It was a cold, wet windy winter Sunday in the Devine area of south-central Texas. “Come on outside with me Paul Bain! We’re going to take some firewood into town.” Under Dad’s direction, I chopped some oak wood alongside him, loaded it into the green 6-cylinder bobtail truck which was normally his ride to work and primarily a hog shuttle to San Antonio, and we then headed slowly into Devine to a small shed-like structure of old wood and cardboard near the Devine Mill and Elevator. Inside was a small, aged Latino hovering near a wood stove. Dad handed him some of the fall potatoes we had grown and put up for winter, and the man wrinkled old man greeted us in broken English and with a humble and amazingly beautiful smile on his ragged and bearded face.

We unloaded the wood from what was at that time a fairly new 55-Chevrolet bob-tail truck Dad had purchased second-hand from local cigar-chomping automobile dealer, Mr. George Fernandez. We stacked the renewable biomass near the old man’s scant living structure, and then without too many words being spoken, shook hands with the old compadre and headed home to our five-acre hog farm nested within the Gutierrez, Schroeter, Bowman, and Uncle Peggy Martin pasture lands.

……………………………………
I believe this story pretty much captures the essence of Dad Alton Martin. He was a hard-working, not wealthy, and giving person who loved people, especially the real, the poor, the humble.

[I do want to make one important point at this juncture. These are mostly my memories from my formative years during a period from about 1949 when I can date my first memories to about 1969. Later in life Dad mellowed somewhat, allowed the boys to drive the car to two-a-day football practices in August, gave a calf to which my sister became attached special dispensation from slaughter, took the family on a vacation to see his sister Delia and family in Farmington, NM (minus brother Lawrence and I who were off working for the summer to cover college expenses), and air-conditioned his and Louise’s home.]

Dad Alton was good in many ways:
• He appreciated, very, very much, south Texas wild flowers! At times he had us transplant them from the roadsides into our own yard (We’d fill the bed of that 1955-bobtail with shoveled up flower plants from sandy land in between Stockdale and Devine.), and he’d purchase phlox seed to broadcast around the house. Late in his life he enjoyed visiting the botanical gardens in far-away San Antonio (35 miles from our homesite).

• Gardening and the eating of fresh vegetables and fruits was immensely loved by Dad!! He particularly loved our homegrown cream peas (Vigna unguiculata), fresh-from-the-stalk sweet corn, new potatoes, tomatoes, English peas, green beans, and okra. Moreover, he/we* would supplement the fruit and sweet corn we grew with dewberries, plums, and hard pears from our farmland in Stockdale and other properties and from farmers’ field corn. White-flesh peaches and other fruit for direct eating, freezing, or canning, would be brought home from the (feed) Mill where he worked for many years and where friends would give him the wonderfully fresh and tasty ovaries. (*We Martin kids were generally involved in production, processing, and harvesting. … And by the way, we all sat down at the table together for meals of this wonderful food when we were not out on a job working or at school. And we only began eating together after a blessing of the food. Finally, it was extremely rare in all the years I lived with Alton Martin for us to eat out in a restaurant.)

• Dad enjoyed making, sharing and eating homemade ice cream made from our Jersey cow’s milk and cream, and eggs from our mestizo chickens. On a hot summer’s day we’d go into town and purchase crushed block ice from the ice house across from the locker plant and near the railroad tracks in Devine, and then churn the rich and sweet concoction under a shaded area.

• Dad Alton was justly proud of the healthy, good quality, and meaty hogs we raised as a family.

• A small and fairly sustainable agricultural system on the five-acres just outside of Devine was developed by Dad & Mom and our family during the years of the 1950s & 60s.  It involved milk cows, a large garden, chickens (and sometimes guineas), a calf for slaughter, and hogs, and Dad directed the creation of this diverse agrarian landscape perhaps to simply survive and enjoy life in the best way in which he knew. On this small and diversified acreage, we Alton Martin children always had plenty of chores to take care of before and after school, on weekends, and in the summer, including household chores to help Mom. And in taking care of our little five-acre place, and another 140-acres in Stockdale (on which we ran a few cattle and later leased out for grazing and dryland watermelon production.), Dad had a strong conviction of “small is beautiful, and an ethos of conservation and hard and structured work, but also a determined-mindset of low-input when outside resources were considered.

• Alton Martin truly loved his good friends—his faithful wife and our mother, Louise; his Mom Eva; Tucker Irwin and David Haywood, and other co-workers at the Mill–black, brown, pink, whatever; Tony Cruz and his wife; and many others. In his letters from the Pacific Theater during World War II, he longs to be with childhood friends and anticipates in a relishing way the day he will be reunited with his various friends and cousins in Stockdale, the Akins, the Jacksons, the Montgomery family, the Garners, Buster Martin, Marcus Allen, and his brothers and sisters, including especially his closest sibling, Oscar Bain. (The handsome and athletic Bain, the closest to Dad—who exchanged letters with Dad from the European front—was killed in the insane combat of War he hated, in February of 1945.)

• Dad Luther Alton dressed simply and had a small wardrobe of Khaki pants, blue shirts (tee-shirts and pearl-snap), as well as one suit for the rare occasions when he would dress-up. He did have one pair of fancy shoes, but generally wore high-top work shoes. And he always had a fine Resistol or Stetson-felt or straw hat, or a cap, on his head.

• He rarely left a 30-mile radius of his home and especially a 100-mile radius. He only went into San Antonio to sell hogs at Swift and Company (or rarely a High School football playoff game for which he had placed a small bet). After they learned of the quality of our hogs, Swift became our major buyer of hogs and would give us a cent or more bonus per pound over the previous days market price at the S.A. Livestock auction. (In terms of who truly took the hogs to market, it was frequently Mom or we boys who transported them into S.A.)

[Once in the peak of my rebellious years when Dad took the car keys to keep me from driving the 60 Impala into town, my plan was to take my girl-friend Kathy Wilkinson to a track meet in which I was participating. What did I do? I hopped into the hog-transporter for the date with this lovely red-haired girl from Devine.]

• Birthdays were not of importance to Dad, especially his own. Moreover, we never expected much for Christmas. He might build us something to play with or in, and we would generally receive a pair of pants or a shirt, or socks, but there were few store-bought toys. Christmas was very special to Dad, however, and he would take us kids for a ride to see the city lights every Christmas Eve while Santa Claus Louise laid out the gift.

• There was a wise reluctance and slowness in Dad about embracing new technologies. He definitely wasn’t a materialistic or gadget person, nor was he enamored with the synthetic chemical, plastic, electronic, or information world which quickly developed after his arrival back home from the Pacific in 1945. He let Mom do the (phone) calling, his garden tools were generally a shovel and a hoe, we built our own farrowing pens, he owned two bob-tailed trucks and less than 6 cars in his lifetime, we didn’t have air-conditioning for most of my and my siblings’ growing-up years, and the Alton and Louise Martin family of eight never had more than one bathroom, and they lived in a two bedroom-home for much of their existence.

• Dad Luther Alton Martin avoided lawyers, life insurance salespersons*, loan officers in banking operations, and salespeople, unless they were selling reputable agricultural products. He was frugal, he saved, and he did not believe in borrowing money. [*Dad was, however, a believer in health, home, and vehicle insurance.]

• The soil and water conservation teachings he received under the GI Bill after WW II had a great and positive impact on him in the realm of what I call sustainability and the ecological sanity component of this concept and practice. Moreover, he vehemently expressed his displeasure that some big rancher/farmers were receiving disaster payments during the drought of the 1950s, despite their unsustainable agricultural practices.

• Dad would sort of mildly “go ballistic” if you left a light on after leaving a room or the house. And when I asked for the car to go to two-a-day football practices that first August I played organized football, he quickly and assertively replied, “You can walk. You’re going there for exercise, aren’t you?” (Generally during my long two-mile treks to the Warhorse field, a friend would pick me up.)

