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WHAT IS M.U.D.S. ?

Miramonte Unified Disciplines Seminar (M.U.D.S.) consistsof students who are selected by their teachers as especiallycreative and productive in sore aspect of their education.

These students then make a study of a certain town or area.
This year the Seminar went to Jackson.

The particular value of this seminar is that the program ishighly unstructured, and students are chosen from many as-

pects of education.

i.e. science, English, social science,

art, music, dance and photography, therefore, the students
learn not only to create their own learning activities, butalso learn to view a town and hopefully themselves in amore complete way.

Jeffrey Sawyer
Dale Sommers

Student Coordinatorsi%

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M.3EIVESc>On Observation and Creation

X.

How may one escape a fruitless life?

B’lieve I was rollin’ down to that place when I was

accosted by a stern but carefree Stonefish:

asked if I’dlike to play in the Mud.
’’Why not?” says I, ’’nothin’else doin’, but what do

I bring for such an occasion?”’’Why, your petty mannerisms and official P.ule Book

for Group Conduct,” he of-coursed.
Well this seemed all fun and creative, so I released
control and plunged deep into the pit.

At the meetin’ of

the bored where the Ice-man lives, saw the saucy walrus,
the Marvelous Media Machiavellis, the shiny Bisque, and all

the riff-raff boys ’n’ girls.

All occupied private statesof mind, all to himself (nobody heard):

but where was this’’new euphoria” I’d heard so much about?
”In’na Muthuh-load,” outspoked a greasy hotrodder withrally-stripes and high speed bumper bolts.

’’Paises thehorsepowuh ’n’ looks Go, go. go!” he defensively taunted.
’’Onward to the Hud!” everyone agreed.

II.

Does vagueness creep into hetrec’.?

*’Last we reached the Mud.
"Oh, oh, how plastic this all is," said the beautiful

but beguiled youngirl.

Didn’t like the place, sc’s we put our protective
helmets on— couldn’t see out, couldn’t see in, so everyone’s
benefitted.

Deceived one last warnin’:

n Do whatever you want, go anywhere you please, but

don’t bother anybody, we’re too busy creating. ii"Perce irber

the buddy system, we can’t have any trouble.”"Ignore thelocal gorillas, they won’t hurt you unless you taunt their.”(What’s he rean by taunt?

£llcw yerself tc be seen?

Theirg’rillas was so outrageous we didn’t even havta prove toourselves we was better peopl’r. their’.)Well, got to Muddin’ aroun’ and enjoyin’ the scenery.

Met Jack’s son the genu-wine cowboy and part-time peace
officer (took both jobs seriously); the ever-grinnin’ (Iwonder why) bar-keeper; ten-thousan’ robots in spotless
uniforr (kept a real tight Mudflat); and all the otherintelligent animals of the "Muthuhload.”■kHad good tires, saw pretty country, and had a nice rest.

No more, no less.
be rolded.

The Mud was too full of rocks, couldn’t

After a few yague day-nights (wasn’t any differenceb’tween ’em), went here to the erpty valley of wealth.

prob’ly don’t know where that is.

You

Hustled on down the So. Cal.

Coast—good feelin’s there, but that don’t ratter in thisaccount.

All what ratters is keepin’ the ol’ brain open, andwatchin’ out for ry own well bein’, an’ rindin’ the Golden

Rule, an bein’ ’spicious of anything strange or new.

Think

I’ll be rollin’ on down to that place, ain’t nothin’ else doin’’

Chip Bissell* -1

JacksenAround your neck is a camera
a tape recorderand a sign shouting
I’f from the bus

You tramp through the graveyards

and laugh at the hick-town
where there’s nothing to do

on Saturday nights but
drive around or get stoned
You clirb on the bus

and return to Orinda
where there’s nothing to do
on Saturday nights but
drive around or get stoned —Diane JonteJackson Journal

part one: on the way

on the way to jacksonfrom orinda,
civilization fades away into pastures of emerald beauty,

as the number of cars on the roads decreases,
and the hurriedness of Tire ceases.

mustard plants are like some yellow
radiance sprayed on erect green stalks.
rows of trees/ still strange to re

to find geometrically arranged trees/
scenery rolls across the horizon

in peacful silent passing into
Eternity
until some man’s handalters it
butevery few miles or so

a coors can reminds you

along the roadof civilization.

david liu

Jackson Jm -malpart two: the people

old people line the memories i have of Jackson,

like the beds they will lie in/ forever.
their laughter rings in with ancient tearsof Days Passed.

what is left to live for?

