Julia Child Brought Real Food to the Modern World

Julia Child

In the 1960s, a movement began to rekindle quality food, you know, the kind of fresh food that is grown on farms. Michio Kushi came to the United States to teach macrobiotics in the 1950s, but he couldn’t find good enough quality food for his classes. After World War II, the modern world of the United States had embraced technology, mass production and adulterated, processed food, designed in the lab mainly for ease of transport and lengthy storage. In restaurants we had what I call, “the white bucket” fake foods, foods made from mixes provided by corporation headquarters. At home, we had frozen food dinners, Velveeta cheese, American cheese slices, frozen sausages, frozen pizza, cake mixes, instant coffee, I could go on forever listing the faux foods that replaced real foods people used to cook and eat for healthy meals. Even something as simple as an egg had undergone processing that had altered the very nature of an egg. All of these conveniences were a relief from the often hard labor of cooking, but they were not a relief for our overall health.

I still remember the scene in the movie, “Infamous,” in which the writer, cosmopolitan Truman Capote, on a 1959 research trip to Kansas, could not find real cheese. He is standing, lost, in front of a huge display of Velveeta processed cheese, the only cheese in town.

In the movie, "Infamous," Truman Capote 

contemplates the cheese desert in Kansas

Michio Kushi couldn’t find good food so he turned to an import/export business back in Japan, Mitoku. By 1967, he had created his own small grocer called Erewhon (Named after the utopian novel of the same name, Nowhere spelled backwards, it now was everywhere!) that provided fresh vegetables, imported Japanese foods, including sea vegetables and whole grain brown rice, beans from American farmers, fresh sour dough bread, homemade jams and jellies and natural beauty products. A revolution had begun. Countless Mom & Pop health food stores opened, including Autumn Harvest, which saved our lives one freezing winter in Chicago; A New Leaf, where I bought my first macrobiotic cookbook by Eunice Farmilant and  Bread & Circus, a small chain in Massachusetts and who could forget, the indomitable, Trader Joe's. Fifty years later, we also have Whole Foods, a wonderfully monstrous chain of natural food markets!

Similarly, Julia Child, in the early 1940s, in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, while working in the Office of Strategic Services, couldn’t abide the awful food in the barracks, so she and her then, friend Paul, soon to become her husband, ventured out into the city for real fresh food, Asian food.

Paul Child had also spent a good deal of time in Paris where he learned what quality food was. To this day, the United States is not allowed to send our adulterated rBGH dairy to France. By the way, have you EVER SEEN French school lunches? Compared to school lunches in the U.S.? And, while we’re at it, how about the school lunches in Africa? Talk about whole grains! In fact, many of our fake foods, popular and accepted as food in the United States, are banned abroad.

American School Lunch: nothing real here

French School Lunch: real food!

African School Lunch: real food!

In 1963, Julia Child began the first season of her now classic TV show, “The French Chef." Julia was not only cooking with whole, fresh, quality foods, she was cooking on television! She was educating the country mired in artificial foods what real food actually was! Sure, for a good many years, Julia’s meals were considered gourmet - fancy French food - but not all! She also cooked peasant food: good simple stews to be eaten with fresh bread, broiled fish, roasted chicken, simple omelettes, and baked apples for dessert. Along the way, she taught us how to go to the store or farmer’s market and choose fresh meats, fish and vegetables. 

Julia at the market

One of the biggest things Julia accomplished was after the fact of her groundbreaking TV show, that is the interest in real food that in turn created new chefs interested in growing their own organic gardens - chefs like Alice Waters, who, in turn, reached out to young people and children to create organic gardens in schools, to teach children about how food grows, where it comes from, how to cook it, how to make it their own! Now many schools across the country have school gardens! Thank you, Alice! Thank you, Julia! More chefs appeared, chefs like Michael Pollan, Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Anthony Bourdain, whose enthusiasm for real food reached even more people. 

Chef Alice Waters and her Edible Schoolyard project

Not exactly a chef, but as the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama began her health program, “Let’s Move,” by encouraging, not only exercise, but school gardens, organic gardens, and organic school lunches. Michelle would surprise students with her visits to their school gardens. She created an organic garden at the White House. 

