Mandy Lynch: Ok, um…
Nancy Wolf: Am I sitting at a good distance?
ML: Oh, yeah, yeah you’re fine.
NW: Ok.
ML: Ummmm, where to start. Well thank you again for letting me come up. I was completely shocked when I came up and um, I’m glad I did because I’ve never been here. Um I guess my first question is how do you think New York is different from Virginia, like, environmentally, like do you think one has like moved more forward than the other? Faster?
NW: (pause) Well, I think New York is certainly, in terms of environmental laws and the uh, the execution of them and the enforcement and so on, I think that New York is way ahead of Virginia. But Virginia seems to now be much more inclined. But (clears throat) New York, um, from, from the beginning of the environmental movement and now we’re talking late 60’s and of course Earth Day, 1970, was this blockbuster and the main blockbuster was here in New York City, so there were so many people that were just kind of turned on to the environment. So we’ve had much more pressure from groups and individuals. New York state, um, had a natural resource department and there was a lot of pressure on that department (child crying in background) and it became the department of environmental conservation and uh, that it, it has initiated some of the early environmental protection laws in the country and meanwhile there was just this HUGE not for profit gang, and it was just growing everyday, um, and lots and lots of media, you know, the, the, the newspapers and the television didn’t cover all the environmental stuff all the time and of course the two major not for profit organizations for the protection of the environment, they have their headquarters here and they came out of the environmental movement in New York City and that’s the natural defense council and uh, the environmental defense fund. And then National Audubon has its headquarters here. So, that, its, what’s different about New York is that it’s just been tremendous individual and group pressure.
ML: mmm-hmm.
NW: So we push ahead and sometimes we have the earliest regulations or the earliest laws…uhh, we take the lead, you know, the attorney general of New York state takes the lead if the federal government is not doing what we think they should be doing, like protecting the air, uh, the attorney general of New York state will round up the other north eastern states and take the lead.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: Waaay beyond Virginia in the early days. Way beyond. I think Virginia now is much more tuned in.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: But, it wasn’t first.
ML: Do you think (pause), I guess..well you said there’s a lot more pressure here, but…I feel like everything is going green and (unclear-talking at same time)
NW: Oh, yes, there’s a really big…now the whole country is, yes.
ML: mm-hmm. Which is a big step, um, how do you feel about going green? Like I, I get afraid that it seems like it might just be a fad? Do you know what I mean?
NW: It very easily could just be a fad.
ML: mm-hmm
NW: I think its up to, its up to the really established environmental groups, not for profit, I think to make sure that it isn’t a fad. And its, its typical in the beginning when people discover something like that they’re running around turning the lights off every two seconds. I remember when we (laughs heartily), when I first got into this we, you know, no one wanted to flush the toilet because we were wasting water..
ML: (laughs along with narrator)
NW: And so there was this whole idea of if its yellow let it mellow if it’s brown, you know, flush it down..
ML: (laughs again with narrator’s story)
NW: It just gets a little crazy.
ML: (laughs)
NW: And you know there was something in the paper I think yesterday about someone who I think is um, driving her family crazy because they way, or she wants and ecologically desirable Christmas. And she’s um, she’s giving them all clocks made out of old CDs wrapped in newspaper. That that is a fad (LAUGHS)
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: So uh, what happens I think when, you know, everybody’s all…the Al Gore thing had a huge impact.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: So while there, there’s lots of fads and crazy things that happen, out of that, what it does is it takes the plateau of true environmentally green UP. So out of all that comes…you know whatever sustains. Whatever washes out of that and becomes part of normal life. You’re, you’re farther along so I don’t mind the fuzz I just kind of laugh at it.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: But it’s good because people who haven’t thought one thing about it all of the sudden…WOW; I have to have a green Christmas! Ohh, what does that mean? Well you know...(pause 5 sec) you know, its great when it gets into that kind of thing and you know the retail merchants are claiming they’re so green and they’re giving you all these green gifts. You know, America is a capitalist country, you know when it’s into the retail section and we’re all buying and selling then it’s in the culture.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: You know it’s not something seen; we were pinkos (unclear) when we started all of this.
ML: What’s that?
NW: Definitely considered to be communists.
ML: Ohh.
NW: So. So, you know its ok. The fads are….I hope you’re not going to give your family clocks made out of old CDs!! (laughs)
ML: (laughs at narrator’s suggestion of goofy Christmas gifts) No, (laughs) no, probably not.
NW: (still laughing at her idea)
ML: Well do you think its possible, to go green and stay green, even though like, say it is a fad, and everyone, even the retail stores and everyone like that is doing it now, do you think, if the fad dies down it will just, become a way of life? Kind of? A little bit?
NW: I think that it does become more of a way of life but what really does strengthen it is that there has to be rules and laws and regulations because if you don’t do that its easy to just fall back that’s why most of the time when businesses and industries say oh we’re very much all for this but we want to do it voluntarily, if you examine that, you know any time you do a study of who did what, you know, voluntarily, most of the time it is never done to the degree that it should be. It’s just a way to try to get regulation off their backs. And as um, Michael Openhiepfer, who is now a professor at Princeton who was with the environmental defense fund way back when we all got started, that’s when DDT was banned. And he said, you know, every now and then there’s nothing like a good ban. Because it really does take governmental regulation to make sure these things don’t backslid. And you know even when there are regulations it has to be enforced all the time and you know people are always looking for the loopholes to get around it..
ML: to get out of doing it.
NW: and it’s always going to be more expensive and you know on, and on, and on…so.
ML: Um, when I was walking around last night, um I didn’t know that they have the horse and carriage buggies, and I stopped and was talking to the man who drives that and he was like “oh, what are you doing here in New York?” and I was like “ Oh, I’m doing an interview.” And he was telling me that by 2010 all the cabs are changing to….
NW: Hybrid.
ML: mmm-hmm. I mean what do you think about that? I mean that’s a really big step.
NW: Oh, thrilled to death of course! I’m the owner of a hybrid automobile. You know it saves gas, and air pollution and there’s no reason why we all aren’t gonna be hybrid and I think that most people understand that that’s what’s going to happen and you know big cities where you have cars
[another person enters room and says “Hi”]
NW: Oh, oh goodness, you might want to turn that off as so, not to, not to waste…
[Meet daughter Ellen and grandson. Pause to meet them and talk for about 5 minutes then return to interview.]
NW: umm, well we have, I have two floors and then she has the two above that and then my other daughter and her husband have the top floor.
ML: That’s so cool that you all live together.
NW: Well and it’s so great because we all still can be separate. Ellen well I didn’t think I was going to see her today, I mean no reason why, except her refrigerators not working so she has a lot of stuff in my freezer. That’s why she’s here. Well, anyway, I didn’t want you to waste your tape.
ML: Ohh, no, that’s fine.
NW: So, uhh, Well, well, where were we. Oh, oh, well when cities like New York with all these cabs, I mean we don’t have cabs stand, I mean cabs are cruising at all times that is when their not taking people from one place to another they’re out cruising looking for people.
ML: Looking for people.
NW: So there’s an awful lot of exhaust going into the air and if we can clean that up and use less gasoline and you know, our Mayor Bloomburg has, is a green mayor and he has pushed forward a lot of these things.
