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Acknowledgments

In 1981 George McRobie published a book entitled Small is Possible. He was a colleague of E. F. Schumacher, the visionary economist who wrote Small is Beautiful, a term which was coined by his teacher, Leopold Kohr. McRobie’s book is out of print, and reads like a catalogue of projects that have embodied Schumacher’s wisdom.

I’m a fan of both Schumacher and McRobie. This book is coming from their tradition.

I need to acknowledge the people in this book. They are real. Their names are their names. And these stories about them are merely told by me. In Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, Stephen Leacock pretends his characters are not real people. So does Mark Twain in Life on the Mississippi. I love both Leacock and Twain, and though some will surely claim this book belongs in the “fantasy” section of the bookstore, it’s my take on the reality of our small town.

I should acknowledge Ingrid Witvoet at New Society. Before this was a book, it was an idea. I first bounced it off her in a snooty bar in Washington, DC after a long day at the Green Festival. Ideas need encouragement like hers to become manuscripts, and manuscripts take work, like hers, to become books.

I need to thank Julian Sereno, the publisher of the Chatham County Line for putting so much energy into keeping his newspaper afloat, and I would like to thank Mark Schultz, my editor at the News and Observer, who convinced me that community newspapers are the last bastions of independent thought. He once said, “If you can make energy sexy, you will be on to something.”

I also need to thank the Fitzgerald family for lending me their house on Oak Island where I could work in peace. I am indebted to Pamela Bell and Jonathan Marvel for inviting us to their place at Southampton — a place where I could write and the children could run wild simultaneously. Jonathan served as a tour guide during our stay on Long Island, and in between nature expeditions, he illuminated the self reliant threads of that community. His insights into life in New York City, and summer in Southampton, have influenced the thinking in this book.

Stayce Leanza deserves some thanks for her creation of the map. She is an old roommate of mine at Moncure Chessworks and she is a fun inspiration to work with. And I need to thank McCayne Miller for helping me with software and for being so fun to talk with, and to look at. I also need to thank “The Women of Building One” for letting me hang out in their midst.

My own family needs acknowledgement for enduring the process of my writing these stories.

Sometimes I felt like one of the “primitives” in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, who erect a bubble like force field around their army. My bubble for this book was at the kitchen table, keeping out Lego blocks and Playmobil figures. It isolated me from the movies, piano, and guitars playing in the next room. I am grateful to my wife Tami for her wisdom, which dictates that apart from the occasional smear of marmalade on the keyboard, our kitchen table is a fine place to write a book.

I would also like to acknowledge Tom McCarty. He passed through our town once, and like a current day Alexis de –Tocqueville, published his observations online. Our bio–diesel plant did not impress him. He’d seen much nicer operations. But he found our small town fascinating. He was intrigued by the sheer number of individuals running around on locally produced biodiesel, and by the vitality of Chatham Marketplace which was overflowing with locally produced food during his visit. His comments served as the genesis for this book.

And finally I would like to thank the readers of Energy Blog, who have commented, fed back, and encouraged me to keep telling stories about these characters.