Where can we find that sort of perseverence today? I am not asking this rehtorically.

If I just consider my general impressions of today’s citizens, I do not see that type of hardiness. On the other hand, if I really ponder it, I can think of great examples. I consider Al Gore one.

Nevertheless, I would like to be inspired daily in the world in which I walk.

Is that what I find online? If so, it feels like there is not much sacrifice involved. Is sacrific even a requirement?

Marlow, thany you for a thought-provoking post and the opportunity to “meet” Terry Pettus.

Terry was instrumental in saving Seattle’s houseboat community. Without his intervention, the houseboats would have been condemned and moved out of Lake Union.

When he retired, he moved to a houseboat with his wife and helped form the Lake Union Houseboat Owners Association. Working with the City Council, he also helped organize the clean up of Lake Union. There were no sewer lines for the houseboats, which were blamed for the lake’s pollution. But it then came out that the City of Seattle had 13 sewer outflows directly into Lake Union.

Terry Pettus’s activities in the Floating Homes community included struggles for rent control and against the incursion of condominiums and freeways. He led his group to understand that it is “hard to concern ourselves with only our issue” and that “it is the entire lake and ultimately with all shorelands that needed to be saved.”

One of our favorite parks is the little “pocket park” right across from Pete’s Market down in Eastlake on Lake Union, named for Terry Pettus.

http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=2682

Today, labor union membership is dwindling. Can it really be lost of employment through labor-actions is a greater risk today? No, that cannot be.

For an interesting read of labor action in Seattle’s past, check-out:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/special/centennial/may/pains.html