ML: yeah, I was just shocked when he told me that and he said there’s something like 1200 or possibly even more cabs.
NW: Oh I’m sure.
ML: I feel like that’s such a big step. Um, what else do you think in New York has been a really big step?
NW: You mean New York state or New York City?
ML: Both. (laughs)
NW: Both. Cause many of the regulations that govern our environment are state laws, but the city has had its own regulations also and uh, lots of times the cities want to go first and the cities push the things, has pushed the state and that’s the way it has worked and of course the city is full of…well I just keep coming to where is the power, where is the initiation? The initiation comes from people. You know, it’s very much from the bottom up. And the grassroots is always pushing, fussing, complaining and saying “why do we do this?” and so you know, it was, you know, it was the air pollution people that pushed for the smoking ban and so the first thing, that wouldn’t have happened because one day the governor or mayor got up and said “Oh, I think I’ll have a smoking ban.” There was pressure from the American Lung Association and the people, you know, we were tired of smelling you know all the smoke so you know it started out with smoking bans in offices. So you know you’d see people outside in the coldest weather. SO, banning it in most offices, it was banned. Then the next thing was restaurants and ohhh what a difference, you know, to be able to eat without smelling smoke. And then the last one was bars. That was the real bad one you know they’re gonna go out of business! You know, I have to smoke at the bar! Well, guess what. There’s no smoking in bars and no one’s gone out of business. And people sitting there are having a drink are just loving and the real beneficiaries are the bartenders. And you know I think that’s when the discussion was going on about whether to do it or not, second hand smoke to bartenders and wait staff that really was a very powerful argument because whether they smoked or not they were still there.
ML: Still surrounded by it.
NW: So that is one really, you know, good example. Another one (laughs heartily), another one you know is, New York is one of the only states that mandate that you scoop after your dog.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: And that happened when very early on when we came to New York. I keep saying that this is my only claim to fame. Um, I had two little kids and you know they’re in the stroller and you know I’m walking around and the sidewalks had dog poop everywhere and you know they would even take them in the sandbox and so the city had to close sand boxes.
ML: Oh, gross!
NW: And you know it was so unbelievable, how can this be allowed? So you know some of the neighborhood associations, including our association decided to get in on the deal and I was the sanitation chair of our association. (laughs)
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: So you know we started putting pressure on the city council to pass a pooper scooper law and all hell broke loose and the dog owners said it was their right to let their dogs poop. Cleveland Avery a famous author became their champion and there were debates.
ML: Really??
NW: (LAUGHS very loud at this) They had forums where people screamed at each other and the dog owners insisted that this was the end of the world. Then we had dog owners agree to scoop anyway and they did. So the bottom line is that New York City passed a pooper scooper law. And then they, well then the question was “how can you enforce something like that because the police, it’s too much trouble?” and they have other things to do. And we said well this will be enforced by peer pressure. When the law is passed and you aren’t scooping you are just going to get a lot of grief. I mean it didn’t even take words, you know, they’re there and they look around and people are coming..
ML: Just feel guilty. (laugh)
NW: So this was aesthetic as well but it was also health, very health related because there was research done, especially in terms of the children’s playground.
ML: Yeah, I can imagine.
NW: And just, and children are low to the ground and just the whole business of keeping them from stepping in it or picking in it so it was just health related things. So then of course here came the opportunity for capitalism. Suddenly everyone who made a pooper scooper…
ML: (LAUGHS out loud)
NW: sent it to New York offering their pooper scooper as the best pooper scooper trying to get the department of sanitation to announce that the official New York pooper scooper was…
ML: whoever’s.
NW: But of course they didn’t do it and most people just take a plastic bag with them or they take newspaper.
ML: mm-hmm
NW: Right?? (talking to cat) Well we clean up after our cats all the time needless to say, we would never let them poop out on the sidewalk.
ML: (laughs)
NW: So that’s a small example so, but basically whether it’s something major like a huge, like the landmark laws like, you know, the air pollution laws, the water pollution laws. There were the federal laws or the state laws. When you study them, you will find a trail almost inevitable, you’re gonna find a trail that leads back to you know the groups. The small group, a big group, letter writing. Cause fortunately we have a country that that is just bred in the bone. That’s just the way a true democracy works. And I’m sure, I’m totally convinced that industry has an accountant in the back figuring out how long they should hold out. In other words when does the law of diminishing returns happen? And so when they see that happen, that’s when they start negotiation for the best law you can get and you know, oh yeah we’re gonna do it. And I remember ages ago going through on a tour of a paper company on the Hudson and they had cleaned up the stuff they were putting gin the river, they had cleaned up the stuff that was going in the smokestack. And I said “Do you think you would have done this is if New York state hadn’t mandated it??”
ML: They would never volunteer.
NW: And this guy says “Oh no! But now we can brag about it!”
ML: (laughs)
NW: So you know.
ML: Yeah that’s….
NW: So you know somewhere along the line whoever did the money for the paper company announced to the president or someone, look diminishing returns are setting in. This is gonna happen. We see the handwriting on the wall so why don’t we just get with it and DO IT.
ML: Gosh, that sounds like the, do things voluntarily; they wouldn’t do things unless they were forced to.
NW: No, because it would cost more money. And who is going to do that? What business is going to voluntarily do that? They will do it under regulation or, their image. If you’re a food company you know the food company has probably done it more. You know, their image! If the consumers think they aren’t environmentally safe, you know, no one’s going to buy their product. So it depends on what kind of company it is.
ML: Um, sorry I’m trying to get things together.
NW: But, I think New York and California have traditionally been the leaders….you know, back to your Virginia thing. I was working with a forester umm, in Russell County, you know, where our farm is and I was talking about regulations in New York State about logging, which is QUIET extreme. And he says well we don’t need that and so forth and we never came to any real agreement on it and late, BUT, I saw him and his job had changed but he was still working for the Virginia Forestry Service but he had been in charge, put in charge of a mountain where there is a first rate premier trout stream coming down off the mountain.
ML: And this is in Russell County?
NW: It’s actually in Washington its called Tumbling Creek. So anyway, all of the sudden, he’s trying to keep silt and all of the junk out of the stream because now his job is working with the land around the stream to protect premier trout stream and doing that, now you’re into tourism. You know, the whole fishing people. For the first time he understood these things because without these kinds of regulations the forest you know, the erosion was coming from lumbering and so forth was affecting the quality of the stream. So you know the state couldn’t stock it with trout, there’s going to be hell to pay with no fishing people and no tourist to coming because it’s a premier trout stream. You know, in environment nothing is ever alone. Nothing. Nothing.
ML: Well, going back to your childhood, and we were talking about this before, did you know that when you were growing up that this was what you wanted to do?
NW: Heavens no!
ML: (laughs)
NW: (laughs as well) Well first of all it didn’t exist. That is the environment as a career didn’t exist. But there were people out there doing environmental things and these would they,Virginia did have a department of something or another that, what’s it called??.....Game and Inland Fishes
ML: Yeah, something.
NW: That, that was, they’re the ones that control the wildlife, you know how many deer can you hunt or how many deer can you kill? Or the euphemism is “take”. How many deer can you take? As if you’re just taking them home. They don’t like to use the word kill.
