Happy Thanksgiving to All
It’s early Thanksgiving morning. I’m the only one awake. I’m looking forward to family, friends, and food later.
I’m looking back to yesterday. It was the one year anniversary of my wife Chris’ brain surgery. Last night, as we ate dinner with a friend, I remembered following the ambulance from Woods Hole to Boston at high speed. I was wondering, as I swerved onto Route 24, if it was all just a dream. A nightmare. It wasn’t; it was the real deal.
One year of health. And she gets healthier – every day.
And now we thank our lucky stars for the great medical care, for the outpouring of support, for our children and grandchildren, for each other, for our good fortune. It is a dream, in a way.
A year ago, as I followed the ambulance to Boston, nobody knew the phrase “the other 99%.” It is now an essential part of our common vocabulary. The dreams of the 99% have been awakened. The genie will not go back in the bottle; once released, it never does, does it?
An Occupy Wall Street protester recently said, about the spirit of this movement, “If you are looking to contact one of our leaders, go to the nearest mirror and peer deeply into it. It may take some time, but, eventually, one of our leaders will appear with answers to all your questions.”
That is the way of this new movement, this new awakening that includes us all.
Jonathan Schell, writing in the Nation two weeks ago said, “When such sea changes of opinion and will are under way, entrenched institutions start to tremble and shake, and political miracles become possible. The signs say ‘Love is the New Fear’ and “The Beginning is Near.’ To this we can now gratefully add,” he says, “ The Beginning is Here.“
In 1985, when Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple, he was determined to top anything he’d done before, to avenge the terrible wrongs to which he had been subjected. Once he recovered from the shipwreck of his despair he tackled his mission with uncommon resolve and ability. But it came from a troubled place, and his path to unparalleled triumphs of design and imagination was littered with corollary damage and contradictions.
Last year, when Jeffrey Hollender was forced out of Seventh Generation, the environmental cleaning products company he founded in 1988, he took a page from Jobs’ book and decided to Think Differently. But he didn’t aspire to revenge; rather, his experience caused him to consider what’s wrong with American business and how he might help to usher in a New Economy that is vital, democratic, resilient, and restorative. For everyone.
Last month I met with Jeffrey and two potential funders of his new enterprise, called CommonWise. CommonWise is committed to “building resilient and revitalized communities by applying design, entrepreneurship, systems mapping, worker cooperatives and technology to achieve a new framework of wealth and wellbeing.”
As I listened to Jeffrey talk, I realized that the new framework he was describing is a pure expression of the dreams and aspirations of the other 99% and a blueprint for achieving them.
Occupy Wall Street and CommonWise represent ideas and forces that have been stewing at the edges of our culture – part of a mosaic of new institutions and approaches that may be ready to bring down high walls and build long bridges.
I had an epic dream some time ago. At one point in the dream a guy asked me to take a look at a piece of writing. I read the title. It was called “An Open Letter to My Shoes.” I thought: what a great title. It evokes so many possibilities – shoes, where they’ve taken me, path, journey, odyssey, etc. Hmm, I mused, I wish I had thought of that. And then I woke up and realized – hey I did think of that! It was my dream.
This helps me remember – it’s our dream! It’s our journey, it’s our path, it’s our design.
It doesn’t take much to rev up my hope; it never has. One year of health. The other 99%. CommonWise. The beginning is here.
Happy Thanksgiving.
A MUSEUM FOR MV? BY SOUTH MOUNTAIN? (Part ll)
So. . . we got the job.
The next two and a half months (mid-November through January) became a wild whirlwind of committee meetings, inquiries, design excursions, public meetings, and pedal-to-the-medal production of the deliverable products we had promised. The holidays didn’t help, and it didn’t help either that we were establishing an intense collaborative relationship with a firm we had never worked with before, and doing it under the gun.
But we got it done. We’re very proud of the products of this work. And pleased with the collaboration with the Museum staff and planning committee, and with Oudens Ello, the Boston firm with whom we partnered. Talented architect Ryan Bushey, the youngest SMC owner, did a superb job leading our charge – pulling together complex programming information, working closely with our Boston team, and pulling a few late-nighters to get all the drawings done.
