RESEARCH IN THE AGE OF GOOGLE

 

Yesterday I wanted to know something about one of the characters in War and Peace. Knowing that my 1946 Encyclopaedia Britannica had excellent articles written by literary experts, I went to the closet in the office, pulled out the boxes containing the encyclopedias I had never unpacked since moving to my current home, and found the “W” volume. My, it was heavy! After flipping through many pages, I discovered that there is no War and Peace entry. No doubt I could have found the index volume and found what I was searching—under Tolstoy, perhaps—but this was starting to become work. Why go through all this when I could simply Google for it?

 

It wasn’t quite that easy, of course. Googling first brought up ads for movies and books with similar titles. However, I found the information quite soon, and with less physical work than needed with the Britannica.

 

Research has changed greatly in the 60 years since I began looking up information for anything more than a quick class project. Back in the late fifties I began assembling a stack of index cards for each topic I needed to write about.  I remember spending days or weeks reading the literature, deciding which materials to save, and organizing my cards by authors’ names. This was very time-consuming, but because I had learned which journals were trustworthy, I ended up with a good collection of references.

 

Today I can Google for information and immediately download hundreds of articles. Oh, and much advertising that Google deems to be relevant. If I want to search for Neanderthals, for instance, Googling brings up millions of links. There are not only the obvious Wikipedia article, but also links to the Dead Neanderthals (a rock group?), to various movies and books with Neanderthals in the titles, and to miscellaneous ads whose connection to the Neanderthals I fail to understand. I find all this irritating enough, but far worse is the misinformation provided. One link even leads to a creationist site. Also, some research results shown on Google are from non-peer-reviewed articles.

 

I do Google, of course. Having instant access to information is very helpful, and I have learned how to separate the wheat from at least some of the chaff. For young learners who do not yet know what sources to trust, the task is much harder.

 

I also find it rather boring just to Google. Push a few buttons, download some promising articles, and the job is nearly done. Real research should have some element of exploration. During many years as a grad student, I learned where to work in university libraries. There were always little study carrels tucked away among the stacks. I would find a carrel near a window in the biology or education library, put some notebooks on the desk to claim it, and explore the journals, armed with my index cards. Each card led me to an article; each article had footnotes showing other possibilities. Serendipity sometimes helped. Once at the University of Illinois I was searching for information about the mysterious fossils called conodonts, and suddenly came across a photo of what one author thought was the conodont animal. I felt like Lewis and Clark looking out at the Pacific for the first time.

 

Working in a real library has other advantages. Stanford and UC–Berkeley both have enormous education libraries, where I did research on textbooks for my PhD dissertation. While there, I took advantage of their collections of current magazines, such as the American Biology Teacher, The Science Teacher, and the American Educational Research Journal. As a grad student, I couldn’t afford to subscribe to them, but reading them every month was important.

 

Even libraries, to say nothing of Google, fall short when it comes to some research. There is nothing like primary sources! David Tyack, the noted historian of education, once literally stumbled over a box of old records kept by a school board, and was able to use the contents in his own research. My own collection of antique textbooks began with books inherited from my parents and uncles, teachers all. Most writers find themselves visiting places of interest, interviewing sources, and otherwise looking in the horse’s mouth.

 

So, I will use Google often. But I hope never to use it uncritically or as my sole source of information.

OREGON BY RV

The view from Cape Perpetua

During the past few years I have had the privilege of seeing many national parks and other beautiful areas of the United States and Canada by motorhome. From the Bay of Fundy through Glacier National Park and on to the west coast, I loved them all. But, the coast of Oregon may have the most stunning sights anywhere. Though my blog usually is rather introspective, this post will be a more objective day-by-day account of our recent road trip that included the central Oregon coast, simply because it may be useful to other travelers. 

We travel on the maxi/min principle, seeing the maximum amount at the minimum cost. Though we occasionally spend a fair amount on a worthwhile experience, we never spend money on cable TV, and usually get Wi-Fi access at public libraries or other free sources. Every few nights we look for campground showers or electrical hookups, but with our self-contained Winnebago View, we can and do use primitive sites often. If you want information about super-expensive RV resorts and restaurants, you need to go elsewhere. (Note: All prices given here are what we actually paid. Having Golden Age passports and being members of AARP, we usually pay 50% of what younger people pay.)

June 16: Beginning near home in northern California, we drive north on I-5 as far as Willows, first stopping at Bremen’s Apricot Orchard north of Woodland for some delicious and inexpensive apricots. Stay in a Willows Walmart parking lot, knowing future nights will be more pricey. (In general we stay in Forest Service or other inexpensive parks most of the time, where fees with our Golden Age status are usually about $5 to $12 per day. Sometimes Walmarts allow overnight parking, sometimes they do not. It seems to depend more on local ordinances than on Walmart itself.)

