Rarely, an opportunity comes up that begs you to take it.  When Mike and I heard that Bill Clinton was coming to Abingdon's Higher Education Center, we were on it.  I was nervous about waiting in a large crowd, but the prospect of seeing someone so influential gave me the stamina and courage to do it.

And it was crowded. . .



Hours of waiting, crowds pressing in closer and closer, emotions running high, sore feet and tired legs. . .

Was it worth it?
 


Oh, yes. 

We were twenty feet away, right up front.  I cried when he came on stage, and I usually never allow myself such emotions.  I've had times where I was a little disappointed about getting to meet someone "important," but this was absolutely not one of them.  He gave a wonderful speech, so articulate, so down home.  Mike got great photos and we even got to shake his hand.

No disappointment whatsoever.

How often do moments like this come along?  Once.

wetkneefarm posted about this important issue on her blog, but since it's friends-only, I asked her if I could post it here for more visibility. . .

We need your help to prevent Dominion from building a coal-fired power plant in Wise County, Virginia.

Why Should I Care?

* You might be affected by the pollutants.Due to prevailing wind patterns, the smoke from the plant is going to wander across Virginia and well into North Carolina. The U.S. Forest Service came out in opposition to the plant due to the air quality problems they expect in Linville Gorge, NC, as a result of the plant. Air pollutants from the Wise County plant will reach Shenandoah National Park, the Great Smokies National Park, and Northern Virginia within 72 hours of emission. Even if you don't live in Virginia or a nearby state, the power plant is going to emit 5.3 million tons of CO2 annually, a huge contribution to global warming.

* You might be paying for it. Dominion wants taxpayers to pay for the $1.6 billion construction costs of the plant along with a mandatory 14% increase in profits for the company. This cost estimate does not include costs of any equipment or technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

* The plant will affect the Clinch River, which is ranked by the Nature Conservancy as the number one river worth protecting in the country. The Clinch River contains 30 endangered freshwater mussel species and 17 endangered fish species, some of which are found nowhere else in the world. The proposed power plant would use up to 1 million gallons of water per day from the plant, which during drought years could amount to at least 2% of the total daily flow of the river. The plant would also emit mercury and other pollutants which will lower the Clinch's water quality, and since the plant is located right on the bank of the Clinch, spills are likely.

* The plant will harm the health of local residents who are already too poor to have access to health care. Thousands of people in our region flock to RAM every year, a free medical clinic which provides many of them with their only source of medical care. Due to the Carbo coal-fired power plant ten miles away from the site of the proposed plant in Virginia City, Wise County already has the highest rates of asthma in Virginia and these rates are expected to rise.

* Dominion has the local politicians in their pocket. Throughout the process, Dominion and the local politicians have steamrollered over any opposition. No other utility companies have been approached to bid on the project, so Dominion has no incentive to give Wise County a good deal. At least two of the politicians supporting the plant have been given hefty campaign donations by Dominion --- $5,000 to Phillip Puckett and $2,000 to Dan Bowling. Dominion also paid for hotel rooms and meals in Richmond for several politicians and signed them up to speak in favor of the plant at the SCC hearing. The Wise County Board of Supervisors, who should be protecting the best interests of the community, passed a resolution in favor of the plant in an "emergency" meeting which was not publicized until a few hours before hand. Dominion is so sure that their plant will get approved that they began site construction months ago even though they have not yet received a permit.

* Environmental racism should matter to everyone. For at least a hundred years, rich corporations have exploited poor Appalachians, extracting our resources and leaving us with the environmental fall out. They promise us riches which never materialize and count on us to be too poor and downtrodden to speak out. The proposed Virginia City power plant is no exception. Dominion has won over the local politicians and some of the population with misdirection and outright lies. Those who haven't been won over are afraid to speak up for fear of property destruction or harm to their families.

What Misdirection and Lies?

* Dominion promised 800 new jobs as a result of the Virginia City power plant. These jobs will only be available during the construction process (which has already begun without a permit) and are likely to be filled primarily or entirely by out-of-state skilled workers. After the power plant opens, the plant will provide 75 permanent jobs at the plant and may produce an associated 300 jobs at mountaintop-removal sites. These jobs will help maintain Wise County's dependence on coal while preventing diversification of our economy. Degradation of our environment resulting from the power plant will prevent the growth of our budding ecotourism economy.

* Dominion promises that the plant will be clean. But the carbon sequestration techology which they have promised us won't be available for at least 10-20 years! The Wise County Board of Supervisors are too enthralled by Dominion's promises to have demanded any advanced technology at the plant.

( What Can I Do? )

 

Saturday, Mike and I took the long way over past Dungannon to the Falls of Little Stony.  Instead of oppressing ourselves with the interstate and the long stretch of US Highway 19, we took the scenic route over US Highway 16.  We curved over the mountain and down the other side to Rich Valley.  The valley is huge and deep with profound rocky outcroppings at every turn.

Then we turned onto US Highway 42 and headed West to Saltville.  Old Saltworks Road took us to Route 80 and through Poor Valley, through Hayter's Gap and over Rich Mountain.  In the valley below, it was quite peaceful and we found lots of people out working in their yards and gardens.

