Mikala and Karen have spent this historic electoral week down at the historical society surrounded by Rainier Valley's pioneering politicians. Our latest window display features cardboard cutouts of John O'Brien, the nation's longest serving state representative; Sam Smith, first African American on the Seattle City Council; Albert Rosellini, the first Italian American governor west of the Mississippi; George Fleming, Washington's first African American state senator; and Gary Locke, first Chinese American governor in the country. Other politicians we're featuring include Charles Stokes, Ruby Chow and her daughter Cheryl, Norm Rice, Ron Sims, Peggy Maxie, Paul Alexander, and Sharon Tomiko Santos.
It's a pretty inspiring way to spend one's time, really -- hanging around all these people who overcame barriers and adversity to achieve public office, and went on to push for public power, or open housing, or bilingual education, or public transit, or women's rights, or whatever it was they thought needed doing.
The trouble is, you start wanting your little window display to really tell all these stories, which is awfully hard to do in 24-point, two-sentence exhibit labels, especially during a crazy week like this one. Here's Mikala on Tuesday, distracting herself from Election Day jitters by fussing with Rosellini memorabilia (thanks to Tri for the photo):
It's somewhat comforting to see that people do seem to like looking at these guys, even without much textual explanation of their accomplishments. This morning as we were assembling title signage, the entire Rainier Chamber of Commerce came by to gawk at the window on their way to their monthly luncheon next door. Here are a few of them:
And then this afternoon a handsome gentleman wandered in and casually chatted us up for a while, before revealing himself to be Sam Smith's eldest son, Carl. We took a break from hanging up titles and clambered down from the window sill to shake hands. After a brief chat about Sam's career and Carl's dream of a foundation to inspire young people to enter public service, we persuaded him to pose with his dad. Karen joined in with her dad, John O'Brien.
Later, as the rain picked up again, Mikala went over to the Columbia City Theater to see if she could borrow some of the bunting from Tuesday night's party. When she got there, Tom, the amazingly obliging & generous manager, pulled out a whole pile of starry, stripey, eagle-bedecked items to choose from.
So even though our labels are only about a quarter done, and every day we get a call or two about another Rainier Valley politician we really should add, and our handout is plagued by Publisher incompatibility problems, and our press release went out well beyond the 11th hour, we are not worried -- not at all. This is because we are now fully equipped to distract people from any and all of our failings with the amazing "Self-Waving Flag."
It's a pretty inspiring way to spend one's time, really -- hanging around all these people who overcame barriers and adversity to achieve public office, and went on to push for public power, or open housing, or bilingual education, or public transit, or women's rights, or whatever it was they thought needed doing.
The trouble is, you start wanting your little window display to really tell all these stories, which is awfully hard to do in 24-point, two-sentence exhibit labels, especially during a crazy week like this one. Here's Mikala on Tuesday, distracting herself from Election Day jitters by fussing with Rosellini memorabilia (thanks to Tri for the photo):
It's somewhat comforting to see that people do seem to like looking at these guys, even without much textual explanation of their accomplishments. This morning as we were assembling title signage, the entire Rainier Chamber of Commerce came by to gawk at the window on their way to their monthly luncheon next door. Here are a few of them:
And then this afternoon a handsome gentleman wandered in and casually chatted us up for a while, before revealing himself to be Sam Smith's eldest son, Carl. We took a break from hanging up titles and clambered down from the window sill to shake hands. After a brief chat about Sam's career and Carl's dream of a foundation to inspire young people to enter public service, we persuaded him to pose with his dad. Karen joined in with her dad, John O'Brien.
Later, as the rain picked up again, Mikala went over to the Columbia City Theater to see if she could borrow some of the bunting from Tuesday night's party. When she got there, Tom, the amazingly obliging & generous manager, pulled out a whole pile of starry, stripey, eagle-bedecked items to choose from.
So even though our labels are only about a quarter done, and every day we get a call or two about another Rainier Valley politician we really should add, and our handout is plagued by Publisher incompatibility problems, and our press release went out well beyond the 11th hour, we are not worried -- not at all. This is because we are now fully equipped to distract people from any and all of our failings with the amazing "Self-Waving Flag."
Thank you to Tom for loaning us this remarkable item, to Karen O'Brien for all her work on the politicians display, and to Barack Obama for making us feel patriotic again.
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