Albie Park, cofounder of Harm Reduction Hedgehogs (HRH413), and Katt Alonzo Bodziak, street outreach worker with Harm Reduction Works, are live in the studio today.  Harm Reduction Works is a self help/mutual aid group.   People build community in a non-judgemental space that might or might not include abstinence from drinking and using.  https://www.hrh413.org

I farmed with Tony as part of One Family Farm, in La Lune, Moruga, Trindad, in both of my visits there this past year.  In this interview/conversation, we talk about how he grew up, how he came to his values of living close to nature, growing without chemicals and thinking about long-term planetary health.  My favorite line:  “I don’t really need more stuff, man.”

My mother, Mary Anne Browne Woodring, died last month, on Oct 3, 2019, when I was in KY.  I tell the story of her last day, and my first days without her.  Also, she speaks about black snakes, her ideas on marriage and being a doctor, and how she started doing triathlons.

4m: Alex Jarrett wins Ward 5 City Councilor position yesterday!  with 75% of the votes! he defeated the incumbent of the last 14 years.  He worked hard, knocked on every door in the ward at least once, went to a gazillion meetings and forums.

7m: Mary Anne Browne Woodring, Aug 5, 1931-Oct 3, 2019

20m: Jean Ritchie sings “Black Waters”

25m: black snakes in the bedroom!

27m: family grace; my mother is easy to please

30m: supportive things people did for me after she died

36m: cremation, ashes, John Prine sings “Please Don’t Bury Me”

39m: Cyndi Lauper sings “Time After Time”

44m: letter to a friend summarizing things

47m: Mary Anne tells about starting jogging around age 50 and eventually doing Ironman triathlons

51: Cyndi Lauper with “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”.  key line: “Some boys take a beautiful girl And hide her away from the rest of the world.  I want to be the one to walk in the sun”

Gabor Lukacs, a bike buddy and my bike “thieving” comrade from Amherst, shares about his passion for…bikes! and building community.   He also talks about growing up in communist Hungary, and how building relationships of all kinds – economic, sexual, etc – strengthens one’s chance of survival.

Iliya gradually “unsubscribed” from his apartment, his NYC tech job, his car, and for the last 2 years even money.

Giselle and her family hosted me last winter at One Family Farm in La Lune, Moruga, Trinidad. Now she has come to visit me here in Northampton, MA, for a week, and she has joined me in the studio to talk about the farm, how the Workaway program got started, her brother Glendon,  etc.

Kala joins me in the studio today to talk about the youth-led global climate strikes. Kala is an organizer of the September 20th Boston Climate Strike, and a Sunrise Northampton representative. get on the bus, and/or help support local youth to get on the bus to Boston: https://linktr.ee/bostonstrike .
Kala is a sophomore at Hampshire Regional High School.

I went to New York this past weekend, Rockaway Beach to be specific, to meet with Toby, also known as Clarance Tobias, or TocoToby.  I first contacted Toby back in July.  I’ve been trying to find more Trini  partners for the Trinidad Bicycle Osmosis Project, and when I read his Workaway  profile, about the work his foundation does with youth, sports, and the environment, I contacted him.  He said Yes, he’s interested.  He’s been in NY working for the summer, so not only did we get to meet in person to talk about the project, but he also hooked me up with a wetsuit, surfboard, and little surfing lesson through the surfshop where he works.  (I don’t think I’ve ever even touched a surfboard.)   And, he let me interview him for the show.   Toby shares about growing up in a rural coastal village,  the role bicycles can play in rural areas in Trinidad, his passion for sport, and enabling youth to have some of the same opportunities that he has had.  Tobiasfoundation.com

So, we’re moving forward on the project together.  We both plan to return to Trinidad in Oct/Nov, and continue working out details from there.  Toby has represented Trinidad and Tobago as a triathlete, and has connections in the biking community there.  The plan is to ship bikes in the spring.

The second half of the show is an interview with Serene Nembhard.  Serene is going into her junior year at Hampshire College.   She is coordinating expansion of compost collection at Hampshire College, and came to visit Pedal People to share inspiration.    C’mon and compost, people!  give it back to the earth.

An old friend Jose came to the studio with me today.  Jose is passionate about living gently on the earth, and educating others about ways we are destroying our health and the health of all living things, and what we can do to change it.  Today he has a sign with pictures of animals being choked by, or choking on, plastic litter. Jose has been in downtown Easthampton this summer speaking with passing motorists, pedestrians, anyone who will listen.  He’s also been gathering signatures for some petitions to get the Easthampton City Council to put it on their agenda, things like discussing a commitment to use permaculture practices on public land.

There’s some more on the bike absconder saga. like how i  got stopped yesterday painting route markers at UMass for a bike ride, something I do every year,  but this year UMass cops asked me what I was doing, what my name was, what my date of birth was…   and eventually it came out that I was violating my trespass order.    See you in court. Again.

But the feature interview is with Strong Oak, of Visioning B.E.A.R.  Circle Intertribal Coalition.    We met August 4th, 2019, at the Pocumtuck Homelands Festival in Great Falls MA (a town also known by the name of the Englishman Mr Turner who led a massacre of  Peskeompscut  / Wissantinnewag there in 1676). 

The mission of VBCIC is to prevent domestic and sexual violence in the intertribal communities of the Northeast, which includes MA, NH, VT, ME, CT, RI, and NY.     http://visioningbear.org/content.aspx?page_id=0&club_id=422180

and at 43 min, a man I met on the Greyhound bus, Matt, talks about his tech job and how all parts of the bean plant are delicious, as he grew up eating them in the Congo.