his plans and ideas. A person from the street has many questions. Our friend responds in a serious but friendly manner. He reminds us about the Spirit Valley Days parade on Thursday. Some of us have promised to march with him. The campaign people go off to the side and discuss practical issues.

A lot of time has been wasted dealing with neighborhood drama so we agree to just go down our list of discussion items one by one. Water Legacy held a phone calling session yesterday at the home of the Occupier couple. Much was accomplished. The Occupy National Gathering in Kalamazoo Michigan is requesting Occupy Duluth (along with many others) endorse the gathering. We agree to do that. An Occupier gives a report about the public event sponsored by another friend of ours who is running for a different City office. It was well attended and very pleasant. Another Occupier reports on the progress she has made writing an article about the Alberta Clipper for a local alternative newspaper. She’s about half way done. She also praises the work being done by Occupy MN on this issue. Occupy MN will be sponsoring a Climate Summit tomorrow. We wish we had the time and gas money to attend.

The Candidates of Color event will be held at the Hillside Community Center on Thursday, August 8th at 6pm. Some of us have committed to cooking food for the occasion. Paula Macebee, the attorney for Water Legacy will be holding an information, question and answer session Wednesday, August 7th 7pm at Pilgrim Church (2310 E 4th St). We have not received a response yet re: the Gimaajii Center. The next INM will be August 23rd 9am at Randy’s. The National Night Out will be Tuesday, August 6th. Both of our friends who are City candidates have expressed interest in being involved with this event but we haven’t heard anything concrete so will have to wait and see. The Occupier couple announces they will be unable to attend the August 10th G.A. as they will be taking a “personal leave day”. And there you have it, Bam! Bam! Bam! We’re finished.

We look around and the street is empty. Where did everybody go? It’s so quite. A few folks are sitting on the back ledge and a few are sitting with us by the fire. Some step up to smudge while we chat about our visions for the future of the world. The fire is dying and it’s getting dark a little earlier these days. The rest of the week looks fairly calm but next week will be crazy busy. We plan to be back at the Memorial on Saturday.

G.A. Minutes 7-27-13
There are only 3 of us tonight. It’s raining, so that probably has something to do with it. We stand around for a bit then decide it’s not raining very hard so we’ll set up and see what happens.
The fire is roaring, the light rain is no match for the high flames. The 2 older Native women call out, “Is the coffee on”? “Sure, come on over,” we say. They’re staggering slightly and we assume they’ve been drinking. They take the sage bundle, smudge themselves, get coffee and hang out around the edge of the circle as per usual. We have invited them to sit many times but they are more comfortable hanging on the outskirts. Both are each wearing good rain gear. It appears they are old pros at living the street life. Judging from the look of their faces, they could be sisters. When we first met them they seemed afraid of us, now they’re just shy.
As only 3 Occupiers are present at the Memorial this evening, we know we can’t be making any decisions about anything. We’ll just talk and visit with the street folks. A few of us attended the Idle No More meeting yesterday. Among the many issues discussed was the upcoming so called open discussion at the Gimaajii. One of the INM people plans to attend this discussion and asks others to go with him for moral support. Many in the Annishanabe community are unhappy with the top down leadership and lack of community input at the Gimaajii Center. The Occupiers discuss whether they should accompany the INM people to the event. The American Indian Center aka Gimaajii has been taken over by white people so maybe it would be effective to have some white people standing alongside the Natives. An Occupier has left a message with the INM person and will await an answer.
Many people are stopping and sitting by the fire. The rain comes and goes. Among those visiting is a very drunk middle aged man who shows us his Crazy Horse tattoo, a younger well-spoken man who chastises the tattooed man for using profane language and an African American, very jolly man who had spent time at our former camp. At one point we are subjected to a guy wearing business attire and even a tie. He asks if we have any synthetic, then begins singing loud made up songs with vulgar lyrics. He says, “Whenever I go to Pow Wows people say I’m a white man but I’m not. I’m an Indian!” An Occupier quietly holds the burning sage near him so that the smoke drifts over his body. He says, “Oh to hell with all this! I’m going to a bar and see if I can get some !#*&!”. We hope he won’t return.
We notice almost all the people visiting tonight are visibly drunk. This is not normal. Oh well, some nights are more interesting than others. We put out the fire a little earlier than usual and head on out with a plan to return on Tuesday.