The landscape in extreme Southwest Virginia is very profound and not very much like the lush valleys and steep hillsides in our part of the Forgotten Virginia.  When we came into the valley of Elk Garden (not the hillside on the AT where we were married), it was like stepping across the continent to the West.  Rusty fences and rocky fields gave an impressive feeling to the land.  Mike and I stopped to admire the uniqueness of it all.  In one field, where they were probably growing hay, people had picked up all of the rocks and it was a smooth contrast to the lumpy landscape.

After a stop in Lebanon at a drive-in that claimed to "the best burgers in the USA," we traveled on to our destination.  Once inside the National Forest, we saw the results of the prescribed burn that was taking place back in April or March when we came to visit Anna and Mark.  The forest floor was bare of leaves, but new green life was springing forth everywhere.

Finally, the falls.  Mike and I swam for two hours and played with some of the children who had come with their family to the secluded spot.  The water coming down the falls was quite warm, compared with the pool below and felt like a very rough shower on my back.  The water was much lower than the first time I had come there.  It was, however, just the right depth for swimming.

When I was a sophomore at Emory & Henry, Dr. Davis asked me to fill in as secretary for a committee he was serving on.  It was a committee appointed by Congressman Boucher to advise concerning a new National Recreation Area in the Clinch Ranger District.  It was full of interests from all sides and had met many months debating the issues.  There were many fears, including takings like the ones that happened in the formation of the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area. 

I took 22 pages of notes at the meeting, and we went on a field trip.   We piled into a bus and traveled many back roads to the Falls of Little Stony, Bark Camp Lake and High Knob Fire Tower.  A hubcap even fell off the bus at one point because of the rocky roads.  We also went to the Guest River Gorge and walked its trails.  I saw my first solar composting toilet there, and met wonderful people like Steve Brooks and Tom Davenport.  All the while we were followed by a caravan of protesters against the National Recreation Area.  Some places we couldn't even get out because the crowds were too threatening.  After it was all over, no such High Knob National Recreation Area came into existence.  The political climate was just too unsettled.

What do you want for Christmas, little girl?  I want books on Appalachia and a knitted shawl and The Impossible Will Take a Little While.  I'd like to get it for Maggie, too.  I think that book is just up her alley.

When I heard about this book on NPR, which is where I hear about a lot of stuff, I thought, "This is the book for me.  I teeter precariously on the edge between informed optimism and sheer terror about the state of the world.  This book will be a very productive read." 

I dove in and read all 49 essays and poems over five months.  I read about cities with responsible growth, suicide helplines, nuclear disaster aftermath, peace work in the Middle East, and overcoming racism in schools sports.  I came close as I ever will to the real Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela's time in prison and children walking with the wind to hold down a house in a tornado.  I learned about people using Jesus' methods of nonviolent resistance to show leaders that they wouldn't stand for oppression.  Oh, it was wonderful.

It's a very affecting book that reminds you, because  you are already aware of it, that great change does not happen overnight.  Also, that the people who end up in the spotlight, like Rosa Parks, have likely been working for years along with countless others to chip away at a boulder of a problem.  And those lessons show that there is great power in showing up, time after time, for what you know to be morally good because that's what will make the world better. 

Diligence in prayer, words and actions will provoke thoughts and promote change.  It shows that there is progress to be made in incrementalism (dreaded among us progressives) and that times of stillness are sometimes really busy preparations for the next blizzard of actions.  It's a great book to ground people who may be labelled by their in-laws as "naive" or "idealistic."  It promotes hope and action.  I have been blessed with my seemingly over-motivation and I know there is a wonderful reason I am president of the Friends of Mount Rogers during a difficult year.  And why I am alive during climate change.

It took a little while to read, but I needed to hear the words before I watched An Inconvenient Truth. 

1. My head is really starting to swell.  I'm on the front of the Bristol paper, according to Maggie.  I'm in Wytheville, where Bristol papers are scarce, so I'll have to wait till I get home.
2. My mother told me she's really proud of my letter to the editor.  She's a non-political woman, so this means a lot to me.  She says she's been showing it to clients at her office.
3. My grandmother's neighbor brought her the paper that I was in.  She knew who I was!
4. Mike spoke very well last night at the joint session of the Smyth County board of supervisors and planning commission.  He's from Gwinnette County, GA, which was the fastest growing county in the US for  15 YEARS.  He knows the aftermath of unchecked growth.
5. I saw NASCAR people and still cannot manage to respect or be awed by them.  I feel there is something sinful about driving around in lots of circles, it channels the devil or something.
6. I spoke in favor of more information about Sheridan Ridge Private Reserve and against the idea that such a resort community would help young people.  There will be no place for Smyth County residents there, except to serve the occupants by clipping grass and scrubbing toilets.  No thank you; I do that gladly at my own little house, but not at yours.  (I didn't say the part about the toilets and grass)
   
7. I heard lots of real estate agents support it.  I could also hear their mental calculators predicting their commissions.
8. This Bristol paper article is very biased and only shows support and a local extremist.  Ouch!
9. The planning commission passed bending the rules for the developers.  There are more steps to go.
10. And lastly, there was a man who said he was concerned about us floating down the river into a sea of mediocrity.

