Born rebel always backed underdog
Don Polly was a warm, ethical, ‘‘man of the people’’ who lived by the values he so fervently espoused. The pillars of his life were family, socialism, unionism and journalism.
The former US Navy officer, Californian state parole officer and motor mechanic, who has died aged 84, arrived in New Zealand in 1970 with his wife and four children to take up a job as a probation officer in Porirua. He came with energy and attitude and claimed to have ‘‘reluctantly chosen the Queen over Richard Nixon’’.
A born rebel from the get-go, he was a great supporter of the underdog, a veteran campaigner for numerous causes (antiVietnam war, anti-Springbok tour, antiracism, anti-royalty) and a lifelong demonstrator. Connecting and engaging the community was always at the centre of his life, with much of it spent working as a full-time volunteer.
His greatest pleasure came from the achievements of his family and the myriad young people he helped and continued to support.
However, the thing he was most proud of in his work was establishing two community papers in the Wellington region: Te Awa-iti in Porirua (1982-91) and the Paekakariki Xpressed (2001-10).
The vision for both ventures was born during his earlier years in the Communist Party, selling The People’s Voice on Cuba St. This experience sowed the seeds for a ‘‘ground-up’’ community newspaper in Cannons Creek written, produced, and managed, largely by volunteers. Originally laid out and pasted up (old-fashioned style) from a garage in Cannons Creek, it introduced stories and articles in different languages, had attitude, challenged the status quo, and gave the establishment a feisty nudge with a left-wing perspective.
The first, four-page issue took more than six months to produce and was delivered to 4000 homes. By the end of the first year a regular 12-page paper was delivered to 13,000 homes every three weeks and, by the end of the decade, it circulated tomore than 21,000 homes and businesses in 30 communities from Grenada to Paraparaumu, Pa¯uatahanui and Horokiwi. By the time it closed in 1991, more than 1000 people had written at least one article, some of them several dozen, and some hundreds.
The much smaller Paekakariki Xpressed was a not-for-profit community newspaper in the same vein. With more than 150 community correspondents aged from 13 to 85, the paper succeeded because the community loved it, took ownership of it and contributed actively to its life.
It started out in 2001 as a four-page paper and, over time, grew to a 40 to 60-page monthly circulating in Paeka¯ka¯riki village, Raumati South and the Raumati business district.
When the Xpressed closed down, its trust deed, overseen by Paeka¯ka¯riki Informed Community (PICI), was picked up by Paeka¯ka¯riki FM. Don remained a regular contributor to the station through his popular jazz programme, From bop to blues.
Often described as ‘‘a big-mouthed, blue-eyed Mexican boy with a smile that wouldn’t quit’’, Don Polly was born in Denver, Colorado, where his father was editor of the Rocky Mountain News. The family subsequently moved from Denver; to Albuquerque in New Mexico; Salt Lake City; Evansville, Indiana; and finally Long Beach, California. Many of these moves were motivated by his father seeking new jobs and his parents looked for medical help for Don’s younger brother, Doug, who was born with cerebral palsy.
Don identified strongly with the Mejia (Mexican) side of the family. His mother was one of six and his father (Jack Campbell Polly) an only child. There were close connections with his extensive and colourful family, who established themselves in and around Salt Lake City after the Mexican revolution in 1910.
The impact of his immediate family lifestyle was that Don went to 14 different schools, including spending time in an orphanage and at boarding school. Aged 16, disenchanted with school and feeling that he’d disappointed his parents, he packed a bag and climbed out the window one night to ‘‘see America’’.
He quickly landed a job selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door. Working from the back of a large trailer truck, he and the ‘‘Mag Crew’’, a group of illegally under-age boys, arrived in different towns and cities to door-knock and cover assigned ‘‘beats’’ on foot. This laid the groundwork for his ‘‘no fear’’ lifetime aptitude for sales. It also showed his ability to apply charm, hard work, and awinning smile to life.
A four-year stint as a junior journalist and photographer in the US Navy also saw him on a heavy cruiser travelling up the Mekong River after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Effectively, this was the end of French colonial rule before the partitioning of Vietnam, and the Vietnam War.
At the same time he was writing ‘‘local boy makes good’’ stories and sending them back to the US. To add a bit of jazz to the mix, he also worked for the Armed Forces Radio Service in the Philippines, running a late-night music programme. The journalism theme was to be picked up later in New Zealand when he edited the in-housemagazine, Update, for the Open Polytech.
After leaving the navy, he attended California State University in Long Beach, graduating with a degree in
sociology. He then worked as amotor mechanic, later returning to his trade in the Wellington area in 1973. In 1980, he wrote the successful Risks& Rip-Offs: The New Zealand Motorist’s Survival Book.
His experience in the motor trades ranged over two decades, inwhich time he owned and operated his own garage and taught motor mechanics in both the US and New Zealand. He worked ‘‘on the line’’ in assembly plants and was also employed as a tow truck driver on California’s deadliest stretch of highway, an auto-specialist in brakes, front-end and tune-up, and a general line mechanic.
Other big passions were family, reading international and political nonfiction, learning – hewent to university to start a law degree aged 76 – and American football. He coached and refereed teams around the Wellington region for years, and never missedwatching the season.
When he was 60, Don and his nowdeceased brother Doug were excited and proud to find their half-brother Rod Mollenauer, an emeritus professor of German literature at Austin State University in Texas.
Don died of pancreatic cancer in the Mary Potter Hospice inWellington. He is survived by wife Allison Webber, brother Rob Mollenauer, sons Blair and Jack Polly and Tim Davey, and daughters Dawn Roscoe (Polly), Babette (Polly), and Lucy Anderson-Weastell. –
He came [to New Zealand] with energy and attitude and claimed to have ‘‘reluctantly chosen the Queen over Richard Nixon’’.