As that old Karen Dalton song goes…

Do you feel like something’s not real?
Let the spirit move you again
Are you leaving for the country?

I was sitting at that Public Hearing on the Eminent Domain proceeding for taking of Pine Bush on Rapp Road for the proposed transfer station to replace the Rapp Road landfill and haul all of Albany and surrounding communities garbage to a 10 acre expansion of the Franklin County landfill on the Canadian border next to the several state prisons about 15 miles north of Malone.

The Albany City Council hearing on the Eminent Domain proceeding was everything you would expect from the city, complete with rich looking lawyers like from Whiteman Osterman and Hannon or one of those big firms and of course Clough Harbour. We the environmentalists made the case for preserving the Pine Bush and the corporate lawyers for the city explained why they thought they were justified in the taking. They of course pointed out that the taking didn’t guarantee that the permits would be approved, but we all know what the presumption is though a very brave agency man or commissioner or judge could change everything.

It was the last regular city council meeting of the year, so there was a diverse group of individuals from the public to speak during the general comment period, many honoring a long-time city hall employee who recently passed away. And there were several homeless activists – and former homeless persons including a man who said he slept in the bushes behind the LOB many a cold night. I want to be an off-gridder, and I camp in wilderness many a night but I always have my heater and my truck to climb in if it gets too cold. Tough life on the street. I liked their proposal to turn some of the former Saint Rose dorm into housing for the homeless, and how difficult it is for many people to obtain the very limited social services that exist. Of course, some of it had to  blend into my imagination from recently reading Edward Abbey’s The Fool’s Paradise.

I was sitting there as the meeting dragged on, flipping through my phone, doing mindless scrolling on Facebook which I told myself that I wasn’t going to do and it kept reminding me I was over my 30 minute self-imposed limit on Facebook. Pictures mostly of cattle and hogs, farms, solar and rural landscapes. The things I interact the most with, things that taste like silage and of vast open spaces of countryside. My mind floated away for a few minutes, as I looked the glory of the City Hall Chambers, not unlike the State Capitol but also still a bit run-down like most of the once opulent government buildings maintained on a shoe-string. I’m sure people looking over my shoulder in the cramped city hall gallery had to think what a hick I must be.

I didn’t stay for the whole meeting, though I had hoped to catch the vote on the final condemnation of the land, but it was getting late and I wanted to catch the 9 PM bus home as I’m usually asleep before then. I just leaned at the bus shelter, staring at the Capitol, the Empire Plaza Towers and the Alfred Smith Building. In many ways I miss working downtown, though I do transfer to the shuttle there everyday. But as I daydreamed a bit on the shelter, with the signs reminding people of No Loitering, I listened to more Ian and Sylvia and dreamed of the off-grid cabin, away from all the plastic and the garbage dumps and the endless ads and commercialism. No home internet, no TV, heat and electricity I made myself, waste I disposed of myself – returning it back to earth. Far away from the homeless and many urban problems, next to a nice warm woodstove in a dimly lit room as I sat before retiring to bed.

I am tired, very tired.