Blaine Ackley, Sheldon Thompson and I traveled from the University of Montana, Missoula, in an almost non-stop drive, via Blaine's 1951 Ford, to the 1965 Scope orientation week in Atlanta and then onward to our posting in the Prichard section of Mobile Alabama.
We were involved in voter education & registration during our weekdays and direct action projects and church mass meetings on the weekends.
During the ensuing 50 years vivid memories of those Alabama days have sometimes reached me, but more often those days have seemed like a distant star whose cold but fascinating light reaches me after an eclipse of half a century.
With the plans for a Scope 50th Reunion, we University of Montana 'Scopers' have reconnected with each other in a kind of collective memory quest which for me has been healing and enlightening, bringing vivid colors to distant memories. It has brought me an appreciation of those long ago summer days, our accomplishments, our challenges and difficult days. Perhaps most of all a realization of the great privilege of having been part of something that may be the most important thing I have done with my life.
After 1965 I spent a decade in aviation I received a MSW Degree from the University of Connecticut, then working for 40 years as a Psychiatric Social Worker.
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