Not that they are old, mind you, just that I haven't contacted them for a while.

First, a bit of history.

Way back in 1989-90, I volunteered at EarthDay 1990. It was a small, but busy experience that led up to a crescendo on April 22, 1990. On April 23rd, the offices started to shut down.

Well, that night a bunch of people moved on to other things and another group of them sat around and tried to figure out what to do next. One of the tenets of the whole movement can be summed up in the phrase "Think Globally, Act Locally". I'd love to find the origin of the phrase, but suffice to say that I think it comes out of the environmental movement. I do think it is a good thing that you can find references to it in many business sites. We decided to Act Locally.

At any rate, rather than bemoan the passing of the late, great EarthDay 1990, a group of us decided to start a local environmental group. We had grand plans and ended up calling it Bay Area Action (BAA). And we got to do fun things for the environment. We were a bunch of (mostly) wild (mostly) twentysomethings who were out to change the world to make it a better place for our (mostly) non-existant kids. [I'm generalizing here]

George Santayana said, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Well, it turns out that just as EarthDay 1990 was begat from the original EarthDay in 1970, so too was another group of environmentalist! The Peninsula Conservation Center (PCC) formed just after EarthDay 1970 and was comprised mostly of a bunch of wild twentysomethings, who, in 1990 were not all quite so wild or quite so young. We at Bay Area Action knew about the fine folks at PCC, but they were pretty set in their ways and we wanted to be footloose and fancy free! We even had the word "Action" in our name! So we went off to do stuff like protest logging, create computerized database of recycling centers, mobilized the schools, electrified cars, and celebrated life!

Well, a few years passed and it got harder to be a "Radical Sheep" without more structure. (Amazing isn't it!) Eventually, the fine folks at BAA and PCC saw that they both needed what the other had and they formed up, joined up and became Acterra! And it was good. Wisdom and Energy! A real balancing act.

Anyway, how did it come to pass that Bay Area Action started to lose it's steam? Well, at one point I was working a job at Stanford about 20 hours a week, living the cheap, single life and volunteering 40+ hours at Bay Area Action. Life was good, but I was poor. I got a "real" job and started working 40+ hours there. At first I tried to keep volunteering, but slowly the amount of time that I had went from the expected 20 hours of volunteering to less. I know that the same thing happened to others in our original core group of Radical Sheep. Some went to college, some went to work, some went to bigger ponds, some started families and some did multiple choice. Of course, some are still very much involved. I look at the About section at Acterra's website and I certainly recognize more than a few names. I love many of them for who they are and what they are able to do.

Ok, ok, A couple of things happened recently that reminded me of the 'ol days at BAA.

One of the founding fathers of Bay Area Action was Peter Drekmeier. Pete is running for Palo Alto City Council. I think he'll make it. He exudes charisma. He is a great guy with a big heart. I wish Peter the best!

Then, recently I ran into one of the early folks. In fact, he was BAA's first director. His name is Owen Bird and he's a great asset to the community. Owen and I were talking and he mentioned that another member of the BAA club was also famous. Amy Peters was recently listed as a "famous person" from Palo Alto.

Amy has followed her dreams of jewelry and now is doing great work in Pismo Beach. Yay!

In other news Bill Weber (another BAA founder) got married recently! (unfortunately, he name is too dern common and he keeps a low profile on the net.

Please visit Amy's Site and Vote for Peter! Oh, and donating or volunteering for Acterra would be a good thing too!

Peace, Love & Trees!