• Alton Martin was a Master Sergeant in the U.S. Marines in World War II and participated in the horrible battle of Peleliu. But he never ever came close to pounding on his chest about this or any of his military experiences in WW II. He was a proud citizen of south-central Texas, but tired of a Warring U.S. https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/unnecessary-hell-the-battle-of-peleliu/ [During the heat of the Vietnam War in keeping with the mindset of Uncle Bain, I personally wish that I had filed as a conscientious objector, or fled to Canada with my entomologist friend Scott Boyd, rather than joining the U.S. Naval Air for a very brief stint in 1969-70 to avoid being drafted into the U.S. Army.]

• Cow-/hog trader/work-acholic Alton and Mess Sergeant Martin was good at many doing many things, including the wonderful singing and yodeling of Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, Lefty Frizzell, and Hank Snow songs. (We didn’t do much radio listening other than farm reports, and didn’t get a television until I was in High School and even then primarily only watched TV a bit on Friday nights and Sundays.  Nevertheless, Daddy entertained us with his great singing.) Even though there was a division of labor in our home and Mom generally did the cooking, Dad could cook a mean biscuit, sugar syrup, roast beef and vegetables, or gravy. He was dead-on in guessing livestock weights, and he was good at doctoring animals. Moreover, despite his cigarette-puffing habit, this relatively small man was strong and of endurance. Like my brother Lawrence, he worked like a machine!

(Concerning the division of labor, Dad could never bring himself to castrate. Early on, big Johnny Taylor, an African-American, came over to do this job. Later we boys learned and did it and always knew that when we arrived home from college, we would be castrating pigs. Then after we were basically all out of the nest and not coming home much, brother Charlie taught Mom to castrate. Dad would hold the pigs, and Mom would do the cutting.

I have to inject here, that on one occasion after arriving home from Texas A&M-College Station, Dad told me to castrate five ca. 130 pound hogs before going out on my date with Donna DiRusso. I got in a hurry, cleanly sliced rather than doing a careful scraping through the spermatic cord, vas deferens, associated tissue and the blood vessels, and three of these hogs bled to death. When I got back from the date, without saying hardly a word Dad took me out to show me what I had done. I suffered greatly in seeing those poor animals lying there, but it hurt even more to think about what I’d done to Dad’s pocketbook.)

• Cuss words were an emphatic component of Dad’s lexicon. Otherwise, he didn’t ever talk about God, Jesus, Heaven or Hell, Being Saved, the Second Coming, or really anything Spiritual or Faith-based. Occasionally Dad would attend Mass at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Devine with us, but the entering into a “house of God” was very rare for Dad. Dad’s “god/spiritualism” was rooted in ecological community, with a strong focus on: humans and the sharing of his good life and resources to the benefit of the poor, less fortunate and humble ones he came across and loved in local community. (I would characterize Dad as having been an “ignostic”, as a delightfully social justice-conscious and active citizen-friend of mine from northwestern Massachusetts has labeled herself.

• I haven’t mentioned Mom Louise much herein. (She’ll be the main focus of a future piece.) However, I do wish to emphasize that she and Dad were into the living of life together, and that they had a great love, appreciation, and respect for each other and each other’s talents and abilities. In terms of listening to the sage advice of Mom, I have but one story: Once late in Dad’s life right around Fathers Day, he and I got into a bad argument about the management of The Farm in Stockdale (which I had purchased from him years previously) and he proceeded to tell me all I was doing wrong, and how I needed to fix things immediately. I basically left his house crying, and after stopping over at my sisters’ place in Devine, my wife and I headed home to Seguin in a very melancholy mood. The next day Mom and Dad arrived in our home early, and Dad apologized to his eldest son and wife. It turns out that after our very rough and heated argument, Dad had turned to Mom Louise and asked, “What are we going to do?” Mom answered wisely, “You know what YOU have to do?” … The wisdom and prudence of Dad Alton Martin was the wisdom and prudence of MOM & DAD Martin. … Finally, it should have been paul bain martin who initiated the process of apology; however, I’ll never be the man Alton Martin was.

• Dad Alton did love the business of living very much. When there was consideration dealing with heart surgery late in life, he overruled some of us kids and said “Yes! I will definitely have the surgery!! Let’s get on with it!” Nevertheless, he wanted quality life and was adamant about not having extra-ordinary measures taken to keep him living using “extremely-artificial” devices.

• Dad Luther Alton Martin was a very calculating and careful risk-taker, and even though he never heard of the terms, he (and we as a family) had a small ecological footprint, low daily transformation of energy/kilocalorie-utilization, and did relatively little appropriation of net primary productivity. (Our hog operation at its peak was dependent on a few hundred acres of grain grown conventionally on other farms as well as having a dependency on other limited inputs of the industrial agricultural system.)

Was Dad perfect? No!!! He was human with testosterone and epinephrine and norepinephrine (and other hormone and neurotransmitter) rushes from time to time:

• Dad was a rounder and a player in his younger days.* And he had somewhat of a drinking and gambling problem during this period. Before he swore off alcohol during our early years in Devine, there’s a story that Dad and Jesse Alvarado got thrown out of Warhorse stadium for sharing a flask of whiskey. (Dad did apparently do well at loan-sharking and gambling while stationed in New Zealand and sent monies home to Grandma Eva and Grandpa Oscar, and Mom Louise.) [*I base this on stories told me by my Grandma Eva Martin while I stayed with her to work watermelons during a summer of my junior high years, those of Aunt Jo Bailey and cousin Wanda Jo Dinklage, and from letters from New Zealand in WW II found in Mother’s cedar chest.]

• Once after some years of effectively conquering his gambling and drinking challenges (Dad went on the wagon, and gambled for only small stakes thereafter.), Dad and a family friend went out to shoot pool after a celebratory day of barbeque and beverages involving both of their families. The beverage the friend had a considerable amount of was beer, and he subsequently lost some substantial cash to Dad in gambling on pool games. That friendship went to pot after the friend sobered up and felt he had been taken advantage of.

• Dad smoked a great deal of cigarette tobacco—including in our house and in our vehicles—from when he was quite young until about 65 years of age. (He quit cold turkey with the help of the chest hospital in S.A. after a doctor told him he had about five years to live if he didn’t give up smoking.)

• Alton Martin did take a work ethic too seriously. As an Alton Martin family during my growing-up years, we rarely took a vacation. (I do fondly remember that during one of our “We’re getting up at 3 am!”-trips to The Farm, Dad packed bacon, eggs and bread and a skillet, and he cooked for us kids half-way in between Devine and Stockdale singing, “Camping in the raw. Camping in the raw. I wish I was in Texas but here I am in Arkansas.” By the way, half the way on the 70- mile route to the farm was close to a one-hour drive, because Daddy wouldn’t drive over 45 miles an hour. … Beginning in my junior high years, we began to take a trip to Avant’s Camp near Garner State Park and spend a wonderful few summer days on the Frio River.)

• While we Catholic kids and Mom ate fish sticks, or salmon patties with plenty of crushed saltine crackers, or oatmeal, and eggs in them to make the canned fish suffice for six young ‘uns on Fridays, and sometimes liver and onions on other days (which I actually enjoyed), Dad sat at the end of the table eating steak.

• Because he was generally very busy making-a-living, Dad didn’t really take a lot of time teaching us how to best build structures. He’d just tell us to build a fence, shed, or garage, or lay water-lines, and expect (through on-the-job-learning) the various jobs and projects–assigned to us through regular lists given to Mom–to be accomplished on weekends, after school, or after our outside paying jobs in the summer.

• The stern, disciplined, authoritarian ways of Dad did result in some friction—initially with my brother Lawrence because of his fun-loving, energetic, and carefree ways and lack of near-perfect grades, and even with my quiet, intellectual brother Dr. John Russell Martin, M.D. Lawrence* received many scoldings and whippings over his Bs & Cs, etc. on report cards, and I never remember Lawrence protesting.

