Benny Rothman and the Rambling Song

Benny Rothman was the original Trespasser. On April 24, 1932 he led a "mass trespass" to open up some private lands to "Ramblers" in the United Kingdom. Benny was an old Commie. There is a popular song about Benny. Youtube has two excellent videos and links, with two different versions of the songs.

The first Youtube video is about Benny in 2002.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NnYzwNslPA

This Youtube video has the last verse of the song, which is omitted from the prior one. I like this last verse: "So I'll walk where I will..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_9PIuDYpc

Quite a lovely song. "I'm a Rambler..." Or as a friend of mine wrote to me about the former video:

"That is just fun. I always feel at home with old commies!"

I concur Brad!

The Bird Bus the Scene of the Vulture...

The new spot for the "Bird Bus". This is the PatridgeFamilyesqueStellarMobile that will be our changing room, storage and extra bedroom, during the time it takes for us to build the new additions. In it's prior incarnations it served as a city bus for Crested Butte, Colorado. It also has been a home for Joni while she traveled the states for six months. And we've used it quite a bit for non-roughing-it camping.

Of course, now that we have our home where the Sierras meet the Cascades, I start thinking about where to live when it rains? And you are looking at it. I'm thinking that someday a second, sunny home in Tuscon or San Diego (living out of the bus) during the interminably awful, rainy months is quite in order. Sunshine...the best treatment for seasonal affective disorder.

Rain is worse than snow. You can play in the snow. Rain? Just makes you soggy, discouraged, cold, wet, miserable, dysphoric, melancholic and fat.

This photo is taken from about where I was sitting when the Turkey Vulture accosted the pup and me.

Mother Earth...

One of the Blog entries below (A visit from Ed), found a new home on the Mother Earth News website. The editors there were kind enough to post my response to a fair amount of negativity regarding the Monkey Wrenching piece.

It is interesting to compare the orginal, with the edited version on the web-site. Personally, I like mine better. But I don't give a rip about grammar, sentence fragments, incorrect punctuation, incorrect capitalization and the like.

See for yourself.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/forums/forum.aspx?boardid=1202&g=posts&t=132894

I did get a note from the guy who edited the piece. He said:

"You have a great writing style, so I hope my “traditional” editing still allows your voice to come through. Your thoughts have certainly prompted some good discussion."

Rocky and Straw Bale Model

I would be remiss not to include our very-much-neglected-as-of late, four year old cat: Rocky. He's been grumpier lately with all the new action about the residences

Another View of the Straw Bale Model Joni has created. Looks pretty realistic!

Pups and Cabins

Our new pup, "Angel" in front of the new Bamboo Floor.

A view off the deck. Future site of the "fish pond" and our vegetable garden.

More woods from our site.

Joni is working on a model of our straw bale addition

Letting our Freak Flags Fly! Courtesy of David Crosby...

A visit from Ed...

Last Saturday I was at our little solar homestead. By myself. Well, I did have my new puppy with me.

Late afternoon. I'd completed a couple of projects Joni had asked me to do. I'd watered the apricot tree. And also the newly planted olive trees that Joni had re-planted a few days ago (their third move). I could have started laying the new bamboo floor in the cabin. But I didn't have the correct nails. I could have pulled off the old moulding in the cabin. But I couldn't find the blue iron (okay, I didn't look too hard). I could have put some new cabinets together. But you should see how complicated those instructions are.

So, instead, I did what I do best: nothing. Well, I did I take the puppy to the swimming hole. And we took a walk (still no new no trespassing signs). Time to celebrate the days accomplishments (and non-accomplishments) with dinner. A sandwich. And a six dollar bottle of pinot noir that is quite excellent.

I sat on our concrete slab, that within one month, will hold a new post and beam family room (along with a straw bale addition next to it.) Digger pine will be the posts (from our property). I watched the tree tops sway in the wind. Content.

Above. Very far above. There were 12, yes I counted them, Turkey Vultures swirling around; riding the thermals.

The shadow came first. Seemed like the shadow of a 747 landing at O'Hare. Then I felt the whoosh of the wind. And glanced up to see a huge Turkey Vulture passing by my head as I sat in my camp chair. I could have reached out and grabbed him. I watched him fly down the property at eye level.

This is curious?

He flew up above the trees. Circled around. And strafed me again. Flying a mere five or six feet above my head.

What the heck is he doing? The new puppy was asleep at my feet. I quickly placed him under our picnic table (that I was sitting quite close to), and tied him to the seat. I'd never heard of a Turkey Vulture taking live prey--and he surely wasn't gonna get my new 9 week old, yellow lab. I thought Buzzards were only interested in dead things?

I sat back in my chair to enjoy the show. And sure enough, the Vulture did it again. Strafing my head by a few feet. What did he want? Was it that, having not showered for a couple of days, he thought I was dead? Or was it the pinot noir?

After a few more passes, I watched the Scavenger fly off. Only to hear a car behind me.

I watched the car turn into our driveway. A newish station wagon. The vehicle was filled with people and I watched them stop. Then they piled out. First four sixty something people piled out of the car. Three men and one woman. And I watched the back hatch go up as two (I assume) husbands pulled their wives, with great effort, out of the seat less back of the station wagon.

They were a mere thirty yards away, and I could hear them talk.

"Did you bring the binoculars". An acquiescent gentleman reached into the car and retrieved them. The six unlikely, grey haired visitors were decked out in hiking clothes. Hiking shorts. Crisp, clean, short-sleeved shirts. They gathered water bottles. Cinched up hip packs. And the women pulled out three of the longest Hiking Sticks I've ever seen. Gandalfian in nature, they were as tall as the ladies.

