Richard Lee Dreier:  

Diploma in hand, the world was my oyster in the summer of 1960. I enrolled in LCC, affectionally named Last Chance College by some of us wags that attended. There my academic career was somewhat modest, but my social life was full of dances, beer busts and girls. I continued my interest in dramatics and acted in some of the plays that LCC put on. Not being one that was offered scholarships, I funded my college career by working at Mother Fibre between bouts of school. It only took me 6 years to make it through LCC and along the way, I married a sweet young thing from Castle Rock. With Dawn at my side, we went to Central Washington State College in Ellensburg. Marriage has a way of motivating you, so it only took two years to get through Central. Diploma in hand, we ended up in Oakland, Ca during the period when the Black Panthers were at their apex and the Berkley students were rioting on campus and on Telegraph Avenue. Only someone out of their mind would venture out into the dark in those days and the cops rode around in cars with a shotgun sticking up in the middle of the front seat. It didn't take us long to decide our future didn't lie in Oakland and we trundled back to Washington where I landed a job as a caseworker for public welfare in Bellingham. I tended to the needs of little old ladies and men and scoured the hills and valleys of Watcom County for the homes of hippies who were clients of ours. It was popular those days for the more colorful of the youth to end up as our clients. More often than not, they lived in the hills and it was always an adventure to find their places of abode for a home visit. After a couple of years, I decided that ministering to the needs of the poor wasn't my bag, so I returned to Fibre for what turned out to be a span of 30 years. I never regretted my decision. As an aside, it wasn't easy being a welfare caseworker. I was in a bar one time and mentioned to a fellow that I was a caseworker. He went on and on ...Expand for more