more distressed people on the rail trail by my house;

9m: afsc suggestions for Bystander Intervention

14m: Howard Moore invites me and others to join the walking school bus every morning to Bridge St School.  Brekton Drougas, my coworker in Pedal People, is also a crossing guard .  If you’re interested in being a walking bus “driver”, call Howard at 413-237-4880.

24m Janelle Monae: Tightrope

28m:Eli Damon is vice chair of the Easthampton Commission on Disability, and a CyclingSavvy instructor.  https://cyclingsavvy.org/  Eli gives a little report back about the ECD presentation to City, and advocates for shared public space for all users, not just those with driving privilege.

43m: Mary J Blige: Just Fine

pickup ultimate in Haydenville is no longer Fridays at 6pm but due to the shortening daylight, it’s Sundays at 2pm.     also sometimes there are games at Veterans Field  in Northampton Sat at 3 and Tuesdays at 5.

50: African Heritage Reparations Assembly of Amherst has released its report.

55: Beyonce: Black Parade

Katie Coleman got an invite from Northampton Neighbors to help scrape stickers from downtown signs, posts, recycling bins, etc, prepping to repaint.

5m: Sandy Ward from the Expandable Brass Band

10m: my rants and stories of the week: bike recycling, our Bike Path Bench campers, drunk high loud and harassing us and the neighbors.  and frustrated with inequality, access, and having no stable place to  be.   at 36min you’ll hear a mouthful from one of them.  i had to bleep out every other word.       btw, he apologized a few days later.

41m: no privacy in cars, they’re recording all your data, according to a new study..

46m: KC interviews me for the Hampshire Co Food Policy Council project

Stories from my day (week): it’s (no)ParkingDay; BobCatBob is sharing food and beer and keeping evil spirits away from 8 High, no money orders in Northampton this week b/c of last week’s power surge.
Last Saturday was Taste (Waste) of Northampton. The streets were closed to automobiles and filled with food vendors and people eating and making trash. 13 Pedal People trailer loads in fact.

11m: Ethan Tupelo (my Pedal People coworker/coowner) and I were hauling trash by bike.  Ethan is on the Springfield MRF advisory board, as well as a professor at Hampshire College. We talk about trash, of course.  and recycling.

22m: Isaac Andreas: Dumpster Flex https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rPgPBxlXi0

38: apples for applesauce, you can find them all over town, except i didn’t get any at Smith Voke last night despite my initial attempt. maybe got poison ivy instead.

40: Garth Brooks, I’ve got friends in Low Places

45: Oh yeah, another story trail i had mentioned last week on Out There was meeting people at cans4cancer, and the guy that brought us drinks on a really hot day 3 years ago..then yesterday, I’m doing PP and the mail carrier, it’s Johnny!

48: Joan Schaffer is riding up the bike path and tells me about a bike trip she and some friends took in Montreal last week, on a rail-trail, 200km through the Laurention Mtns.

Happy Rosh Hashana!

oh, and when giant machines are crushing things, watch out for flying pieces, especially at Valley Recycling.

53: Patsy Cline: Crazy

Lots of observations to be had today, riding to Valley Recycling: the persistent r-t scribbler, finding cucumbers, counting cans at Cans4Cancer, “building community”, the inefficiencies of life, the point of it all:   one of my ditties on love, minute 13. Gifts of scavenged watermelon and homemade lunch.

Kristen Rhodes and Nataya Birch from the just-opened Northampton Division of Community Care.  the DCC was formed in response to calls 3 years ago for people in Northampton to have someone to ask, somewhere to go for help in crisis situations besides calling armed agents (the police). https://www.northamptondcc.org/  Text or Call 877-DCC-0413 (877-322-0413)

Dylan Cacador, a DCC community responder, talks about some of his previous projects in Amherst, setting up free food pantry exchange boxes; separate bins for deposits at apartment complex dumpsters; etc/

Frankie and Max, potential new housemates at the soon-to-be  Flo-Op Housing Co-op (my house), talk about making vinegar with apple cores and preserving veggies and herbs/medicinals in it.

a couple repeat clips – hitchhiking stories shared with a guest Stephanie from trustroots; my niece Christina and her rattler catching story; and new material is my little visit to the site of this 14,000 sq ft house being built at the end of Turkey Hill road, Florence (now reduced to 12,000 square ft, George Kohout told me Thurs night)

Doing my PP route and using my fully loaded trash trailer to escort an exhausted man a little out of it trying to walk away from police.

Michael Skillicorn form Grow Food Northampton is at Hampshire Hts with weekly food distribution.

On last night’s planning board agenda is a couple’s plan to build a 14,000 square foot house (“house”?) at the end of Turkey Hill road up on the ridge next to the Mineral Hills conservation area.

sounds like the rest of the show is repeat clips and music, recorded off-air after the hour, a bunch from Mila Jam

Car crashes, Lies rant:  counting cans at cans4cancer, reading the advertising labeling lies etc

Cliff Notez was installing an art box display when I came across him on the rail trail.

Satish rode his folding bike from NYC, found us on the warmshowers traveling cyclist network, and stayed with us.  one of his hobbies in NYC is to redistribute bike share bikes by riding/walking/public transit, and make a little extra $.

My dad was running the weedwacker in KY my last trip there…hey, America, how about the good ol days, the great days, of the scythe??

I ran into Jamie Elkins of Ford Crossing (Hospital Hill) while doing trash pickup, and he talks about his train art project and his wife Ginny’s Music Garage open mic nights.  next one is Thurs Aug 17th, 2023, 11 Ford Crossing, in the garage/driveway.

Jen Roberge has been working on the rail trail extension from Easthampton through Southampton,( headed to connect with Westfield and New Haven) for over 18 years!  Finally a 3.8 mi stretch on the old rail bed is gonna happen.

Nick Richer of Bike Talk put me up to this:  interviewing Mayor Gina Louise Sciarra and head of Planning and Sustainability Carolyn Misch about Northampton’s bikeability.  Lots has been done, and is being done to provide people non-motorized transportation options, in the face of an overwhelming global and local oil and auto dominated economy (and did i mention brainwashing? no.)

Suffering crows and spilling tangle of bikes dodging traffic on route 10;

Historic readings of the old Northampton state hospital;

People painting a history of Florence mural on the Florence Paint building along the r-t;

26m: Galantis:  No Money

My thoughts on the housing crisis in Northampton amidst ample empty space in houses that we can’t figure out how to share with each other, increasing square footage per person, and imagine how white people in Northampton undoubtedly have more square footage per person than brown and black people; apartments rented for $1250 and up  for a one bedroom just because a landlord can and not because that is a reflection of what the landlord needs; 6-8 High becoming a Housing Cooperative to permanently preserve affordable housing.

50m: Aloe Blacc: I Need a Dollar

Finally – about 6 months later than my naive self originally thought – about 55 of the bikes I’ve been collecting at the Bike Lab made their way to a marina in the Chesapeake Bay, where they eventually will go on the Zeepaard sailboat to Haiti.  My friend Kalia drove the Uhaul for 10 hours, including through/over the 18 mi long Chesapeake bay bridge/tunnel.  We spent a couple days on the docked boat with the crew.  Interviews are with Kalia, Captain Ray Thackeray, and crew Paul and Daisy, with background music by 4 cats on board.  The Zeepaard is a 60 year old 97-ft long ketch that need lots of repairs and is not for the impatient or faint of heart.  It’s sailing as part of International Rescue Group, and carrying medical supplies, used sails, etc.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-Ile-a-vache-Haiti