Incase you have been wondering, "Why no post lately?".....well I have been working overtime in order to take a month-long sailing adventure to the Bahamas. I leave in a week and hope to meet some new strangers along the way! In the meanwhile I encourage you to do the same!
A month ago, twenty-five-year-old Scott left Bardstown, Kentucky for the first time in his life and traveled to Texas to work as a freelance construction worker. Scott's girlfriend, who is pregnant with twins, lives in Texas. The two met several months ago when she visited Kentucky. "She is something else, now. She has blonde hair, blue eyes and is good natured and kindhearted like myself", says Scott of his girlfriend. He is really excited to be a father, but is fearful of getting married. He certainly did not enjoy his experience in Texas and has no desire to return. The trip confirmed that he is a true Kentuckian, in love with the culture and people of the region. After all, Scott has spent his whole life in Bardstown where he was raised by his grandparents after both his parents died of cancer when he was five. He loves his grandmother and says he wouldn't take a million dollars for her or the spicy spaghetti she makes.
Wishing to return to Kentucky from Texas, Scott purchased a one-way greyhound ticket home. However while leaving a store on his way out of town, a guy robbed Scott at knife-point and took all the money he had made in Texas. By the time he arrived at the greyhound bus station in Kentucky, Scott had no other option but to walk the rest of the way home.
This is where my friend Jill and I first spotted Scott, on a sunny spring Saturday afternoon walking down the side of a quiet highway, lugging his suitcase with a sideways tilt. We pulled up to him in our car, with the windows rolled down, and I ask Scott what was in his suitcase. "Clothes", he answered. Jill and I offered Scott a ride back to Bardstown in exchange that he would allow Jill to photograph him along the way. Scott was not expecting a photo shoot with two random girls to finish his journey home. However, he did say that this was the most adventurous thing he has ever done and that we were the weirdest people he had ever met. We dropped him off at a gas station across the street from his home and I waved and took one last picture of him as he walked away.
This is Colonel Don Decker, a Kentucky Colonel, who for the past three years has been the host at T.G.I. Fridays restaurant on Fourth Street Live in downtown Louisville. Don owns and wears a variety of different color traditional colonel tuxedos and ruffled shirts that he adorns with honorary medallions. He admits that his outfits are out of style for today, but comfortably says, "I am out of style too". Don's attire is, and at the same time, isn’t a costume. He would not wear his tuxedo into a business meeting, but would and does wear it around town. In fact, he owned all of his colonel tuxedos before he even started hosting at T.G.I. Fridays on Fourth Street Live.
Don, whose mother was a dancer, was raised in the entertainment business and began in Vaudeville dance at the age of three. He can act, dance and sing, and has worked in various phases of the entertainment industry throughout his life. He is most proud of his nightclub and movie performances, which include appearances in the 1960’s hits Can Can and Li’l Abner. As a child, Don dreamed of being on Broadway. "I went through New York, but quickly. I never did what was necessary to get on Broadway.... that's a real struggle”, he explains.
For many years, Don was also a bails bondsman in Florida. When he retired he moved to Louisville and found the job at T.G.I. Fridays a perfect way to supplement his social security. “I enjoy meeting people, plus I am getting old and if I don't do something, I would just sit in my chair and think, what, am I, waiting to die?"
Ten years ago, Don completed his first novel, Forfeiture, a story about a man named Danny Duncan, who shares many similar experiences as Don, and winds up robbing a bank. “A lot of people think I am Danny Duncan, or we are one in the same. And they might be right, I am not going to say one way or the other,” Don says with a smile.
Don enjoys his job at T.G.I. Fridays. On an average day between ten and twenty people ask to have their photograph taken with him. Don just happens to look a lot like Kentucky Fried Chicken's founder, Colonel Sanders. But he says it is not intentional and he does not sell chicken! Don believes that he is doing something unique on Forth Street Live, by attempting to create a greater since of hospitality.
