Our First Earth Day Maypole (40 ribbons - over 30 feet tall)



New London Earth Day is no more. Over the past several years, we did a few good things (three successful Earth Day celebrations, advocating for preservation of city parks, organizing a public forum and high-level press conference to oppose the Broadwater Liquified Natural Gas barge in Long Island Sound and proposing the creation of a New London Sustainable Community Initiative committee to the City Council. When the Council approved our proposal, we then recruited qualified New London residents to be members of this important citizen task force. The City Council has officially appointed our candidates and they are now working to make New London, CT a more environmentally sustainable community.

After our small committee (at last count we numbered only six) did all the hard work of getting this initiative off the ground, somehow our sails were left luffing in the wind and we all eventually moved on to other things. The wake for this organization will be joyously celebrated at some local pub in the near future for all past members of New London Earth Day.

This picture reminds me of the high-school girl who organized a protest in Norwich, CT three and a half months before the invasion. I was impressed by her resolve and courage, and, being retired with "nothing better to do," I drove through the snow storm as soon as I read about her plans in the morning paper. There were just a few of us there, but her youthful indignation was the catalyst that got me out of my own indulgent and slothful "retirement rocking chair" and out on to the streets.

( Here's the old Norwich Bulletin article that I just now found in the detritus of my hard drive. )