Jeana Edelman's Story

I arrived at MLC in its second year, following a mostly-harrowing experience at “regular” school. I was in 5th grade. We lived in NW so I already knew a ton of MLC kids, and was so relieved to finally join them at MLC. I felt I’d come home. Every day: calligraphy, screen printing, protest-sign making; playing flute, recorder, or guitar in the empty auditorium. Song circles. Rounds. Inga was so kind and patient and included all of us in the music learning. Wishes, Lies and Dreams. We wrote poetry, stories, plays, songs, letters, comics.

Barry Pelzner opened the space for our voices to emerge; he gave credence to our thoughts and ideas. Betty was always there to laugh as our writing got more and more unhinged, creative, stream-of-consciousness. Performed: plays, skits, concerts; dispatched as clowns to festivals, parties and fairs (mentored by Molly, an actor). We were integrated into shows at Storefront Theatre, playing roles and reciting lines I didn’t understand but thrilled to be included.

Played card games, jacks, climbed buildings, scoured thrift stores, moved in packs through the neighborhoods, hung out in the “hole”—the stairs in Couch Park. Explored every inch of the Capt. John Brown House; snuck inside and holed up underneath when it was elevated. Stole some door hardware—that I still have.

Tried to make ourselves faint in the auditorium. Holding breath as long as possible. Held séances with candles in small dark rooms. Learned about psychic healers. One parent traveled to some distant country and had an organ removed—she described the hands entering through her skin and pulling out the organ, no anesthesia.

Hanging in the halls, in the theater, in the park, the streets; shoplifting, hitchhiking, smoking (35 cents a pack at Kentucky Fried Chicken). Fried bean burritos at Tastee Freeze. Got married twice at Tastee Freeze (have the divorce papers to prove it!). Soup at the Beanery, also 35 cents. Sub sandwiches at the Sub Shop—the one owned by the Williams Family on 23rd and the one next to Thriftway on Glisan.

The House of Crickets on 21st Avenue (I have heard the same man still lives there). Phantasmagoria, on the eastside: fabled hippy clothing shop; found our fringed leather jackets there. Sewing, quilting, embroidery, knitting, crocheting, batik, welding (caught my pants on fire), raku, squishing clay in the bathtub in B1. Jokes I didn’t get.

Getting picked up by police gave you status; being arrested was cool. As was knowing about and trying all sorts of drugs. Sex was cool, “great for weight loss!” I was told by classmates. Worked at Fruit and Flower Day Nursery. The kids I fell in love with there. Corralled and beat up in the girls’ bathroom by kids bused in from somewhere. Reported this to the office. Shrugs. My journals chronicled two suicide attempts (adults in the MLC community).

Excitement and a great sense of responsibility to keep the school open. Some threat by PPS to close in 1970. B1 Band performs to a full Keller Auditorium as part of a symposium on alternative education with Jonathan Kozol.

John Angell driving the van; kids, aides and teachers all piled up and sleeping in the back. We went to Ashland every year to see plays I didn’t understand, sleeping through them; we slept in a church; trips to Seattle, visiting La Tienda in the U District; San Francisco (more plays), visiting a free school in Marin County, staying at a commune, being on dinner duty (soy bean burgers), meeting Wavy Gravy; Shaw Island, rubbing phosphorescent jellyfish on our naked bodies and running through camp; tamale pie made by Jan Taylor. Visiting a Romani camp—or maybe they were exotic hippies—in the Mt. Hood wilderness; a highly decorated caravan community of home-trucks; we hung around and talked with people there, inside and outside the trucks. I am pretty sure Betty took us there.

The opening of Lovejoy and Forecourt (now Keller) fountains. Protesting Nixon’s visit at the Benson Hotel. Smoking pot on the Pioneer Courthouse lawn. Mary Milestone teaching me: “you’d like to speak with him, not to him.”

MLC taught me: to be at ease with adults, to be friends with kids of all ages, to organize and show up to protest, to write about feelings and experiences, to make art all day, to rely heavily on friends, that adults are kids too, that there is a wide range of realities and perspectives, that I needed to leave for high school.

Many of my MLC friends are still very close to me. Honestly, I am still understanding the impact of MLC on my adolescence. In a broad sweep I would say I was exposed to a lot that I was not developmentally prepared for. I was also allowed to be an artist, a writer, a community member and an engaged citizen. I am still a practicing artist, a writer, a business owner, and a mentor to young people, a parent and a good friend. I still can’t do math but have managed well in all the varied areas of my life with the conceptual, creative training and encouragement I received at MLC and beyond. I am an artist, a writer and a business owner (HOTLIPS Pizza + Soda).

Jeana Edelman, 2018

THIS PIECE by alumna Jeana Edelman presents a kaleiodoscopic rush of memories—and a candid take on the light, dark, and blazing shades of experience afforded by early MLC students' great freedom.

Jeana's story first appeared in the 50th Anniversary Magazine, published for MLC's big celebration in September 2018. It is one of several favorites to be republished here on its own, in the Stories section, to highlight the quality of writings there, in the magazine—and to encourage readers to visit and read them all, and perhaps submit your own !!! MLC's history is in its stories.

Thumbnail: dancing at MLC (date unknown—Alisa Welch collection, MLC archive)