High Impact American...Redundancy

I believed that I could be a "low-impact American". Low impact on our natural environment was the goal. Decades later I understand the ridiculousness of such a concept. If you were investing a couple of months into backpcking the Appalachian Trail, The Pacific Crest Trail or bikepacking across this country, you would have a new view on what it is to be a low-impact American. The entire concept, lowering your impacts on the environment is possibly unAmerican. So, how do we work our way out of this conumdrum? Become a tidy homeless person? Which is exactly what long distance backpackers and bikepackers are practicing. However, how do we behave when the pilgrimage is over? Self-propelled adventure pilgrims have educated themselves about what it takes to survive...the difference between needs and wants...an increased awareness does result from such an effort. American society will however, suck you right back into a wasteful lifestyle...and your environmental awareness will undoubtly fade. I've done this. I've been conscious of my impacts...lived simple through bicycling and hiking full time, eating out of my organic garden and avoiding high-impact behavoirs like flying high above the earth and being pulled by a motor down the river or across a lake. However. I have taken several steps backword over the last couple of decades. Living in a remote location and creating a child will do things to a person who wished to live a low-impact lifestyle...motor vehicles, can't live without them now. Far-flung travel with hopes of inspiring and enriching the child...unavoidable!

What A Summer!

My turn to go under the knife...we've all got something to be removed, replaced or re-alligned. Last August we didn't sell a bicycle or a kayak. We didn't sell a helmet or a t-shirt...We were evacuated, our town was destined to burn to the ground. We zipped back to the upper Midwest to say goodbye to my mother and to console my sisters. Our first Summer vacation ever. The Dixie Fire came right to our doorstep, then it turned and blowtorched it's way to the Lassen Volcanic National Park, directly north of us. What a Summer that was. This Summer is hot and extremely dry but thunderheads are building above me as I write this. I am hoping that the rest of this season is far less eventful. The supply chain seems to be fixed. Our bicycles seem to be coming from Taiwan, Cambodia and Vietnam...not China. The quality is still very good but the prices have jumped considerably. Kayaks are in and the lakes still have water and good views. Time to cut it here...sounding like the Chester Lake Almanor Chamber of Commerce.

You Say It's Your Birthday...

Good memeories from last year's birthday campout in Taylorsville with thirty of my friends...very nice. We pretended it was my 70th...was really my 71st. Which means that this year I am 2 years older. This is why I drank three cups of coffee this morning. We started the morning with some Ali McGraw Yoga and a trip to the disposal yard to drop off a toilet. The yard was closed on Weds. so I brought the toilet back to the shop so that I can break it up and sneak it into the trash here. What a way to start my 73rd year, I am a humble fellow and my expectations were not high for this day. However, I do expect to sell a kayak today. You have to have a sense of humor when you are 'getting on in years". Thinking of my friends who are in their eighties and nineties...some still have an excellent sense of humor. I want to be that guy.

Unexpected Stressors...You Never Know...part one.

2018...I couldn't have known four years ago how our lives would change. We picked up our new Black Lab puppy in Oregon in mid-July... she has been a constant thread of joy to both of us for the last four years. In September we noticed that the one acre of trees and rocks directly south of us, which had been undisturbed for the thirty years since we built our house, was now being disturbed...we had neighbors. The decision had been made to clear-cut the property. All 815 trees were removed. Construction noise right off our deck was new to us. The new owner graciously let us keep two trees that grew on the border of our properties. The earth movers rolled in and fought the rocks and stumps making a construction pad as close to our house as possible. I am still struggling with this gross imposition. The house is now in place but the battle goes on with the huge rocks and the landscaping. Large tractors and cranes are waging this battle even today, as my house shakes and jumps and the pictures on the wall swing cockeyed with every movement of these incredibly noisy machines. The wife says, "He's a dig-a-hole/ fill-a-hole kind of guy." Which may go on for the rest of our lives. In November of that first year Paradise burned...thirty thousand people ran for their lives as a blow torch wind ravaged their entire town. This happened just down the hill from us (fifty miles, as the crow flies) so, we got much of the smoke. Eighty-five people died.

Small Is Beautiful, Until...

Small independent merchants are toast in America. Everybody seems to be OK with that. We buy with enthusiasm from corporate retailers and manufacturers who are more than happy to shove the 'little guys" off a cliff. You probably don't remember a time when you could go downtown and buy a toaster or a television from a 1200sq. ft. appliance store. The Big Box guys, with their 20 acre parking lots, sell everything from shoes to computers to automobiles. Now, the Big Boxes are starting to fall off the same cliff. Shopping has moved to the internet. My suppliers have also dropped all interest in keeping the small independant merchants healthy. They have run full speed ahead to the internet buyers. A few of them swam in the Big Box pool negatively affecting the "quality" association with their brand names. Now, they too are swirling down into the internet drain. Left in the dust are small independent merchants who invested decades into helping patch-up the mistakes and oversights that these same suppliers sent our way. Whose truing the wavy wheels for these guys now? Things don't get fixed by the little guys here in the 2020's...they are returned and of course, disposed of, by the robots who call themselves businessmen and women.

My Environmental Footprint

It's all relative...compared to who or what? I invested fifteen years in living lightly, close to the earth with so much conscious thought about my detrimental impacts on the planet and my fellow humans. My gardens were lush and complicated, I refused to own an automobile, a television or a phone for fifteen years. I didn't want to support the evil corporates...I didn't want to inflict pain on my neighbors. (My mother would have appreciated a phone number, however.) Well, look at me now...decades later, I own two motor vehicles, I finance three phones and a TV. Now that I've owned and operated a bike shop and quiet mountain sports store for nearly thirty years I must say, I have contributed to the impacts that the People's Republic of China have had on the planet with their coal-fired manufacturing to an embarrassing degree. We whole heartedly encourage our friends and neighbors to use the 6,000 bicycles and 600 kayaks we've put into circulation here in Northern California...more stuff and very little of it Organic or recyclable. So, my impacts have added up to...embarrassing. Now, here in my 70's I am attempting to get "out of the loop"...The Bodfish Bicycles and Quiet Mountain Sports establishment is for sale and I cancelled my DishTV contract. I am hoping to bow-out of the super consumptive American lifestyle gracefully and relatively quickly. Not completely, I'll still own several bicycles and a handful of plastic kayaks and I'm holding on to my Ford Transit(High Roof) travel van. I am, afterall, a spoiled American boy.