Local Skaters Bank Drive Thru Cumberland, Kentucky
Jonathan, Corey, Eric and a few other skater friends are showing off skateboard tricks at a closed bank drive-thru in Cumberland, Kentucky. The skaters are a mixture of middle school and high school students who all grew up together in Cumberland, a town with a population of under 3000. Eric, who wears a loosely tied sideways bandana, says that the police are always hassling them when they skate on public places. In fact, today, they have already been kicked off the bank property four times.
Jonathan, Corey and Eric started skateboarding because they were bored and tired of sitting on their couches. Corey explains, “I said, man, we don’t want to get fat, we got to get ourselves something to do.” After discovering skating on satellite television during the X Games and thinking it was cool, the boys rented the skate movie, The Lords of Dogtown, and were hooked. Their parents don’t mind that they skate, but they do mind that the boys won't get haircuts. The skaters consider themselves "top dogs", and like listening to rap, especially Fifty Cent and Snoop Dog. Most of them have never left Cumberland but their hopes are to be in a large city one day to enjoy a real skate park.
Haley, an eighth grader, is enjoying a Sunday afternoon four-wheel ride alongside an old railroad track in Benham, Kentucky, originally a coal mining camp. According to Haley everyone in Benham owns and rides a four-wheeler. Today she is riding her fathers. Four-wheel trails exist throughout the mountains of Eastern Kentucky in areas abandoned by coal mining. Many towns have started promoting their trails to tourist as a form of economic recovery. Haley says that there is not much to do in Benham. Besides four-wheeling, she spends time playing softball. Haley dreams of becoming a Meteorologist one day in a city much larger than Benham, Kentucky.
Sunday Shooting Competition Bell County, Eastern Kentucky
Ben Barney, Bill Wilder, Charles Ranghard and Dale Snowden along with a couple of other friends hold shooting competitions every Sunday in their hometown of Bell County, which is located in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky. The men say that there are few job opportunities in their county that primarily produces coal. Their local elementary school even closed down last year, due to lack of funds, and their children, as young as four years old travel on a bus for an hour to attend school. The men, who are all hunters, say that guns have been apart of their lives and culture since they were children. There is not much to do in their dry town so this provides a good source of entertainment. Ben explains, “Some weekends this place is packed and we often bring our kids out. The fellow with the closest shot to the x wins his wife a turkey or a ham.”
After the first round. Seeing who shot closest to the center of the X.
Sharon Old Louisville, Kentucky Sharon is getting into the Christmas spirit by decorating the outside of her home. She enjoys going way out with decorations and usually picks a new theme each year . This year's theme is snowman and white lights. Christmas is Sharon's favorite holiday of the year, " I love the decorations and it's a pretty time, happy and joyful". Christmas also happens to be her mother's birthday, a time for family celebration. Sharon works at Dillards, a department store in the mall, and really loves her job because it is in full swing during the Holiday season. People often stop their cars, or holler out their windows to compliment Sharon on her decorations. As I was leaving a car pulled up and two men and a young boy asked if I would take their picture in front of Sharon's candy canes.
Bruce New Albany, IN Bruce lives in New Albany, Indiana, a place where people are not afraid to be unique and elaborate with their Christmas decorations. Dark on a Friday evening, I found Bruce outside tending to his burnt-out Christmas lights as a gardner might tend to a cherished garden. Bruce has a giant snow globe in his yard, homemade globe lights in his trees, reindeer and Santa on his roof and he even has turned his front window into a Christmas display for passerby's to come view.
Random House New Albany, Indiana Looks like Rudolf took a wrong turn?
The Doll House New Albany, IN I love this house. These people brought out the a variety of Santa's, stuffed animals, and even their doll collection to decorate for the holidays!
