Potluck at Rotary Park

by Karen Laslo

The posters read "Neighborhood Potluck - Saving Creeks, Saving Money". I could read them from my bicycle as I pedaled my way to Rotary Park where the event was to be held. At the park, people were already eating and others stood around talking and laughing. I parked my bike among the others leaning against the trees. Someone was playing a guitar. Kids were swinging or playing chase on the grass. I stopped to say hello to Richard. And there was Emily, her face intent, as once more she patiently explained to a young couple why the bridge should not be built across Comanche Creek. In her hands she absently held a cardboard box full of aluminum cans she had crushed for recycling. Over at a card table sat Luisa selling raffle tickets.

I saw the familiar photos of the creek and the large map, slightly worn now from being hauled around in somebody’s truck to different fund raising events. It showed in full color where the road and bridge would cross the creek. Mike introduced me to a woman who ran a neighborhood day care center. I saw the man who said he lived " right over there" and was "usually a conservative but not on this issue."

These were the people who had gathered together to protect one of the few remaining wild creeks from being bulldozed and paved over. They had come that evening to educate and inform each other of the possible invasion of their quiet streets by the trucks that would be routed over the proposed bridge. For this, they were accused of being "selfish" and "fraudulent" in a recent editorial, which declared their aims to be merely political. But in truth, they were there to organize the defense of the one spot on Earth they all called home.

I sat down at one of the picnic tables thinking about all this, the twilight fading in the early autumn evening. This band of quietly determined people reminded me of similar efforts. I thought of Bill Powers who chained himself to a float in the freezing waters of Lake Davis, a last effort to save the lake from being poisoned by the Dept. of Fish and Game, his family and friends watching from the shore.

I thought of the young activists in Northern Calif. who had climbed to the top of tall redwoods in order to stop the Maxxam Corporation from cutting the trees down. I thought of John Seed who, as he put himself between the bulldozers and one of the last remaining rainforests in Australia, said he realized he wasn’t protecting the rainforest, he was the rainforest protecting itself.

Then I was transported back to a hot summer day eighteen years ago. My husband and I were on a trip, traveling up old 395, on the east side of the Sierras. When we got to the top of the pass and looked down into the Owens Valley we saw a huge cloud of blowing dust that covered the Valley from end to end. It was the dry lakebed of Owens Lake blowing away. As we entered the dust storm, the sun was blocked out and we had to turn our lights on. We could hear the dust pinging as it hit the sides of our old van. Even with the windows rolled up the dust seeped into the van, stinging our eyes and making us cough. We could feel the grit of it on our skin and in our mouths.

With the dust following us we stopped in the small town of Lone Pine to get gas. I complained to the gas attendant how bad the dust was blowing that day. "Yes", he said, "It’s always bad now. We can’t breathe the air. Our children can’t go outside and play. The old people get sick. The lake is dry and our ground water is almost gone. The trees are dying. L.A. has taken our water and now the soil in our Valley is blowing away and we can’t breathe." Eyeing our old VW van with its National Audubon and Sierra Club stickers on the windows he said, "You’re one of those environmentalist, aren’t you? We need help. We need some environmentalists to come up here and stop them from taking our water." He was standing in the hot sun, dressed in jeans and a faded t-shirt, eyes squinting out from under an old baseball cap. "I’m sorry", I said, " I can’t help you. I live too far away. You need to be your own environmentalist. Maybe you and the others in your town could start an environmental organization to stop L.A. from taking your water." As we drove away I saw him standing and looking out across the dusty expanse of the Valley.

At last my thoughts returned to the potluck at Rotary Park. It was dark now and people were gathering up their dishes, getting ready to go to a workshop where Laurel was going to teach them how to gather signatures for a referendum that would overturn the City Council’s vote to put a bridge across Comanche Creek. I took my own advice and joined them.

From the Winter 2001 issue of the Environmental News.