By: Derek Polzer, Rewild NJ Movement Member
One of the great joys of living during the counterculture days of the 60’ & 70’ was the spirit of self-sufficiency, a “do-it-yourself” ethos! It showed up in our young lives in many ways.
Our vehicles of choice were often Volkswagens; VW beetles, buses, square-backs, transports, even a few of the sporty Karman Giga’s! We chose them due to the simplicity of their design & how easy they were to work on. Parts could easily be obtained from any auto supply shop, junkyards, or through the trusty J. C. Whitney catalog! And, with the help of manuals, especially master VW mechanic John Muir’s wonderfully illustrated “How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive” repair guide we kept our vehicles running!
There was a great sense of satisfaction working on those vehicles, making repairs, sometimes improvising when needed by “Mickey Mouse-ing” something just to get home! Tools were always kept onboard! On one of my vehicles for reasons I never figured out, the bolts holding the carburetor to the manifold loosened & nuts fell off making the engine stall on Rt 80 near the Delaware Water Gap. After scoping out the situation I finally figured out the problem. I couldn’t find the nuts anywhere figuring they were now somewhere on the interstate, so seeing that the gasket was still good I found some bailing wire in my toolbox & used it to hold the carburetor in place. It held & I made it home in one piece no worse for wear!
Salvaging, restoring, repairing our vehicles & other curbside finds gave us a sense of independence & freedom, & it created a sense of community being able to get help & advice from buddies or even neighbors who were skilled in auto repair or just about any of the trades. Our shelves were filled with worn & stained how-to books along with portable boxes filled with the necessary tools for just about any project. The Whole Earth Catalog was a primary source of information & other possibilities. Truly an inspiration!
This was, also, the early days of the modern environmental movement. If we needed it, we often made it. If it was broken, we fixed it! There was a sense that this was a small act of defiance or resistance to the prevailing economic paradigm of excessive mass consumption & the resulting waste it produced! Restore & re-use was just how we did things before mandated recycling!
My friends & I had what seemed at the time an incurable case of wanderlust. At a moment’s notice someone got the itch, decided on a destination, made a couple of phone calls, & off we’d go! My vehicles was where I kept my camping, backpacking, & fly-fishing gear leaving room for my rucksack that contained life’s essentials & a space for a guitar or banjo case if the destination was a folk festival.
Self-sufficiency seems to have fallen out of favor. High-tech this or digital that has made what was once a simple repair into something so complicated that only highly skilled “specialists” have the technology required to make these repairs.
And where does this leave you & me? It leaves us dependent, unable to do the simplest task for ourselves ending up having to shell out hundreds of dollars to some highly skilled “specialist” or technician to make the repair! I’m willing to agree that there is a time & place for specialists, but not for every task. Is it that this dependency has made us lazy, or is it that we’re lazy by nature & prefer to be dependent? I don’t have an answer.
We are a species who’ve evolved hands with fingers capable of doing delicate, detailed work, & creating things, yet it has become a status symbol to be able to pay someone to do everything for us! In these situations, people are no longer self-sufficient or self-reliant, they have become dependent on others, but not in healthy way. It has become a purely economic transaction. There is no freedom in this, no sense of healthy interdependence, & no chance for a relationship founded on mutual aid or civic engagement. It is isolating!
So, what does this have to do with repairing VW’s in the breakdown lane on the side of an interstate highway?
From early childhood I was curious about how things worked & how things were put together, & subsequently, how things came apart, & in the process I learned how to use tools, I learned how things worked & I liked the challenge; it gave me confidence & it was fun!
What made those “counterculture” years so vibrant for me was that feeling of self-reliance & self-sufficiency & knowing that if something needed fixing & I could do it myself, there was a community of people that I could call on for help & that they could call on me! Many a pleasant afternoon was spent with a good buddy or two working on one of our vehicles!
We learned other skills like carpentry, plumbing, masonry, or basic wiring that we would continue to use throughout our lives. Few of us went into the trades as a career, but we had built a firm foundation in essential life skills that are still paying off!
For twenty-one years I was the Recycling Coordinator for a major New Jersey municipality with an office at the town’s recycling center, & I became surprised at the amount of what as kids we called “useful junk” that the town’s residents were throwing on the scrape metal pile; useable pots & pans, kitchen appliances, tools of all kinds, air-conditioners, metal furniture, lawnmowers, bicycles, I was amazed at what people were throwing out!
One day a man came to my office asking if it was alright if he looked in the metal pile, he knew of people who could use some things he saw, I immediately yes, of course. This was Reverend Pete, an amazing man who became a dear friend & mentor. He would load up his truck with the things he found on the pile & took them to whomever needed them in his congregation.
Over the years many people began to do the same, finding “useful junk” & giving these items a second life! I later called them “The Lake Road Irregulars”. I the spirit of re-use, I established what came to be known as the Book Barn, a place to bring unwanted books that others could be taken home for free! It became very popular.
My hope is that in the near future the spirit of self-sufficiency will again become part of the common culture & we again begin sharing our skills & knowledge with friends & neighbors instilling a new sense of community.
Maintaining, repairing, & restoring the things we own, & the repurposing, reusing, & recycling of items & materials will help to radically reduce what enters the waste stream & could be another step towards a genuinely sustainable future, but I strongly believe that we need to begin to consider the need for both cultural & economic changes that will foster & promote a lifestyle that supports these ideas. May it be so!
With AN APPEAL TO EARTH 🌲
…paddling ever onward, Derek Polzer
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