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Trashy

Posted in community, Humboldt County with tags , , , , on May 20, 2016 by inretaliation

trash-monster-1_5

I just put a new motor in my 85 Toyota pickup.  I love the Shark, it looks tough and it has both a straight axle and fuel injection.  Anyway, the first thing I wanted to do with it, was go to the dump.

On my property there is a spot we call the resource forest, it basically holds everything that doesn’t really get used anymore but could maybe come in handy someday. I know all of you at least have a drawer full of that kind of stuff.  Well a big part of the resource forest is plastic from ex growers on the property.  Huge swaths of panda plastic, bins and bins of grow bags, and of course PVC.  Earlier this year I rented a U-haul, filled it with this plastic and took it to the dump. (ok there were a couple of water heaters, and a washing machine in there too) I didn’t even make a dent.  I knew I wasn’t going to make a difference with the Shark either, I just wanted a mission.  After packing the Shark as full as it could go with panda plastic and strapping it all down, I made a pit stop at the local store.

I walked inside and heard an elderly gentleman asking one of the clerks if they knew who owned my truck.  I chimed in thinking he wanted to tell me how amazing my truck is.  He asked me to step outside, he wished to speak to me in private.  I obliged and he begins to tell me about all the trash he has been seeing on the road into big town.  He says he knows it probably isn’t me but that I should watch my load very carefully.  This gentleman owns a big purplish dodge van that he uses for transporting his stone sculptures.  He says he has been tempted to pick up the bags and open them to look for a name.  I reassure him that I will be watchful and I go on my merry way.

Sure enough I pass by these bags of trash….then I stop in the middle of the tiny windy road and run back for the bags.  Thankfully they are light and dry, ugh someone else’s trash juice on me would have been upsetting.  I stomp everything into the back of the truck and retie my load.  I spend the rest of the 40 minute trip wondering why, if he cared so much, didn’t he pick them up.  I don’t believe in landfills, I think mother earth would be better able to deal with our trash if we spread it everywhere evenly.  That would look terrible I know, but we should realize this is a question of aesthetics, not saving the planet. (Those incinerators in Europe, why can’t we get some of those?)  The gentleman, why did he leave the trash on the side of the road?  Once the bags broke open the mess would be far worse.  Was he giving the culprits the chance to do the right thing?  Did he want something to complain about, to down talk what he saw as careless people taking over our tiny town? Wouldn’t it be better if we all tried to fix something the moment it broke, rather than walking away because it is someone elses responsibility?

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Foment

Posted in community, Humboldt County, Uncategorized with tags , , , , on April 28, 2016 by inretaliation

My little town is going through a little uprising.  It has been festering for years, the more that weed becomes an outsourced business, the more the discontent grows.  Our town is typical of small Humboldt villages, lots of back to the landers, a little bit of meth, a few old time ranchers, more new fangled new agers, and everyone (except most of the meth heads) with a little too much untaxable income.  Our land prices are high, we did not suffer in the crash of ’08, the land is too beautiful, it is always desirable.  I have lived here for 17 years and I see the change.  People come from out of town or out of the state and buy land, they camp long enough to pull in a huge crop, bring in tons of out of town workers, and then they all leave when the rain comes.  They do not spend the time making an effort to get to know the wonderful community they make their living in.  They do not care about our children’s soccer games or school plays.  They don’t celebrate on the beach with us for May Day.  Their money and ruthlessness makes us feel powerless and bullied.

   zx22.

The catalyst seems to be that recently one of our sons was killed as a pedestrian on the 101 hit by a car.  He was 27, his death has made all the do gooders want to form committees to save our town, our community.  He was addicted to meth, but that should not be his whole story he had parents who struggled and lost to their own addictions, he was isolated, he rarely left our town.  After his father died he lived alone up on a hill that you could only drive up sometimes.  He struggled to be good, to contribute.  A few years ago a couple of his friends took great advantage of him, they plied him with drugs and got him to agree to let them grow on his property.  He became so drugged up he lost a bit of his mind, his friends kicked him out he lived in his car they gave him more drugs so he wouldn’t say anything he lost more of his mind.  Finally another member of the community made sure his friends left the valley and never came back.  The son never really came back either.  His death makes us feel guilty, we stood by and watched and didn’t do anything worthwhile.

Marijuana and the economy around it are inseparable from our community, its joys and its hardships.  I make my money from weed, I hire itinerant workers, I love my community, I am both.  I am concerned that we will forget where we came from, that we will judge without understanding. There are so many things we can blame when we forget that we are our own original melting pot of needs and desires. In the name of equality we will condemn those who don’t agree with us.  In order to make our community greater we need greater understanding, not the fake judgemental kind.  The kind that happens when you realize you are capable of terrible wasteful things too.  The kind that happens when we realize we all are the same.

 

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