Chapter 22 … Shades of Green

Sandy and I began our lives together at The Parsonage, located on Gilead Brook Road in Bethel, Vermont.

We’re not similar people at all. The phrase “Vive La Difference” gets invoked a lot in this household. She’s a perfectionist. I am, to use an Italian word that I can’t find in Google translate, brucchiamata. It translates to “half-assed.” People describe us both as stubborn. We are, undeniably, fully engaged.

My colleagues at Chelsea Green were shocked in the abrupt change in my personal life. They had accepted the veneer of happiness that Laura and I presented to the world. Thankfully, they were also receptive to the new reality. The company was a nimble tugboat, navigating steadily in the turbulent world of book publishing. Amazon was turning the staid, labyrinthine industry on its head. Bookstores were closing in droves. Chelsea Green, with its focus on sustainable living and seasoned crew, was well-positioned to handle choppy waters.

The company’s relative stability, gave birth to an unexpected, and for me, entirely unwanted sub-plot. At a trade show a woman introduced herself to me as a new investor in the company. As President and Publisher of a small, closely-held company, I should be highly aware of any such transactions. While I was politely skeptical, the woman, who seemed credible enough, persisted in her story, even referencing another Board member by name.

The game … I realized … was afoot. It was a game I was reluctant to play, because it was one I had no chance of winning. The mystery investor, I came to realize, had been brought in to buy the shares that I owned in Chelsea Green. The Baldwins wanted back in to the company they had left in my care to manage seven years earlier. When all was said and done, it was their company. Like it or not, I was out.

I was now in my mid-50s, not exactly prime time for finding a new professional position. After an abortive mis-step as Executive Director at a dysfunctional non-profit, I had my fill of office politics, employees, and boards of directors. I had been preaching the politics of sustainable living since that fateful day in New Haven in 1970, looking down from the twelfth floor of my dormitory at Yale . The time had come for me to begin practicing what I preached. Whatever came next, I resolved, had to suit my chosen lifestyle. It had to be meaningful, if only on a personal level. And it had to be enjoyable.

And, Sandy had to approve!

Towards that end, I did three things. 1.) I re-booted my writing which had been put on hold as I endeavored to make the authors of Chelsea Green successful; 2.) I started a micro-publishing venture called The Public Press, which would help authors manage their own publishing ventures; and 3.) I bought a small magazine called “Green Living Journal.”

All of which, from a commercial perspective, were … searching for the right word here … laughable. At one point in my tenure with Chelsea Green we were doing some private fundraising, and I showed our offering prospective to my college roommate Bill Peck. When last seen in this memoir Bill and I were in a furious game of table hockey while the Big, Bad, Broons beat up on some expansion team. Like so many of my classmates, Bill had come to his senses, went to graduate school to get his MBA and was now launching a hedge fund.

“The numbers look good,” said Bill about the prospectus, “but where are the zeroes?” What he meant was that Chelsea Green was too small to be of interest to any serious investor. Good thing I didn’t have a prospectus for The Public Press!

Here’s an essay that has been published in several venues:

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Shades of Green

As the publisher of Green Living Journal, a quarterly publication that explores “green” living, I was recently asked “So, what does it mean to be ‘green?’” It’s not a simple question and does not have a simple answer. It’s almost as complicated as that crossroads you face at the end of the checkout line, “Paper or plastic?”

Green can be a verb, noun, or adjective. “Greenmail” refers to the Wall St. practice whereby undervalued companies are acquired, chopped into little chunks and sold piecemeal, a reminder that only a single letter separates the word “green” from “greed.”

Green is the color of money. A dollar bill is a greenback, not to be confused with a “wetback,” slang for an illegal alien who does not possess a green card. A ring of cheap or false gold will turn your finger green.

Within the business community a topic of hot debate is greenwashing, what happens when a company cloaks itself in a mantle of green, not as a commitment to the environment, but as a marketing strategy. You can attach solar panels to Wal-Mart, say detractors, but what you get is Wal-greens. Beware of wolves with green fur.

Green politics can be confusing. The Green Party, a political organization that supports an environmental agenda, is widely blamed for costing Al Gore, an environmentalist, the Presidential election.

Perhaps Kermit the Frog said it best when he lamented “It’s not easy being green.” Some real world frogs, living in altered natural habitats, are finding that to be true. 