But once when Dad criticized John’s building of a farrowing pen, John retorted “If you don’t like it, build it yourself!” I seriously rebelled during my senior year in high school, and our father-son/elder-son relationship was estranged for a few years.

[*Lawrence later became a very well-respected principal of schools for the Northside ISD in San Antonio, including Clark and O’Connor, and was affectionately labeled “The Amazing Mr. Martin” before he died from cancer in 2010. The library at O’Connor is named after Lawrence. http://bannedbookscafe.blogspot.com/2010/06/lawrence-devine-warhorse-aggie-clark.html ]

• Once after being caught picking on my brother Lawrence several times when we were supposed to be working hard in the garden, Dad proceeded to make me pull my pants down to expose my bare bottom. As I stood there as the oldest brother half-naked in the garden, he blistered my butt in front of a young audience of Lawrence and his friends who were over visiting.

For better or worse I received some of the traits and behaviors of Dad. And in reality I wish I had taken on more. I do feel strongly that if all of us lived lives similar in many respects to that of Dad’s—for the most part wisely, simply, steadfastly, and sharingly—the world would be in much better shape and a better place!

The ethos and mores/values and behaviors I have embraced and practiced through the years, have always been developed and modified primarily through the lens of those of my Dad. (Of course, this is not particularly unusual, and would be the case for many humans. Moreover, there were other strong influences which were also positive, e.g., from Mom, from St. Joseph Catholic Church and Vatican II, and from the whole of the village of Devine. Other very significant influences were the sexual revolution, ecological activism, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War of the 1960s & 70s.

From this came my ethos of regeneration and conservation of resilient, sustainable community; Positively Ethical Applied Community Ecology/PEACE; and the mantra for lives which are: “Sabio, Simple, Small, Slow, Steadfast, Sharing, and Sustainable”. I am most definitely a sinner! But!! …

1. As effectively and efficiently as I am able, I work to acquire ecological knowledge toward practicing critical thinking and being prudent. This is a continuing educational process which encompasses psychological, social, political, economic realms. In this effort, I recognize that biology, the arts & kinesiology, physics, anthropology, and philosophy (including consilience) are key components of the learning process and that mathematics and various spoken and written languages of ethnic and cultural groups are essential for communication.

2. I try to keep my eyes on the prize in the distant future which will come from us all working together to effectively and sustainably deal with overshoot and disparity, and our destruction of biocapacity, biodiversity, and the natural resource base.

3. I do also take time to enjoy all people and peoples including the wealthy and powerful Haves (although I do have to admit that it is in a teasing, sarcastic, snarky way in the case of de facto greedy, selfish, and arrogant Haves), but I especially enjoy and appreciate the poor, the relatively powerless, and the disenfranchised Have-nots. I like to work alongside the jesuses of the world, I don’t give a damn about a second-coming, and I am not in the least concerned about being blessed.

4. Finally, I appreciate symbioses/”nature” in whatever state it exists.

To a large extent, Dad Alton Martin brought me here to where I am at almost 72 years of age in the late 2010s. pbm (Nov. 2018)

7Ss / VV->^^
pbm

https://medium.com/presencing-institute-blog/axial-shift-the-decline-of-trump-the-rise-of-the-greens-and-the-new-coordinates-of-societal-b0bde2613a9e?fbc

https://medium.com/thebeammagazine/why-a-transition-to-clean-energy-alone-is-not-enough-for-a-sustainable-future-35eee2ac9901

https://www.aau.at/en/social-ecology/research/social-metabolism/

……………………………………………………………………………………

I’m not overly bright, but what I’ve learned over my 72 years is fairly simple for most anyone to figure out, and especially the energetic and intelligent young ones in today’s world.  (Of course it doesn’t mean that we have the morals & ethics, and intestinal fortitude-individually and collectively–to do so … and to do something truly Good about our destructive behaviors. Moreover, … in terms of doing Good for all for both the short and long-term, Faith and blind/false hopes are complicating factors.)

Anyway, what I have learned is:

1. Resources here on Eaarth are limited.

2. It took millions of years for “Life as Homo sapiens knows it” to evolve into a “somewhat fragile “homeostasis”/symbioses, but it seems to be something which is pretty Good!

3. Long ago, groups of Homo sapiens recognized that equity and an Ethic of Reciprocity in socio-ecological systems are good for a “homeostatic” symbioses.

4. The very important law, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, basically tells us that if one system, e.g., populations of Homo sapiens, works and transforms energy excessively, this will cause disruption of symbioses, or the living system in “homeostasis” which, relatively speaking, can provide quality life for all (and including a long period for Homo sapiens & associated species).

5. Continued global human and domesticated animal population-growth and economic-growth run counter to these facts & principles mentioned cursorily in 1-4.

6. Neo-liberal capitalism and technological fixes generally do more harm than good.

7. For quality life for all, for as long as possible, we Homo sapiens need to live sabiamente (wisely), simply, smally, slowly, steadfastly, sharingly, SUSTAINABLY. We must lower our individual & collective ecological footprints, daily per capita & collective energy transformation, and embodied human appropriation of net primary productivity. That means:

• living a quality life in symbioses … with less,
• employing “appropriate” technologies appropriately, & abiding by the Precautionary Principle,
• placing more emphasis on the “S” & “M” in STEM vs. the “T” & “M”,
• focusing more on PEACE than War, and
• developing local low-input/-throughput agrarian economies (quasi-LISA, or Low Input Sustainable Agriculture) which are relatively in concert with symbioses, and which involve appropriate use of plants and animals, AND include some hunting/gathering. (Wow, that’s a mouthful.)

8. Local & global governance needs to utilize continued learning about sustainable ecological principles & processes, effective goal-setting, strategic planning & policy-setting, and development of sustainability indicators which are measurable and useful in moving us toward a holistic ethic of reciprocity and sustainable maintenance of the natural resource base and symbioses.

7Ss / VV->^^
pbm

[Illustrations by Laura Salazar and Elizabeth Martin.]

 

We the people of today’s artificially capitalistic-, socialistic-, and fascistic-leaning tribes drink varying flavors of toxic Kool-Aid. This is a route to extinction for all (except for the extremophiles), i.e., these high-input, artificial Kool-Aid-sustenances and -connectors are not sustainable.

I propose that we slow down, meet together in ritualistic and traditional ways, struggle to scientifically communicate, and symbiotically drink the best of the naturally home-grown and locally prepared atoles. Thusly we’ll exist much longer in quality lives of symbioses on a healthy Earth through future generations.
………………
My first taste of atole was when I was about ten years of age and mowing my Uncle Peggy and Aunt Jo Bailey’s lawn on very hot July day. A beautiful young Mexican Carmelite nun who–along with her colleagues–my mother and dad had invited over for supper, gave me a thick and very “cold atole” in a Mason jar as a gift to the family in return for the food, fellowship, and enjoyment during the previous evening with our family. That atole was unbelievably gooood!

A few years back I was stumbling over hills and dales of a mountainous Mexican village in Oaxaca on a miserably cold and rainy day, attempting to keep up with three jovencitas who were our guides to households needing our services, and vaccinating chickens, turkeys, pigs, dogs, and other small animals as a member of a trio including a crazy veterinarian and a wonderfully kind and learned Episcopalian priest. (We were labeled “El doctor, el profesor, y el Padre”.) During one particular day of volunteering, Father David Chalk was doing all the heavy-lifting and carrying of our vaccines and doctoring supplies, Dr. Jeff Jorgenson was tuckering-out from chicken-whispering and miraculously bringing a couple of hens back to life after we had apparently accidently punctured lungs in the process of vaccinating them in their slender breasts, and I, the dysfunctional professor who has lost his sense of balance, had fallen into a big puddle of water in our process of crossing a make-shift bridge made of a single plank of wood, and was soaking wet.