On a rainy December evening at a strip mall, Wayne stands outside a Toys 'R' Us playing Christmas carols with a tenor saxophone. Wayne makes his living as a street performer and has been playing at this location during the holiday season for the past seven years. He enjoys playing his sax outside the toy store, although quite often he is harassed by the police and property owners who think he is sleazy. He says, "Like everything else, when you have something good going, something bad always steps in." Wayne has found that the store management and customers who shop there don't mind because he helps bring about the season. "When I started playing on the street, I looked for areas with a lot of foot traffic, and as it got colder, I had to find somewhere people often went, so I thought it’s Christmas time, toys, you know and put the two together." Wayne says that Louisville is a pretty bad place for street performers. He planned on moving to San Francisco, where his profession is more welcomed, but says he is stuck here because he takes care of his mother, who is ill and has no legs. "On the one hand, I am glad to be with her, but on the other hand I miss out on a lot of opportunities." Wayne has met street performers from all over including New Orleans, New York, Europe, and says that they make a lot more money and are better received than in Louisville.
Wayne did not grow up thinking that he would ever become a street performer or musician. In fact, he did not start playing music until his late twenties. When he was in high school, his dreams were set on becoming a professional football player, but things just did not work out in his favor. Back in 1998, when Wayne was unemployed and down on his luck, he was arrested for a DUI. It was summertime and he needed to make some fast cash in order to pay for alcohol classes and lawyer fees. He picked up his trombone, and started playing outside a coffee shop, hoping to make at least twenty dollars that day. He ended up making fifty and was amazed. Winn Dixie, a local grocery store at the time, became his "hot spot" until a jewelry store in the same strip mall kick him off the property. Now, years later Wayne says that he is a little disenchanted by street performing and would rather play on the inside with a band. He loves Jazz, Big Band, Broadway music and Tony Bennett -- all music that is not native or commonly played in Louisville or Kentucky. Although he is not looking forward to the day his mother passes, he does look forward to moving on elsewhere.
Seven-year-old Haley and her grandfather, Bill, are walking through Central Park in Old Louisville on an unusually warm, sunny winter day with a metal detector and small shovel. Bill and Haley are treasure hunting, hoping to find a little piece of history. "We are looking for old coins and bits of metal that might tell us a little bit about what people did a hundred years ago", he explains. Bill loves history and has owned a metal detector for the past twenty years. He likes walking with the detector because it motivates him to get outside, while at the same time participate in something interesting.
Bill says he and Haley have found old silver coins, Indian head pins, quarters, not very many nickels, and a lot of pennies. Their biggest find so far was a quarter from 1900 that was buried eight inches underground. Bill says he has yet to find a silver or half dollar, but will keep looking until he does. Haley once found a little diamond earring on the ground and Bill proudly adds, “She didn’t even have a machine!”
Bill likes to visit old homesteads, farms and houses that have been torn down or abandoned with his metal detector. Any place he adds where he might find a Civil War battle relic or something similar. Although Haley likes history, her biggest interest is in nature. She came along with Bill today hoping to see two big owls in an Oak Tree that were spotted the other day. "I’m in first grade, and my teacher told me that if you see the owls in two days and then not again they have to have babies", Haley explains. "In other words they are going to have babies if you haven’t seen them", further explains Bill. Bill says Haley is excellent in school and can read, write and count up too three hundred. When asked what she wants to be when she grows up Haley says, " I want to be a veterinarian and cheerleader, but I’m not sure which one". Bill chuckles. Bill, himself, has been a musician for the past forty years and started playing the drums, initially with sticks on boxes after hearing the Beatles for the first time. For several years he played drums in a group around town called Dr. Don and the Love Dogs.
Haley is proud of her grandfather and has seen many of his metal treasures and even saw him perform live with his band once. Their mutual love of history, nature and treasure seeking make the duo a perfect match on this warm winter day.
