Return Community Control of East Akron Community House

Local organizing is really hard here in Akron, Ohio.  There aren't

many social justice organizations and the ones that exist are under-resourced and politically marginalized.  I have chosen to throw in my lot with the East Akron Community House.  Here is a link to an Op-Ed I was privileged to have published today in the Akron Beacon Journal: Building Capacity and Honoring Our History at EACH.

Because of the political situation in Akron I am asking all my out-of-town friends and colleagues to sign the MoveOn.org petition in support of EACH and community control of the building and programming.  The editorial describes the situation.  Please consider signing EACH Petition.  #ReachforEACH.  Thanks.

Before Memorial Day Was Militarized There Was Decoration Day

Today I will go to Mt. Peace cemetery, clean everyone's gravesite and have a picnic.  I will not be alone.  The cemetery will be full of African-Americans, white Appalachians, and others who have

picked up the habit of Decoration Day. The lawn will be littered with picnic baskets and little chairs.  Relations chatting and enjoying the presence of the dearly departed.  Before there was a Memorial Day, upland Southern folk celebrated a late spring holiday where we cleaned and decorated the graves of our ancestors (Hansen, Arkansas Review, 2009) so I am always disconcerted by the militaristic tone of Memorial Day, not in small part because so many have died to violence, their lives unacknowledged.

Recently I went to Tennessee looking for the grave of Ed and Ora Gooden, the grandparents of my cousins, whose son plays a prominent role in my manuscript, Love's Bright Fire.  Really, I was looking for the son, Albert, and figured he had been buried near where his parents would later rest.  It was near the end of March, I was happy to escape the endless cold that had settled over Akron during the winter 2014.  I went in secret -- I didn't want to talk about my goal, which was two-fold, to find Albert's true death location, the site of his murder,  as well as where he had been buried in 1937.

I drove from Memphis to Tipton County,  just outside Mason, past the recently planted cotton.  It is most pretty as it just reaches it's full height, tiny buds forming that will burst open into the white fruit that will become the t-shirts, pants, tablecloths we take for granted in our daily life. The green of the young plant is quite seductive, not unlike the green cauliflower -- a little lime, a lot of light.  Other things were growing, soybean, corn, but cotton always catches my eye.

There are two Belmont cemeteries, one white and one Black.  Ora and Ed are buried in the one the Goodens owned and managed for years.  I pulled off of Belmont Road onto Old Route 59.  Some men

were trying to complete the burial of a Gooden cousin.   They were stymied by the numerous unmarked graves.  The gravediggers were happy to spend some time chatting, giving me the tour.  There were many handmade grave markers, poured cement with the carefully etched name of the deceased. establishing I was from out of town, but familiar.

Ora was easy to find.  Ed is unmarked, as is Albert.  I knew my responsibility.  I left to buy gardening tools and flowers.  Ora's tombstone had sunk deep into the turf.  The dates of her birth and death obscured.  I dug as deep as I could with the hand trowel, tore away the turf.  Mr. Melvin Johnson ("Ah Yes, you the Hickory Withe Johnsons.  The bright Johnsons, as opposed to the dark Johnsons.  But we are all cousins, right?") told me that there were many Goodens interned without

The Light Wasn't Great: Ora Gooden

markers.  I could just make out the contours of some of the plots.   He said they would all be buried facing east, "you know, for the resurrection."  I could just make out the contours of some of the plots.

May 30, 2011 Op-Ed NY Times, Owen Freeman

I understand the impetus, almost 150 years ago, for the celebration by the recently liberated slaves in
Charleston SC, their need to memorialize the valiant dead who had made their freedom possible.  I don't want to forget the time before Decoration Day became militarized, used as a justification for all kinds of military adventures, and as a justification for white, southern grievances against those freed people.

Honor the Waters Vigil, January 21, Akron OH

Japanese Lantern Ceremony Forest Hills Cemetery

Join me tomorrow to Honor the Waters Candlelight Vigil, in solidarity with the people of West Virginia and my friends at the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.  I will be at the bottom of N. Maple St., on the Towpath Trail by the Little Cuyahoga River in Akron, OH.  Bring a candle.

When: January 21
Where: Towpath Trail, N. Maple St.
Time: 6 p.m.
Bring a candle and your favorite poem about water.



The water disaster in West Virginia could happen to any of us who depend on a river or public body of water for our water supply.  Some version of it is probably happening every day to those of us who live near fracking, coal mining, oil refining, and chemical processing.  Oops, that would be almost all of us.

So, My White Activist Peeps, What Are You Going To Do?

