Meet: Poppy

Hat- Gift from my sister from random shop in Chicago

Flower pin on hat- Target years ago

Earrings- Rosarito, Mexico shopping market

Blouse- Thrifted vintage Mexican embroidered blouse

Bag- Gift from my sister from Borders

Jeans- Old Navy

Shoes- Thrifted Pikolinos (which retail for $250. I payed $3.00)

Ethel Birch grew up in a normal susburban town in middle America, with a normal suburban family, in their normal suburban house. She had a father who served in the Korean War, A mother, who was a famous baker of brownies, an older brother, Dick, who was in his senior year at Harvard, and a little sister, Sally, who was a regular at the Equestrian Centre. They lived a happy life. They lived a very boring, happy life. And Ethel wanted more. More came in the form of an acceptance letter to Sarah Lawrence to study journalism in the fall of 1969. Ethel told her parents that Freshman needed to report to the school by August 14th for orientation. In fact She and a friend had saved babysitting money to go to Woodstock before their new lives began in the fall.

At Woodstock, Ethel reinvented herself as Poppy Birch, a suedonym she carried with her to school. She wore her hair long and listened to the music her mother and always called "distasteful." She was excited by life and by the possiblities around her. She did well in school and soon found herself on the school newspaper staff writing articles on campus activities. While it was mundane for the most part, Poppy soon found something that caught her attention. While she had never been very politically minded, she was curious by the number of students across the country who were against the Vietnam War. She began to research the war, and to research why her generation was so against it. In the spring of 1970 she, and a fellow student were given the chance to travel to Kent State University to attend a protest. it was there on that fateful day of May 4th 1970, that Poppy witnessed the Kent State Massacre. It shocked and appaled Poppy that students were killed and wounded for practicing their right to their own oppinion. She returned home confused, angered, and filled with a sense of urgency. She knew that she, that her peers and herself, were responsible for changing the future. That if they did not like what their parents and grandparents had done before them, it was up to them to change that. It was up to them to question the world and say "no, we will not settle." Three weeks later her brother Dick was drafted into the United States Marine Corps.

It wasn't until Dick's draft that the war really hit home for Poppy. She began organizing protests herself, and going to any she could attend. The following summer, Poppy found herself looked down on in her hometown. The people dismissed her radical ideas and whispered about her indecency (she had given up on wearing a bra her fifth week of school when she couldn't find a clean one). Her own parents wanted little to do with her. Dick, however, was praised as a hero despite the fact that he hadn't even been deployed yet. Little did they know Dick's oppinons on being drafted and on the war at large. Each letter he sent his little sister was filled with encoragment to speak her mind and let the voice of their generation be heard. Dick was deployed in the fall of 1970 and his letters continued to Poppy until right after New Years. She didn't hear from him for two months before her mother called her to inform Poppy that Dick had been killed in combat. Poppy was angry, but she used her anger to fuel her determination to help end the war.

After Dick's death Poppy wrote scathing articles for her newspaper and began sending articles to big newspapers. It was when The New York Times published one of her articles, that she left school and got a job as a travelling correspondent. She would travel to protests, Veteran's Hospitals, Military facilities, and anywhere else she could get into. She surved a short stint in prison after being arrested for trying to break into a draft office to burn it down, however charges were dismissed when it was discovered that all of the accused were girls high on LSD, which was given to them in drinks at a party (or so they claimed), and they would never ever do anything so terrible of their own will (or so they claimed). After her arrest Poppy's mother became intent on rebuilding her relationship with her daughter. Poppy returned to her hometown in mid April 1975 where she found her mother waiting with open arms.

The war ended on April 30th, the same day that Poppy came to an epiphany. She began to realize that for all her efforts nothing she ever did in protest of the war had ever helped herself or anyone else. And yet sitting there with her mother, being taught the secret family brownie recipe, did more for the both of them than she ever would have expected. Poppy began to realize that real change had to come at a personal level, between individuals. The world would always war with each other, but she didn't have to live at war with the world. And that was true peace. And so Poppy found herself suddenly in love with her small suburban town, and the small suburban people that surrounded her. Especially one Bob Clifton, a quiet vet, who had come to town looking for someplace that was equally quiet and peaceful. And Poppy admired him for that. Even her mother liked him. Or maybe that was the improvement Poppy added to the brownies?

P.S. Happy 4th of July!