The First Lady Michelle Obama

encouraging students to learn about food

Michelle Obama also worked hard to do away with “food deserts” in this country by encouraging supermarkets to open in places without fresh food sources. Walgreens and Walmart responded with fresh foods in their stores. Two new Whole Foods were opened, one in Chicago, another in Detroit to fill the need.

Julia created ripples of goodness, far-reaching into the future! When we watch the movies created in her honor, we get a sense of how hard she worked and how long she worked hard! When we watch her on TV, she makes it all seem effortless, but we now know how much resistance Julia received for trying to teach people how to cook! She even paid for the food until the show got its sea legs! Could anyone imagine that when we watch her giggle at her mistakes or moan her appreciation of really good food? “Mmmm!”

Not everyone thanks Michio Kushi for bringing us Erewhon, creating somewhere out of Nowhere. Not everyone remembers what it was like before hummus and whole wheat bread were on every supermarket shelf. When a tuna fish sandwich or a dried up hunk of cod was as close as you could get to a vegetarian meal. Ok, maybe a tiny wilted iceberg salad, if you weren’t that hungry. Thank you, Michio. 

Thank you, Julia! 

©Patricia Goodwin, 2022

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her latest novel is Low Flying, about two women suffering psychologically abusive marriages who find and nurture each other. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.

***Disclaimer: The information on this blog is not meant to substitute for medical care. Please consult your physician before beginning any new dietary guidelines. 

Greta the Great

Greta in 2018, her first climate strike,

alone in front of the Swedish Parliament building

Every time I type her name, I type Great. Freudian dyslexia. I’m not too ahead of my time writing about Greta, and I usually don’t write about people everyone else is writing about. But, this time, I got into a bit of trouble on Facebook over her. It was her meltdown at the United Nations. I said something to the effect of how sad it was to see her like that and the comments - from friends of mine who know me and should know better - took the opportunity to rage against my lack of political correctness, as if I were suddenly Fox News attacking Greta’s Aspergers. Comments like “You don’t have to be normal to be wonderful!” As if anyone had ever accused me of being normal.

I had to look up Aspergers. I won’t bore you with the details you probably already know about Greta having read about her so much. I couldn’t care less what conditions Greta the Great has or doesn’t have. I read that people have commented on her clothes, her diet, her hair, her size, what the fuck ever!

I also said something about how they - operative word, “they,” my definition of “they” is anyone who has more power over your life than you do - said once, “We wait for you to get tired.” I got attacked for being tired. “We can’t get tired in our work!” came the comment back to me. Sorry, you’re actually one of the people who burned me out.

I saw something that day, the day Greta raged. I saw a person who had tried so hard. I remember her first day at the UN, when she was calm and quiet and told the world leaders, “My comments to you today will be this report on climate change from the world’s leading scientists.” She, a rational, thinking, caring, intelligent person had thought, “This is all I need to say. After they read this report, there will be no dispute. No more questions, only action.”

Look at the science. Look at the polar ice melting. Look at the animals going extinct. Look at the storms, and the floods, the fires and the drought. Now, now, now, act, act, act!

Nothing.

I’ve seen it before. Nothing, a terrible reaction to the truth.

She’d just come off a dramatic journey across the Atlantic on a sailboat powered only by sustainable energy. She disembarked to march and speak. Millions of people - and remember she started with only one, herself - my favorite picture of Greta, sitting alone outside of the Swedish Parliament building with one sign - now followed and supported by millions marching and shouting in the streets of national capitals around the planet. 

Greta Arrives in NYC, August, 2019

Millions of Marchers in cities around the globe

Climate Strike, September 20, 2019

Now, September 23, 2019 was the time to speak to the leaders and, it seemed, though probably it wasn’t the first time she realized, she saw quite clearly that she may as well be alone. Because, she realized that the throngs of marchers are the choir. The throngs of marchers are not polluting the planet. The men and women in front of her representing nations and corporations ARE POLLUTING THE PLANET and they are the ones who were not listening to her or to science or to anyone.

