{"id":1143,"date":"2023-08-08T01:10:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T01:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=1143"},"modified":"2023-08-07T15:09:42","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T15:09:42","slug":"voyage-house-gang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=1143","title":{"rendered":"Tribute # 2: Voyage House Gang"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Littrell and the Voyage House Gang<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Finding a niche in The Movement in the summer of 1972 was a 9,000-mile journey from Saint Paul, MN to Strawberry Lake, CO, to Miami Beach FLA, back west to Berkeley, CA, and finally east to Philadelphia, PA where I met the Voyage House gang, and was steered towards productivism<\/span> inside The Movement \u2013 rather than radicalism and violence. \u00a0Years later, my friend Sara Olson explained how easy it was to get caught-up in the SLA, a radical organization committed to the violent overthrow of capitalism.\u00a0 But for the grace of God, I didn\u2019t meet Bill and Emily Harris (SLA\u2019ers) doing their prison reform work while in California that summer of 1972.\u00a0 I might have joined in.<\/p>\n

\n

How easy it might have been is told in a four act play I wrote, with some fact and some fiction, about Sara\u2019s story.\u00a0 \u00a0I recommend waiting to read that later.\u00a0 \u00a0It’s titled \u201cA Complex Apology\u201d and can be found in the Archives.\u00a0 The point of the play is to show how the person you are in your 20s is not always the person you become.\u00a0 In Sara\u2019s case, while underground, she spoke from the well of the Minnesota House dressed as Susan B. Anthony on the 75th anniversary of women getting the right to vote, and to this day continues to do good work on prison reform.\"Women_suffragists_picketing_in_front_of_the_White_house\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

caption:\u00a0 what Sara dressed like speaking to the Minnesota Legislature<\/em><\/p>\n

All senior year of college I spent most days reading from the Compendium and could hardly wait to graduate and join The Movement.\u00a0 On commencement day I led the procession with a sign on one side \u201cBlue is the Smoke of War, White the Bones of Men, and Red the Time to Stop\u201d and the other side: \u201cThey Also Die Who Stand & Watch.\u201d\u00a0 The next day I headed to California on a motorcycle with enough money to last three months.\u00a0 Picked up a hitchhiker in Estes Park, Colorado, who asked, \u201cYou going to the festival?\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s how I ended up at the first ever Rainbow Family Gathering, quickly getting high on acid (thanks to the fellow walking around with a jug of water saying, \u201cJust a little sip \u2013 it\u2019s electric.\u201d). \u00a0Like a ton of bricks, it hit me: I was in the midst of a drop-out culture! (i.e., not<\/span> The Movement.)\u00a0 Without even a quick dip with the others, nude, in Strawberry Lake, I told my hitchhiking buddy I was turning my bike around and heading to Miami Beach for the Democrat and Republican National Conventions.<\/p>\n

\"russian-rainbow-family-gathering-19249738\"<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 caption: nude swimmers in Strawberry Lake<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I ditched the motorcycle at my parent\u2019s house in Philadelphia, and with my sister, Murph, we got a ride to the Florida conventions with John Froines, her professor at Goddard College, and of Chicago Seven fame. Although the crowd protesting conventional politics was definitely less \u201cdrop-outish\u201d than the one at Strawberry Lake, it didn\u2019t seem very productive, so Murph and I took off hitchhiking for California.\u00a0 Along the way we came close to death meeting-up with some rednecks in Chattanooga.\u00a0 (Full story titled \u201cCan I Take Your Girl for a Spin?\u201d can be found in the Archives or by clicking <Here<\/a>>.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i>Arriving in Berkeley, I picked up a copy of The Movement book, Vocations<\/span> for<\/span> Social<\/span> Change,<\/span> and read about Voyage House, a place in Philadelphia hiring streetworkers.\u00a0 Using my last dollars I bought a one-way Amtrak ticket to Philadelphia.\"VH<\/a><\/p>\n

Jim<\/b> Littrell<\/b> was an Episcopal minister in Philadelphia and the founder of Voyage House, a counseling and drop-in center for run-away and \u201cthrow-away\u201d youth.\u00a0 He hired me to be his first \u201cstreetworker\u201d in the fall of 1972 \u2013 my first job out of college.\u00a0 In addition to the storefront drop-in center (a block from Rittenhouse Square where throw-away youth hung-out along with the pimps, the drug dealers – and<\/em> now<\/em> me<\/em> too<\/em>), Voyage House had crash-pads, long-term group homes for court placements and an alternative high school.\u00a0 These folks, who did the counseling, the foster parenting and the teaching, were my first post-college friends, and showed me how to make a living, amongst people you liked, doing good in the world. \u00a0Thanks, you guys \u2013 Jim Littrell, Lance Hoch, Mary Pennington, Russell Lynch, et al.<\/p>\n

P.S. I lost track of Jim Littrell after he returned to Buffalo to be a priest, and Lance Hoch after he moved to Australia – hope this finds them well.\u00a0 Mary and Russell and I had a re-union the fall of 2022 in Athens, Georgia, where Russell is the curator of the Harriet Tubman Museum.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2901\"<\/a><\/p>\n

caption:\u00a0 Lance Hoch, with beard, Lee & Gary (some of the Gang)<\/em><\/p>\n

On meager incomes, many of the Voyage House staff lived in semi-communal settings sharing overhead and meals together with others in The Movement.\u00a0 One housemate, Tom ______, was a graduate of Saul Alinsky\u2019s community organizing school, in town organizing a senior federation.\u00a0 It was exciting thinking about going to organizing school, but Tom steered me to law school, saying, \u201cThe Movement needs more good lawyers.\u00a0 You already know everything to know about organizing.\u201d\u00a0 Tom, you might not remember me, I might not remember your last name, but I remember you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jim Littrell and the Voyage House Gang \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Finding a niche in The Movement in the summer of 1972 was a 9,000-mile journey from Saint Paul, MN to Strawberry Lake, CO, to Miami Beach FLA, back west to Berkeley, CA, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1143"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3045,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions\/3045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}