I began composing this post in my mind before the George Zimmerman verdict.  When the House of Representatives passed a food bill stripped of food stamps benefits I began to wonder, "Do these congressional representatives, in highly gerry-rigged districts, not have any constituents who

are poor, working folks, who need the pitiful little help with getting a decent meal that food stamps represent?"  And I answered myself, "Of course they do, they are poor and working white people, and they don't vote."

And these white people live with the illusion that black people are the problem, the enemy, the cause of their misery.  And, of course, we all know that none of this is true.  So my white activist friends, whatever the analysis you bring to your work -- whether it is based on class, anti-racist analysis, feminist post-structural theory, whatever -- you must recognize that black people cannot solve the problems like economic inequity, broken criminal justice system, and the multi-dimensional travesty that is the state of Florida.  Poor white people have to recognized their interest in these problems.  

I love all of you, believe many of you do great work, but I live in a bifurcated world -- on one side I teach in a school that is overwhelmingly white and privileged, on the other side I live, volunteer in and consult with organizations that are overwhelmingly populated by my people, black and brown people.  I appreciate your good intentions, the excellent work you do with immigrants, domestic workers, low-income communities of color, and many other efforts that seek to address the grievous injustices that people of color experience every day. But the changes we want -- immigration reform, food justice, health care for all, end to the school-to-prison pipeline, a livable minimum wage, I can go on -- will only become real when marginalized white people can see their interests are our interests:

We who believe in freedom cannot rest
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Until the killing of Black men, Black mothers’ sons
Is as important as the killing of White men, White mothers’ sons

We who believe in freedom cannot rest, We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.

                  "Ella's Song", Bernice Johnson Reagon

I don't know what it will take for you to begin to engage your own people, but I suggest you figure it out, and soon. While we may not be able to rest, some of us are getting mighty tired.

William Gordon Johnson, May 20, 1953 - March 20, 2013

William "Bill" Johnson was my brother.  I always called him my biggest brother but there was no other -- he was my only brother.  That he passed away almost two months ago and that I am only now writing my memorial to him is a failing on my part.  I was caught off guard by his death.  

Here is the text of his obituary, what he wanted written about himself:

 William G. Johnson, age 59, of Akron passed away at his home March 20, 2013 after a brief illness. 

Bill was born May 20, 1953 in Akron to the late Edna M. Johnson. He was a 1971 Graduate of St. Vincent High School and attended Akron University. He worked many years in Quality Control. 

Bill loved music, he enjoyed playing the Bass Guitar and listening to jazz and rock music especially Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis. He loved to read, enjoying history and all types of machinery from cars, trucks, trains, to tanks. He was very knowledgeable about cars, able to pick out the make and model of a classic at any distance. Bill was a natural athlete, a long distance runner in his youth, and long distance cyclist on his Green Raleigh Bike later in life. He loved the Summit County Metro Parks, he spent many hours enjoying the parks. He also enjoyed photography of all kinds, especially taking photos of his children.

He is survived by his wife and best friend of 37 years, Virginia Johnson; his daughter, Alania Claire Johnson (Boyfriend, Andrew Mason) of Kingsville, Texas; his son, Miles William Johnson (girlfriend, Jennifer Patchen) of Berkley, California; his sisters, Becky Johnson of Akron, and Gena Johnson of North Hollywood, California; his father-in-law, George Botzman; and many brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces, and nephews.

Bill had a huge soft spot for cats, he would feed any stray that would stop by, because of his love, memorial contributions may be made to One of a Kind Pets, 1929 W. Market St., Akron, Ohio 44313

There are no calling hours or services. Private interment of his ashes will take place at a later date. Please visit www.dunnquigley.com to share condolences and memories at Bill's book of memories.

####

I want to share one memory that speaks to my brother at his best: playful, subversive, proud of himself and his black brothers.  

We went to Catholic schools, first St. Bernard's grade school then St. Vincent High School (now St. Vincent-St. Mary's) in Akron, Ohio.  Bill was two years older than me so when I got to St. V he was a junior.  At the time, St. V was publicly renowned for its athletics (as it is occasionally today) but for those of us who navigated its hallways, it was notorious for a kind of thuggishness that sometimes comes with athletic attainment. And there weren't many black students.  In Bill's class there was one girl, I think, and four or five boys.  He was friends with Steve and Tony.  

My recollection of dates is fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure it was the school talent show of  my freshman year.  I don't think I told anyone but I was terrified of the junior and senior class boys, brutish Polish and Italian linebackers (Akron was a very ethnic place back then) who tormented their underlings.  I digress.  

Everyone was required to attend talent show.  My brother and Tony performed.  Tony, who I think was a running back for the football team, had a black belt in karate.  Both Bill and Tony had glorious afros (as you can probably tell from the photo).  Tony, with Bill's able assistance, proceeded to break things with his hands.  Boards, bricks, stuff.  Neither said a word.  Just bowed and walked off stage, leaving their handiwork behind.