Greta the Great Lioness 

hissing and snarling

at the United Nations, September 23, 12019

Two articles recently appeared about the despair Greta must feel. These articles urged me to write today, as the authors were the only ones who seemed to see what I saw. From Smithsonian, reposted from 2013, “The Money Behind the Climate Deniers” by Colin Schultz, and from Truth Dig, September 23, 2019, “Saving the Planet Means Overthrowing the Ruling Elites" by Chris Hedges. These articles are about the powers that be, the powers out there, not only denying climate change, but contributing to it daily.

The Guardian reported, “In an impassioned speech (at the UN, September 23, 2019), Thunberg told those who hold office, ‘you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you?’ Greta snarled. “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, and yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing.’"

Scolding the world leaders, she cried out, "This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school, on the other side of the ocean.”

There were more strikes for Climate Change today, Friday, October 4, 2019. Greta herself will join activists in Iowa City and she is calling for more strikes, “Fridays for Future.” Next, she will move on to march in Chile.

I wondered why I was writing at all about climate change, burned out as I am. I’ve never been politically correct and I hate following a crowd. Possibly because I like the way Great (oops, I did it again)*, Greta had started - with diet. I’m sympathetic to this approach because I’ve been macrobiotic since 1974, 45 years. I’ve been climate friendly my whole life, as I was brought up in a traditional Italian household. Yes, we grew our own food and bought only from the North End and East Boston traditional markets. Greta changed her parents first, getting them to stop eating meat and to adopt better dietary and lifestyle habits. Here is where climate change will happen, and happen naturally. Those who eat well, live well. They do not take, they give.

I have no idea how to stop the greed of our current leaders: presidents, kings, prime ministers who are selling their land, their water and their people for a few pieces of silver. I only know how to go around and under them. Good food is getting harder to find. Real food is no longer as nutritious as it once was because of soil depletion and water and air pollution. Fake food, which is often the only food available to people, inundates our supermarkets and makes us sick. We may find ourselves sick and dying before we actually drown or burn up.

What do we do? We keep on. Our dollars speak loudly at the cash register. The millions who are marching represent voters and customers as well as future leaders. Plenty of people are out there visibly fighting with us, and invisibly striving and working.

Thank you, Greta, for all that you do. Greta the Great is no longer alone.

*These typos are absolutely genuine.

©Patricia Goodwin, 2019

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.

“STOP Eating the White Man’s Food”

Native-American Warrior Dance

I’m quoting. I’m quoting a Native-American young man who, upon visiting his cousin, saw that his cousin was suffering: he was overweight, sluggish, sick, depressed and feeling hopeless. He told his cousin, “You gotta stop eating the white man’s food! I did, and I got my life together. I’m feeling a lot better, clearer, stronger, more alive.”

No one should eat the White Man’s Food. What is the white man’s food? Red meat, processed meats, sugar drinks, artificial foods, fast foods, white flour baked goods, non-organic dairy, GMOs, chemicals, dyes, preservatives, trans fats, added salts and sugars.

I read this young man’s story in a comment. I believe in comments. Real ones, that is, not those turds dropped by trolls. Real, serious comments from real people who know something. Often, the people commenting know more than the author of the article itself. I call it “word-on-the-street,” to quote Christopher Walken in Suicide Kings, word-on-the-street is “Solid!”

I believe this young man’s story.

The reason I believe him is because I have not eaten the white man’s food for over 40 years. I’ve been macrobiotic for 45 years and counting. My diet is based on brown rice and vegetables with some fish, chicken and organic eggs. I’m not that strict, really. I enjoy a little scotch in the evenings, and a small dish of frozen yogurt. But, I am 67 years old, not on any medications, and doing pretty well.

Back to the Native-American man. What did he advise his cousin to eat? Whole grains, beans, vegetables, lots of vegetables, foods we can actually get, unlike the buffalo, which we nearly destroyed. If anyone wanted to eat buffalo, please remember you must consider what the buffalo is eating and where you live. Only people who live out of doors, in buffalo country, where the buffalo graze on clean land may eat buffalo. Wild game is not desirable unless you are living wild; it is very hard to balance game with our modern lifestyle, which tends to be on hardscape, streets, sidewalks, houses. This hardscape, and the stress of modern life, are why we are attracted to so much sugar - however, sugar kills.