I learned a lot about my county and town last night.  And I learned that Appalachia is the perfect place for me to work for good.  I now know why I do not have a job in Smyth County and why I don't work for the Forest Service.  I couldn't stand up for my place if I did.

Travel with me, if you will.  We'll follow winding roads over ridges and through valleys.  There will be horses in meadows and wild turkeys in the forest.  When we get high along the ridges, the trees are dwarfed and a sharp wind has shaped their tiny branches. 

Summer is fading fast and frosty nights are on their way.  Bears have eaten the last of the blueberries and the people are in the valleys waiting for the color.  The staghorn sumacs have their fruits on prominent display.  A misty fog welcomes each morning.  This is early fall on the Blue Ridge Parkway.



As a geographer, I love this place, all 469 miles of it.  It calls me back to homesteaders and pigs eating chestnuts.  Smoke from chimneys and walking in the woods at night.  I taste buckwheat pancakes and think of snowy nights under the covers.  It is all that is nostalgic and it is my Grandma Lois.

My choice soundtrack for fall and travels on the Parkway is Simon & Garfunkel.  They are hazy and misty and breezy.  I spent lots of time on this path in 2003, the year I found myself (moreso than other years).  It was their music that played while I saw coyotes and worried about bears.  It was playing when I was gloomy and when I triumphed my own hiking abilities.

As an environmentalist, I worry about the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Houses and fancy shops creep up the sides of the valleys and closer to my strip of land each day.  Thank goodness the land was preserved before now and our current occupant.

I can be downtrodden about "progress," but I suppose that such developments will never plow over my memories of one of my favorite places.  With names like Craggy Gardens, Cold Prong Pond and Frying Pan Gap, who can be too sad?  It's a banjo in my heart.

Yesterday Mike and I went to our first IKEA with his sister Mandy and his mother.

It is in downtown Atlanta.  The building is gargantuan.  There are people in uniforms who direct you with arm gestures and whistles to underground parking lots.  Once you duke it out for a parking space, you have to memorize your location and head to the massive entrance.

There were people everywhere.  It was as if the town of Marion decided to go the same place on the same day, and bring all their friends.  

The place was like an airport.  There were lots of escalators to carry you here and there.  There was a place to deposit one's children, provided they met the height requirements and were potty-trained.

The store requires a map, which Dr. Davis would say is a very poor one.  It took us half an hour to find out what floor we were on.  There were lots of displays of rooms and people and babies and flimsy furniture.

This place even has a cafeteria.  That's where we ate lunch.  They serve meatballs and lingonberries and Pepsi products and other incredibly cheap foods.  You eat on real dishes and bus your own table.  It was chaos.

Did I mention everything is Swedish? 

I saw a lamp with the model name "Fartyg," which I found to be quite funny.

If you want it, might even think about it and it's cheap and Swedish--they've got it.

Self-serve furniture, rugs, sheets, tables, rolled up mattresses, appliances, stuffed animals, weird light bulbs and chaos.  It's like Wal-Mart with a flashier image and longer warranty.

I'm feeling a little or a lot perturbed.  Last weekend as Mike and I were travelling merrily through the Fairwood Valley, we saw a caravan of SUV's.  One had a pink flag waving from its antenna.  My real estate radar immediately sounded.  Well, weren't they having a lovely day, plotting which trees to cut down and which streams to kill while building their luxury vacation homes.

I tried to drive sadistically slow, but it seemed these people wanted to go slowly.

I despise real estate agents.  I have them in my family.  I dated someone whose mother was one.  And that same woman lied to me when I asked about an obviously shifty neighborhood.  "I haven't really heard anything bad about this area."  That's like saying that since no one you know is fighting the Iraq war, it must not exist.  I have lived in Smyth County all my life and I know the scary places, as does that woman.

My dad says that someday real estate agents will be obsolete.  I counting it down.

So why am I upset, even mad (which I rarely am)?  The Fairwood Valley is a historic Forest Service area, home to a cemetery and a beautiful creek.

Mike and I found out at the Friends of Mount Rogers meeting that a land company bought 130 acres of private land in the valley, near the FS land, with the intention of making a gated community.  It almost makes me want to become an eco-terrorist!

I am trying very hard not to feel hateful about this.  I know that it would not be consistent with my pursuit of peace.  I just want them to go away!  And I do care if it happens somewhere else.

These people who buy such massive houses in exclusive "communities"  (which as far as I can tell lack most of the characteristics)  live in them only a tiny part of the year.  Grayson county, a county with a median household income of around $29,000, has already seen a 200% increase in real estate tax. 

All I can do is pray that we are not heading down the path of places like Highlands, North Carolina.  Mike and I could barely afford pizza there.  Maybe no one will be interested, please.  I've tried to hunt down a website and there does not appear to be one, yet.

Oh! It makes me so mad!