the BioTour Vagabond Journal

I woke up in a McDonald’s parking lot on the Jersey Turn Pike. We were bound for Washington, DC and stopped to rotate drivers after traveling south through the night. I rubbed my eyes and stretched in the sunny parking lot. Tourists from Georgia stared and snapped pictures as they filed into their coach bus.

The driver of the tour bus next to us, a Haitian man named Silver, questioned us enthusiastically about the potential to grow fuel on his home island. We talked about the benefits of energy independence and exchanged contact information. I’ve since learned of an organization called BODDI and their efforts to “develop Bio-sustainable communities in both the Dominican Republic and Haiti.” Using biofuels from sugar cane, jatropha and other plants, as well as solar, wind, geothermal, and other renewable energy resources, they aim to bring about a rebirth of the island by building a locally controlled industry, improving the general standard of living, and reducing dependence on foreign oil. That would be a good thing for Haiti, the first slave colony to gain independence, only to be continuously attacked and exploited for centuries since. Neocolonialism, economic imperialism, or whatever one calls it remains, and Haiti is still the poorest country in the hemisphere.

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Halfway through Maryland we found a good batch of grease behind an almost barren mini-mall. A bearded old man in a jean jacket stumbled out of the door in the back of a dive bar into the asphalt lot. It was about 11 am.

One of the restaurateurs, Dave, pale and slight with combed brown hair and a moustache, told us about his aspirations to get out of the restaurant business, maybe start brewing his own biodiesel and get back into bounty hunting.

Dave told us a little about his history in law enforcement. “What’s the most interesting case you’ve worked on?” Ethan asked him. He related to us a story about the three bank-robbing thespians who dreamed of starting their own theatre company, and would not let lack of funding stop them. So they robbed their local bank, opened their theatre with the cash, and began producing shows. A year later, and broke again, they went back to their unwilling benefactors this time taking the vault and walking away with over $180,000. When they returned a third time the pirate thespians were caught off guard by a bank that had learned its lesson. The robbers shot and killed a guard to escape and they and their money were marked when an ink bomb detonated inside their currency. They washed the money with a large amount of solvent from a local beauty parlor. Demonstrating their passion for the stage, they spent the washed money locally and continued to produce shows. It wasn’t long before the FBI, with the help of Dave, and the beauty parlor tracked down the dynamic trio.

“You’re making me think that it’s not that hard to rob a bank and get away with it,” I said.

“It’s not,” Dave replied shrugging his shoulders.

“We are looking for funding” I mused. “What do you think E?”

“I don’t think that our blue school bus with the giant silver stripe and a top speed of 65mph is the right getaway vehicle,” E replied.

Dave hung around as we topped off the veg-tank and wrapped up our hoses. He offered us the bathroom of his bar for us to wash up.

“Yeah I disagree with our criminal justice system,” said Dave. Ethan, Burkie and I nodded in agreement thinking of the millions of people mired in the US Prison System.

“Yeah I think we should be able to shoot someone if they run,” Dave said.

We looked at one another incredulously then politely nodded our heads. Who wouldn’t run if someone like Dave was chasing you?

We finished cleaning up. Dave gave us a bag of bulkie rolls, cold cuts and sliced cheese, and we bid the bounty hunting restaurateur farewell.

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After several weeks of quasi-sedentary life in Madison, BioTour hit the road again on Friday with our new storage and pre-filtration system, the state of the art Elsbett vegetable oil conversion plus reusable metal screen fuel filters. We were on the highway again, rolling over the timber lined bluffs and green fields of Northeast Iowa, passing cows, horses, and llamas and eating soft serve ice cream and feeling just about invincible until…Bang!

‘Did we lose a barrel!?’

Brief visions of a vegetable oil filled barrel careening down the highway flashed through our minds. We were relieved to see only a flap of rubber tumbling down the road. We’d blown the tread on a rear tire, but there were still had five more, still intact on the road.

After a few hours of cautious driving, the golden dome of Iowa’s Capitol building shone ahead of us over the city of in Des Moines. Only a few hours late, we pulled up in front of the Mayor’s Energy Futures Conference. Inside we heard the chair of the Prairie Justice organization, Dianne Dillon-Ridgley, speak about why ecological diversity matters, which was enough to get us excited about the weekend event. We met some of the speakers and attendees as they left the auditorium, including the mayor of Des Moines, Mayor Cownie—a man with such vision and passion that I hardly believe he’s a politician.