Besides the buffalo, we have also nearly destroyed the corn, another traditional Native-American food. Almost all corn (and also soybeans) in the United States is Genetically Modified. Be very careful to eat only organic corn and soybeans!

I remember, and I have not been able to find him, another young man, not Native-American, who was, years ago, trying to help the Native-Americans to regain their native foods, especially beans which can be obtained or grown relatively easily. But, we live in the modern world, and people can now go to almost any store or natural foods co-op to buy good quality beans, whole grains and vegetables. I remember this young man’s open hand holding pinto beans, a bean marked with the reddish-brown spots of a pinto horse. I eat pinto beans, they’re sweet and creamy, very delicious.

I say white man’s food, but many African-Americans have also forgotten their traditional foods. They have turned to fast foods as a staple diet or to regular, American fare. However, African-American food is fantastically delicious! I grew up Italian, and very early got the impression that people who have suffered war or other deprivation, like slavery, have learned how to forage and make good food out of what other, more privileged people, consider weeds or undesirable parts of the animal. I grew up eating tripe and chicken feet and gizzards and dandelion greens, not necessarily in the same dish, but I was no stranger to native grasses and parts of the animal most cooks throw out. Maybe I never really ate the white man’s food. My mother railed, “Don’t eat anything from a factory!” She picked dandelion greens in vacant lots while the neighbors laughed at her. 

Native-Americans were taken from their native lands and marched to arid, hostile land over hundreds of miles along the Trail of Tears. Many died or sickened, and when they arrived, they had nothing. They were not allowed to leave the reservations or to get jobs. They were not allowed to speak in their native languages or teach their children the native dances. Have things changed? Yes and no. Native-Americans can now move freely, but, in this modern day, there are still more dead and missing among our Native-Americans than any other group. 

Whole grains cost very little and are simple to cook. Brown rice triples in volume when cooked and lasts for days in a bowl win the counter, covered with a sushi mat. An easy brown rice recipe follows this post, as does a basic recipe for beans, and a nutritious condiment called gomasio, made from roasted sesame seeds and sea salt to sprinkle on your cooked brown rice. 

I say white man’s food, but there’s no reason anyone should eat any of its poison. It’s not about race anyway, it’s about power. Power to the people. Take back your traditional foods. Take back your power! Everyone should learn to cook for themselves and their families. It’s the only way back to health. Remember.

Brown Rice

2 cups short grain brown rice (This is simply the best, highest quality brown rice.  Short grain is the strongest brown rice, good for strengthening our conditions,)

3 cups spring water (1 1/2 cups water to each cup of brown rice)

pinch sea salt

Wash brown rice in a strainer.  Put clean rice into a pan with a good strong base, like a Revereware pan because it will need to simmer for 45 minutes and you don't want the bottom to burn.

Measure 3 cups spring water, pour into pan with washed rice. 

Place pan on stove, turn flame up high until water boils, then turn down flame immediately until rice is gently simmering.  Then, cover tightly and let simmer for 45 minutes.

When you remove the cover, your rice should be fluffy and separated, perhaps slightly stuck to the bottom.  This is okay.  If "bottom rice" is golden in color, toasty looking, it is very delicious and tastes great added to your miso soup!

Don't worry if your brown rice isn't perfect on your first try!  Many people have to make several pots before they get it right!  Even if it's wrong, too mushy (Next time add a little less water!) too dry (Next time add a little more water!) you can eat the rice and it tastes great!

Beans

1 cup beans

2-3 cups water

Small piece of kombu sea vegetable (available at Whole Foods or Eden Foods online) Kombu is not necessary to cook beans, but it does help soften the beans and eliminates gas from the bean)

Wash beans in a strainer, you can work the beans a little with your hands to begin the softening process.

Place beans in pan, water to cover. Bring to a boil, simmer for 1-2 hours if using dry beans. Skim the foam from the top to eliminate gas from the beans.

You may also buy canned beans from a trustworthy source such as Whole Foods or Eden Foods. (I cannot recommend Goya beans as they are not organic and contain a lot of salt.) When I cook with canned beans, I add chopped onion and garlic sautéed in olive oil. Yum!

