Home page of Robert Singleton

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Born: Ft. Worth, September 7, 1952. I share a birthday with Buddy Holly, Robert Goulet and Julie Kavner, the voice of Marge Simpson.

Military service: Reluctant volunteer, U. S. Naval Reserve, 1972. My draft lottery number was 35. 

Education: BA, speech-communications from Eastern Illinois University, 1980. Debate scholarship, don't you know?

Employment: Sporadic.

    Worst job: Cingular Wireless. I may blog about this when the nausea passes.

    Best job: Managing a record store. Low pay, no future, but I miss the free stuff.

Current gig: Writing a monthly environmental column for The Good Life magazine in Austin.

Hobbies: Annoying the Austin City Council. 

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A lesser man would have been discouraged -- I was arrested at one of the first Austin City Council meetings I attended. Council was considering changes to one of its water quality ordinances. The Fire Marshall determined that the Council Chambers were full, and excluded citizens from entering the room. When I asked if I could get back in to retrieve my backpack, an Austin police officer asked me for ID before he would let me back in. While I was inside, he ran my ID, and found a ticket for operating a scooter without insurance three years earlier. 

I was reminded of the incident of the forgotten ticket a couple of years later when I was arrested with three other Austin Earth First!ers when we occupied the Mayor's office over City Council's rush to approve a development agreement with Freeport McMoRan, who wanted to build on 4,000 acres along Barton Creek in Southwest Austin. While we were being processed, our attorney told us that he would have no trouble getting the others off, but that the police had discovered an outstanding warrant on my record.

That warrant came out of a protest at the Barton Creek County Club. Every year, Austin Earth First! protested the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf Tournament, a nationally televised event in the middle of the area Freeport McMoRan wanted to develop. I was apprehended on the 18th green, attempting to place a banner on the ABC TV tower. I was taken into custody briefly, then released. Apparently, Travis County issued an arrest warrant about two weeks after the incident, but never notified me.

I was arrested twice in twenty-four hours during an Earth First! action in Arizona in the early nineties, first for trespassing in a refuge for the endangered Mt. Graham red squirrel, where the University of Arizona was building a huge telescope complex. Apparently, the squirrels aren't disturbed by bulldozers destroying their habitat, but they draw the line at people creeping through the woods. At 10,000 feet, it was the highest elevation at which I had ever been arrested.

The following day, two dozen of us were arrested when we occupied the office of the president of the University of Arizona. The county jail didn't have the facilities to process us in the county jail, so we were taken to the Pima County Agricultural Extension Agency livestock judging area, a maze of lush green lawns divided by hedges, each with a small set of bleachers. Someone asked for water, and the deputies turned on a garden hose. We were allowed to walk around and talk to each other while we took turns at the hose. It was like a cocktail party, except for the fact that we were all in handcuffs. They let us go in time for dinner, and most of us fled the state shortly thereafter.

That's about it.

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This site is my first attempt, and as such should be under constant construction.

 

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I write a monthly environmental column for an Austin publication, The Good Life magazine. You can access The Good Life at www.goodlifemag.com.

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