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Posted with the kind
permission of "Phoenix
Magazine" and photographer Michael Mertz...
After his morning "ablutions," a cup of tea
and perhaps a bowl of oatmeal, Geoffrey Platts sits down in the sun
outside his cabin, places a flat board on his lap and begins writing
letters in his trademark flowing calligraphy. They might be on
postcards, the blank sides of old letters or pages cut from grocery bags
-- Platts is a frugal man that way. Sometimes, he spends the morning
drawing up a reading list or writing a column for the Cave Creek
Sentinel. But it is the letters he most enjoys. "They enrich my
life beyond measure," says the transplanted Yorkshireman, who
estimates he sends out more than three thousand each year. For Platts,
letters are his umbilical cord to the world, providing him with
intellectual nourishment in the tradition of, say, George Bernard Shaw
and Mrs. Patrick Campbell. "Telephones make me uncomfortable,"
he said. "I think it is odd to talk to somebody you cannot
see."
Platts lives amid the rolling desert hills north of Cave Creek, where
the ravines are deep and their secrets hidden from view. It is in one of
these ravines that he has resided for more than 20 years in a rude cabin
overlooking a little creek bounded by cactus-studded rock walls and
towering sycamore trees. The creek runs year-round through the shade,
and the cabin is flanked by an apple tree. Platts lives with the barest
of amenities, reading his beloved Wordsworth by kerosene lamp, and
cooking his meals -- his specialty is pinto beans and homemade tortillas
-- outside over a dilapidated brick fire pit. A cooler chest serves as
refrigerator. The cabin his no electricity and is cluttered with books,
maps and gear. On chilly desert nights, Platts keeps warm by stoking an
old stove with used phone books. He has no car, depending on friends and
"shanks' mares" to get around.
Over the years, Platts has built a reputation as a "desert
advocate." During the '70s and '80s, his Yorkshire accent
punctuated city hall meetings and the state Legislature, where he
battled developers and lobbied for such measures as a bottle bill to
reduce litter. In addition, he churned out scores of environmental
articles, picketed construction sites and served a decade on the board
of the Arizona chapter of the Nature Conservancy. His lean frame,
attired in walking shorts and hiking boots, became a familiar sight in
Valley newspaper offices, where he dropped in to plug his cause. Platts
is also known for the readings he gives from his desert journals and
classic literature. His annual Halloween reading at Scottdale's Kerr
Center has become a tradition, with Platts --
attired in a tuxedo and illuminated by candlelight -- rendering Poe and
other masters of the macabre in measured cadences.
The life of an activist was not something Platts envisioned when he
touched down at Sky Harbor Airport in September 1962, en route to a job
in room service at the Camelback Inn. Fresh from England, Cyprus and a
backpacking trip around the world, the 23-year-old former gunner in Her
Majesty's Royal Artillery had more worldly goals. He was one of 55
English workers recruited by Camelback Inn owner Jack Steward as a way
to, Platts says dryly, "spread a little gentility." The pay
"Platts is known for
the readings he gives from his desert journals and classic
literature...."
was pitiable, about $30 a month to start, and the hours
were long. But the generous tips, free housing and desert locale made it
worthwhile. There was also the close proximity to wealth and women, not
necessarily in that order. Platts confirmed what Brits in America have
always known; an English accent goes a long way.
For the next decade, Platts worked Valley resorts in the winter and
national parks such as Yellowstone and Yosemite in the summer. "You
saved during the season," he says, "and you were free to
wander in May." He even squeezed in backpacking trips to South
America and Japan. It was a pleasant, unfettered existence. But as the
'70s hove into view, Platts began to tire of it. His life seemed to be
repeating itself. "I knew a lot of ladies," he recalls,
"but nothing ever came of it. You look back and you say these
things were fun, but you can't even remember one damned conversation you
had. You feel life is slipping away, and there's work to be done."
The one constant was the desert, which Platts found intriguing. Then,
one day in 1974, everything changed.
