The Can Iran Story--

In Santa Rosa, where I went to High School, there was a columnist for the local paper “The Press Democrat” that wrote about local events. Her name was Gaye LeBaron, and she often wrote about the doings of Charles Schultz (Peanuts), the un-doings of local politicians, the charity events that were going on, the wine culture and the local characters who ran the wineries. She was your basic, high-end local gossip columnist and your low-end chronicler of local events and people, with quite a following.

When I ate my lunch in a diner with the local paper, I read Gaye Le Baron.

The column is gone now. She retired. Her husband was my black and white photography instructor in my one semester of junior college. I have a print I printed in his lab stored somewhere around here, where on the back, after having to describe our photo in twenty five words, he wrote- “You have a way with words”.

I saved it because his wife had a way with words, giving this teacher’s scrawl some future meaning, with some hidden significance, though I am not sure that that meaning hasn’t gone into retrograde by now.

He never knew that I was one of the “Can Iran” clan, the mysterious political group that his wife had so much fun writing about, two years before I met him.

I’ve written both about my friend G and my friend Rolf. They were in on this. There were a few girls in on this too. It was a group of about six of us, all in on this. It was a Saturday night, we were bored teen-agers with a truck, and G had been given an idea by his uncle in a conversation not long before.

There was a trick to getting a garbage can tossed over the top of a forty foot flag pole, and G had just learned it.

So of course we had to try it.

My high school was featured in the movie "Peggy Sue Got Married".

Here is a photo of the front of it. To save you some time, here is my senior year picture as well, so you can tease me all you'd like. Go ahead. I dare ya. That's some doo, ain't it?

So on a Saturday night we needed a garbage can. We drove into my neighborhood- because we were mischievous wimps and I knew all my neighbors, none of whom would shoot guns out their windows- and we stole a metal garbage can. The most common type of metal can. Round. Faceted slightly. About waist high (my waist) and dirty and foul and smelly. We were kind and emptied out the trash into one of their other cans and threw the can into the back of a truck and drove away. Part one was complete.

Part two was figuring out what we were going to spray paint on the can.We stopped off at one of the girl's houses and got spray paint from her father's garage. We needed to write something clever. Something great. Something that would draw people's attention. Attention is what we were really after. Or why do this at all?

This was in 79, I think. Maybe 1980. It was right at the peak of the Iran hostage crises. While odd slogans were tossed about under the influence of beer, I thought getting political would get the most attention.

"Can Iran" I badly punned.

"CAN IRAN" it was.

We painted the words in red paint on the side of the can, and stuck it on top of our school's flagpole.

Teehee.

Weren't we the mischievous clan?

On Monday morning, the can was still on top of the flagpole. The local Press Democrat ran an almost full length photo of our political can on the back page, page two in real terms. It was a long and skinny photo, showing the whole flagpole. There on top of the flagpole, was our can, with the words "Can Iran" plainly visible.

The whole school were having gossipy conversations about the can, and we mischievous six, kept our mouths shut.

The bottom caption of the photo read something like this- "Someone, able to shimmy up a forty foot flag pole, has hoisted a can in protest and solidarity with the hostages held for..."

Gaye LeBaron wrote a piece in her column that day, as well. She too, talked about the amazing feat of the shimmy-climb, and we six read it over and over but told noone.

Our saturday night mischief had accomplished what we set out to do. We were famous, unknown celebrities in our little local world.

G and I had decided that we felt bad for stealing the can. We got all six of us to chip in and bought the family that we stole the can from, another one. This we sneaked back to the side of their garage where the old can had been. On this new, shiny can, we taped the picture of the can that ran in the newspaper, with a note, describing how their can had become a celebrity. The note actually started - "Your can is a celebrity." That much I remember.

The mother in this family saw the Gaye LeBaron piece and sent in a note herself. She described how she had been the victim of a "can theft", and how, two days later, a new one had arrived. She had lost the lid to the old one and it had indeed become leaky and smelly, so she was very happy. Gaye Le Baron ran this note, in full, and wrote a nice piece about these mysterious can people, and how wonderful a thing they did by replacing the can. This ran on tuesday, the day the fire truck was brought in to remove the can from the pole. On wednesday, a photo of our can being removed by a fireman with a ladder truck ran in the paper with the words "Can Iran" plainly visible as the fireman lifted it off the top of the pole. Gaye Le Baron wrote a short piece about this, too, as the can had been visible on Mendocino Ave, a very busy and well traveled street that also ran in front of our junior college, which, we all know, deals in junior politics.

On thursday, Gaye LeBaron ran a letter she recieved from a mystery man who described himself as G's uncle. Along with this letter, was a description of the identical event occuring in the late sixties, as he and a few buddies put a can atop the Santa Rosa High School flag pole, with an anti-vietnam war slogan painted on the can.

There was now a tradition to report, between uncle and nephew, and Gaye LeBaron wrote a wonderful piece about harmless mischief and the passing along of pranks and the wonderfully good nature of these criminal pranksters.

She ended the piece- "I don't know who they are, or where they are, but I think I like them."

Somewhere slipped inside a book, no doubt, maybe in my sister's garage, I have all these clippings.

Now all I have to do is convince my brother's son what a great thing it would be... if...

Maybe the fame we garnered would be enough to convince him?