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4. Vigilance and Rage
- State University of New York Press
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4 Vigilance and Rage “You’d better think about it and you’d better think again, ‘cause Allegany County ain’t never giv’n in. Well now, Allegany County is full of nasty boys. They fool around with shotguns; they’re about their favorite toys. People say we’re nasty, and I say this with a grin, you ain’t seen nothing ‘til you haul that poison in. . . . If you want to bring the poison to put it in our ground, you’d better bring the army, ‘cause you’ll have to shoot us down. . . . —B.A.N.D.I.T.S. song, “Nasty Boys,” by Ed and MartaWhitney S E P T E M B E R 2 4 , 1 9 8 9 — SPIKE JONES LAUGHED, startling his two companions. For a couple of hours he, Gary Lloyd, and Stuart Campbell had been hiking in silence across the largest of the three potential dump sites in Allegany County, zigzagging from one wooded plot to another. They had focused on staying invisible, particularly when they had neared the clear-cut fields of three landowners who seemed eager to sell their property to the state. The stealth of their mission contrasted with the clear, blue sky and warmth of an early autumn day, where the buzzing of crickets mingled with the occasional raucous sound of crows fighting over the rotted remains of a few ears of corn. Breaking the reflective mood, Spike laughed, “I was just thinking how different this is from slogging through the goddam jungles of ‘Nam. God, I hate snakes!” Startled, Stuart and Gary turned toward Spike as he continued,“I was just thinking how the three of us were sure on different trips in the sixties. Shit! While I was playing Rambo in the jungles, you were doing your professor thing and supporting draft dodgers.” “Draft ‘Resisters,’ Spike,” Stuart interrupted. 89 SUNY_Pet_ch04.qxd 9/13/01 2:06 PM Page 89 “You can’t stop playing professor, can you!”After Spike had retired from the military, he returned to college, getting a degree in history at Alfred University , where Stuart had been his mentor. Like most of Campbell’s students, Spike deeply respected Stuart’s intelligence and usually enjoyed bantering with him. But today he felt annoyed. “I really don’t give a shit what you call them. The point I’m making is that we’re three very unlikely ‘comrades.’” Spike paused and then took a verbal jab at Stuart. “I’m deliberately using your ‘pinko’ term so you’ll feel more comfortable.” Both men laughed, relieving some of the tension that had been building during their day-long skulking behind the properties of landowners hostile to their cause. Turning to Gary Lloyd, Spike asked, “What were you doing in 1969? I’m obsessed with that year, because it’s such a hole in my life. I read everything I can get my hands on about what was going on then in the States.” “I’d just gotten a job teaching high school biology at Alfred-Almond,” Gary responded. “That’s how I got a military deferment. I thought about joining friends in Rochester who were protesting the war, but my principal was paranoid about student protests and would’ve canned me. Back then it was unpatriotic to say anything against the war.” “Three different paths, and here we are together in the woods, reconnoitering the enemy,” Spike mused. They were now walking back toward the “friendly” side of the site, where the landowners had decided not to cooperate with the siting commission. After walking a few minutes in silence, Stuart stopped and looked directly at Spike. “This is going to be one hell of a tough site for us to defend. Not only are there seven dirt roads that lead up to the site, there’s even that rutted track we first walked on, going right into the center of it.” “Believe it or not, that’s actually a town road,” Spike interjected. “They don’t plow it in the winter, but they maintain it through hunting season for the people who own those cabins.” “They’ve also got access through the properties of the three farmers who’ve agreed to let them on the land,”Stuart continued.“It’ll be a lot harder surrounding drilling rigs if the property owner isn’t sympathetic.”Even before the official announcement of the finalist sites two weeks earlier, the siting commission staff had been visiting landowners to...