I was listening to Democracy Now! yesterday when Amy Goodman interviewed a wonderful professor. This beautiful woman is a poet and teaches Literature. She was the woman that Virginia Tech turned to when they needed someone to speak at the convocation after the horrific shooting they had experienced, In her interview with Amy, she said that she felt that there were two things that had outlived their usefulness; cars and guns.
One the gun front, it is pretty much self evident. Few people hunt anymore to ensure the survival of their families or to protect themselves from predatory animals. In fact to call hunting a 'sport' when the guns used are nearly weapons of mass destruction is a joke. But for me, I have never had any truck with guns. So, I don't have to do much soul searching on that account.
But the car thing has gotten interesting to me. I told you before that this is my experimental year of living in the middle of nowhere and trying life without a car. I gave myself a stipulation that if it turned out that my personal experiment was causing a heavy burden on my friends and family, I could not judge it successful. It also would not be a success if I spent more money or energy not having a car than having one.
I am almost hitting the one year mark and have made a lot of discoveries. The main discovery is that lots of people are thinking like me. Another discovery is that other countries, are miles ahead of us. Not a surprise I suppose because other countries don't have the $ or the will to engage in wars all over the world to support their oil addiction so have been creating mass transit for a very long time.
When my children were at the Pine Hill Waldorf School in Wilton, NH and we lived in the country in a cantonment with other Waldorf families and faculty, we all had for shit cars (old VW vans, mainly, that were always failing us (or us them). We actually had a neighborhood meeting to see if we could carpool with horse and carriages. Somehow we never got that together. (We did Christmas Carole with horses and sleigh and some neighbors collected Maple sap with horses and sledges. Ah, the good old days.) That was the last time I tried to think of a way to lead my sort of modern life without using cars.
What I am talking about mostly isn't a problem for people who live in cities in the USA with the exception of LA. Most cities have some fairly decent public transportation. Love San Francisco and New York although having been underground in New York when there was a fire on the train in front was pretty scary. But I have had the same thing happen on the road. I live in a small town with a larger small town nearby and no city for five hours by road in any direction.
The trains are no help here. I have taken them. They take too long, cost too much and leave us in the middle of nowhere. The greyhound bus takes 13 hours to do a five hour ride and leaves you off here at 1:30 AM and costs a lot. Shawn's Ride Share, a shuttle that goes to San Francisco is great. He is dependable, reasonably priced, clean, but only makes two trips a week. Going north is Craig's list share/ride, share/gas. That works for me because I am flexible. My last share changed the day three times. But, it was easy and comfortable.
I have friends who offer their cars when they are away or when they are stuck at work for long days. Car rentals are out to lunch in the rural areas. They are very expensive, very inconvenient, add on extra insurance when you don't own a car and you might as well buy a car. BUT, new things are popping up all over. In San Francisco there is a listing of over a thousand people who will rent you their car for as little as five dollars an hour if you need to do heavy errands or get to some place where public transport doesn't work. I am sure this will be happening all over soon. It is easy and hassle free and makes sense of someone owning a car that sits around all week.
The Europeans I have met on ride shares use a website "Rome2Rio" which will help you get from almost anywhere to anywhere.
In Boston, years ago, getting to New York was a bit of a catch 22, especially if I was going alone. Gas, parking, tolls were prohibitive. After 9/11, airplanes took too long. The buses were awful. Then came the Chinatown Bus and the Harvard Law School Bus. More genius. The Harvard Law School bus cost $10 and went from Cambridge to the Harvard Club in mid-town Manhattan whenever it filled up, which was frequently. The Chinatown buses go from Chinatown, Boston to Chinatown, New York for $10 whenever they fill up which usually only takes minutes. No reservations, pay the driver cash. Easy.
In college and high school I hitch hiked. I had good and bad experiences. A good one was when we were picked up hitching to Wellesley, MA and the limo of the Everley Brothers ( a very popular singing group then) picked us up. A bad one was when we got in a terrible accident in California with a drunk ride when we were going to the Summer of Love with flowers in our hair and ended up in the winter of hospitals for Patrick. I am contemplating hitch hiking again. I think the grey hair might give me a pass even with some cops as it has become illegal on so many roads.
Other hitching from the past that was very easy was hitching private planes at small airports.And hitching yachts in remote places. The yachts are easy still. Sailors, loving their quiet life are often desperate for company. But remember you will be stuck on a boat with that person which often isn't worth the trouble. Private planes are more uptight now because of increased regulations and the whole scene has become very corporate. Now you sort of need a friend with a plane.
This is a long ramble, but I am enjoying my new/old experiment. If you have some easy, fun, cheap ways of getting around, please let us know.
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