Live in the studio with me today is Nevline Nnaji, a fellow cyclist and Florencian.   We talk about her recovery from a recent crash with a car; becoming a professional pole dancer; writing a memoir about it.  She’s also an in-home cat sitter, with a newly made website: cat nanny love.  She published the documentary film “Reflections Unheard:  Black Women in Civil Rights in 2013, when she was in her early 20s.  Oh, and she does fashion design.

Well, yesterday we were gonna ship like 100 bikes to Haiti, the youth org Sakala-Haiti in Cite Soleil outside Port au Prince.  Daniel S. was on his way to come pick them up to take them to Boston, but that morning the shipper canceled.  (Later I found out that the ports have been closed, controlled by armed groups).  http://www.sakala-haiti.org/

15m: Today, September 30th, is National Day of Awareness for the Indian Boarding Schools.  Andrew Grant is digging in the archives at UMass to see what Quaker meeting minutes reveal about how the Western New England Quakers, which he is involved with, viewed or interacted with the boarding schools.

20m: Smiles sings “Don’t Arrest the Clown” downtown.  and another one

25m: I sing  the little lullaby I wrote years ago: “I am a pumpkin head”

26m: Maya Lieberman, troublesome chemical scents n perfumes (this is the same interview I played last week)

48m: a few minutes with Pablo Mercker-Sague at South River Miso/ Natural Roots farm.  They grew rice this year!  (mostly symbolic)

41m: I was pulling weeds in Pulaski Park and talking with folks about why is composting important:  Gina Louise-Sciarra (mayor of Northampton) shares.  and Rebecca from Woodstar Cafe.

54m: Pedal People cooperative’s 20th anniversary party was last week!  a couple songs, one by our friend Jean Rohe, and sung by party goers with Alex Jarrett leading on ukelele.  

55m: Joanna Nix (pedal person) sings her parody “I am Pedal People”

1m fitst ever Doozy Do parade, fundraiser for Northamoton Neighbors

Black walnut harvest, by the skate park!  (i got 3000lbs in KY last October)

oof, I almost ran over a snake on the bike path with my trailer! How do animals deal with stress and trauma about losing their homes/habitats?

My new housemate Nancy Luce just moved in.  Sara’s aunt. After 20 years of living in her own home.  So now we have 3 generations living in our house 🙂

Maya Lieberman and I have a chat on the bike path bench about ultra-chemically-scented things, like garbage bags, laundry detergent, dryer sheets.  As someone who gets headaches and has breathing problems around heavily scented things, Maya offers suggestions on how to kindly educate, and share space (and fragrance-free laundry detergent) with housemates who don’t seem as affected by the scents. Shoutout to Steve Shea for making a washer and dryer in the downtown Florence laundromat scent free.

Continue reading #241: black walnuts, snake on path, Maya Lieberman Scents, Nancy moves in →

Continue reading #240: KC live view from Macdonald House →

April says used to, they would wear big bushy dresses in winter and put warm bricks by their feet and the dress would keep their feet warm.

1m: short on material this week/morning, so I just took my recorder on my biking day with me.    street intersections with lights that don’t flip for cyclists.  Valley Recycling, Cans4Cancer, downtown sidewalk chalk artist are at work and Rob Kimmel shares with me while he’s drawing in front of the Roost.  Delicious tacos from Manna kitchen passed on down the line.  bikes from scrap metal.  Valley CDC has plans to build housing on Laurel St.  Hospital Hill historical moment.  squeaky chains on the bike path, the challenges of salvaging too much stuff that you impulsively want…

25m:  music for mid-autumn full moon tomorrow

28m: Lingen shares moon cake and Chinese mythology surrounding mid-autumn full moon

42m: Lisa, a student in Delaware who i met on the Amtrak in July, talks about art restoration/conservation and the use of solvents.

47m: Queen Elizabeth of England died last night, I was told.  Reminded me of a song from Trinidad, Terri Lyons, Calypso monarch with 2020 song “Meghan, My Dear.”  also known as “Dark Meat to the World.”  referencing Prince Harry’s leaving the throne due to social media haters of his marriage with darker-skinned wife Meghan.