G.A. Minutes 7-20-13
On Tuesday we were roasting, tonight it’s actually cool with an east wind. In July. Go figure. We’re all in summer clothes so will need the fire to keep us warm.

Everyone has been on slow motion, because of the heat, for about a week. The cool air makes for animated conversation, starting with a discussion or various forms of communism and/or socialism. No one is sure what the difference is. An Occupier says, “Ask a communist what communism is and he’ll give you 5 different answers”. Things move to social democracy, anarchism and libertarianism. The only conclusion reached is that libertarianism is basically anarchy for the rich.

The 2 older Native women, who are at almost every one of our meetings, stop by to get coffee. They’re annoyed about an interaction they just had with the storefront church down the street. One woman says, “So I went to reach for a doughnut and the guy says do I know there’s a donation box at the end of the table. Do I look like I can afford a donation”? An Occupier says,”Yeah, Christians sure are mean. Their religion says they’re supposed to love and help everybody. They don’t do that”. The women tell us their homeless camp has been torn down and they’re going to try and find out where it has reappeared. We tell them about our plan to ask all homeless people to try to sneak a peek at the badges numbers of the cops who are harassing them. Then they can report these numbers to us or to the main outreach worker. The women seem to think this is a good idea.

Some of the Occupiers went to the big meeting of homeless advocates a few days ago. Some of the people there were young people wanting to learn how to help the homeless and others were professional homeless workers. The original plan for the meeting had been to have training for the young people and then take them out to the woods to bring supplies to homeless camps. However, the leaders of the meeting decided against the excursion to the woods as very many of the clandestine camps were raided and destroyed during the previous few days. The homeless people were understandably nervous about strangers. A liaison officer from the DPD bike petrol said if needing help when interacting with homeless people one should call him or other bicycle officers instead of calling the patrol (911) officers. He says, “You know those guys are working 12 hour shifts and are dealing constantly with horrific situations. They’re bound to get crabby. We’re not under as much stress so if you call us, we’ll be more compassionate”. An Occupier says, “Do cops lie”? Everyone laughs and someone answers with the standard line, “Only when their mouths are moving”.

The meeting leaders said to the young people, “Don’t expect to be able to offer housing to these people. There is no housing available. We have a huge shortage of low income housing in Duluth. The sequester has frozen all housing assistance and the few shelters we have are completely full. The best we can do is to offer tents, tarps, sleeping bags and other camping supplies. We’re pretty low on supplies too”. The general consensus among the professionals is that a large, somewhat managed, homeless camp is desperately needed. This is music to our ears and something we have been saying for the last year.

One of our friends who is running for a City office needs some help getting his first volunteer meeting up and running. The Occupy couple has offered the friend their home for the meeting. It will take place next Tuesday. We agree to cancel our G.A. and help with the campaign meeting.

A street couple we have met in the past smudge themselves and sit down. The man talks about his ideas for community organizing. His ideas involve gathering the Mayor and many big business owners together and convincing them to help us with our projects. We know this is a ridiculous idea but we don’t say anything, we just listen.
A few meetings back we acquired an Occupy dog. She’s here with us again tonight. She’s been relatively quiet, chewing on a stick. This all changes when a man with another dog arrives. Mad barking, running around, getting her leash tangled in a chair, knocking everything down and tearing through the Memorial garden result. The noise is so loud that we can’t hear each other so we decide to take a Dog Break. When the dogs finally realize everyone’s attention is on them, they settle down.

The conversation resumes with a report there is soon to be an office tower built on the west end of the downtown area. It will be the tallest building in the area and it will cost about 80 million dollars with over 8 million in taxpayer dollars being contributed. We have a desperate need for low income housing in this city so of course; this tower would have to be another office building. We already have many office buildings which are empty or half full so why are we using tax dollars to build another one? We are certain something underhanded is going on. An Occupier asks, “What do you think the chances are that the people working in this tower will let homeless people use their bathrooms”? We say, “Less than zero”.

The Occupier charged with getting a card for the family of the deceased County Commissioner has that card with her tonight. We pass it around so everyone can sign it.

