A Not So Boring Life

YOU CAN GET ANYTHING YOU WANT… Okay, folks.  I admit it.  I have been kind of an activist in my time.  I have challenged the rationale for war.  I have questioned the foreign policy of the U.S. government when its foreign policy demanded questioning.  Campaigned for social, gender and racial justice.  Worked for and spoken out in favor of change when change was needed.  I have protested in the streets when I thought it warranted.  I have not been as dedicated or consistent as others, but when there was a cause that I considered just and with which I could get involved in some way, I did.   At times (many times) I have been lazy, centered on my own stuff, ambivalent about speaking out.  But I have always tried to keep informed of what is going on in the world and contribute what little grains of sand I can.    And yes, I was once even arrested. Thrown in jail. Had my day in court.

MUD BY ANY OTHER NAME… Before leaving the remote village where we had arrived after a half-hour motor-boat ride across a placid coastal lake and a pleasant, spirit-inspiring, forty-five minute journey in a dugout canoe through acres of mangrove trees, my hosts asked me if I wanted to borrow a pair of rubber boots as we continued on our way to visit a farmer who was planting nitrogen fixing trees on his small plot on the Atlantic Coast of Honduras.  “There will be mud along the way”, they said.

“YOU WANT TO VISIT ONE OF THE COMMUNITIES?  WHY SURE….!” Working with local partners in providing development assistance to rural populations in Central America made the objectives much easier to achieve.  The partner’s knowledge of and established involvement with the target communities was an important element in getting things done much more efficiently.  There were some disadvantages, though.  Whenever I would visit the projects we were implementing with them, the on-the-ground staff would invariably chose the most isolated and hardest-to-get-to locations; I believe mainly to show me just how hard they were working “for the cause.” In 2010, I traveled from Nicaragua to Honduras for a four-day field trip to communities in the mountainous region of Catacamas, in the south-central part of country.  The project involved providing community members with access to development funds to carry out small economic and community improvement activities.  It...

“SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE…” In the summer of 1975, I left my studies in Theater Design at Penn State University to follow my then girlfriend Eileen to Pittsburgh, PA.  To be as near to her as possible (she had temporarily moved back in with her parents), I took a room above a bar about 18 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.  The bar, situated off Freeport Road, was typical of the area; a falling down, two-story, asphalt-shingled wood structure that catered to the after-work and weekend “beer and a shot” laborers of the surviving PP&L and other industries situated along the highway.   The building was surrounded by empty lots where once-thriving businesses had been razed as the economic slump of the mid-seventies took over. The bar took up the most of the first floor and consisted of metal tables, chairs and a wooden bar with high, vinyl covered stools.  A few dim neon signs and beer posters on the walls completed the decor.  An old jukebox from the 60’s...