On Saturday we attended the workshops at Drake University, designed to generate ideas to be implemented in Des Moines and across Iowa that will transition to a greener Iowa in one year. There were activists, business leaders, teachers, students, and mayors from all over the state brainstorming ideas, and plans for implementation at every aspect of society from waste management to sustainability curriculum in public schools, and reducing energy consumption in the homes. The obstacles to change will surely be significant, but the solutions are just within reach. And the enthusiasm and leadership at that conference gives me high hopes for the city of Des Moines and Iowa.

We spent the night at the home of our host, and sustainability advocate, Lynnae Hentzon. At their home a few miles outside the city, Lynnae and her husband Rob, their kids Stien, Grishom and Sasha, their dog, horse, and four outdoor cats welcomed us graciously. Lynnae’s home was wonderful oasis.

While my cohorts took the bus out into Des Moines for an evening of bar hopping and some vehement discussions with some young Sierra Club members, and concluding with Berkey and Ethan in the pool of the Marriot Hotel at 5am. Around the time Ethan and Berkey were drying off and indulging in the breakfast buffet, I was waking up in my tent to the sounds of birds back in Lynnae’s yard on the outskirts of town. Then with a wine skin full of water I trekked down the paved road and into Brown’s Woods–500 acres of trails within the Des Moines city limits. I walked dirt trails inside a brilliant green dome of the decidious forest, spotting white tailed deer, and one knee high fawn. I walked down from the hills onto the flood plain and stood on the bank of the Racoon River. With the muddy turquoise water running below me, I felt like Huck Finn.

On Sunday the city of Des Moines hosted the Olympic triathlon trials. Unfortunately Hummer was one of the sponsors and the ridiculous mini tanks, that typically carry one passenger (and their giant teetering ego) and get half the gas mileage of a Model T Ford sat plunked around the starting line and podium. We were compelled to cruise the bus around the race trying to inject some sane transportation ideas into the collective consciousness of the spectators. I was encouraged to hear that the winner of that day’s race, a Dane who received a Hummer along with his cash prize had already made efforts to sell it before the day was over.

This morning we gave a presentation to about one hundred students between the ages of 9-12 at the downtown school in Des Moines. It felt great speaking about sustainability with people again and sharing ideas.

Tomorrow morning we are headed 2 hours East to Fairfield, IA to check out an off-the-grid eco-village, and a perma-culture greenhouse, give some a presentations and interviews, then we’re off to South Dakota to visit Pine Ridge Reservation and whatever else we discover along the way.

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After a long and well-spent day, we walked up the street to a local Irish pub, The Harp. Harpo, the tavern operator/Irish history professor with a gray handle bar mustache, checked our IDs at the door, asking each of us for backup. It was ‘Over 40 Dance Night’ for the beginning of the evening and middle aged couples boogied out on the floor in corduroys and sweaters, one gentleman even rocked a pair of high socks and knickers.

We sat down at a table with Harpo, who introduced us to Loren, a drummer turned music producer, who was home from Seattle. Loren was built like a lumberjack, endowed with enterprising LA energy and good heart besides. We told him about BioTour. He was thrilled by what we were doing and bought us some pitchers of beer. Afterward, he gave a passionate retelling of his own story over a few pints: A drummer for hire who once was part of the corrupt music producing industry (think boy bands), Loren had broken free to start a conscientious alternative for musicians. His company, Protectomatic Music and Entertainment, empowers artists with ownership over their music and gives back to society by forming partnerships with non-profits. We in turn bought another round for a man fearlessly remolding the music industry.

A college rock band replaced the DJ for the over 40 dance night. Nodding to Red Hot Chili Pepper’s covers, I followed E and Burkie out onto the deck.

The two soldiers who Ethan had befriended at UMass happened to be at the Harp that night. I met Jon who, with wide eyes and a buzz cut, joined the Army at 18 looking for some direction. At 19 he was in Iraq. He told us about the boredom and the languor of waiting around in tents in the desert for weeks at a time.

“These private contractors are doing most of our work, the construction work, basically replacing us so we’ve got nothing to do,” said Jon.

“You and your buddies are sleeping in bunk beds and tents while Halliburton employees you protect are living in air conditioned hotels they built for themselves in the desert. And they’re getting’ paid, what? Like how many times a soldier’s salary? And with taxpayer’s money…it’s such bullshit…” Ethan started down the list of absurdities about this war and stopped just shaking his head.

