Monday, March 30, 2015

Who Cleaned the Bay?

If you are drinking in a sports bar, you might need to know the answer to this question: which NBA coach had the best mother?

Back in the 1960s, San Francisco Bay was an open sewer. You could flush your business directly into the water, which became unsafe to swim in. Also about a quarter of the bay had been filled in by cities and developers, intent on making it possible to walk from Berkeley to  Coit Tower. 

At that point three women with no experience as activists founded an organization and asked for one dollar dues. They set out to stop filling in the bay and to start cleaning it up. They went from city to city, organizing, and that is why today you can jump in the water without encountering poop.  One of the three women was Kay Kerr, the mother of the Warriors coach, Steve Kerr. Welcome home, Steve Kerr.

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