Editor's Note: Wade and Jim Crowfoot are a son and father who spent a month this summer road-tripping through the Northwest exploring efforts to build locally sustainable economies. Wade, 25 years old, lives in San Francisco where he spent the past two years working on urban economic development. He is currently working as a political consultant to progressive candidates and issues. Jim, 59 years old, is a retired professor from the University of Michigan who lives in Ann Arbor after spending the past year at the Neahtawanta Center working on community sustainability.
Beginnings
Cruising north from San Francisco up Highway 1 on a brilliantly clear July afternoon, neither of us had much of an idea of what the next month would bring. Each of us had plenty of hopes but few certainties. That day, the endless blue ocean crashing into a vast, windswept land seemed a clear slate on which to start our trip. A father and son adventure had begun. We would spend the next month learning about different places, their people and their futures.
In those first days, the thought crossed our minds: "just what the hell are we doing? A month to spend together is challenging enough. In the past several years, the most time we've spent together is an occasional weekend. Tackling such an ambiguous subject as "sustainable local economies" seemed all the more daunting. A father and son together on an extended trip seems a rare occurrence. We thought at the time, were there good reasons for this?
The trip was born in earnest last winter during one of our long phone conversations. In our own ways, we have both wanted to make up for lost opportunities from years past and to spend meaningful time together. We both cherish time spent in nature, and are committed to exploring how people can integrate the environment into their own lives. So the seed of an idea planted last winter in a wandering phone conversation grew into our trip.
Our trip together, if it was an experiment, has promising results. Although it may sound to some like more of a mystery or a nightmare than an opportunity, we are glad to say it turned out to be pretty enchanted. In the process of exploring a beautiful part of the world and our own relationship as two grown men, we learned some valuable and interesting things about what people are doing to insure that their communities remain healthy, rewarding places to live.
This article begins to tell our story of what we learned in these communities. Specifically, it discusses some of our impressions of efforts to develop stronger local economies, based on selected interviews in three places. Our first conversations took place in the heart of redwood country -- Humboldt County, California and its communities of Arcata and Eureka. We continued these dialogues and our learning at the south end of Puget Sound -- Thurston County, Washington and the greater Olympia metropolitan area. Our final interviews of the trip occurred in the watershed of a pristine estuary, Willapa Bay, located in Pacific County within the southwestern corner of Washington at the mouth of the Columbia River. In between these places, we drank deeply from the vitality and diversity of the region's astounding physical beauty and distinct culture. In the process, of course, came the struggles and joys of being together.
Our approach to learning about innovative local economies has been pointed but informal. We sought help of knowledgeable, local informants in determining who to talk with and in arranging introductions. In each of these localities, we were able to speak with a variety of people who are planning and implementing visions of stronger and more sustainable economies. This topic was ambitious but our objectives were modest: simply to learn about the opportunities and challenges surrounding this issue and to become familiar with what was actually being done in each of these communities.
Perspectives and Choices
Each of us brought distinctive perspectives to this adventure. Jim has spent three decades working in academia studying social and environmental change. Born at the end of the Great Depression, he grew up in the burst of post World War II industrialization and modernization, with its Cold War mentality and is deeply influenced by radical political, environmental, and spiritual perspectives of the 1960s and early 70s. Wade, on the other hand, grew up in the 70s and 80s with its rightward shift in U.S. politics, growing economic inequities, globalization of the economy and post-communist era. He has been shaped by the 90s with its pragmatism, post modernism, and mantra to "think globally and act locally." His initial work of eight summers was with young people in an "up-north" camp devoted to outdoor education and self development. In the past two years his professional work has been in a private consulting firm that addresses economic development for cities.
More than three decades separate our births and comings of age--times of vastly different economic, political and cultural conditions. From late the 1930s to the 1990s, our world has experienced stunning changes&emdash;culturally, economically and politically. We have been touched and shaped differently by these changes. Yet we share genes, our gender and Midwestern roots. As father and son we have experienced a hearty share of good times and bad times, and our bond is an ocean of history and emotion. We share a deep concern about the problems facing our society and the world and both of us want to contribute to a "kinder, gentler" future which is more peaceful, environmentally-grounded and just.
