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Who remembers this picture? October 1983. The cold war was churning with Ronald Reagan at the helm, but Mikhail Gorbachev was not yet on the scene.

I had returned from the Peace Corps a decade before, but the international spirit was still alive in me. Tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States were high, threatening mutual nuclear annihilation. I was a new mother with a two-year-old and pregnant with a second child. I didn’t want to see my babies grow up in a world saturated with fear and tension of war. I was not alone.

In the spring of 1983, a group of west coast Returned Peace Corps Volunteers got together in Seattle to brainstorm how we as citizens could change the trajectory of the world’s political tensions.

The meeting was electric with energy that gave us a sense of empowerment. It adjourned with lots of ideas for people-to-people diplomacy. Among these ideas was to establish a sister city program matching Russian communities with American communities based on similar size, and with as similar lifestyles/economics as could be guessed at. Thus, Seattle paired with Tashkent and La Conner paired with Ol’ga, a water front village on the Sea of Japan near Vladivostok. It was a farming/fishing community and had an indigenous population similar to the Swinomish.

Some Skagit residents decided to participate in our democracy on a people to people path, which is what we knew best, rather than the circuitous national political route. We put together a packet with this Town photo taken on the Swinomish waters-edge; also included were family and individual photos, letters to USSR families describing their future aspirations for a peaceful world, a letter from Mayor Mary Lam, all translated into Russian. Holly Graham, singer/song writer, composed a song and recorded it on tape, “Song to a Russian Mother”, which is beautiful even if one doesn’t speak English.

When I sent the package off, it was addressed to the Mayor of Ol’ga, Primorya, USSR, not knowing any specific local identifiers. I figured even if it doesn’t get to Ol’ga, the numerous censors that opened the suspicious package would be intrigued and that alone would be an opening to people-to-people interaction.

I didn’t hear back for seven years. Then, Sergei and his wife Natasha and children Maxim and Seryozha wrote. Their letter was addressed using the Cyrillic alphabet, a challenge for the US postal service. So, in trusting the unlikely random tossing of an idea out into the universe, the wisdom that’s out there ... somewhere, returned an answer. Sergei described life in Ol’ga: salmon fishing, hunting, boating and typical sports enjoyed by most people around the world who are not at war. He and his young family had the same aspirations as what initiated my enthusiasm in 1983.

Ken Stern’s recent call to participate in our democracy may look very different but there are many people who want to bring our present political polarization into more meaningful communication. One does not have to feel alone in this challenge.

Maybe it’s simple ... we just have to open dialogues with each other.

Joan Cross is a long-time resident of La Conner. Her interest in international issues was first inspired as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Fiji Islands 1969-71.