ML: Right.
NW: They, unbeknownst to me, they true environmentalist in my area were hunters and people who fish.
ML: Really?
NW: Yes, because they understood the connection between the living things and the habitat. You know, if you have eroded soil and you cut down all the trees you’re not going to have deer to hunt, or quail or grouse or anything because you have destroyed their ability to keep alive. If you destroy a stream there’s not going to be any fish. And I, and truly when the environmentalist started getting ahead and steam, when I read the paper you know the local new, the Lebanon news, the local news from our county in D.C. the one person who was writing a column, the one person who was writing anything about the environment is the guy still writing the column. Umm, and his name is uh…god, I should know his name, his name is Bill Wilson? Whatever it is. He wrote about hunting and fishing. And he was the first person educating people in Russell County about, what I considered to be environmental topics. And now that’s what’s changed well now we got environmental groups, conservation groups there’s all kinds of things but he was the only person and he was warning what would happen if they cut too many trees or whatever.
ML: So you were interested in all of this from the get-go?
NW: Well, the one thing you recognize is you look back on your childhood you know after you’ve decided on what you’re going to do and it means a lot. You go how did this happen? What were the clues? So you know the clues were there only you don’t recognize them.
ML: Yeah, at that time.
NW: I loved, umm, just being outdoors just playing in the creek, climbing in the trees; you know I just loved a nature walk. You know, I don’t even think I’d call it that. I just loved to go walk in the woods. And I’m not talking about strenuous hiking up the top of a cliff just walking through the woods just looking around and you know I was very, very, very aware of all the surrounding and uh, when I was in girl scout camp I made a friend and the two of us were practically the only ones in the camp that this is what we did and you know all of our spare time, and you know we were allowed you know, there’s trails all over we weren’t going to be going far away so that we would go out and look at all the trees and flowers and try to identify them. And she ended up being a wildlife biologist.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: So… that, that should have been a clue and then in high school I loved the plant part of biology.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: So all of those things. Oh and I loved hearing people talk about agriculture. My father wasn’t a farmer but you know, in Virginia everybody, you know, the farms are still so close. They say all Southerners are only one generation away from a farm….maybe its two now. But I had ummm, family that were farmers and cattle people umm, everybody had gardens. And they all knew these things and I just loved listening to them talk about it. So, it was, it was all there. It just took a while…
ML: Before you put it all together. So what would you tell me for example, like any advice of (pause) I don’t know, figuring it out? Or like how to get into the work that you do.
NW: If you wanted to get into the work that I’m doing….(slight pause) it, it’s so much easier than it used to be because there’s environmental parts of almost every kind of discipline. I mean even if you went into big industry. They have whole departments now that, which are called compliance. And these are people that have to know the law because the laws are everywhere now so they have people to tell them; ok we want to build a new plant. Right away they’ve got to know how to do it environmentally. If you wanted to do it with anthropology I mean gosh, that’s, you know, that just fits right in. But you know what you’d have to do is find, you’d probably go to graduate school with an environmental focus and you’d have to find what universities are giving you, I mean not every university is going to be giving you that tie in but many of them will. And you know, you go out and discover what happened. How, how did ancient civilizations care for the earth or did they not? And are we better or worse? You know, cause there’s this whole thing about how the Indians cared for the earth and we ruined it, and it didn’t turn out to be quite as black and white as people thought. (laughs)
ML: (laughs)
NW: They were better but they didn’t do everything, you know. And I mean a lot of people work volunteer for small non-profits as interns.
ML: And that’s a good…?
NW: And that way you kind of get a taste of it. It helps them. You get an idea of whether you really, really want to do this or not. You meet people. Somebody tells you, oh yeah, if you want to put anthropology and environment together, that university is what you should look at. And some universities let you, you know, put the thing all together for yourself, you know.
ML: mmm-hmmm.
NW: Under, you know, under of course the guidance of a professor.
ML: mm-hmm. Yeah, I think you can kind of do that at Hollins. You can do like an interdisciplinary study.
NW: So it’s possible to do that.
ML: mm-hmmm.
NW: Well, UVA has a famous program where you can do that and you have to be specially chosen. Um, Columbia, I mean probably most universities have that. Some are more into it than others but the masters program I had at Johns Hopkins.
ML: Is that what you did?
NW: Yeah, and I was still the environmental…and, and still the Earth Day hadn’t happened even then but the, some of the things I chose, and now here again looking back on it, I was trying to build my social science and history and so forth learning because I thought I was going to go back to being a history teacher which is what I was doing at Thomas Dale. Geography and history. Umm, and probably if Earth Day hadn’t happened I would have looked for a job teaching history and geography in a high school teaching cause that’s what I loved doing. But here again, another one of the clues was geography I was teaching geography at Thomas Dale. I ran the whole program, ummm, really through an environmental lens and really you don’t know it.
ML: Yeah, don’t know it.
NW: Because it hasn’t been defined for you, you realize, you know, only later thinking of it, oh God, of course I did that. And because um, climate is such a determinant and you know we were studying climate in that way. The lay of the land, you know, how does this influence the history of how the culture developed.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: All good stuff isn’t it??!
ML: mmm-hmmm!
NW: All of these things are so interesting!!
ML: (laughs) So when, when you were in school and you said you were taking social sciences to learn about those, I just think it’s so different that there wasn’t even like words defined and stuff like that like how, how did it come about getting it started?
NW: The environmental movement started creating a new vocabulary and when I first, teaching sort of team teaching, the organization I started working for had a little bit of money to create, help create and environmental education program. Of course in our case it was very early. So we were going out into New York City schools and we were teaching recycling and energy conservation. And so forth and so on. And you had, first of all in order to even conduct a class you had to define a whole bunch of words on the board.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: Pollution. I mean you had to define recycling. I mean I know it seems amazing!!
ML: I know I can’t imagine!
NW: We define vocabulary for years until the newspapers, when the newspapers and televisions started using those words then, then people began to understand them. Now of course you would never have to do that. Well, now of course the books that they are using have all that in them. And the New York state department of education has put a mandate, not as good as it should be, but there’s a mandate that you have to study environment in some way.
ML: Oh, really?
NW: Yes, and they put it in the tests. So its there, what we wanted was a whole environmental curriculum. In other words you would start out in the first grade learning about a leaf or whatever then it would just gradually it would go through and at the end of the twelve years in a New York state educational system you would truly be um…
ML: conscious?
NW: A literal environmental person. You would be environmentally literate that’s the phrase we kept using. But there was a lot of resistance to that and they never did do it.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: And there, there was resistance from people protecting turf, in other words if you’re gonna spend a half hour a day on environment well maybe you wont spend a half hour a day on what I think is important. So they finally said that environmental studies would be infused meaning that you know, whatever you leaned would somehow be some little environmental thing. That’s, but…and so you know if a school took it seriously it would work but if you didn’t, you could graduate from a school and know practically nothing about the environment. So its, it’s, changed drastically but it’s changed more because of the outside world and the newspapers and the television and the radio. Probably they’ve learned more. The kids I taught in (name of school/county unclear) who knew about environment were learning it from PBS. They were learning about nature.
ML: From TV?
NW: Mmm-hmm. Because they watched TV a lot.
