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bjbjD Yep, Mike Smith was one, I don t know, people call them inmates, residents, but Mike
was one of the original people at the nursing home. He, at that time, he must have been
about 20 and he was pretty weak, but he had a sharp wit. He used to stay up most of the
night and he d write. He had a number of friends, he liked to party, he liked to live life to
the fullest. During the day he was in bed a lot and it wasn t because he was sick, he
was just tired because he was up all night. Michael was not political whatsoever. I doubt
that Michael knew who ran, who the governor was. It just wasn t an interest of his. He
was, again, a poet, he was a schmoozer, he was a lover of life and I don t think he would
be bogged down in that. And some of the political activities he might participate, but it wasn
t his passion, but I remember one time there was a very tense moment. We were working with
some people in the community, Wade and I, and we were talking about picketing the governor,
at that time was a guy named John Vanderhoof. He had, I m trying to think, John Love was
governor back in the, I think it was the early 70 s and he took a position in Washington.
Vanderhoof was Lieutenant governor so he became governor. And we weren t satisfied. We were
trying to...we realized, Wade and I both realized very early on that these individuals in nursing
homes didn t want to be there, there was just no other place for them. There weren t the
community based services. So we were trying to promote some services. We were trying to
do some reforms and the governor was, you know, pretty indifferent to all of it. So
we had talked about picketing. Well, there was a fellow who was very active in partisan
politics who happened to have a severe disability. He was a very sharp guy and he was very supportive
of the governor. And he was trying to make some reforms so he was telling us some of
the reforms that the governor was willing to make and really it was, the question was,
was it enough to trust him or was it a token effort and we weren t really sure and Wade
and I were really struggling whether to go ahead with the demonstration or not. I remember
that night or the next morning, it probably was at night, I called Michael and Michael,
again, was not at all political, but he was wise. As a guy of 20, 21 years old, he was
a very smart guy. And just, I basically said, Michael what do you think we should do? And
again, he wasn t political. He had a good heart and a good mind and he said I think
you should demonstrate. So that was enough, even though, I don t even know if he was involved
with the demonstration but I think he believed in it and believed in what we were doing and
bettering the lives of people with disabilities. gd