Almost Missed This Anniversary

A great day in music history and I almost missed it. On July 28th in 1973, the concert known as Summer Jam was held outside of Watkins Glen, New York at what is now Warkins Glen International race track. Many were there including The Allman Brothers, The Grateful Dead and The Band. They say over 600,000 rock fans attended. Many historians claimed the event was the largest gathering of people in the history of the United States. 150,000 tickets were sold for $10 each, but for all the other people it was a free concert. The crowd was so huge that a large part of the audience was not able to see the stage. People left cars and walked miles to the event. At the time I lived in Spencer, NY about 25 miles from Watkins Glen. Traffic was lined up and we invited fans to set up tents in the yard. Everyone was well behaved. There were problems at The Glen but the number of people just overwhelmed all of the infrastructure at the time. Great music came from the event and it made real history. More Pictures & Info Here!

Catholic Workers Arrested Defending Seneca Lake

Today members of the Catholic Worker community in Ithaca, NY stood with other defenders of Seneca Lake at the gates of Crestwood Midstream's gas storage facility just north of Watkins Glen, NY. They read from Pope Francis' encyclical, "Laudato Si! On Care For Our Common Home". They brought a seven and a half foot replica of the encyclical with its picture of Francis. As they were arrested, they were told to drop their reading materials and replica and then were transported to the local sheriff's office and processed.

These folks were arrested in the tradition of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, co-founders of the Catholic Worker movement in the 1930's. Over her lifetime, Dorothy stood with the poor, the destitute, the disenfranchised, farm workers, peacemakers, women, the imprisoned and so many more. She spoke of social justice constantly and she got angry with the Church and those in power. She was quoted as saying, "Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system." She sometimes disputed the exact wording of the quote but her meaning was clear. Peter believed in the riches of the environment and what agriculture and hard work could do to pull people together. An environmentalist before the term was even coined.

The tradition of civil disobedience is strong within the Catholic Worker communities around the world. The people arrested today on Seneca Lake continue that tradition helping to bring attention to a plan that calls for the storage of 88 million gallons of LP gas in salt caverns along the shores of Seneca as well as the transport of that gas to areas throughout the northeast.

The following quote from Peter Maurin seems appropriate in relation to Crestwood's plans and today's actions by Catholic Workers and others:  "If we are crazy, then it is because we refuse to be crazy in the same way that the world has gone crazy."

Watch arrest Here. "Get this thing and move it!"

Memories of A Summer Vacation Long Ago

This piece was inspired by a friend who recently contacted me about some health challenges he's having. For whatever reason his news and contact stirred up memories of a vacation long ago. Perhaps its related to thoughts of my own mortality but it is funny how memories appear and sometimes disappear. File cabinets in our brains hold so much information, sorted and resorted to be reviewed every now and again.

My story starts with an explanation or two. My family, like most, has some, shall we say oddities here and there. They appear in our lineage and we have passed them down through the generations. My father had his set of oddities that revolved around family, success, and new gadgets. He had to get his hands on newly marketed items from cars to cameras to high fidelity radios. He had to be the first in his neighborhood, his circles or his family to have these things. He was a salesman and marketer at heart so it was easy for him to be sold too. In addition, he came through and from the depression and made a success of himself.

It was probably the late forties or early fifties when our entire family - four kids and mom and dad, took a trip out west by car. We would travel to Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma and God knows where else. As I remember, we had a new station wagon that made my father very proud. The back seat folded up and down and allowed us kids to sit looking out the back window seeing where we'd been rather than where we were going.

Somewhere along the way, my father realized there was a flaw in the plan for this trip. The heat in the west was brutal in the summer months. Even with windows rolled down nothing but warm, no hot, air blew through the car. My mother was cranky and hot, four kids were cranky and hot and my father was trying to keep everything in order but he was hot too.

My father made a great discovery in some hot and dusty place. Cars were obviously without what we know of as air conditioning today but there was a solution that had just come on the market - car air coolers - specifically, the Thermidor Swamp Cooler. The theory was simple. The cooler hung on the outside of the passenger window. It was filled with water. A fan in the front of the unit was turned by the air flow as the car moved, cooling and evaporating water that created a cool flow of moist air through louvers coming into the passenger window. Voila! Cool air floating through the car making everyone happy. Here is a picture of an actual Swamp Cooler lest you think I jest.