Another Occupier tells about the recent hearing in St. Paul. The MN Public Utilities Commission held a hearing to decide if Enbridge had provided sufficient information in their permit request to at least double the oil flow of the Alberta Clipper Pipeline. They also want to switch from regular oil to tar sands oil. The Commission approved the Enbridge permit. Some Occupiers in the Twin Cities are working on this issue and they attended this hearing. They are furious. They report the company will be using many secret chemicals they were not required to report as they call these chemicals “trade secrets”. The T.C. Occupiers have a video which shows them interviewing the Enbridge Chief Safety Officer. They ask him how many oil spills Enbridge is responsible for and he says he doesn’t know.

They ask him why he has a big book containing information about “secret chemicals”. He says they’re not required to report about them because the oil pipeline competitors would be able to get an advantage and get their oil shipped out faster than Enbridge does. He isn’t at all concerned about these chemicals being safe. Don’t worry, just trust Enbridge. We’re so glad the T.C. Occupiers are doing such good work around this issue. The Duluth Occupier charged with working on the Clipper promises to keep in close touch with Occupy MN and to seek their advice in her work.
An Occupier reports on the volunteer meeting that she attended for another friend of ours who is running for another City office. She was hugely impressed with this friend’s intelligence, speaking ability and organizational skills. She says, “He just needs the extra hands and feet, he’s got everything else covered”.

She then tells about a conversation she had with one of the people from Idle No More. The INM person explained that many Native people are not enthused about working on the water issues brought forth by white environmental groups. The Natives say, “If they want us to help them with the water, why won’t they help us with the wolf”? The Occupier goes on to explain the deep spiritual connection Anishenabe people have with the wolf. She also explains the many environmentally damaging things that happen when the wolf population is imbalanced. She says she told the INM person, “I’m sure all progressive white environmental people are against the wolf hunt. Native people know that everything is connected but white people tend to think in categories. They think water is water but the wolf is an animal. They don’t get the connection. I will pass your words along to the Occupiers”. We all agree that communication is vital and we need to pay more attention to the wolf.

One of the Occupiers has left early but now he suddenly returns with a great, big, hot PIZZA! Everybody including the street people hanging on the outskirts gather around, happily devouring the whole thing in minutes. Small conversations between groups of 2 or 3 people break out. The topics are interesting but too numerous to record. We notice its getting dark so we pack up. Because of our other obligation, we won’t be back until next Saturday.

G.A. Minutes 7-16-13

There’s only one word to describe the Memorial this evening. Hot. That about sums it up. The thermometer says 93 degrees at 6pm. There’s a big group of church kids, even they are a little subdued. Many of them are from suburbs of Chicago, probably spending most of their summertime in air conditioning. One of their counselors tells us there is a Memorial similar to our Clayton Jackson McGhie in Memphis. It tells basically the same story; some innocent black men were accused of raping a white woman and then lynched. We’re surprised by this as we’d been told CJM was the only one in existence. We’ll have to check this out.

The big news tonight is the death of our friend the homeless advocate and County Commissioner. He will be sorely missed. An Occupier has set candles out on the table. We will burn them in honor of the good man and his family. An Occupier asks that we send a card to his family. This is not something we would normally do however for him, we can make an exception.

Another Occupier reports that Water Legacy needs help getting petitions signed this weekend at Bayfront Park. The petitions are important as they will be submitted to state mining regulators near the end of August. The regulators must decide if they will allow PolyMet to create a sulphide mine up north of us. If the mine is allowed it is guaranteed to pollute all of our waterways, destroy the Native people’s wild rice crops and kill much of our plants and animals. Needless to say, it’s not very difficult to get signatures for this petition. Whether the regulators will accept the will of the people is another story. The petitions are just the first line of defense. Those of us who are able will be down at the park this weekend.

Someone reports on the Trayvon Martin rally held yesterday at CJM. At least 60 people attended, the crowd was quite diverse. There were many good speakers and a large demonstration directed at the people driving on the street. This rally is the first of many to come. An Occupier states he is of course angry at the lack of justice for Trayvon but he also wonders if the corporate media is using Trayvon’s killer’s acquittal as a diversion from the NSA, Eric Snowden and other things they want Americans to ignore.