Nick, who works at a children's portrait studio in the mall, is standing in line at the Chinese Gourmet Express in the food court dressed up as a caveman. People are turning their heads, pointing and staring at him as he waits his turn. Nick is dressed-up today to entertain children and be a little different by getting out of his standard work outfit. As a full-time theology student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Nick wants to spread the good news of Jesus Christ to various parts of the world by becoming a missionary. He is especially interested in traveling to Asia and Africa, but is willing to go wherever God leads him. When asked what the good news was Nick answered, "The good word is the news that Jesus Christ came down to the earth, lived the perfect life and saved us from our sins." Nick believes that many people have lost hope in today’s "fallen world". But he says that as long as you believe and trust in your heart that Jesus is Lord, one can truly proceed knowing that there is hope. However, Nick does believe that it is inevitable the world will end. He explains, "In Revelations it states that God is going to destroy the earth with fire and those who are not saved aren't going to get caught up with him. So for those who are saved, we are in the clearing. I am not for sure when the end will happen, but my own personal belief is that we are getting closer every day just by how the world is turning out." Despite believing the world will soon end, Nick still actively makes an effort to better the world while he is still here on earth. For example, he recycles and is concerned about the environment. After all he is from Sassafras, Kentucky -- a place where the water is so clean, you can drink it straight from the pond. Nick enjoys making people laugh, so he doesn’t mind that people are laughing at him as he walks through the mall back to his job. When asked if the caveman outfit made him feel stronger, he replied, "Well, I am caring three drinks and I never really do that...so sure."
This is Chase, and today he is greeting people as they enter the Abercrombie and Fitch store dressed in a nice, warm winter jacket, which is open to display his bare, muscular, shiny chest. Behind him hangs a gigantic framed photograph of an Abercrombie model who is dressed and posed in a similar way as Chase. About a year ago, Chase moved to Louisville to attend college and started working at the Abercrombie store. One day his coworkers saw him with his shirt off, took a picture, and sent it to the Abercrombie Headquarters who approved for him to do this particular promotion. Last year around Christmas time, Chase went bare-chested for the first time as people paid money for charity to have their pictures taken with him. Chase usually tries to train before a bare-chest-promotion, but was recently sick and has not made it to the gym much lately. Today he feels confident, but then again he says he feels confident all the time. "People stare at me, some people give me dirty looks, some people smile," he says. So far no one has approached him for a date, but last year on Valentines Day, a little girl asked if he would be her valentine. Sometimes old women like to come up to him and give him a pinch too. Chase has become somewhat of a local celebrity and people often recognize him outside of the mall. When he's not at work, Chase never wears his jacket without lots of layers, but he does not mind the look in the store. When asked how he felt standing next to the photograph of the Abercrombie Model, Chase shrugged, titled his head, smirked and exhaled, "Ahhhh, he's nothing".
This is Tim, and he has been a Tow-Truck Operator in Louisville, Kentucky for the past ten years. Before driving a tow truck, Tim worked in a factory -- a job he despised due to its routine nature and indoor confinement. As a Tow-Truck driver, Tim rarely gets bored because the job is mobile and always unpredictable. "You never know what your next run is going to be. You might go down the street hooking a guy up or you might be a mile back in the woods." Tim’s company offers both roadside assistance and vehicle impoundment. His favorite parts of the job are meeting new people daily and helping them out when their vehicle has broken down.
Tim admits that the main drawback of his job is the irregular hours. He is on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and only receives every other weekend off. Each day he works 8am to 6pm from the office and then goes home to have dinner with his wife and kids. But, as soon as the phones rings, Tim gets right back in his truck and heads to work. "Most of the time whenever you got something planned, it never fails that the phone will ring." When asked about the most awkward time he has been interrupted by a work call, Tim laughs and says, “ You don’t want to know what I was doing..."
Typically, most wives would get upset with Tim’s unpredictable work schedule. However, Tim's wife understands because she too works for the Tow Truck Company as a Dispatcher. He likes working with his wife, but sometimes gets frustrated because if she doesn’t work, he usually has to. The few days that Tim does get off, he enjoys driving racecars and spending as much time as possible with his children. He also reads "Tow Times", a magazine that keeps him informed on the latest happenings in the industry.
Tim says that, often, Tow-Truck drivers get a bad reputation because they are under contract to tow illegally parked cars. People constantly yell and take their frustration out on him, when their vehicle has been towed. Tim's approach is to not argue back and always explain that he is simply doing his job. “I know that people get pissed off every time we take their car, but they just parked in the wrong spot.” Tim says that even right now, two of his buddy’s cars are sitting in his impoundment lot. “I have to uphold my contract”, says Tim, "there is nothing that I an do."