Toward the late afternoon, we came upon a family and their friends warmly gathered around in a simple rustic atrium with una estufa en la escina. They were enjoying conversation and drinking atole … and they offered us some of this nutritious, delicious, heart-warming, and soul-expanding ancient-drink.
……………….
This is what robust, spiritual, and quality life is about. Folk of different tribes, coming together peacefully as one, and sharing good solid, or not so solid, knowledge. Communicating! Connecting!! Realizing dialectical interactions toward knowledge, wisdom, prudence, and appropriate policy and actions. And hopefully also retrofitting our very necessary rituals and traditions, and our ethos and mores, with good scientific inputs.

We need to create systems of symbioses in which we toss the Kool-Aids afuera and share the atoles toward lives which are sabio, simple, small, slow, strong, sharing, and sustainable.

7Ss / VV->^^
pbm

 

 

“To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament.

When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.” Wendell Berry (2003)

 

As I enjoyed tennis matches with seven gracious women on one cool (ca. 70 degrees F) fall morning at Starcke Park here adjacent to the Guadalupe River in Seguin, Texas, a cute little fall webworm crawled across the court. Like my attitude toward ants and spiders and most life forms, I felt admiration and respect for this little fuzzy critter, and I took care to let it continue in its seemingly focused journey toward further enjoyment of life.

Nevertheless, I am not reluctant to kill a “lowly” cockroach. I have been conditioned to immediately think of cockroaches as despicable when I detect one or more of these creatures, and I will not rest until I believe they are eradicated from my home. But this tough attitude toward blattids does stop in my abode! In Seguin there is a restaurant which has an excellent reputation for good tacos. I currently do not give this place my business because I saw a German cockroach on its vending-counter some five-plus years ago.

I suppose the only other organisms for which I have such a “genocidal-attitude” are rats and mice. My disdain for these creatures is not unlike that toward cockroaches; I absolutely do not want these creatures moving into my household or attached environment in which I live and work.

Other killings I have done for which I feel truly little guilt are those committed against screwworms (New World species) early in my life. Perhaps, I have lived a somewhat sheltered life, but the most gruesome experiences I have had in my ca. 73-plus years were screwworm-infested cattle heads, calf navels, and pig scrotums. As a young side-kick of and laborer for my father in the 1950’s and 60’s, I helped him doctor, or doctored myself, many wounds in hogs and cattle which were infested with this flesh-eating insect parasite with the black Smear-62 screw-worm killer or EQ-335 (or rarely an aerosol with lindane as an active ingredient).

During my freshman year (1960-61) at Devine High School in vocational agriculture, I participated in a Future Farmers of America-Greenhand Farm Radio contest in which our topic was the proposed screwworm-eradication program for the southwestern U.S., or basically Texas. We discussed the biology of the screwworm, the promising sterile insect technique for eradication of this insect, and a proposed beef cattle check-off program to fund the eradication program.

By the time I graduated from high school in 1964 the screwworm was declared eradicated from Texas. During my high school years Dr. E.F. Knipling’s eradication program using airplane releases of irradiated and sterilized screwworms, which had been raised at an old Air Base in Mission, Texas, had been in high gear. (There was a resurgence of screwworms in the 1970’s reported to me from back home by my brothers while I was working on my doctorate in entomology at the University of Florida, and I was fortunate to be able to attend a fabulously informative international conference in Gainesville, FL, addressing the population dynamics of field populations and challenges which had arisen with genetic changes (micro-evolution) and quality control of lab-reared screwworms.  We still have screwworms in South America, and there have been recent outbreaks of New World screwworms in North Africa and the Florida Keys.  The outbreaks in Africa and the Keys have been subsequently snuffed out!)

Now, concerted efforts to eradicate species like screwworms back in the 1950’s and 60’s, but even up until current times, which were considered to be immensely pestiferous, were done, relatively speaking, without much adherence to the Precautionary Principle.  Moreover, in their 1998 review of eradication and pest management, J.D. Myers et al. stated, “Cost-benefit analyses of eradication programs involve biases that tend to underestimate the costs and overestimate the benefits.¹”   Anyway, the screwworm eradication effort was steamrolled through by E.F. Knipling in his powerful leadership role in USDA entomological research.  It did employ many of my colleagues in entomology from the southwestern U.S. and was a successful program in the southeastern and southwestern U.S., Mexico, and Central America.  In 1980, as a young research scientist and coordinator of a fall armyworm conference, I had the pleasure of being invited to share some Wild Turkey whiskey with the stately and venerated and very knowledgeable and kind, Dr. Knipling in his hotel room in Biloxi, MS, and of discussing, one on one, his proposed talk on area-wide strategies of integrated pest management, including biological control. … Dr. Knipling, who died at 90 years of age, was 71 or about my current age at the time.

To reiterate in summary, the  screwworm, a mostly tropical species, was relatively easy to eradicate from North America, and the detrimental ecological consequences were probably relatively minor because of the generally low densities and relatively small biomass of the species. Therefore, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, we did not ponder too long upon the Precautionary Principle before deciding to eradicate the screwworm.

Another species with which we have been successful in eradicating is the cotton boll weevil. We are close to eradicating this late 19th century/early 20th century invader species from most cotton-growing areas of the United States. And, even though eradication strategies have employed the use of widespread applications of biocides along with other tactics, for the long-term there will be a probable dramatic net reduction in the use of biocides for cotton production in the U.S. The boll weevil is a key pest of cotton, and when broad-spectrum biocides have been used for its control, the detrimental impact on parasitoids and predators of the cotton bollworm and other insects has resulted in a number of secondary pests, including the cotton bollworm.

Decisions to eradicate some invasive species (but generally not “invasive” agricultural crop-species and domesticated animals), resulting from the Columbian Exchange, which University of Texas’ esteemed professor, Alfred Crosby, labeled “Ecological Imperialism,” seem to be easier to make than the examples I have chosen to be presented herein because of my own lifetime experiences. This is especially so for exotic invaders of islands.

However, the situation is quite different for many species, e.g., when contemplating eradication of a mosquito species or even some particular populations of these pesky piercing-sucking feeders. Despite the serious health challenges caused for humans by mosquitoes, the huge numbers and biomass of mosquitos in symbioses² (i.e., “nature”), and their role as key components of important food webs and biodiversity cause us to think at least twice when we ponder eradication of even Aedes aegypti, vector of so many human diseases, or Anopheles mosquitoes, vectors of dreaded malaria.

(I do wish to insert at this point, that I am in accordance with the famous sea turtle biologist, Archie Carr, who taught me much about community ecology, in stressing that we should for the most part leave snakes, including rattlesnakes, and spiders, scorpions, wasps, and bees, etc. alone. Let them be!)

Shifting to another level or aspect of killing, as is the case with most humans, I have slaughtered many plants for various reasons over my lifetime. However, because we generally share less than 60% of our respective genes, we are not empathic to their feelings and consciousness. Moreover, because they and other primary producers are what we depend upon, directly or indirectly, for the matter and energy resulting in human life, this slaughter of plant lives does not cause much distress for us. We will swear off eating of our dear animal kin but never swear off killing and ingesting all life forms … or dear animal, dear plant kin, AND loveable ones of other phyla. (Obviously, deciding to abstain from killing and eating all the various dear life forms would be to commit suicide.)

