Diversions

In 1976, Seattle was run as much from the lunchrooms and steam rooms of a handful of private clubs—the Rainier, the Washington Athletic, the Yacht Club—as it was from City Hall. In Seattle Weekly's 20th issue (Aug. 11, 1976), editor Pat Douglas took on the Seattle Tennis Club, easily the town's most exclusive and hard to crack, right from its $5,000 initiation fee to its notoriously old-fashioned rules of behavior (a steward once told Wimbledon contender Tom Gorman to change into whites or leave the court). Also, business editor Bill Cushing uncovered a scam whereby garbage-collection rates were being set at the behest of the hauling monopoly, while Paul Gregutt covered the opening of the first of the small nightclubs (the Pipeline) that made Seattle a legendary mecca for live music. Also on the lifestyle beat: yet another article (the fifth in the paper's four-and-a-half month existence) about America's coming soccer boom, and critical quibbles about Intiman's production of Shaw's early bonbon Arms and the Man. I saw that production, featuring John Gilbert, Ted D'Arms, Michael Kevin, and Lori Larsen. I admit the faults I noted at the time, but I haven't seen anything, at Intiman or elsewhere, to erase the charms of that production.

rdowney@seattleweekly.com