Read Mully’s story from the beginning

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Mully: I lived in a house with eight women and we advertised for men to come and eat with us and pay us $25 per month. We had these really interesting men there; many were artists. I was always attracted to my future husband, Skip, but I had this relationship in the middle of him trying to decide if he liked me or didn’t like me, with this guy, Phil, who was an artist.

William T Wiley

 That popped me into the art world. These guys were amazing artists and they were all teaching at U.C. Davis. Wayne Thiebaud, William T Wiley. They were the up and coming. They were really expressing themselves. It was inspiring!  Phil exposed me to this world in a deeper way, and we lived together a while and my world became enriched by his interests and cohorts.

Wayne Thiebaud

 I went to demonstrations in Sacramento against then Governor, Ronald Reagan’s policies around the UC system and the redwood forests. I helped leaflet and educated people against Prop. 14; a measure that de-funded many social programs in the sixties, and I also participated in teach-ins about the Civil Rights Movement and the anti war movement.

“If you’ve seen one redwood, you’ve seen them all” -Ronald Reagan

There were planning meetings, and meetings of all kinds to attend.  I worked on the student newspaper, and that is actually where I connected with my future husband, Skip. He was the assistant editor, and we worked on the paper for two years, one year of which I served as the Business Manager.

One day in a staff meeting of the Cal Aggie, Skip reached over and lit my cigarette. That was the first time I noticed him. But it turns out that he had spotted me the previous year in the Commons, playing bridge.  He was curious about me, and when I showed up in the same arena as he, we struck up an interest in one another.  We began dating.  I thought, “this is great” and was excited, but he became ambivalent, which created a “push-pull” dynamic in our relationship; one that lasted until we were married.

Marijuana arrived in our world around the mid-sixties.  It was really hilarious getting stoned with friends, and eating and laughing and listening to Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and all the amazing music that opened us all up.  We went to dances at the Fillmore and Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco, and had our minds blown.

LSD was also becoming available. I wasn’t a huge drug head. I took LSD, it didn’t change my life, neither did pot.

I loved the freedom of the counter culture, but I was destined to do things other than  remain in the Bay Area and stay immersed in that aspect of the movement.  I got pregnant and married Skip and he got a fellowship to go to the University of Washington to get his PhD.

So when our precious baby daughter, Cere, was two weeks old, we packed all our stuff up, sold everything else and drove up to Seattle in our Volkswagen bus. That was 1967.

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