Several factors led us to the Pacific Northwest for our road-trip, some related to our research and others more personal. Personally, we were drawn here by the varied natural beauty of the mountains, forests and the waters of the rivers, bays and oceans. Also, by starting and ending in San Francisco and camping and hosteling, we could travel affordably. Wade was more familiar with this region and the experience of road tripping; Jim had done more specific research on some of the community sustainability projects going on here.
We struggled early in the trip, as we do in our everyday lives, to find balance between work and play. We felt a conflict between our desire to get deep into our research and our desire to explore nature and relax with one another. Soon after the trip began, Wade felt the trip was becoming too focused on work while Jim was more interested in the work. Based on our commitment to staying open with each other and working through things, we were able to listen to each other with both our hearts and minds. We discovered a balance that we could each live with and, in the process, learned more about each other and our own selves.
One of the primary factors in choosing to research places in this region, is that the Pacific Northwest has more recently grappled with the relationship between its natural environment and its economy than more eastern areas of the continent. Timber and fish have served as the backbone of the area's economy since Europeans arrived and appropriated lands and waters from the indigenous peoples. But as a result of resource depletion and other factors, the economic structure over the past twenty years has fundamentally shifted and basic changes continue to occur in the natural environment and the economy. Currently, the region is considered a laboratory of changes as it attempts to find a balance between economic vitality and environmental quality, and many of its citizens search for a more sustainable way of life.
In selecting the three sites for our interviewing, we were guided by what we knew about community sustainability efforts in this region and where interesting work on local economies was taking place. Choosing these places was difficult because in this region there are many other important community sustainability projects and economic alternatives. In beginning to plan our trip and research, we thought a month would be sufficient. In the end we realized that we only scratched the surface of the many important changes which are underway in this region.
What Does "Sustainable Economic Development" Mean?
The semantics of "sustainable economic development" was one of our first lessons learned. We found that this term is not being used by many practitioners of alternative local and regional economic development in Humboldt County, CA. and Willapa Bay, WA. Many feel that the term has taken on a life of its own--branding things as politically leftist and radically "green" in some cases, and in other situations has been co-opted by large corporations who are "greening" their image without changing their practices. As one local professional working on alternative economic development put it, "the term 'sustainable development' has come to mean everything and thus nothing."
In Humboldt County, no attempt has been made to develop an open, public and broad-based discourse in order to define "sustainability" or any other cohesive vision for a livable future. As is the case in many areas of the Pacific Northwest, a great cultural rift has developed in Humboldt County around the local environment and economy. It pits those who have relied on resource extraction for their incomes against those supporting resource conservation, preservation and restoration. The ensuing rancorous conflict has developed into a communal sense of separation and fear that has prevented an open public discussion about the challenges and opportunities for the area's future.
In Willapa Bay, a largely unsuccessful effort has been pursued through a single, stakeholder-based organization, The Willapa Alliance, to define a new more compatible relationship between economic development and the environment and identify ways to achieve it. Broad based citizen participation and commitment to this vision has not occurred. While the cultural rift and alienation about environment and economy is somewhat less pronounced in Willapa Bay, it still has created a barrier to broad-based, public discourse concerning the long term needs of this watershed and estuary and its small communities and needed short term actions to start realizing a longer term vision.
In some ways, it is fortunate that the umbrella term, 'sustainability' cannot easily be appropriated for describing future visions for communities. Each community must develop its own definition and understanding of sustainability including the local economy and an accompanying vision for its future--no fluffy sound bytes suffice. Also, in order to gain wide spread agreement on this definition, broad based participation and dialogue must occur, along with mutual education and shared commitments. Creating a definition of sustainability in building a shared vision for the future is nothing short of a paradigm change and empowerment process for local communities. Such a process and accompanying changes are hard, slow, messy work but ultimately strengthening for communities and rewarding for involved individuals and groups.
Whatever language a community uses in discussing its problems, opportunities and future, each community's process requires up-to-date, basic information. Such information includes data about community problems and conditions of the local environment, economy and other social systems. Such information could also include data documenting community opportunities and information about viable ways of realizing these potentials. Another crucial ingredient in the process toward community sustainability is leadership. Bold, adept leadership is needed which is committed to democratic process, community empowerment, and the major changes that such a process can bring.