Intro: biking back home to 8 High St on the path on a Friday afternoon – 8-year olds on ebikes, pedestrians crossing streets at will, the abundance of the freedge

5m: excerpt from UVA prof Peter Norton’s book, “Fighting traffic: the dawn of the motor age in the American city”
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/when-cities-treated-cars-as-dangerous-intruders/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

11m: and for a balanced media, a pro-car song:  Johnny Cash sings One Piece at a Time

16m: My friend and imprisoned pen pal Peter “Pitt” Mukuria on Abolition https://www.prisonradio.org/commentary/the-meaning-of-abolition/

18m: Coming back from KY in early August, I met Peter “Pitt” ‘s mom Eunice, in Richmond VA  (and his dad).  She shares her love for her son and challenges of the situation, and gratitude for a supportive community.  Eunice also mentioned to me, after the interview, that Peter’s case was one of 3  similar cases in a short time span in their area, where someone was killed during a police car chase.  One of the deaths was of a police officer, after which the township changed their policies around the police giving chase.

27m: Buffy Sainte-Marie sings Starwalker

30m: mad rush bike ride from the Mukuria’s back to the train station, about 16 miles away, on the north side of Richmond.

34m: On the train I met Annie, a UMass grad student designing plastic polymers so they will break down.

38m: Pulaski Park (downtown Northampton) volunteer weeding times – last Sunday, this coming Sunday morning.  Thanks Paige Bridgens for tending to this public space, and guiding us on renovating a space that was planted with native perennials but is now being strangled with weeds.

39m: Catherine Orland, a former housemate from 20 years ago is back East for a visit.  5 years ago she became a park ranger/ interpreter, working on a curriculum re immigration, among other things.

49m: WMSURJ monthly meeting coming up . Find out about their Indigenous Reparations campaign.  Here’s a link to a video from the Hassanimisco Band of Nipmuc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9UyuhGsVfE

50m: A child was hit by a man in a truck last week in Florence between the community gardens and recreation fields.  Hit n run.  The child is ok.

51m: I did some Saturday night stalking, with a yogurt container of water, of 4 neighbor kids who were throwing food from the Freedge at our fence. 

54m: The Impossible Dream, sung by Jack Jones

It rained!!! yay! Thunderstorms and flat tires on my bike and trailer.  Flat tires are a good way to meet neighbors.

7m:  Peter Paul and Mary sing Day is Done

11m: going back to clips from my trip from KY to Knoxville to Atlanta to Richmond on August 1-3, 2022.

14m: Nedra Deadwyler, of Civil Bikes in Atlanta, talks about how she started the Civil Bikes heritage/historical tours, and how to build understanding and create change for good.

35m: Angelique Kidjo, Born Under Punches

40m: some of the best discoveries happen when I duck into the bushes looking for a place to pee.  In Atlanta, this lead me to a park with trees of….All You Can Eat FIGS!!      also, Nedra said Atlanta is sometimes referred as the City of Trees.  there are many!  then I stopped in Oakland Cemetery (arboretum) and ran into Walt, a cemetery volunteer who also does bike tours in Atlanta.

46m: a visit to Atlanta isn’t complete without visiting the Martin Luther King Jr historical site.  Hear 6 Principles of Nonviolence.

47m: Summer nights in the back yard of 8 High St: the crickets, katydids, sharing washing /bathing water with the trees in the soft darkness, Ben Ross (and Alex J)  singing and playing guitar inside with the music dancing out the open windows into the warm night.

2m: Woodring family reunion,  July 28-30th.  I asked lots of my nieces and nephews, What are 3 things you do during the week?  Relatives from Castlewood, VA; Morgantown, WV, and Chenoa, KY.  From saving seed for Southern Exposure, to dealing cards at the casino, to engineering titanium staples for surgery zipping up.

18m: Jean Ritchie sings Black Waters.     still thinking of the E KY flooding.  And coal mining.

21m: the Sound of Scything.  so peaceful, safe, and affordable, compared to string trimming.