On that day, Platts was sauntering along Chencey Road in the town of
Paradise Valley, not far from the adobe guest house where he lived, when
he noticed some discarded cans and bottles ringing the borders of the
manicured properties. It wasn't anything he hadn't noticed before, but
for some reason it struck a nerve this time. It seemed flagrant, this
trashing of the desert he had come to love. The town seemed oblivious,
the homeowners indifferent. Something important had been forgotten here.
But Platts, who had been ruminating about his perceived
"hedonistic" existence, hadn't forgotten. Something had to be
done. He was seized with a "great enthusiasm" to stop the
desecration. "It was an epiphany," he says.
Platts immediately mounted an anti-litter campaign in the Town of
Paradise Valley, sending out letters to such community leader as
then-Mayor Robert Tribken. "Paradise" the letters scolded,
"is being taken out of the Valley." To Platts' delight,
Tribken actually read them. Before long, he found himself organizing
cleanup crews to rid the wealthy enclave of unsightly debris. Heartened
by success, he shifted the focus to the bottle bill, a perennial piece
of legislation that sought to place a return deposit on bottles and make
it illegal to throw them away. So determined was Platts to make an
impact that he walked into a state senate hearing on the bill in 1975
and dumped a bag of trash on the floor. "I thought he was a
nut," says former state Senator John Pritzlaff. "I told him to
pick up and trash and get out." Platts politely complied.
Platts then appeared on Under the Sun, a local television show hosted by
Arizona historian Marshall Trimble and TV personality Jan d'Atri.
"Jan interviewed Geoffrey, with cameras rolling, as he walked along
Scottsdale Road picking up bottles and cans," Trimble recalls.
"And he picked up a tremendous amount. When the program aired, it
showed this PR guy from the beverage industry sitting smugly behind his
desk saying there wasn't a problem. Then it cut to Geoffrey and all
those bottles. It made the industry look bad."
Platts ran into Pritzlaff again when both served on the board of the
Arizona chapter of the Nature Conservancy, which purchases land for
wildlife habitat. This time they struck up an enduring friendship.
"Geoffrey was a darn good board member with good ideas,"
Pritzlaff says. "He wanted to open up membership to youth. 'They're
our future,' he said. But the national board wouldn't buy it."
Beth Woodin, a former Conservancy board member and Arizona Game and Fish
commissioner, describes Platts as the board's "poet laureate,"
who gave fundraising readings and recited poetry at the close of
meetings. "Geoffrey represented the spirit of things rather than
dry legal facts," she says.
Platts' great passion was to end "blading," where bulldozers
scrape desert vegetation clean to make room for suburbs and golf
courses. In the process, not only indigenous plants but wildlife habitat
are destroyed. To Platts, it was an atrocity. Carefree architect Fred
Osmon agreed. When he moved to the Valley in the late '70s, Osmon was
taken aback by the devastation. "I had just come down from a
teaching job at Berkeley," he says. "I was surprised at the
lack of concern for the desert." When Platts walked into his office
to discuss an article Osmon had written about protecting the desert, the
two men found common cause. Osmon soon joined Platts at planning and
zoning meetings, where they opposed blading and suggested an
alternative.
Why not reduce housing density, they said, and leave the desert intact,
except for spaces where the house would sit. "We argued for habitat
protection," Osmon says, "where all the wildlife, including
rattlesnakes, could exist." Developers resisted; this surgical
approach would be expensive for home builders and home buyers alike. but
as time passed, ordinary citizens joined the chorus, and the city of
Scottsdale enacted ordinances protecting mountain flanks and native
plants. Developers offered a compromise; they would dig up desert
vegetation, set it aside and replant it after construction was
completed. Officials gave them the green light. Despite higher prices,
buyers descended on the new desert suburbs like Harris hawks. "They
saved considerable desert, made it attractive and lowered water
usage," Osmon concedes. "But underneath, it's what Geoffrey
and I call 'Disney Desert.' It still destroys the habitat and drives out
the animals. It's a sanitized version of the real thing."
A similar result emerged from Platts' war against golf courses, namely
swank Desert Mountain, host to the popular Tradition tournament. Osmon
recalls arguing with Platts that "golf is becoming so big that
people just staring out with GM are already planning to retire at Desert
Mountain or a similar golf community. It's a totally uphill
battle."
