Anthony Marr's CARE-7 tour blog #22 - 24 Jun 2010
South Carolina and North Carolina
After an almost non-stop chain of speaking events over the last two weeks
since Florida, thanks to GAHC co-VP Catherine Garneau's efficient organizing
effort, I'm now enjoying a couple of relaxing days at my long time friend
Jerry Cook's water-front property in Kill Devil Hills on the Outer Banks of
North Carolina. As Jerry says next to his profile pic in Facebook, "Life is
good in Jerry's world." The only thing is that the temperature is knocking
on 100 degrees and humidity near 100 percent, so "Jerry's world" is mostly
indoors this time of year. Not so my first visit here, which was in December
2003 during my CARE-1 tour which I shared with Brenda Davis and her then
15-year-old son Cory Davis. Life was good in Jerry's world both indoor and
out that time of year.
June 15 - Pisgah, Alabama - accommodation host Carol Fuller Edmonds
After spending a night alone in the deserted farm house of the Edmonds
family, I went over to the very much lived-in country home of Carol Fuller
Edmonds, where the neighbors are few and far between, complete with the
usual complement of cats and dogs typical of the homes of my animal advocacy
hosts across the land.
On the country road in front of her property are wooden telephone-posts,
to which are attached nesting boxes built by her aged father now in his 80s.
They were built for blue birds, whose habitat had been decimated. She opened
the side of one of the boxes, and lo and behold, there were 5 newly hatched
chicks whose eyes were not yet open. She said that after her father has
passed on, a younger generation will have to take over the task, or the blue
birds in that area would disappear.
Carol's home itself is also very eco-friendly, with solar heating systems
on the roofs, and a large composting machine. On the above-ground swimming
pool was a sheet of plastic that had collected puddles of rain water, in
which lived a small population of tadpoles. she said that when they reopen
the pool, she would collect the tadpoles first and have them deposited into
a nearby pond. She is a veritable Earth goddess.
After treating me to a wholesome breakfast, Carol took me for a walk to
her secret paradise. While Pisgah itself is green and pleasing to the eye,
this paradise of hers is stunning, with a lush forest cover, a deep gorge,
exposed rock-faces and a sheer waterfall. She said that it was a little
known spot, and she intended to keep it that way.
June 16 - Chattanooga, Tennessee, event host Carol Fuller Edmonds
In the afternoon, we drove the hour due east in our separate cars to
Chattanooga, where, in the mezzanine floor of a veg-friendly supermarket, I
gave my talk to a small gathering of local activists, including Kathryn
Dalenburg and Karen Lier. After my speech, Carol said that it blew her away.
After the talk, by then after 9 p.m., I drove 5 hours farther east to
Asheville, North Carolina, arriving around 2 a.m. at the home of Anne and
John Green up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. They said that they
would leave the door open for me, but John waited up for me and opened the
door, saying, "I was just about to give up on you man," followed by a
brotherly bear hug.
June 17 - Asheville, North Carolina - accommodation hosts Anne and John
Green
The Greens are yet another couple with whom I established an easy and in
fact somewhat over-easy rapport, meaning that within minutes, John and I,
both with about the same kind of humor, "who bring out the worst in each
other", had begun trading good-natured barbs which kept Anne smiling and
giggling all day long. John used to race cars, so we talked about Indy cars
and Formula One. Just one year my junior, yet athletic and fit, he led me on
long walks through the trails of their 36 acre forested property. Both he
and Anne are avid mountain-bike riders, on the walls of whose garage are
easily ten high tech bikes, all with sophisticated suspension systems and
disc brakes, each better than the others in some subtle way only bike freaks
could discern and appreciate, just the light alloy frames of which are worth
upwards of $1500 a piece. Of course, their house too is populated with
animals, in this case 2 dogs and 4 cats.
June 18 - Firestorm Cafe, Asheville, North Carolina - event host Wendy
Kobylarz
In the late afternoon, we went by Anne's bumper-stickers-festooned SUV to
the Firestorm Cafe in downtown Asheville, in a back room of which I gave my
talk organized by my long time friend Wendy Kobylarz who used to live in
Knoxville, Tennessee. Asheville is a small city, but the attendance was high
per capita, with more people than chairs. Unfortunately, the time frame was
a little too short, which obligated me to compress my talk to little more
than an hour, when its usual duration is close to 2 hours. As a result of my
talk, they began seriously discussing the ways and means of self-sufficiency
in terms of food, water, energy and defense.