Has the concept of “green” been so co-opted? No, it is the flexibility and resilience of “green” that give it staying power. Other words have tried to replace green. “Natural,” “authentic,” “organic,” “ecological,” “sustainable,” and, currently, “local” have their moments of linguistic glory, but we always return to green.

A rookie in baseball is green. Green is the relaxing backdrop for ballparks, and at least at Fenway, you can watch a ball disappear over the Green Monster.

Green is ephemeral, but green can be precious and enduring. Emerald is at once a gem and a shade of green. Forest, lime, olive, sea, Hunter, Kelly, and British Racing are distinct shades of green.

Mix them together and you get camouflage, often associated with hunters and the military. Deep green describes the most committed environmental stewards, such as members of Greenpeace. Think of what will be possible if we can get these green extremes to recognize that they are different hues of the same color.

The Green Room is where actors relax before a performance. You might find the band Green Day hanging out there, or Al Green, or Tom Hanks, who starred in The Green Mile. Green is the color of envy, but also the color around our gills just before we get sick.

Green is the patch of grass around which our village is centered, but it’s also the finely manicured spot on the golf course where you hear lots of cursing.

My most exciting moment of the year is in April when I peek under the mulch that covers the garlic planted last fall. The garden is half mud, half frozen dirt, with nary a sign of life. I brush away the snow and gently lift the straw. There it is … a delicate slip of green reaching for the sun.

Soon the landscape will be roaring with green. Nature will be abhorring vacuums and filling every void with life. Vermont, itself an anglicized combination of the French “vert” and “montagne” will be resounding with the meaning of green.

At a recent conference I saw a t-shirt that proclaimed “Green is the new red, white, and blue.” I disagree. This would mean that green somehow belongs to America. Although I am completely in favor this country setting a green standard for the rest of the world (we’ve got a long way to go), the common ground of our environment must transcend political boundaries.

Another t-shirt at the same conference stated “Green is the new black.” The wearer was African American. This a provocative statement open to varying interpretations. The one I prefer is that matters of environment supercede those of race. Global warming, after all, is an equal opportunity natural disaster that promises to affect people regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin … unless we all start to live more green.

Green living, therefore, is the winning strategy for people, community, and planet in the future. Green, we will learn, is the new gold.

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For the next few decades, in reality more like “for the rest of my life.” I have been what I call “a white collar woodchuck.” In Vermont a “woodchuck” (not the rodent kind) is short for “wood chucker,” meaning a guy who doesn’t have a real job, but manages to get by by cutting some firewood, plowing driveways, boiling sap, and transporting things to the dump is his trusty pick-up that boasts “some rust, but runs good. (A tip of the hat to Midnight Dan and the Plowboys who made an album with this title.”)

So I write stuff, publish things, do some consultin’, and make silly videos. In between I tend the garden, keep the front stoop clean, take stuff to the landfill, and generally do what I can to keep the old lady happy. (Take it easy, Sandy, I’m jus’ tryin’ to soun’ like a real Vermontah!)

I don’t keep score, but the unofficial life tally is:

• Ten published books, plus three revised editions.

• Published over 200 books by other authors

• Published three class books for the Yale class of 1970, Yale’s last all-male graduating class.

• Wrote over 350 published articles

• Have made over 1500 posts on Silverback Digest

• Posted 250 thoroughly amateur videos on YouTube

• Wrote more than 300 restaurant reviews for TripAdvisor until I got pissed off at them. (Yes, I wrote a story on that, too.)
• Wrote, with my high school bandmate, Greg Morrison, the musical magnum opus, “Old Rockers: The Musical Journey of Grendel
• Wrote this the story of my extra-ordinary life.

In between Sandy and I have been to many exotic places and had joyous family times with her kids, my kids, and occasionally a mixture thereof. We created, and survived, many years of Cousins’ Camps with her grandkids, and are now enjoying Morris Boy Seaside retreats on the weekend after Labor Day.

And we’re not done yet. I don’t make a lot of money, but I don’t need to make a lot of money Sandy and I travel wherever we want. We get up and go to bed as the spirit moves us. We haven’t missed any meals. It’s a good life. It’s a great life.

Here’s a snippet from my life. It first appear in The Herald of Randolph, our beloved, home town newspaper:

Me, with a prized daikon radish

The Master Speaks

By Stephen Morris, M.M. (Master of Mulch)

People are always asking me “What is the best newspaper in Vermont?” As a seasoned media pro, it’s natural for people to seek my professional insight. 

