Lunch with Cesar Chavez. Sample from Chapter 43:

In 1970, the Vietnam War, campus unrest and violence in the streets dominated the news, but the California farm workers’ strikes and national lettuce boycott also defined the times. United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez and co-founder Dolores Huerta fought tirelessly for workers’ rights in prolonged battles with powerful California lettuce growers, but also had to fight Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamsters Union, and both the California and United States governments.

Laborers in the fields finally had had enough poverty-level wages and constant abuse—long hours, lack of housing, no health care, unsanitary conditions, and working in fields being sprayed with DDT that caused lung damage, skin disease and blindness. Chavez and Huerta united the farm workers and initiated worker strikes, rallies, boycotts and public relations campaigns. Like Ghandi and Martin Luther King before them, Chavez, Huerta, and their followers practiced non-violent action in pursuit of justice.

The United Farm Workers union eventually won a hard-fought victory through a five-year national grape boycott organized by Huerta that ended in July 1970. Chavez and Huerta then found themselves in battle with the Teamsters, who had posed as allies late in the action but then they signed contracts with growers, treating the UFW union as if it didn’t exist. Chavez went on a hunger strike, but to no avail.

On August 23, 1970, the UFW led seven thousand farm workers on a strike that became the largest farm worker action in American history. Without workers in the fields, lettuce shipments ceased, and growers lost a fortune. A California district court ordered Chavez and the UFW to end the strike.

They ended the strike but declared a nationwide consumer boycott of any lettuce not picked by United Farm Workers. Widespread violent retaliation ensued against field workers and a UFW office was bombed. In early December, federal marshals arrested Chavez, unjustly putting him in jail. Bobby Kennedy’s widow Ethel and a famous Olympic athlete visited Chavez behind bars, but were attacked by an anti-union mob on the jail house steps and had to be rescued by police. The scene nearly became a riot.

Shortly before Christmas, the California Supreme Court released Chavez from jail and he immediately called for a national boycott against non-union lettuce growers. Supporters across the country stood with farm workers, and students joined picket lines to protest non-union lettuce served in dining halls. The lettuce boycott and violence against the UFW and supporters became national stories.

In support of Cesar Chavez, Delores Huerta and the UFW, the Eggsnatchur Natural Food Restaurant bought only lettuce picked by United Farm Workers or grown locally by organic farmers. In solidarity we joined picket lines at grocery stores and we encouraged customers to buy only UFW lettuce.

Several co-workers and I joined a nation-wide three-day hunger strike in support of the UFW. We ended the fast with other participants at a televised media event in front of Safeway, explaining the importance of buying only UFW lettuce. We did what we could to support the American farm workers who heroically fought for poor working people much worse off than we were.

On a summer day in 1974, Cesar Chavez spoke at the University of Oregon. Actively involved in state politics, Bob and I went to see him call for the fair treatment of farm workers. His words reminded me of what I heard Martin Luther King say at Kansas State University in 1968, that for far too long, poor people have suffered systemic abuse by powerful wealthy interests and governmental bodies, especially when the poor are people of color. It continues today.

As the rally ended, Bob and I waited to shake hands and speak with Chavez. Short, with jet black hair, his ruggedly handsome, tanned face stood out with his white shirt. Bob knew Chavez was a vegetarian and invited him to be our guest at our vegetarian restaurant. Smiling, Mr. Chavez said, yes, he would like that. We soon found out he was also vegan.

As we walked to the restaurant with Chavez, we talked about the Eggsnatchur collective and what we we were doing to promote healthy living. Once there, we sat at a table and one of our workers brought menus.

Chavez ordered soup and a sandwich, as did Bob and I. During our lunch I was impressed by his air of patience and strength. He spoke with warmth and sincerity, directly to the point. He didn’t talk about his own life but asked about our little collective, how we came to be and how we worked as a group. He listened to us intently.

We talked about Bob’s congressional run with me as campaign manager, and how we’d brought up worker’s rights at candidate debates. We mentioned fasting in support of the UFW boycott and how we gave free meals to needy travelers and disadvantaged people. Chavez respected our work for justice and the way we made decisions with equal voices. I got the unmistakable feeling we were kindred spirits. 

Eugene in the 1970s. Sample from Introduction:

In 1971 when I arrived in Eugene, Oregon, the region rocked in a cultural Renaissance, exploding with newly arriving young people bringing an awakening consciousness for personal growth, healthier living, spiritual fulfillment, protection of our environment, and a strong desire to develop community. Many formed their own intentional communities on farmlands throughout the state, to live by their own rules and experiment with unique, more peaceful ways to live.