June 17: We arrive at Ashland, Oregon. We made no reservations for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, because we didn’t know when we would be here. Taking a chance, we call today and learn that because of a cancellation, we can get two tickets for The Tempest tomorrow. I am very excited about this—I haven’t come to the festival for nearly 20 years, and want Thane to experience it. Ashland has many expensive bed-and-breakfasts and hotels; instead, we stay at the Glenyan RV campground a few miles out of town for $30. It is rather crowded but nice otherwise.

June 18: The tickets are $50 each for the Class C (least expensive) seats. The OSF isn’t cheap, and gives no senior discounts, but we want to splurge.  Back to Walmart, in Roseburg, via I-5.

June 19: Still on I-5, we drive to Portland and spend a couple of hours at the International Rose Garden. At this time of year it is a spectacular display of many rose varieties. Driving west on Highway 26 toward the coast, we stop at the “Stubs” Stewart State Park near Verona for the night. This is a convenient stop for anyone driving between Portland and the coast. The campground is nothing special, and costs $31 including hookups. (A note about the showers in Oregon state parks: They are clean and well maintained, but usually there is not a truly private dressing area with each shower. This doesn’t bother Thane, but it does me, so in many cases I use the RV shower instead.)

June 20: Arrive in Cannon Beach, where we plan to see the annual Sand Castle Contest tomorrow. Stay at the very nice Circle Creek private campground a few miles north of town on Highway 101. We are in a no-hookups site that costs only $10 including free showers.

June 21: The sand castles are impressive. I have an excellent Crab Louis ($21) for lunch at The Wayfarer restaurant, and have a good view of the beach from my table. (Thane is a vegetarian, and usually eats in the RV.) We return to Circle Creek rather than search for a new campground late in the day.

June 22: We start south on scenic Highway 101 after doing some shopping in Cannon Beach. At night we stay at the Jetty Fishery campground at the mouth of Nehalem Bay. This very basic campground caters to fishers, and sells crab for picnickers. The view of the bay and ocean from here is excellent, somewhat justifying the $38.50 price for a site with hookups.

June 23: Stopping at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, we are very disappointed. (See my previous blog post for the details.) This is a waste of time!  On the other hand, Thane goes to the TillamookAir Museum ($8) and enjoys it greatly. At night we stay for $20 at the Tillamook River RV Park, which is on the road going west toward Cape Meares.

June 24: After catching up on laundry and other chores, we arrive at the Cape Meares State Park and (very short) lighthouse. We take an enjoyable walk through a Sitka spruce forest and tour the lighthouse, then go on to Cape Lookout State Park for the night ($21 -for a no-hookups site).

June 25: The day is rainy, and we want to stay in the general area because of a kite festival coming up in Lincoln City, so we stay a second night at Cape Lookout after walking the nature trail, reading, and sketching. This campground is simple, clean, and near the ocean.

June 26: Traveling toward Lincoln City on 101, we see no appealing campgrounds, but a local finally tells us about a small Forest Service campground to the east, on Mt. Hebo. Though the road up the mountain is a steep climb that looks unpromising, this turns out well. Our $6 primitive (not even water is provided) campsite looks out on a reservoir where fish are literally jumping out of the water. The site is so unlevel that we have to use every Leveler block, some wooden boards, and Thane’s old slippers to get a bubble in the level!  

June 27: Still killing time before the kite festival, we stay on Mt. Hebo again. It rains all day, and to keep from tracking mud into the RV, we stay inside reading and playing Scrabble for the entire time. We will be ready to leave tomorrow.

June 28: We leave early to arrive in Lincoln City for the kite festival.  The weather clears up just enough, and the kites are simply amazing. This is airborne artistry. Not knowing where to stay for a decent price, we ask another RVer, and he directs us to the ChinookWinds casino at the north end of town. Like many Native American casinos on tribal lands, this one encourages free overnight RV parking in the hope of luring people to the casino. Not only that, but people treat the parking lot like a campground—we even see campfires and tents! I also get an excellent, huge hamburger in the casino deli for $6, but we don’t do any gambling. This probably saves us some money.

June 29: We stay at Depoe Bay’s elaborate Sea and Sand RV Park  for $57, much more than what we are usually willing to pay. However, unlike most campgrounds, it is right on the beach, and we are determined to see the ocean from our RV for one night. First, we enjoy a day of relaxing in the sun.

June 30: On south to touristy Newport, where we wander around town and see the Yaquina Bay lighthouse, which was in operation for only three years in the late 1800s. I enjoy seeing the Itty Bitty Art Gallery, but manage to resist spending any money. That night we stay at Beverly Beach State Park ($21, no hookups). This park is filled with young families, many in tents. Though I usually can walk right in and take a shower at a campground, here I must wait a while for some young women washing their hair. Also, the shower floors are very sandy because some campers failed to rinse their feet before showering. This all is a letdown after the previous night. However, the park is at a convenient location for us at this stage of the trip, and there is nothing actually wrong with it.