The process for identifying a vision for the future is an important first step for the overall process towards improving the community. It lays a strong foundation for the demanding, long-term work required to realize new directions. As was demonstrated in Olympia, Washington, this initial step cannot be completed effectively by a small group even if it is made up of well-intentioned, qualified individuals. Instead, it requires much broader involvement of individuals of different backgrounds, ages, and interest group affiliations&emdash;those who comprise the whole of the community.
In Olympia, after a small group attempted to define sustainability for its locality, it reopened its process of definition making and visioning and widened participation to involve more people. Olympia's resulting definition is:
A sustainable community has…
• a healthy and diverse ecological system that continually provides life-sustaining functions and other resources for humans and all other species,• a social foundation that provides for the health of all community members, respects cultural diversity, is equitable in its actions, and considers the needs of future generations,
• a healthy and diverse economy that adapts to change, provides long-term security to residents, and recognizes social and ecological limits.
Though it required patience and substantial time, along with broad based leadership to initiate and achieve such a process, the outcomes were substantial. Olympia's definition carries with it a widespread mutual understanding and shared commitment to basic and long term community change. This vision and accompanying cooperation have become the basis of ongoing change projects, regular open dialogues and periodic monitoring of progress toward realizing the community's goal. Since 1991, these activities have been carried out by municipal government and by non-profit, grassroots-based groups.
We found ourselves remarking at the lack of a cohesive diagnosis of problems in communities and the lack of a broadly accepted language for developing a compelling vision for a locality's future. Clearly, the challenges surrounding the defining and visioning process are great, even as it provides ample opportunities for crucial individual and community empowerment and change. As much as our society talks about and seems to favor community, most often this priority falls below that of individual pursuits and organizational productivity.
People we spoke with identified several commonly recognized problems in their local communities, including the deteriorating condition of the environment and economy, as well as other systems including health care, education, housing, transportation, and public safety and justice. Neither the commonly used adjectives, "sustainable," nor "healthy" have sufficiently defined and communicated a vision for what is needed to overcome this intertwined set of vexing local problems. Our experiences this summer tell us that communities of all sizes share these challenges.
Communities have fallen behind in addressing these issues. All too often, our focus has been on national and international issues, at the expense of local issues. Or the fundamental challenges growing out of rapid changes are left to professional experts. While these larger issues are important, we realized this summer how curious it is that individuals and groups often neglect the well being of their their own local community. Citizens often fail to see that many "professional experts" are deeply enmeshed in the status quo and that even if they are aware of the fundamental changes which are occurring, they cannot achieve basic redirection. We all reside in a locality or localities, specific natural environments, cultures and social relationships--places in many ways similar to Humboldt County, Willapa Bay and Olympia and for that matter our home-towns, San Francisco and Ann Arbor. Yet so often our attention and resources are directed away from our local communities, and we are prone to leave local problems for someone else to solve.
Who Should be Involved in Local 'Sustainability' Projects?
Advocates for sustainable communities and strong local economies face one of the classic choices of social movements: (1) to push their agenda with a small, committed group, and engage in conflict while worrying about wide acceptance later; or (2) develop a broad-based "stakeholder" coalition that uses a consensus-based process to reach agreement, avoids conflicts, and makes changes slowly and only in areas of basic agreement. Obviously the above two choices can be thought of as part of two ends of the spectrum. Nevertheless, this age old choice must be made at some level. Leaders and innovators in the communities that we visited made such a choice in beginning their work on local sustainability and basic economic change and still continue to grapple with this issue and involved choices as they continue their efforts.
In Willapa Bay, the latter approach, founded on a broad-based, stakeholder coalition was pursued by EcoTrust, a Portland, Oregon based non-profit organization, which initiated a "conservation and development project" in this locality. Ecotrust established the Willapa Alliance as a local organization led by representatives of several powerful local interest groups which would define and implement the area's approach to the project. The Willapa Alliance and its sponsors had high hopes that this organization would become the driving force and mobilizer of substantial and broad based local resources for this visionary and initially, well externally financed conservation and development project. The project seeks to combine environmental conservation and economic development in order to protect the environment and provide jobs for middle and low income people--quite a challenge. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Willapa Alliance has limited local support and has become reliant on external funding. At the same time it has not achieved progress towards fundamental, broadly accepted goals for the Willapa Bay Watershed. Considering the tremendous recent struggles of the Alliance, it is unclear what leadership and vision will emerge next in Willapa Bay as the area continues to seek a balance between environmental conservation and economic development while improving the quality of life and economic equity.
