Some momentous events stick in your mind forever - those old enough to understand remember where they were when Kennedy was assassinated; more recently, we can all remember what we were doing on 9/11/01or the night America elected its first black president. But today, was almost as big a moment for Phil - he believes that he met the least green man in America. We had met this prestigious person before but we merely thought of him as Tony's towing man - he was at Tony's BBQ - the short, spherical man with lark-like limbs (rather similar to one of those round-shaped owls perched on a branch, but without the tufted ears). When he wears a blue t-shirt he has an eerie resemblance to one of those exercise balls at the gym, though the resemblance stops there as exercise is an unknown in this man's life.
Anyway, how did we discover his secret aim to reduce every oxygen and oxidize every carbon atom? A man whose unstated aim is to single-handedly melt the polar ice caps and make Utah prime beachfront property. Judging by Phil's sunburn, Ungreen Man had already successfully destroyed the ozone layer directly above the Lebanon Valley racetrack. This man was the leading contender for the Least Green Man in America title. It took hard work and dedication to become such a champion, but this man had a genuine gift! Was he born a smog-belcher or did he become one only as an adult? No-one really knew as his early years were shrouded in a pollutant-induced fog.
If some people have a carbon footprint, this man was a veritable coalmine. He drove up to the raceway in his favorite family-hauler. This man owned 7 trucks and one RV, and had a fleet average of less than 6 mpg. He also owned many cars, the smallest engine being 7.4 litres, but none of these by themselves would win him the coveted title that he sought. It would take a skillful combination of the above vehicles, plus the family-hauler, to catapult him into first place. But to ensure that the second place contender couldn't hold a candle to his fossil-fuel inferno, Ungreen Man brought out a couple of secret weapons: 2 ATV's, a large charcoal BBQ, and a gas-powered generator that was left on all day to maintain already fully-charged batteries. So you may be wondering what was the family- hauler and how much could it really contribute to the destruction of the planet? If you haven't already peaked at the above photo, you will be somewhat surprised to learn that the family-hauler (much preferred to the RV on the long Connecticut to Florida run), is a modified 18-wheeler tractor trailer, capable of hauling ass and other vehicles at over 100mph! It was fitted with an oversized turbocharger and 4 oversized fuel tanks, a fitting tribute to the oversized driver.
Ungreen Man talked un-eco philosophy to Phil: "The tractor trailer has a superior bed (the sleeping kind) to the RV, which makes it the vehicle of choice when driving 1200 miles" (while using a similar number of gallons). We declined his kind offer of borrowing it to drive down to North Carolina. There hadn't been an eco-assassination at any liberal enclave yet, but we didn't want to create a precedent.
Anyway, back to the attempt on the title. Ungreen Man idled his truck at the side of the highway entrance ramp while waiting for his police escort, AKA Drag-Race-Tony, whose 8 mpg race car seemed quite Prius-like. As the escort arrived, Ungreen Man revved up and moved off in a haze of hot exhaust. He was planning on racing 2 cars at once (themselves fueled with leaded racing gas). This is quite some achievement, though purists would argue that co-opting his teenage sons into ozone depleting and greenhouse gas level elevating, was bending the rules.
148 miles and several hundred gallons later, the convoy arrived at the dragstrip in less than 2 hours. The police escort had allowed these vehicles to maintain speeds in the most fuel-inefficient range. CT to upstate NY in less time than it takes an evangelical preacher to commit adultery. In true trucker fashion, the 18-wheeler was left idling the entire 5 hours at the track as the AC helped keep the bedroom in it cool, even if no-one was using it. An enormous charcoal grill was indispensable to grilling a few snacks to keep the driver's fighting weight up. The ATV's were left fueled up and idling, ready to go at a moment's notice. But why would anyone need the ATV's if they were racing the 2 cars that were hauled up to the drag track? Let me explain - if you have successfully reduced your lower extremities to vestigial spindles through lack of use, you absolutely cannot risk them regenerating by walking anywhere. Thus, the need for a vehicle to transport you from the parking lot to the pit crew area or from the parking lot to the bathroom. Judging by the frequency of the bathroom trips, the spherical belly might be the outer cover of an oversized prostate, in which case it was entirely forgivable that he hurried off to the bathroom in a cloud of gas every few minutes.
Meanwhile, back on the track, Tony was having a bad day - the beloved baby that required 3 gas station stops of its own, was running poorly. Unable to win on the track, Tony made an underhanded play to steal the Least Green title. He had tweaked his car in such a curious way that the gas cap wouldn't fit properly. In an inspired move to maintain originality even when most of the car wasn't anywhere close to original, he had obtained an original vintage 1968 gas cap, complete with authentic perished rubber seals. As the car accelerated down the track, 20 gallons of leaded racing gas was hurled to the back of the tank, causing a fountain of gasoline to plume out from behind his license plate. Several runs down the track like this could snatch the Least Green title. Ungreen man was impressed by this blatant attempt to add hydrocarbons directly to the atmosphere. Hydrocarbon emissions are usually measured in ppm (parts per million) but this was a very different ppm (pints per mile). However, a misguided track official, not realizing what was at stake here, insisted the hydrocarbons be partially burnt before emission and showed Tony the red card and his gas-spewing baby went to the benches in disgrace. Ungreen Man became the uncontested leader.
If everyone had the unbridled consumer power of Ungreen Man, we could reduce the atmosphere to its pre-photosynthetic state in a matter of days, and An Invconvenient Truth would be An Indisputable Fact!
It's going to take a lot of hippies a great deal of time to counteract this showing. Turning off lights and a whole army of Johnny Appleseeds, or an entire eco-minded generation refusing to shower, couldn't compensate for a day in the life of Ungreen Man! (Some names have been changed to protect the guilty).
Janet P.
