Rude Awakening

In the 1969 movie, Easy Rider, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper's longhair characters, Billy and Wyatt, a retired, stunt-riding, sideshow team, make a score at LAX then Route 66-it on two Harley choppers. After being befriended by Jack Nicholson's character, George, they stop for a bite to eat in Morganza, Louisiana. It's worth noting production executives cautioned Hopper about filming in the Deep South. Perhaps this advisory was the inspiration for an example of art-imitating life/life-imitating-art, when the trio cross the threshold of a small cafe. It's been, what, forty odd years, so I pulled up a youTube video to refresh my memory. The only version I could find was dubbed in Spanish, a language I am ashamed to say is still foreign to this gringo. It made no difference, though, 'cause it's patently clear from the editing and discomfiture of the three travelers that hey are not welcome in this town. The rednecks make no effort to speak in whispered tones, their barbs becoming increasingly offensive. Only a gaggle of giggling adolescent girls find Billy and Wyatt intriguing, following them outside when they exit hungry. It's obviously the girls are aroused by the traveler's wanderlust – this last observed by a few of the diners. Later that night, as they slumber in sleeping bags, a group of ax-handle wielding townspeople pummel the men's sleeping bags, killing George.

This last Thursday, the day after the White House demonstration, we headed down the road ourselves to lend a hand at at Pennyback Farm, a twenty acre CSA-farm in Horsham, Pennsylvania, parking our vehicles along a lush, forty acre, tree-spotted field. You have to know that everywhere we've gone so far we've been greeted with curiously and a warm embrace. The poor African-American community from whence we'd come was supportive and friendly. What we got in this conservative, affluent enclave was a rude awakening. It's hard to say if the disconnect was the result of patchy intel or naivete. No matter. In a NIMBY adaptation of West Side Story, we, the SWAT's (Sustainable World Action Team) had invaded WASP turf. They were none too happy. “What is the meaning of this?” “Nothing like this has ever happened before.” “Pack it up, folks, the party's over. Leave now or else.”

Before switchblades were drawn and a rumble ensued, we hightailed it out of there. I'm told the box truck, which was behind us, was escorted out of the nasty neighborhood by two cars, there horns a-honking. Lovely.

We re-grouped in a nearby parking lot. I went into a market while two others commandeered a shopping cart to refill our propane. When Daniel and Tom saw I had piled my cart with those pre-rinsed, heads of romaine three-paks, they coaxed me into replacing them with package-free greens. See, I still have that inbred reflex to go with what's convenient. I left the market with bunches of red leaf, napa cabbage, celery (we still had some tomatoes and bok choy), a crate of farm fresh corn, several loaves of herbed ciabbata and a bottle of good caesar dressing.

As we enjoyed salted, butter-slathered corn on the cob, Charis, Jonathon and Sirraum shared childhood bully stories. We had wounds to lick and this homey repast in a suburban parking lot was just what the doctor ordered.

About the same year that Easy Rider was in theaters, I had a poster up in my room, a portrait of Albert Einstein with one of his more famous quotes:

“Great minds have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”