Everyone knew that was my brother and his friend.  All eight of us scrawny, black and brown freshmen knew we were safe.

And lastly, for Bill, for all of us,  a poem by Lucille Clifton.  This gave me the courage to finally write this remembrance (I realize now that all 3 men have now passed away -- Bill and Tony, and Steve, their friend):

you are not

your brothers keeper

you are 

your brother

the one 

hiding in the bush

is you

the one

lying on the grate

is you

the mad one in the cage

or on the podium

is you

the king is you

the kike is you

the honky is you

the nigger is you

the bitch is you

the beauty is you

the friend is you

the enemy    oh

others have come 

to say this

it is not

metaphor

you are not 

your sisters keeper

you are 

your sister    yes

From The Ones, The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010

(thanks to Jean Riesman for sending just what I needed)

Looking Back to Nov. 6: Walking The Akron, OH Rust Belt Walk In Ward 4

GOTV IN AKRON:

Walking the Rust-Belt Walk in Ward 4

 Jean Riesman

A fuzzy shot of our staging location

GOTV is not the Akron Fox network affiliate that was flickering above the bar at the New Era Restaurant, where the Serbian dumplings have the specific gravity of uranium and the apple strudel the lightness of the Red Bull Stratos: it's the acronym for "get out the vote," the relentless strategies (including door-knocking, voter registration, early voting turn out and buses full of church goers voting on Souls-to-the-Polls Sunday) that helped secure Ohio for Obama last Tuesday. The dumplings and strudel fortified us for the campaign's last pavement-pounding weekend – as did the Fox channel's back-to-back political ads, a low-budget stream of local, state, and national Republican consciousness.

Crystal, Jean and Pat Laying Out Turf for the Big Push

Our job was to knock on carefully-selected doors in West Akron up to six times before the polls closed on Tuesday night and thereby, if necessary, to badger our targeted Obama voters into exercising their franchise. While Ohio early voting had begun October 2, Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted continued to do everything in his litigious power to limit hours and access, especially in Democratic-leaning districts: that is, in dense urban lower-income communities of color such as West Akron. His tactics backfired. Lines at the Akron Board of Elections were up to four hours long during the last stretch of early voting, and prospective voters were equally undeterred at precinct polling locations on Election Day.

At our Ward 4 outpost, ordinarily the combined space of the Just 'N Café and the Bizness Lab, we were superintended by a formidable local African-American woman who could re-focus chattering volunteers with a hard look from her chair behind the central-command computer. Hustled out to cover the next piece of turf, we worked our soggy printouts in the windy drizzle, drilling down to the last sporadic voters who might need a final nudge. Behind many doors were the voices – "already voted!" – of the already-voted or stern parents promising to turn their young'uns out to do their civic duty; behind others, TVs on and nobody answering; and others, either nobody home yet or nobody home, in vacant single-family houses or empty apartments with Obama materials dangling from a previous pass.

Akron used to be the Rubber City, running on the tire factories of Goodyear, Firestone and other manufacturing giants. The New Era had refreshed decades of General Tire workers getting off their shifts across the street. Plant closures hit the city hard. Downtown seems to be patching up its post-industrial distress, but in many parts of Ward 4, tired houses and weary residents reflect long-term unemployment, foreclosure, and the hard work of just getting by. The ravages of 1960s-era urban renewal also are etched in the abrupt dead ends of West Akron's streets, where we kept discovering that our next house number was on the other walled-off side of the interstate highway system.

Other than a scattering of lawn-signs and bumperstickers, there was not much evidence of the Romney/Ryan campaign. A handful of operatives made mischief: Obama/Biden lawn-signs had been regularly disappearing, as did – on election eve – the oblong placards we had just hung on doorknobs and storm-door latches, imprinted with the proper address of the right polling location for those particular voters.

To no avail: with over 74% turnout Ward 4 went 88% for the president on November 6, Ohio closed the deal, and Romney conceded before midnight in a form of early voting – with his feet, out of the battleground states and out of his misbegotten place in American political history.

Nia -- Purpose

I love Akron, not in small part because I am constantly surprised.  People say to me you have come home or how can you stand to be back here.  But the home of my birth is now under the pavement of a greatly expanded Akron General Hospital and the home of my youth is occupied (happily I hope)  by a grandmother and the now adolescent grandson she is raising.  That she is white and he is African-American indicates how much the city where I was born has changed and how much more today it feels like home.