ML: When do you think it started coming on TV and becoming normal?
NW: Oh, PBS was very early. PBS covered the environmental movement from the begging so you know.
ML: mmm-hmmm.
NW: SO, that’s, that really was….when we, the organization I worked for, when we celebrate our 20th anniversary it was 1990 and we honored um, the forces that we though had made the most difference when Earth Day happened. And one of them was Mayor John Lindsay who was the mayor of New York at the time, was a very gung-ho environmentalist. Another one was uh, another one was Hugh Downs, you know who Hugh Downs is, he was a very famous television personality and commentator and he um, he has been one of the earliest voices and we honored him and he was on commercial TV and we honored, the president of channel 13 came and we honored channel 13 which is the PBS here. And they were really pleased!! Because they had played significant, significant roles. You know television would put together panels on topics and run around trying to find somebody who knew anything at all about, you know, whatever it was.
ML: mm-hmm. Who, do you think, you were talking about that they had a big influence on it. Is there anyone who had a big influence on you? Personally?
NW: On me personally? The one who had the most influence on me personally? I’m trying to think if there was one person more than any other because it was such a group things from the get-go. Um…
ML: I mean, that has to be really inspiring to have such a big group in it together.
NW: I know, I’m just trying to think out of all of that, you know, who?
ML: I mean, even like an icon?
NW: Well, Al Gore has had a great influence on me (smiles and laughs) I wish he would be President of the United States!! (continues laughing)
ML: (Smiles and laughs as well)
NW: But that, that certainly, I mean, I believe, I mean certainly what I just said but um, I’m just thinking in those early days um, who did I look to as an early guide. I think in the environmental education world what was happening was the, the earliest environmental teachers in public education came from the science and the outdoor education disciplines and they got all turned on. And they formed, they, they decided that they would do teach-ins. So they were great influences on me in terms of formal teaching because I didn’t have as much science as I needed and I learned a lot of environmental science from the really good science teachers in the public school I was teaching in.
ML: Really.
NW: I mean, they were tremendous guides. And you know, I mean, I don’t remember one supreme one but they, they were just so good! They were the best teachers I had ever worked with and they knew science and so we were all then just, I think we invented environmental education you understand because it didn’t exist. People brought whatever they had to bear. My part came from the social science because I was much better than they were at the people part of it. And they were the hard science and I also was very tuned into the political part of the process and you know I cant tell you how many wonderful scientist that I have coached that didn’t know how to get what they wanted to do done because they didn’t know anything about the political system.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: And you had to work it. Well its like we were talking about before, if it doesn’t get into the rules and regulations it’s not going to….it’s not going to be permanent probably. You know, not for most people it isn’t you know, oooh well it’s the law I guess I’ll, I guess I’ll shovel my poop!
ML: (laugh)
NW: (laughing) You know, none of this happened overnight. They were just waiting for the law. They were gonna do it until, you know, it was the law. So.
ML: Um, can you tell me more about your urban and community foresting?
NW: The what?
ML: The…
NW: Oh! Urban forestry. Oh. Well that’s been loads of fun.
ML: Have you been doing it, how long have you been working on it?
NW: Back in the 70s this organization I started working for had enough money to do 3 curriculum guides for New York City teachers and remember there was like nothing so, we and few others were out there and if you were going to teach about the environment it almost had to be through us because there were no books no guides no nothing. So anyway, we did one on solid waste because that organization was really a pioneer on solid waste, you know what to do with all the garbage and trash. And especially recycling. So of course that was going to be the first one. Then it was the mid 70s and there was an energy crisis, you’re much too young, but you may have heard that we had a tremendous energy crisis while Jimmy Carter was President. The OPEC ran down on the oil and there was an oil embargo, you know. It ruined Carter’s Presidency. So the nation was actually conserving energy seriously for the first time since WWII. So we did our second curriculum guide on energy: what is it and how do we get it, how can you help? You! 5th grader. Even turn off the light when you go out of the room. You know. And then we sat around the room going you know, we have enough money for the third one, what shall it be? And, we said well you know we ought to do one that’s green and we don’t want to do the community gardens because there other groups doing that and we don’t need to do the parks because there was a parks group but no one is really talking about the street trees and if you want to turn kids onto the environment the easiest way of all is got to be through the street trees because all they’ve got to do is walk outside and there they are! So we decided we would do a little curriculum guide on trees and we, it was just, caring for trees on city streets was what it was called. So we always tried these things out with teachers that we knew so I took it to a school and I had someone, I had a colleague with me, the two of us were teaching it together and, and they, well people said first off don’t bother to tell them the names of the trees because that’s just, you just want to go out there, they just want to experience the green just take them out to experience the green and you don’t need to worry about teaching them the names of the trees. And of course the very first thing they said when we took them on the neighborhood tree walks was “what’s the name of that tree?” So right away you knew whoever told you the other was wrong, wrong, wrong. So of course we started teaching tree ID which they loved!! Because you could go up and say look this tree has this kind of bark and look at that one it has a different kind of bark. Why? Because they’re two different trees! (laughs) And they collected leaves and nuts and you know, bringing all this stuff back to the classroom and you know my colleague said well of course now we’re all, we’re gonna go back in and everybody’s going to take all the stuff but before you do you know, trees are so important to us and they help us stay healthy and so I want everybody to hug a tree. So, my gosh, everybody was just hugging these trees.
ML: (laughs)
NW: And we came back to the office and I said you know we have tapped into something that is so much more powerful than we know. There is something in that that is so powerful. So we started just doing this tree thing you know, up one side and down the other, we did a little film Something For the Trees, Something For the City. And how did we get the title? And we got money by the way this, this was professionally done film. How did we get that title well because one of the kids who was interview by the filmmakers when we were doing this said “why are you happy to be a part of all this?”
And we were listening to all of this on the tape and the kid said, well, “it’ll make ‘me feel good to do something for the trees and something for the city. I said that’s it!!! That’s the title!!!
ML: awwww.
NW: So we just got into it and um, then there was a group here called Green Gorillas, that still exists. They got their start by throwing balloons with water and seeds over the fence into vacant lots.
ML: Oh gosh!
NW: And now they’re running ump-teen million community gardens around the city. So we, we were sharing space and we were just busting to try to figure out how to get this thing bigger and bigger and wider and wider because it was just so fantastic and so important for cities to understand that green is, you know, trees and open space are so critical. And at that time, let me tell you practically no one was giving this a though. So someone called from California one day to say that there was this conference on urban forestry and we had not been invited and all these foresters were going to go there to talk about urban forestry and they didn’t know what they were talking about but, but her professor had asked her to go, she was a student at Berkley, and she could invite a few friends to go so we all managed to squeeze ourselves into this conference on Isabell’s coattails. And it was in Washington. And we sat there and all these guys are just droning on and on, they do not know what they’re talking about. My favorite was that somebody was “Urban Forestry and the White Mountains”. (LAUGHS very heartily) So the leader of the Green Gorillas got up and said you’re not talking about urban forestry! We’re the ones that are doing urban forestry! Of course the whole room just erupted. And they would not let Isabell lead a session.
ML: Really?
NW: Oh no! Because who were we?? We were these, see, we were probably communist, we were these weird people who were probably working on the streets and you know, who was Isabell she has only founded a tree group, you know, in San Francisco.
