Dear Santa

this piece should appear as a “letter to the editor” in The Independent and The Redwood Times this week.

Dear Santa,

This Christmas I found a very special gift beneath a fir tree, about half a mile from my home, a cracked and leaking 12v deep-cycle marine battery. I found the battery behind a fir tree, about 6ft from the road, where it had been carefully placed to be invisible to the motorists who pass by. Fortunately I walk that stretch of road nearly every day, so I found my holiday gift before most of the lead and acid could leak into the nearby stream.

I realize that folks around here don’t seem especially concerned about the serious environmental crisis you face at the North Pole, what with the ice caps melting and all, but really Santa, have you lost your mind? Lead and battery acid are incredibly toxic to fish and wildlife, and I’m pretty sure that a 40lb slab of heavy metal pollution was not on the Mattole River’s Christmas list this year.

However, you know how much I love to recycle, and a battery like that is worth about seven dollars to the good people at the recycling place in Redway, right across from the hardware store. Seven dollars folks, for one battery, cash on the barrel-head, no questions asked. That’s real money! That’s enough to buy a fat burrito from Nacho Mama. Seven bucks will buy enough diesel fuel to get you back and forth to town in your huge jacked-up pickup truck. Really, who couldn’t use $7?

So, if you’ve got dead, useless 12v automotive, marine, deep-cycle, golf cart, solar system, or any other type of lead-acid battery lying around, don’t re-gift them to your watershed. I know you are glad to see the salmon return, but the salmon don’t want your leftover poison. Instead, bring your dead batteries to town, and trade them in for cold hard cash, in Redway.

 

Poem, Summertime in SoHum

A Poem: Summertime in SoHum

 

They say this is a lovely town

Its reputation quite renowned

It’s where the hippies made a stand

When they got back to the land

Where now are these proud stout folk?

Or is this just some kind of joke?

Surely you don’t mean the dealers

Driving ’round in their four-wheelers

Maybe perhaps you mean the growers

You couldn’t set your sights much lower

They cause all of our diesel spills

And make a mess up in the hills

They drain the river for their crop

While salmon populations drop

Just so they can make a buck

Those people never gave a fuck

Or do you mean those Humboldt Hotties

So eager to show off their bodies

Perched atop their high-heel shoes

In little more than their tattoos

Somehow I don’t think they’re the segment

‘Cause by age 18 their mostly pregnant

Or do you mean the other ones

The ones who really love their guns

They love to shoot them night and day

Just to prove they are not gay

Or perhaps I am still wrong

What of the others in the throng?

Aimless drifters, shiftless thugs

Junkies all strung-out on drugs

Homeless people and their dogs

In a schizophrenic fog

If there’s anyone that I’ve left out

Please stand up now and give a shout

‘Cause I’d love to meet these rumored folks

And learn that they are not a hoax

Still this place it suits me right

Not because of, but in spite

Of the industry that’s changed the face

Of this charming little country place

The saving grace, this is no lie-ee

In winter time they’re in Hawaii

Or perhaps in Mexico

What do I care where they go

So Summertime please hurry by

I really hope that time will fly

‘Cause when again it starts to rain

These folks will all get on a plane

then I can go and buy propane

Without them driving me insane

 

postscript:

There’s just one group that I’ve left out

The folks that I can’t live without

They’re always there in sun and rain

And do their jobs without complaint

Those are the folks who work in town

And make our little world go ’round