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Posted with the kind
permission of "Phoenix
Magazine"...
Walking One's Talk
I went to the woods because I wished too live
deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see
if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die,
discover that I had not lived. -- Henry David Thoreau.
Geoffrey Platts, who, in his lilting English accent, likens himself to
Thoreau, went not to the woods, but to the desert. There, he lives in a
one-room cabin that serves as workroom, bedroom and, when the weather's
bad, kitchen. It's a dark roost, full of crowded bookshelves, a writing
table, a bed, a few chairs and an old Franklin wood-burning stove. All
sorts of interesting paraphernalia hang from the rafters. clothes dangle
from a suspended pipe in the corner. The wall decor can only be
described as hodgepodge. If he could see it, Thoreau would be proud.
There is no gas, no electricity, no kitchen sink, no bathroom, no
telephone -- not even a battery-powered radio. There are bugs and
rodents. "Any creatures are welcome as long as they don't bother
me," Platts declares magnanimously.
Just out the door, a natural patio of fallen leaves shed by over-handing
trees forms Platt's fairweather dayroom/ kitchen. A single spigot
provides water piped in from somewhere upstream. Beneath a tree, a
precarious-looking table holds neatly stacked plates, cups, and cutlery.
Pots and pans hang from nails on a huge tree root next to the outdoor
fireplace/grill. A round, weathered table offers an open-air workplace.
This humble niche lies within a hidden Sonoran valley made lush by a
pulsing, musical creek. It is desert nirvana -- a place where shady
cottonwoods and sycamore meet prickly pear, palo verde, and saguaro.
Platts appreciates his surroundings, and made us promise not to reveal
his little alley's location.
"Reading, writing, ruminating and rambling encompass almost the
totality of my existence," reflects the vigorous Platts, who
displays an outdoorsman's deep-tanned face and roughened hands. Since he
owns no car, he has to "ramble" three and a half hours just to
get to the nearest town.
Platt's income, which need not exceed $200 a month, comes form freelance
writing, selling homemade plaques featuring his calligraphy and reading
poetry aloud for interested groups. "Those things are not lucrative
in the modern sense of the word, but they do buy my beans and tortilla
flour," says the youthful 45-year-old.
Born and raised in England, Platts left home in 1960 to backpack around
the world. In 1962,after his funds had run out, he immigrated to Arizona
and went to work for Camelback Inn. "I was too much of a callow
youth at the time to be enamored of the desert," he recalls.
"I was very interested in what most young men are -- parties and
hell raising and so forth. It wasn't till, I would say, my early
thirties that it became a deep and abiding love affair with the
desert."
Platts first made that affection public as a bottle-bill activist in
1974. To illustrate to state lawmakers the seriousness of the roadside
litter problem, he went to the Capitol and dumped collected bottles and
cans from a huge garbage bag onto the Senate floor. "I did sweep it
up -- got out my broom and gathered up the lizards and so forth,"
he says. But not before newspaper photographers captured the event. He
and his litter appeared in newsprint the next day.
"Usually, however, he expresses his dedication to desert
preservation in more generally accepted ways. In 1982, he spearheaded
another unsuccessful bottle-bill effort, and he's an involved member of
the Arizona Nature Conservancy. (The nonprofit, Tucson-based conservancy
owns and preserves thousands of acres of our state's natural desert
lands.)
On a daily basis, he "walks his talk" by picking up roadside
litter, and writing scores of letters to people all over the state
encouraging desert conservation and preservation. "As a man who
comes from another country and traveled all over the world, I can tell
you that, on the face of this earth, there is absolutely nothing like
the Sonoran Desert," he sad. "It seems to me that, for the
most part, Arizonans do not realize the beauty and singularity that
surrounds them. Which is why local governments and the state of Arizona
have permitted this desolation. Phoenix is a good example. What I would
ask for is not the cessation of development, but development with love
and respect for what we have here. For the most part, developers could
have a damn about what we have here."
To prove his point, Platts takes us to a large lot in Carefree where
desert flora have been completely erased and cleared to make way for
construction. Rather than build within the existing environment, the
developer chose to eliminate it.
Platts doesn't want to see such abuses occur in the Phoenix Mountain
Preserves. He's even opposed to the scenic drive some have proposed. 'I
can tell you one thing that I now for absolute fact," he says.
"The moment you put a road of any description into any part of this
desert, it's the beginning of the end of that desert. For litter
inevitably follows roads. My feelings are that since the preserves are
living libraries and the last remnants of the Sonoran Desert, they
should be cherished for that purpose. I have known people who are not
capable of hiking into these areas who nonetheless love them for the
fact that they are there.
"I have dedicated the remainder of my days to this cause of desert
preservation. It's that serious to me." |