In the meantime, there are other organizations in the Willapa Bay working successfully on conservation and development with more focused agendas and bases of support--typical of the first approach described earlier. Two organizations representing this approach have made substantial progress and represent exemplary models for other localities. The ShoreTrust Trading Group is working throughout the watershed to assist business development which conserves the environment and its resources while providing more and better jobs to local residents. With substantial loan funds, business development expertise, and specialized assistance in "green marketing;" this organization is beginning to alter the local economy. The Sea Resources of Chinook, WA, an environmental education and action project is seeking to restore the watershed and fishery of the Chinook River. It has developed sustained local financial and volunteer support, gained long term cooperation of the local school system and is providing high school students with vital education for the area's future.
In Humboldt County, CA while there has not yet been an open, broad-based process to develop a vision for local sustainability nor any other holistic, future-oriented type of vision for the local economy, environment, and other community functions; some more limited work of this type is being done by organizations with narrower support bases and more private processes. Two of these groups are the Arcata Economic Development Corporation (AEDC) and the Institute of the North Coast (INC), a program of the Humboldt Area Foundation. The AEDC is hosting a monthly forum to provide information on the state of the local economy, current progress of economic development initiatives and future plans for the local economy. Efforts have been made to attract social service professionals as well as specialists working on economic development. The INC, as part of its mission to help plan and coordinate the county's economic development efforts, has for the past year and a half hosted a business leaders' roundtable for a diverse and small group of area business leaders. Many of these twenty individuals did not previously know each other and/or had not worked together. Their vision is: "a vital economy that meets the needs of future generations, respects our traditions, enhances our region's natural resources and preserves our quality of life." Part of the work they are are pursuing is ". . . to engage a wide variety of individuals, groups and organizations to accomplish economic development goals, identify gaps in services and recommend actions to address them." Through a newsletter and by other means they are now communicating with many more people in Humboldt County.
While Olympia's citizen leaders were initially successful in involving a broad-based group of citizens to define and articulate a vision for a sustainable community, it was not able to sustain this broad-based constituency. However, the organization that grew out of that process, called the "Roundtable for Sustainability" is actually not a broadly representative group and again represents the first approach. Typically the Roundtable's Board has consisted of a highly committed but relatively small and homogeneous group with an environmental emphasis. This organization has attracted little sustained financial support and has had to rely on an over-worked group of committed volunteers. Despite these limitations it has been the catalyst for a series of impressive programs in Olympia such as the Sound Exchange which implements Sound Dollars, their local currency.
In contrasting the experiences of the localities of Humboldt County, CA, the Willapa Bay area in Pacific County, WA and Thurston County WA., it is important to note differences and similarities among these localities. In recent years Olympia and Thurston County appear not to have had as substantial and difficult a shift away from a natural resource based economy as the other two localities. Also Olympia, while a relatively small town, is Washington's capital and the home of Evergreen State University, which provides this community with many resources based on having many highly educated citizens. It is also the dominant town in Thurston County. In addition this community and surrounding area is much closer to a major metropolitan area (Seattle-Tacoma) than either Humboldt County or Willapa Bay are to any comparable major metropolitan areas. Being conscious of these substantial differences makes it less surprising that Olympia has explicitly defined community sustainability through a broad based public process and the other two localities as yet have not done so. While Humboldt County has the city of Arcata with its Humboldt State University which is some ways is similar to Olympia, Eureka is a larger and more influential city in this county. Also Humboldt State University appears not to have had the level of involvement and local influence which Evergreen has achieved.
At the same time, Olympia's sustainability effort has failed to continue its initial broad-based support and has not had as much success within county government and more rural areas outside of Olympia. In this sense the progress toward local sustainability is not that different in Olympia when compared to Humboldt County and Willapa Bay. While the focus of our research was not on local electoral politics and government, our hunch is that most local officials--elected and appointed--as yet have failed to embrace local sustainability including developing a strong local economy. Such a community vision which fosters environmental conservation and protection as well as a high quality of life with increased social and economic equity, moves well beyond the status quo and the priorities of many entrenched and powerful local, regional and national interest groups.
