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| GNU/Longfellow House - at GNU House 1982-4 (photo from Bill Renninger - dark beard next to Carl) |
When I moved to DC I started off living in a large apartment building on Lamont St NW in the Mount Pleasant area. It was close to downtown DC and cheap. I shared the house with about 20 other people, many who're shown in this photo.
Our rent included food and we rotated cooking an evening meal. So about once or twice a month you'd cook dinner and the rest of the time someone else would cook dinner. There was an active market trading slots and I soon found myself cooking dinner about twice that often. Whoever I traded with had to clean-up and I didn't mind cooking so that was alright with me. After a few months I got elected treasurer of the food monies which meant I could give a list of what I wanted to whoever was going out to buy food in bulk so I always had a good idea about what was in the pantry for use in a dinner.
There was always tension at GNU House between the vegetarians and the meat-eaters. Spending food monies on meat was an issue for the vegetarians, and the quality of the dinners the vegetarians fixed was a corresponding issue for the meat eaters. I found that many vegetarians added way too much spice to their meals making them almost uneatable. Vegan vegetarians were a whole different set of eaters who rarely lasted long at GNU House.
Not too long after I moved in a group of about ten people moved out to another slightly smaller house up 16th Street. I'm not sure why they left although it may have been started by a dispute with the landlord "G." I'd just moved in so I didn't feel like moving again.
This photo was taken at GNU House, but contains many people who were actually living at "Longfellow House" so named because it was on Longfellow Street. It was later because Clare and Carl are looking like a couple in this happy photo and Clare didn't move into "GNU" house until several months after the first wave of people moved to Longfellow.
I named the people I know in this photo.