The fact is, however, that the heavy load on the ecosphere of humans and their domesticated species is an effective killer of “climax” vegetation and communities and symbioses, or “nature,” to the extent that it might be immoral and unethical. Nevertheless, proper rangeland management and the utilization of grass-fed beef, browsers, and free-range animals as food is much more appropriate than feedlot-confined or caged domesticated animals. In addition, maintenance of rangeland systems results in less destruction and chaos in symbioses than plowing these systems out for wheat and other small grain production systems. These more natural rangeland systems of food production result in the killing of less soil biota and other biota and the realization of much more biodiversity–than grain, vegetable and most fruit and nut production systems. (By the way, the Land Institute, Salina, Kansas is working steadily and vigorously to improve current monoculture-systems of grain with breeding and development of perennial grain-, oil-, and legume-crops, which might be utilized in more diverse intercropping systems involving less tillage and less synthetic fertilizers and biocides. https://landinstitute.org/about-us/ )

Now, we are going to have to continue to kill to healthily survive as human individuals, demes, and populations and to survive as a species. But where do we draw the line of killing in these and other aspects of living/killing systems? When we attempt to put all into perspective, it is generally not an easy task to make these killing decisions. On the other hand, war and capital punishment, for example, are de facto premeditated acts of murder of living lived lives and have no moral or ethical currency.

Decisions concerning conventional birth control are not so clear-cut. Human birth control can be effective in reducing growth in populations of Homo sapiens, which generally results in more resources and habitat for all others. When one individual, deme, or population dominates an inordinate amount of energy, matter, food, or habitat, this action inevitably results in killing of other lifeforms, including other humans, or the prevention of adequate matter and appropriate energy transformation for future living beings. But depending on the type of birth control, it may also result in the killing of a partial sperm or ovum or of a developing human zygote or embryo.  Moreover, human living systems do provide resources and habitat for some particular species.

The somewhat arbitrary³ lines to effectively reduce killings, which I posit are developed in the illustrations in our little book on applied ecology, lighten the ecological footprint and reduce embodied human-appropriation of net primary productivity.  The immensely powerful must share that power with the relatively powerless, poor, and disenfranchised. Realize per capita equity of <70,000 kilocalories/day and perhaps ca. <$50,000/year.

Finally, increase in unsustainable jobs, GDP, the power of the military-industrial complex, human and domesticated animal numbers, and the corresponding rampant human development and artificialization of what was a robust and healthy symbioses are indicators of and processes of a killing global-machine.⁴ To slow down this killing⁵ we desperately do need to live by the mantra of “Sabio, Simple, Small, Slow, Steadfast, Sharing, SUSTAINABLE.”

(Perhaps readers of this piece will begin to understand why I had feeling of total sickness upon the election of Donald Trump and why I have generally felt sicker ever since. Trump and his policies are the antithesis of a process toward a healthier symbioses and a healthier humanity.)

In slightly paraphrasing Wendell Berry, when we break the body and shed the blood of creation knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration.

pbm

( 7 S’s / VV->^^ )

……………………………………..
1 Myers, J.H. et al. 1998 Eradication and pest management. Annual Rev. of Entomology. 43. 471-91

2 I do realize that I lose some readers and risk a reduction in communicating when I use some of these specialized ecological terms. Nevertheless, I feel strongly that we need these terms in our lexicon to communicate, develop, and grow toward consilience and empathy and begin to collectively develop sustainable community.

3 Actually the <70,000 kilocalories/capita/day originally came from a napkin calculation to keep a world of 9-11 billion at a similar energetics level to, or just below, what it is today with ca. 8 billion humans.

4 There are numerous systems to realize indicators of sustainability which have been proposed and researched.  Five indicators that might rise to the top are: the Gini coefficient, embodied human appropriated net primary productivity, ecological footprints and biocapacities, embodied kilocalories “used”/per capita/day, and soil sealing per capita.  However, there are many others of importance.

5 Recent scientific reports indicate global insect numbers are falling dramatically on this Anthropocene Eaarth. As an example, a study in 2017 “showed a 76 percent decrease in flying insects in the past few decades in German nature preserves. “ SA Express-News October 16, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/10/18/this-is-very-alarming-flying-insects-vanish-from-nature-preserves/?utm_term=.347d50c3395

 

 

Another Developing Addition for the Little Book on Applied Ecology: “Let’s Ban Plastic Bags Locally All Over the World!” by p.b. martin

This piece is about disposable plastic bags and rectifying at least this one aspect of our downright sinful ways. And I do wish to make it clear from the outset, that despite these anti-government, libertarian times, places, and people, and despite the prevalence of an anti-science sentiment, this particular human has no problems with using science, learning, carrots and sticks, and overt and covert behavior-modification in the fight to protect our Commons.  Protection from plastics of the Commons, the Land, and the natural resource base of fresh and marine waters, soil and air (e.g., from pollutants from manufacture and other aspects of the life cycle of plastics), and healthy biodiversity including of daily solar-energy-transformers/or photosynthesizers is needed for regeneration and conservation of resilient, sustainable ecological community. We have a duty as citizens to educate, govern, and live in sustainable livelihoods toward a clean Land and natural environment of excellent quality for all humans and other organisms, in the present and the future.

As a Catholic, let me confess to some of our sins which aren’t necessary plastic, but nevertheless associated with plastics, as is almost everything in today’s world. “Bless me Father for we Haves have sinned considerably though the following behaviors:
• Eating and drinking too much, and exotically,
• Drying clothes other than on a line,
• Using cars,
• Building large air-conditioned homes with exotic landscapes,
• Flying and taking fossil-fuel guzzling ocean & river cruises, and
• Going to War.”

I do fully realize we are very flawed genetically and epigenetically as a species, and that this will not change significantly in the future. Nevertheless, this U.S.A. and international system of governance, laws and regulations, and education could be structured such that it steers us toward an ethos, values, and behaviors which would result in a better world, a neo-Earth, for all of us and for our progeny. We could and do blame the Donald Trumps of the world, and local, state, national, or international politicians, leaders, businessmen, and a variety of manipulators for our sins. However, ultimately, it is we ourselves who are to blame, and we ourselves must begin to individually and collectively initiate and realize real change at local levels.

But let me get back on track somewhat and a focus on disposable plastic bags. It makes no sense to depend on these serious polluters of our oceans and marine biota, significant transformers of quality energy, and disruptors of natural systems. Most all of us can lighten our footprints and help to regenerate and conserve a healthy Earth by swearing off disposable plastic bags.

For transporting purchases of food and other necessities, use washable cotton bags. Purchase fresh or dried foodstuffs (grown locally if possible including around and in your own home) in bulk and prepare them in a relatively efficient manner, avoiding use of electrical heat. Store much of your food in washable and durable glass.

And You/We can do it!  During my years with my Louise and Alton Martin family in my home area in Devine, Texas in the 1950s and 60s, we did use some paper bags for groceries and other purchased products. However, to a large extent we adhered to the behaviors and practices recommended in the previous few paragraphs, primarily because disposable plastic bags and indoor automatic clothes dryers weren’t readily available, and because frugality, reuse, and local foods were the norm. … And for many of the same reasons, while living in Brasil in the early 1980s our young Betsy and paul martin family of five, for the most part did without disposable plastic or paper bags. We carried permanent bags when we were out shopping.