During this time we saw the genesis of regional institutions like Eugene Saturday Market, the Renaissance Faire (now Oregon Country Fair), the Grower’s Market buying collective, and BRING Recycling. Numerous community assistance organizations started at this time, such as Looking Glass, the Relief Nursery, Sponsors, Sexual Assault Support Services, and Food for Lane County.

White Bird free medical clinic began serving low income people and the growing alternative community. Besides basic healthcare, the clinic still provides mental health support to those otherwise unable to afford or access it. White Bird developed what has become a national model for effective mental health crisis assistance as an alternative to police response.

During this era industrious young people created work coops that democratized decision making and the sharing of profits, such as Hoedads tree planting collective and Starflower food wholesalers, a woman-owned coop in Eugene. In the 1970s young people of the region created scores of enduring alternative businesses and coops like the People’s Food Coop in Portland, First Alternative in Corvallis, and the Ashland Coop. In Eugene the Kiva and Sundance Natural Food markets and the Down to Earth home & garden store began. These businesses, institutions and others of the era continue to offer valuable services and sustainable, healthy choices to make the world a better place.

The first National Food Day. Sample from Chapter 44:

The first national Food Day would be held on April 17, 1975, with local events held Thursday through Sunday. Similar to Earth Day, but the purpose was to raise awareness about hunger, rising food prices, the poor American diet, and the increasing industrialization and degradation of farmlands—problems yet today.

We of the Eggsnatchur met with other local natural food activists in the community to make plans for Food Day events. We enjoyed working with our kindred spirits in a common cause, knowing that we all had similar attitudes about diet and the poor state of the American food system. Our state representative Mary Burrows informed us that Governor Bob Straub would declare April 17 Food Day in Oregon, adding that the Straubs “are real health food nuts.” Pat Straub wrote a book on organic gardening and agreed to be an event speaker.

I enjoyed working with fellow activists like Angara, owner of the Hara Cafe at Scarborough Faire (the Hippie Mall). Some considered us business competitors, but we both desired to serve people healthy food and make this a better world. We got along great and our restaurants shared some workers. Angara wrote and distributed a press release about our planned big Food Day dinner, dubbing it “the meal of the future.”

On Food Day morning April 17, I spoke with 4th and 5th graders at Edison School and was pleasantly surprised with how concerned they were about food issues, particularly the hunger prevalent in poorer parts of America and in other countries.

To draw attention to hunger issues, several dozen people joined us on a three-day fast for world hunger. We obtained pledges from all three Lane County Commissioners to join us on the fast from April 14 to April 17, and got similar pledges from three city councilors and two state representatives. At the county courthouse to break our fast, the Eggsnatchur provided each a ripe banana during a well-attended noon press conference with several news cameras present.

After the Eggsnatchur closed on Food Day, we served vegetarian soup and homemade bread at the event over two days. At our food booth we also distributed information about vegetarian diet, organic food, and the need to prevent the Federal Trade Commission from the proposed banning of the words “natural” and “organic” on food labeling. We feared that even calling ourselves a “natural” food restaurant could become illegal. And without specifically identifying “organic” food, there would no longer be any distinction. We had to stop the FTC ban. How those words are used is repeatedly a contentious issue.

On April 18 I did an interview for the Oregon Daily Emerald newspaper, then cut an interview tape at KLCC Radio about “the Terrible Ten” worst foods in the American diet, as compiled by the National Food Day committee. The ten exemplified what’s wrong with the American food supply—heavily processed or sugared products like Coca-Cola, breakfast cereal, Gerber baby food, Wonder Bread, bacon and Pringles, the “ultimate insult to the potato.” I spoke about getting healthier nutrition through natural foods.

The Food Day event presented important information from a variety of regional speakers, including organic farmers, beekeepers, and university professors concerning the sociological, economic, environmental and political ramifications of heavy dependence on corporatized, processed food.

To close the four-day event, the governor’s wife Pat Straub spoke about the benefits and joys of growing your own food. Hopefully, the efforts of Eugene area natural food activists helped raise the awareness of important food issues of the day. National Food Day events are now held annually on October 24.

Nixon comes to town. Sample from Chapter 1:

Outside my window Manhattan buzzed with excitement, because President Nixon would soon be speaking on campus. A large crowd gathered around the doors of Ahearn Field House, hoping for good seats. Townsfolk in church clothing strolled sidewalks, anticipating the presidential helicopter. Camera crews from all three networks carried equipment through police lines into the field house. The morning sun shone through blue skies on a warm day in September 1970, but it was not your typical day at Kansas State University.