"the garden and the house"
wrinkles like rings on trees, tell talesof 80 or more years, each line
etched withe-a memory.

carefully

drawn, fine, lasting, even after death.

wrinkles of love, of worry,ofage

Age’s pen scrawls itself in indelible
finality upon Jackson.
the young move out the old
the old move in.
the young move out to learn,
the old come in to forget.

they have written their stories,

and have read their'.

now it seems they do more reading than writing.
david liu

the ex-rarine -”i used to own a tavern in the area

but i’rr. a city nan at heart-a real traveler-been all over the world.
ever hear of the white fleet?
sixteen battleships—i served while Teddy Roosevelt was Iresident.
if you want to be a real nan,

Join the Marines I
why did i retire in Jackson?
been all over the world

i said that alreadynoplace beats Jackson(except naybe Camp Pendleton?)

Pon Langberg

-the businessmen-these two gentlemen could speak only of Jackson’s oast.

They emphasized’ that Jackson has been dead for twenty
years (since the mining stopped).

Like the parking

meter one was leaning on, Jackson is ’expired’:"There used to be twenty-three bars on Main Street.""There’s a lot of history here."’’The mines were the life of Jackson."’’Jackson had a heart—it has no heart now.”
Being businessmen, they were aware of Jackson’s economic
problems:’’The your ger generation has to leave to be able toearn enough money to live on after college; they

can’t find good jobs here.”

Ron Langberg

I- the retired couple -working in the garden

on old maple street

the shoveling gentleman

was a pleasure to meet.

don’t ask me questions

he said with a smile,
ny wife’s the one to talk tothough it may take a while. . •. . it took a while:Jackson’s the best place to live/
I’m too old to read the papers

but I watch a lot of television/
I know what’s going on

and I.don’t like it/

I voted for George Wallace,He can straighten them out/ (Who?)

I’ve got a good family/
J*y son is on the thirty-second
level of I'asons
on both sides-

Only step higher is thirty-third,
And only Presidents and the like reach that/
Py youngest rnarried twenty years ago. —Married a beautiful girl; only she broke herleg on the honeymoon and lay in bed the whole tire—That son owns a gas station. . .

I bought rry burial plot in 1926—
I know how to be prepared. . .

and so on, and so on. . . (merr-ories)

Pon Lanpberp-the oldtiirer-

old and wrinkled:acial lines like a prune

lie stepped forth from the door
grasping a broom­ices he work at the store?
no is the reply

merely passing the time

until i die

Pon Langberg

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Jackson Kids

so they ride in

kick-in-the-ass cars up
and

down
Train
forty-two times anight

is that every one of their?
so they go to mel’s
when the movie

lets out:
sit in rat-hair rings

around sticky tables

drinking cokes andcalling us hippies
then we call them hicks?

andJackson Journal
part three:

the town

jackson has one Train street

that was crooked from the gold mining days
and never straightened out before thecement petrified it.

old and new structures aline the path.
next to a reminiscent saloon-hotel,
there is a bowling alley.

/ forward arerica!

the kids 1) cruise the main or 2) gobowling or 3) go the flicks or P) finda party.

dean martin was there at themovies•i can hear the pins falling inmonotony now.
visited the jail.

only two prisoners.

kids caught stealing gravestones.

the cars ride on cushiony wheels ten feethigh; the Men rev up the engines and goaround and around with their peroxide
companions,the only trouble is that the roads

limit your speed to about 5 mph.

they were built for horses, not cars,
but hew does one rev up a horse?
the air is thick with neon, dust and boredor

jackson is wedped between the c]d arc thenew, and can reeve cr.lv in circles.
dust is so rr.uch like chalk on the craves

dr vid ? r- j ack son -i vstz.ee T went tc the police station: asked tc spend the n’rht(to check up on the establishreent).

”Officer Okie’

hesitated and said, "Veil, we’ll be plad to book vcu. n0.0. said the jail’s never busy — Jackson folks arepeaceful — only visiters cause trouble — then,it. . we just vive there a taste of ’reountain justice’.

the universal cure."(rraybe the ’reountain police’ are "over the hill?"}Per. Lar. pt er p

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THE ARGONAUT MINE DISASTER

On Sunday night, August 27, 1922, there was an earlyshift, and the Argonaut miners came off work at 2 a.m. in­stead of 7 a.m, as usual.

But many of these miners neverleft the mine because they were trapped in the lower levels
by a fire that from some unexplained cause began near the3350 foot level.
The first man to notice that something was wrong was

Clarence Bradshaw, the shift boss in charge of all men work­ing underground this shift.

on the 4200 foot level.