Nowadays because of too much of the types of the sad and deplorable mindsets and behaviors Aggie Clayton Williams called for in his serious stumble during the 1990 Texas gubernatorial race, whether I am in Brasil, central America, or in the U.S., the blight of disposable plastic bags can be seen everywhere. Moreover, the disposal bags are only part of the mass of plastic coming out of our stores each hour. In observing Seguinites leaving our HEB store, in addition to the unbelievable amount of disposable bags being used, sometimes with but one product per bag, there is the wide variety of products contained on and off the shelf by a comparable amount of plastic by weight to the amount of actual product, which also may be mostly of plastic. (In specifically focusing on food products in our grocery stores, it is no wonder that our nutrients cost so much more energetically today when compared to pre-WW II, and that it takes well over ten calories of input to produce, process, and transport each calorie of food we eat today in 2018. https://www.cias.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/energyuse.pdf https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/10-calories-in-1-calorie-out-the-energy-we-spend-on-food/ )

The current status of our plastic world, Eaarth, is absolutely sickening! Since plastic manufacturing began to take off in the 1950s, over 8 billion metric tons of plastics have been produced and are still around, and 100 billion plastic bags are used every year by U.S. citizens. Estimates are that 91% of manufactured plastics are not reused or recycled. And at the current rate of our trashing and polluting the oceans, by 2050 there will be more plastic biomass in marine environments than that of fish. http://billmckibben.com/eaarth/eaarthbook.html  https://www.earthday.org/2018/03/07/fact-sheet-end-plastic-pollution/

[All of the drawings associated with the little book on applied ecology which I have posted on Paul Bain Martin FB page or at www.paulpeaceparables.com/ have been done by Miz Laura Salazar or my wife Elizabeth Martin . And I do appreciate their work very much!!!! pablo]

7Ss / VV->^^
pbm

Presentation/Readings for the Friends of the Seguin Public Library event,

Community Meeting Room-Seguin Public Library, 10 am-12 noon, September 8, 2018

paul bain martin

PEACE?/Positively Ethical Applied Community Ecology?  …  Sunday, Labor Day Weekend.  I very much appreciated the community’s “coming together” (but those gathered were mostly Mexican-Americans) at the Seguin-Guadalupe County Coliseum & grounds for the Our Lady of Guadalupe Bazaar. … (By the way, in my St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Devine, Texas back in the 1950s/60s, “community” was brown Spanish speakers on the left side of the center aisle and whites on the right.  …  ¡Por eso hablo español tan mal!)

PEACE?/Positively Ethical Applied Community Ecology?  …  Saturday, Labor Day Weekend.  I very much appreciated the community’s “coming together” (but those gathered were mostly Anglos) at the Seguin ISD High School for the wonderful play, “Will’s War”, dealing with social consciousness. … (“Will’s War” reminded me of once when I was a young kid in the 1950s, my uncle Bernard Kneuper tried to speak in German to his sister/my Mom, that–with some reason–our Martin patriarch asserted, “No German will be spoken in this home!” (My Dad’s beloved, handsome, and athletic brother Bain–who tried to avoid going into the Army and the War–had been killed in Germany, February 25th,1945, … and not long after having been drafted.  …  And durn, I wish I could’ve learned German from my Mom and her family.)

(Long pause0

**********************************
One of G.T. Miller’s Fifty-nine “Principles for Understanding and Sustaining the Earth”*
An Ecological Community Ethic of Reciprocity/Cry for PEACE*

Miller (1990) Resource Conservation and Management & in http://www.paulpeaceparables.com/2018/05/31/reminders-for-living-sustainably-for-inside-the-cover-of-the-little-book-on-applied-ecology-peace-games-we-play/

“Love thy species and other species today and into the future as thyself. (Principle of species love and protection)”

***********************************

“The War Prayer

Mark Twain

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism …; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.

…

Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! … The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said … :

God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest,
Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!

Then came the “long” prayer. … The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, … make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory —

…

(But to the surprise of all, an old & wise elder then spoke.) ‘Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle — be Thou near them! … O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it —

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimmage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.’
(After a pause.) ‘Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits.’
—
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.”

(Long pause)

******************************

Enrolada*

pbm

(Jan 2007)

Depression and Pinchot-wired parents taught us to conserve.
2007 Chosen People-fundamentalist preachers impel us to grab and rule the all that WE MOST CERTAINLY deserve.

Humility, frugality used to be preached in the churches.
America First!!! War!! Estados Unidos sempre precisa ganhar! … And the ship of state lurches.

Donald Trump, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates. The power reigns.
Others squalid in big city/rural remains.

So green! So green! A new gas-electric hybrid auto and a muito verde LEED home built for only 200,000 times what half the individuals in the world make in a year.
“Organicissimo!! Organicissimo!!” With this certified pesticide-free apple sent from New Zealand for our fresh fruit Texas party of Christmas cheer.

…

Cars cause super-problems; we rush for more.
9-11! Pres says rush for the store.

…

Hot outside? Turn on the arcondicionados! Keep eating more gas-, oil-, coal-fueled potatoes.
Global warming (Climate change)? Highly recommend moving from Barbados.

The Chosen few of the world possess Capital and are Landed,
While the Third World is kwashiorkor- stranded.

7 billion Homo sapiens—Number ONE!!!
Other top trophic species? You’re certainly done!

…

Come to our High Schools and Universities and learn to change the world faster.
No matter this “serves” to make the Natural ecosphere much less of a laster.

Mold those young uns into businessmen, corporate lawyers, sports physicians, oil field geologists.
But “Heaven forbid” an environmentalist or world-renowned ecologist!

… (Pause)

War. Basic/Airborne Ranger/Green Beret Special Forces training–into fit muscled/artificial “Army of One”- MEN (and woMEN). Uniforms, weapons, order, brass gives us meaning.
Could we all do a chaotic Peace Corps thing –and rather than destroy do just cleaning?

… (Pause)
……………………
I’m confused!!!!
Or too much BS infused?

…”

……………..

*Brazilian Portuguese for: “all balled up”, or “all messed up”.

(Long pause)

**********************************

Miller (1990)  “Love thy species and other species today and into the future as thyself. (Principle of species love and protection)”

*************************************

Ekla Chalo Re

Rabindranath Tagore

(who greatly influenced Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi)

If they answer not to your call … walk alone

If they are afraid and cower mutely facing the wall,

O thou unlucky one, open your mind and speak out alone.

If they turn away, and desert you when crossing the wilderness,

O thou unlucky one, trample the thorns under thy tread, and along the blood-lined track travel alone.

If they shut doors and do not hold up the light when the night is troubled with storm,

O thou unlucky one, with the thunder flame of pain ignite your own heart, and let it burn alone.

www.inditales.com

 

 

*****************************

My props will be books (Resource Conservation, Why War Is Never a Good Idea, O Homen Indio Sobrevivente, Karankawa County, Earth Keepers, Swiat Polskiej Przyrody), shells, rags, an apple, a potato, and several drawings for the developing little book on applied ecology.

7S’s / VV->^^
pbm

[These stories will follow an illustration dealing with biodiversity, food webs, and connectiveness in the little book on applied ecology, Games We Play.]

During a political dinner one evening I sat across from an older couple who were discussing in some scientific detail the life cycles and movement patterns of the hackberry feeder, the American snout butterfly, Libytheana carinenta (Cramer) and the milkweed feeder, the Monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus (Linnaeus). In addition, they mentioned the fact that many species of beautiful butterflies will feed on feces and other somewhat disgusting materials to obtain needed sodium, other electrolytes, and various nutrients. They were discussing this in wonderful and caring scientific detail.

Since I had done some limited field research focus on Lepidoptera back in the past at universities in Texas, Florida, and Georgia (and with another insect order, Homoptera, in Brasil), I was eager to make a conversational connection and asked them if they were entomologists. “Oh no!” they replied. “We became interested in birding some years ago as a hobby, and from such outdoor experiences, we came across exciting insects, and began to study these creatures out of love.”

I thought to myself while sitting there at our table, “This is wonderful!” Nevertheless, this is but one small case in point of what the delightful Harvard myrmecologist and socio-biologist Harvard biologist, E.O. Wilson, calls biophilia!!

I have directly experienced and been encouraged by this love of life, of biota, by other humans many times in my life. Some examples can be drawn from volunteer experiences in recent years with non-governmental organizations with youth in Texas, Latin America and on Pine Ridge Reservation. We can give a group of kids a container of sweep net-collected insects and fascinate them into biological learning for more than an hour at a time. As the renowned E.O. Wilson emphasizes, biophilia is innate!

