Delhi, NY Geology

A local publication called Kaatskill Life published an article this summer by Robert Titus. Titus is a geologist at Hartwick college. The article purported to explain a dip in the center of Main St. Main St. Delhi has two traffic lights, and the first of the two is right in front of the courthouse. Titus said there had to have been a stream running through, and argues that a stream called Falls Creek built up an alluvial fan over the millenia until it was easier for the water to go down Falls Mills into a glacial lake that existed in the Ice Age (which ended about 13,000 years ago).

I had never noticed the dip in Main St.

I'm circulating the article amidst all my Delhi friends. So far, no one cares.

I'm immensely interested in things green. The tiny creeks that flow through Delhi drift into the Delaware River, which is the 34th largest river in America, and the only major American river to never be dammed. Part of this is that it flows through four states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, so they have to agree, and have never been able to arrange an agreement. The river flows on top of the Marcellus Shale Deposits which in turn trap billions of tons of gasoline which companies wish to frack -- a procedure that frees the gas for industrial usage, but seems to cause the gasoline to leak into the water table. The Delaware Riverkeeper Network is monitoring this, as is the Delaware River Basin Commission. Some laws may be broken such as the Safe Water Drinking Act, but this law specifically exempted fracking in 2005 (Sierra Club magazine, sept/oct. 2011).

My first political intervention was in my senior year in High School when I demonstrated two hours downstream against the Tocks Island dam which was then being built across the Delaware. The water was to be used by NYC and would turn the free tree haven of the Poconos into a tourist trap for vacationing New Yorkers, and create an enormous water supply for NYC.

The dam wasn't built. An enormous coalition of vagrants, politicians, and some rare species helped to stop it (I distinctly remember a horde of Monarch butterflies chasing a major from the Army Corps of Engineers down the beach).

In the archipelago of 6000 colleges and universities across the land there is a growing environmental awareness. I'm in favor of this. We had a farmer's market today at our college. We are thinking about putting in wind towers. They kill birds, but since birds are just aerial dinosaurs I don't care much about them. Dinosaurs are supposed to be extinct.

Wind towers are 400 ft. high and contain noise pollution with their cranky parts, but what are we going to do? Solar doesn't do much at present. Gas is a problem. Coal is a problem. Burning wood is a problem. Nuclear creates immense disturbances and is difficult to store once its spent.

The University of Washington (my alma mater) is number one in ecological up-to-dateness according to the Sierra Club magazine (sept/oct 2011, p. 30) and Evergreen State (my undergrad institution) is #9 (p. 32). This is excellent. The poetry college I attended (Naropa Institute) is also listed in the journal in the dotty category. Their spokesman Nathaniel Janowitz, who chairs the Green Team at Naropa, said they were unable to rid the campus of bottled water. "The effort was met with resistance by other students who felt that calling bottled water 'bad' went against the Buddhist principle of nondualism, which rejects right-wrong distinctions" (37).

I kid you not.

In listening to the debates among the Republicans last night I wondered about their greenness. First of all, Cain is black. He's so black that people who use identity politics should rate him blacker than Obama and, if they truly use identity politics as their sole criterion for voting, should vote for him. That alone should put Cain over the top. But perhaps this is itself over the top. (Obama not really black -- or not very black -- he's culturally white, and his skin is only half-black, and his father -- who met with him only once -- was from Kenya -- and was part of the political elite in that country -- so I think Cain trumps him in terms of blackness.)

Cain could be a WMD against identity politics were he to become the nominee for the Republicans. Would it be worth it? It isn't clear to me how green he is, although he's pretty black. Both his parents were black, and it looks as if he is black. He has what appears to be a genuine southern accent. Could he get the country into the black, while remaining somewhat green? Some say he's too green, at least in political matters, to matter.

While I fiddle around with such differentation, America burns too much oil.

Africa, meanwhile, from which all humanity derived (we're all Africans), is trying desperately to build an energy grid. At present, fledgling efforts in Rwanda and other countries light up a few capital cities but in the rural areas it's still the bicycle, and walking with a basket case on your head.

Meanwhile, Romney, who has spoken in favor of his belief in climate change, has also said he is against pollution, which has made some conservatives turn red. Yet others believe he is too Mormon, and some have said this isn't Christian. And yet others say it isn't Christian to not accept the Mormons just because they have batty beliefs about Jesus living amongst the Indians after his final days in Gethsemane. Perhaps he was scalped. Otherwise, what happened to him and why isn't he still palling around with Commanches?

Geological time is at some variance with the model of the earth built in the Bible, particularly in Genesis. Following stream beds, as you can on the map of Delhi above, we can see the outline of the streams that have flooded into Delhi for something on the order of 100,000 years. As I walk through town, I try to remember that there were once Indians living here, and before them the Mastodons, and before them there were dinosaurs. Ice ages went and came, speaking of death and fame.

I spend my days thinking of the lineup of Little Soccer Teams (we are now 4-0) and my assistant coach said I should remember geological time and how brief is our passage, in order to keep it all in perspective. And yet, there is nothing like a goal that is rocketed in from the 18 by a kid with a blitzkrieg of a right leg as he takes a cross out of the air and belts it into the upper corner.

Geological time is nothing compared to that, especially when it is my own son. I will soon be a layer of geology, as will we all, but meanwhile there is a meanwhile. Black and white? That's the color of the soccer ball, flitting through the air like the mysterious atom.