The Symbols of Kwanzaa from
http://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org/index.shtml

I went to Kwanzaa last night.  I am an occasional participant in a community-based research action team as part of Project Ujima. I missed our Kwanzaa on Friday (Ujima -- Collective Work and Responsibility). Project Ujima is a 3 year project to investigate and create utilization plans for the new Community Learning Centers (CLC) in the Buchtel Cluster, that is West Akron.  I will write more about this later except to say the buildings are beautiful and participants in the effort are a a lively crowd.  The Buchtel CLC and the Men's Group of Centenary United Methodist Church sponsored last night's Kwanzaa at the church so I went in support. 

Kwanzaa is a made up holiday for an historically displaced people.  It tries to provide for the ancestors of the polyglot captives of the slave trade what refugees here from all over the world experience when celebrating the rituals and holidays of their home lands -- memory of who we were, nostalgia for a place we never knew, commitment to be better people where we are. 

There were about 40 people at last night's event.  Many children and members of the Buchtel High CLC class of 2014 and graduates of the class of 2012.  Our sweet colored children (they would hate that I call them that but I get to be the cranky middle-aged colored auntie here).  The theme of the day was Nia or Purpose and the young people presented on their purpose, frequently in terms of what God wanted of them.  Then we had a presentation -- Israel and Palestine.

The Seven Principles

I was worried when I saw this on the program for the night.  African-American Christians can be quite conservative about Israel believing evangelical myth-making about the inevitability and necessity of it's triumph over the "Arabs".  But this was different, and I was again surprised by my new/old hometown.  

Dr. Martha Banks, PhD, a research neuropsychologist and church member, along with maybe 15 other African-Americans of disparate faiths had gone on an October fact-finding mission to Palestine organized by Interfaith Peace Builders.  They were the second of their African Heritage Delegations. Her purpose was to tell the truth about the occupation and to show how it compared to historical experiences of racism, apartheid and Jim Crow.  It was a lengthy and brilliant presentation that wove together history of the partition of Palestine, scriptural exegesis, African-American consciousness of structural racism, comparisons to the sequestration of Native Americans on reservations and many, many photographs. Rev. Stephanie Lee, pastor of Centenary and delegation member, took questions.  It was a challenging and difficult presentation for everyone but folks, including the young ones,  hung with it and asked important questions.

I have invited Dr. Banks to submit a brief version of her presentation to Urban Ecology, but to end the year I have posted an update from Jean Riesman about her work this summer in Beit Arabya rebuilding the Palestinian home in Jerusalem that had been demolished last year by the Israeli Army.  May the coming year bring us all closer to justice and peace.  

Voter Suppression First Thing in the Morning -- Nov. 6, 2012

Mr. Woodall was our first visitor.  He couldn't find his polling location. Since he has lived in West Akron, OH he has voted at Centenary United Methodist Church. Earlier this year the County election commissioners, half Republican and half Democratic came to a deadlock over the number of polling locations to close so the decision was up to our industrious Secretary of State who voted with the Republicans, closing almost half of the voting locations in the county.  Mr. Woodall, a spry man looked to be someplace between 85 and 90 years old. He was going to be the first in line I imagine since our polls opened at 6:30 and he was at our door by 6:45.  Luckily our fearless leader, Mary Sobah, is an expert at looking up polling locations so we were able to help.  We thought maybe he had misplaced the bright orange card announcing the change in location.  Then a younger woman came in and we knew we had a problem.  We put together signs advising folks to come see us to figure out their new polling location.  We posted them at Centenary UMC.  By mid-morning eight people came in trying to figure out where they were to vote.  We expect more.  We were happy to be open at 5:30 this morning.  We worry we missed some of those early voters who didn't know we are here.

We have 6 volunteers out working eight areas of our ward, reminding people to vote, asking questions about polling locations, listening for other instances of voter suppression.  We understand we are ahead on percentages at the polling locations.  More updates as we have them.

It's been a busy morning.

The Last Few Hours of Early Voting - Nov. 5, 2012

I took a cousin's absentee ballot down to the Board of Elections and finally got some photos of citizens waiting in line to early vote.  These photos represent a 2 hour wait.  On Sunday it was a 4 hour wait if you were in line by the end of the day.

Waiting in line at Akron Board of Elections

Another view

Twenty deep inside

Souls to the Polls: Sunday, November 5, 2012

The big Get Out The Vote effort today is Souls to the Polls.  Churches, particularly African-American churches, throughout the region have organized to get their congregations to the Summit County Board of Elections for early voting (1-5 p.m., 470 Grant St. in case you read this and want to join the fun).  Even though the temperature outside today (and yesterday) has averaged around 39F, their are long lines waiting patiently.  Various organizations are grilling out while celebrities such as Aisha Tyler keeping the crowd piously entertained.

