Burnt Toast: Trouble in the Nation’s Breadbasket

By Paul Gunter

 Ron Reick and I organized to take a horse drawn wagon across the state of New Hampshire from Hinsdale on the Connecticut River to Seabrook to raise the public awareness of the first Clamshell occupation of the nuke construction site scheduled for August 1, 1976. Steppingstone Farm over in Marlow generously loaned us “Dick,” a well muscled Percheron and the gentlest of their team of draft work horses.  Cornelia Iselin had found us a sturdy enough donated farm wagon which we fixed with bowed saplings covered over with an army tarp. Her son George volunteered to be our experienced teamster for the journey. About a dozen of us set out in mid-July 1976 on a ten-day easterly trek using the back of the wagon as our stage for an anti-nuclear puppet show to take the message of nuclear power literally “to the village square.” Our theme and touring performance “Burnt Toast: Trouble in the Nation’s Breadbasket” was composed and single-handedly performed by Eric Wolfe. Actually, he had to use both hands most of the time. Read the rest of this entry »

DOGS THAT CLIMB TREES

A Puppeteer’s Perspective on the Origins of the Clamshell Alliance

By Eric Wolfe

 I landed a job as a puppeteer fresh out of college because I could talk like a duck. “You see, an anthropology degree did prepare me for the real world,” I explained to my mother. She cried for joy. Well, anyway, she cried.

 The duck voice came in handy when the People’s Energy Project, a Kansas group opposing construction of the Wolf Creek plant, asked me to write a show about nuclear power for a 1975 rally in Topeka. I had just seen “Lovejoy’s Nuclear War” and decided I’d like a piece of that action. Read the rest of this entry »

Clam Magic

Court Dorsey

            Early in 1977, a group of young activists in DeKalb, Illinois began a self-study seminar created by The Movement for a New Society (MNS) called the Macro analysis Seminar.  We were all a part of a network of affiliated projects centered around Juicy John Pinks, a restaurant and coffeehouse that included a food coop, Duck Soup Coup, a conservatory of folk music, and a theater project, The Colmpany of the Ashis Tree.  Just as we finished the unit on nuclear power, we heard about the Clamshell Alliance.  We aborted the seminar, created a performance piece about nuclear power, formed The Crumbs of Bliss affinity group, packed ourselves into two old beaters and headed east to join the Occupation.  We arrived at Joan Bigler’s Kensington, New Hampshire campground a few days early, intending to perform our street theater around the Seacoast.  Local organizer Kristie Conrad made up a list of destinations for us, and we set out to perform wherever we could.  Our most memorable performance was in front of the Manchester Union Leader headquarters in Manchester.  The Union Leader was a notoriously right-leaning daily with front-page editorials written by publisher William Loeb.  During our performance, a man in a suit and tie leaned out of the doorway to watch, and cranked his forefinger around his head a couple of times to say, “You guys are nuts!”  It was Loeb himself. Read the rest of this entry »