Being Green in a Red State

Instead of talking about Rick Perry's (somewhat stammering) declaration of the desire to secede, I'm going to talk about riding a bike. And walking. And recycling.

Holding Ithaca near and dear to my heart... I try to help the environment. Now, when I lived in Ithaca, I was never what anyone there would call "green". I fell somewhere in the middle of people driving SUVs less than a mile to class everyday and environmental club members with their own organic gardens. Not to say some of my dearest friends didn't belong to those groups. But, I wasn't necessarily green.

When I bought my Vespa in July, my Texas friends were shocked. Amidst the teasing for driving a scooter around all day, I got 75 MPG when gas was almost $5. Always a frugal girl, I can take a little flack in exchange for saving a few bucks. I was also instantly known as the greenest person in the office.

Since then, I've taken on such other shocking habits as:

• Recycling
• Walking places
• Buying local
• Cooking for myself
• Using the word "organic"

My most recent development has been (are you ready for this?) riding my bike to work. It's a scant 3 miles, something Ithacans don't bat an eye at. In Texas, the very fact that I don't valet when I get to work is stunning. I get weird looks when I'm tooling along Swiss Avenue and shocked looks from the nearby construction sites as I coast down the streets.

Oh well, I guess it just reinforces that whole earth mother, granola thing I've got going on. Then again, that's pretty much how all of us northerners are viewed down here!