TwitPict by Jonathan Weisman, NYTimes

Barack Obama's candidacy has become contentious for some Black church folk, for his pro-choice stand and recent support of gay marriage.  The reluctance of some ministers to encourage their congregations to early vote (not to mention voting at all) has upset many of my parents' old friends.  Last election some of them canvassed door-to-door, all of them cooked crockpots full of delicious stews, soups and chilis, and helped at endless phone banks.  Four years later they are older, sicker but no less determined to see Barack Obama re-elected.

So I am encouraged by the reported turn out (we can't get there since we are staffing a canvass staging location in West Akron).  It has been fascinating watching the women we work with at the local office realize Pat and I are partners.  First there is cautious observation of our behavior.  They love the president but maybe don't know many out queer people (they all know someone queer, generally in the choir of their church, usually quite closeted).   Once they realize that we can cover lots of territory on a canvass, willingly make endless phone calls and generally do anything we are told to do they seem to decide that maybe President Obama was right.

So here's to showing up, the first and most important rule for becoming a good organizer.

Day 2 GOTV-- Sunday Morning

I'm off running errands for our staging location so Pat Maher is going to handle the first post of the day.  Take it away, Pat!

The Staging Location Banner at Just In Cafe

Yesterday during brief breaks in the action at our  staging location, the longtime organizer who runs our campaign substation here in West Akron was making sure everyone she knows was getting to the Board of Elections to vote.  Her name is Mary Sobah and she is a one woman polling place as well as a stalwart organizer who has been slogging for months through the painstaking work that makes this campaign so effective. When her grandson came in to fill out an absentee ballot -- it was his first time voting -- he turned to us all and said "I just did my part to save this country." 

Mary Sobah, Our Fearless Leader

We spent yesterday as we'll spend the next three days:  organizing "turf" -- the precinct maps and home address lists-- and  training and dispatching canvassers into the streets.  One woman who came in to canvass with her teenage daughter said she would be back today and tomorrow to canvass.  Her eyes filled with tears as she told me she just couldn't let Romney win this election and so she would come out with us over the next few days.  Another canvasser brought his 17-year old son.  When they returned from their shift the son proudly told me he thought he had convinced an undecided voter to vote for Obama.

So yes I'm tired and surviving on too much caffeine and bizarre nutrition right now (it has been a downhill slide since yesterday morning's excellent oatmeal)  but I love this work.  This weekend is the culmination of all those walks down the streets of West Akron from the last few months, knocking on doors, talking to people, seeing who is voting how and voting when.

I think what is hard to see from outside the swing states like Ohio is that this campaign is based on a very finely honed organizing strategy. What is also hard to see is that the attempts at voter suppression here in Ohio have mobilized us. People here -- especially African Americans-- will not allow interference with their right to vote. Mainstream media has a tendency to construct people of color voters as hapless victims of right wing malfeasance -- a la the 47%! --- without acknowledging the solid community organizing in places like Akron and Cleveland and other cities. For example, those "Voter Fraud is a Felony" billboards that were placed in Cleveland and other communities a few weeks ago were sited in neighborhoods where Obama has been organizing for months. The right wing assumes an extraordinary level of stupidity and helplessness. Rest assured there is a huge voter protection mobilization in place on our side.

We heard yesterday that the lines at the Board of Elections in Akron yesterday were around the block.  Today is "Souls to Polls" when churchgoers go straight from the pews to vote at the Board of Elections.  Turnout is higher here already than it was in 08.  We're gonna win this thing!

Fighting Voter Suppression One Door At A Time

This is how voter suppression works in Ohio. Take the most populated ward, with the weakest turn out and then reduce the number of precincts and place each precinct's voting location in one school. Instead of 1400 people at a polling location there will be over 4500.

There is early voting at the Board
Of Election today through Monday. We here there's a giant traffic jam and folks are standing in line, patiently, for an hour or more.

This is a good thing. This weekend, Monday & Tuesday we are visiting everyone who has yet to vote 6 times to make sure they understand they can vote and where to do it. That's how we fight voter suppression one door, one voter, at a time.

The photo is of two canvassers just back from a cold, rainy day of door knocking.

El Anatsui's Gravity & Grace @ the Akron Art Museum

I had put it off to the last minute but now, given my upcoming travel schedule, is my last chance to see the exhibit by the sculpture El Anatsui. Drawing on his Ghanaian heritage and time teaching in Nigeria, El Anatsui use found and discarded objects, especially labels and caps from liquor bottles to create works fluid and provocative.

I realize I should have been living with these works but I let time run out DOR that. I'm grateful for the 45 minutes I had with these intensely attractive works.

The photo is a detail of a work called Eli (wall).