A MUSEUM FOR MV? BY SOUTH MOUNTAIN?
For more than a decade I have had a low-grade obsession with the St Pierre property in Vineyard Haven, the site of an old Marine Hospital that sits high on a bluff overlooking Lagoon Pond and the Vineyard Harbor beyond. The evocative 4.4 acre property is a short walk from downtown. It is surrounded by small lots with small homes.
The imposing wood-frame hospital was built in 1895 by the U.S. government to treat soldiers, sailors, and their families. In 1935 they expanded with a brick addition on the rear and continued to operate the hospital. When it closed in the mid-fifties the St Pierre family bought it and operated it as a school and summer camp (and then just a summer camp) for 50 years. In 2007 Barbara St Pierre, daughter of the founders of the St Pierre School, ceased operation. The 10,000 SF building is in a state of disrepair, but it still has very good bones and begs for new life.
A HAPPY NEW YEAR FOR ALL
This year is all done.
That’s good. I feel like I’ve “been rode hard and put away wet.” I’m ready for the New Year. Here are some random things I hope for in 2011:
• Health in my house. . . and yours.
• To remember that there are two parts to a crisis – reacting to the immediate with urgent solutions, and adapting long term to the new reality that results from the initial crisis.
• Rewarding work for all. Paul Hawken once said, “We are the only species without full employment.” Isn’t there anything that needs to be done?
MADELINE’S SOLAR HOUSE
In 1980 a woman named Madeline Blakeley called me to ask me to look at a piece of land with her. She was a librarian in her early sixties whose husband had recently died. They had no children and had always lived in rented apartments. Her dream was to own a piece of property.
She had $7,000 in cash. A realtor showed her a lot priced at exactly that, but all her friends advised her against buying it. The property sloped steeply south to a beautiful little valley, a perfectly matched solar exposure and view. But it was right beside the main road from Vineyard Haven to Edgartown, which was very loud and loomed over the property. Except for that proximity and the fact that the whole lot was a hillside, it was a lovely site. There was nothing else on Martha’s Vineyard within her price range.
For Better Or Worse
Several weeks ago my old friend Marc Rosenbaum 
arrived on Martha’s Vineyard. He often arrives on Martha’s Vineyard. For 20 years this distinguished, nationally recognized building performance engineer has been arriving here to consult with us – to help us make better buildings. For 30 years he has been responsible for some of the most advanced buildings in New England.
When he arrived here last Tuesday, it was different than most times. Read more
CHEERS & TEARS . . .and ELIAKIM’S WAY
Cheers and tears. That’s the way of a Vineyard housing lottery.
On Tuesday, March 30th, a standing room only crowd packed the meeting room at the Howes House. At stake: seven new LEED platinum houses at Eliakim’s Way off State Road in West Tisbury. 
There was a mix of nervous applicants, expectant children, public officials, and housing advocates.
In the front of the room David Vigneault and Terri Keech of the Dukes County Regional Housing Authority, lottery administrators, explained the process. A complex matrix of preferences and qualifications was so arcane nobody could actually understand it. The crowd chuckled when David finished his explanation and said, “Is that all clear?”
SMC IN THE NEWS
I’d like to share some nice press SMC has received recently.
The first two are recent articles in local magazines about projects of ours.
SHOP CLASS & DEEP ENERGY
In 1980, when Hurricane Bob ripped through Martha’s Vineyard, it tore down a big hickory tree alongside Humphrey’s Bakery in West Tisbury. We took the butt log, hauled it to our yard, and milled it into planks. Until a few months ago they sat on stickers somewhere deep in our wood storage building waiting for my son Pinto to make a rocking chair for me and my wife Chris.
BUYING BOOKS
I love to buy books and read books. I don’t often use the library. I don’t own a Kindle. I buy books. But I’ve noticed that I end up reading only about two thirds of the books I buy. Not a good percentage. Each of those I don’t read wastes stuff: paper, ink, money, time, and space. I’d like to raise the percentage.
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JOHN ABRAMS is co-founder and CEO
of South Mountain Company and the author
of COMPANIES WE KEEP read more
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COMPANIES WE KEEP is published by Chelsea Green Publishing
read more -