Some Occupiers were unable to make the rally because they were attending a City Council meeting to lend support to other victims of racism. These abused people are the local Native community who have had their Cultural Staff covertly removed from the Civic Center. Several tribal members spoke and” threw down the gauntlet”. Members of the Human Rights Commission and the local white community spoke in solidarity. The basic message was, “We will not tolerate your insults and your racism. Our Staff will stand on the land you call Duluth. If you do some research you will find much of what you call the City of Duluth stands on land given to Chief Buffalo in a treaty that remains legal to this day.” Of course the City says, “First go to this meeting, then fill out this form, sign this paper blah, blah, blah”. How all this will turn out remains to be seen.

An Occupier announces a major hearing concerning the Alberta Clipper Expansion will be held tomorrow at 1pm in St. Paul. Many people groan and say, “There’s no way we can get there with this short notice”. She says, “I’ve been in communication with Occupiers in the Twin Cities and it sounds like they’ve got this covered.” She is working on writing an article for a local alternative newspaper. Everyone knows we must get folks in our area educated about this dangerous pipeline expansion. Another Occupier reports there will be a presentation on this subject Sunday morning, 9am at U.U. Church.

Somebody reminds us of the Loaves N Fishes homeless training session to take place Thursday, the 18th at 5pm. We know our forces are spread thin so most of our homeless outreach takes place during our meetings. Some of us are still interested in taking the training as we expect it will be beneficial.
An Occupier gives us a list of dates to make note of; some national Occupy actions are, September 14th – March On Corporate Media, October 12th – March Against Monsanto, November 2nd = March Against Corruption and November 5th – Million Mask March On Washington D.C.
The Occupier who manages our website says we are having attempted troll attacks. So far, they have not succeeded and he is in contact with the website owner so they can stop this asap. The computer people begin to talk computer language but just then a couple of DPD officers pull up. We say, “Hey, what’s up?” They say, “Oh nothing. We just wondered what your sign was about”. We have a sign tonight that says “Thanks Eric Snowden for Telling The Truth”. We tell them what that’s about and have a little chat about government spying on their own people. The cops pretend they’ve never met us before and we pretend we don’t recognize them from last summer. So tiresome….. They say goodnight and leave.

An Occupier reports that this upcoming Saturday will be a national day of action for Trayvon Martin. We know some local African Americans are having a meeting related to this topic right now, up the street. We wonder if they’ll be here when we arrive on Saturday. If so, we will join in.

Someone’s phone rings and they give us the message that the newly deceased County Commissioner’s visitation will be this Saturday, Peace Church, 6pm-10pm. His funeral will be at the DECC Sunday at 1pm. The DECC is our city’s largest venue. It will be needed as there will be a very large number of people wishing to attend the funeral.

Our business is pretty much finished and we could pack up but no one feels much like leaving. We’ve captured a good cross breeze so we just sit and chat with the street people as they get their refreshments and sit around. A man on a bike is well versed in progressive issues. He talks with us for a while. We brought almost two gallons of organic homemade lemonade today. We and our guests drank all of it. Most people aren’t talking too much; they just sit with us in pleasant camaraderie. Everyone is hot, but not crabby. We finally get our butts up and slowly moving. Hopefully it will cool down enough for sleeping. If you are unable to read these minutes it will be because the trolls succeeded.

