The Myriad Misadventures Of Liberal Mike: Return To Walden Pond

Story by Alex Wunrow 

| Published Apr 27, 2010

I’m going back to Walden Pond. Well — it is more or less my first time going, but I usually quote Thoreau at least three times a day, so I’m rather sure that’ll endear me to the locals almost immediately.

Regardless, Me and Stella — my 1999 Dodge Charger — are making the long, but necessary drive to Concord, Mass. Jay-Z’s “Dead Presidents II” roars in the background, but soon none of that is going to matter.

I am on a journey for sustainability. It all began last Wednesday, when my quest lead me to the Gulf of Mexico, where I lit an off shore oil drilling plant on fire in protest of President Obama’s newfound right-wing-bible-humping-offshore-drilling-agenda.

But that is all in the past, and much like Henry David Thoreau, I look to the future and the future only.

After my cross-country road trip fueled solely on diesel — I make a point of putting as little into this capitalist-centric economy as possible — I arrived at Walden Pond, the historic site of Henry David Thoreau’s two year stint of absolute isolation from absolutely everyone including family members and visitors.

My logic was simple and concise: if Thoreau could live off the grid in the 19th century, I could certainly do so now. I took the liberty of strapping a bike to the back of my car — so people may heed my sustainability as I drive past — as well as bringing my iPhone so I could update all of my Facebook friends every hour and allow them the privilege of witnessing my Thoreau-esque isolation secondhand.

Thoreau refused to pay federal taxes, because he couldn’t bring himself to funding a nation that supported slavery. Me — on the other hand — I refuse to pay federal taxes until the nations poverty gap shrinks to a level where people won’t have to pay federal taxes in order for these people to eat.

Shortly after rolling into the Exxon sponsored Walden Pond Preservation, I began to come to the ostensibly horrible, yet real realization that maybe, just maybe what I was doing here may have been for naught — Walden Pond was incredibly small. What once was the size of Lake Erie, Walden Pond now stood a scant 1.7 miles in shore length. What Dick Cheney did to this pond was unspeakable.

In order to dwell my liberal rage, I decided to do what best fit the situation — call all of my friends from Amnesty International and round the bases of failed liberalism. If we couldn’t save the once mighty Walden Pond, then who possibly could?

Nobody, that’s who — except for us. After pondering on the shrunken shores of Walden Pond, I decided now was not the time for solitude, it was a time for action.

The ongoing quest for sustainability was only beginning; Liberal Mike was going to have to find another way to save the day.