Origin Story
People used to ask me how I ended up in Oregon. Short answer? I came for a wedding and never left.
Here’s the full story.
In the summer (August?) of 2009 my cousin Mike married his longtime sweetheart Lindsey (no, that’s not Lindsey next to Mike, that’s cousin Robin). A rare alignment of the stars conspired to bring us all together for Mike’s wedding, and even rarer still, for my nuclear family to make an actual vacation out of it. My folks offered to foot the bill (can’t say no to that) and to take us to Yellowstone and Teton National Park. Two weeks in total.
Part of the star alignment was that I didn’t have a job. Well, I did, kind of. I was helping my folks to renovate their house before they sold it. I had just returned from Guatemala, without much of a plan, and was living with them while I looked for opportunities to continue building human-powered machines.
Okay, I should probably say more about that.
Rewinding the tape a little further, it’s 2008 and I’m living at working at the Quaker village building a house for Pat and Kristin. My time there was wrapping up and I had this peculiar notion, not sure where it came from, that I had to learn how to make pedal-powered machines. I searched and searched the internets, didn’t come up with much. What I realized I really wanted was a to find a place that designed and built these kinds of machines and then to go there and learn from them. Many google searches turned up nothing. And then, my partner at the time hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button and like magic, served up on a singular silver search result platter, there was Maya Pedal.
I spent an incredible three months, January-March of ‘09, learning how to build these machines from one of the world’s pre-eminent human-powered machine inventors, Carlos Marroquin. I kept a fairly active blog while I was there. I’d suggest starting here and reading it chronologically.* If you’re enjoying reading about this adventure, you’d probably enjoy reading about that one too. It’s even more eccentric and picturesque, believe it or not.
Back to the story. Where are we? Oh, right, I’d returned from Guatemala and was looking for opportunities to keep designing and inventing human-powered machines. Connected with some folks in Philly, Neighborhood Bike Works, a non-profit helping kids to learn how to repair and safely ride bikes. Pretty cool organization. Operated out of the basement of a church on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus. Some of the volunteers had a collective workspace (not formally connected to NBW) in an old trolley depot where they built bikes; they were kind enough to let me use the shop and build a pedal-powered water pump. But something about it didn’t take. Probably because I was a lot more of a selfish asshole then. Also, there wasn’t any structure, no real organization, and that’s what I needed. Someone to build for. Someplace that would really benefit from these creations and had a framework I could plug into. And when that opportunity emerged, I jumped on it.
Alright, I can’t resist, one story from the trolley bike collective place thingy. So, I’m using the MIG welder to work on this pedal-power water pump, which I was excited to show off at a Dave Jacke permaculture workshop (unbeknownst to him) and it runs out of wire. The way these things work is that they feed a wire from a large spool inside the welder into a gun that creates an arc and melts the wire into the base metal (i.e. what you are welding). The wire is specific, its coated in a flux that creates an oxygen-free zone around the weld as you make it. Oxygen equals bad. And you can’t just pick some up at your local CVS. So I asked around and was told there was a Home Depot a few miles away. Okay. I’ll walk. I don’t really know where I am and this is before the ubiquity of smartphones and Google Maps, in fact, it was the print-out-Map-Quest-directions era of the late Aughts. No computer, no printer, I’m just asking people for directions. As I’m going it dawns on me that I am the only white person, which made me pretty conspicuous. I’m a little ashamed to say that my cloistered suburban upbringing left me with the impression that this might mean I wasn’t safe. Was I not safe? I don’t know. Is there any truth to that fear? Maybe, maybe not. But the further I went, the more uncomfortable I felt. Especially when I started getting hollered at from across the street. OLD MAC DONAL HAD A FARM EE AY EE AY OOO. I was wearing what was my uniform at the time, kakhi colored Carhartt overalls. And they were filthy. I mean, like giant grease stains, including a big one on my butt. This really attractive, svelte woman behind me called out Mmm, that ass! She was also making fun of me, but she had a twinkle in her eye and a big smile, which actually put me at ease. I was just getting teased for looking like a dirtball from folks who had enough sense to look nice when they left the house. I was okay. Got my welding wire and went back to the shop.
Since we were already taking a trip, I thought, why not make it a longer trip? Mom and dad, can you buy my return ticket for three months after the wedding, instead of two weeks? Sure, no problem. Cool! I’ll borrow a car from my aunt and uncle (the infamous NIN mobile), pick up my best friend Elliott in Portland and we’ll tour the whoooooole west coast.
We only made it as far as Cottage Grove.
Before I left Philly, I got the idea that maybe there would be places on the west coast that would dig what I was doing. Maybe there would be places that I could stop and build some machines, or teach workshops, or give presentations. Yeah. I bet there would be. And there were.