36m: Johnny Cash:  I Never Picked Cotton

40m: Salem Mazzawy, a friend/cyclist severely injured in a hit n run a couple of months ago, is back on his feet!

42m: Carmencita, my sister-in-law’s step mom  recently moved to KY from Guatemala.   How’s it going??  entrevista en espanol, with translation.

49m: Cynthia Erivo sings “Stand Up” from the movie Harriet

55m: the Beasts have taken two more lives, an elderly couple crossing the street in Easthampton last week

I just got back from 3 weeks in KY. (and TN, GA, VA, etc.)  I took a folding bike with me on  the train/bus, and biked from Bristol, on the VA/TN line, to Middlesboro, KY, where my family picked me up.  It was 107 miles, took me a day and a half.  I recorded things that seemed interesting along the way.

2m: Catastrophic flooding in Eastern KY the past week.  I’m not personally closely connected to people most impacted, but the region is my homeland, and I feel it.

4m: Jean Ritchie, from near Hazard, KY, sings “Movin on Down the River”

7m:  It’s very hot, and I’ve noticed in my travels that air conditioning is becoming more and more normalized, crushing my soul.  But check this out, public and gov’t buildings in Spain will be cooled to no more than 81 degrees F in summer, and heated to no more than 66 degrees F in winter, to address climate change and dependence on Russian gas/oil.    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/world/europe/spain-air-conditioning-limits.html

Also in air conditioning news  – Did you know that the U.S. uses almost as much energy for cooling as the 1.2 billion people of Africa use for everything all year?    https://time.com/6199353/air-conditioning-will-not-save-us/

8m: bike trip clips start:  Kingsport, TN, concert on the library lawn.  And the library also has a seed library!

10m:  TN music pathways historical marker: Leslie Riddle, African-American influencer of the Carter Family’s songs.

RIding Kingsport to Bean Station; night in the cemetery overlooking Cherokee Lake;   Too many cars and too much pavement!  and gas station cashiers who don’t understand.

26m: historical markers atop Clinch Mountain: Grainger Co “Valley of Independence” has pictures and stories of important people. 41 of 42 of 42 people honored are white men; there is one woman (white) who appears in a drawing/advertisement.

36m: heading through the bike path tunnel into Cumberland Gap

44m: in KY!  IMHO, land should be forested, for what will we sacrifice forests?  to grow food? or to mow lawns for some bizarre aesthetic?   Life on the farm: how about a copperhead right outside your bedroom door?  snapping turtles are always fun too.

Well, they say “Nature bats last.”

2m: Sigrid and Winston and family have a pear tree in their yard that still technically belongs to the woman who sold them their house many years ago, who wrote it in the sale agreement that the tree would remain hers, tho she lives in TX.  But Sigrid and squirrels eat all the pears.

5m: Manya and I are picking gooseberries at the Flo community gardens and talking about the difficulty in  getting things repaired in the US as compared to her Indian homeland. 

FIxing things – did I mention CLEANING and LUBE??

10m: Chung Ha sings (and pants) about going for a “bike” ride.  have you seen the bike sticker that has a picture of a bike and says “Put the fun between your legs”?

14m: Jules and Erin from Grow Food Northampton, and KC, at the GFN food distribution table behind Macdonald House in downtown Northampton.

24m: Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell sing the Onion Song

27m: follow up with Kalia about the high cost of having a place to live, even camping free, and meeting basic needs without stable shelter, or a place to cook food, or chompers for eating fresh fruits and vegetables.

31m:  Hoyt Axton sings Greenback Dollar

36m: Caleb, one of my coworkers at Pedal People stopped at my house for post-route replenishing after his double-routes on July 5 (holiday delay).   He shares about his Pedal People experience, a conversation which inevitably turns to consumerism, waste, the plastics industry control of economy and disposability culture, etc.   Oh, and the Valley Time Trade barter network.

51m:  I ran into Smiles when i was downtown doing trash pickups, sitting in the shade of a tree with her guitar.  She always shouts a Power to the Pedal People cheer when she sees us, even if I don’t see  her at first.  She sings an original,  “Don’t arrest the Clown”,  and “Bury me Beneath the Willow”