ML: So did y’all not end up getting to speak?
NW: And we had only worked with teachers and you know community volunteers in New York and who were we? So they said to her we’ll give you a room tonight at 9 o’clock you know, a free room and you can just put a little sign up on the bulletin board and say anybody who wants to talk about urban forestry and cities please come to this room at 9 o’clock. And the place was just jammed, because, and of course there was our little group, but the foresters who understood that there is something going on and they better find out because this is going to be, you know this is going to be something coming. They were all there. And we began working with them of course, day and night after that. Uh, and we were so fortunate there was a wonderful forester from New York state there who understood everything. And that was the Woodstock of the urban forestry movement. That was the beginning. So you know now we’re always saying, “we’re YOU in the upper room with Isabell??” you know, its like (laughing, laughing) and then it just boomed! Every city had to have a tree group, the tree groups started meeting each other, forming alliances, uh, there’s 140 members now in the Alliance for Community Trees which was the network which we all formed. The conference which I was at last week, in Baltimore the week before last. 600 people talking about trees. The Alliance for Community Trees had its annual meeting, 140 people came, well 140 members, I don’t know how many people were actually there. Umm, this whole bag is full of stuff I brought back. [Motions towards bag on office floor filled with information and pamphlets on urban forestry and community trees.] Its, it’s a big deal. And the U.S. Forest service had to recognize it and then we got in line in the federal budget.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: And so that shows you how these things happen. And it’s the best example in the world. I mean it literally came form probably no more than 20 people. Working in cities. And when we found each other I mean, it’s like Greek had met Greek. I mean, “OH MY GOD YOU’RE DOING IT TOO!!”
ML: (laughing along) And this, you said, you had the other two, were they as involved as this one? They were…
NW: What do you mean?
ML: You took like the different things that you were talking about and worked on those each one at a time?
NW: You mean the three, the guides?
ML: mmm-hmm.
NW: Oh no, we were working on...urban forestry did not take over the organization I was working with. Some of the other groups didn’t do anything but that but this; the organization I was working with was a broader based one in that. So the forestry, that was only part of it. We were still working on energy and solid waste and recycling and you know all kinds of stuff like that. But, so it was fun actually it was more fun in a way, you know I loved working on urban forestry but at the time I didn’t want to just do that.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: But what did eventually happen was um, this thing, there were so many opportunities and it just got more and more and more and by that time I was the executive director. So in, when was it? I guess it was in ’91 we were given the opportunity to help create the urban forestry program in New York state. And in other words under contract and I said I’m gonna do that and I said “Somebody else can be executive director!” But this is like you know is like somebody gave me a great gift! You know, you want to get the best job that you ever thought of having??
ML: Sure!
NW: So that was wonderful so I stepped down as executive director and actually I guess from ’91 or 2 til now I’ve just been working on urban forestry issues.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: In various ways.
ML: Did you enjoy being the executive director?
NW: I LOVED being executive director and even in a small group, if it was a recognized city wide group, we were invited to all of the policy pow-wows. Ummm, we played our role even though we were small and local and Natural resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense Fund were becoming nation wide they were becoming very, very large and powerful but we worked with them. They did some of the national stuff and we did some of the local stuff so you know, we were good partners. And that worked out OK. So it was fun! I enjoyed it. The bad part about being executive director of a small non-profit or a big non-profit is that you are responsible for the money.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: And so you have to be raising money all the time.
ML: Yeah, that seems like….what all did you do to raise money for all these things you were working on?
NW: we did everything that we could find that was legitimate.
ML: (laughs)
NW: well I think everybody usually has a membership bas and so we had I don’t know how many members at the top but we had members who supported us every year. Some supported us, you know, at a higher level but you know that’s very typical. We had friendly corporations and we did not disdain corporate funds for some things. There were other environmental groups that would not have taken a corporate dollar. So we were considered to be a more moderate one. We, the Sierra Club, for example, is what I call a barricade group. They’re always at the barricades. They are always first. They are the most radical. They are the most flaming. And they would not take a corporate dollar for anything because they’re always fighting them. But there’s room for both kinds. You know, Sierra Club would make a break through and there’d be blood on the floor and everything would be all crashing and a group like Environmental Action Coalition would come along and help negotiate what was going to be the final policy and pick up the pieces.
ML: Find like a happy medium?
NW: Everyone in the Sierra Club knows that. They know the farther they can take it the farther the negotiations will be! (laughing) So this, this is well known, its, its not a bad idea! We shared space with the Sierra Club for years, you know. So, that’s the way it works. (still laughing) And it was fun and I liked it but I tell ya, the responsibility of raising money wears on you and you know their, and you know I was the executive director for 14 years and I have to say to you that I was not unhappy to give up that, that was a burden. But we also got foundation funds for special projects. Foundations will not give you money for ordinal operations but they will give you money for special projects so we would try to get as much as we could of that. Most of the money from corporations came in the form of annual support which was so important. They, they probably understood better than anybody that an organization cannot exist if they don’t have walking around money! You know, they’ve got to have the regular money. You’ve got to have the lights on. So you know, their money was usually an annual contribution that um, was unrestricted. And of course they were taking off their bottom like, you know, you have to be, a not for profit has a special tax spot in the IRS, and uh, whoever gives to it can take it off their tax, off their own tax.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: So believe you men if we hadn’t been in that position we wouldn’t have gotten anything.
ML: Well have you enjoyed doing all of your work? I know you said it was tiring but…
NW: Oh of course!
ML: You’ve enjoyed it?
NW: Absolutely! I loved it. I loved it, I mean I think I would have enjoyed teaching but it would have been such a completely different life and you know, I was able to hob knob with mayors and governors and legislators and you know talk about laws and all that part of it was always something I had loved so you know, it was, it was a lot of fun.
ML: Were there ever times that you didn’t like it?
NW: When I woke up at 4 o’clock in the morning worrying about where the payroll was coming from.
ML: mmm-hmm. Really?
NW: Really!! Yes!
ML: Gosh.
NW: When you are responsible for a staff and you don’t know if you have enough cash to pay them….the 15th of the month is going to be 2 days from now, you can wake up at 4 o’clock worrying about that any ol time.
ML: But it was never like too stressful having to like, to fight all the people?
NW: Oh no we loved that!
ML: Really! That’s like my dad, my dad he loves for problems to happen at work because then he gets to fix them.
NW: What does he do?
ML: He works for Circuit City, he helps with their advertising and works for them. Like, the day after Thanksgiving went well and then that Saturday there was like a miscommunication and he like jumped up and got all excited to go into work and fix it.
NW: Oh, I mean there are people who are great, people who loves solving problems and your father sounds like one. And I, I actually do too. I think the money part of it is the hardest part. I mean if you looked at the yearly budget we were, we were ok. You know we were pretty much even steven. You always wanted to have liiittle bit of, I mean, you can make a profit in a not for profit but you’d like to have a little bit more in than out. I was cash flow that was the problem. By the end of the year everything was all tidied up but, but you might have regular salaries having to be paid and the money was going to be coming to you two months from now. And you, how to, how to massage that so you had the cash when you needed it, that was the challenge. But as far as problem solving and getting into the mix, oh I love it!
