(no subject)
Food and Oil: How I Saved My Soul, and Lost My Ass.
6:00 A.M.
click me - make me grow
4:00 P.M. I started working for the farmers - Nichols' Farm and Orchard, to be precise. The pictures, at left, were taken at our Tuesday market: The Prudential Plaza. The Plaza is a block east of Michigan Avenue, between Randolph and Lake.
The whole scene is played-out against the backdrop of Big Building Chicago: the Downtown, the Loop, the Lakefront, etc. It's the core of a 9 million person metro area.
That's Chad, Lloyd Nichols' son, in the blue-green shirt. He shows up with the truck, around 6:00 a.m., and the day begins.
Everything that we sell is grown in McHenry County, Illinois. And everything is unsprayed. Nichols is a family farm and orchard, specializing in heirloom varities of naturally grown vegetables. That's cool.
But, one of the factors that caused me to leave the taxi business was the rapid increase in the cost of gasoline. And I think that it costs Lloyd, now, about 50 U.S.D. to get the International truck [pictured] to Chicago. That's $50, one way. The cost is still rising.
We, in the United States, have huge numbers of people living in great density, in our major urban centers. Those people depend upon food, water and energy being imported; those people depend upon their waste being exported. Our way of life is made possible only by the existence of a sophisticated system of transportation geography. When, for one reason or another, a major city is diconnected from its hinterland, people die. This is happening in New Orleans.
[New Orleans with a happier face, circa 2002.]
One can no longer afford to purchase land - to farm - anywhere near a major American city. How much longer will it be possible to transport food into major American cities from land that is affordable for agricultural purposes? Obviously, the situation is most desperate for small farmers - and the urban poor. So, my life, at the moment, consists of humping these plastic bins [pictured] of vegetables: We build the market up; we tear the market down. We're carnival workers and green grocers - horrible two-headed beasts. In between, we sell. I am good at selling.
No, seriously. But I can do this only because I believe in what I am doing. It is only very rarely the case that I have no serious ethical questions about an activity. This is one of those rare cases. Big Picture: If I understand things correctly, most selling, most getting of wealth, involves the art of convincing people to purchase things that they don't really need - and, also, convincing those same people to pay more for those useless things than those useless things are really worth.
Yes, I wish that I was making more money. But vegetables are good.
There's the rub: to have the money, or to have what is good.
I really do think that this thing that I am involved in is the foundation of a healthy society - not only physically, but spiritually too. The connectedness with the Earth, and the cycle of life, and all living things, is good. And I am struck by the necropolis-like quality of the glass-and-steel canyons of the city, after we leave. Every so often the problems - inequality, racially based slavery, dependency - long buried, rise. Too many people in New Orleans turned to predation too quickly.
I would like to do what is good, with people of a like mind. I would like to find a community.
6:00 A.M.
click me - make me grow
4:00 P.M. I started working for the farmers - Nichols' Farm and Orchard, to be precise. The pictures, at left, were taken at our Tuesday market: The Prudential Plaza. The Plaza is a block east of Michigan Avenue, between Randolph and Lake.
The whole scene is played-out against the backdrop of Big Building Chicago: the Downtown, the Loop, the Lakefront, etc. It's the core of a 9 million person metro area.
That's Chad, Lloyd Nichols' son, in the blue-green shirt. He shows up with the truck, around 6:00 a.m., and the day begins.
Everything that we sell is grown in McHenry County, Illinois. And everything is unsprayed. Nichols is a family farm and orchard, specializing in heirloom varities of naturally grown vegetables. That's cool.
But, one of the factors that caused me to leave the taxi business was the rapid increase in the cost of gasoline. And I think that it costs Lloyd, now, about 50 U.S.D. to get the International truck [pictured] to Chicago. That's $50, one way. The cost is still rising.
We, in the United States, have huge numbers of people living in great density, in our major urban centers. Those people depend upon food, water and energy being imported; those people depend upon their waste being exported. Our way of life is made possible only by the existence of a sophisticated system of transportation geography. When, for one reason or another, a major city is diconnected from its hinterland, people die. This is happening in New Orleans.
[New Orleans with a happier face, circa 2002.]
One can no longer afford to purchase land - to farm - anywhere near a major American city. How much longer will it be possible to transport food into major American cities from land that is affordable for agricultural purposes? Obviously, the situation is most desperate for small farmers - and the urban poor. So, my life, at the moment, consists of humping these plastic bins [pictured] of vegetables: We build the market up; we tear the market down. We're carnival workers and green grocers - horrible two-headed beasts. In between, we sell. I am good at selling.
No, seriously. But I can do this only because I believe in what I am doing. It is only very rarely the case that I have no serious ethical questions about an activity. This is one of those rare cases. Big Picture: If I understand things correctly, most selling, most getting of wealth, involves the art of convincing people to purchase things that they don't really need - and, also, convincing those same people to pay more for those useless things than those useless things are really worth.
Yes, I wish that I was making more money. But vegetables are good.
There's the rub: to have the money, or to have what is good.
I really do think that this thing that I am involved in is the foundation of a healthy society - not only physically, but spiritually too. The connectedness with the Earth, and the cycle of life, and all living things, is good. And I am struck by the necropolis-like quality of the glass-and-steel canyons of the city, after we leave. Every so often the problems - inequality, racially based slavery, dependency - long buried, rise. Too many people in New Orleans turned to predation too quickly.
I would like to do what is good, with people of a like mind. I would like to find a community.