Gomasio

One quarter cup of unhulled sesame seeds contains 35% of our required calcium for the day.

To make gomasio, please wash about two cups of unhulled sesame seeds in a fine strainer until the water runs clear. Then, drain the water carefully by tilting the strainer and tossing the seeds from side to side in the strainer. You may let the strainer sit on a clean towel for a few minutes, occasionally tilting it to get more water out.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. When the seeds are almost dry, or completely dry, place them in a shallow glass pan in a 350 degree oven, turning them with a wooden spoon every 10 minutes or so. Seeds are done when they are a golden brown. Your kitchen will also be infused with a delicious aroma of roasted nuts!

Place hot seeds into a wooden bowl. To make gomasio, place approximately 3 TBS of sea salt to 2 cups seeds into a suribachi bowl or mortar bowl. If you don’t have either of these, you may use an ordinary wooden bowl. Crush the sea salt with a spiraling motion of the pestle. When sea salt is fine, add the seeds and crush them into the sea salt with a spiraling motion. Do not crush all the seeds, leave some whole for more flavor. 

You may use hot seeds for gomasio making, but let the gomasio cool before placing it into a glass jar for storage. If you wish to save some of the seeds for adding to salads, breads, cookies, etc., put some aside in a wooden bowl and let cool, stirring occasionally to speed up the process. Store these in a glass jar for future use.

Like any other time consuming process in the kitchen, gomasio making may be done efficiently around other activities during the day, and will not seem to take up much time as soon as you have a method down. Gomasio usually lasts a few weeks. Once you have tasted good homemade gomasio, you’ll always want some around!

©Patricia Goodwin, 2019

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse. Patricia has enjoyed the health and well-being of the macrobiotic diet for over 40 years. She has written many articles about health and the dangers of GMOs.

***Disclaimer: The information on this blog is not meant to substitute for medical care. Please consult your physician before beginning any new dietary guidelines. 

Deaf Ears – The Pendulum Swings

The pendulum, that motherfucker whose only purpose in life is to fuck its mother…

In a recent interview with the BBC, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg tried to console us with a calming speech: “We're not experiencing the best of times…A great man once said that the true symbol of the United States is not the bald eagle; it is the pendulum, and when the pendulum swings too far in one direction, it will go back…”

The pendulum, that motherfucker whose only purpose in life is to fuck its mother has swung away from everything we worked so hard to achieve and protect: women’s rights, human rights, health care, the environment, education, the arts - and, oh, a little thing called, freedom!

Justice Ginsburg went on to repeat the quote on the Statue of Liberty, becoming herself a kind of beacon, raising the torch to light our way, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” She talked about how tenuous those words were becoming, words we had always stood steadfastly by, rather like the Statue of Liberty herself.

She talked about the importance of a free press, using Watergate as an example of the kind of bravery we need to uncover the Watergate scandal and Nixon shenanigans. “That story might never have come out if we didn't have the free press that we do,” said Ginsburg. 

But, the 83-year-old jurist said the public's resistance to the new administration - on full display at last month's Women's March - has given her “reason to hope that we will see a better day.” She was right. In the days after the election, nearly 5,000 women from around the country registered to run for public office. Hope.

Back to the pendulum. 

I’ve stopped signing petitions. I stopped for one reason: They will fall on deaf ears. Perhaps not forever. But for right now, I don't see the point.

I’m not saying I was entirely hopeful when I signed petitions in the past. I knew there was a pretty good chance I was kidding myself that anyone on the receiving end of my concern was 1.) Going to give a damn, and 2.) Actually going to do something about it. But, it certainly felt that way – that there was a chance. We heard about petitions that had worked. Even one to a foreign nation that embarrassed the official to whom it was addressed so much, he initiated a change of policy. I’d seen video of volunteers from the National Resources Defense Council and The Organic Consumers Association delivering boxes and boxes of signatures to government officials. I knew one signature represented thousands to the government. These signatures were also presented in court cases and had swayed judges.

There was an excitement, a movement, a thrill of taking part in an effort to change things: to stop human trafficking; to stop abuse of human rights and animal rights; to stop U.S. Navy sonar experiments in the oceans from killing our whales and dolphins; to stop the killing of wolves, bears and buffalo; to stop Monsanto from poisoning our food; to stop fracking and drilling from poisoning our water; to stop the government from lowering organic standards and to stop the EPA from lowering pollution standards.