Platts sallied forth anyway, picketing the links and decrying the
dangers of a rapidly shrinking aquifer. "Suddenly," Platts
recalls, "you had the whole community rising up and saying [to
course officials], 'What are
you going to do?'" Public protests and a lawsuit by Carefree
eventually forced Desert Mountain to switch to Central Arizona Project
canal water. "They probably had to pay a bit more for CAP
water," Platts says, "but they got everything they wanted.
Scottsdale even gave them permission to put in another golf course,
which is unspeakable."
When Platts picketed Desert Mountain and other sites, he often did it
alone, reasoning "one person has a certain eloquence and evokes
sympathy." Not everyone saw it that way. To many people, Platts was
a cactus-hugging killjoy. Although he collected his share of thumbs up,
there were the inevitable one-finger salutes and jeers. "I learned
to say 'Thank you' with a smile," Platts says. "It would
confuse those who were vulgar." Meanwhile, Platts worried about
running afoul of the law. He never failed to take a copy of Thoreau's
Walden with him, "just in case I went to jail." This
sensitivity to other people's reactions is characteristic of Platts,
according to Osmon. "He was always taken aback when somebody told
him to go to hell. He didn't want to appear strident, to beat people
over the head. He wanted to be a teacher."
When he wasn't tilting at developers, Platts renewed himself through
lengthy treks into the Sonoran Desert. Several took place in Mexico, a
country that inspires the lyrical Spanish phrases sprinkled throughout
his journals. In Trek! Man Alone in the Arizona Wild (1991),
Platts takes readers on several excursions culled from the journals. The
language is often lofty, yet tethered to reality by Platts' extensive
knowledge of the desert. As he picks his way along rocky arroyos and
skinny-dips in hidden pools, he extols living simply and honoring
"Nature," deified with a capital "N." He evinces
undiluted wonder at desert life, describing it lovingly and in detail.
Startling a rattler, he drops to his haunches to appear less formidable,
then apologizes to the snake in soothing tones. "Old Crotalis"
eventually crawls off. Platts is never more gregarious than when alone
nor more sensitized to his surroundings: "In the quiet of the hot
afternoon, I began to think about the Great Silence that is such an
intriguing and unique aspect of the Arizona desert. At times, when the
wind is at rest, this silence is all-pervading, all-embracing like a
divine presence. There's a wondrous stilling of all sound and it seems,
inexplicably, that time itself stops. Vast sweeping landscapes, powerful
vistas -- and yet utterly noiseless -- then,
all of a sudden, a fly will come buzzing by or a bee will hum, or a
breeze will sigh through the bushes. And time whirs into motion once
again, and the spell cast by the Eternal Silence is gently broken."
"Platts lives with few
amenities, reading his beloved Wordsworth and cooking over a dilapidated
fire pit...."
In 1981, the desert journals segued from campsite to
soiree, thanks to Charles Dickens and the need for income. "One
day, I read about how Dickens took America by storm with his reading
tour," Platts recalls. 'I thought, why couldn't I do that in a
minor way with my journals?" Ignoring the fact that Dickens lived
before the invention of the light bulb, he approached Trimble, director
of Southwest Studies at Scottsdale Community College, about the
possibility of giving a campus reading. "Got any slides?"
Trimble asked. "Actually," Platts replied, "I was hoping
to paint pictures with words." Trimble, a noted cowboy storyteller,
was impressed. He contracted student government, which okayed a date.
"Geoffrey's got that smooth accent," Trimble confides.
"He draws you into his little web."
The reading, before an audience of 200 students, was a success, and
Platts earned $100. He was astounded. They were paying him to read his
own stuff. "I knew I had something," he says, savoring the
memory. At a later reading, an audience member approached and asked if
he did women's material." It caught Platts off-balance. "I'll
try," he said. Then he remembered the Brontė sisters, Yorkshire
and the moors. Of course! It was old home week. "I read Jane
Eyre and they loved it," he recalls. From there, he eased into
the short stories of Maugham, Chekov and Maupassant. At private soirees,
college and public gatherings, Platts whisked listeners back to a more
intimate time. Some were curious, some enthralled. "You inhabit the
words," gushed one woman.