July 1: This is the first of a series of wonderful Forest Service campgrounds along Highway 101. We stay at Tillicum Beach campground ($12 for no hookups, but water is available). A campsite overlooking the ocean opens up, so we grab it. We are lucky in meeting two other couples driving Winnebago Views similar to ours, and have a mini-rally.

July 2: Again, we find a Forest Service campground for $12, Rock Creek . Our site is on the beautiful, peaceful creek. The vault toilet is the most immaculate one I have ever seen!

July 3: The sightseeing today along Highway 101 is wonderful. After viewing a spectacular stretch of coast from high Cape Perpetua, we go on to tour the Heceta Lighthouse, “the most photographed lighthouse in the world.” It has been beautifully preserved, and the Fresnel lens is still functioning. Afterward we stop at the Sea Lion Caves. I fear that it is a tourist trap, but instead it is a fascinating Steller sea lion rookery where we see bulls and their harems hauled out on the rocks. Thane tours the caves as well ($13), and I am allowed to walk to a viewing area for $5, as I don’t care for caves. Some visitors have sighted whales today, but there are none around when I am. After leaving, we drive on to find still another Forest Service campground! This one is Alder Dunes, at the north edge of Florence. For some reason this one is only $11; it is in a pleasant, wooded area.

July 4: Independence Day is not a good time to look for a campground without having a reservation. However, we have a personal parking fairy named Lola who always comes through for us with a place to stay. (Why named Lola? Because “Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets,” in the words of the song.) This night we go to another casino, Three Rivers on the east side of Florence, that allows free overnight parking. I have a satisfying, inexpensive fish dinner in the casino restaurant. As if that isn’t enough, we are able to watch the local fireworks show in comfort from our RV! We enjoy seeing it and taking a video of the display.

July 5: Driving south on 101 again, we visit several state and private campgrounds that are either full because of the holiday, or unappealing. One of these, Honeyman State Park, has more than 400 campsites! We prefer something a bit more, um, intimate. Eventually we find the very nice Umpqua Lighthouse StatePark campground, where Lola has saved us the one open site ($28 with full hookups). This campground even has yurts and cabins that are more expensive, and look like enjoyable possibilities for a return trip some day.

Before settling in we walk to the lighthouse, where Thane takes the $5 tour. I skip the tour, thinking it would offer no more than the one at Heceta Head. When Thane returns, he says this was actually better, because he was able to get inside the Fresnel lens of the light and take this photo.

If I had this to do over, I’d take this tour instead. On the other hand, the view from Heceta Head is better. In Oregon, it’s hard to go wrong.

July 6: We have been away from home for nearly three weeks, so we reluctantly leave this wonderful campground and head toward I-5 on Highways 38 and 138. I assume that driving to the east will be dull, but am happily surprised. In Old Reedsport we see a business featuring chain-sawed carvings, with the woman wielding the chain saw at work. Farther along is the O.H. Hinsdale InterpretiveCenter,  where we stand at a viewing platform and watch seven or eight Roosevelt elk in the nearby meadow. Highway 138 is a scenic byway along the Umpqua River, which is one of the most majestic waterways I have ever seen. Steep, forested hills rise on each side of it, and in places the river splashes over wide expanses of rock.  In order to use Wi-Fi, we stop in Elkton. There the library turns out to be part of a thriving community center that includes a butterfly garden, produce market, and other delights.

At Sutherlin we rejoin busy I-5. It takes us quickly to Roseburg, where we again stop at Walmart to print photos and buy ice cream. As the photos will not be ready until morning, we will stay in the parking lot until then. :-)

July 7: The temperature today will be more than 100 degrees in this area, so we plan few stops. The drive south on I-5 is mercifully uneventful. After entering California, we want to revisit Castle Crags, a scenic point where we stayed a few years ago. Because the private campground where we stayed then seems more expensive and more rundown than it did, we go on to the nearby Castle Crags State Park. Only a few spots are suitable for motorhomes, and the only vista points are either at the entrance or at the end of a long, steep trail; however, we are tired and a bit desperate to stop for the night, so we do ($23 for no hookups). We discover soon that freight trains run along the campground, and will wake us during the night.

Castle Crags

July 8: I have a good hot campground  shower, but when Thane is taking his, I try to do the dishes at the dishwashing station, and that diverts hot water from the showers. Thane is not happy with the result! We spend the day driving through the heat but feel comfortable in our a/c rig. We spend the night at a Walmart—hopefully, for the last time—in Roseville. We need to be near the Dodge dealer who will do an oil change in the morning, and Roseville is very urban. No campgrounds here.

July 9: After spending a couple of hours at the very busy (but good) Dodge dealer’s, we head for home. Stopping to pick up some food in Sacramento, we park carefully and legally. A young man hauling a huge tree-trimming trailer tries to squeeze in next to us and smashes into our rear end. I am still inside our rig and am knocked over but unhurt. Screaming like a banshee, I run out to demand what the *%#%$ he thought he was doing. We wait around for his boss to appear with insurance information. The boss is very cooperative, and almost as annoyed with his employee as I am. On the way home we stop at a local RV repair shop to get an estimate for the repair, which turns out to be for minimal damage. Then, home at last! This final day was more exciting than we expected.

