Wednesday, March 22, 2006
My Friend Martin
My friend Martin was a Shakespearian actor from London, who’d once done a stint as a journalist in Kenya, photographed Joe Cocker for one of his album covers, and edited an oil industry magazine in Alberta, Canada.
When I met him, he was teaching environmental education to grade schoolers in British Columbia out of a science lab trailer he and his associates hauled around behind an old pickup, and sometimes shipped by rail to remote, snow-bound school districts in the north. Science teachers, and the kids, loved Martin and his critter outfits they donned before following him out to ponds to collect bugs and scum to look at under televised microscopes in the marvelous trailer painted to look like a big frog.
Seeing how this freelance merriment was so popular in the K-12s adjacent to metropolitan Vancouver, Martin and his friends frequently escorted inquisitive tykes through a local bog loaded with birds and fish and bugs and flora found little where else. An idyllic situation.
Then, one day, an industrial waste management company proposed said bog as an ideal location to dump said waste, and attempted—with political support—to railroad through said proposal sans public hearing and son, undoubtedly, more than a little bribery. Alas, it was not to be so easy, for Martin and friends knew how to hold a public hearing. They’d attended many such gatherings. In fact, as actors, they knew how to produce one.
And so it was one Saturday afternoon at the local bingo hall, neighbors and kids, parents and reporters, actors and bugs, all filled the room designated in public notices the week before, in anticipation of glimpsing the villains and giving them a piece of their minds.
Martin and cast played their parts so well, in fact, that not only did the usually-reserved good neighbors raise their voices in contempt at offers for future ball fields on top of the eventually-capped industrial waste, but continued to express their wrath at said government agencies the following Monday, bewildering bureaucrats far and near with their animosity. And thus, was the bog preserved, for kids and bugs yet to emerge from the primal ooze, by a bunch of merry pranksters, led by the illustrious actor born in the countryside where fair William once strolled.
When I met him, he was teaching environmental education to grade schoolers in British Columbia out of a science lab trailer he and his associates hauled around behind an old pickup, and sometimes shipped by rail to remote, snow-bound school districts in the north. Science teachers, and the kids, loved Martin and his critter outfits they donned before following him out to ponds to collect bugs and scum to look at under televised microscopes in the marvelous trailer painted to look like a big frog.
Seeing how this freelance merriment was so popular in the K-12s adjacent to metropolitan Vancouver, Martin and his friends frequently escorted inquisitive tykes through a local bog loaded with birds and fish and bugs and flora found little where else. An idyllic situation.
Then, one day, an industrial waste management company proposed said bog as an ideal location to dump said waste, and attempted—with political support—to railroad through said proposal sans public hearing and son, undoubtedly, more than a little bribery. Alas, it was not to be so easy, for Martin and friends knew how to hold a public hearing. They’d attended many such gatherings. In fact, as actors, they knew how to produce one.
And so it was one Saturday afternoon at the local bingo hall, neighbors and kids, parents and reporters, actors and bugs, all filled the room designated in public notices the week before, in anticipation of glimpsing the villains and giving them a piece of their minds.
Martin and cast played their parts so well, in fact, that not only did the usually-reserved good neighbors raise their voices in contempt at offers for future ball fields on top of the eventually-capped industrial waste, but continued to express their wrath at said government agencies the following Monday, bewildering bureaucrats far and near with their animosity. And thus, was the bog preserved, for kids and bugs yet to emerge from the primal ooze, by a bunch of merry pranksters, led by the illustrious actor born in the countryside where fair William once strolled.