G.A. Minutes 7-13-13
It’s overcast, quite warm and very humid tonight. It’s also dirtier than usual, cluttered with cigarette butts and empty bottles. That’s probably because we have been absent from the Memorial for an entire week. Important obligations kept us away but now we’re happily back home.
The regular Occupiers are here and an Occupier who is somewhat new has brought his mother and her young dog. The dog is completely new to city living, having spent childhood living in the country. The constant activity of the street makes her nervous, she barks every time anyone moves. Oh well……. We’re accustomed to working around things.
An Occupier gives us the sad news that our County Commissioner and dearly beloved comrade is probably losing his battle with cancer. This good man has been under the care of some of the top oncologists in the country for over a year. A few days ago these doctors said the cancer continues to spread and they have no further treatment to offer. Surrounded by his family and close friends, he will be receiving hospice care. Throughout our community, people are holding vigils for this well-loved man. Tonight we light our fire in honor of him and we spend some time reminiscing and praising his life.
As the first order of business, we discuss the monthly Howling For Wolves Rally and the status of the movement to stop the wolf hunt. It was reported that MN legislators told the Northland Wolf Alliance members if they could get their supporters to “make the phones ring off the hook”, these legislators would vote to discontinue the legalized hunting of wolves. Last year the Alliance organizers were unable to convince enough people to make those phone calls so will try again soon. Some sort of phone tree has been suggested and we discuss the technicalities of how this might be accomplished. Cell phones or land lines? What type of phone bills can be accommodated? The actual decisions will be made by the wolf people. We’ll offer whatever assistance is needed.
An Occupier reports the main Occupy leadership (if there is such a thing) is pushing for a nationwide Occupy March Against Corruption on November 5th. We are interested and ask him to keep us updated on the progress of the event planning.
An Occupier who has been tasked by Idle No More with gathering information related to the Alberta Clipper Pipeline Expansion. She tells us she has discovered that the Clipper is owned by the Canadian company, Enbridge while the Keystone Pipeline is owned by the Canadian company, TransCanada. These companies are in direct competition with each other to pump the most tar sands oil at the fastest rate possible. The company that wins will have the most money and also the honor of making a major contribution to the total destruction of our planet. We, along with INM and many other environmentalist people intend to stop this. No pipelines, no fossil fuels, green energy etc.etc.
The newest Occupier and his mom ask about the history of our meetings at the Memorial. We explain all we went through in our battle with the DPD for our right to have a small safe fire in a public space. We comment our victory is the reason our presence is accepted in the neighborhood. It was a long fight but now we have “street cred”. People’s victories over the police are very few around here.
An Occupier reports she recently attempted to make an online purchase from an out of the country vendor. Her valid debit card was refused and after much investigation she found her bank had blocked all its customers from making online purchases from other countries. She asks if anyone else has had this experience. No one has attempted this type of purchase recently and no one has enough spare money to do so right now. We’ll ask around. Everyone is shocked but it’s assumed this is another gift from Homeland Security aka Big Brother.
Our good friend, the former City official, is running for another City office and we are giving him support as individual citizens. We are happy to hear that another one of our friends will also be running for a different City office. We will also support him. We say, “Maybe we should publish official support from Occupy”. Everybody laughs. We know Occupy has a lot of support in many communities, but in the more well to do communities, not so much. Our friends will be better served from our support incognito.
During our discussions neighborhood folks have been coming up to get coffee and lemonade as per usual. Now it’s time for a forced Dog Break. We have been joined by a street man with a story to tell and Ms. Puppy decides to go berserk. She is barking frantically and jumping up and down but the man is undaunted. He tells a story about selling drugs on the rez, being the shortest man in the Marines and deliberately setting himself on fire. Or something like that. One of the Occupiers blows hard on the sage bundle and the smoke fills the air. The man leaves, the dog chews on a stick.
Everyone wants to know what is going on with the conflict from the City re: the presence of the Anishinabe Cultural Staff at the Civic Center. We review the events of the past week. Along with our other obligations, we have been lending our support to the local Anishinabe community. The City has been very disrespectfully demanding these Native people remove their Cultural Staff from Civic Center grounds. The staff has remained on the grounds for almost 2 years. The DNT recently published an article about the staff and we suspect the City is being pressured to remove it by some right wing racist group. There have been several gatherings this past week concerning this issue. The Duluth Human Rights Commission has issued several resolutions ordering the City to treat the Anishinabes with respect and to leave their staff alone. After these resolutions were issued, the City covertly removed the staff. A City Council meeting will be held on Monday July 15th 7pm in Council Chambers. We expect this issue to be addressed. All the Occupiers plan to attend.
An Occupier reminds us that Water Legacy will be giving a presentation at 9am tomorrow morning at U.U. Church.
The street lights come on. It’s much later than we realized. This is the first time in a while we’ve left as it was getting dark. Barring unforeseen circumstances, we’ll be back next Tuesday.

