Barbara has been exercising with Bodies-in-Motion for about 25 years. She says the reason she loves working with BIMI is that she “like[s] the music. It was a relief from all the disco/club crap. The people who work out with BIMI are also on my wave length.” Barbara worked as a writer/editor in the Communications Office of the State of Georgia Department of Human Resources […”not personnel”] and learned a lot about public health and aging there. She retired in 2006. Before that, in the early 80’s she was working for the Safe Energy Communication Council in Washington DC to develop PSAs to counter Southern Company’s public relations blitz designed to offset the fallout [no pun intended] from the Three-Mile Island disaster. She is also one of the founding members of the Atlanta alternative radio station, WRFG, 89.3. In fact, she was the very first voice heard on that station and she played the first song “Is There Anybody Out There Listening?”
Follows some questions we asked Barbara, and her answers:
What is your academic background? I am a writer, despite my parents’ efforts to induce me into their field of math and science. I graduated from Vassar in 1963 with an undergraduate degree in the classics---Greek and Latin. I received my Masters Degree in Medieval English Literature from Yale and pursued a doctoral degree but did not complete it after I switched from Yale to Columbia.
How did you become a “political animal”? My parents were both left-wing, active in the 30’s. After honeymooning in Russia they became quite disillusioned [interesting story I will tell you more about some time] and, on returning home they became liberal democrats but retained the values of social solidarity and anti-racism, anti-militarism and anti-exploitation that they passed on to me. I grew up in Manhattan and the injustices were obvious. I did not, however, take part in active protests until the Spring of 1960 when myself and several black Vassar students took a bus into Poughkeepsie, New York where we picketed the Woolworth’s, with around 200 others, to show solidarity for the black students’ sit-in at the Woolworth’s counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. Of course, they were serving blacks in Poughkeepsie, so folks were mostly just curious about what the heck we were protesting so we used the occasion to educate the public about the discrimination that was going on in other parts of the country. That event inspired me towards activism. I realized how a small event could effect positive change.
What are you up to now? I work for The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International [gorillafund.org], writing, editing and doing photo research. The gorillas studied by us are mostly on the Rwandan side of Virunga Volcanic mountain range in Volcanoes National Park. I am interested in the gorillas but also very interested in how people are helped through this organization.
Why and where do you exercise? I exercise for weight control, stress reduction and to build bone strength---I have osteopenia. I visit the fitness room at the Mills Center twice a week, come to Seminole on Saturday mornings and take water aerobics on Sundays at the Decatur YMCA. I also walk a lot. I deliberately live in a walkable neighborhood.
What is your favorite music? Folk, blues, progressive bluegrass and country, jazz, Irish, klezmer.
Do you have any pets? Yes, one cat named John Cougar Meloncat, sometimes known as Cougar or JC. He’s orange, hence the melon reference….cantalope.
Interviewed by Molly Lay on July 23, 2011