I clicked on a Facebook link to a story about which I am unable to recall. This led to another link. Click. A story about Doug Peacock - an eco-activist of the southwest. In this rather long story is the mention that Peacock served as the basis for one of the more colorful characters of American literature, George Washington Hayduke, a member of The Monkey Wrench Gang whose own version of anarchy was about 'opposition to the organized violence of the state' (that's Tolstoy) with specific targets being developers, oil speculators, strip miners, and in general, any industry that threatened their wish that the southwest "Keep it like it was."
The story begins at the end. A bridge over the Colorado River connecting Utah and Arizona is set for a grand opening, but suddenly it starts to sway sending those in attendance scampering toward either end before collapsing.
Four oddballs: Dr. A.K. Sarvis is a widowed general surgeon in Albuquerque. Bonnie Abbzug is a Jewish transplant from NY to NM who, after various attempts at gainful employment, now works in the Dr. Sarvis' front office, splits time between her geodesic dome and with the good doctor; he's around 50, she's 28. Seldom Seen Smith, a Mormon with three wives, runs float trips down the various rivers. George Hayduke is a Vietnam vet. A medic who was also a POW for 14 months. He sort of works for Seldom Seen. Doc has been promising Bonnie a river trip for months and finally books an outing with Seldom Seen Smith.
Over the course of the next few nights around the campfire, well lit with beer and weed, they bond on their belief that there are so many people on the rivers because there are too damn many people everywhere else and the victim is the wilderness. "The wilderness once offered men a plausible way of life. Now it a psychiatric refuge. Once there is no wilderness, there will be no place to go. The madness becomes universal and the universe goes mad." So sayeth the Doc.
So they form a loose gang to perpetuate mischief. Target no people or workers, but do what's necessary to slow down the pace of development. "Always pull up survey stakes. That's the first general order in the monkey wrench business. Always pull up survey stakes."
Add to that the draining of lubricants from earth movers, pouring sand and sugar into fuel tanks, cutting communication lines, burning down billboards, driving Caterpillar trucks over ledges to tumble down into canyons, bulldozing worksite offices, sabotaging automated rail lines transporting coal, damaging bridges just enough. Their penultimate target: The Glen Canyon Dam. A pork-laced public works project that even one of the prime supporters (Barry Goldwater) later said was a mistake.
Interesting how a couple clicks resulted in an interlibrary loan request for this fascinating 1975 book and author, who I come to find out, is mentioned in the same breath as Thoreau and Muir. Also learned that this book served as a sort of launch pad for future eco-activists, notably EarthFirst. Think of The Monkey Wrench Gang as a primer to civil disobedience designed to halt the mad-dash industrialization of the southwest - hell, east of the Mississippi is already a lost cause so a stand has to be taken in the desert southwest.
Abbey's history is well documented in places like Wikipedia. How he left Pennsylvania to hitchhike west and witness what was happening in his beloved Four Corners region of the US. While the book is presented as a fictional narrative, the events described apparently actually happened. Did Abbey really want to blow up the Glen Canyon Dam? No, "but if someone else wanted to do it, I'd be there holding the flashlight." Abbey presents a proactive defense of the wilderness. The book is not intended for lecture halls or learned analysis. Rather, it's audience is hunkered in tents and makeshift shelters on isolated trails and campsites planning ways to "Keep it like it was."
East Coast Don
No comments:
Post a Comment