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Hook and Ladder
One of the main features of the tiller-truck is its enhanced maneuverability.[13] The independent steering of the front and back wheels allow the tiller to make much sharper turns, which is particularly helpful on narrow streets and in apartment complexes with maze-like roads.[12] An additional feature of the tiller-truck is that its overall length, over 50 feet (15 m) for most models, allows for additional storage of tools and equipment.[13] The extreme length gives compartment capacities that range between 500 and 650 cubic feet (14 and 18 m3) in the trailer with an additional 40 and 60 cubic feet (1.1 and 1.7 m3) in the cab.[13]
THE CHIEF
The Vermont Railroad – front page news
The late 1960s, early 70s was a time of political and social transformative activism unlike anything we had previously known as mostly white youth. And we believed we were the seeds of what would culminate in a genuinely grassroots led revolutionary egalitarian participatory democracy. We were the children of the civil rights movement, allies of the Panthers, the Lords, Weather. We were shocked at the imminent destruction of the natural world. During the winter of 1969-70, as we waited to move onto the farm in Franklin, we put out a newsletter announcing who we were, what we believed in, what we envisioned, and who was welcome to join us. The pages that follow are unedited.
VERMONT RAILROAD
COMMUNE STORIES
Family, friends, faces.
Maia’s mom – see the Philo School of Herbal Energetics.
Kevin Garnett in Africa
When crossing the border
Which you do on foot
From Tanzania to Kenya
The sign that reads, “Welcome to Kenya,”
Which has seen better days
Also marks the start of a strange little piece of Earth
Where you’ve departed Tanzania
But not yet officially entered Kenya
Not until you reach the visa office
Some hundred yards away
And it is in this very space
That dozens of colorfully bejeweled and beaded Masai women
Some with absolutely stunning faces
Have established a free trade zone
Designed to separate the tourist
From any remaining Tanzanian shillings
Left pleading to stay close to home in his pocket
Their technique is masterful
As they grab dozens of colorful necklaces and bracelets
Hold them out to you by the handful
Offer them to you at genuinely low wholesale prices
Bracelets and necklaces you really don’t want
Which they are slipping onto your wrists
And hanging about your neck
As you worry about pickpockets and say
“No, no, no,” in English, German, Mesopotamia, and Swahili
As kindly as you can
“Then keep them as a gift for your wife,” they say,
“Your girlfriend, your daughter, your mother
Take them, they are yours.”
At which moment
You first notice the young tall African man wearing the extra large,
Green T-shirt with the number 5 on it
The word Celtics on it,
And the name Garnett, your favorite player, on it
Standing on the court as it were, here in no-man’s land
Wishing you had your camera
Which is still in some illegal pawnshop
On the wrong side of the tracks in Moshi
Hoping that you will rescue it
To take pictures with it like these
Of the incongruity of Kevin Garnett
Your favorite player
Here in no-man’s land
Against the backdrop of trailer trucks clearing customs
and bejeweled Masai women
When the man sees you looking at him
Approaches you
Asks what you are looking at or want
So you point to his shirt
To the number and name on it
To the words on it
As you say, “It’s my team, my favorite player”
And before you have put your finger down
He has pulled his shirt off
And standing gloriously thin and beautiful above his belt
Just like Kevin Garnett does
He hands his shirt to you,
Says it is yours
As you are saying “No, no, no,”
In English, German, Mesopotamia, and Swahili
To which he replies, “I am African, keep it, it is yours.”
And you want it
Want to give him some money
Or at least a young goat
But at the same moment
The bus driver has taken your arm
Hustling you toward the visa office
And a customs officer watching the event unfold
Is pointing at you,
Moving toward the scorer’s table,
Motioning that you are to give the shirt back
To the half naked Africa standing in no-man’s land
Maybe a little drunk, or a tad crazy,
Or someone with poor impulse control,
Or poor boundaries at the borders, you joke with yourself
Handing him back his shirt with regret
Enter the visa office
And exit ten minutes later
An official visitor to Kenya
About to get back on the bus
Greeted by the same coterie of Masai women
And one familiar Kenyan man
Wearing a black jacket
You cannot imagine where or how he found so quickly
How he grasped the situation so quickly
And is waiving what is clearly your green Kevin Garnett
Number five, official NBA T-shirt
And notwithstanding the bus driver
Trying to move you along
And a bus filled with Indian’s, Kenyans, Tanzanians, and Americans
Who also want to move along
You reach into your pocket
Giving the man your last ten thousand Tanzanian shillings
The equivalent of about seven U.S. dollars
As he gives you the shirt
The Masai women screaming at you
And at him
At the injustice of it all
The ridiculousness of it all
That you are paying for a dirty green T-shirt
When you could have a jewelry box filled with treasure
For even less money
And the bus driver is blowing his horn
And the passengers are waving you forward
And you climb onto the bus
With your new shirt
Checking your pockets
And waving at the Kenyan Kevin Garnett
Who has clearly made the winning shot at the buzzer
And is smiling.