Always Heed a Kingfisher's Warning -- Natural History of Vacant Lots 3

Today's guest blogger is my very own non-matrimonial spousal equivalent, Patricia Maher.  Pat is a homeopath, astrologer and a closet naturalist.  Pat is an avid birdwatcher, amateur entomologist, and passionate observer of the natural world and the body politic.

 

Always Heed a Kingfisher’s Warning…. And other cautionary tales

 by Patricia Maher

When Rebecca and I were first looking at land to buy in Akron, Ohio, we considered two pairs of lots – one on E Lods Street (no doubt a corruption of the Polish city of Lodz) and one on N Maple Street. Her relatives had settled in both neighborhoods in the early and middle parts of the 20^th century, and we liked the idea of making those roots real. The City of Akron had made lots available to buy on both these streets.  We ultimately chose the N Maple St. site, in part because two kingfishers admonished us severely when we stood on Lods, warning us away. When we looked at the N Maple lots, two kingfishers buzzed us but didn’t comment.  Thanks for clarifying our decision!

Belted Kingfisher

I have learned that kingfishers have a lot to say, and like my mother – who was the crankiest of Virgos – they are usually saying to me something like “Oh for gods sake you had better not …”

The times I’ve ignored a kingfisher’s warning there has been hell to pay, for example, a kayak trip that turned unexpectedly perilous, with bad water, bad weather and a rescue (thankfully not me!).

So the site of our straw bale homes on N Maple St. is a short cul-de-sac that abuts the Erie Canal towpath, a 100-mile wooded walkway along the Cuyahoga River. The closet naturalist in me is thrilled:  I am surrounded by the delightful Babel of birdsong and insect calls, and I get to run around with my butterfly net. (Hmm, perhaps I’m not so in the closet!) It turns out that butterfly nets are rather hard to wield and I am out of practice, having last used one when I was about 9.  

There are kingfishers just down the street, hanging out on the river.  There are at least two pairs of nesting orioles across from my house, outfitted in an almost day-glo orange.  Just last week, I heard an outburst of sudden warning calls from songbirds; I looked up, thinking a raptor was nearby.  Well, it was Chessie, as I like to call Chesapeake, Akron’s own downtown peregrine falcon, as she zoomed past. (Chessie, after all, was the name of my first cat.)  Of course, it could have been McKinley, Chessie’s newest mate since her long time partner Bandit died in February. You gotta love a city that names its resident falcons!

Back to my butterfly net and my ungainly pirouetting across the construction site to catch butterflies.  Today’s catch and release netted a pale yellow Clouded Sulfur, and very manic small black butterfly that might have been a Northern Cloudywing, but I’m not sure since it escaped my net several times before I could get a good look. 

I knew Akron was the place for me when I discovered that there are Sphinx moths here, those beautiful giant daytime moths in art deco designs that fly around flower gardens like hummingbirds, slurping up nectar with their huge proboscises.  God I love them! Just couple of weeks ago I thought I saw one enjoying some water that had collected on the ground from my endless task of washing out earth plaster buckets. The moth was big and black with striking orange markings on its abdomen.  Hmm, not a sphinx moth after all but who was this handsome creature, I wondered? 

Peach Borer Moth

It turned out to be a peach tree borer, a clearwing moth that is considered to be a “wasp mimic.” Its larvae are terribly destructive, and bore into peach trees, unfortunately for our friends across the street who have quite an array of stone fruit trees growing up.

And oh, the wolf spiders!  Really long–legged. They’re everywhere: on the walls of my almost finished house, enjoying the cool plaster, and hanging out in the pile of empty buckets outside.  The homeopath in me has my milk sugar at the ready – I don’t think this is a remedy yet but soon it will be!  

Natural History of Vacant Lots

One of my favorite books is this now out of print nature guide by Matthew Vessel and Herbert Wong.  It provides expert guidance in how to explore the flora and fauna of abandoned areas in California.  While many of the species differ from what we have here in Ohio, the book provides a useful orientation to the general task as well as a helpful metaphor for thinking about the disturbed place of the urban Midwest.

Disturbed places is how Vessel and Wong describe vacant lots.  At the very beginning they state, "A town or city is a disturbed natural area modified drastically by humans to accommodate their own needs." At the writing of the book they could fairly state, "Most of the natural organisms that once flourished on the urban site have been pushed out by people."  This is certainly not the case today, at least not in Akron, and long abandoned areas of the Great Lakes hugging rust belt.

The first time I laid eyes on the land that Pat and I would eventually own was about 10 years ago.  It formed part of the eastern edge of the Towpath trail that is a part of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.  Before that it had been one of the neighborhoods that Great Migration folk had settled upon arrival in the North.  I drove slowly down Hickory St. I carefully skirted a prickle of ground hogs (yes, this is the collective noun) lounging on the asphalt.  Deer roamed the places where houses had stood.  Chipmunks ran amok, twitching and scurrying from hole to hole.  Hawks circled. An impressive array of birds sang, hunted and raised their young.  This was before eminent domain took what little housing remained standing.