Quickly, back to the Quaker Village, there was an architect. He had designed the community building on the property and as part of his payment he got to keep an airstream on-site. He’d visit periodically, I was curious and made sure to chat him up when he was around. Don’t remember his name, though I think it was something like Damien. What I really remember, and I’m glad I did, was that he told me about these really efficient wood-burning stoves called rocket stoves, which just use twigs to boil water. That got my attention. The place that made them was called Aprovecho. I looked them up, first thing I found was Vavrek and his weird terrible video:
Despite his worst sonic efforts to turn you off to this concept, I was sold. ROCKET STOVES ARE COOL. So I reached out to the wrong, but actually the right, Aprovehco. Because there are two. Which is confusing. And they sort of do the same thing. Also confusing. I didn’t find the one I was looking for, but I found the one that I needed.
Day 2 of my alleged multi-month road trip I land at Aprovecho, not the Aprovecho, but an Aprovecho. Okay, I should explain. They used to be the same organization, Dean Still, the stove guru overplayed his hand and burned his colleagues (this is how they tell it). The fallout caused him to take all the tech and UN funding and set up shop down the road, under the same name. They both, stubbornly, claimed to be the Aprovecho. But they are both an Aprovecho. And, honestly, I don’t know if either actually exists anymore anyway. Dysfunction, ego, mismanagement, greed, yadda yadda. A tale of two Aprovechos.
Anyway, I arrive at this magical wooded mecca of all that is awesome about the vestiges of the 60’s back-to-the-land movement: natural buildings made from materials on-site, trees felled and hauled by draft horses, solar panels (provided by Enron), rainwater catchment, green roofs, EVERY SINGLE KIND OF ROCKET STOVE IMAGINABLE, passive solar hot water showers, composting toilets, pedal-powered machines… and I’m in love. I had found my place, my people (or so I thought), and the chance to pursue my passion.
What was going to be two weeks turned into two months, and then a year. And then I was like “Well… I guess I live here now.” But they weren’t my people and it wasn’t my place, again, that’s mostly on me- still very much in the selfish asshole realm of my mid-twenties. So after they asked me to leave I wandered north a few miles to the thriving metropolis of Eugene (it actually is now, but definitely wasn’t then- giant pits and burned-out buildings downtown). I’d become friends with the illegitimate grandson of a Guatemalan dictator, named Phranque. Not the dictator, the friend. And yes, he actually spells it that way. And yes, he really is the grandson of a dictator and his maid. Phranque ran the bike church (why do bikes and churches go together, I’m not seeing the correlation). Not an actual church building like in Philly, but instead an old industrial wood drying kiln the size of a… I don’t know what to compare it to, it was a long, tall, thin bay in a building with 4 similarly sized spaces. There was a bus parked inside with room to spare if that gives you a sense of its size. The bike church was an anarchist space, part of the Free School, and provided free space and tools to anyone who wanted to fix up one of the hundreds of junk bikes piled in the yard. Crust punks, tall bikes, dumpster diving, egalitarianism- my people! Again not really, but closer.
I moved in with Phranque at the East Blair Co-op, a really charming collection of characters and colorful houses in the Whiteaker neighborhood of Eugene. Loved that place. My people? Nope. Lasted a year and then I was out again. Less dramatic than the Aprovecho ousting, but still unfortunate, and also on me.
Bounced around for a while in different housing situations. Lived at a tuna factory in the woods for a year in a tiny home. Paul and Judy. They didn’t really care for me either. Starting to see a pattern. Got a job as a bicycle builder in a factory making custom-built folding bikes. Which is like the most niche thing ever. But almost 30 later, they’re still there, doing better than ever, from what I’ve heard. Strange place. I’m tempted to tell you the story of how they hired me and then tried to unhire me immediately after. Ha. I’ll save that for later. (I worked there for 6 years, btw).
All the while, I’m continuing to design and build human-powered machines. Never lost sight of that. Some interesting things came out of it. Like a pedal-powered rocket launcher, a pedal-powered straw shredder, way too many pedal-powered blenders, a hand-cranked bubble blower, and this wackadoodle bicycle:
After a few years at the bike company I decided to shoot for the moon and really follow my passion, full time. I won’t rehash the whole story, didn’t go at all the way I expected. You can read about it here.
I always knew I would leave Eugene, didn’t know where I would go, or what I would do, but I knew it wasn’t my forever place. I thought maybe I’d travel the world some more (still thinking about that). I thought I’d go to grad school, even got into Cornell, but decided it wasn’t the right fit or timing. Marty thinks I’m an idiot. Too fucking bad honorary uncle Marty. I’m an artist. The well-worn paths of standard career trajectories just aren’t in my DNA. For better, or worse, I’m taking the harder route of discernment, intuition, and creative pursuits. Yes, it means I work in a grocery store (for the time being). Yes, it means I might never have kids of my own. Yes, it means I may not have the money to free myself from wage labor post 65 years of age. But I’m doing what feels right, and I trust that. Things seem to go better when I don’t confine myself to the narratives others have written for me. I’m writing my own story, one day at a time.
Post Script
*Pro-tip: scroll to the very bottom of the screen and use the “Newer Post” and “Older Post” links to navigate between posts on Bike Blender Blog. Screenshot example below.