G.A. Minutes 7-2-13

The Christian kids are at the Memorial when we arrive, just like every other Tuesday since the beginning of summer. They are another group from Mpls. so they’re not impressed by Occupiers. Been there, done that, you know. Their counselor sits down to talk and asks the usual questions. An Occupier jokingly says, “We’ll tell you anything you want to know, just don’t ask us about tents”. The counselor has about had it with the noise of children and confesses they are getting on his nerves. He’d like to stay for some adult conversation but has to leave as the youth are on a schedule. We hope he survives the summer.

Occupiers and some organizers from other progressive groups are rolling up. There are people on the street but the regular drug dealers and women being trafficked are missing. This is normal for the beginning of a month. Most have received their small government checks so will be less desperate for a few days. It’s unusually cool for a summer evening so we decide to have a big fire.

An Occupier mentions that the organizers from Idle No More have a lot of out of town events they need to attend in the next few weeks. They are very short on gas money. She asks if we could take some money from our treasury and give it to them. Unanimous happy octopi. We’ll give the money to them tomorrow when we meet up for the Round Dance.

As we talk, we pass the burning sage bundle from person to person. People of the street come by, take the bundle and smudge themselves. They are always pleased and grateful for this courtesy. One of the organizers points to the bundle and says, “Do you believe in that”? We don’t know how to answer that and aren’t sure belief is the correct word. An Occupier says, “It smells really good and we notice when we let the smoke drift throughout the Memorial, the street peoples’ behavior quiets down and the general vibe is a lot calmer”.

An Occupier reports she has been conversing with people from Occupy MN. It seems they are involved in a disagreement with their offshoot group, Occupy Homes. “I casually told them, up here we try not to argue with each other too much as it distracts from all the important work we need to do,” she says. The others look at her quizzically. She laughs and says, “Well, we do try to do that”.

The conversation turns to the ongoing debate between organizing to help individuals stop the foreclosure of their home or organizing to fight the banks and the entire concept of mortgages, bank loans and the like. Everyone present agrees they prefer to fight the banks.

Someone mentions the fact that an organizer from another city would like to hold a conference and possible resulting action in Duluth. A Duluth organizer says, “That would be good if he can turn out 100 or more people. If the event consists of “the usual suspects” then we’d be wasting our time”. An Occupier agrees to pass that word to the other city.

Another organizer reminds everyone the Organizing 101 second meeting will be a potluck next Tuesday, 6pm at Emerson Co-op. The Occupiers agree to cancel the G.A. on that day and to attend the Emerson meeting instead. The organizer is planning on creating a closed group for online conversations but she doesn’t really know how to do it. Those so inclined, begin a conversation about computer stuff.

Another organizer announces there will be a hearing concerning mineral rights on private property. It will take place Thursday, July 11th at noon in Rm 200 of the County Court House. Everybody groans and he says. “I know it sounds terribly boring but it’s something everyone needs to understand. If a corporation determines your land has valuable minerals in it and you do not own the mineral rights to that land, the corporation can just dig up your land at will and you’re screwed. Most people don’t own their mineral rights and many aren’t even aware they don’t own these rights”. A couple of people pledge to maybe attend the hearing.

The organizer from Water Legacy asks if anyone is planning to help get petition signatures at the Bridge Fest this Saturday. An Occupier states they’re not sure yet. If they’re cancelling the G.A. next Tuesday it wouldn’t be good to cancel the next one on Saturday. However, the weather people say it’s going to rain on Saturday. If it does, we could help Water Legacy. We’ll have to wait until it’s a little closer to Saturday and the predictions are more likely to be accurate. We promise to let him know in a couple of days.

The organizers and some of the Occupiers leave to attend to other things. Those remaining just sit relaxing and watching the fire. Our friend from our former camp who tells the wild stories stops by. Apparently he didn’t bike to California and then leave for Hawaii with his former girlfriend. Apparently he didn’t take that high paying job measuring lava flow for the government. Oh well….. Tonight he tells us he is leaving in the morning and going to Spokane, Washington with his friend. They are going to be researching caves. We don’t know if there are caves in Spokane or not. We don’t really care. We just listen to the pleasant sound of his voice. When he leaves, we put out the fire and leave too. We’ll be back on Saturday if it’s not raining, if it rains we’ll be at the Bridge Fest.