One of his funniest Tow-Truck experiences happened a couple years ago while impounding vehicles at Phoenix Hill, a local bar in Louisville. Tim was in the process of towing a van when he found the owner drunk and asleep in the back. Tim and his partner had to remove him from the van and leave him in the parking lot. While picking up his van, the man told Tim that he woke up the next day confused and laying in the parking lot.
When asked whether Tim foresaw himself working as a Tow-Truck Operator for the rest of his life he said, "Well I am thirty six years old now, so I don't really think I'll be getting a new job anytime soon."
Laurel Fleury is a twenty-seven-year-old Fire Poi performance artist in Louisville, Kentucky. Fire Poi is a traditional form of juggling involving Kevlar balls that are connected to a chain, dipped into lamp oil or gasoline and set on fire. Laurel performs mostly at art happenings, birthdays and special events. Each performance last between three to five minutes and is accompanied by a song of her choice. Although it is typical for fire artists to dance to hard-core music or soft Celtic music, Laurel prefers Arabic, African or Latino music. She admits to also having a weakness for Joan Jett. Laurel's boyfriend Pete, who recently had his second open-heart surgery, is also a Fire Poi artist. They often spend time together practicing their performances in the park. A fire extinguisher is always at hand.
Laurel was immediately attracted to the craft of Fire Poi after watching a performance at a gallery hop in North Carolina a few years ago. “It was like the moment that you light a match. That’s how I felt. That little match inside of me lit up.” Laurel wanted that feeling everyday, so she moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina and began to surround herself with fire artists. At first she became their safety person, which allowed her to watch and study different fire art techniques. As soon as she felt comfortable, Laurel lit up and began to practice Fire Poi on her own.
Fire has been a part of Laurel's life since she was a child. Raised by hippies, she spent the first three years of her life living in a tent in South Carolina, while her father, a carpenter, built the family home. She remembers sitting around the campfire, as her mother, also an artist, skinned and cooked the food her father had hunted in the woods. After her father finished one room of their house, they moved in and used a small camping stove in which to cook. When Laurel was four, she walked too close to the stove and her polyester nightgown lit on fire, badly burning her thigh. Although the incident caused a permanent scar, Laurel never became afraid of fire.
Pete says that Fire Poi fits Laurel's personality because she is extremely unique and different from everyone else. Laurel, like the fire, does not want to be controlled. “The flame and I have something in common. We like to just live, wiggle and breath and when we're done, we're done”, she explains. Laurel also practices telekinesis, the movement of fire with the mind. “I try to make the flames get bigger or to move a certain way, “ she explains. Because she performs Fire Poi in the dark, Laurel has to rely on her sense of balance while performing. She tries to relax, concentrate and let the music guide her movement.
Aside from performing and teaching Fire Poi, Laurel supplements her income by teaching art, designing websites, and selling her paintings, jewelry, clothing and photography. Laurel's parents, who are now divorced, have changed a considerable amount since the days of her youth. They worry and flat out disdain that Laurel is attempting to be a full-time artist. Her father, who used to fish with a bamboo stick and string in canoe, is now remarried and owns an expensive boat with fancy fishing rods. “He is just totally different, and keeps telling me that I should get a government job, because then I would be completely financially secure. And I am like, who are you dad?” says Laurel. Her mother, who used to run around in a swimming suit covered in dirt, is now what Laurel considers, "high maintenance". She gets her nails done every week, is a bit obsessive about anti-aging creams, and perhaps jokingly or not, says she wants to find a rich man that will support her in old age.
Once Laurel’s father watched her perform Fire Poi. Although he found it interesting, he does not believe that she can, nor should try, to make it her career. Laurel, on the other hand, is willing to be poor and go through rough times in order to pursue her true passion, -- art. As an artist of this nature she states, " You have to be able to work even harder than you would if you worked for someone else. You have to push and promote yourself, because no one else will".
To view more of Laurel's art visit her website at http://www.laurelfleury.com/
(Sorry the Video is Sideways Folks! Still working on that one......)