SKIP THIS TOUR

As a one-time bacteriologist, I have always been interested in the biology and practical uses for bacteria and fungi. Everything from wine to penicillin can be produced by these amazing microscopic creatures. When I lived in the Midwest, I took some tours of breweries and learned more about beer than I could have from reading textbooks.  (Yes, I enjoyed sampling the beer, too.) So, when we reached the Tillamook cheese factory in Oregon, I wanted to take the tour and find out exactly what organisms are used in the cheese-making process, and how the procedure is managed.

The factory turned out to be gigantic, surrounded by a huge parking lot for myriad visitors. No dairy cows were on site, though many thousands of milk-producing animals must be required to supply the factory with enough milk for the 170,000 pounds of cheese churned out daily. We saw a stream of milk trucks coming in the back way, and cheese-laden trucks leaving from another gate. Somewhere in that building, we surely could find the details of what happens in the interlude between milk and cheese.

Just reaching the front door was difficult, because of the mob of tourists entering and leaving. Inside the entrance, past the café and gift shop, a sign directed us toward a self-guided tour. A couple of benches faced a large screen where we expected to see an introductory video. It turned out to be a puff piece about how happy dairy farmers (and their cows) are to be providing the raw ingredient for Tillamook cheese. If they are required not to use antibiotics, to avoid pesticides and fertilizers in their fields, or to be organic in other ways, the video did not mention it. Some posters on the walls promised to give us some information before the tour, but turned out to be a history of the Tillamook area. Though of some historical interest, they had nothing to do with the cheese-making that had lured us to the factory.

Following the signs to the tour, we stood in a lengthy line, then passed a long row of free samples of cheese. They were standard Tillamook cheeses—mild, sharp, and extra-sharp Cheddars—that can be bought in any supermarket. Nevertheless, visitors happily speared as many as possible of the sample cubes with the toothpicks that were (thankfully) provided.

Next, we entered a shop where we could buy cheese, crackers, and so on. Again, the cheese was standard Tillamook grocery-store stuff: better than cheaper brands, but nothing special. The prices were perhaps $2/lb. less than we would pay at our local Safeway store. We bought two pounds of the extra-sharp Cheddar, as we do eat a lot of cheese and would put it to good use.

Finally, we moved on to an observation deck overlooking two large divisions of the factory. In one huge area we could see the lids of steel vats within which cheese was presumably being made. No humans could be seen, and there was absolutely no information provided about the process. In the other area, we saw large blocks of cheese carried on a conveyor belt, and workers slicing off the edges of the blocks. The large blocks were then cut into smaller blocks and packaged in their familiar plastic wrappings. The events in this area were so obvious that we didn’t mind the lack of explanation.

Before going back to the entrance, we stopped to buy a dish of ice cream. It was delicious, though no more so (and no less expensive) than we could have enjoyed in any good ice cream shop where the environment would be less hectic. Like the cheese shop, this area was extremely crowded with people, some of whom weighed two or three hundred pounds on the hoof and were stuffing themselves with ice cream. This place is an obesity crisis. And that was all. We had wasted more than an hour fighting crowds and buying some cheese and ice cream without learning a thing about how the foods were made.

I love Oregon in general. The coastal scenery is possibly the most beautiful of any in the United States, and we are fortunate in living near enough for a quick visit. But, every state has some places to avoid, and the Tillamook Factory is one. For anyone seeking the facts about cheese, some smaller companies are likely to give real tours, and to produce higher quality cheese as well.  

RECYCLING IS ONLY THE THIRD "R"

People in a town near here are so enthusiastic about recycling that they have actually opted for increasing their utility bills to ensure having their recycling bins picked up more often. They surely see themselves as contributing to a sustainable environment, and of course to some extent they are. I’d like to remind them, though, that recycling is only the third “R,” a sort of backup plan when the first two “R’s” don’t do the job.  