At 12 p.m. he smelled smoke

He called to the skiptenders there

who exited from that level through the shaft.

All the restof the shift were working in other parts of the mine, mostin lower levels.

Bradshaw and the men immediately started

from the top in an attempt to put the fire out.

As they

approached the 3000 foot level the smoke became more dense.
Flames were encountered going through the 300 foot station.

All day Monday, the men battled to get through the flamesin the Argonaut shaft but they were hopeless.
water down the shaft.

They threw

Until 9 a.m. Monday, there was achance for the trapped miners to escape through the Muldoon
shaft but since then bad gas had been drawn out that way

making the shaft impassible.

There was also a rumor that■-

this shaft had been impassible for years

but V. Garbinis

supt. of the Argonaut mine, denied this rumor.

Workmen madethe statement that the Muldoon shaft had been for a year or
more impassible.

It was never used except as a passageway

to remove bad air.

The miners expressed the belief mat

the ladder in the shaft had retted, making it impossible
for the entombed miners to get out that way •If the rumor was true, then the mine was violating astate law which provides that every mine shall have either
two direct routes to the surface or at least on connecting

on to another mine by which men could emc^e.

Because of

the feud between the two mining companies, the Argonaut
Mining Company and the Kennedy Mining and Milling Company,

connecting levels of the two mines which would have pro—vided escape were walled up ana sealed.
All Monday afternoon, rescuers, supplied by the State

Mine Bureau in Berkeley, were experimenting with canary birds

to see hew far down the shaft it was possible to go.

Thelittle yellow birds were lowered at the end of weighted strings

and the strings were carefully measured as they were played
from above.

Some of the canaries care up weakly moving

their wings, but alive.

Others came up dead.

By this means it was discoveredthat life was possible down to the 2700 foot level.

Thirty-one hours later on Tuesday morning, the shaft of
the Argonaut mine was sealed to smother the flames and the)work of rescuing went on through the Kennedy shaft whose owners
placed everything on ground at the rescuers’ disposal.

Throughthe Kennedy mine they had to tunnel 26 feet through soft dirt,timbering as they went, then they had to go up 40 feet throughhard rock to reach the incline connecting with the 4200 footlevel of the Argonaut mine.

V. Gabarini said it was possible

to finish this digging in three days.

He believed the trappedminers had taken refuge at the 4600 foot level so the rescuers

would have to descend 400 feet after they had entered the

Argonaut mine to find the men.
The rescuers had to work under great difficulty.

Menwere trundling wheelbarrows of broken rock while streams ofsweat poured from fatigued bodies.

The narrow quarters caused

them to stoop and sometimes almost crawl.

At intervals of

50 feet niches were cut into the rock to allow wheelbarrows

to pass.

As the men shoved the heavy loads, their knuckles

and hands were scratched and bruised by the jagged edges ofrock on the side walls.

On September 18, the rescuers finally broke throughfrom the Kennedy mine into the Argonaut mine.

At 11 a.m.

through a 16 inch hole the rescuers entered the 4200 footlevel of the Argonaut mine.

At the 4350 foot level they founda bulkhead that had not been there when the fire had started.

The trapped men chose this level because they had reasoned
that the mine would be flooded to put out the fire and theywould get above the rise.

They also had figured the rescue

would come through tunneling from the Kennedy shaft.

Here they constructed the first bulkhead 200 feet fromthe Argonaut shaft so that they might have as much air as
possible.

Mining men said it was excellently constructedof the materials at hand.

The timbers had been hastily

collected and crevices had been stuffed with strips from theirclot:* Ing.

Gas had begun to creep in, so the entombed miners

built a second bulkhead.

Two men succumbed and a third bulk­

head was attempted but the men dropped as they worked.

Some-

one had taken his carbide lamp and had written on the slate,"Gas too strong, 3 a.m.”
Because of the loss of the 47 miners lives the Argonaut

Fund was set up to benefit the wives and children of thedead miners.

