Here is an exceprt from one of the interviews. David Sonnie and Larry Lissman were an essential part of the early PAC/Confidence Clinic team. As case workers in the county-based Welfare Department and then the Employment Department, they played a key role in helping to set up the organization, locate resources, bring people to meetings, find funding, and recruit women to the early sessons of the Confidence Clinic. As Margaret (Walker) Ellison, the first Director of the Confidence Clinic, says, "None of this would have happened without them." (David Sonnie has said none of it would have happened without Margaret. Both views appear to me to be correct.)
As David explains, below, the need for the skit arose because the Confidence Clinic and the whole PAC organization were very unconventional operations (to say the least) and a good many people disapproved of their attitudes and were unsure of their methods, including some of the staff.
But no one could quarrel with their results - which were moving people off of welfare.
AW: And we were talking about “Flowerville and the Greenies”...
DS: Well, you know, see remember we were talking about how things work and how things got done. It was just like that because the first script was really different from the final copy. . . But it went through this thing where first it was a skit, and it was performed in the welfare office. Didn’t it?
LL: Yeah. Yeah.
DS: And it was sort of in the lobby, or something like that, is that right?
LL: It was, it was, it was amazing because I remember, I remember being strucken...
But, but what I remember was that there was a mother who had had her children removed, or at least some of them, from her, by caseworkers in that office, because of child neglect or child abuse.
DS: See how that works, huh?
LL: And, and she was one of the people, who circulated at the end of the play, and was putting green paint on. And she put green paint on like the nose, and did it with some care, feeling, not, not angry, not in an attempt to hurt, but kind of uh, uh I felt it was kind of an endorsement almost. But on the, the nose or forehead of the caseworker who took her child away.
DS: See, now that’s interesting because see I was the director.
LL: Yeah.
DS: And the instructions, the stage directions had to do with offer. And some people would turn that corner, every performance. Instead of offering, “Would you like some?” They would go “Have more!” I mean all that.
LL: No, it, it was, I don’t want you to think. It was not an aggressive thing.
DS: No, that’s it, loving.
LL: It was. It was. It was sort of like okay I know you had to do what you had to do. And uh, here, we’ll both be kind of green, and she put some green on.
DS: So, then, it finally ended up at, at Umpqua Community College and it was… I was just in another space because it has all this stuff. It had lighting and sound effects, and dim the lights, and everything else. I was just completely, I couldn’t uh. I was obsessed.
AW: Well, Margaret says it was a wonderful production.
DS: It was.
AW: And you were the director, and the producer, and the writer, and the…
LL: Oh, he wrote it, yeah.
AW: …is what she says.
DS: Exactly.
DS: The thing was I started to say about the uh African American,... But anyway, there was a huge issue in Roseburg for years - given, huh? And so the big uh black program, in Portland, didn’t know if they wanted to come to Roseburg. Roseburg was famous for this redneck weirdness, you know.
DS: ...[They] decided, “Okay, I’ll give it a try,” you know. And so we had, uh they brought a whole tribe of people. And the uh chairman of their policy council wanted to come, a black man, and he was uh physically impaired. You know, he, he was a wheelchair person, I guess. And he came. He, and so what did he do, he went to his wife’s employment and got her car, the car, whatever, and drove to Roseburg. So the Roseburg Police had a stolen car report, you know. Oh, there it is, and a black man at the wheel. And they, of course, I mean they had to draw their guns, he was a Negro. No, but uh, uh, and they did and they came up and they said, and he tried.
AW: “Get out of the car, please.”
DS: Bingo. “Come out of the car now. Show your hands.” Do you know this deal? [lifts his hands up] I’m sure you’ve been through it many times. Anyway, uh, and so, he couldn’t do it. And so he had to fall out of the car, and crawl towards the police.
LL: Jesus.
DS: And this whole bunch of people from Portland, came sort of grudgingly came to Roseburg, even though it was the redneck capital of the world. And that incident took place on top of it. And so it was terrifying because [the director of the Portland Program]Ronnie said, “We’re all, we’re going home.” So I persuaded them to stay for the play at least. And “Flowerville and the Greenies,” see it has that generic racial idea of people separate, and people colored, and all that.
LL: Yeah.
DS: And they loved it. They loved it. You’d see black people, from Portland.
LL: Yeah.
DS: You know, coming out with green on their face. I mean it was just, and, and Ronnie told me afterwards, he says, “Well, I guess it was worth it.”
LL: Geez.
DS: Yeah, but that’s what did it for me, is that… Of course, don’t forget after each performance, we went and got roaring drunk somewhere, and told each other how wonderful we were.
LL: Yep.
DS: That was a big moment, “Flowerville and the Greenies.” Don’t forget, as you already know, all participants were clinic women... But it was wonderful.
LL: It was fun. It was cool. It was fun.
DS: And like I told you, it was in response to uh an uprising in the program.
LL: Yeah.
DS: Where the [Head Start] teachers, and that sort of thing, didn’t approve of our behavior, and all, you know.
AW: So you created the skit to educate them.
DS: It was to, it was to bring our, my goal was to get everybody to pay attention, to get back on track, to listen.
AW: Well, you know, and that’s the same goal as this oral history.
DS: I don’t think so.
LL: Yeah.
DS: Is it, different approach, same goal.
(interview with David Sonnie and Larry Lissman, both case workers who were involved with PAC in the early days.)
