Route 66 ran through my childhood front yard,
and the Frisco Railroad ran across the back.
Route 66 ran through my childhood front yard,
and the Frisco Railroad ran across the back.
I've spent my life getting to know the other places.
I got my first kicks on Route 66 soon after I stopped kicking in utero. From the hospital in Springfield, Missouri, I was driven down Route 66 about 20 miles east to my home on the highway just inside the “city” limits of Marshfield, an Ozarks town of around 2,000 at the time. I apparently made my first attempt to see the USA without a Chevrolet at around age two. My Mother says she was mortified to answer a knock at the front door and to be scolded by one of the town grocers for not properly keeping track of her first-born — whom he was holding. The grocer said he had to abruptly stop his car on his way out of town because, in front of our residence, he found me walking down the middle of Route 66!
Every night for 18 years, I lay in bed hearing the whistles, the rumble and the clatter of freight trains headed to points unknown. By day, particularly in the summer, I watched cars with license plates from every state gassing up — or broken down — at the two service stations across the road before they could resume their cross-country explorations. I could not wait for the day I would know the freedom of discovery on those seemingly unending open roads . . . and also the seemingly unending possibilities to satisfy my curiosity about the people, the topography, the flora, fauna and cultures of this vast country.
NumbersUSA
In 1996, I began the NumbersUSA.com website which soon became a national grassroots organization. Through this organization, I have worked with other authors to conduct numerous national and regional studies of urban sprawl from 2000 to the present. We have made numerous presentations on these studies, including to the Centennial conference of the Ecological Society of America, the Society of Environmental Journalists, conferences for urban planners, statewide secondary teachers conferences, and at the world’s largest Earth Day Expositions in Dallas. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) have cited these studies which have focused especially on California, Texas, Florida, the Southeastern Piedmont, and the Chesapeake Watershed.
THE GUMBALLS VIDEO: In 1993, I made simple presentations to my son’s 7th grade class. This developed into a presentation I gave around the country using charts and gumballs. In 1996, we produced a professional video of this which eventually was posted on YouTube. We taped an updated version in 2010 which was posted by numerous sources on YouTube, Facebook and other video hosts. Based on just the postings of which we are aware, we can say these videos have been viewed more than 150 MILLION times, thus far. The viral reach of something that “catches on” is astounding. Whatever the value of all the other endeavors of my life, this little video tends to overshadow all. To the extent that I’m ever recognized anywhere, it is almost always as, “Hey, aren’t you that gumballs man?”
Ecosystems & Habitats
I am most proud of my life’s work in trying to protect America’s eco-systems and habitats, especially those that are close to the country’s major urban areas. I regard this work as important not only for the Americans of today but for all future generations who live in this country and for all future generations who live in other countries but for whom visits — and even just the knowledge of the existence of these natural treasures — will be a source of nourishment and wonder. I became one of the first 10 newspaper reporters in America with an environmental beat, receiving environmental writing awards in the 1960s and 1970s, especially for coverage of urban expansion issues.
By the 1990s, I was well aware that the environmentally-sustainable-America dreams of the First Earth Day (1970) were being made impossible by federal immigration policies that had quadrupled annual flows and were driving a U.S. population expansion larger than the 1950s Baby Boom. The Father of Earth Day, former Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.), continued to insist until his death in the 21st century that sustainability is impossible without a stabilized U.S. population. I left my job running a Washington bureau covering Congress for a chain of Michigan newspapers and devoted myself full-time to researching and writing about the environmental, economic and quality-of-life implications of immigration policies. I enjoyed sharing speaking appearances with Sen. Nelson and occasionally assisting him with his book research.