Arthur and Me

In early October, Tom and I took a 10-day vacation to 4 cities in Canada. We dropped our car off in Stratford, Ontario, and then took the train to Kingston (by New York state), then Montreal, and finally to Toronto. We have done train travel before and find it fits us very well. Unlike car travel, we can sleep or read, and there is no 2-hour wait at an airport like plane travel. Besides, the leg room is to die for.

But can I suggest one more hidden benefit? Sometimes you meet the greatest people. Once, when I was traveling alone to Milwaukee, I sat next to a man who worked for a major TV news organization, and spent many hours discussing the changing role of media today. I had such an occasion once again on this trip. This time, Tom and I boarded a crowded train from Kingston to Montreal and couldn't find 2 seats together, and finally settled across from each other on aisle seats. My seat mate was an elderly gentleman who welcomed me with a warm smile. I noticed that he was wearing some sort of a uniform jacket and that the jacket was decorated with numerous medals. I assumed he was a veteran. Almost immediately, he began speaking with me, friendly sort that he was, and since I love meeting new people we quickly got to know each other. His name was Arthur Brough and he was from England, but was currently in Canada visiting a niece. He was to turn 90 on October 24th, and was heading to Montreal to catch the plane back to England for his party.

I asked Arthur about his history in the armed forces, and he told me a fascinating story about his time in the army in WWII. He told me, in fact, that he had been a prisoner of war in Poland for 5 years. He said that he had put down his remembrances into a book. I told him that I certainly would love to read that book, at which point he reached into his bag and pulled out a book titled 'My Wasted Years - 1940-1945'! Would you mind, I asked him, if I read it right now? He was delighted to have me read his story, so I spent the next 3 hours or so reading Arthur's story, pausing to have him clarify points. I can't tell you all of the details of his story, but he was captured in France, taken to Poland via cattle car, and taken to a main stalag (Stalag 13, in fact), where he was put on various work details and sometimes sent out to Polish farms. He tried to escape numerous times but was never successful. Two things I'll remember about his story: First, he had an uncanny ability to remember the food he received from the Red Cross or kind Polish citizens (he mentions any special food in great detail), probably because he was half-starved most of the time. Also, I was struck by the kindness shown by British soldiers to their guards. When they received food packages from home (yes, they did get through), they would share the food with their guards because, he said, that was the British thing to do. I wonder if I would be so generous.

After he was liberated by the Americans in 1945, he married a young woman named Vera and worked as a crane operator. He and Vera had no children, and he lost her 5 years ago. As he told me this, he pulled a small locket from inside his shirt. On one side was a photo of Vera, probably taken at the time of their marriage, and one the other side was his photo. He had to wipe away the tears when speaking of her.


So there is my train travel story. Tom took a photo of us before we got off the train, and I promised Arthur I'd send it to him. He gave me an address card with a picture of him and Vera on the front. Tomorrow I'm making a special batch of my chocolate chip cookies, and I'll send them along with the photo for his birthday. After all, he really does love packages of special food.

The Marshmallow Effect

I was reading Paul Krugman's column, Cassandras of Climate, in the New York Times this morning and it made me think of kids and marshmallows. Perhaps I need to explain. The point of the column is that climate scientists have become Cassandras, meaning that they have the ability to predict upcoming disaster, in this case accelerating global warming, but they are equally cursed with the inability to get anyone to believe them. Krugman points out that our models show that the decline is happening much faster than earlier predicted, and we still are not, as a nation, paying attention. At least not enough to agree to do something about it.

Why is this, he wonders. I wonder too. If you'll allow me to dredge up an old gem from my college days, I'll offer up my 2 cents worth. I was a psychology minor, which as life has gone on has proven surprisingly handy. One study that stuck with me was called the marshmallow experiment, a way of measuring the ability to defer gratification. In the study, 4-year-olds are given a marshmallow and told that if they wait 20 minutes, they'll receive another one. Some children waited and some didn't. They found that those who waited grew up to be better adjusted and dependable, and scored over 200 points higher on the SAT. What this study told me, too, was that those who were able to foresee consequences probably came out ahead.