As we muse over these comparisons as well as fundamental limitations and potentials, we hope that in some communities and regions, there will be room to pursue both approaches towards local community sustainability. Though the current limits on broad-based citizen support as well as limits in the support from traditional community leaders results in the first strategy being more viable at present, in most localities the future holds other possibilities. We hope as more support is generated due to local successes and heightened needs as well as continuing national and global problems, that local strategies and activities of type two will become much more prevalent and effective. If sufficient resources can be found and if the two approaches can be maintained without adversarial conflicts, it is possible that the two together can be stronger than either operating alone.
How Can Local Changes Be Monitored and Widely Communicated?
Because becoming a sustainable community is a long term, multifaceted process of basic change, it is essential that there be ongoing monitoring of progress and widespread communication of the results. Such evaluations need to cover multiple community functions (e.g. economic, environmental and health) and their impacts on sustainability. Finding resources for carrying out such assessments is challenging because this type of project falls outside of anyone's existing responsibilities. Communicating the results of such assessments is difficult because of the complicated ideas which are involved and because of the need to communicate both good news and bad news. Also such reports need to motivate multiple interest groups to involve themselves in new practices and the initiation of new change projects.
In Olympia a "State of the Community Report," has been published every two years (1993, 1995 & 1997) to inform the public about the locality's progress in becoming a sustainable community. Each of these reports articulates and illustrates Olympia's definition and vision for becoming a sustainable community, along with the information on current progress and setbacks. Citizen volunteers who are part of the Roundtable for Sustainability do the planning, research and writing for these reports. Sometimes city government has provided some financial support for these assessments. They are based on ongoing measurements of "indicators of progress" defined by the community. Thirteen indicators were chosen based on Olympia's definition of "sustainable community" and include: energy consumption, regionally and locally produced food, water consumption, biodiversity, housing affordability, and fulfillment of learning potential.
The contribution of the local economy towards sustainability is a major though not dominant focus of these reports. So for example, in the 1995 report, part of the section on the local economy articulated a vision for the South Puget Sound area. In part it stated:
. . . wealth is defined as the degree to which all people are able to lead fulfilling lives and contribute to the well being of the whole community. Everyone who wants and needs to work is employed in one way or another. Everyone's income is sufficient for a healthy, comfortable life. Wage differences reflect the community's values: some of the highest-paying jobs are in child care, education, health care, dispute resolution and research and development in all fields.
Also in this section is a report of public discussions in Thurston County about sustainable economy which were held during 1994. As reported they revolved around three themes:
• "Creating a local economy that meets people's needs (often defined as providing 'family wage' or 'living wage' jobs)• "Envisioning a local economy characterized by its "vitality" rather than its 'growth' or 'development'
• "Ensuring that the local economy becomes efficient in its use of raw materials and energy, minimizing waste and pollution (often referred to as 'greening' the economy.")
The report recognized these discussions as one in a series of items they listed in the subsection titled, "Steps in the Right Direction." Another such "step" reported in this subsection was the Green Jobs Program proposed by the local Energy Outreach Center and others to retrofit buildings for energy and water efficiency with financing from private loans.
The key indicator of sustainability which was measured and reported on in this section on the economy was "People Whose Basic Needs Are Met." Their data showed that the trend over the past decade was positive in that this percentage had risen from about 55% to 65%. In 1993, these were people paid more that $24,900 per year (or $2,075 per month). Also this section states: ". . . in Thurston County 10 percent of the population is living below the poverty level." This included 35% of single mothers with child, 13% of children under 18 and 7% of people over 65.
In Olympia, their several widely publicized, periodic evaluations of progress along with recognition of past successes and ongoing change projects are achieving involvement in new change projects. Some of these emerging projects are: a new credit union addressing the needs of low income people and a new business development organization addressing the needs of people with low and middle incomes. Through these reports and other activities, there is also ongoing community education about the fundamental community changes required by Olympia's vision and definition of community sustainability.
Both the Humboldt County and Willapa Bay localities, while lacking broadly agreed upon definitions and goals for becoming sustainable or realizing a different vision for their futures, are involved in somewhat similar efforts to monitor conditions and changes in their localities and publicize the results. In Humboldt County, the relatively new Institute of the North Coast has collected data and is now analyzing it for a Quality of Life Report on this locality. We learned that this is proving a challenging task in the absence of a vision of what this locality is seeking to become.
