Fran: "Both Stu and I agreed that the best, easiest way for us all to get elected would be if Mother Abagail endorsed the whole slate. It would save us the problem of having twenty people nominated by their friends and possibly upsetting the applecart. But now we'll have to do it another way. I'm not going to suggest anything that isn't perfectly democratic, and you all know the plan anyway, but I just want to re-emphasize that each of us has to make sure we have someone who will nominate and second us. We won't do it for each other, obviously - that would look too much like the Mafia. And if you can't find one person to nominate you and another to second you, you might as well give up anyway."
Sue: "Wow! That's sneaky, Fran."
Fran: "Yes - it is, a little."
Glen: "We're edging back into the subject of the committee's morality, and although I'm sure we all find that an endlessly fascinating topic, I'd like to see it tabled for the next few months. I think we just have to agree that we're serving in the Free Zone's best interest and leave it at that."
Ralph: "You sound a little pissed, Glen."
Glen: "I am a little pissed. I admit it. The very fact that we've spent so much time eating at our own livers on this subject should give a pretty good indication as to where our hearts are."
Sue: "The road to hell is paved with - "
Glen: "Good intentions, yes, and since we all seem so worried about our intentions, we must surely be on the highway to heaven."
Glen then said that he had intended to address the committee on the subject of our scouts or spies or whatever you want to call them, but that he wanted to make a motion instead that we meet to discuss that on the nineteenth. Stu asked him why.
Glen: "Because we might not all be here on the nineteenth. Somebody might get voted out. It's a remote possibility, but no one really knows what a large group of people is going to do when they all get together in one place. We ought to be as careful as we can."
That was good for a moment of silence, and the committee voted, 7-0, to meet on the nineteenth - as a Permanent Committee - to discuss the question of the scouts... or spies... or whatever.
Stu was recognized to put a third item of business before the committee, concerning Mother Abagail.
Stu: "As you know, she's gone off for reasons of her own. Her note says she'll 'be gone for a while,' which is pretty vague, and that she'll be back 'if it's God's will.' Now, that's not very encouraging. We've had a search-party out for three days now and we haven't found a thing. We don't want to just drag her back, not if she doesn't want to come, but if she's lying up somewhere with a busted leg or if she's unconscious, that's a lot different. Now part of the problem is that there just aren't enough of us to search all the wildlands around here. But another part of it is the same thing that's slowing us down at the power station. There's just no organization. So what I'm looking for is permission to put this search-party on the agenda of the big meeting tomorrow night, same as the power station and the burial crew. And I'd like to see Harold Lauder in charge, because it was his idea in the first place."
Glen said that he didn't think any search-party was going to find very good news after a week or so. After all, the lady in question is a hundred and eight years old. The committee as a whole agreed with that, and then voted in favor of the motion, 7-0, as Stu had put it. To make this record as honest as possible, I should add there were several expressions of doubt over putting Harold in charge... but as Stu pointed out, it had been his idea to begin with, and not to give him command of the search-party would be a direct slap in the face.
Nick: "I withdraw my objection to Harold, but not my basic reservations. I just don't like him very much."
Ralph Brentner asked if either Stu or Glen would write out Stu's motion about the search-party so he could add it to the agenda, which he plans to print at the high school tonight. Stu said he'd be glad to.
Larry Underwood then moved that we adjourn, Ralph seconded it, and it was voted, 7-0.
Frances Goldsmith, Secretary
The turnout for the meeting the next evening was almost total, and for the first time Larry Underwood, who had been in the Zone only a week, got an idea of just how large the community was becoming. It was one thing to see people coming and going on the streets, usually alone or by twos, and quite another thing to see them all gathered together in one place - Chautauqua Auditorium. The place was full, every seat taken and more people sitting in the aisles and standing at the back of the hall. They were a curiously subdued crowd, murmuring but not babbling. For the first time since he had gotten to Boulder it had rained all day long, a soft drizzle that seemed to hang suspended in the air, fogging you rather than wetting you, and even with the assemblage of close to six hundred, you could hear the quiet sound of rain on the roof. The loudest sound inside was the constant riffle of paper as people looked at the mimeographed agendas that had been piled up on two card tables just inside the double doors.
This agenda read:
THE BOULDER FREE ZONE
Open Meeting Agenda
August 18, 1990
1. To see if the Free Zone will agree to read and ratify the Constitution of the United States of America.
2. To see if the Free Zone will agree to read and ratify the Bill of Rights to the Constitution of the United States of America.