ElderChicks

Some years ago, when I was living in San Diego a friend of mine took me aside at a party given by a mutual friend to ask me how I felt about  some of us “seniors” (women, that is) starting a political activist group.  I thought it was a great idea. Eight women and one man (a colleague of mine from San Diego State-History Department) met to discuss our focus. We became the Board.  The biggest problem we ran into during the first few organizational meetings was what to call ourselves.We finally agreed on Progressive Grandmothers for Political Action. You’d be amazed at how many of our new members had a problem with the “Grandmother” part of the name!

The arguments ranged from “What if you’re not a grandmother?” to “Why do we have to emphasize how old we are?” Some members balked at “progressive” but the three of us who started the group said that term counteracted the idea that we, ladies in our 60’s, 70’s 80’s, and 90’s (that comprised the ages of the original 8 of us!) were not reactionaries or old fogies.

But it was the term “grandmother” that got the dander up of several women (all of whom were, in fact, grandmothers) for the first few months as we brought in more and more new members.

We didn’t capitulate. PGPA was a successful organization in Rancho Bernardo for several years with more than 138 men and women on our email address list. We had mayors, council members, state representatives,  and other wonderful guest speakers at our monthly meetings which were held in a large meeting room at The Remington Club.

Only when one of our founders died, another moved, a third became too ill, and I packed up to leave the city  did our group disband.