The EPA. My father was a foreman at a very old family stain company – staining wood, that is – in 1970 when the first EPA rep came to call. Daddy came home shaking his head, “They told me I could throw much more waste into the creek than I was already. I would never throw that much into the creek!” He was so disheartened. And, that was the EPA in its fresh-faced infancy.

I cannot sign petitions any more. I’m quite rattled by that. It’s been a black hole in my online life. The last petition that arrived in my email from my usual trusted orgs would have gone directly to the President.

What a joke! I won’t sign anything that’s going to the White House. What a waste of hope.

My advice to orgs wanting people to sign petitions: Address your petition to lower level officials – not the current President. Address your petitions to Senators, Representatives, Mayors, Governors, Directors, Board Members, any town or city official that must be elected.

In fact, I have conceived a direct mail campaign based on the Cultural Revolution’s dictum, “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” I’ve decided, and anyone may join me in this, the more the merrier, to begin a letter campaign to CEOs of major companies that might be heavy polluters of air and water if the EPA standards are lifted. I intend to appeal to their most human and practical qualities. I’ll request that they maintain their current clean air and water standards regardless of what the current government decides about the EPA. In fact, they may decide to tighten their standards. At the very least and most menial, changing nothing costs nothing.

UPDATE: 3/29/17 CEO of General Electric, Jeff Immelt is "calling on other companies to step up to fill the void that the administration is leaving behind,” as per an internal memo obtained by Politico.  Immelt threw down the climate change gauntlet: “Companies must be resilient and learn to adjust to political volatility all over the world. Companies must have their own ‘foreign policy’ and create technology and solutions that address local needs for our customers and society.” In another article, Colin Taylor of Occupy Democrats wrote: "Immelt went on to point out that innovation and investment into green technology is not only both environmentally prudent and profitable, but also a necessary evolution in today’s rapidly changing global economy."

Just what America needs! A truly benevolent, forward-thinking CEO! Thanks, Mr. Immelt!

 Let's not go back to this!

I will continue to donate to my most favored orgs: the National Resources Defense Council; the Organic Consumers Association; Polaris and The Wilderness Society – all faves because they are effective on both the national and the grass roots levels. I also like their civilized, intelligent methods. I won’t sign petitions with violent language. 

From now on, if I cannot sign and join in a petition, I’ll use my skills to write and speak, whether on this blog, on Facebook, or at poetry readings. My work has always carried my message, my mission, my faith. As the water protectors in North Dakota say, “My weapons are my heart and my words.” I shall write to protect organic standards. I shall write to protect people from slavery of all kinds. I shall write to teach people about achieving health through diet and lifestyle. I shall write to protect the environment. I shall be like Benjamin Franklin. I shall publish pamphlets if I must. I shall be like Supreme Justice Ruth Ginsburg. I shall not retire. I will never stop writing. My head will drop to the keyboard when I die. I shall be like F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I shall be like Tachia Sandoval, the woman in Colorado who used to have a clear, mountain spring running by her house and now, because of fracking, must travel miles several times a week to a water station where she uses her credit card to buy water.

Want to hear the irony? Fracking is no longer profitable. Solar, wind, and waterpower clean and sustainable sources are becoming easier, more efficient and cheaper to access than oil and gas. And, these renewable resources have more potential jobs on all levels for those concerned about jobs. That’s the good news. The bad news: Earthquakes. Many fracking wells have had to close down (good news) because of the powerful earthquakes caused by the holes and the trauma to the earth in the Southwest.

Why do oil companies and countries keep on with pipelines and drilling? There are many more pipelines to fight than the Dakota Access at Standing Rock  – here’s a list.

Oil is a dying industry, yet stubborn in its death throes. The Black Snake is not dead. But, it is dying.

Hope. Meanwhile, we write. And tell, and try to reach people.

To quote this brave woman, Tachia Sandoval, “If I can just make one person wake up, then I’m good.”

©PatriciaGoodwin, 2017

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest book is Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author.