The whole ensemble looked as if they were all retired accountants who had been given a one thousand dollar gift certificate to Patagonia, rather than a gift watch.

"We are going to hike to the end of the canyon to enjoy the view" they called to me. "We want to walk!"

Did I really hear that?

I'd never seen a hiker on my property before (although I'd written a piece welcoming such). I watched in awe, maybe even a little bit of love, as they left. One husband then got in the car and drove on ahead of them.

Amazed by the synchronicity of these two events. The curious Turkey Vulture and the Six Geriatric Hikers...it hit me. Yes, I know...one mustn't read too much into two separate events. There is a fine line between Jungian, Scarabian Synchronicity and Psychosis. And the difference between mysticism and delusional belief systems are in the eye of the beholder. After all, I am a Psychiatric RN by trade and have met more reincarnated Messiahs and Saints than I can number. Dangerous territory to be a mystic.

Yet, I'd written this piece for Mother Earth in the spirit of Ed Abbey. Abbey said he wanted to be reincarnated as a Turkey Vulture. This curious behavior of the Vulture, was that Ed? Was Ed trying to get my attention (or my wine) by strafing me because impending tourists were arriving? Was this Ed's stamp of approval on my little essay? Was it his way to get my attention that I was about to reap, what I had sown?

And the Patagonia clad hikers? Was this a test to live what I wrote? To share with others the wonders we have around us? Surely part of the responsibility of being a property owner is to share the beauty of such with others (including our relations who are non-human). Does anyone really own the Earth? What's the difference between a property owner, and an exploitive corporation, if all the former wants to do is take the treasures of the land for themselves. And only themselves?

I'll never see a Turkey Vulture in quite the same way again. Let the Walker's pass. Read Abbey.

Reactions...

My childhood friend Scot (A Lutheran Pastor), has this to say about the Mother Earth piece:

"Can you put it in your will that I do your funeral when one of the right wing malitianaries shoots you and then drags you into his home and calls it justifiable, since Mother Earth News said, "In some states, you can use force (even lethal force) to remove someone from your house,..."

I also enjoy looking at the advertisements on Mother Earth News to the right of the articles. Check out the ones next to the article on the "Basics of Trespassing Laws." 1 by Minuteman Signs, 2. for wind energy, and 3. for lawyers. Heehee. :-)"

Thanks Scot! And yes, you can do my funeral. I'd like to be wrapped in a sleeping bag (like Ed Abbey) and buried next to the septic tank at the Solar Compound.

Jeffrey St. Clair, editor of the website: "Counterpunch" writes to say the he enjoyed the Mother Earth News piece and that he e-mailed it to Doug Peacock. Doug was the inspiration for the "Hayduke" character in Abbey's novel: The Monkey Wrench Gang. Evidently Doug is getting a hip replacement right now. I guess we are all ageing. Good luck Doug!

The environmental writer Joshua Frank wrote to say he "dug" the piece.

And feedback from my lawyer:

Be a bit careful up there, Allan, about walking about and tearing down signs on property owned by others...Not everyone thinks like you do and you're entering a place where there just isn't much law to protect you...Ranchers and meth cooks can be very ornery critters and usually carry big guns with them everywhere they go...

Thanks Anne!

And this from my favorite Auntie:

Keep it up ......although I was a bit concerned with your pulling out those signs. As your Mother isn't hear to tell you to be careful I feel I can tell you that...You know better than most people that there are crazies out there that might take exception to actions like that and wish to do you physical harm. Enough about that.

And, of course, the Forum on the Mother Earth site is filled with calling me names. A drunk. Lawbreaker. One guy gets it right though. CecilHayduke:

Ummm, have any of you actually read Abbey?

All of this concern about the sanctity of property rights and so little about the article's focus on the degradation of the rural experience and the establishment of individual private domains. Uncle Ed was an anarchist through and through and as noted, didn't give a f*** about the "property rights" of sign owners.

Readers would probably be better served by reading Abbey's Desert Solitaire. And if anyone decides to read that after reading this piece, then I think it will have been successful.

As for the Monthly Review zine article on the "Sacredness of Emergency Rooms". An author of a couple of Labor books has this to say:

This has got to be the single stupidest article I've ever read on this website!!! Emergency rooms, sacred??? You have got to be kidding me here!!!

I don't think I'll be reading his books.

I've heard from Mother Earth that they will be featuring the "No Trespass" piece in the August issue. They don't know if they will print the whole thing; quote it; or just direct people to the web-site. Personally, I think they should print it, as then they will send me a check.

I've let my feelings be known regarding this to the Editor in Chief.....

Mother Earth News and Monthly Review...

The past couple of days have been fun for me!

First off, Mother Earth News finally published that essay. The link is below:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Modern-Homesteading/Walkers-Rights.aspx

And they also have a special forum to discuss it. Not too interesting so far! I'd hoped for a little more of a response. It's mostly negative. One fellah would like to beat the crap out of me...

http://www.motherearthnews.com/forums/forum.aspx?boardid=1202&g=posts&t=131658

And this link is for photos of "No Tresspassing Signs"

http://www.motherearthnews.com/forums/forum.aspx?boardid=1202&g=topics&f=1524

And the last link is to a piece published by the good people at Monthly Review...

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/stellar290408.html

Not bad for a week's worth of work... I've been walking around work calling myself: "The Green, Radical, Socialist Writer". And some of my colleagues forwarded the pieces to the CEO, Vice President, Director of Nursing, ER Directors, MD's. etc. etc.

Hope I don't lose my job.

Most disagree with me vehemently that a person should be able to walk anywhere, unimpeeded. Oh well. "You may say I'm a Dreamer....."