ML: Really!
NW: Absolutely! Yeah!
ML: See I think I’d find that kind of stressful or get disheartened by, you know, you know you said just little things like you said when you proposed something and people are like “oh, we’re not going to do that” I think after so many times I think I’d….
NW: Well, if you’re a true believer that doesn’t bother you. But, but also you do have to learn, I think, that these things are not going to happen overnight. The people that got most disappointed and in some case dropped out were the people who really couldn’t believe that it was taking so long and it took 15 years pushing before New York agreed to do recycling. 15 years.
ML: I mean that’s huge too, just walking on the streets I see stacks of cardboards and stuff that are the size of cars, like…
NW: This is recycling day. Monday is recycling day for this part of the neighborhood.
ML: Well, yeah that’s awesome that you know, as long as it took and makes a huge difference.
NW: Well, yup, and you know it didn’t ha-, well I started to say it didn’t happen but it happened before the city passed the recycling law the work, the group I worked for helped to run about 15 recycling centers around the city but it depended on volunteers. We paid to pick up the stuff. That’s part of, part of the money we were raising was for our staff to work on the recycling and you know it was, if you happened to live near a recycling center and you were really gung-ho of course you would go over there and sort out your stuff and you were thrilled to death. But the percentage of people doing that was minute where as of course now everybody’s supposed to do it. And the goal was to get the city to do it and they didn’t want to do it. Sanitation didn’t want to have any part of it they thought it was mickey mouse. (imitating sanitation voice) “WE ARE AN ARMY! WE PICK UP 13 THOUSAND TONS A DAY!” And so they, they were brought to it kicking and screaming, They didn’t want to do it, they didn’t do it very well to begin with. Some people now say that they still aren’t doing it as well as they should be and they, they just, this was mickey mouse to them. And umm…can’t sell it. This was the mantra: why recycle because there’s no market for it therefore we won’t get any money for it. Well look. If you weren’t doing it, if you weren’t recycling you’d be throwing it away and you would get any money for that either so it took years to get past that false claim and you know, the idea that somehow recycling had to make money but garbage didn’t. And it was all garbage anyway.
ML: mm-hmmm.
NW: So finally they, they got involved in it and now of course parts of recycling are very lucrative. You know, it’s always been lucrative. And now waste paper is lucrative. And the rest of it they take and they just do the best they can with it, you know. But um, in the mean time New York state passed a bottle bill so a lot of the aluminum that the city could actually sell for a pretty penny, you know, doesn’t come back to them because the bottle bill takes it in different directions. But, but you know. Whatever. Whatever. It’s a completely different day but it did take years and years and years and it has taken 20, well…uhhh, you probably didn’t see this in the, in your press but the mayor has announced Plan YC. New York City’s big plan for the next 25 years. And under this he has decided that trees are really a crucial part and we’re going to plant a million new trees. Plus, playgrounds 5 minutes from every person, you know, all kinds of green stuff.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: We’ve been pushing this ball up the hill for so long that people had forgotten I mean we just felt like we were going to be pushing this ball forever. [hand motions pushing up, up, upwards.] And all the sudden it happened. But we had been working on the since the 70’s so that’s 35 years at least!
ML: Wow.
NW: And now, now the fun part is you know, the expression be careful what you wish for you might get it. Now, how in the world are we going to plant a million trees between now and 2010. Something like that.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: And so the, the beginnings of how to do that are in the works and it’s daunting and somebody said “oh we’re going to plant a tree in every school yard.” No. I’m a veteran of planting trees in school yards. You’re not going to be able to just say ok principals…..a tree in every school yard. It’s not going to happen.
ML: mm-hmmm.
NW: So how its going to be done, it remains to been seem.
ML: More balloons and seeds.
NW: Yeah! (laughing with thought of suggestion and past)
ML: (laughing along)
NW: And also then the big question was, and this was discussed at the conference because the people of New York City Parks made a big presentation at the conference and told everybody all about it. It turns out, of course, there were people there from other cities who have already had many years of experience of planting a million trees so they had a lot of advice to give New York City but umm, then, then the big question was “Ok, you’re planting all these new trees-who is going to take care of them?”
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: Because the city has never done a very good job of after-care.
ML: mmm-hmm.
NW: And that’s going to take, I wish I we re35 cause, you know, the organization I work for would have been clamoring for a big grant to teach people how to take care of the trees. That, that would have been our role, you know.
ML: So, did you, was there ever a time where you wanted to give up?
NW: (laughs) No.
ML: That’s awesome! (laughing)
NW: No it isn’t. I think most people who are involved in this type of thing; well I suppose if you had no success at all you would give up.
ML: mmm-hmm. Yeah.
NW: But fortunately things I was working on we never had a situation where there was nothing good happening and it was always inching along so you didn’t feel that you were working for nothing. I’m trying to think if there was anything we didn’t…..Yes. Yes. One thing, one wonderful idea I had I had to give up on. We started, this would have been wonderful too. We work a lot with the school of education at the New York University. And the office, when I was executive director, our office was on Broadway and was just literally a 5-10 minute walk from the center of NYU which is um, uh in the village, Greenwich Village.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: So, the school of education, there were two professors that were teaching conservation education. And here again, they just did that. They loved the whole idea of that, they created the course, they were allowed to teach it but we never did feel that the dean and the rest of the faculty was that gung-ho but Miller and Tom put it together. And they got students and so we were working very closely with them and so we were, they were, it was decided it was a shame that there was no environmental library meeting center where people would normally go to hear lectures to meet with others to read, to find, you know, it would have had, in addition books, magazines and of course it would have uh, it would have computers you know, computers were coming in at that point. Miller and Tom loved that. I loved it. I was executive director of the group at the time we loved this idea! And we were going to do it together, it was going to be a joint project of my organization and bringing the grassroots perspective and NYU the great NYU, and we did a proposal. Coned was actually very interested in it. Um, I even got Al Gore in it, he was Vice President at the time and I got a letter from Al Gore I mean just all kinds of things! It was ruined by the dean of education. She did not want it to happen.
ML: Such a shame.
NW: And she erroneously thought that the only reason my group was involved was that we were trying to find free space. And that NYU would be pressured into giving free space for this center. That wasn’t true but that’s what she made herself believe. And we had, we had to give it up. I mean, what a wonderful thing, we even had a name for it um…there’s a creek that runs under NYU, you know, an old, old creek. It’s covered up but you know they never go away and this creek also ran under our office because there was a car wash across the street that was using the creek to wash cars (laughing while telling this) that’s how we knew where it was. Of course in the cities, a car wash can’t use city water so they gotta find a well or something. They were using water from Menetta Creek so we were going to call it the Menetta Center. And it was going to be housed in OUR office not NYU! We had a great big loft. And it was a wonderful idea and if it had just, somehow, been more. There’s still a need for it.
ML: That is such a shame.
NW: This organization is gone, Miller and Tom are both dead but the need for this central sport for environmentalist to gather and visitors….see I mean suppose and environmentalist somebody from some other country arrived in new York. It was, it would be the place, “where do I find the environmentalist?” and “oh. Here it is. The Menetta Center.”