A huge array of ominous-looking military equipment from Fort Riley—olive drab jeeps, canvas-topped troop carriers, armored vehicles and helicopters—was gathering across from the field house on a big grassy field surrounded by tall, woven-wire fencing. In front sat ambulances, police cars and a few big black sedans. Looking out of place and moving slowly through the dark army equipment rumbled one bright red fire truck, churning with a deep, edgy diesel voice cutting through the air. Authorities were preparing for the worst.

Officials felt extremely apprehensive about a presidential appearance on a university campus amid violent anti-war protests happening around the country. Only four months previously the National Guard had shot and killed four students at Kent State, launching intense national outrage. The recent news of Nixon’s secret Cambodian invasion had become a public relations disaster, igniting violent protests once again. Just days before, student demonstrators in San Jose stoned the presidential car.

Two weeks before, 30,000 people marched in the largest anti-war demonstration ever in Los Angeles. Police attacked the crowd. Four demonstrators died, including Ruben Salazar, a well-known LA news director. Nerves were frayed in America. Distrust of police, National Guard, the president, and authority in general had reached all-time levels. The Vietnam war and protests dominated the news, bringing it into our living rooms every evening.

Nixon wanted to appear strong and change the idea that students had turned against him and the war. He and his party desperately needed a political victory before the upcoming mid-term elections. His nationally televised speech had to come off without a hitch.

From my third-floor window I watched an over-sized army truck pull slowly onto the wet field, its huge tires digging deep muddy ruts into the turf. Recently I’d been watching the football team practicing on the field, but now they’d surely need to find a different place. The huge truck moved slowly and stopped in a clearing away from other vehicles. I wondered why the truck cut so deeply into the turf. Could it be heavy with guns and ammo?

A canvas-topped troop truck behind it stopped and parked. A dozen soldiers in helmets and combat uniforms emerged, some wandering through the equipment. Others gathered, watching college students in bell bottoms on the other side of the chain-link fence.

I thought about how different the lives of the young men on both sides of the fence were—a college life of colorful clothing, spontaneity, variety, freedom and romance on my side, and on the other the scheduled, harsh, disciplined, repetitive and dangerous life in an olive-green uniform. I could sleep-in all morning after a late-night partying. I could do what I pleased when I pleased, but just had to make decent grades to avoid getting drafted and end up on the other side of the fence. I wouldn’t like rising at the crack of dawn for rigorous training, testing the limits of my endurance, or spending endless nights in the company of men not of my choosing. I’d be told what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat. I’d have no freedom. And I could be sent to Vietnam to kill or be killed.

Though we lived different lives on either side of the fence, we were the same ages, shared the same backgrounds and went to the same schools. Many were not there by choice. My best friend Allen had skipped college and got drafted. He underwent artillery training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and was shipped off to Vietnam just a month earlier.

My older brother Earl became draft eligible and my father, a WWII veteran told him that in the Navy at least you’ll get three square meals and a dry cot at night, so Earl enlisted. But it didn’t work out as hoped. The Navy assigned him to combat duty on a jungle river gunboat. Just twelve days before Nixon showed up, my brother shipped off for arguably the most dangerous job in the war. I feared for Earl’s life and for Allen’s. Another of my best friends skipped college, volunteered for the Green Berets and was in special forces training at Fort Bragg.

From my window the scene below looked surreal. My design studio sat directly across from both the rutted, grassy field and the field house, so I could see the whole show from my drafting table. I had just begun my fourth year of landscape architecture studies.

I gazed at the half finished drawing on my drafting table, along the wall of windows. I enjoyed my window seat, where I could find inspiration by gazing out the window. But I’d become completely distracted by the chaotic, dramatic event unfolding below.

I saw the K-State marching band at the field house, assembling behind ropes separating the crowd from the presidential walkway. The band members wore their fancy purple and white uniforms with yellow cord trim on the jackets and golden epaulets on the shoulders. With high boots and tall fuzzy plumed hats, they looked like soldiers from the Napoleonic Wars. As the musicians assembled, some nervously tuned instruments, as if preparing for battle.

The heavily rutted turf no longer looked like a football practice field, more like a muddy base for an armed invasion. If the soldiers, police and military equipment had come to intimidate protesters or discourage troublemakers, well, so far so good. I didn’t see a picket sign anywhere.

After years of being mired down in this ill-advised, chaotic, unnecessary war, when so many Americans and Vietnamese had died, it looked like K-State would give Nixon a free pass and let him get away without a sign of protest. I’d hoped to join picketers below my window, feeling it’s our patriotic duty to stand up for what we believe, even when belittled or outnumbered.

But I saw no anti-war activity. How could I let this happen when my brother and my best friend were both in Vietnam through no choice of their own? If nobody else would take a stand, I would. I wanted to show the President that even at this little farm school, we wanted to stop the pointless war.

