Wobblies

Once upon a time, Jonathan linked me to Ted Gup's "This I Believe" piece "In Praise of the Wobblies" I didn't read it right away, sorry Jonathan, I thought the piece was going to be about the Industrial Workers of the World. You see, my friend Shana in Seattle knows alot about the Wobblie movement in the Mighty Pacific Northwest. She even has one of the greatest black cat collections of all time. I've always wanted to do a still life painting of her collection, as well as other clusters, from other people. I love how people gather things on the back of their toilet or at the top of the stairs. I can imagine a show of paintings based on peoples nonchalant shrines. Shana has gathered Wobblie memorabilia not only because she is a gatherer (Shana has worked at Archie McPhees for years, a great place to gather from) but because her father was very involved in leftist activities in the Northwest. I don't have time to do the fascinating story of the Wobblies justice, but if you have time to scan the links, go here and here and here. I thought that I understood what they were about from my too infrequent conversations with Shana, usually with a pint glass in my hand. So, it really rattled me when my dad posted this comment: "As you know Steve, your father has been a "Wobbilie" in good standing most of his life and is prouder of it as time moves on." I didn't know that. I was confused. But then I went and read Ted Gup's piece and I understood.

as an aside: I was going to mention that my dad has spent some time "behind the bench" as a professional Wobblie and I thought that I might look up the term. I got completely distracted by the Flash heavy "National Basketball Wives Association's" web site, Behind the Bench. Whoa.