In 2003, Carl left South Dakota on a bicycle with all of his possessions packed in a small, attached wagon. Today he continues to travel on his bike throughout the United States, working mostly as a drywall finisher and painter, when he can find it. Carl has no telephone, mailing address, nor does he ever stay in one place for too long. The only way to find him is if you happen to run across him on the side of any given American road. Today, Carl is on his way to Bardstown, Kentucky to visit his only child, a 19-year-old son.
For years, Carl hitchhiked to get around, but as the late 1980's and 90's approached, hitchhiking became almost impossible to do. "I used to think people were scared, but now I think it's that they just don't care," says Carl. "They probably look at me on the side of the road, with my thumb sticking out, and think that I am a bum. They don't realize that I am just trying to get from one place to the next, just like everyone else." In 2001, Carl hitchhiked for the last time, as it took him over six months to get from Arizona to South Dakota. Given that the same trip in the late 1970's would have taken only three or four weeks, Carl decided that he needed an alternative means of transportation. With rising gas costs and global warming looming, he chose a bicycle. In a way, Carl says that riding a bike is his way of telling the government, "Hey, I don't need your oil".
Throughout his life, Carl has lived as a vagabond. He was born in Walla, Walla Washington and moved to Texas when he was fourteen with his mother, stepfather, two younger brothers and sister. Not long after the move, his mother abandoned the family, leaving the children behind with their stepfather. Carl can only speculate why she left, "Maybe it was because of the crap I was getting into, skipping school, not caring, and the way that my step dad was treating her". A year later his mother died and his stepfather, wanting nothing to do with the children, placed the entire family into foster care. Being that Carl was fifteen, he felt old enough to take control of his own destiny. So he did the proverbial, run away and joined the carnival. "I was the smart one and was like, 'I am not going to live somewhere where somebody cares nothing more for me than the food stamps and extra checks,'" he explains. At first, Carl was the gopher for carnival workers; running errands, grabbing tools, etc. Eventually as he got older, he began operating his own booth. The carnival lifestyle was conducive to Carl's disposition, and he enjoyed constantly traveling while meeting new and interesting people. It allowed him to finally start living life the way he thought it should be lived.
As Carl entered his twenties, he truly believed that he was taking a stand with his unique lifestyle. "I thought, hey, I am a free person, I can do what I want, when I want, as long as I am not hurting anyone else, as America was supposed to be," he exclaimed. But the day he turned thirty, Carl's attitude suddenly changed. He started believing that no matter what he did with his life, somebody else was always going to have a different opinion of him, and then someone else would have different opinion from that one as well. And because of this pattern, he started to feel that all people could only do what they wanted to do, within the boundaries of what society and the government wants us to do. He felt persecuted for his freedom.
Today, in general, most people look at Carl, who is now forty-four, as if he were a homeless bum. But to Carl, his bike is home. He decorates it the same way that a person would decorate their house. His most important possessions, which are his CD's, clothes, blankets, a sleeping bag, tent, radio, and fishing pole are carefully stowed away in the wagon. While his bicycle baskets act as a garage, - holding tools, ropes and various other hardware devices. On the back of his wagon hangs a large hand-painted sign that reads, "Trust Jesus", in addition to the three American flags he rescued from the ground that now fly from a tall pole. His elongated handlebars are covered with sentimental jewelry, key chains, and knickknacks that people have given him along the way. He even has a blue bicycle horn. The bike keeps Carl in good shape; his legs are strong, as well as his hands.
Carl says that he is like most people and is just looking for a way to get from one day to the next. "I'm not out to get rich because when you die, you can't take it with you. There is no sense in it." Carl thinks that some folks would consider him an extremely strong person for the way he lives, but others would call him lazy because he doesn't hold down a job very long, own a car, or live in a big house. The truth is that Carl is a 'live-for-the-moment' type person. When he sees something he wants to do, he simply does it. "I have been to the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, to the Smokey Mountains and all three oceans, and have seen a lot of things in this country that a lot of Americans have never seen. " With limited funds, Carl has come to realize that in order to get from one place to the next, nobody is going to help him, unless he does it himself.