I do wish to apologize in advance at this point to biologists specializing in taxa other than Animalia. However, if we appropriately introduce human youth to their distant relatives in Animalia, they will particularly quickly embrace them, enjoy them, and even try them as a food. Plantae, Fungi, Protozoa, Chromista, Bacteria, and Archaea are great, but Animalia are the most fun for me and most other kids. An organic grower in northeast Austin who opened his facility to learning opportunities for youth, expressly volunteered in a meeting we both attended some years ago that, “You can pull kids in and keep them educationally occupied and intrigued with plants for tens of minutes. But introduce them to insects, chickens, a milk cow, and/or goats, and you have them enjoying and learning for hours.”

Years back while doing a summer science camp for elementary youth at St. Philip’s College, after a field trip on the grounds of St. Philip’s I noticed numerous green cynipid-wasp galls under the leaves of some live oaks on campus. I suggested to the students that they gather some, and we took them into the laboratory and began to dissect and investigate. One young Hispanic student who was 9-10 years of age, was much more adept than I at making slides of the hymenopteran larvae inside and was teaching others to do so. In addition, he was effectively teaching them as well about the internal parts of the tiny translucent vermiform organisms.

I asked this young fellow how he knew so much about entomology. He preceded to tell a story of hitting a paper wasp nest with his bat during a T-ball game in Crystal City, of getting stung, but also of having his interest raised about what was living inside the paper cells. He said that when he returned home his mom checked books on insects out of the library for him, and he began to harvest paper wasp nests and glue them beneath a suspended board apparatus for observation, i.e. for his scientific studies. I told the young one to follow me, and after we arrived in my office, I loaded him down with entomology books which I rarely used at that stage of my learning and gladly said, “Here son! They are yours! You’re going to be a much better entomologist that I will ever be!!”

Now … I don’t wish to give the simplistic impression that all is real peachy with respect to human beings’ love for Animalia. Entomophobia may be hard-wired and may get soft-wired into some of us. My experiences are that in contrast to truly rural kids, there can be serious concerns by many in today’s urban and suburban, more-indoor populations about a creepy, crawly being on their pure body or about a running, hopping or walking, or flying or floating six- or eight-legger in their vicinity, … and urban extension entomologists do receive frequent calls because of some folks’ fear of insects, spiders, and other Arthropoda.

We discussed house dust mites during one of my biology classes at St. Philip’s College one Friday, and I showed a video of one of these interesting critters traversing human skin. In the following Monday class, one older female soldier in my class complained, “Dr. Martin, you ruined my weekend off. I spent every spare minute cleaning to make certain I rid my apartment of any dust mites.”

In the process of doing various ecological activities with some wonderful inner-city youth out on a ranch north and west of Fort Worth, we adult volunteers had a difficult time calming them when the dirt-daubers were in their proximity and convincing these elementary kids that dirt daubers will not aggressively sting humans. Even just one innocent little mud wasp flying around in a barn in which we were working would bring on screams, shaking, and evasive movements among the kids. (On the other hand, I do have to mention that during one trip while working with the wonderful Mrs. Peggy Maddox and Kathy Dickson of “Kids on the Land”, one sweet young African-American lad from the inner city, brushed away his fear of wasps, embraced these hexapods and their ecology to which I was introducing him, and melted my heart by exclaiming, “Dr. Martin, you’re going to be my best friend for the rest of my life!”)

To backtrack somewhat and attempt to dig myself out of the hole I’ve gotten myself into with microbiologists, mycologists, and botanists, I do wish to ask forgiveness once again for perhaps have given Plantae and members of kingdoms other than Animalia short shrift up to this point herein. Youth and adults love in a very natural way most all organisms. I have many stories where young and old expressed their affinity for plants and other Kingdoms and will now tell one which was particularly enjoyable for me.

I did a one to two-hour class with elementary youth one summer in the Seguin LULAC Council 682 community garden in which we learned together about plant ecology, experienced through work in the garden appropriate sustainable agriculture, and harvested vegetables to take home to our respective families. That afternoon I was working alone in the garden when one of the young students who actively participated in morning activities, her younger sister, and mother and grandmother arrived at the edge of the okra patch in which I was hoeing. The mother said that her daughter would not sit still at home until she had the opportunity to show her family the wonderful garden she had experienced that morning. Of course, I dropped my hoe and the work I was doing and proceeded to eagerly and happily take the family for a tour of the garden while eliciting transfer of the knowledge the young morning-student had absorbed than morning to the rest of her family. It was a very good day!

I also wish to mention herein that through necessity and evolution, we humans are omnivores and do also love to eat a variety of biota. Different cultures enjoy the sustenance of a variety of cultivated organisms. And in my classes with youth, we have eaten and enjoyed corn smut, huitlacoche, and as well as corn earworms and mealworms. We’ve eaten Opuntia-cactus nopales and tuna, and crunched down grasshoppers. We’ve had salads and cooked bowls of poke, purslane, lambsquarters, pigweed, and green briar. There actually are a wide variety of so-called “varmints”, “pests”, and “weeds” which we can quickly learn to appreciate as foods for the nourishment of human bodies as well as their being important parts of various very much needed food webs.

Now, let me go back to the group of organisms which has provided me a great and sustainable livelihood for much of my life, the insects. In the Friday August 24, 2018 Wall Street Journal there was a review of Termites and Us by Howard Schneidner of Lisa Margonelli’s Underbug. After his reading and analysis of this wonderful book, Howard states that he did not become particularly enamored with termites. However, through his review he does help to make the point that we can all benefit by: learning about, respecting, and even loving all other life forms, and rather than Warring against them, beginning to try once again to just “get along”. Howard quotes Mrs. Margonelli, “If termites, ants, and bees were to go on strike, the tropic’s pyramid of interdependence would collapse into infertility, the world’s most important rivers would silt up, and the oceans would become toxic.” Mrs. Margonelli suggests that we might learn about sociobiology and governance from studying termites from “the way they build—coordinating thousands of individuals with a simple ruleset for every local termite but no overarching plan as that global mound takes shape.”
……………………………………………
As a young kid growing up in south central Texas, biology for me was milking the cow, watering and feeding the chickens and pigs, and doing some mostly recreational hunting of rabbits, squirrels, dove, and quail. (Even though we did cook and eat them, we weren’t dependent on them as a food source.) Biology was playing with horned lizards in the ditches of the canal district near Devine and Natalia and observing with wonder all the dead prehistoric-looking alligator gars when Chacon Lake was drained. Biology for me in my formative years was also the applied ecology of gardening and picking dewberries, grapes, plums, pears, and other fruits for the Martin-family mass-production of canned vegetables, juices, and jellies. Applied biology was castrating pigs, doctoring wounds infested with screwworms, worming with piperazine and spraying the cattle with toxaphene for external parasites. Biology back in the Devine area of Texas was also stickers and goatheads and thorns. It was not being able to swim in the dark waters of the Jasik’s Blackland-dirt tank because their cattle had been diagnosed to have brucellosis (undulant fever). My biological experiences back then were the feeding of, treating with diethylstilbestrol, and doctoring of cattle in the small feed lot between where we live near where Highways 173 and 35 now cross. (I suppose applied biology and ecology was also the experience of being covered with, and uncovered and recovered from seven-foot of cottonseed hulls which we were using to make feed for cattle in a small feed-lot, and of burying cholera-killed hogs for my Uncle Peggy Martin. Later it also meant getting poisoned by the carbamate aldicarb, an acetylcholinesterase-inhibiting neurotoxin which were testing on cotton against boll weevils and associated arthropods, and suffering some very nasty and painful muscle-spasming symptoms internally and externally.)

