We were back in the '60s, when this...
when these issues were
coming to the forefront.
There were certainly a lot of people in
State offices and a lot of professionals.
I mean there were some openly speaking
professionals around in those days who were
interested in this. But I think what the
parents provided... we were a state-wide
organization. We had no
bureaucratic or political constraints,
and we were in a position,
and we had the sense of urgency.
And so what we saw is that we had
a very good working relationship and
partnership in the '60s and '70s,
and then it began to get increasingly
more complex, where we would work
with members of the Department of Welfare,
as they called it then, the Department of
Education, and also the
rehab unit of government.
And those were sort of the three main
ones that we worked with. And we had easy
access to the commissioners, and eventually
it would get so they would have someone
who would specialize in the handicapped or
in the institutions and all. So we had many
people we could relate to. And then we had
the Governor's office. We always kept
a liaison somehow with the Governor's office.
In fact, back when Governor Rolvaag was the
Governor, we could easily walk in there.
This was another world, then,
in terms of how busy people were.
We could easily almost any day
walk into he Governor's office.