The Willapa Alliance, an older local organization guided by representatives of multiple stakeholder groups and with substantial outside funding which supports a salaried professional staff, has as its organizational mission statement:
To enhance the productivity and health of Willapa's unique watershed by building community capacity to steward the ecosystem and create sustainable economic opportunity. We build capacity by collecting information and making it accessible, by educating children and adults, by demonstrating resource management principles and practices and by working in partnership with other community institutions.
It has recently completed and published: Willapa Indicators for a Sustainable Community, 1998. This is its second such assessment and was completed by the Alliance's professional staff. The report is divided into three sections: "Natural Wealth", "Economic Wealth" and "Social Wealth." It also highlights three natural resource foci: timber, salmon and oysters. This report is more technical in character and from our experiences would be more appealing and understandable to professionals than the average local citizen.
The section on economic wealth focuses on entrepreneurial activity, natural resources capital and human capital. Part of this story is, ". . . the top private employers in Pacific County are concentrated in the timber, oyster, fish harvesting and processing industries and together employ over 25 percent of Pacific County's labor force as of 1996. The number of businesses in retail and service industries continues to rise…however it appears that the market for these businesses has not kept pace…Following a dramatic drop in the average wage between 1982 and 1992, when it dropped from $20,109 to $16,888, wages have now stabilized and are inching up slowly." In 1995, the adjusted annual average wage at $18,763 was 68% of the Washington State average. "Jobs lost in seafood and timber industries continue to be replaced with government retail and service jobs." Unemployment in the Willapa region in 1996 was 10.2% and because of Pacific County's high unemployment the State of Washington classifies it as a distressed area.
In subsequent writing we look forward to providing descriptions and comparisons of the specific economic development activities which are being pursued in the three localities on which we focused. We were encouraged by the number and variety of activities and some of their positive results for the local economy.
Conclusion to Chapter One
Our interviews and observations suggest that countless, committed people are developing ambitious but pragmatic visions for the future of their communities. Virtually all of these visions include stronger and more stable local economies that benefit the lives of more community members. These efforts serve as an inspiration for us and others who take up the task of building such visions and realities in their own communities.
Yet, as this good work happens, the status quo marches on, a burgeoning army of urban sprawl, strip malls, chain stores, and commercialization along with the loss of locally owned businesses all marching to the drums of manic consumption, economic growth and globalization. One story illustrates this reality. After spending the morning in Olympia's beautiful consumer food co-ops we found ourselves in one of the huge new "box" supermarkets in Olympia. It turns out that only they carried what we thought we needed. Our jaws dropped at the scale and pace of that monstrous place. The co-op had worked many years to open its second small store and this chain store, which had come up in the last month, was three acres large and flowing people through the check-out lines like water down a wide river. No one was complaining and we were shopping there.
But building an alternative vision has never been easy. One of the most challenging aspects of working for a sustainable community and economy is that it truly requires a paradigmatic shift in thinking and behavior on the part of all community members. One of the sage individuals we got to know in our travels says that efforts towards sustainable development are like "building bridges to the unknown." You don't quite know where they will connect in the future, but you build them anyway because there is no alternative if things are going to change.
Our trip validated the now cliched expression, "Think globally, act locally." The individuals we met and the projects we learned about showed us that changes, although small and local, can be made and that they have a positive impact on peoples' lives. Instead of dwelling in the negative and unrealized potentials, we must search for the "green shoots coming forth from the ashes" of a way of life which is becoming increasingly problematic. We continue to learn from our recent travels and conversations and make changes in our own behaviors.
We are grateful to have had this unusual opportunity. We look forward to developing and writing subsequent chapters about this trip to further tell our stories and share our many learnings from this adventure. Thanks to the many people in Humboldt, Thurston and Pacific Counties who took the time and energy to describe what they are doing in their communities and to engage us in thought provoking and stimulating conversations. We are particularly grateful to Karen Zimbleman in Eureka, CA., and Jean MacGregor and Rob Cole in Olympia, WA who introduced us to many informative and committed people as well as engaging us in fascinating discussions about what we were learning as well as their own experiences.
Yes, we made it back to San Francisco. We returned energized by the many different experiences of our trip. We wished we had had more time together. We know there is so much more to share, to see and to learn. Now it is back to living in our own widely separated and different communities with their many challenges and opportunities. Yes, we are back to telephone and e-mail conversations and ideas for more adventures.