Jackson Journal
part four:dust, graves, churches

there are three or four churches inJackson:a Serbian.

a catholic, a methodist,that takes care of religion.

the churches are all in a perimiter of about
a mile, standing white in chalk against

the ages.
And
there are a lot of graveyards.
thousands no doubt.

all come back here to jackson to die.
calcify like the proverbial elephants.

rows and rows of graves; marble andlavish, as if only in death
they will find lasting peace, inrichness so far away from jackson.
plastic flowers in folgers coffee

cans, planted and forgotten,
left to peaceful corrosion.
david liu

Jackson Journal

part five:grave head readings

went by a graveyard factory,
hand tooled epitaphs,

deathmarked down in years, months, days •made with loving care to last an eternity.
eternity has its effect on jackson.
the only lasting thing.

a God figure,it claims all.
the graves were white.

white reflects light,

as it were,

they’ll be o.k. when the Bomb drops.
saw some dead people being lowered into

their beds after the funeral.

they looked tired.
there were a lot af Real flowers that
their friends had brought.

a few days later they were just about

wilted away (the flowers, not the friends,
it takes a little longer for

people).

david liu

THE OTHER COUNTRY

Ellen was thirteen.

She came along the road walking

in her shadow, building a beautiful country in her rind.

she sang.

’’Whether I will givethis country, my tower country
to you, tan tennis mother,curlered, curlered, curlered lady,
or to anyone
like all you screamers at school
so that you will be happy,
happy, happy
I don’t know—*
Because I want it for myself
for Ellen, Ellen, that girl Ellen,”
The cars gashed by and she pulled her hair down

on her cheeks for curtains.

Tne flowers of her country

jangled; sun blessed and colored them.

Cold-threadedorange, or red and shaped like bells, or sharp as stained

glass they were, and Ellen wore a pink bird-winged feelingwhen she care among then.

Dancing and wavering under thewind, she sang:’’One Ellen is burned
In the whistle wind,
As a bird I’m born,
again, again.”
Later her maids washed her hair in the sunny water.
she ran around naked' for awhile.

Anc'

The pines pricked her skin as she entered the forest,

whichi stammered between golden and pale green.

A lionesssprang froir the chenping .flecks on the forest floor andcame to watch Ellen with eyes like green cratered moons.
Ellen fell on her knees, but the lioness led her to threesmall fierce cubs.

She let Ellen gold them.

Their furwas gold silk and sandpaper on her bare skin.
She named the lioness Raida, but only touched thegreat moulded paw before the beast brushed back throughthe moving pines.

Ellen could only cry and sleep for

awhile in the changing hushed light.

In the afternoon Ellen dressed in dark green velvet

and sat at her white tower’s window, winding green

ribbons in her straight brown hair.

She mourned forthe sake of her country; it was leaking; there were
strange people wandering and trampling it, tearing its

holes wider and wider.

Craig was brought before her

by hrs. Patterson, one of Ellen’s maids, who had once

been a school teacher.

Craig was freckled and dirty.

To Ellen it looked as if he had been scribbled on theworld with a brown crayon.

”1 hate you, Ellen Canfield, because you’re ababy and a pip and a snob, and you write stupid

egg head things in a dumb diary!’ I’m going to show it
people and keep it forever!”He yelled at her.

In a green storm Ellen rose tall.

’’Who are you to be in my country, Craig Winston?

You have ruined and exploded my peaceful country!
She nodded to her servant.
take him- to the river."her cold face to a smile.

"Mrs. Patterson, you will

Hrs, Patterson pinched

Craig looked defiant, but hehunched his shoulders as T'rs. Patterson led him away.
Ellen watched from her window7 as the small yellow-shirted

Craig and the hurrying black and white figure of her maid

began the long journey over the twisted paths of whitegravel which led to the river through the stark green lawns.

Then she wandered over to the silver mirror, runninglong fingers over her lips, she found that she was worried.
She had lost for a moment her green executioner feelings.

Ellen tore off her velvet and ribbons.

Grabbing

a red and yellow patchwork cloak, she burst fror her
tower and fell like, a cat to the ground.
raced with her crazily.

The oaths

L’’Craig was good, good, n she yelled desperately.
"Please stop, don’t make him a river stone or a deadthing’. You can’t, you won’t, I hate you’At the river Mrs. Patterson would not say what

she had done with Craig.

Ellen kicked her servant

viciously all the way back to the white, straight

tower until the white parts of the uniform were graywith dust.

In the tower she wrote in her gold-clasped, illuminated
new-diary, ”1 love Craig.

I love Craig.

I love Craig.”* s’: * * *The cars still roared brutally by on the road.

Ellen was sitting in the grass with tears on the frontof her dress.

She almost smiled at the house she

could see across the street, where three dirty bovs

were dribbling basketballs.

But then the frightening

seductive echo blared out in her mind:

Because I want it for myself

for Ellen, Ellen, that cirl Ellen."

Lisa Koibeck

egoism?

i existi alonei absolutely
i am
i matter

if i am relevant then all is revelant

if i am not significant

nothing is significant
i?

