The Draft, Dioxin and Death Threats: Further Adventures of a '70s Activist

RHP: That was the absolute high point of my Vietnam years. There was pretty much no point in demonstrating after that. The moment could never have matched the memory. The whole thing brings tears to my eyes even now. These soldiers were my brothers. They took me in.

I did write a song for and about Operation POW -- "Misty Saturday Morn" -- the most beautiful song I had written up to that point. I was up in the morning early, before anybody else. I sat on the rail of Concord Bridge watching the mist as it swirled upon the river, changed the tuning of my guitar, and made up the music right there on site. The soldiers woke up to this.

The words came later, of course, as the march had not yet begun. There were only two verses, one for Concord, one for Lexington, and much mystical guitar playing. I used some of the lyrics in this interview. I may play it tonight and hear how it sounds, in case I want to pull it back into my repertoire. It is not so much an anti-war song as it is a peace song.

When the Beatles first hit big, and they were having press conferences, they were asked, "Why don't you write anti-war songs?" John Lennon replied, "All our songs are anti-war songs." There you have it. Nothing could be more anti-war than "I Want to Hold Your Hand".

JB: How did your activism evince itself, going forward?

RHP: For the next five years, I was your basic college dropout. All I did was play music and wander the mountains, for the most part. The only steady job I had was at a vegetarian restaurant where I was cook, waiter, dishwasher, and musician. The most important thing I did was help to raise two wonderful little boys, Nate and Syd, for two years while their mother was in between husbands. On occasion, I earned some money as a musician, playing mostly in college coffee houses, but other than that, I had no visible means of support. I had nothing to offer these boys but my time. It turns out that nothing else really matters to kids. All they want is your time.

I don't recall any political activism at all until the Fred Harris campaign in 1976. I volunteered for a month in the New Hampshire primary. I was steered right away to the telephone canvass in Manchester. They had purchased the list of registered voters (Democrats and Independents), copied the names and addresses onto three-by-five cards, and looked up the numbers in the phone book. I saw that they were missing a lot of phone numbers, almost all of them women, and right off the bat, I knew why. Some had unlisted numbers, but in most cases their phone numbers were listed in the names of their husbands (or fathers). Nobody had thought to look up the surnames and scan the pages for the correct addresses. I found five thousand phone numbers in four days, and I talked with a lot of voters.

JB: How successful were you at your new gig?

RHP: It didn't lead to the result I wanted. Fred Harris came in fourth in New Hampshire. But this skill would prove invaluable years later when I searched for fraudulent numbers lurking within the 2004 election results for Ohio -- which led to my forensic investigation of actual ballots, poll books, voter signature books, and ballot accounting charts. Direct evidence of ballot tampering in 18 counties is documented in my book, "Witness to a Crime: A Citizens' Audit of an American Election". The book sold 1000 copies and is now out of print, but I still have copies available.

JB: What did you do with yourself after the New Hampshire primary?

RHP: I did volunteer for Fred in Philadelphia, nearly got arrested for taping up flyers on a downtown fence, and drank scotch whiskey with him when he dropped out. I retreated once again to the Adirondack wilderness. But I often felt like a hawk whose habitat was being encroached upon. The moment of truth came one autumn day when I was descending Mount Marcy. I saw two fox cubs wrestling like kittens. Then I saw a friend hiking up the trail. He told me about the 765-kV power line that the Power Authority of the State of New York (PASNY) was fixing to build through the St. Lawrence Valley and alongside the western boundary of the Adirondack Park.

This was to be the highest voltage power line ever built in this country, 155 miles long, with towers 200 feet tall. The ostensible reason was to transmit hydroelectric power from James Bay in northern Ontario all the way to New York City. But the power line was intended to be the first of many, so that dozens of nuclear power plants could be built at Fort Drum, with thirty-mile pipelines to draw water from and discharge water to the St. Lawrence River.

Numerous scientific studies had shown that chronic exposure to electricity at such high voltage and extra low frequency can cause biological effects in humans and other animals. There were protesters interfering with construction on a regular basis. I heard first-hand accounts of June Black's apple orchard being cut down in Fort Covington; of "Jane Standing Still" risking her life by blocking a running chainsaw on the Barse farm in Bombay; of how she climbed the tree for her own safety, which led to protesters occupying that elm tree for an entire week; of Stella Barse, a legally blind grandmother, being arrested for trespassing on her own land.

This iconic photo shows Cecilia Laffin (Jane Standing Still) defiantly protecting Stella Barse's elm tree, which stood in the middle of the "right-of-way" for the power line. According to eye-witness accounts, a PASNY worker called "Frenchy" had tried to saw right through Cecilia's legs, but the chainsaw jammed. In the photo, he is trying to get it started again. Cecilia stood her ground throughout all of this, without flinching.

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