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Note by Hunter Bear: [May 18 2010] I picked this up from Portside's "Tid-Bits" this morning. And it was more than just of passing interest for me -- and Eldri. [To update our marital status, we'll have our 49th anniversary come next month.] Here is an excerpt from the Portside piece, followed by substantive recollective excerpts from one of our web pages: "UW-Superior Faculty Vote "Union Yes" May 14, 2010 AFT-Wisconsin http://www.aft-wisconsin.org/index.cfm?zone=/unionactive/view_page.cfm&page=Media Superior, Wis. "Earlier today, faculty at the University of Wisconsin- Superior voted 75-5 in favor of union representation through The Association of UW Professionals (TAUWP), a local union affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and AFT-Wisconsin. The vote is first of its kind since the 2009 state budget was passed, extending collective bargaining rights to UW faculty and academic staff. While TAUWP-a non-collective bargaining union- has led organizing efforts for years on each of the UW campuses, academic staff and faculty have only been able to form collective bargaining unions since June 2009. " NEW MATERIAL: "HORROR STORY IN THE GROVES OF ACADEME" [A DISCUSSION POST MADE ON JULY 7 2008 ] HUNTER BEAR Eldri and I were married at Superior, Wisconsin, on June 25 1961 -- and a few weeks later arrived in Mississippi for six years of activism in various parts of the hard-core South. This interesting article, "Jim Dan who?" was published on June 25 2008 -- out of Duluth, Minnesota, right across the river from Superior. But that's not the only connection we have. We met in the context of Superior State College in what can only be described as an academic nightmare for students, most faculty and staff, and many townspeople indeed. The college president was General Jim Dan Hill, something out of the Dinosaur Age. [Too many schools today exhibit -- at all levels --and in however veiled a fashion, some of these same sorry characteristics -- in addition to using multitudes of poorly paid, non-tenured, adjunct faculty in higher ed levels.] The article covers the man and the purely horrendeous situation he created -- and over which he presided -- quite well. And, although it misses a few of the courageous community activists who challenged him, it includes most of them. We knew and worked with those people in common cause. Something of the flavor as it relates to me is conveyed by this little section. It's an accurate one, save for the fact that it was 1960-61 that I was at Superior and Not 1961-62. As I've indicated, we arrived at Tougaloo College in the latter summer of '61-- after Superior. "Hunter Gray Bear (John Salter), a Native American activist who taught at the Superior campus in 1961-62 [actually 1960-61], recruited faculty into the American Federation of Teachers and helped organize students when Hill suspended student government. Bear writes on his Web site, "An increasingly incoherent General Hill got control of his voice long enough to denounce me repeatedly as a 'Communist, an atheist, and an advocate of free love.' Exactly what he meant, especially on the final point, was never clear." Hill never met me before I was hired as a sociology instructor. Short on faculty and with time running out before the onset of the 1960-61 school year, he found me via a teacher agency and sent a lackey to Denver who briefly interviewed me. [I drove from Flagstaff.] I suspect he was reassured by the fact that I was an Arizonian and an honorably discharged Army vet [still in the inactive reserves.] Eldri, an Augsburg College sociology grad, was employed as Lutheran student counselor by Minnesota Lutheran Student Foundation -- at and within Superior State . She helped our activist cause immensely. See the story as the saga winds its way: http://www.businessnorth.com/exclusives.asp?RID=2489 The painting of Hill is a highly idealized one, I should add. I saw him last when I walking in a driving rain along Superior Street and he drove by in his huge black Chrysler, obviously laughing at me as he gestured wildly in my direction. He then drove around the block and went through his thing yet again. I was tempted to "flip the bird" but that really isn't my style. I simply looked coldly at the old S.O.B. I add, as a kind of personal conclusion re Superior, this excerpt from our Hunterbear website: FEAR, SEX AND BABIES GALORE -- AND SUPERIOR WISCONSIN EXPERIENCES [HUNTER GRAY] 2002/2006/2008] Note by Hunter Bear: This post of mine stems from a recent newspaper article indicating that many Americans are responding to the post 9/11 pressures by producing babies. Here is my comment [I've herewith omitted the article for space reasons.] Personally, I find this very encouraging. As a rule, babies are nice. I do recommend a good diaper service -- and, when they yell, just feed'em. Keep feeding. Later, when they're older, do the bribe thing. Negotiate with zeal, of course, but buy'em off all the way through at every point. And stay away from glorified crack-pots like Dr Laura. My first semester of my first year of college sociology teaching [AY 1960-61 at Wisconsin State, Superior] involved five three semester hour courses -- one of which was Marriage and the Family. An earnest young bachelor, I certainly did my best with that one, quickly upsetting most of the town's clergy [Protestant and Catholic] when I indicated my strong conviction that, given the high divorce rate in US society, the Swedish system of trial marriage had a lot going for it. "Free love" was a charge hurled at me by some of the less inhibited clergy. [On my initiative, I met directly with them as a group and they were generally reassured.] That was a turbulent year for me and my many activist students -- with a number of significant social justice and academic freedom victories. We showed Salt of the Earth [three 16 mm reels shipped up from Bayard, NM by Juan Chacon] many times indeed and did many related things. We also had the welcome arrival of my friend, Catholic Anarchist Ammon Hennacy [Catholic Worker], who spoke all night to students and workers and radicals and other community folk from my large apartment. [The local Monsignor had forbidden all priests to give Ammon a parish hall in which to speak and the adult Protestants were really bigoted on the Catholic thing at that point with JFK running and winning.] I used C.Wright Mills' excellent pro-Cuban Revolution work -- Listen Yankee! -- as a text in several of my classes. With the very large student Student Action group we organized -- really excellent kids, Indian and Anglo [ many Finnish] -- and with very little backing from a frightened faculty, we were able to put the tyrannical college president, General Jim Dan Hill, a Texas Bircher-type, on the skids [retired a few years later.] In that, we were assisted by then-Gov Gaylord Nelson [later, of course, Senator] with whom we met. We were also helped by Glenn Parrish of Superior, a national Vice-President of AFT, who was an uncle of one my strongest student supporters -- and a good friend of my old Arizona AFT buddy, Bill Karnes of Phoenix, himself a national VP of AFT. Among my several union affiliations was my at-large membership in Phoenix AFT Local 1010. Anyway, when Eldri and I were married at Superior that June 1961, it was, of course, a proper Church wedding -- with a number of clergy and many students and all kinds of labor unionists and radicals present to wish us very well. We were then Off-To-Mississippi. I never taught Marriage and the Family again -- was never asked to do so, fortunately -- but I certainly did have a number of baby experiences as the River of Time flowed onward. One was born at Jackson, another at Raleigh, still another on Chicago's Southside, and the latest at Gallup N.M. And then, in addition, there are, of course, the many offspring of the first three. And, many years later, when I stumbled upon my notes from that long ago Marriage class at Superior -- the notes formulated by a well-meaning young instructor who took himself and his subject so very seriously -- I read no more than three or four pages of bachelor wisdom before grinning and tossing the whole sheaf into our pine-burning fireplace. Eldri and I had a quiet 47th Wedding Anniversary here in the Gem State. Hunter [Hunter Bear] http://www.hunterbear.org/organizer_17.htm HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ and Ohkwari' Our Hunterbear website is now more than ten years old. It contains a vast amount of social justice material -- including organizing. Check out http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm See Personal Background Narrative: http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm See Hunter Bear's Movement Life Interview: http://hunterbear.org/HUNTER%20BEAR%20INTERVIEW%20CRMV.htm And see Ghosts: http://hunterbear.org/ghosts.htm ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