N. Maple St. Tree

Now the area is disturbed again as we, and others build houses in what the city hopes will be an urban "arts district" (which is code for "Let's try to attract rich gay men". What they got, at least on our street, is middle aged lesbians).  But the fact of the towpath and the federal national park renders our little part of Akron an ecotone.  Ecotone is "the area where two or more distinct habitats adjoin" according to Home Ground, a wonderful volume edited by Barry Lopez,  that is subtitled Language for an American Landscape.  Our little habitat will never be urban chic and somewhat sterile because the 50+ mile long towpath provides an uninterrupted corridor for the migration of birds, roaming coyotes, solitary and vicious fisher cats (actually weasels) on the hunt, not to mention deer, groundhogs, crows and ... I could go on and on.

And I will, in regular installments throughout the summer as I explore the micro-environment of my wooded hillside as well the other meanings of "natural history" and "disturbed places" for what we hope will become an urban sanctuary.

Akron Trees on Earth Day

Buckeye nut

One of the things I love about Akron Ohio is our trees.  The city has always maintained the trees in what we call the devil strip, that patch of grass between the sidewalk and the street.  When I was a child we had Buckeyes, the state tree. Ohio Buckeyes are related to the chestnut and horse chestnut.  The nut is encased in a spiny green fruit.  I remember them bouncing off my head on early fall afternoons, as I walked home from school (ow!).  One could have an artificial limb made of Buckeye, back in the day, or one's casket crafted from its wood.  Now it is used for pulp and feels to be fairly scarce along our city's streets.


Before the Buckeyes were the elm trees.  Majestic, with an expansive canopy, the American Elm tree lined streets throughout this country. Most American Elms died off from Dutch Elm disease.  The disease first appeared in 1930 in Ohio, most mature elm trees were gone by the 1970s.  The dutch elm fungus is spread by a beetle and along roots where trees are close together.  

American Elm

I have the opportunity to plant trees on my land on North Maple St.  I can plant anything I want but buckeyes and elms are part of my heritage (along with sour cherries but that may have more to do with pie...).  They feel like arboreal familiars alive with the essence of this place.   Nurturing an elm tree to maturity would require vigilance and fungicide.  This is the mystery of ecological change.  What was part of my environment at ten may not be viable almost fifty years later.  The Dutch elm fungus is now part of this ecosystem, along with other invasives such as japanese knotweed, purple loosestrife, the Asian long-horned beetle and a relative newcomer,  the blacklegged tick (deer tick). 


I plan to wage a vigorous campaign against knotweed but then I need to listen to this land as it is now.  Nothing remains the same.  Nostalgia will not fix our environments. But a girl does need to have a sour cherry tree or three.

####

Today's poem:

Excerpts of Eclogue 1 by Virgil, Paul Alpers, translator

Meliboeus

You, Tityrus, under the spreading, sheltering beech,

Tune woodland musings on a delicate reed:

We flee our country's borders, our sweet fields,

Abandon home; you, lazing in the shade,

Make woods resound with lovely Amaryllis.

Tityrus

O Melibee, a god grants us this peace --

A god to me forever, whose altar

A young lamb from our folds will often bleed.

He has allowed, you see, my herds to wander 

And me to play as I will on shepherd's pipes.

M. 

Not jealous, but amazed am I -- our fields

Are everywhere in turmoil: look at me,

Sick, driving my goats, scarcely leading this one.

Here in thick hazels, laboring on bare rock,

She left the flock's one hope, her twins just born:

A curse well augured, had our wits not been

Blind to the oaks struck down by heaven above ...

M.

Luck old man! your lands will then remain

Yours and enough for you, although bare rock

and slimy marsh reeds overspread the fields.

Strange forage won't invade your heavy ewes,

Nor foul diseases from a neighbor's flocks ...

Ah, but we others leave for thirsty lands --

...

T.

Still, you could take your rest with me tonight,

Couched on green leaves: there will be apples ripe,

soft roasted chestnuts, plenty of pressed cheese,

Already rooftops in the distance smoke,

And lofty hills let fall their lengthening shade.

