2005 Spring

An Interview with Dave Bontrager by Chris Roth

Dave Bontrager is an ornithologist and ecologist who has educated and inspired many fledgling (and no-longer-fledgling) birders and nature-lovers for the past three decades. Twelve years ago, he and his wife Charlotte moved from southern California, where Dave had been stationed at Starr Ranch Audubon Sanctuary, to a forty-acre site just three miles up Lost Creek from us. Since their move, he has continued teaching classes at Starr Ranch, commuting south for multiple-week courses. For the past three years, he has also offered regular bird identification and natural history classes to local Dexter and Eugene-area residents. I've enrolled in every one, for good reason: Dave's knowledge, insight, and enthusiasm for his subject have enriched my life and greatly accelerated my own learning about birds and natural history.

And nature has provided us with a blueprint and the stories to find ourselves back home. All you need is a pair of wings and an unbroken connection to your ancestral knowledge. The intrepid wheatear is a fine example. This sparrow-sized bird, whose family heirloom consists of more than a genetically imprinted map of where home is, possesses homing instincts complete with a readiness equal to that of a great athlete and explorer combined. As the eastern Canadian population of wheatears heads off on their migration, they follow their internal map towards open water for a trans-Atlantic crossing to England and then on to home to Northern Africa.

This past spring, I discovered what it's like to parent my own parents. I was living overseas for a year and after much persuasion, my parents agreed to meet me in France for a week. It was the first family vacation in years and I was nervous. Suddenly it was my responsibility to read subway signs, order meals, and make sure all four Harmons were on a train together with validated tickets. When my dad had an emergency dental situation, I took him to a dentist, explained the situation to the receptionist, sat with him during the procedure to translate, and even managed to have it billed through my French medical insurance. Was this how my parents felt when I was growing up? The constant pressure to make sure everyone was taken care of was wearing. But my understanding of love was greater. I wanted them to have the best trip possible, and I was willing to do whatever was in my power to see that happen. The choices my parents made for me while growing up came from that same place of unconditional love.

Pretty soon, I realize what it is: another issue of Talking Leaves. There are worse monsters to be shadowed by. I'm not sure how I ended up in charge of this one--I think it was part of a group adoption plan, and some of the co-parents were soon adopted by other monsters. Luckily a number of other people do take an interest in it, so I am not entirely alone. But ultimately, this monster slows to a standstill if I am not leading it forward--and for monsters, a prolonged standstill is not an option. Sometimes it really, really needs to pee. If I don't take it out, it will pee all over my floor.

An Interview with David Orr by Chris Roth

 
For more than a decade, I have had the privilege of knowing David Orr, Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, and author of the books Ecological Literacy, Earth in Mind, The Nature of Design, and The Last Refuge. The visionary force behind Oberlin's state-of-the-art ecologically-designed Environmental Studies Center (see "A Building Like a Tree,"TL 11.1), David is also a widely traveled speaker at conferences, and an influential contributor to such journals as Orion and Conservation Biology. He has been a leader in the reinvention of environmental education, advocating the incorporation of ecological consciousness into all areas of the curriculum and into all aspects of education itself, including the physical settings in which students learn. Increasingly in recent years, his interests have turned toward politics; The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror (reviewed in TL 14.3) is a treatise on the inseparability of ecology and politics, and a call to action to reclaim both from the hands of those with little apparent respect for either. Every winter, on my visit to my parents' home just a few blocks away from David and Elaine Orr's in Oberlin, our families get together for a meal and visit. This past winter, I also arranged a separate interview, which took place in David's family room late on the afternoon of January 4, 2005.