• The first “R,”  reducing, is the most effective alternative. For instance, if we buy the largest containers of foods and beverages that we are sure to use (without having anything spoiled or thrown away), that cuts down the amount of material we bring home. Fewer resources are being used, less pollution is created.  Conversely, purchasing a home, auto, or RV that is only as large as we need decreases our use of building or manufacturing materials.   Most important, having no more than two children per couple enormously lowers wear and tear on the planet (to say nothing of the parents).
• The second “R,”  reusing, helps make use of whatever has already been acquired. Many of the emptied yogurt cartons, pill vials, and egg cartons that too often are discarded after one use can find second homes in nursery schools or daycare centers, where the children need dishes for modeling clay, beads, watercolors, and other arts and crafts supplies. Reused containers serve the purpose just as well as new ones, and are free. When we buy eggs from the local natural-foods store, we return the carefully-kept-clean, empty cartons (which are a costly item for the farmers). Many jars and bottles can be reused many times in the home, also, as free receptacles for leftovers, vases for plant cuttings, and so on. In our RV, we used 8 x 8” cardboard boxes (in which my favorite MarketSpice tea had been shipped) to divide the storage compartments where we keep underwear. When a piece of underwear itself wears out, it becomes a cleaning rag! We sometimes eat in fast-food emporia on the road; if we can’t avoid using plastic forks or spoons, we take with them us, wash them, and add them to our tableware. Antique furniture is often of better quality than new, and no more expensive. Crafters have become very creative in reusing materials that would ordinarily be discarded. In ecofriendly, trendy shops, I have seen beautiful glass objects that had been made with melted and remolded glass, purses constructed of cut-up pieces of metal or plastic, even jewelry made of aluminum can tabs. Perhaps the easiest and most effective way to reuse anything is to put vegetable scraps in a compost bin instead of into a garbage disposal. They are quickly converted to compost that nourishes the garden.
• The third “R,”  recycling, is more of a necessary evil than the first two. If reduction and reuse fail, then recycling is at least better than filling landfills. More and more municipalities are collecting materials that can be recycled. The steps and decks on our home are made not of wood, but of recycled sawdust and other mill waste that would have polluted land or water. This wood and binder composite is actually more durable than wood alone. Recycled glass is being used for making attractive kitchen and bathroom countertops that resemble granite or marble and perform better than they do. The insulation in some buildings is made of recycled blue jeans. According to a recent NPR report, the tomato skins that are waste products of catsup processing may soon be recycled into a lightweight plastic material.
  At best, recycling can keep materials out of trash bins, and make the substances useful again. At its worst, recycling may even encourage wastefulness and pollution. Too often, we buy more things than we need, patting ourselves on the back because we wheel a filled recyclables bin to the curb every week. We don’t bother to reuse containers—we just rinse them out and toss them into the bin. We subscribe to a variety of magazines, then neglect to give them away. Instead, we put them in the bin with the other recyclables.
  We have a long way to go.
   

ILLNESS AND THE RV LIFE

For anyone who is nervous about health, the RV life offers many tempting opportunities for angst. The potluck dinners at campgrounds may have potato salad loaded with Salmonella bacteria, for instance. Rattlesnakes can lurk behind every sunny rock. The frequent contacts with RVers from all over the world can expose you to a variety of interesting illnesses.

A while ago a friend gave me the book The Complete Manual of Things that might Kill You, created by Knock Knock Publications. What a must-read for hypochondriacs! If you have a headache, the book reminds you that you may have a brain tumor; a stomachache may be a bleeding ulcer; trembling may result from mercury poisoning; and so on. There is no mild symptom that cannot be caused by some serious fatal disease.

Being a bit inclined toward hypochondria and self-diagnosis, I worry about the diseases and accidents I may have, both while traveling and while at home. Should I slather sunscreen on my entire body to avoid skin cancer, or sunbathe to forestall osteoporosis? Some of the campgrounds where we stay look less than pristine, but it seems like too much trouble to carry bottled water with us. Are my occasional intestinal upsets caused by the Giardia parasite found in contaminated water?

Campgrounds can be dangerous environments, but there is always a chance of developing an inherited illness while you are on the road, also. Only a few years ago, it would have been impossible to foretell the likelihood of falling victim to Huntington’s disease or some other genetic disorder. Today, if you have thousands of dollars to spend on your neurosis, you can find out a great deal about your genome and learn whether you are sitting on a time bomb and simply waiting to become ill.  Your genotype may include genes predisposing you to aneurysms, heart disease, breast cancer, colon cancer, or many other potentially fatal diseases. You can then worry about the likelihood of actually developing them.

Yes, genetics or environment can make you become ill or even die in your RV or on a hiking trail. On the other hand, life at home can be dangerous as well. You may be hit by a speeding car, or fall getting out of the bathtub. If you do have a genetic illness, it can appear at any time or place. So, much as I sometimes indulge in hypochondria, I will not succumb to it. I prefer not to have any genetic testing unless it can show whether I have a preventable disease. Being in a few high-risk groups, I will continue to have mammograms, colonoscopies, and other procedures that may uncover a disorder I already have, though. Once in a while even a hypochondriac can in fact be ill.

BEING CHILDLESS

In a recent magazine article,[i] writer Lisa Hymas brought up a subject that many of us environmentalists are afraid to touch: choosing to remain childless. She values the individual freedom she has had from PTA meetings, trips to the zoo, and many other aspects of being a parent. Even more important, in view of the familiar statistics about population growth and its horrific effects on the environment, she knows she made a sound environmental choice.