Poetry
005 – Bail
I find out Yvonne is held on one hundred thousand dollars bail. It might as well have been one hundred million. She might as well have been held without bail. I ultimately have the amount of bail imposed reviewed at every level of the system, magistrate, trial judge, appellate judge. One hundred K it is; murder not being treated lightly by the courts in any season.
I visit the county jail early on Tuesday, the new jail, the Holiday Inn of jails. Not like the old jail, the catacombs of jails. Call it what you will, they both smell of piss and ammonia.
First I sign in as a lawyer at the front desk. Then I lock all my belongings except a pen and some legal papers in a metal gym locker. Then I am passed through the trap. My hand is stamped, so even if I want to switch clothes with the convict and stay in his place he still can’t just switch from his orange county jail uniform to my gray striped lawyers uniform and walk out to freedom. Need that infrared stamp thank you.
Now locked inside with only my pen I await the elevator. There are video cameras and monitors mounted in the corners of every wall and hallway. There are video cameras in the elevator. On the sixth floor there are still more cameras and more ammonia. At the end of the gleaming institutional hallway is a guard station where I present myself. I am ushered into the attorney visiting room from one side of the hallway. She is ushered in from the other side, the prisoners’ dormitory side. The doors are locked. There is a bell to ring if we want to be let out.
She looks sallow. Tired. Frightened. Caged. “Thanks for coming to see me,” she says. “Its okay,” I reply, “its my job.” The government it turns out has absolutely no evidence against Yvonne other than her confession. Oh, and there’s a dead man. And he was her pimp. Yvonne’s confession is damning but open to diverse interpretation and analysis. She was arrested by Detective Wormly, the famous Black, street smart, bearded Wormly. The Wormly with the big gold cross hanging down his chest and no sympathy. The long suffering, cynical, tired, but incorruptible Wormly who tracked her down and didn’t even ask for a sexual favor.
“I just want to be out of here so badly. I want to see my daughter. I want to go home. I don’t sleep good here. I hate it.”
I feel her pain and imagine my own. I remember the frightened little boy sent to camp against his will crying in terror and helpless humiliation, ” I want to go home.”
I am staring into her eyes. She meets my gaze. We both hesitate to look away. I wonder how many levels of conversation and unexpressed thought we manage on automatic pilot at once. There is our focus on the likely trial, on strategy and hope. There is talk of her unfreedom with remembrances of pain present and pain past. The longing to be somewhere other than where you are. Slavery. I imagine her past. I imagine her physical and mentally pleasure and pain. I remember my past. I realize I am no longer looking in her eyes but staring at my hands. I wonder if she is thinking about her past. About me. The realization that we are caged behind a series of real metal doors and secure locks comes to me again. That I will at a time more or less within my control walk out the doors, out of the building, into the sweet free air, while she will remain behind, perhaps forever, trapped with the scent of ammonia. I am aware she is a woman, a sexual being. I wonder about her sexually. About her sexual past. In my mind I see her naked. I see her breasts, her nipples, her bush of pubic hair. I imagine her shaved. These thoughts follow one another; commingle with one another. Only seconds of silence pass. I worry about disease, about AIDS, and cancer. Wonder if she wonders about me.
LAW STORIES
Performers of Khmer Music
I have also encountered at least a dozen bands playing classic Khmer music that advertize themselves as being comprised of land mine victims, and indeed all of the musicians have limbs missing, leg prostheses in evidence, holding bows with the stubs of arms, or are blind. Although not widely reported internationally, there is even today a “small” border skirmish going on between Cambodia and Thailand that is the lead story in the local newspapers, and as a result of which casualties are being brought in to the local hospital.
CAMBODIA
TRAVEL DIARIES