So here we are, at a time when there is near consensus on the existence and dangers of future climate change, when we are nearing or have passed peak oil, when our homes and cars in recent history have grown to enormous proportions, and we are tooling along, too busy or distracted to really bother. We haven't spent the time to think ahead and defer gratification so we can alter the future of this planet. We are the kids who can't wait 20 minutes for the next marshmallow. Wendell Berry considers the most urgent question of our time: How much is enough? We haven't been able to answer this question yet. So why do we continue to consume and ignore warnings from our most respected scientists? In my opinion, just like the impatient 4-year-olds, (and to paraphrase Bill Clinton): Because we can.

So, I ask you, is this our model of behavior? Is this truly the best we can do? I know there were some kids in this experiment who waited the 20 minutes. Let's hope at least some of them have seen this huge hurdle we have to overcome and can help keep us focused on the future.

Fall Biking

We have been serious bikers for a number of years now, but have never been able to move beyond our immediate vicinity because we didn't have a bike rack to transport our bikes. This past week, however, we got a new rack attached to our car and took our first long-distance trail ride to Romeo. We got the bikes up on the rack (very easy!) and drove up a few miles to Rochester Hills to pick up the Paint Creek Trail. After many years of riding along the sidewalks of Troy and Rochester (and some portions of street) to get up to Rochester, this was a luxury. It also enabled us to go much farther along the trail. In fact, we left the Paint Creek trail and biked another 10 miles along the Macomb Orchard Trail until we arrived at Romeo, where we stopped at a nice Irish Pub for lunch. Then we biked back to Rochester, about 30 miles round trip. I must admit that 30 miles represents my limit right now - but it sure did feel good, and I had no soreness the next day, always a good sign.


Today we are heading up to East Lansing to have brunch with our son, and will be bringing the bikes, as we have located a Lansing River trail that winds through the beautiful river walk on campus and extends another 7 miles or so west. This ride should total 20 miles - more to my liking. Next up: Taking the Paint Creek Trail up to Lake Orion. This is a great way to see Michigan in the fall.

Rain Barrel Update

Since we are nearing the end of our rain barrel use for the year, I thought I'd poll the group to see how things went with our barrels this year. I sent out an e-mail asking for input and received a number of responses. I'll summarize.

First, it was a wet, cool summer, so for most of us our rain barrel use was somewhat down. A couple of us did drain our barrels once or twice over the summer, but rain did seem to come at regular intervals, so that situation was amended quickly.

One trend I noticed was that - no surprise - rain barrel use accelerates if you have potted plants. Even in a rainy season like the one we just had, pots pretty much need to be watered every day. Same for vegetables. They require more water than most flowering plants - and double that for tomatoes. Erica used rain barrel water as fertilizer for her tomatoes.

Some people did attach soaker hoses to their barrels. The Bradleys report that their barrels drained quickly with soakers attached.

A few people expanded beyond plants with their rain barrel water. The Carters used it to wash their car and to clean their driveway after some work. I also used the water to wash our car and rinse out things like my compost bucket. We had some work done here over the summer, and I was able to direct workers to rinse their materials in the rain barrel water.

Regarding maintenance, the Bradleys report that they will be fixing the stand for their 55-gallon barrel this year. It's leaning and needs to be enlarged. Martha found that an old fashioned rag mop was great for cleaning it out.

This is our 3rd or 4th year with our barrel (can't remember), and I will say that each year I come to rely on it more. When it is dry, I somehow have found it inconvenient to have to use a hose, and besides, the water from the hose smells funny, like chlorine. And then there's the whole thing about unwinding and winding up the hose after a small use - I just don't want to do it. So I think I have entered the 'other side' and have become a full rain barrel convert. I don't want to speak for the others, but I would guess they have too.

Car sharing - how it's working out

It's now mid-August and Tom and I have been sharing a car since May, ever since our son arrived home from college and confiscated our other car. For the most part, it has been surprisingly painless. Of course, a lot of this has to do with the fact that this is summer. Our usual schedule has Tom biking in to Pleasant Ridge every morning (about 40 minutes) to catch the bus downtown. I join him (with the car) after exercise, and we throw the bike in the back of the car for the ride home. So we technically do take a car downtown and back each day, but if you think about it, to keep me on my morning exercise schedule, we would have had to use both cars.

