11When someone sees them in the paper and calls them some name or other, “I smile from ear to ear,” she says. “They saw it, they read it, and that’s what matters.”
And these women do attract attention, with their floppy, flowery hats, ancient aprons and shawls. So how is it that they’re so thick-skinned?
Simple: “We’re Raging Grannies, girl!” Gail Jenkins tells a reporter.
Jenkins, 68, is part of the worldwide network of grannies who helped start the “gaggle” — yes, that’s what they’re called — in Port Townsend five summers ago.
The first Raging Grannies got together in Victoria in 1987 to protest the presence of U.S. Navy warships and submarines off the Vancouver Island coast.
Since then, gaggles have gathered all over Canada, the United States, Australia and Europe, to sing their specially written songs about human rights, ending war, protecting the environment and plain stamping out greed.
The Port Townsend grannies sang out first for peace, calling Republican former President George W. Bush and Rep. Norm Dicks, the Belfair Democrat who represents the North Olympic Peninsula, to task for their roles in advancing the war in Iraq.
And earlier this year, they warbled “health carols” at a Port Townsend town-hall meeting on President Barack Obama’s health care reform bill.
“Song is a real powerful thing,” granny Darlene Durfee says, “and humor is the other powerful thing,” that makes the grannies’ medicine go down.
Durfee and her late husband, Steve, were there at the start of the Port Townsend gaggle; he was their official “grump” and guitar player until his death in July 2007.
The grannies have since taken up ukuleles to accompany themselves.
They have quite a repertoire: 65 numbers in their songbook, and more to choose from at www.RagingGrannies.net. That’s the website devoted to songs; www.RagingGrannies.org offers a “starter kit,” a “herstory” and a list of gaggles around the globe.
The women have established a May tradition in Port Townsend, in which they go downtown dressed in full granny regalia and present Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day proclamation.
It begins with “Arise, then, women of this day!” and continues with a plea for peace, so that “our sons will not be taken from us, to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.”
“The Mother’s Day [proclamation] was new to me,” said Jenkins, adding that as a granny, she’s learned plenty about history and contemporary issues.
“We research our stuff,” she said. “We don’t go out there willy-nilly.”
As they have made their rounds — the Jefferson County Fair, local service clubs, Dicks’ office in Port Angeles — people have made “the strangest faces,” said Jenkins.
And one passer-by made a point of telling Durfee: “Don’t get any better [at singing].”
These days grannies rage about the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the bank bailouts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — but the women do not expect to radically change anybody’s mind.
Instead, “I think we sometimes raise issues that cause people to think about them again,” said Port Townsend granny Barbara Morey.
The Port Townsend group is also concerned about Naval Magazine Indian Island, and questions not only the safety of the base but also what types of weapons are stored there.
Many residents of Jefferson County don’t know enough about the Navy installation two miles from Port Townsend, Jenkins believes.
“People do stop and listen to us,” she added. “We get a lot of response from those who agree with us.”
This fall, the Port Townsend group wants to recruit new grannies from all walks of life.
Jenkins, Jensen and co-granny Diane Bommer are nurses, Joellen Thompson and Mary Jo Nichols are retired schoolteachers, Audrey Fain is a retired family therapist and Morey teaches workshops for parents and works with youth in the juvenile justice system.
Morey, Thompson and Fain are from the Midwest; Jenkins is a Southerner who did not conform to the dominant culture of her native Arkansas.
“In the South,” she said, “everything’s supposed to be sweet,” including the iced tea and the women. She, however, has always been outspoken.
You don’t have to be a grandmother to be a Raging Granny, nor do you need previous singing experience, said Jenkins, though you do need to be “a woman of a certain age.”
Their mission is to educate, said Durfee, and it feels good to do that. They also urge people to take part in the democratic process by voting — though they don’t endorse candidates.
“I love that ‘Vote’ song,” Durfee added, referring to the grannies’ classic set to the “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands” tune.
“If you can’t be bothered voting / Think again,” it begins; later it warns that if you still don’t vote for or against candidates, “be prepared to live with what they choose to do.”
Another thing the grannies do is crash parties.
They had a good time bursting into Sequim’s Pioneer Park clubhouse, for example, for the May 3, 2009, party in honor of folksinging legend Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday.
Durfee, who is a great-grandmother, believes speaking — and singing — out without fear is one of the perks of reaching this point in her life. She doesn’t fret much anymore about what people might think or say about her.
“There are some real advantages,” she said, “to being older.”
To reach the Raging Grannies, phone Jenkins at 360-385-7612 or Durfee at 360-643-3003.
Keep in mind, though, that both are busy this summer, caring for their grandchildren.