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: I’m going to go there and find out how I’ve got to…network. So you know somebody ought to do it. You know, I haven’t thought about it in a long time, that was the best idea I had, I ever had that didn’t work at all.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: So, it’s truly a shame and I think without Miller and Tom I think that NYU would not do it.
ML: mmm-hmm. Do they still have the same courses?
NW: Someone else teaches them.
ML: Yeah, I feel like most schools are getting like, environmental conscious classes.
NW: OH, yep. They’re, when we first started, when Earth Day happened there were none. The closest thing would be some kind of wildlife conservation course or something like that.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: And otherwise there was not one course that anyone knew about to teach you to be an environmental educator. Period.
ML: So looking back on everything are you happy with your life and how everything worked out or is there anything you would change?
NW: Well, career wise of course you’re talking about right.
ML: hmm?
NW: You’re talking about my career now right.
ML: Well for everything.
NW: Well I think I’ve been very happy here in New York and I found the career certainly that I really ought to have been in. And it’s been loads of fun. Of course there’s been disappointments and so on but yeah, absolutely.
ML: What kind of disappointments?
NW: Well, well like the Menetta Center for example. And laws that we wanted to pass that didn’t get passed and urban forestry in the state budget is too small and we’re having a hard time getting it to the level it needs to be. Sooner or later probably it will ride to closer to where the need is. But um, you know and you know we’ve had a good time. Obviously my daughters have enjoyed growing up in New York, they’re still here. They went away to school and they came back.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: And, you know, the biggest disappointment in our lives is that my husband died when he was only 66 and I think we didn’t realize that we were going to be here without a father for um, all these years, you know I wasn’t expecting to be a widow for such a long period of time.
ML: How did that affect your life and career and family?
NW: Well, the loss of a spouse is supposed….evidently the loss of a child is supposed to be the most traumatic thing that anyone can go through. And the loss of a spouse would be the second you know it just changes everything.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: It changes how you live your life and you have to make your adjustment and you know, you’re, would you keep on living here? Or would you move? You know everybody tells you don’t do anything for a year. You know, don’t, because you will gain strength and you will get used to the new situation and you need at least a year and I think that’s absolutely right.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: But what had happened here is that my daughters had come back and we had bought the other half of the house which we didn’t have and they were settling in, so this has been great for me as a widow. Because they’re there but we don’t have to be at each other all the time. So I’m living by myself but I’m not totally, you know, they’re there.
ML: Yeah, that’s perfect.
NW: It’s actually very Brooklyn. Its, A lot of the Irish and Italian families who have owned brownstones much longer than we have, this was the typical thing and it readjusts and we are going to probably do that in the next year or two. The older person needs the least space. So typically the grandmother, or the grandparents, would live on the bottom floor where they didn’t have to climb the staircase. And they need the least space and then those with children are those that need the most. So, Ellen of course has two floors but she still needs more. And Laura doesn’t have a child yet but she might so we’re going to have to figure out a way to, you know, to restructure and I, I would not have the floor up above. Somehow Ellen and Will would have that one and the one above then Laura would have the top two and there would have to be a little bit of construction. (laughing) We’ve already had a couple of, of renovations and I think the whole idea of going through it again is…but, but that would be the whole idea you know, they’re, they’re going to run out of room. They’re going to need more room. Or else they’re gonna have to go to the farthest suburb and find some place to live. Do you see yourself living in, in a city or a suburb?
ML: No, oh my gosh. Uh, I’ve grown up on like a farm and, I don’t know, I just can’t handle cities. (laughing) But, um, but I’ve never been to a city as big as New York, or anything near that and it’s definitely…
NW: New York is different.
ML: Yes, definitely. It’s, its different I don’t know I haven’t really been, uh, anywhere really! (laughing)
NW: (laughing too) Well throughout the next 10 years Mandy you’re going to learn a lot. You know, and then you can make your decision based on that.
ML: Yeah, I’m, I want to go travel, not like crazy to tons of different countries but just get out. I’ve lived in the same area for so long I haven’t really seen that much but I’ll probably end up.
NW: Well, you’re coming up on the time to do it!
ML: Yup, I’m excited.
NW: I mean, do you have a girlfriend at Hollins that might want to share an apartment, maybe go someplace. I mean that’s what we did. There were those that were getting married and of course they were running around sporting their ring.
ML: (laughing)
NW: (laughing too) But there were lots of people who were just beginning to and I mean going to graduate school, when I graduated from Hollins, going onto graduate school and so on and so forth was not nearly as much the norm. I mean most people at the end of a BA considered the fact that they were educated and that they were, just go find a job and do whatever. So, so lots of discussion about where people wanted to go to and people wanted to share apartments and so forth so that was the next part of my life and it was a very, very good one. You know, lots of learning, lots of fun.
ML: And that’s when you lived in Richmond right?
NW: What?
ML: That’s when you lived in Richmond right?
NW: Yes, well I lived here, well I lived here for, um, about a year and my roommate and I, who of course was a Hollins friend, we were going to Richmond all the time because we had all these friends in Richmond so we decided well you know we might be happy, and we had no big career here that was tying us down so we moved to Richmond and we had a ball. Well we also worked, I was teaching and I took it seriously, she worked for the Life of Virginia, the big insurance company. We had a lot of friends and we just, we just learned a ton about ourselves and men and life and you name it. It was a great time. One day Marge came home and we’re talking now about 1960-61, 62 that period and she said “AHHH!! The most exciting, wonderful thing ever has happened!! You have to come see it!” “What?” “Our computer!” Life of Virginia had one of the very first computers in all of Virginia.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: So we all had to go down after hours and visit this thing. And she had a goof friend who had become a friend of everybody. He was studying to be an actuary and the two of them were just beside themselves. So we all went down to see it and it took up a whole room.
ML: The computer??
NW: What you have, you know like on your cell phone, took up a whole room!
ML: Oh my gosh!
NW: You know, the first computers were enormous! Just enormous. And they just, they had practically no memory but that, that was just the first computer that any of us ever saw and Marge and Gordon were just beside themselves and its just so funny, you know? I mean, you know and she was a music graduate took and I think that the bottom line of what I’m telling you is keep all your options open cause there’s so many things change, your life will see so many other things happening, you want to be ready to just say well I wasn’t going in that direction and that looks great and why not? So she, she was a music major but music people are very good in math, as you may know. Music and math go together.
ML: Really?
NW: The side of the brain that controls music and math are the same.
ML: I’m not, I’m not good at either one. (laughing)
NW: (laughing as well)
ML: Makes sense!
NW: So you have the other side. Well because music is a very math oriented discipline, you know, well then I mean of course you have to let it flow but I mean when learning music it’s all very mathematical. You know, this note you hold for…..anyway. So Marge went out to California and uh, ended up going into computers and teaching herself programming and working for big corporations. And so on and so forth.
ML: Oh that makes me feel so much better! I pretty much just fly by the seat of my pants and my parents like hate that. They really want me to have a plan of what I want to do and I’m kind of just like leaving everything open.
NW: Let me ask you, did know what their plan was at your age?
ML: Ummm, my mom was pretty driven, she did engineering at Georgia Tech, got out and had a job right out of school and did that. My dad was a little more all over the place. He’s, he’s been with Circuit City since they started up and I think then when he started they were just kind of working out of like a trailer and I think he was just kind of messing around hoping and it turn into something bigger.