As a liberal environmentalist, I am sometimes torn about the population  issue. An increase in population size results from rises in birth rate and/or immigration (or, conversely, from falls in death rate and/or emigration). Immigration, like family planning, is a controversial topic. On the one hand, I would like to see America’s doors open to the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” It is painful to learn about young people who were brought to this country as young children, but cannot go to college or have lives considered normal by United States citizens. Understandably, they want to shed the “undocumented” label. On the other hand, massive immigration is certainly a problem for the environment. There are very apparent limits to space, water, and other resources. Those of us who were born here can do a little bit to counter the effects of immigration by remaining childfree.

There is enormous societal pressure to have children, and it is hard to resist. When I was a young married woman, people I barely knew would ask me when we planned to have children. My reasons were none of their business, of course, but that didn’t stop them. After I had a hysterectomy at the age of 30, I could say sadly and honestly that I was unable to have children, but that didn’t stop some people from urging us to adopt! (Today, of course, we would be counseled to use methods that were unavailable at that time.)

Adoption is fine for many couples, and is one small answer to both the population problem and to involuntary childlessness. To be honest, though, I don’t care all that much about children; I have never cooed at the sight of a baby or said that I “just love children” in general. When kids start to become interesting, I can like or dislike them, just as I would adults. My late husband felt the same way, and so we never considered adoption.

My partner never had children, either, for a different reason that also benefited the environment. Unlike me, he greatly enjoys small children, and would have made a fine father. However, having a genetic disease, he chose not to take a chance on passing on those genes. As a result, he caused less pressure on the environment and avoided damage to the gene pool.

Now that I am in my late seventies, I sometimes wonder whether I should have had one child for purely selfish reasons. When my own mother lived to be more than 100, I was able to do much to make her last years comfortable. My own future may be bleaker than hers was.

I admire Lisa for her courage in writing this article, and hope she will not suffer too much criticism from mommy bloggers and others who will try to make her feel selfish or anti-children. She made a choice that was right for her, and good for the planet.

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[i] Hymas, Lisa. Making a green choice: Childfree living. Mother Earth News Feb/Mar 2014, p. 79.

SMALL IS STILL BEAUTIFUL

Back in the seventies, many of us were inspired by Small is Beautiful, by E.F. Schumacher, who pointed out the necessity of using less of the planet’s resources and living sustainably to protect the environment. When we were young, that seemed so simple and obvious. We lived in small apartments, stayed in youth hostels when we traveled, drove Volkswagen Beetles. We planned to have no more than two children. We could easily save the world.

Those of us who survived the seventies and settled down to a middle- or even upper-class life, though, found it hard to continue living small. Most of us found ourselves in large single-family homes having two or more bathrooms. The VWs were traded in on gas guzzlers. (I must confess to driving a Mercedes for many years, simply because my late husband wanted that car.) Instead of making our own yogurt and cooking simple meals, we started going to overpriced, trendy restaurants serving too much food. We drank too much alcohol. We wasted far too much, caused an appalling amount of pollution. Some of us felt justified in having more than two children if money was not a problem. Even one population biologist and his wife were stymied in their efforts when their carefully planned second child turned out to be twins!

Today, climate change and other environmental issues are making us look again at how we can live in more modest ways to preserve the planet. In some cases that calls for some sacrifices, but in many others, it makes life easier, more beautiful, or happier.

If the United States truly wants to be a world leader, we need to change our ways, to be more like Denmark. (Being part Danish, I am prejudiced, but many people share my opinion.) For many years, research on using solar energy has been carried at Roskilde. The Danes live less ostentatiously than Americans, yet their homes and public spaces are comfortable and attractive. They not only make smallness and simplicity seem desirable, but use those characteristics as tourist attractions.

Some of our universities have become bloated, investing too much in costly buildings and too little in more important areas. Small colleges seem to be doing better, partly because they have less money. My alma mater, Kalamazoo College, is a very small school that began in 1833 as a Baptist college dependent on Baptist alumni and friends. Even now, alumni are a major source of the school’s funds. Allen Hoben, the president of Kalamazoo College in the 1920s and 1930s, once said that he wanted “K” to be the best school of its kind. “K” today has about 1500 students, only a little larger than when I attended it in the 1950s, but it has grown steadily in the proportion of students who join the Peace Corps or take part in the school’s very desirable foreign-study program. It has always provided a good liberal arts education, has produced a great many scientists, is regularly cited as an excellent college, and I am very proud to be an alumna.

Even our pets can show the advantages of small size. I have seen people travel in RVs with very large dogs, for instance. How silly! For many years I helped raise a series of Scotties, terriers that are small enough to fit into small spaces and to eat reasonable amounts of dog food but just large enough to provide some protection when necessary. I always felt safe when walking with one of our Macs. Cats, too, can provide companionship without taking up a large space in the environment. If we adopt cats from shelters, keep them indoors, and have them neutered, that also helps lower the population of feral cats that kill enormous numbers of birds.

Collectors tend to amass very large, expensive collections of whatever they fancy. Far better is what one jade collector did: His collection always consisted solely of the finest piece of jade he could find. Each time he found a better one, the older one was sold. The small quantity of his collection was in inverse proportion to its enviable quality.

The small-house movement is an encouraging sign today. Though it has been enforced in part by the high cost of larger homes, some architects and designers have also embraced it as a challenging way to provide desirable cottages. In these homes, which often have a rustic Arts and Crafts style, the furniture is simple and functional.  Nothing can be wasteful or merely decorative. As a result, life in them is simplified. If you don’t have room for an enormous TV, you are unable to waste time watching it! My only reservation about small houses is that some of the super-rich are building them as cute little vacation houses rather than living in them.

Many small cars are just as appealing as larger ones. My Honda Fit is an amazing little car that fits into tiny parking spaces, but holds anything I want to carry in it when the back seat is folded down. It’s “small on the outside, big on the inside.” My partner’s tiny old Suzuki Samurai is vital for us in the winter, when we need 4-wheel drive on snowy hills. Like the Fit, it uses little gas.

When I was a grad student at Stanford in the early eighties, I did some quantitative research in education. To run the statistical tests, I used main-frame computers that took up most of a very large building. A student today could do the same research on her laptop computer. What an improvement that miniaturization has been! The same trend has been true in most electronics, mostly to good effect. My tiny digital camera, for example, is not really as good as a professional photographer’s film camera, but for my purposes it is fine, uses no film, and certainly is more portable.

My favorite case of compact size, though, is our Winnebago View. We shopped for a long time to find a small motorhome that was large enough for us, with a nice galley, real bathroom, comfortable bed, and other features we wanted. (Yes, a tent might be a bit easier on the environment. We tried tent camping, but a bear came moseying through our site, and chipmunks stole our food. If we were going to travel long distances, we needed a motorhome.) At the same time, the motorhome had to be small enough to fit into a couple of standard spaces in supermarket parking lots, narrow enough to stay well within traffic lanes. At times we despaired of ever finding the Goldilocks combination we wanted, but the View (7 feet wide, 24 feet long) has been just right. When we see gargantuan RVs squeezing into small campground sites or slopping across several spaces at a Walmart, we feel quite smug about the View. Constructing it required much less material than would be needed for a large rig, and it uses much less fuel. (How can anyone defend driving something that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and goes only six or seven miles on a gallon on gas?)

So, I see some hope for the future in the “small is beautiful” trends of today. The gloomy Dane part of me feels very pessimistic about population growth, which is the elephant in the room no one wants to mention. Immigration, especially, will continue to drive consumption and pollution higher in this country, and the ever-growing populations of India and China will do so in those countries. However, until war or epidemics reduce the world population to a sustainable size, we can use common sense and technology to lessen our demands on the environment.

 

READING ON THE ROAD

When we bought our 24' motorhome, we realized that storage would be a problem. At first, though, we focused on the kitchen and clothes closet. Even RVers need a minimum of dishes and clothes. Only gradually did the issue of books become crucial. We are both avid readers, and at home we have many shelves filled with our personal libraries. (When I sold my previous bricks-and-mortar home, I sold or gave away about a thousand books. It was painful to a point, but I actually needed or wanted only a fraction of them, which I have kept.) Being on the road without much reading material would be a disaster.

Of course we cannot haul around reference books and heavy novels, but there are some useful workarounds. The e-book readers now available (Nook, Kindle, and their kin) are a great help. I just downloaded Darwin’s The Origin of Species by Natural Selection onto my Nook (from Gutenberg.org, an excellent free source for classic books that are in the public domain). Most people would find it very easy to travel without Darwin’s book, but as a biology writer and editor I like to have it around for reference. I read it thoroughly in college, and once was enough. Using the Nook has been frustrating; I got it for only $80 on a Black Friday sale, and probably should have bitten the bullet and spent more for a Kindle, which is easier to use. I’m gradually learning how to read and save library books on the Nook, and bought a couple of e-books from Barnes & Noble. It will be very useful for travel, and even at home I like the lighted screen. This will never replace printed books, though.

We can also borrow some magazines and newspapers for online reading through the library, but I have yet to master that process. It looks as if some of the magazines we enjoy, such as Discover, are available for borrowing, and many others can be subscribed to commercially if we want to actually pay for them.

Being necessarily frugal, we tend to avoid paying for reading material if possible. Stopping at libraries along the way, as I described in an earlier post, is a pleasant way of catching up on reading and using Wi-Fi. (We do put a little money in each library’s donation jar.)

There are also a few printed books and magazines in the View, of course. We need specific information about the places we want to visit, a Walmart atlas helps when we need to blacktop-boondock, and there are always a few items we can’t pass up. These can help keep us satisfied until we go home, or to the next library.