Jon was knocked unconscious on three occasions while in the Middle East, and upon returning home suffered a stroke that temporarily paralyzed the left side of his body. Several civilian doctors have said that redeployment would likely kill him, but military doctors, who have not even met Jon in person, have cleared him to redeploy.
Nearly two years ago, Ethan encouraged Jon to speak at a UMass anti-war event. Jon told his story to a crowd of activists and press and the military backed off, striking a deal with him that allowed him to remain in country to finish his service. Recently the military has resumed their efforts to redeploy him to Iraq, despite the risks to his health.

“It’s tough. I don’t want my soldiers to think I am abandoning them, but this is my health. I would do anything for them, but if I go back I’ll probably end up dead, and it won’t be from a bullet or a bomb.”

Amid so much rhetoric about ‘supporting the troops’ Jon is one of the few people who sincerely works to do just that. Despite a military budget of over $400 billion and the additional hundreds of billions spent on the so-called “War on Terror, Jon has seen his brothers in arms return from combat and left broken, confused, and even impoverished, with no one to help them secure the education and benefits they were promised. One of Jon’s friends survives on five-pound bags of rice while he struggles to feed his children, and many others just don’t sleep at night. Jon took over the UMass Veterans and Service Members Association to support the soldiers as they return home, helping them get their GI Bill benefits when no one else will, teaching them how to balance a check book when no one else has, understanding their struggle to readjust when no once else can or cares to.

Although Jon questions the validity of the mission in Iraq, he would still support his fellow soldiers on the ground if his body could take it, but it cannot. Jon is working in Amherst to help the soldiers become functioning citizens rather than broken parts, but still the military is trying to send him back to be a body on the ground in a foreign land.

The back deck of the bar provided a respite from the college band, sweating and pumping out Jimi Hendrix covers. I met Hunter while he was working security, keeping underage kids from jumping over the rail, or guys from pissing off the deck. He had gathered himself after finishing a case race earlier in the day, and convinced Harpo that he was good to work. Hunter wore a black safari hat over round black-rimmed eye-glasses, and a thin black beard.He carried his tall frame with disarming nonchalance. A year ago he was stationed with the Marines between Fallujah and Tikrit.

Another friend of Ethan’s asked Hunter for a war story. He thought for a moment then launched into an adrenalized tale about the siege of Fallujah, gripping a cigarette with his lips. He punctuated his sentences by chopping the air with his hands and gazed ahead with wild intensity.

“We’re providin’ support for the siege, sittin’ there waitin’ and waitin’ in the trucks while it gets dark, and we’re hearin’ the mortars and IEDs goin’ off and we’re just waitin’ to move on to the next check point. We move up on Boston road…no! no, it was the Michigan road, and we hear “Boom!” behind us, an’ there’s a smoking crater where we were just standin’ two minutes ago.

“We’re all on edge, sittin’ in the truck and grittin’ our teeth, ya know. So we get to the next check point on the edge of the city. I’m lookin’ down the barrel of the 50 caliber and this guy walks out of his house with his hands up. This guy’s about the age of my father ya know, and he calls out in English ‘My family, we stay? We go?’ And we’re all goin’ nuts there bout ta shoot anything that moves, but we yell ‘Stay! Stay!’ and wave him back. He says thank you and goes back in his house.
“So by the time we’re on the road gittin’ outta there we got one guy dead and a couple more guys hurt from mortars. Then we see our Cobras buzz overhead toward the city, and those things are whippin’ around firin’ crazy and I’m thinkin’, ‘Thank god I’m not the bad guy right now’.

“So I’m still on the gun bouncin’ along in the truck and we see these lights roll toward us out of the desert. Now it’s standard protocol to shoot any vehicle, or any military age male on sight at night in Iraq. They know they got curfew ya know. So I’m sittin’ behind the gun and these lights start comin’ at us, an’ I got my finger on the trigger ready to,-ta-ta…to fuckin’ shoot this thing ya know! But they stop, and I yell to my sergeant, ‘Sarge, Shoot or don’t shoot’. He yells ‘don’t shoot!’ so we wait to see if they come closer. If these guys pull forward I’m gonna fuckin’ fire on em’. But they just sit there, and I’m fuckin’ squeezing the handle of the gun. Then they just back straight up and they’re gone into the desert.”

“Wow man, that’s a crazy situation to be in.” I said, knowing I can’t imagine what it’s like.

“Yeah ya know, I got to know a few of the Iraqis and they’re good people, they care about their families and their homes and just want a regular normal life, but when you’re in the shit you can’t think of them like people, they’re just bad guys or you’ll be the one that ends up dead.”

I had nothing else to say. It was a different world than the back deck of a bar in the middle of Massachusetts.