We have a history of being chintzy with cars.....Decades ago we bought a little Civic that our kids used through high school until it was ready for the junk pile, and none of them had cars in college. Part of our history, you should know, also involves living for 3 years in Tokyo, which got us used to public transportation and the most ancient form of transport possible, walking. I tried biking there, but there were way too many people.

So anyway, now that Tom is retired and our schedule is a bit more flexible, we are back to figuring out a way to get around that requires the least amount of expense and carbon output. We have been adapting to the biking lifestyle more and more for the past few years, but this is the first year that we have been on a more scheduled life, with a 9-5 summer at the Green Garage. And so far we're not missing the second car. Now, I'd like to see how this is going to work when winter sets in. As I recall, though, last winter the second car spent quite a bit of time parked in the garage. We're on more of a schedule this year, so we'll have to see.

But for now, today I take the car and Tom may fight the raindrops. Tomorrow Tom will take the car and I, as we are in wedding mode, will bike up a couple of miles for a pedicure, bike back, and then Maureen will pick me up to get to Berkley for a dress fitting. If anything, car sharing is great for family coordination and cooperation!

Let the feasting begin

This is the best time of the year for vegetable gardeners - the stuff is coming in! Tonight we had fresh beans and cherry tomatoes with our dinner. We're picking every day. We moved our vegetable garden close to the house this year, and I'm loving it. It's only a few steps out the door to retrieve something good for dinner.

I've learned another lesson this year. For most of the growing season, I have been discouraged by a succession of problems - deer eating our broccoli, the peas browning up on the vine, our basil deciding it didn't want to be planted with our sage (tempermental). Our tomato plants were also pretty tiny for a long time. A few weeks ago, however, I was excited to see lettuce coming in (yes! in July). And then the beans took over for the peas. And now the tomato plants, still a bit spindly, are beginning to produce. So, as with so many things in life, patience is the rule. It will all come in time.

Biking becoming a lifestyle

I haven't made many updates to the blog this summer because we're not doing much new. But we are accelerating our adaptation to a different lifestyle in some ways, one of which is our use of bikes for transportation. Many people use bicycle riding for recreation, and there's nothing wrong with that, but we are primarily destination riders, and I think that has helped us keep bicycling as part of our daily routines.

By destination riding, I mean that we use our bikes as a substitute for a car when we have to get somewhere. Our most consistent use of destination biking has been getting to the fitness center in the morning, which is about a mile and a half away -- perfect for a short commute and perfect for a great warm-up. We usually start in April and ride until October or November, giving us about 7 or 8 months of riding. It's hard to describe why this has worked for us, but I'll try. First, it's wonderful to get out in that fresh Michigan summer early-morning air. The temps usually range between 50-60 when we're riding (around 7:30 AM - 9 AM) - great biking temperatures. Also, you get to park your bike right up next to the building instead of the parking lot and stroll right in. Nice. In addition, you pay attention to things you wouldn't normally see when driving, such as the neighbors' flowers or the interesting clouds that day. Finally, I guarantee you'll smile at someone somewhere along your ride - it's courtesy if nothing else. Watch people's faces when they're driving. I do when I'm paused at an intersection. They all look grumpy. Bike people usually smile and wave.

This summer Tom has been working at the Green Garage every weekday 9-5, so he has had to adjust his exercise schedule. His solution has been to bike about an hour down to the Pleasant Ridge area and catch the bus to Detroit (he puts his bike on the front of the bus). I'm sure it's no surprise to you that he has lost weight.

Yesterday I was thinking about our daily rides, and considered the fact that so far I haven't been rained on. So I asked Tom if he had encountered rain in all of his commutes, and he has not. Amazing. I don't know why this is, but we were thinking that perhaps it doesn't rain as much as we think it does. Even if you have a rainy day, it usually only rains for a short period before clearing up. We have learned that biking when the skies are threatening is no problem - 99% of the time nothing comes of it. But it takes a change in mind-set to head out on the bike when there is a questionable sky. I would encourage you to try it - you may find that regular biking becomes a habit that's surprisingly hard to break.