There it is in all of its glory - the Swamp Cooler - ready to do its job, taking the crankiness out of everyone. A few minor details: the cooler needed a somewhat consistent supply of water and the person sitting in the passenger seat (mother) may be a bit inconvenienced by the lack of a view while touring the wonderful landscape of the country. In addition, there would be a constant flow of moist air on the passenger's neck along with a constant whir that joined the rattle of the cooler on the window. The water problem was solved by the salesman adding four good sized water bags to the transaction. The others traveled with us on our tour of the western United States.

My father convinced my mother to give it a try. She could control the air flow with a string attached to the louvers and at least the kids would quiet down. He promised to stop at various sites so she could get out and see the beauty of the west. That would help us kids too since we were just seeing highway we had just traveled over from the back seat.

So we traveled through the Painted Dessert, the Petrified Forest and stopped at the Grand Canyon. Filling our water bags at every stop. We stopped at Rodeos and at roadside stands set up by Native Americans selling pottery and jewelry to us and other tourists. We yelled and screamed about the noise the cooler was making and that the salesman was "a no good lier because it was still hot".

At some point we noticed that my mother wasn't talking to my father anymore. Her head was being held up by her left hand and she was staring straight ahead into the dusty road ahead. There are a few pictures of that trip but oddly none of us. My father focused on the horses, steers and buffalo at the rodeos. No pictures of us all standing next to the wagon with the cooler on the side. No pictures of everyone hauling water for the cooler. No pictures of a smiling mother and four lovely children on the rim of the Grand Canyon.

In the end it all worked out but we never took a long trip like that again and nobody knows what happened to the Thermidor Swamp Cooler.

Memories - they're great things and can bring a smile to your face as they all get refiled and sorted out.

Choices We Make For Economic Development

People come to or move to areas for many different reasons and many times think or believe that they need to bring changes with them. It happens over time. Sometimes it's for the good and sometimes it's what makes a place worse. In the end, it's all a matter of opinion. People move to a peaceful, quiet bit of paradise. They enjoy it and want to share it. So they spread the word and little by little the peacefulness changes. The local coffee shop isn't just right. It would be great if they did this or did that. What if they offered more baked goods, different papers, etc. So it goes, so it goes....

Now there has to be a balance between staying the same and stagnating and planned growth. Sustainability, competitiveness and all of what comes with keeping communities alive and vibrant are critical issues to be faced.

I happen to live in one of those peaceful and beautiful places. Broadly it's defined as the Finger Lakes Region of New York State. It's filled with the beauty and tranquility of the lakes themselves along with waterfalls, vineyards and fertile farmland. Communities struggle to deal with growth, taxes, the call for more services, better schools, housing options, etc.  What were once small family cottages have been replaced in many cases by huge McMansions where people can get lost in oversized space with views from every window or panel of windows.

Planning boards, economic developers and local legislative bodies struggle with the balance and the change. Chambers of Commerce do their jobs and sell the area and businesses more and more. They sell the small town feel and soon are faced with large corporate interests wanting a piece of the action.

All of this requires choices along the way and sometimes people pay a big price for choices that have been made by previous players or by people who have some huge vested interest. The compromise demanded by the choice making can be difficult. People and entities can be pitted against each other for years to come.

It seems to me that a clear mission and vision for a community or region is necessary before choices start to be made. There is also the issue of community ethics relative to change and choices. Are stakeholders always and truly a part of planning and development processes? Are people prepared for the economic payoffs or losses related to decisions that are made? Is the information about these economic factors widely shared?

There are those who still long for manufacturing jobs that will most likely never return due to the global economy and technological advances. Our industrial revolution that created the manufacturing sector transitioned to the technological revolution in the blink of an eye and some people missed or refused to see the transition.

So where does this all leave us in the Finger Lakes Region? Well, we've already made choices about wineries and they certainly bring an influx of tourists. They continue to expand along with craft breweries and distilleries. With all of these come many positives along with a few liabilities that can include large buses, rowdy visitations and a few dangerous encounters on area roads when designated drivers seem to have fallen off the wagon. The newest choice for the tourism buck and traffic will offer Casinos in all of their glory to the north and to the east. This choice is fueled by a governor's hope to garner some regional & upstate support. We will see how successful these choices are for the area. To the south we have pipelines and a planned LP Gas storage and transportation hub for the northeast in salt caverns along Seneca Lake. A Texas firm is enticing local officials with payments that are most likely way too small when one considers the potential risk to the community and the environment. So it goes, so it goes.....

I sit and contemplate all of these choices and their impact on the area we call the Finger Lakes. I sip my coffee and watch for the eagles that float above in the sky. I see an osprey carrying a fish back to its nest and a blue heron flying past the dock on this bit of paradise, hoping that it can continue for a little longer but realizing that hoping does little. We all need to make choices about our environment.