The Flaming Zucchini. Sample from Chapter 41:

At her first Oregon Country Faire our co-worker Peggy made the best of it, helping prepare food, working in the Eggsnatchur booth, and selling some of her own handmade clothing in a space she shared with a friend. Peggy ran around the Faire with her long, braided pigtails and her vintage crepe square dance skirt, wild, free and topless with colorful breasts painted by Eggsnatchur sisters Mika and Cathy.

She had the time of her life listening to bands, watching performers, dancing, socializing and generally trying to be helpful. Peggy kept busy bouncing between booths and catching the acts, but she soon encountered “the funniest, most avant-garde and amazing performer” she’d ever seen—a comedy vaudeville performer who called himself the Flaming Zucchini, real name Michael Mielnik.

Michael had his long, extra-bushy brown hair tied back in a huge, fluffy ponytail. Thin but wiry and strong, he wore a red flannel shirt and baggy old-man pants held up with suspenders. Peggy thought he was the most charismatic person she’d ever met. She caught his eye and offered to help him out with his next performance. She borrowed some chairs and then boldly and loudly rounded up a crowd and got them seated.

The Flaming Zucchini told jokes non-stop in rapid succession while performing daredevil stunts—laying on a bed of nails or having a volunteer with a sledgehammer break a concrete block on his stomach while straddling two chairs—one supporting his feet and one his shoulders. His quips often veered into grumpy anarchistic diatribes about jobs, the straight world and any kind of authority (including the Faire leadership itself).

His fearless act somehow pulled you in and you couldn’t stop watching—or listening. He loved interacting with the crowd but tolerated no challengers; his wit immediately silenced smart asses or hecklers. His shtick kept you guessing—and laughing. He’d been doing circus type stunts for years, including balancing on a high wire while continuing his constant comedic rants. You never knew what to expect. For his final signature act, he’d take a mouthful of flammable liquid and spew it over a torch to create a spectacular fireball in the air. Those sitting close could feel the flash of heat. The Flaming Zucchini’s act was hard to forget.

Michael became the vaudevillian around which the fair entertainment revolved. He loved to joke about other performers during his act and they joked right back during theirs. One of his regular lines was “What do you call a juggler without a girlfriend? Homeless.” Peggy fell in love with Michael at the ‘74 Faire and he with her. Though he lived in La Conner, Washington, while in Eugene he often performed at the Saturday Market and at the WOW Hall.

After we re-opened the restaurant, he came by looking for Peggy one evening, but nobody knew where she was. Apparently, she was napping in the skylight room, exhausted after the Faire. Terry talked Michael into performing for our dinner guests. Always up for a crowd, he agreed.

We moved away the front tables to give him room, and we set up rows of chairs for the show. He joked endlessly about the weird quirks of vegetarians and food fanatics, which I found funny, as his barbs were in good humor. The crowd loved it, too. As he rapidly ranted, he did his bed of nails act, walked barefoot on broken glass and had someone smash a concrete block on his stomach while suspended between two chairs. Michael always preferred to finish his act with drama, so he readied his fire breathing kit. He bantered about the risks of fire breathing—for us the spectators, for himself, and for interior spaces in general. Everybody laughed.

I was sitting in the front row near the kitchen entrance when he asked everyone to back up, which we did, chuckling. He lit his torch and glanced up at the puffy rows of burlap hanging from the ceiling. He made a joke about the Eggsnatchur being a fire trap, saying “maybe a small flame for a small room.” He took a mouthful of fluid and looked up again. He winced and with drama crouched down as low as he could, motioning everyone to get back further.

And WHOOOSHHH! He spewed out a ball of flame that rose into the air for less than a second, growing smaller and almost disappearing as it went upward, but the last small piece of flame lightly touched the burlap on the ceiling. People gasped. I remember everything as if it happened in slow motion, watching the flame ignite little hairs on the surface of the burlap, spreading a thin circle of flame like an upside-down prairie fire.

As people started to panic, I jumped off my stool and dashed to the fire extinguisher hanging by the stove, ran back and squeezed the handle, shooting a jet of cold carbon dioxide fog at the circle of fire that had spread to three or four rows of burlap, and in a few seconds extinguished the fire.

Some people laughed in relief, some people just stared in shock, and others wondered if that were part of the act. But trust me, it wasn’t. It may have been the only Flaming Zucchini performance that didn’t get a round of applause at the end. People didn’t know what to do, and for a moment neither did Michael. He made a blustery joke about it being part of the show, but most people knew better. Somebody told me after seeing me dash for the extinguisher, “I’ve never seen anybody move so fast in my life!”

That was the night the Flaming Zucchini almost burned down the Eggsnatchur.