Last weekend, I wrote our history, beginning in 1994, when we produced and sold the paper from a few donated square feet of space near what is now our front door. Our capital equipment assets included an overturned bookcase that I used as a desk, my Mac LC II computer, which had an 80 MB hard drive and 8 RAM of raw computing power, and a thrift store phone. It took nearly two years to hire a second staff, and three years before our budget broke $100,000. It took five years to successfully reach twice-monthly publication. After six years, we could truthfully say we had political “clout.” At 10 years, we had a “strategic plan,” were well on our way to weekly publication, and were nearing the half-million-dollar budget mark.

As I wrote the history, however, it was the details that meant the most: Our first staff person, ozula sioux, having a crow designed by Wes Browning tattooed on her shoulder. The giant Nordstrom “Heart of Steel” that was welded together by Boardmember Bruce Wirth. The many vendors who have come and gone and carried a piece of Real Change with them out into the world. Take a look at realchange.wikispaces.com.