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Joe and Lavonne Blowers

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Interview with Joe Blowers

ZigZag: What's your background?

Joe: I'm Joe Blowers and I live in Beaverton, Oregon. I'm married to La Vonne and have two children, Carrie and Seth. They're both on their own now-they're 24 and 22-and I work for Portland Public Schools as a 6th Grade teacher. I've taught mostly 6th Grade for the last 15 years or so and I teach science.

ZigZag: What is a typical transportation day like?

Joe: Typically I bike, so I've gotta think about things, you know-what the weather's like for the day, am I going to put on my dress shoes when I ride or wear something else that's not going to matter if it gets wet… And since I'm a little farther away from school, I actually have to pretty much take everything with me for the day-I can't forget anything-so everything has to go on my bike.

ZigZag: When did your interest begin?

Joe: I guess I've always been at heart this person who cares passionately about nature, and if you want to call that an environmentalist, you know, I guess that's what I am. But I'm one that was born into it almost rather than came to it late in life.

And yet I was also raised Christian Fundamentalist and there was a pretty big conflict between those two things for a long time. They gave a lot of lip service to caring for God's earth but always in the back of their minds was "but what's really important is" and they'd have this whole list of other things that were really important. I felt a lot of angst or conflict between what I felt personally, passionately about in my soul and what all the people around me were telling me was important.

And finally, when I was about 23-25, I realized that if God gave me this passion since I was a little kid, I didn't need to be ashamed of that passion or feel somehow that it wasn't valuable or something that God valued. It was life changing for me. It's been important for me to live my beliefs. If I say I believe that God wants us to care for the earth then it's important for me to do it and do it as much as I can.

Over the years I've tried to do more and more of that.

When we were living in Omaha, Nebraska-I'd just started teaching-we were close enough to school to actually walk there. I think it was a mile walk or something like that. And I started talking to La Vonne, just kind of nudging her that she might consider bicycling to work. That was a bit of more of a challenge for her because it was eight miles and it was in Omaha of all places. That year was really the start of us doing alternative transportation.

ZigZag: What are your transportation choices?

Joe: I've always lived not much more than a mile from school, so it's a really short bike or a really short walk to school. The whole issue for me has been: do I bike or do I drive to other things. For the last 15 years at least the answer has increasingly been no-I don't drive-and I'll bicycle. I've been on a variety of boards and various environmental organizations and church committees and I'll often bicycle to those. Now that we live in Portland it's more of a bicycle to the Max station and then catch Max the rest of the way.

ZigZag: What about the challenges of spontaneity?

Joe: That issue of spontaneity is kind of interesting. I think at first the big issue for us was time. How could we afford all that time to be on mass transit or to bicycle. Bicycling's not hard to answer. You're getting fit at the same time you're getting to wherever you're going. But with mass transit it's a little bit different. If you're taking Max or the bus, you know, that can be a lot of time.

But I really feel like it gives you time once you commit to bicycling down to the station and then getting on Max. You don't have to worry about sitting in traffic. You're not wasting time. Instead you've got this time that is almost like an appointment with yourself. I made this commitment so I've got this time. What am I going to do with it? If you plan ahead, you can take along all the magazines you never get time to read and you can take along a library book, or you grade papers and it's actually time giving.

ZigZag: More contact with people?

Joe: Another reason that comes up for people who drive a lot is they feel kind of safe in their car and it's a little bit threatening to be out on a bike to somebody who's not used to it. And it's really threatening to be on a bus with all those people, sweating, and, you know, whatever they're doing…

The Bible's full of verses that talk about how important it is to God for us to identify with the poor. Well, there's no place better than a bus to identify with the poor, particularly in non-rush hour buses and I just think that's really good for us and we've had some wonderful encounters. And some not so wonderful but those have been few and far between really.

ZigZag: Are you members of a church?

Joe: Both of us are members of Portland Mennonite Church. We really wanted to do that, to be part of one, I think to identify with concern for the poor, to identify with passivism and to tie that all into faith in Jesus Christ.

ZigZag: Church activities?

Joe: In 1990, Earth Day of 1990, and somebody came up with the idea of alternative transportation Sunday and basically that meant, bicycling or carpooling or walking. A lot of people carpooled, a few biked and probably fewer took mass transit, took the bus to get to church.

Then years later we did another Alternative Transportation Sunday and this time we did it in conjunction with educating people about global warming. We had bulletin announcements about global warming and how's it going to effect us, how's it going to effect the poor. That's a big issue with Mennonites. Our theme for the whole thing was Global Relief.

As a result, there's one family in particular that more often than not are now bicycling or taking the bus to church. This is a family, a married couple with two young children, and it's not easy to do that with little kids but they're doing it. They actually bought a house on the bus line that goes to church just so they can continue that commitment.

ZigZag: What are your kids' perspective now and before?

Joe: We have one car, and have always maintained that commitment to keep it at one car. That was hard when the kids were in school. There were times when the kids would want to go some place and I'd say, "Fine. Let's go get our bikes." And they would just roll their eyes and say "Oh, Dad, come on. Can't you drive us?" There was a time when they thought we were the weirdest parents that ever hit the earth. I think every kid feels that but ours thought we were weird because we biked everywhere and only had one car and etc. etc.