But back in my formative years in Devine in the hard-scrabble post-War agriculture of the southwestern U.S., I did not think of myself as a biologist and never aspired to be “a biologist” (even though I now emphasize to everyone that they are de facto applied biologists/ecologist, and that I personally want them to be knowledgeable and positively ethical applied community ecologists). Nevertheless, after stumbling through majors of petroleum engineering, history, and animal husbandry at Texas A&M University and San Antonio College, my Uncle Peggy, a successful agricultural entrepreneur, suggested I try entomology. (He thought he needed a field man versed in this discipline to help him in his agriculture business enterprises.)

Therefore, during my junior year at Texas A&M, I took general entomology under Horace Van Cleave and insect physiology with Dr. Joe Schaffner. Dr. Schaffner–in particular–utterly and intensely fascinated me with his way of teaching about insect metabolism, respiration, hemolymph, flight physiology, and excretion, etc. but especially his teaching of the physiology of the nervous system and the cutting-edge research on insect hormones of Carroll Williams at Harvard. It was Dr. Schaffner who hooked me into an increasing curiosity in biology!

Moreover, Dr. Schaffner took an interest in my development as a citizen and applied ecologist such that he strongly suggested I leave my food services job with the TAMU Memorial Student Center and seek out a student job in entomology. When my movement in that direction was too slow, Dr. Schaffner sicced Dr. R. L. Ridgway, a USDA cotton insects researcher on me. One night about ten o’clock as I was studying on the upper bunk in my dorm, Dr. Dick Ridgway came a-knocking and hired me to rear the cotton bollworm parasitoid, Campoletis sonorensis (Cameron) for a graduate student, Jim Cate. Work with Dr. Ridgway and Jim, the wildlife biology students on my summer insect-counting crews (including a baboon researcher seeking his doctorate who’d worked in Africa), and others of this wonderful USDA team of researchers and student help, opened a world of biological management, population dynamics and natural regulation.

Moreover–I’m slow and not overly-bright–but over time I came to realize that in terms of regulatory needs, it is us and not insects who are the primary problem here on this old Earth or new Eaarth. Insects and other biological organisms are our sustainable coinhabitants and we need to learn to live more through natural regulation of those we perceive as pests, pathogens, weeds, and varmints, and to get along with all biota.

I will never match up to my elders, teachers, mentors of biology, but I am forever indebted to these entomologists and biologists who made me be appreciative of the biophilia–the innate love of biota, the natural, Nature—in me, in us. There were too many along the way from back in the 1960s to where I am now in time of the early 2000s to mention all of them herein. However, some of the most memorable–in sort of chronological order as they influenced me toward increased biophilia–are: Joe Schaffner, Dick Ridgway, Knox Walker, E.J. Dyksterhuis, James Teer, Pete Lingren, David Pimentel, Archie Carr, H.T. Odum, Miguel Altieri, and E.O. Wilson.

Thanks and kudos to all these wonderful biophiliacs!!!

7Ss / VV->^^
pbm

Games We Play: More Than 200,000 Years of Living Truthfully* & of Searching for Truth** (*200,000-15,000 BCE **5,000-Present).  This is a “final draft” of several of the ca. 50 images on which Laura Salazar and my wife Elizabeth Martin are working.  Click once on the image and it will enlarge, or twice for it enlarging even more.:

 

 

[All of these drawings associated with the little book on applied ecology which I have posted on Paul Bain Martin FB page or at www.paulpeaceparables.com/ have been done by Miz Laura Salazar or my wife Elizabeth Martin . And I do appreciate their work very much!!!! pablo]

7Ss / VV->^^
pbm

A draft of a personal story for Games We Play which will be a sidebar for an illustration titled “Why? Eaarth/the Anthropocene. The mess we have made and are in.”:

It Was Far from Being Perfect. But What Happened
to My Wonderful Home Just East of Devine, Texas?? #

The Warm & Fuzzy Feel* and Sustainability of Nature and the Land …
Has Yielded to the Rampant & Cold** Artificialization of Asphalt,
Concrete, and the Built-Environment (and “Yes!”, even Walmart!)

(*But also, with plenty of heat, drought, and stickers, goatheads & thorns!!
**“Cold” Even if It Is Giving Us Global Warming!)

paul bain martin

In my formative years just outside the city limits of Devine in the 1950s & 60s, my Alton and Louise Martin-family owned less than five acres there (on which at any point in that general time period we were raising hogs, a milk cow and calf, and chickens and maybe a few guineas, and were tending to a large garden area). However, we never felt restricted to these five acres.

From an age of about five or six years my five siblings and I had the freedom to roam, hunt, run and swim (in my uncle’s reservoir) on over one hundred acres of native pasture (under secondary succession) immediately around us, tracts of which belonged to our Uncle Peggy Martin, Mr. Pete Gutierrez, Mr. Fritz Schroeter, and Mr. Fred Bowman. … From our common ages of 6-8 years, in those pastures Esteban and Alejandro Peña taught me uses of wild plants and Spanish names for wild animals. Their Dad gave us gallons of honey which the busy social critters from the Old World had made from the abundant horsemint growing on Mr. Gutierrez’s and Mr. Bowman’s land.

We truly loved that Land … and holistically learned and dreamed on it. Moreover, it was an environment in which to positively deal with: our challenges of family, school, and the local human population; melancholy; or the craziness of a very crowded non-airconditioned household (two bedrooms, a very small bathroom, and eight people).

A kid of 2020 being raised in that same locale wouldn’t be able to realize the freedom and good life we were provided. What happened?

• Neo-liberal capitalism, fast-paced commerce and development, and Eagle Ford Shale fossil energy activity has changed the area from savanna pasture and small farming/relatively low-input agriculture to Interstate 35; big air-conditioned pick-up trucks, semis, and other automobiles laden with electronic devices; businesses; air-conditioned housing with virtual realities from electronic devices; fossil-energy-produced foodstuffs which are mostly brought-in-from-afar … and lots of it!; and considerable built-environment of asphalt, concrete, and imported materials that comprise artificial structures there in Devine.

……………………………..

However, thorough explanations for “truths”/realities are not easy, are always complex, and must always involve a sort of chicken and egg cycle.  And it was largely changing mindsets and behaviors in conjunction with dramatic landscape deterioration towards the artificial and more built-environment which happened to my home in Devine, mostly in the first seventy years of the twentieth century and especially immediately after World War II:

• Dads and Moms are both working to have more, More, More!, More!!, MORE!!! and they oftentimes leave their kids to the care of others in settings not as conducive to real freedom for these youth.
• Play, recreation, and learning has increasingly become a plastic indoor world of Legos and other toys, and virtual realities of televisions, computers, and small handheld electronic information gadgets which focus on the artificial and virtual rather than the natural and real.
• Many parents have become “helicopters”.
• We are all very artificial and unnatural, and we are distant from each other in our local ecological communities. We have lost a sense of place, ecological community, and natural spirituality. Families, neighbors and local human demes or populations have lost intra- and inter-connectiveness and commonalities, and don’t have empathy and compassion for and don’t know, respect, trust, and truly love each other.
  ……………………………..

Kids are not as able to be free, become little ecologists, and develop critical thinking skills anymore! … But who really cares about our progeny and Nature when we have air-conditioning, Triple-C steaks, lots of wonderful plastic and new technology, … and Walmart!?!

7Ss / VV->^^
pbm

________________________________

# Of course there are more stories like this in my 74+ year-old head which lived through a time on Eaarth of much artificialization.  For instance the anticipated joy of returning late one night with a student and camping in Oasis State Park, Portales, New Mexico in the middle of a high plains/shortgrass prairie ecoregion thirty years after my wife and I had visited what was a relatively pristine area, turned to disappointment the next morning as we woke to the smell and landscape of the large Holstein Friesian-dairies which had fled regulation in California and which had settled around this lovely site.  And my wife’s grandfather’s Hoffmann Ranch, west of San Antonio where several of the Texas ecoregions come together and where my wife enjoyed her early years of growth, is now covered with houses of the Alamo Ranch subdivision.