Born in 1947 to a Railroad family.

My childhood.  From 1947 to 1964. Reoccurring and dominate themes were led by the bitter conflict of a Mormon mother and Traditional Italian grandparents.  A conflict very real and defied resolution. The first imposed and the second a beckon in a storm that remained slightly out of reach, but oh so close.

It was between Christmas and New Year’s 1959; my dad brought home a few Pamphlets about Kennedy, John Fitzgerald that is. I was twelve and would be thirteen in March. I was an alienated troubled child who was doing poorly in school. Coming from a mixed marriage with parents from two totally different worlds and did not get along. My father was Italian, Catholic and Democratic. The family of my mother was LDS Swedish John Birch Society.  My peers and their parents for being excessively precocious and ethnic looking targeted me. There he was Kennedy, hero worship from the get-go. I followed the campaign religiously. The election was manna from heaven, my room; my private space became a temple to Kennedy. I became a Kennedy expert, I read and reread his book Profiles in Courage. I told a retold his WWII experience to anyone who would listen. Huntley-Brinkley Report was my favorite TV show.  The Cuban Missile Crisis was the docudrama that filled every waking second as long as it lasted. Will; you get the picture.  November 22, 1963 the day that changed my life forever. I lost a personal family member. My identity was shattered. I was a sixteen-year-old without a name or belief in myself, or knowledge of who I was. In my tragic emptiness I discovered the existential absurd of Sartre and Camus but that really didn’t help. By the time I was eighteen, 1965, I had totally remade myself. I had become a reborn evangelical Anarchist Communist.  By the time I was twenty I became an IWW Anarchist Syndicalist. By Twenty-five a classical/ orthodox/ humanist Marxist and each stage I added too and not really gave up the earlier positions.

 

The ideology I embraced in the forge of Fire.

The Union and the Democratic Party formed my earliest political memories. My early teen years were given over to complete hero worship of John Kennedy, following his death Albert Camus.

 

By the time I was 18 I was thoroughly disillusioned with the Democrats. I totally remade myself.

 

Beatnik / Hippy rebellion and total lifestyle 1965 – 1972. Drugs, anarchism, existentialism, street life and the never-ending quest for self.

Yes, I was calling myself a left existentialist, and an anarchist. Both anarchism communism and anarchism syndicalism and a Wobbly defined my identity. I never seriously read any Marx or Marxists until I was twenty-five.

 

I was at the beginning of the hippy movement and the end of the beat movement. Again, I adopted both of them unswervingly. Yes, that led directly to drugs and a very seedy street life. At first, it was more fun than you can imagine but over the next few years, life got a lot harder. I was trapped with no way out my health was ruined physically and emotionally. I even did jail time, more than once. With dead end physically dangerous jobs I became chronically depressed. Then my dog was killed, which was the only reason I was still alive then my life totally fill apart.

 

July 13, 1972, got clean from drugs.

 

“Get off drugs or die”, I cleaned up my act and I got off drugs. Six months later my depression even got worse.  I had one choice left to me. That choice was to end my life. It was the only decent thing left, not to would be cowardice and deeply immoral. Certain people poison the air with every breath and defile the earth beneath their feet. To choose life was a crime against humanity and the earth.  But and there is always a “But”. I had a kid sister; she grew up in an abusive household. She was precious but was never inspired to acquire self-image by her home life. If her older brother, maybe the only one in the world who loved her unconditionally killed himself it would not only be unfair, but she would never get over it.  So, no.  Suicide was definitely out. That was a daily and nightly debate.

 

At this point I went on a vision quest.  At the headwaters, in late April, still very cold, of the South Fork of Gibson Jack. Went without sleep, water, shelter or food three nights and two days seeking a vision. Then finally came an ancient Shoshoni woman with white hair and deep creases in her dark brown skin. She spoke Shoshoni so I had no idea what she was saying, finally a work mate who was hiking past discovered me semi-conscious, He gave me water, I lost it right away and he gave me some more, help me walk out and to the hospital where they gave fluids and sent me on my way the next day. To this day I know I suffered a real psychotic break, which is our secret, none of it was real and did not help at all.

 

 

When I was 25 I totally emotional collapsed, some people called this an envious break down. I found what was left in my life by hard work and long hours. There was a total  loss of hope and thoughts of suicide, insomnia, hallucinations, extreme mood swings or unexplained  outburst of rage and sorrow.

 

 

 

Laborer and Janitor taking classes when I could. 1972 – 1990. Driven by despair while learning that life has no real meaning, except the meaning we choose. Accepting this and avoiding bad faith which always a lie. Learning how to give birth to myself.

When I was twenty-eight, I entered Boise State University as an undergraduate. My identity was tied up and was dually defined as an IWW and an unskilled blue-collar worker who was a student and an activist. We fought for and won a union on campus, not the IWW, however. I felt my proletarian roots intact.

It came to my attention I also loved sociology, cultural anthropology, history and philosophy. So, when I had the chance to get into graduate school I jumped at the chance.

 

Then in 1980 I entered University of Oregon to Study Sociology engaging with the internal debates of the various Marxist Schools and parties.

 

During this time as a staff member and a blue-collar worker I went to college for free and my proletarian heritage was unbroken.

Then in 1985 I jumped ship and became an Anthropologist.

 

As an Economic Anthropologists I continued as a staff member at the University of Oregon. At this time, I became very active in the Oregon Public Employees Union, the left wing of the Oregon Democratic Party representing unskilled workers in the Jesse Jackson coalition. I still considered myself an IWW and revolutionary Marxist in the broadest sense of the term. I felt my working-class birthright even stronger.

 

Then in 1990 I became a sociology-anthropology instructor at Navajo Community College. Poverty on the Reservation was very noticeable, and the staff was not organized. During the six years I was there I was fired four times and rehired each time, but we got our Union a joint staff and faculty association, industrial unionism.

 

Finally, for whatever reason in 1996 I move to Dillon Montana and became a professor at what is today called the University of Montana Western. Today my proletarian inheritance is truly ended. But it is a job, not a job but an act of love, I sincerely adore. Every day and in every way life is good.

Being first generation, my birth family has abandoned me, but my current family is my true family. About half of my students are either first generation or from lower income families or both. Is that good enough? I am the openly radical Marxist professor and citizen of Western and Dillon. Is that good enough? I have avoided Al’s fate, mostly because I am having too much fun.

Community College Instructor and University Professor. Economic Anthropologist and Political Sociologist. The person I created, the meaning I chose. The life I only dared to dream possible. The competition of the circle.

The movement from one stage to the next was total and complete. Never looking back, four completely different people each except first was totally my own choice and creation.

 

The only continuity was socialism. From my earliest memories on. Socialism of both the Marxist and Anarchist verities. Even before I discovered the meaning of those terms.