Far flung tribes

January 14, 2007

NOTE: Images in this archived article have been removed.

Partly by accident I have been without a car for well over a year.

In the summer of 2005, about the same time Katrina was shutting down gulf production, I was stagnating in an office designing circuit protection equipment for the utility industry – a job that obviously wasn’t preparing me for things to come. As I described earlier, it was a bumpy road for me arriving at a functioning level of Peak Oil awareness. It is this awareness that constantly reminds me of the words of Musashi: “Do nothing of no use.”

Without much of a plan, I gave notice to my manager that September, and in true monastic fashion proceeded to divest myself of worldly possessions (except for my bike). Over the next nine months I would hang my hat at several small farms as part of a sustainable farming apprenticeship program. From a spiritual standpoint I could have continued living this way indefinitely, but one of the first rules of Peak Oil preparedness – Get out of debt – was haunting me. This drove my decision to return to engineering.

Then life took an abrupt detour. Last June I was days away from purchasing a car when I was involved in a motorcycle accident. Due to the fact that the other driver was at fault in the accident, I no longer have personal debt. Due to the fact that I was driving the motorcycle uninsured, I no longer have a driver’s license. Although I would not recommend forfeiting one’s license as a means of learning how to live without a car, it is an effective approach.

This has not been an experiment in pedestrian purism. Pragmatism is still the idea here; throughout this past fifteen months I have not turned down a ride when one was available. But one of my goals has been to minimize creating motor vehicle travel that would not have otherwise existed, similar to the rationale behind many car co-ops.

Several months ago I took up residence with my brother. He lives in the suburban inner ring of a Midwestern college town – Columbia, Missouri. This was once the stomping grounds of a great tribe, the Osage, and an area the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through on the Missouri River in 1804. The city often ranks high among places to live but unfortunately has committed to accelerated growth of the surrounding suburban communities in recent years.

The city funded expansion of its bussing system a short time ago, an expansion that was opposed by a newer neighborhood on this side of town, stating that it wasn’t needed. I have to disagree, not only for myself but on behalf of many others I have met on this new route. Post-accident, I had insufficient range-of-motion in my leg to ride a bicycle; access to public transit was crucial to my mobility in this new environment. But I was still some ways away from the nearest bus stop.

The main road to this development is a hilly, choked, two-lane highway with steep shoulders and no room for sidewalks. Some years ago it had served folks from the surrounding farms as they ambled on their way to the city center. It is now frequented by inhabitants of the local sprawl, bustling here and there and contractors hauling equipment to the newer outer developments. I briefly considered walking along this road as it is the shortest route, but personal safety dictated that I find another way.

What ensued was a suburban adventure through the tract housing that I regard as something like reverse exploration, a search for passage from this new and strange place to something older, familiar and more accessible. Along the way would be developments for 3500-plus square-foot homes just breaking ground, recently colonized communities where for-sale signs are already springing up and “old” housing that has been around maybe fifteen years.

After several days of advance and retreat, relying on a recent city street map which is already obsolete for this part of town and consultation with a gentleman who seemed somewhat lost in his own neighborhood, I finally plotted a course. In decent weather it is a brisk, fifty-minute walk from my door to the nearest grocery store where the new bus stop is located. The ride downtown on the Red Line is another twenty. Perhaps this sounds a bit silly to those who take easy motoring for granted but my first arrival by foot to the bus stop was no less than a moment of triumph.

Image Removed


A Reverse Explorer in Suburbanite Lands



Discovery of the bus stop has allowed me regular access to places such as the library and downtown businesses but I still must be choosy in scheduling. Going to town is now a bigger time and energy investment than just hopping in the car. And even though I recently began biking again, which cuts my time by two-thirds, weather is still a major factor in my decision. A few weeks ago I had to abort a trip mid-route due to a sudden storm.

Although riding the bus and maintaining a diminished eco-footprint gives me a “warm-fuzzy”, I do not delude myself. There are bigger concerns here than mass transit ridership. Having grown up not far away, I sometimes focus on how things will play out in this area as we transition away from energy abundance. It appears that local politicians and planners and the vast majority of local residents are clueless regarding the coming energy scarcity and the socioeconomic disruption it implies.

But something happened to me a few weeks ago that is encouraging. While talking to Rural Sociology faculty on the local campus, the topic of Peak Oil – unsolicited by me – was introduced. This is the first time in two and a half years that I wasn’t the one to bring it up. Not everyone here is sleepwalking into the future – I am not alone.

The development ringing the city suggests clans of a vast tribe. If they had a common name maybe it would be ‘Suburbanites’. They have become the largest tribe in this area, much like the Osage of two and a half centuries ago. The Suburbanites have defined their culture around the automobile much as early Eurasian nomads and later Native American tribes defined their culture around the horse. But that is where the tribal similarities between new and old fade. The Osage recognized deep interdependent relationships with one another and the land through their ceremony and language. Suburbanite tribal members seem estranged from one another and largely apathetic towards the land.

Eventually, the Osage of this area – reduced in numbers by disease and warfare – were moved from their ancestral lands to a reservation in Kansas and finally to one in Oklahoma. During the early twentieth century, oil production on the reservation transformed the Osage Nation into one of the wealthiest populations in the world. What resulted was a time in which many Osage were murdered for their land and money.

As I return to Suburbanite lands after spending the day in town, I feel like a stranger, a little like Lewis and Clark might have felt among the far flung tribes they met on their travels. I wonder if the Corps of Discovery explorers speculated about the future of the great Osage as they passed through this area so many years ago. By the time they arrived here the Osage were in the early stages of decline.

It will be time to move again soon. I am not going far this time, just to the downtown area five miles east of here. I have met members of a different sort of tribe there. Their ways are older and familiar, their language intuitive. Their shared beliefs are of the notion that people and place matter and that we are all ultimately dependent on the land – beliefs that will bide well in the future. I have seen this tribe before in other places. It is a scattered people with small clans in practically every locale. There has been resurgence in its numbers as of late.

I think I will join this tribe and practice their ways. Perhaps the end of all my exploring, as T.S. Eliot suggests, will indeed be to arrive where I started and know the place for the first time.