Portland Press Herald Article
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Meg Perry's actions spoke for her
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
It was a routine question, a fill-in-the-blanks attempt to put the
26-year-old woman with the winning smile into some kind of context.
"So, after high school, did you go to college?" I asked Meg Perry a few
months ago as we stood in a makeshift camp of volunteer relief workers,
surrounded by the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina.
"I did," she replied.
"Where?" I asked.
"A school in Poughkeepsie," she said with just a tinge of discomfort.
"So . . . what school?" I persisted.
She looked down, then shrugged.
"Vassar," she finally said. "I don't like to say it right off because
some people, when they hear 'Vassar,' react kind of funny."
And with that, Perry revealed far more about herself than simply where
she went to college: Her degree said Vassar, but her down-to-earth
identity extended far beyond the stereotypes of the prestigious private
school.
That memorable exchange resurfaced last weekend as news reached Maine
that Perry, back in Louisiana on her second trip to bring aid to
victims of the hurricane, had died in a bus accident on Interstate 10
in New Orleans.
She was riding Saturday on the Frida Bus, a school bus turned social
activism center, when a young woman behind the wheel lost control and
the vehicle flipped onto its side.
Perry, who spearheaded both the trip and the creation of the
biodiesel-fueled bus through the People's Free Space - a community
organization she helped found in Portland three years ago - was thrown
from the bus and then pinned beneath it.
Tributes from her many friends already have confirmed what was
immediately apparent that late September day when photographer Greg Rec
and I followed Perry and her friend Nate "Iggy" Brimmer on their
mission of mercy through the northeastern Louisiana town of Bogalusa:
While much of the world wrung its hands over the desperate need for
food, water, clothing and who knows what else in the ravaged Gulf Coast
region, Meg Perry was there on the ground, actually doing something
about it.
Put more simply, while others talked, she acted. And no matter how long
the day dragged on, or how high the temperature climbed, or how much
the bug bites on her legs itched, she never stopped smiling.
"I promised my mom I wouldn't drink any cholera soup," she quipped when
asked if her family was worried about her heading into a disaster zone
- not as a Red Cross or Salvation Army worker, but as a grass-roots
volunteer determined to connect directly with those who needed help the
most.
Her politics were decidedly to the left. As she spoke eloquently that
day about what motivated her, words like "community" and "individual"
and "sharing" punctuated her view of a world dominated by corporations
that care little about such things.
And even in the face of the worst storm in U.S. history, she brushed
away the suggestion that a handful of well-meaning 20-somethings from
Maine were no match for Hurricane Katrina's overwhelming aftermath.
"Get enough people," Perry said cheerfully, "and you can move a
mountain."
Not to mention hearts.
Columnist Bill Nemitz can be contacted at 791-6323 or at: