I went out very early this morning to the West Fork of the San Gabriel River, and knocked out a 21 mile run along the road that leads up and beyond Cogswell Dam.
In order to get out to West Fork, one must drive through the small community of Azusa. Azusa is in the eastern San Gabriel Valley, only a dozen miles from Pasadena — but culturally, the distance is much greater. Azusa Pacific University is a fairly conservative Christian school, and the demographic of the city is split between a growing Latino population and lower-middle/working-class whites. Done with my run, floating on a sea of endorphins, I decided to drive some back streets of Azusa to count lawn signs. Obama-Biden signage outnumbered McCain-Palin posters up and down several blocks. It was striking, because I remember how many more Bush-Cheney signs I had seen just four years ago in the same area.
On a similar note: I often half-joke about “Our Kind of People” and “Not Our Kind of People” (OKOP and NOKOP.) I’ve always said that if there is an official sport for NOKOP, it is “off-roading.” As an environmentalist, there is no human activity — not even perhaps carniverousness — that I find more vile than the delight in driving a gas-guzzling behemoth through creekbeds and up hillsides, tearing up habitat, wasting fuel, and making a dreadful ruckus. The sooner we ban off-road vehicles from all of our state and national parks, the better; it is fervently to be hoped that high gas prices will create barriers to this repulsive and indefensible activity.
That said, sometimes my stereotypes get challenged. Today, on my way back down Highway 39, an enormous pick-up, jacked up to an improbable height, began to tailgate me. Dust-spattered, it and its occupants were clearly just finished from a happy morning of destroying plant life and spreading fumes in a dry river bed. I pulled my Volvo over at a turnout after the driver of the behemoth (it seemed to have once been a Dodge Ram) flashed his lights at me. He roared past, and just as I was about to curse him under my breath, I saw two stickers on the back of his truck. One read “Obama-Biden” and the other read “No on 8: Defend Equality”. I was so surprised, I ended up briefly tailgaiting the Dodge just to make sure I had seen what I had seen, and that this wasn’t just a vision induced by post-run exhaustion. Yup, the stickers were there.
Whatever else his numerous sins against nature, the driver of this monstrous and unnecessary thing was willing to let all and sundry know his support for gay marriage and his commitment to the Democratic ticket. If gay marriage is picking up vocal and public support among the off-road vehicle crowd, then Proposition 8 may well and truly be destined for failure — and the culture ready to accept a new milestone on the road to full equality.
But I still loathe off-roaders.
You’re as much of an elitist as ever, Hugo, but at least you have righteous politics and a sense of humor about it to go with it.
I’m surprised you didn’t point out the obvious: rich white dudes like to run long distance on their own muscle power, poor white trash likes to buy huge machines to destroy things. Something about needing to prove the need to dominate? I know you’re itching to post on this, Professor!
two things:
1. i live in a very conservative, republican, religious, agricultural, mining, off-roading, etc community. to my great surprise and delight, i am seeing an unbelievable number of obama signs here. it’s truly incredible in a place this conservative.
2. i always appreciate the kinds of experiences like yours w/the obama-and-gay-marriage-supporting-off-roaders. they show us that we need to be very careful about judging people. i’m not sure it’s humanly possible to refrain from making those snap assessments of people based on whatever visual cues they provide, but we need to always remember that those initial impressions may not be entirely accurate or fair. it is humbling when it happens and i think of it as a lesson in humanity. it happens to me a lot because my work frequently takes me into neighborhoods where i wouldn’t go as a civilian and puts me in contact/interaction with people i would not otherwise cross paths with. i “met” a household of gangsters who were most likely drug dealers and i of course made all the expected initial judgments about them, only to quickly notice that they were very good to their dogs and always very polite to me when that is not required or commanded by my position. those two small details changed the way i saw and thought about them; it helped me to see past their “bad-ness” to their “human-ness.”
Perhaps the liberal off-roader is buying carbon credits. Apparently doing that justifies any amount of polluting behavior.
Hey Hugo,
Are you going to write all your endorsements? I don’t think you haven’t done it. Please do so as I always rely on what you decide on….
cheers mate!
I’ll repost them pronto.
I loathe off-roaders too, but there’s a concept I learned in college (environmental) land use planning that embraces the concept of multiple use. It’s not always easy to stomach, even if necessary.
As far as stereotypes go…all around–where I reside older homes are being scrapped off to make way for very large, expensive homes which fill up the entire property. The older homes are not in bad shape, but they are not new and smaller and lack appeal to the bigger is better crowd. Many of the homes destroyed are old brick bungalows. Many just may need updating and others have been updated, but they just are not the coveted McMansions that people seem to desire. Sadly, when the homes are scrapped, the older trees take a beating. I think about all the environmental WASTE this creates, regardless of the tax revenues it generates for the ever greedy city. It’s changed the neighborhood and not for the better. Most of the homes are $1.2 million or more. Many sit empty. What also amazes me are all the Obama-Biden lawn signs–one would think with the greedy, conspicious wealth crowd that they’d flaunt Republican support…so much for stereotypes.
Hugo, you are truly an elitist. Take a serious look at your whole carbon footprint. Next time you are strapped into a gas-guzzling jet at the end of the runway, pollution spewing engines spooling up to take you to Florida or wherever for your elitist vegan restaurant, just imagine thousands of cute little Chinchillas being sucked up into the jet engine intakes and being spewed out in tiny little bloody bits.