Carl admits that he often gets sad. "I am a people person and sometimes when I get around people, they shun me, turn their nose up at me because of the way I look or live my life, and it hurts my feelings." He doesn't understand why people cannot just get along and accept the differences in each other. "Just because I have a funny beard, no hair, tattoos, and painted finger nails doesn't' mean that I am any different from you. We all come from the same place, Mother Earth," he adds. He knows people all over the United States too. And though he wouldn't exactly call them his best friends due to the infrequency of his seeing them, when he does come into town, most are more than willing to help him out, knowing he won't be staying long. Carl sees himself as a very kind and generous person who enjoys giving. "I have been without and therefore have a lot of compassion for people," he affirms. After Hurricane Katrina last year, he even traveled down to Louisiana on his bike to aid in the rebuilding.
Oftentimes, Carl encounters young people who are impressed and want to mimic his lifestyle. But he is quick to tell them, "No, you don't want to live like me. Stay in school. Get a strong education. That way when you want to say, 'the hell with society, I'm living my life the way I want too', you'll have something to fall on when you get into a situation where you just can't do no more." Carl, who has little formal education, says that education is an essential resource in today's society. He believes that kids need to get smart before they get adventurous. "Living out here, like I do, it's hard, people don't care about you." He often can't even afford to eat and has learned to eat like the Indians did, hunting and gathering his own food, amidst a modern day landscape.
Carl doesn't believe himself wise, because, as he would postulate, a man who calls himself wise is actually a fool. But like most people, he admits he has his own opinions about the way we should live life, and how our government has gone wrong. On the average though, he typically just keeps his thoughts to himself, as he feels that no one really cares to listen.
One of Carl's favorite key chains is engraved with his favorite acronym, WWJD, or "What Would Jesus Do." Carl often thinks about that; what would Jesus think or say if he saw him riding down the road on his bicycle next to all these Americans driving SUV's, starring at him like he is insane? He thinks that Jesus would polish his outlook and give him a different way of reacting to the situation, and turn the other cheek when those people scold or look down on him. After all, he realizes most people just don't know any better, and that people are conditioned based on the way they are raised.
After talking, Carl began to realize that just maybe he was still that free-spirited twenty-year-old, taking a stand, living freely and giving the average American something to think about. He'd like to think so, anyway.
WHAT DOES CARL THINK?
Riding his bike around the country has given Carl the opportunity to observe our land closely. He believes that as intelligent inhabitants of this earth, we should be able to do something more about protecting it. "We were created from Earth and when we die, we go back to it. And when I die I don't want to be buried in a big pile of garbage somewhere. I want to be made into dust, not cockroach food, mixed with the garbage of humanity." Carl sees more and more constructions of highways, clustered cookie-cutter homes, landfills and deforestation. "The way humanity is treating this world is like cancer. It chips away at the a spot, until there's nothing in it, and then spreads to another place." He's not amused by the idea that only a handful of people own the majority of the land in this country. When he finds a nice place to set up a tent, or a pear tree to pick from, the owner of that land usually comes out and yells at him, or calls the police. "God gave us this earth to live on, and to coexist with, not to own it," explains Carl.
Carl has looked deeply at the state of our country and sees that Americans desperately need help. He gets frustrated when he reads about people like Angelina Jolie helping children in other countries, because he sees the same atrocities happening here. Carl has met tons of people who are homeless, and who grew up that way, never really knowing what it was to have a home. "They go to school and when they come home they go to a shelter. And they live their life in that shelter, because the economy is so bad that each parent has to work two or three jobs just to make enough money for the gas and electricity." Plainly, Carl does not think that America is as great as it once was.
Carl believes that this country could use a new barter system. For example, if you cut my trees, then I will do your electrical work. Americans have become so reliant on the green dollar that money has almost replaced God. He would like to see people learn how to quit hating; for countries to demolish all guns and weapons of mass-destruction; and for people to start caring. When they see someone who is down on their luck, instead of yelling at them to get a job, help them GET a job. "Even though I have a lot of animosity towards our government, the way they run things and the way people treat this land, it is a great land," he says. But in order for it to remain great, he concedes we must take a stand and start caring.