Fracking Earthquakes and the Deep Ecology of the Planet - NPM #3

Fracking Sludge Tanks, Youngstown OH. Photo by Dan Pompeii

Photograph by Dan Pompili/Warren Tribune-Chronicle/AP PhotoPerhaps you have heard about the recent spate of earthquakes here in northeast Ohio.  Scientists from the US Geological Survey have determined they are caused by high pressure disposal of waste liquid from hydraulic fracturing into wastewater injection wells. Hydraulic fracturing is the process by which a toxic stew of chemicals (the list has not been fully revealed) is injected in the ground to break up shale rock formations that contain natural gas.  The natural gas and fluids come back up to the surface after picking up contaminants from deep in the earth. The wastewater, composed of contain sodium and calcium salts, barium, oil, strontium, iron, numerous heavy metals, soap, radiation and other components. Most of the wastewater that arrives in Ohio originates in Pennsylvania since there are prohibitions against injection wells in the state.  

Tectonic Plate Map

Earthquakes happen.  They are the manifestations of the deep  structures of our planet.  What we call natural gas and crude oil are part of that ecology.  We humans ride the tectonic plates of our planet's continuing evolution, and it seems, increasingly find ways of disrupting it in thoughtless and generally unnecessary ways.  Here's an oil-drilling poem:


Drilling For Oil

flesh colored ghosts
walking through the
oil fields... carrying

mannequin babies
on their shoulders.

draped in American flags,
carrying Bibles, and
pearl handled revolvers.

past rusted out chevrolets,
stepping on books that
were banned....

singing the songs of Jesus
to corpses that cant hear....

past tomblike houses
where strangers lived and
died... pictures of dead presidents...

empty Jim Beam bottles in
the windows, covered with soot!

drilling for oil... 

Eric Cockrell

Zodiacal Light

Earthsky.org April 8, 2012 The Zodiacal Light

Easter Sunday Evening, 2012

I went looking for the zodiacal light tonight. I got an announcement from Earth and Sky through my Facebook account that early in April it might be possible to see it. Did you (or do you still) watch dust play in the sunlight? The zodiacal light is interplanetary dust in our solar system playing in the light of the sun.  As stated in Earth and Sky , "The ecliptic is actually Earth’s orbital plane projected onto the stellar sphere. Roughly speaking, we can also call the ecliptic the plane of the solar system, for the sun, moon and planets are always found on or the near the ecliptic." I thought having a little astronomical fun would be the perfect activity after spending the afternoon bird watching in the Akron end of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. 

I went looking for a very dark place to see the zodiacal light since it is elusive and easily masked by the ambient illumination that seems to surround us.  I headed west of Akron, through Copley.  There used to be corn fields out there and vast tracts of unlit land.  I moved away from Summit county 36 years ago but moved back 10 months ago.  I'm still catching up on all the changes.  It turns out that where there once were corn fields there are McMansions, each one with it's gaudy facade lit up by flood lights. 

Light pollution may not seem like a major problem compared to fracking, the devastating effect of the BP Oil Disaster on the people, land, flora and fauna of the Gulf coast region, and the deterioration of the oceans.  But our fear of the dark has caused whole flocks of migrating birds to crash to the ground and nocturnal animals suffer the biological disruption of light at the wrong time of day.  Just as important, we have lost the stars, now made invisible in most cities by poorly focused and excessive illumination.  While this problem certainly can be remedied, it reminds me that we change our environment, the ecosystems that we inhabit in irreparable ways.

I have been a very amateur sky watcher since my days as a camp director, wandering the grounds after all my campers (and presumably their counselors) had gone to sleep.  I could watch the wheeling worlds within worlds in the privacy of an empty ceremonial fire circle.  It is there I first saw the zodiacal light.  But that was over 30 years ago and those blessed dark places of my youth are now hemmed in by sub-divisions and strip malls full of fast food restaurants and gas stations.

National Poetry Month
 Poster

April has the happy circumstance of hosting Earth Day and being Poetry Month.  To celebrate I will post some poetry about our wildly changing world, its creatures, landscapes, and our (uncomfortable?) place in it. Most of the poems will be by some of my favorite authors but I want to start with one I wrote.  It is an occasional celebrating the discovery of the first extra-solar system planet, 51-Pegasi.

51 Pegasi

What holds us in this orbit

Star Chart for 51 Pegasi

us, this earth, around our greening sun?

and together, our star and all the planets,

hurtling, hanging to the outward

limb of this spiraling galaxy.

And our Milky Way

joining other brilliant spans, spinning

riding some great wave together

to where?

Is this too much to consider?

come back home, then

think of all that we are,

focus on our atoms, so tenacious

resisting those whirling forces flung

by our feeble science

will not be dislodged one member from another

Can you feel all these subtle parts?

vibrating invisible chimera

trickster children

changing place when we are not looking

finding weight where there is none

each time we drop our guard

we are caught in some eternal thrall

Yes, this gravity, deep well in the consciousness

of our universe, caresses all that is familiar

as in the cupped hands of countless

silent supplicants

raised in praise to an unknown god.