Sunday, June 20, 2010

Where my passion for sustainability came from -- Fathers' Day reflections...

Why am I (philosophically) green?
My dad, Roger Haas, who died six years ago last month was a very quiet man. He was unexpressive to the extreme, virtually never, to my recollection, teaching anything explicitly, yet he taught me a great deal. Most of his teaching was by example.

It gives me the willies when a friend or colleague leaves an engine running while chatting in a driveway or parking lot. That comes directly from Dad. He got the willies too.

He built things -- there was the solar thermal panel that pre-heated hot water in the form of copper pipe painted black inside a glass covered box leaned up against the souther side of our house (the inside was also painted black). There was a windmill in the backyard made from oil drums cut down the middle. I don't think that ever actually generated any useable power as was the goal, but he did get it to spin in the wind.

He turned things off and made sure we did too. Lights left on in empty rooms were one of a few things that made him visibly irritated, and we knew not to run water while we brushed our teeth.

My siblings and I also knew that little scraps of metal or wood, or interesting pieces of broken things could be made to serve some later purpose.

These things have been passed on -- one brother has a geothermal heating system. I'm not the only one of my siblings who mows the lawn with a reel-type mower (Dad used one too) and has insulated his or her home far more than the average American.

I know Dad did these things largely because he couldn't stand to see things pointlessly wasted. What good does it do leave a light on in an empty room? Why should I use natural gas to heat my water when the sun can do it free? Why would we want to squander our resources? Thanks, Dad, for passing this along to me.

What makes you green?

2 comments:

Dina said...

Your dad was gorgeous. Just saying. :)

My dad (also gorgeous) was an avid rose gardener, and there was no lack of indentured servitude to them on my part, growing up. That being said, the experience of helping Dad in the garden is perhaps the chief experiential evidence I have that sometimes, things you avidly dislike growing up are things you fall in love with later. My greenness (such as it is) came from both the freedom my parents gave me to wander every inch of the woods surrounding my house, but also from specific acts of cultivation.

Patience said...

Oh yes, the reel-type lawn mowers, the only kind I've ever used in all of my adult life (and about time to dust it off again for the season too). In any case that's a very touching tribute to your father, he sounds very creative and innovative. My own parents, both depression era farm kids, had habits and skills that were perhaps more centered around frugality ("Use it up. Wear it out. Make do, or do without"), but which handily overlapped with Green -- like hanging out the laundry (which I still love to do on what I call my 'Canadian Clothesline' (spied it up in Ontario -- clotheslines on pulleys attached to very the tops of the barns. Genius!), gardening/composting, encouraging us to ride our bikes everywhere, and indeed yes, turning out ALL unnecessary lights (though always figured my dad's job as a lineman for our local power company had something to do with that)....