And now neither of 'em has a car. Both bicycle primarily as a way of getting around with mass transit a close second. Our daughter works in a bike shop, which I would have never believed. Our son works in a nursery and two nights ago he hauled two gallons of raspberries here on the back of his bike. Now they think it's great. They're really glad that they grew with us as parents but there was a period of about five years where it was horrible.

A lot of vindication.

ZigZag: What are some issues requiring the use of a car?

Joe: Our neighbors must think we're the weirdest people in the world. I've actually heard, I think this is probably true, that every time you start your car you might as well drive eight miles because most of the pollutions are going to come out when it's cold. So, when we bring the car home, La Vonne's a little hesitant to put it in the garage right away because the freezer's in the garage and it would heat the freezer up. So we leave it outside and let it cool off. But then there's the question of do we start the car to drive it in the garage. And you know most people just roll their eyes and think we're total idiots. We actually push the car in the garage. If we do start the car, we try to do as many errands as possible.

ZigZag: Any advice?

Joe: At work and at church people are always looking at us and thinking that we're some kind of paragons of virtue or something and they can never live up to that. I don't really think it matters whether they can live up to that or not. I think what matters is that they just take a few small steps. If they leave the car in the garage once a week and that's all they can accomplish, that's wonderful. That's better than it might have been. And they don't need to live up to anybody else's expectations, they don't need to be like me. I encourage them to just take small steps and do what they can.

Interview with La Vonne Blowers

ZigZag: Would you introduce yourself?

La Vonne: I'm La Vonne Blowers and I am an R.N. I work at an outpatient clinic about two and a half miles from my home here. I have two children, Carrie and Seth, and they're 23 and 24. My husband's name is Joe.

ZigZag: Tell about the first time you rode your bike to work.

La Vonne: We had only one car and we both were working in different directions and he did suggest to me that I should ride my bike-17 miles roundtrip. I tried it and I really liked it, it was fun to ride. It was good exercise.

Joe's a great influence on me, his ideas about not driving the car a lot and his environmental issues. I listen to him a lot. I really began to really believe in what he was saying and really felt like I really needed to take care of the environment.

ZigZag: You came to similar place with Joe?

La Vonne: My background was that we would drive cars all the time and environmental issues were not a big thing with my family. It was a new thing for me to think about. It just all made sense spiritually as Joe was talking about his beliefs. It started to come natural to me as well and I began to really believe in it.

ZigZag: How long ago?

La Vonne: Twenty years when our kids were young, in grade school. That's when I started biking to work. Although I think that a lot of people that I work with really think it's still wacky, kind of like this crazy older woman that's biking to work.

A lot of times I use Tri-Met. A lot of my colleagues do not do that. It's just not something that they feel comfortable with doing. A lot of times on the buses you'll meet people that are lower income and I feel like I have more of a camaraderie with them. I know where they're at and I really like having that feeling.

ZigZag: What holds people back?

La Vonne: It's just not a cool thing to do. You know a lot of them talk about their cars and what cars they drive and they just really question not having that individuality of having a car. I think they feel vulnerable being out there on a bike or on Tri-Met and having to wait.

ZigZag: Challenges with kids?

La Vonne: You're so far from home and if anything happens to your kids you're off on a bike and it's hard to get home to them so that was always a concern.

ZigZag: Church and views?

La Vonne: I really feel like what we're doing is a spiritual thing. I feel that God wants us to take care of the environment. The times that I bike, the times that I'm on Tri-Met, it gives me a chance to spend that extra time in prayer. I think that it is a calming experience and it's just a way that I can do my part in taking care of the creation God has given us.

ZigZag: Advice?

La Vonne: I feel like I'm a quiet example and so I don't really say a lot to people unless they ask me but I hope that I'm an example in using the bus and riding my bike.

ZigZag: Getting kids to bike?

La Vonne: I've tried to make it a family affair. We would have a lot of fun times while we were doing this and I think the kids really remembered it. Those are times that we remember more so than when you're in a car. When you're walking down the road you can have fun with one another. We had some good family times.

Interview with Joe and La Vonne Blowers

ZigZag: Car replacement?

La Vonne: We've talked long and hard about this. I think Joe had wanted to get by without a car after our car gave out and I just wasn't ready to do that. And so I think that we've kind of come to an agreement that it would be a hybrid car.

Joe: She won the argument.

La Vonne: Joe really wanted to make a statement and make sure that when we're driving it will be very environmentally good. So that's kind of how we came to our decision.

ZigZag: Job choice?

La Vonne: I've always picked a job where I could bike to work. There's three jobs that I've had since we've been here for 16 years and they have been within five or six miles. That's a big thing I look at when I look at a job, its commuting distance.

Joe: Every once in a while I think about changing jobs to a different school and then I think about commuting and I say nah. Mennonites have in the past had a real emphasis on simple living and La Vonne came to our marriage with that emphasis of living simply, living kind of close to the earth.

La Vonne: We're a team about our ideas together and it's worked well for us that way.

Joe: A synthesis.