Platts' skill at the lectern owes much to his nine years in English
boarding schools, where he acquired a deep love of the English language.
"There were no distractions," he says. "No television, no
young ladies. They taught and you learned. Greek, Latin, English, French
linguistics. It's probably equivalent to a college education in the
U.S." Young Platts immersed himself in Tintern Abbey, Walden and
other works exalting nature, while the Spartan regime of old showers,
rugby and cricket infused him with "a certain independence and
stoicism." Nevertheless, the lack of family and emotional resources
took its toll. "I've had to work on the backside of my character
for years," Platts says. "The concept of boarding out children
for 10 years is peculiarly British. I believe it originally had
something to do with readying young men for the colonies, where they
would spend long years without coming home."
It has been nearly a quarter century since Platts set out along Cheney
Road, but he has yet to reach his destination. Friends regard him
affectionately and praise his work. That he helped raise public
awareness and engendered more respect for the desert is not in doubt.
But for Platts, the results have been bittersweet. "If somebody
shouts long enough, an idea becomes an issue," he says. "Then
people start talking. Now they know the word, 'ecology.' When the word
'habitat' gets into their heads, we'll have made a tremendous
gain."
It is questionable, of course, whether development and habitat will ever
coexist. Disney Desert may be as close as its gets. Osmon now promotes
"tighter-density" Mediterranean-style homes with lush
courtyard oases as a more practical solution to preserving the desert
outside. Platts isn't impressed. "He's not interested in
architecture," Osman says. "To him, any kind of building
represents 'civilization.'"
There are those who believe Platts judges the nine-to-five world too
harshly. After all, most people could not hack Mozzarella cheese and
garlic sandwiches for lunch, sweat out hot summer days year after year
and endure long stretches of silence. But as Platts writes in Trek:
"By and large, modern living contrives with every possible excuse
and distraction to avoid confrontation with the inward self. A healthy
wish for aloneness... is viewed as suspect." What is a true
believer's mission, if not to poke consciences? "We all support him
in one way or another," Osmon says. "I once offered to cough
up a little money for a cabin in the woods -- 'Ed Abbey has a nice
cabin,' I told him -- but he didn't want any part of it. Why he lives as
he does is something he chooses not to articulate. Part of him is in the
19th century. He's a perfect example of a man who feels not of his
time."
Recently, Platts decided to end the "eco-political" phase of
his life. There will be no more picketing. No more city hall speeches in
front of "people who hardly listen." Times change. Just as
importantly, he says, "we don't have infinite years on this
planet."
But don't write off the Englishman from Carefree yet. He quotes his good
friend, the late environmentalist Edward Abbey, who said:
"Sentiment without action is the ruination of the soul."
Platts plans to carry on the fight through his writing and readings,
with greater emphasis on environmental works. Great literature, he
believes, can bypass statistics and capture the heart. It can "move
people who normally would not be moved" and get them to see things
in a new light. He believes even a simple act, such as restoring the
upper case "N" in "Nature," would subconsciously
elevate the status of the word and "impart a dignity to the natural
world not presently shown."
Platts has no health insurance, no retirement plan, and no children to
fall back on in his old age. But he isn't concerned. "Most people
live their lives worrying about what's going to happen," he says,
"but I live
in the here and now. Life is always generous." So he will continue
to read from his journals, write essays and take solitary treks into the
desert. He will talk to school children -- "They're always
open" -- and chuckle over responses like the following: "Dear
Geoffrey. Your presentation was very interesting. I learned that people
still can live without electricity and cars. That to me is kind of cool.
I liked trying the foods, though they were gross. Thank you, Hillary.
P.S. What was the name you kept calling me? (Barbella?)."
In short, Platts will keep the faith. "I see a lot of bumper
stickers that read 'Save the Whales,'" Trimble says sarcastically.
"That's the type of safe thing a lot of people do, especially
college professors. But Geoffrey took a local issue and got his nose
bloodied. He stood for something."
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