“HEY! Ya, go around the front door alright,” Hunter called out some dude trying to hop over the rail.
“Yeah I wanna come see the bus after we close. You guys goin’ through Georgia at all?”

Before we could answer he was off riding the memory of another wild adventure.

“I was stationed at a base down there for a while, and one weekend my buddy and I decided that we want to go out to the Okefenokee Swamp and take some mushrooms. So we drive out to the sticks with a canoe strapped to the roof of my station wagon. And people out there are great man. Ya go into a local diner an’ eat grits and chicken and people were offerin’ their lawns for us to camp on. But my buddy and I talked to some people and they told us about a good spot to put the canoe away from the main camp-grounds. So we find the spot, put in, an’ paddle out in this channel for a ways and we’re all walled in by vines and bushes, with Spanish moss hangin’ down from the trees, fuckin’ crazy ya know!”

“So we stop and eat the mushrooms and paddle on again. And we’re goin’ along and I hit this thing in the water with my paddle and it fuckin’ lurches and swims away. So I just start yellin’ and we both start paddlin’ like crazy and my buddy’s yells, ‘Hunter what was that?! Was it an alligator, was it a snapping turtle?!’ And it hits me–we’re out in the middle of a huge swamp in a little canoe, we’ve just eaten a handful of mushrooms. I almost freak out. But then I realize that all I need to do…is to take a piss, smoke a Red, throw in a chew and paddle on down the river and everything’s gonna be good! So I say to my buddy,

‘Hey, all we gotta do is take a piss, smoke a Red, throw in a chew and paddle on down the river and everything’s gonna be good.’“

And he says, ‘Ok Hunter, but I’m gonna puke first.’

And I go ‘No! No! That’s a terrible idea, why would you wanna do that?!’

Then he leans over the side and starts pukin’. And I’m thinkin’ to myself,

‘I may just need to ignore this man for the next four hours’.

But he pukes and he’s good and we keep paddlin’ through black water and we get out fine.”

We went back to the bus and hung out with both Hunter and Loren after the bar closed, playing drums and telling stories, then crawled into our sleeping bags to hibernate for a few hours.

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On a gloomy Wednesday morning two days before our first visit, I packed my trunk and cleaned the scraps of past adventures from my room—train ticket stubs, water purification tablets, city maps, translation cheat sheets, Vietnamese newspapers….

Through the evening I wrestled with my brother Will, gave my Mom a computer lesson, and carried in wood for the fire. Ethan arrived around 11PM.

It was 40 degrees and drizzling when we reached the bus in E’s driveway. I loaded my trunk, skateboard, canned goods, books and tent, then laid my sleeping bag down inside the metal hull of my new home.

We spent the following day crossing off tasks—online banking, fastening bookshelves to the walls, answering emails, filling up on grease, and packing the bus with essentials—food, water, duct tape, filters, drums, sleeping bags, two 5 gallon buckets of Biodiesel, hoses, tools, hand cleaner, laptops, way too many books and multitude of other things we might need while living on and maintaining a vegetable oil powered school bus.

By midnight Burkie and Cat arrived and we set a course for the UMass. We followed the Mass Pike from the east coast to the middle of the state, reaching Amherst several hours before dawn.

I peered out of my sleeping bag in the morning to see UMass students file in and out of the high rise dorms wearing Red Sox baseball hats and hooded Patriots sweatshirts.

Daniela, a graduate student from Germany and MassPIRG representative, greeted us as we stretched outside the bus. She led us into her dorm where we showered, cooked breakfast and got to know our quiet and intense host.

Daniela told us about her studies in mammalian biology at UMass and expressed her frustration at the amount of waste produced in American society. She was baffled by the disposable plastic shopping bags at the organic grocer, styrofoam cups at the environmental club meeting and the precious little attention paid to the coal fired power plant in the middle of UMass campus.

“We cannot turn down the heat in our dorm rooms in the winter. Instead, we just open the window,” Dani said shaking her head.

After a BioTour breakfast special—eggs, rice, and beans, Daniela directed us to the middle of campus. We steered our bright blue bus into the scene of concrete landscapes and matching grey sky.

Ethan and Burkie armed themselves with flyers and hunted down pedestrians. Cat rendered a big colorful “Step It Up 07” in sidewalk chalk, while I fielded questions at the bus:

“Does that thing really run on vegetable oil?”.

“Yeah it does. Actually the diesel engine was originally designed to run on a variety of fuels. The inventor, Rudolf Diesel, saw it as a way to stimulate local agricultural economies, etc, etc, etc…” I rattled off the well practiced answers.

