From Apathy to Activism // December 2008
The news of Barack Obama's victory on the evening of Nov. 4, 2008 unleashed a series of unprecedented displays of celebration in Bellingham.
Stacks of film reel tins balance on a bookcase in the corner of an 82-year-old entryway. Rows of books share the shelves with an antique tripod and a dusty film clapperboard.
Sitting on a wooden bench on the front porch of his Grant Street home, Ken Barkley pensively looks up and down the block on which he has lived for 36 years.
It's the first bone chilling night of the school year in the Sehome neighborhood. Friendship City, Bellingham's only official house venue, waits with the front door propped open.
Only a few years ago, a popular downtown music and nightlife scene was beginning to put Bellingham on the map as a hotbed for underground music.
As a child, Erin Wisler was in and out of hospitals. She had a rare case of childhood onset lupus, a disease that caused her antibodies to attack her immune system and damage her major organs.
In the bottom floor of an unassuming house on Forest Street, lights are dimmed and a crowd mingles around a four-man band playing a lively fusion of reggae and jazz."
Walking into the Viking Union Market, a thick smell of frying grease overpowers everything else. Hungry patrons shuffle through, making selections from a variety of lunch items.