NW: Yup.
ML: But, they’re both very put together and want me to have a plan. (laugh)
NW: Well, you know (pause)….I’m, I’m the opposite. Well, I mean you certainly hope your children won’t just dither around forever but this is such a wonderful time between 22 and 30. Such a wonderful time to just explore yourself and others and learn about people, you know. So, you don’t want to get so nose to the grind stone that you would miss out (pausing) some, wonderful experiences.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: But it just depends. But if you want to do that, don’t say that I said this, don’t you dare quote me!!
[Both laughing at this]
NW: That’s probably still on.
ML: mm-hmm. (still laughing at this)
NW: I’m encouraging Mandy to look for a broad horizon at the moment and she will still definitely get to the spot where she, she’s not going to be um, you know, a slacker all her life. You know she can earn a living and know what she’s doing. (laughing at herself)
ML: I will! I will quote that to them!
NW: I don’t want your mother to be angry with me. But of course I’m, people who come to New York have more of that….to come to New York as a person who doesn’t grow up in New York, my husband used to say “Poor Ellen and Laura. They will never be able to come to New York.” Because they’ve grown up here. But coming to New York to live, you know, seek your way is so ra-, so breath taking it just opens your mind so broadly that it’s very, very exciting and this is why people come to New York. So we’re that, we were both that type of person and we just loved that notion of coming to New York. WOW!
ML: (smiling and laughing)
NW: So he said they’ll never have that because they’ve been here all along. (laughing)
ML: That’s not a bad thing though!
NW: Well, see you’ve only been here less than 24 hours and it’s already hit you!
ML: Oh yeah! Definitely, it was--
NW: (laughing) I think you’re so brave to drive in and also to take the subway all by yourself. Did you have any trouble finding your way in the subway?
[Spent a few minutes talking about the subway and how it would not take my money. She goes on to talk about a few random things then comes back.]
NW: (talking about coming to New York leads into…) This is where I want to be!!! I was one of those people who was just hook on New York. (laughing)
ML: mm-hmmm.
NW: So you never know Mandy, you might become hooked on New York.
ML: I know!! Maybe. I think um, I called one of my roommates when I got here and she really wanted to come with me.
NW: Oh I wish she had!
ML: Yeah, but she had a bunch of work, but um, she really wants to come so I think we’re going to come back during J-term.
NW: That’s good. That’s good. Yeah. Well there’s, there’s internships during, have you looked? What are you going to do during J-term?
ML: I think I’m going to do an independent study.
NW: Well then you could come to New York!
ML: Mmm-hmm!!
NW: Hey! Great! If you want to do something about the environment I would be happy to help.
ML: Really?? OK! Yeah! I definitely could give you a call and work that out.
NW: Sure, sure.
ML: Oh my gosh that would be so awesome.
NW: Cause you, you have just barely scratched the surface. You haven’t even scratched the surface.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: You’re just one the edge of the surface!
ML: I know! Gosh. Ok, well I’ll finish up. Just again, I know I already asked you last time in the interview but are you glad that you participated in doing this?
NW: Of course. I’m very, I think that… First of all this is the kind of thing I love so I’ve done a lot of, quite a bit of stuff like this and I think it’s very, very valuable.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: And I really like the idea that Hollins professors are connecting students with the alumni in different ways. This is, this is great, you know. Because we all love Hollins. We want it to be the best, you know. So this is a good way of doing it yeah.
ML: I agree.
NW: How, how many people are being interviewed did you tell me?
ML: Um, I think there, there’s about like 11 people in my class I think? So…
NW: Everybody’s interviewing somebody.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: Oh boy, that’s going to be really interesting to see.
ML: Yeah and uh, I think pretty much everybody’s into different social change work. Its not really like everyone is environmental or something like that. So.
NW: Well, you know, social change is good. But you just think back to the urban forestry thing and you just think never in a million years would the U.S Forest service thought of themselves working in cities.
ML: mm-hmmm.
NW: Let alone having a, you know, allowing in their budget an urban forestry, whatever that is supposed to mean. And they really resented giving up the research dollars because they wanted to do all their research in the natural forest and you know so forth. And they greatest challenge to the urban forestry work was when the research, they were going to shut down 2 of the 3 research base stations and they had no earthly idea, those making the decision in Washington, had no earthly idea of the tremendous partnership that had been forged between the tree group network, you know the Alliance for Community Trees and the research stations. One of them is at Syracuse, New York. The other is in Davis, California. And we got the word of course form our pals that this was happening and so there were, several groups sent people to Washington and we had arranged we thought for a meeting with the chief of the forest service and of course we were going to say you know, don’t do it, this is terrible. Well we got there and the chief was out of town the said which of course we knew was a big fat lie…but anyway we were going to meet with the deputy chief in charge of research. And he you know came in a just looked us over and again, no homework, no homework just “who are these people. Could they possibly have power? No, he didn’t think so. He said well you know it’s too late we made the decision. I don’t understand why you’re so upset we’re leaving the one in Chicago.” Well that was the social science research center and we liked them very much we needed the hard science stuff that these other two places were doing because we needed to prove that urban forestry was important not just because of the beauty of the trees but because of the air pollution mitigation and the energy conservation That tree canopy gives to cities which of course are paved over. They had no idea of how critical these two stations were to our work.
ML: mm-hmm.
NW: So we said oh no, no, no don’t do it and he just kind of laughed it off and he said well HA, he said, you could always just go to Congress HAHAHA tell them HAHAHAHA. Well of course what he didn’t know was that we had already made contact. And we went running over to this particular office in Washington and set off, we had already composed the language, I guess by fax to um, the aid of one of the Congressmen that represents Syracuse, New York.
ML: (laughing)
NW: And of course he was in contact of the one representing in Davis, California and um, they were one the very committee the appropriations committee so when the forest service got its budget there was a line protecting both of those research stations at a million dollars and they just had a fit. So those, those, here you’ve got science and social science and political smarts and activism and networking because people were coming from different parts of the country. All of that is why, why environmental work is so interesting. It all fused into this one thing and we were protecting something that we cared about. Brother, did that hit- supposedly that story is still told in the forest service headquarters!! In other words as a cautionary tale.
ML: Yeah.
NW: This is what could happen to you.
[Both laughing]
NW: And we never have heard BOO after or since, you know, that they were going to take away that line so.
ML: Gotta be nice to everybody.
NW: Well it was a great day. But it shouldn’t have been so hard but I suppose you know this kind of work sometimes is …maybe part of what we like is the struggle.
ML: mmm-hmm. It sounds like it.
NW: Well it gets your juices up and then you know you retire to the hotel bar and have a beer.
ML: (laughing)
NW: (laughing) And hash it over endlessly. We’ve told that story I don’t know how many times!
ML: Gosh well I think that’s everything but do you want to add anything?
NW: No, but this has been a great pleasure Mandy.
ML: Oh, no you have no idea.
NW: I’m thrilled that you selected me and you’re doing a wonderful job.
[Nancy goes on to ask when this project will be done. I let her know the date and ensure her I will send all transcripts, copies of the interview and website link to information and thank her again!!]