Around this time, the news of a possible 20-miles-wide methane gas bubble
under the sea floor of the Gulf of Mexico came to the fore. Speculations
abounded about the possibility of a volcano-like eruption comparable in
magnitude to Mt. St. Helens which could generate a tsunami that could swamp
the entire gulf coast from Texas to Louisiana to Mississippi to Alabama to,
worst of all, Florida where the tidal wave could sweep overland right across
the peninsular from the west coast to the east coast into the Atlantic.
Debates on the internet ranged from bashing it as a hoax to touting it as
being probable. Most agreed that should such an event occur, it could kill
millions inhibiting the region. One thing for sure. ROV undersea videos have
shown that the oil is not only gushing from the broken well-head of the
Deepwater Horizon, but squirting out from rock fissures on the sea floor in
the surrounding area, some as much as 7 miles distant. Explanations had it
that not only was the well head broken, but there are breaks "down hole", so
that, under the 50,000-100,000 PSI pressure from 4 miles deep, the oil is
squeezed through the lower breaks into the surrounding rock strata
eventually into the water through cracks in the sea floor. What a bloody
mess, and one almost without a solution. If this disaster does not deal the
almost omnipotent oil lobby a staggering blow, nothing else will.
June 20 - Earth Fare, Greenville, South Carolina - event host Joe Walsh,
accommodation hosts Greg and Diane Prescott
The potluck talk in a quiet room at Earth Fare in Greenville was attended
by about ten local residents and activists, and it was a relaxed and
informal affair. Unfortunately, my camera had run out of batteries, so their
beautiful faces could only be remembered. After the talk, my hospitality
hosts Greg and Diane led me to their well treed country home twinkling with
fireflies and frequented by chickadees and cardinals. When I left the
following morning to the Outer Banks, Diane made me a well balanced lunch
package to take away, bless her heart.
June 21-24 - Men's Club, Kill Devil Hill, Outer Banks, North Carolina -
event and accommodation host - Jerry Cook
I met Jerry Cook in my first Compassion for Animals Road Expedition
(CARE-1, whereas my current one is CARE-7) shared with vegan dietitian and
best-selling author Brenda Davis (Becoming Vegetarian, Becoming Vegan,
Dairy-free and Delicious, and Defeating Diabetes) and her then 15 year-old
son Cory Davis, which covered 44 states in the 7.5 months spanning September
2003 and April 2004. When Brenda and Cory went back home in Kelowna, British
Columbia, Canada, for a month-long break in December 2003 - January 2004, I
stayed at Jerry's place the whole time. There, I met Jerry's friend Laura
Hendrix and her wonderful 4-year-old daughter Sarah, with whom I had a
terrific time, especially on Dec. 17, 2003, when they took me to the 100th
anniversary of the first flight of the Wright Flyer by the brothers Orville
and Wilbur Wright.
Yesterday, Jerry drove me to the local Unitarian-Universalist church to
give a talk to the Men's Club to which he belonged, in which another long
time acquaintance of mine Chip Belew also attended, at the end of which we
had a vigorous discussion on solutions to deal with the soon-to-be-detonated
Methane Time Bomb.
On our way back to his house, I asked Jerry to make a stop at the Wright
Brothers Monument for a revisit, and it was just as grand. I stood by the
base of the monument and Jerry took a picture of me. Unbeknown to me at the
time, the engraving right behind me said "DAUNTLESS RESOLUTION". Amen.
The slope where the Wright Brothers tested their glider
In closing, I wish to say this: I am very happy to have regained my lost
friend Paul Fusch who once joined in the attack against the Global
Anti-Hunting Coalition (GAHC) and myself. On his own accord, he saw the
light, and the darkness in his own camp, and wrote a Testimony titled "THE
SCANDAL WHICH ALMOST 'CRUSHED' A SUPER MAN" to exonerate me and GAHC - see
the preceding blog in www.HomoSapiensSaveYourEarth.blogspot.com - Amen
again.
.
Anthony Marr, Founder and President
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
Global Anti-Hunting Coalition (GAHC)
[email protected]
www.HOPE-CARE.org
www.ARConference.org
www.MySpace.com/AnthonyMarr
www.YouTube.com/AnthonyMarr
www.myspace.com/Anti-Hunting_Coalition
www.facebook.com/Anthony.Marr.001
www.facebook.com/Anthony-Hunting_Coalition
www.HomoSapiensSaveYourEarth.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com (search for �Anthony Marr Heal Our Planet Earth�
Touring cell: begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 216-386-7362
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