Journal of a Mother Lode and L.A. Resident Arrested at Occupy L.A.: Post 1

John Pulskamp.

By John Pulskamp

MY CONNECTION WITH THE MOTHER LODE AREA
My family has been in Los Angeles since just after the Civil War, but in the 1970s my youngest sister’s in-laws bought a business in Amador County and my two youngest sisters and their husbands moved to Amador County to help with the business. Later, I think because my mother wanted to be near her daughters, my parents built a nice home in Sutter Creek and moved there.

From the 1970s on our family started spending more and more time in Amador County. Our Thanksgiving Day’s calibrations were always held there, and after my parents moved to Sutter Creek our Christmases were celebrated in their home in Sutter Creek. During summer vacations from school various of our sons would work at Lake Amador as “boat boys” or helping around the grounds and café at the lake. One of our sons decided he wanted to stay in Amador County and finish high school there. He stayed, and he and his family still live in Ione. Our second daughter and our oldest granddaughter live in Sacramento.

Calaveras County.

Several of our sons are planning on opening a restaurant in Jackson, and I expect that when that happens a few more of the boys will move up north.

With more and more of my family leaving southern California and establishing themselves in the Mother Lode area, and the fact that the San Fernando Valley, where I’ve lived since 1951, has become so crowded I decided to move north as well. My wife and I own a few acres in Calaveras County just south of Lake Camanche, and I am slowly getting it fixed up to meet my wife’s requirements for a place to live. I spend about half of my time there in Calaveras County and the other half in the San Fernando Valley. In recent months I’ve been spending a little more time in Calaveras than in southern California. Hopefully, in the not too distant future my wife and I will be fully moved in there.

WHY I SUPPORT THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT
I suppose I’ve always held a sort of a populist outlook on the economy and politics in our country, over the past several decades it seems to me that the average people, the workers and small business owners, have been increasingly getting the short end of the stick. When I first heard of the Occupy Wall Street movement I wasn’t sure if it was going anywhere, or if it might turn out to just be a flash in the pan. It did sound like they were raising the right questions, though. So I began to pay a little more attention.

My Path to Freedom

By Meghan O'Keefe




         WE WILL STAND
In 2010 I had been earning six figures for about ten years, owned a ritzy house east of Cleveland Ohio, and didn't think much about money. However, the poverty in Cleveland quickly wore away my "happily-ever-after". I wanted to get off the grid and out of a lifestyle that was isolating me from authenticity, freedom of expression, and my mission to Repair The World. Thus, I left my partner and my life and shortly after was laid-off.

The Teen and the Tryon(t): Guest Post by Kati Giblin

Note from David: Kati Giblin is a Calaveras High School senior who proposed with the schools Earth Club that Calaveras County adopt an official “Earth Week” to the Board of Supervisors. Supervisor Tom Tryon met the proposal with a bizarre tirade about the evils of environmentalism. The Calaveras Enterprise, The Record, and The Union Democrat all picked up the story. In this exclusive Mother Lode Progressive guest post, Kati discusses how the incident changed her perspective of rural culture and politics.

About the Author:
I am eighteen years old and personally
quite liberal. I currently attend Calaveras
High School. I live in Valley Springs on
weekdays and Stockton on weekends.
In the Fall, I will move to
Northampton, MA to attend Smith College.



Weeks before I presented the Earth Club’s Earth Week resolution to the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors, I heard rumblings of controversy over the word “sustainability.” However, being an out-of-touch high school student, I firmly believed that nobody would question this resolution, despite its use of the word. After all, nobody in my realm of communication has doubted the existence of global warming or questioned the need for new sources of energy since around, say, 2006. And after all, this is California; we are only a few hours away from San Francisco, the city that banned plastic bags. Only the most out-of-touch, anti-progress, paranoid Tea Party patriots would raise any objection to the concept of sustainability, and they never leave their homes. Right?

Young in Amador: Guest Post by Nolan Davis

By Nolan Davis

They say everyone is entitled to their opinion.

About me:
19 years old, raised in Amador County, liberal...
almost socialist. My beliefs came from watching
the economy crumble and seeing
the rich get all the tax breaks.

However, when the opinion is against what is considered the norm the group, does the opinion really matter?

Jackass Hill Convention: Guest Post by Will Moore

About the author:
I was born in the labor movement.
My father was a depression survivor,
Roosevelt Democrat, and union organizer
for the CIO in the 1930’s.

  They were organizing a furniture factory
in Upper Michigan, The Lloyd Company.
They took Lloyd out on a long strike
.Nine months after the Lloyd strike there
was a baby-boom in that town.

I was one of those “strike babies,” and I’m still there.

By Will Moore

 
Hello Fellow Democrats,

This is a proposal that we put together a Mother Lode Counties Democratic Party picnic/fund raiser/convention event at Jackass Hill in Tuolumne County in 2012.

"What's in a word?" Guest Post by Lola Blevins

By Lola Blevins
"Sustainability.” This seems to be a loaded word these days, especially in Amador County.

A Few Little Questions: Guest Post by Nora Coryell

A Few Little Questions


Did the Amador County Board of Supervisors openly violate the Brown Act by attending a local tea party meeting en masse and discussing county business there?