BUCKET LIST

It’s a good thing that getting rich was never on my bucket list, because I have spent most of my life as a student or writer/editor, and am now embarrassingly grateful for Social Security and senior discounts. My own goals have been different, though they required some money to be accomplished.

After a few years of working to put my first husband through grad school, I was envious and frustrated enough to want a Ph.D. for myself. Never mind the fact that an M.A. was nearly sufficient for my needs—I was grimly determined to be Dr. Stone. It meant denying myself and my new husband many things. However, at the age of 46 I was able to clutch a diploma from the Stanford University Graduate School of Education. An important item crossed off the bucket list!

After earning the doctorate, I hoped to help design an NSF curriculum project like one of those I had edited. However, funding for curriculum projects was winding down by that time, and so I set up an editorial business, The Stone Cottage, instead. It was meant to be a temporary situation. I closed the business 30 years later.  . .  Owning my own business was very satisfying in many ways, but it had never been a bucket-list item.

When the phone rang in 2000 and Dr. Robert Krebs asked if I would like to write my own biology textbook for Greenwood Press, it seemed like a gift from heaven. I tried to restrain myself, and instead screamed, “Yes! Yes!” Authoring my own science book, rather than co-authoring or editing yet another one, had been a dream for years. Writing The Basics of Biology  turned out to be very difficult (and not very profitable), especially as my husband was dying during those years; somehow I persisted, and have been pleased with the results.

Being a good caregiver was unplanned, yet became a major goal during my husband’s illness and my mother’s aging. They are both dead now, and I did take good care of them. Nothing I have ever done has been so important.

Studying French in college had exposed me to that graceful language and literature, and I planned to travel to France at the first opportunity. The years passed, though, and I was unable to cross France off my list until 2005, when I finally went to Paris with an Elderhostel group. Though the tour was wonderful, I should have managed somehow to go there when I was young.

My bucket list today has changed greatly from what it was years ago. I never expected to spend my retirement years living in the woods and traveling in a motorhome! Yet, this way of life has led me to wishing to visit all the national parks—it is most unlikely that I will manage that—in addition to traveling abroad again and doing many more things before I kick the bucket.

TOO MANY PILLS

Like many elderly people, I have some medical conditions that must be monitored. For nearly a year, my blood tests have shown a slightly low level of magnesium, an element that is essential for nerve and muscle function. In addition to having me eat lots of spinach and almonds in an effort to increase my magnesium level, my doctor gave me a prescription for magnesium pills. I take one of the pills every day, along with a variety of other meds that are all too familiar to the elderly.

Thanks to medicines and a generally healthy lifestyle, I am well most of the time. Lately, though, I have had some symptoms of hypothyroidism, such as dry skin and hair. As my level of thyroid hormone was borderline a while ago, my doctor prescribed levothyroxine to correct it, and I have continued taking it. Those pills are a pain—I have to take one on an empty stomach every day, at least 30 minutes before breakfast. (I get hungry. More important, I have to suffer through those 30 minutes without coffee!) I would love to stop taking them, but probably my doctor will not allow it.

To prepare for my next office visit, I Googled for hypothyroidism and discovered that it’s important to wait at least four hours after taking levothyroxine before taking magnesium. When magnesium and levothyroxine are taken too closely together in time, they bind to each other, and both meds are made less effective. The label on my pill vial warns about not taking calcium for four hours, but says nothing about magnesium, so I have often taken magnesium with breakfast.

Ouch! Back in the day, I studied biochemistry and pharmacology, but even a bright high school chemistry student would have realized that if calcium can inactivate another compound, magnesium probably can as well. I should have realized the possible problem. Now I will be more careful, consult with my doctor, and hope to feel healthier and get better results from lab tests.

Interactions among drugs are a common result when a patient takes many medicines and has to keep track of complicated dosage schedules. It’s hard enough at home, but harder on the road. I use one of those 28-cell pill containers; it helps greatly, though it is barely big enough. (I take 15 or 20 prescribed pills or supplements every day.) Organization helps: Each day I put that day’s pills in my purse or backpack, where I can retrieve them easily at mealtimes. Having a companion with his own medical issues helps, too—we remind each other to eat properly and take our meds.

Medicines today are much more powerful than they were even 50 years ago. Thus they are both more effective and more dangerous. We elderly people often take several powerful drugs having side effects such as lightheadness or loss of equilibrium. The added result can interfere with driving, bicycling, even walking. We get all the bad effects of alcohol without the fun.

Alcohol itself is a problem for many of us, as it is such a common part of social life that it is hard to avoid it. I enjoyed drinking wine for my entire adult life, especially after moving to California and discovering the delicious, inexpensive wines at Trader Joe’s. As I have aged and begun using meds for hypertension and other conditions, I have gradually stopped drinking altogether.

I am grateful for modern meds, of course, and would hate to try getting along without them. But all of us who depend on prescriptions need to use them sensibly, to read labels carefully, and to ask questions of our doctors and pharmacists.