Diane Jonte

Flame-children

exist only to dancein ecstasy
and to die

into Nothingness.

Diane Jonteentropy
The sand trickled away and was lost among countless others.

The sun slipped behind the hill and the

day was gone.

The river flowed to the sea and mingledwith salt, and the wind swayed in the treetops and fled

to meet the night.

All was lost and hope had died.

The cold water closed over her head and life had ended.

Life too is fleeting.

Linda Du BoisI

Mekolumne Fiver

Sand under sand under sand under sand underwater moving over water over water over water- - Fling sand into sandTurn water into music - Cool sand under sand under hot grain sandRushing water over water over ice calm water- - Fling sand into sandTurn water into music - -Julie Juchau

wind to water

wind to water

helter-skelter
splashing children in the river:diamond dripping

pebble-people

sunned and shivered into laughter.
Lisa KoibeckOh boy do I love voices
Oh boy do 1 lcve

voices.

Oh boy it hurts to hear

their words■When they mean what they sound likeAnd touch where they mean to
It hurts it's so good.

How do people know the perfect words
How do they know?

I wish I had some of that,

I know who I’d talk to.
The best thoughts are rem.er 1 e: if < voices

Taose and the harZ.s that touch with the words

Silence is pood but the right voices are better
I listen and know who I' 11 probably love.

Julie Juchau.

The girl tip-toed across the meadow.

She raised her

pale face to the sun and the laughing wind caressed hersoft hair.

The grass felt cool and moist and the brook

had been created only to swirl around her ankles.

She ranlightly across the hillside and down the other side.

too was a wonder made only for her eyes.

Throwing herself

to the ground she lay breathing in the beauty.

her pale lips and drank the sun.

This

She opened

Her squinted eyes stared

at the golden sun till the world danced and swam before
them.

The world had a rhythm of it's own.

rocked to music and the birds kept time.

and she kept the beat.

fhe ground

The flowers swayed

She was the sun and the wind andwould live forever and never die but always to enjoy . •A shadow covered the sun and the wind blew cool.

The moist ground was no longer pleasant and the beat swayed
and was sick.

Linda Du Bois

FOR A SILLY BOY THAT I LOVEa two-button blouse
can be liked:

not liked:

or

but

this one was liked

and

even

thoughit ripped all around(everywhere)
and was old-fashioned(two-buttoned puff sleeved)

it is missed.

it was truly a twobuttonmind)
blouse.

(state ofand like the steel nailthat I always

put in its one
left pocket

it was special.
(he leaned down andnicked up the nail and raveit to me saying "here,
now always keen this,it’c a present" or some­thing like that)and I lost it.

Kathy BennGREAT EXPECTATIONS

I wanted to learn

to change
to be different

to be betterfor having shared a part of myself

I wanted an unforgettable experiencebut all I had wasa niceweekendDiane Jonte

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kLESSONS IN JACKSONI.
I would like to live
In times warm, as orange poppies

and these faces of my friends,
II.
Strange stones from the water

they fit like eggs in the palms of
my handst

III.
And the headstone of Maria Luka Krvich

never screams at the headstone of

Stepan Petar Krvichor kissed him.

Lisa Koibeck

M.U.D.S. Students

1969

Philip Pajalich

Ed Riddell

Tom Schubb

Pete Guthrie

Eric Svenson

Dan ZimmerlinFred Sigworth

Claire Copenhagen

Chris Ammen

Kathy Benn

Randy Anger

Madeline Prager

Kathy Dunlop

Mark Schieble

Tod Bottari

Tom Winfree

Chip Bissell

Dave Thomas

Julie Jachau

Chris Volker

Linda Dubois

Mirka Benes

Emily Kenyon

Dave Liu

Lisa Koibeck

Linda Mann

Ron Langberg

Madi Bacon'zjJohn SechiniJean Nelson

Diane Jonte

Carol Clemons

Steve Serr

Anne Ruhland

Sarah French

Helen Benes

Dennis Murphy

Melanie McCormack

Harold Hallikainen
Matt Conover

Karen Starr
Janet Fahey

Jim Breuner
Alan PowellDoug Senz

Ed Buffalo'*
Lynelle Prince
Jennie Toms

Faculty:
Mr. John Husband

Mr. Dick Gompf

Mrs. Norma Gregerman

Mr. Don Underwood

Mr. John Kell

Mrs. Anne Towner

Mr. Bob Trestrail

Mr. John Sanford

Mr. Ron Brown

Student Directors:

Dale Sommers
Jeff Sawyer

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