We toured the campus that day and met a full spectrum of responses. Some people didn’t look up from their cell phones or Ipods, while others were ready to jump on board and join the crew. Still more would stop, accept a flyer, maybe think about it for a moment, and then continue on their way.

By late afternoon we were all drained from engaging people for hours on end. We parked the bus next to Ethan’s old apartment and made dinner and relaxed with Ethan’s friend Brandon.

After dinner, Ethan’s old roommates joined us inside the bus for a meta-physical exploration. After too much talking, Ethan and I, felt that all the words weren’t getting us anywhere and decided to use our feet. We burst out of the door, flying away up a hill, across a baseball field, and over a wooden bridge into the woods. As we ran upstream along the moonlit river, the hush of the distant waterfall grew to a roar. We climbed up to the rocky cliff side and sat quietly by the precipice for a spell. Once our thoughts were sufficiently muffled by the falling water, we ran off again to investigate an ancient tree; its huge branches growing steadily out over centuries. We galloped onward down the road to a co-housing community, and admired the simple, and sadly uncommon, way that people could live and work together, sharing their space some of their resources. We then skipped onto a private golf course, climbed in and out of a wide pine tree, then lay down on the manicured fairway and watched a couple of shooting stars criss-cross the sky. We returned to the apartment philosophically satisfied.

The next day was Step it Up Day. Daniela had prepared a tight schedule to make efficient use of us and the bus. E steered the bus up a steep road carved between grey oaks and granite boulders to upper campus. We jumped off armed with flyers.

Inside the dining hall we informed a few groggy students in pajama pants about the impending climate and fuel crises. Then opted for a new strategy and positioned the bus between another set of dorms and the dining hall, coming between hung over students and their food and making them come to us. We broke out the drums, sending djembe rhythms echoing between the dorms. Eventually the students began to stir and investigate the big blue commotion in front of their dorm.

Daniela informed us that it was time for our next stop, minutes later, Ethan and Burkie were on the roof banging drums between the shops and restaurants of the Amherst common. We then headed to the Hitchcock Center for the Environment the beginning of the Step-It-Up Day events. We rolled into the small dirt parking lot stopping between an old VW bus converted for SVO, and brand new Volswagen golf converted to run on veg by the women at Seven Sisters Auto. Ethan and I gave a presentation then joined the parade of activists marching from the nature center two miles down the road to Hampshire College, carrying home made signs and pushing bike strollers.

Pleased looking folks milled about between a horseshoe of tables and the stage. They chatted with organizers and perused the pamphlets on the tables while enjoying free lentil soup.

Cat and Burkie rounded up the lead organizers for an interview inside the bus. There was Ted, the resident naturist who noticed that a species of tit-mouse migrated further North of its normal territory because of rising temperatures and was struck by the reality of global warming. Ted challenged several families to measure and reduce their consumption, and met more people who shared his concerns. He then and got involved with Step-It-Up.

Lani, a Junior Sustainability Studies major, was the lead organizer for Hampshire College. Although Hampshire College supports sustainable projects and there are flocks of sheep grazing on campus pastures, Lani and her organization New Leaf pressure the administration to make the campus a model of efficient design and sustainable practices.

And Debbie, avid quilter and loving mother to children from Kenya and Jamaica. The idea for the event was born of conversations around her kitchen table. She had never before organized an event.

Debbie invited the BioTour crew over for brunch next morning. (After a serendipitous night at the local Irish Pub, the Harp) We were all quite happy to be out of the cold bus for a while and eat with Debbie and her family before making our way back East.

Little kids ran through the kitchen and friends and neighbors walked through the open front door. Debbie’s family and their neighbors share a garden in the culdesac between their homes. Now instead of suburban isolation, there is a little slice of the Shire.

Maisha, Debbie’s twelve year old daughter from Kenya, and I jumped on the trampoline in the rain.

“Why do you run your bus on grease?” she asked me after I explained how our bus works.

“Well, it’s free, it’s fun, its better for the climate, and we don’t have to waste as much petroluem.”

“Is that like gas? Are we going to run out or something?”

“Yeah, but not for a while, but pretty soon there’s just not going to be enough for everyone to keep living the way people live now.” I said.

“Oh,” Maisha said, “Then they’ll probably be wars and fighting for it, huh?”

“Well, yes.” I said.

Maisha thought about this for a moment, “Or…if someone didn’t have enough fuel or whatever someone else, like up the street could just share with them. And everyone would just help each other so they could have enough like in a family. Every street could be just like a family.”

“You’re right Maisha,” I said, “we could.”

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