Actually, I’m lying to you. No one has ever asked my opinion about Vermont newspapers. Not once. It is a subject about which I have thought deeply (well, deeply for me). When comparing papers, I disregard the political orientation or the quality of writing, design, layout, and photography. I have one criterion—the paper’s suitability for mulching.

Of all Vermont spring rituals—sugaring, opening day of trout season, sliding off the dirt road into a ditch, the first creemee, my personal favorite is “the laying of the papers” when I mulch around the perennials in the garden.

I’ll explain.

We used to recycle our newspapers at the landfill. Then I took the Master Gardener course offered by the UVM Extension Service up at VTC where I learned the merits of mulching, the gardening practice where you control weeds by laying down a layer of light-impenetrable organic material such as sawdust, compost, straw, bark chips, or dead fish (not recommended).

Mulching appeals on several levels. Every weed that doesn’t grow is a weed that doesn’t have to be pulled. Mulching can be done in that cold, wet period before you can plant anything. (Some people refer to this period as “May.”) Mulching improves the soil, and, finally, mulching saves you a trip to the dump.

Because I passed my final exam, I am entitled to the rights and privileges conferred upon one who successfully satisfies the requirements of an institution of higher learning. Therefore, I insist on being addressed by my title, “Master.” Some people think I take my new credentials too seriously, but I’m the same humble guy I’ve always been, although I have begun referring to myself in the third-person. Because of my specialty is mulch, my full title is “Master of Mulch,” but to my friends, I’m simply “Master.” 

A generous person, I walk around the neighborhood dispensing free advice such as “Master thinks you shouldn’t have planted that tree there,” or “Master says cabbage will never grow in that spot.” Recipients are so respectful of my credentials that the response is usually respectful silence, often accompanied by a gesture that I interpret to mean “You’re #1” (although, don’t most people use the index finger for this?). 

Mulching is not rocket science. Any moron can design a rocket. While anyone can lay a newspaper on the ground, very few can do it in an efficient, Master of Mulch kinda way. It starts with how the newspapers are stacked for storage over the winter. My partner in life, an otherwise intelligent woman, has had to be completely trained when it comes to newspaper management. She attacks a newspaper like a terrier in a roomful of rats. When she’s done snapping, folding, and clipping she leaves the spent newspaper in a haphazard pile, as if it’s a piece of trash.

Master doesn’t like this, because crumpled newspaper doesn’t lay down flat on the ground. The ideal newspapers for mulch have never been read. They lay flat as my hair after I haven’t showered for a few days. If you insist on reading newspapers, they should be crisply refolded, sections separated, color inserts removed, and stacked with folds to the left. Master has explained this patiently to his partner. She, in turn, thinks Master should get a life. She has also suggested that Master do things with newspapers that are not physically possible.

Laying down the papers provides a great opportunity to review the previous year, although not in chronological order. This spring while mulching the blackberries on a gray March afternoon, these are a few headlines that caught my eye. “Football Player Slugs Gate Agent.” I stop to read this story because the slugee is an old friend and neighbor. “New Brewery in Barre.” Hm-m-m. I’ll have to stop there. “Rochester Boys Have Best Season Ever.” I have no interest in the Rochester Boys Basketball Team, but I read about them anyway.

Some would call these stories “yesterday’s news,” but I think of them as nicely composted. Some stories I missed the first time around; some I have forgotten about; some deserve to be forgotten. Collectively, however, they comprise a discombobulated collage of life since the garden was last in bloom. I think it would be a good idea for the television networks to begin composting the evening news.

On we go to the blueberries. The years scrolls by in jumbled order. “Another Democrat Enters Fray.” Oh yeah, this is an election year. Didn’t we just have one of those? I work my way back from the President’s plunging popularity to the groundswell of hope when he was elected. 

“Slain Rapper’s Mother Remembers Son’s Success” catches my eye. Mom explains that her gangsta’ son really had a heart of gold. The Yankees win the World Series. I had repressed that.

Which brings us back to the question of the best newspaper in the state, mulchingly speaking. The winner is Seven Days. It’s a tabloid that lies flat even in a moderate wind. (Master has learned the hard way that mulching in the wind is a bad idea.) Moreover, Seven Days is free, so if you get caught short, you can just go pick-up another armful. And if you want to take a break, you can read those titillating classifieds to see if you recognize someone you know. 

The Master has spoken.

Stephen Morris observes the media and other cultural phenomena from his lofty perch overlooking Gilead Brook Road. 

Green Living Journal is not the best for mulching.