Senior News August, 2003 Vol. 23. No. 8

 

Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.

Ruth Mountaingrove is taking a semester off after 17 years

Gulp! I'm finally eligible for HSU's classes for seniors

Arts program teaches 100-year-old craft

Timber Ridge builds 48 new senior units

Three delightful selections lure travelers to the warmth of So. Humboldt

How a paycheck affects your Social Security benefits

Briefs

Pick up a copy today! Better yet, subscribe and never miss an issue!

Selling Clarissa. Ruth Mountaingrove leans against her beloved Clarissa, a 1966 Mustang she has driven "since it was a baby." Photo by Barbara Clark

A former editor, writer and photographer for women's magazines, she also took the advanced photography classes-repeatedly. "I could take them as often as I wanted to, and I got to use the darkroom and be with others who were advancing," she said. "I applied for an MA in Art. I had to take art history courses to be accepted. I had quite a background by the time I was done."

Her MA in photography led her to develop a new art form she calls "drawing in light." Not a photograph, it's a process of creating a fully exposed negative, scratching marks or designs on it, putting it into the enlarger and then throwing it into and out of focus. "It's wonderful," said the perennial student. "Until you develop the print, you don't know what you've got. It's magic."

She earned her MA in 1990 and walked across the Van Duzer stage to receive her diploma.

During the early 1990s, Ruth became the darkroom coordinator at the Ink People Center for the Arts where for 11 years she has maintained chemicals, oriented people to the equipment and does general housekeeping.

During the same period, she took computer classes at HSU and in 1994 began to write in Senior News about the adventures of the electronic highway. "I felt sure there were old people who were scared of computers, so I started writing the column. A lot of people have thanked me."

She became interested in video production and learned to edit video and audio tape. She spent two years as a member of the Humboldt County Grand Jury where she helped write and publish the report for her session. "It was spiritually deadening, so I took a course called Writing from the Outside," she said. It was a class that asked students to take a myth or fairy tale and write a play out of it. Enjoying the new direction, she set her sights on a Masters in Fine Arts in dramatic writing but was to be rejected repeatedly.

The final rejection for the MFA program occurred on September 11, and she marks that date as a time of personal crisis that affected her health for some months following. On the day of the attack on the World Trade Center, she was in a degree conference on campus and being turned down again for the MFA program. "I got another MA in theatre production, but what did I need another MA for," she said practically, "I had already done that." It is clearly one of her disappointments.

Ruth Mountaingrove came out as a lesbian at age 48. She is matter of fact about the political and social aspects of her lifestyle now, but has been a feminist activist for many years. After her divorce in her mid-40s, she had gotten most of her kids off to college when she and her daughter Heather took the trip west to Mountain Grove in Southern Oregon. The commune based on the teachings of Krishnamurti became her home, and she and partner Jean took the name Mountaingrove as their relationship grew. They were also part of the growing spirituality in the women's movement of the mid-70s, as the two were writing for Country Woman magazine. That was when they "rode the tide" and began publishing WomenSpirit magazine in 1974 and launched the Blatant Image magazine of feminist photography in 1980.

Many of the women who would travel during those ten years to Rootworks, their wilderness land, to help put out the magazines became well-known feminist and lesbian writers. Now Ruth's connection with them is to review new books for the local lesbian newsletter, The L Word, a contribution she has been making for seven years.
With several other women, she has co-produced Through the Eyes of Women on HSU radio, and practically every year has been one of the featured singers on the stage at the annual Gay Pride Celebration.

Not many people try to drive 40-year-old cars around town, but Ruth and "Clarissa" have been a customary sight around Arcata. In recent years, she has worried about whether or not she should keep driving. She has passed the eye test and the driving test which the Dept. of Motor Vehicles requires seniors to take more and more frequently as they age, and has written about the dilemma of driving or not driving in Senior News. The matter was decided for her when Clarissa turned a bit too slowly in front of another driver in June, and Ruth lost her license. Now the "for sale" sign is up for the classic 1966 Mustang convertible.

Ruth Mountaingrove isn't going to go for another masters degree. "They're too hard. I'm getting too old for that." Celebrating her 80th birthday in February, she plans to catch up "on a lot that I've been neglecting." She has written and recorded her own songs and, with the engineering help of Karrie Wallace, has cut four CDs in a small music studio in her home. The computer sound studio was purchased with a grant from the Thanks Be To Grandmother Winifred Foundation. She records women musicians and produces CDs and artwork from her computer. She also has four CDs of her own poetry.

She wants to do more art. "I enjoy doing art on my computer in PhotoShop. I plan to do a lot of reading, possibly some photography." She will continue writing for the Retired and Senior Volunteer column in the Times-Standard, serving on the Senior News Editorial Advisory Board and participating with the Wednesday Writers group in Arcata.

Knowing Ruth and her insatiable curiosity, we'll probably be seeing her back on campus on a future first day of classes.

Barbara Clark is editor of Senior News. Go to www.humboldt.edu for information on Over-60 Program registration at Humboldt State University.