True Lexiefaye Vignettes

The worst pun in existance but a good story

Please forgive the pun. I was repeating the story for years before it was even pointed out to me!

When I was 13 years old the town was considering a deal with an oil company. The deal was to house these huge domes filled with toxic waste which would have been horrid but they would have paid the town lots of money for the property. So it was a real battle. I was very active in the community at the time and knew many of the anti-dome protestors from a very young age having crawled around their art studios. So I was called upon to speak in front of the city council and as the voice of the towns future explain what should be down with the waterfront property instead.

I began my speech with a detailed description of a wildlife park with a museum. Benicia is very historical (the last stop of the pony express, the first capitol of CA, the prostitution town the Gold Rush miners and Jack London visited before heading into the Sierra Nevada) so I asked that we contribute to that image instead (Benicia already has a refinery but it is thankfully hidden away befind the hills).

Then I did a demonstration. Do you remember Rainbow Bright? She was a girl who with her rainbow friends and sprites fought of the polluting merky lurky. It was a popular kids cartoon in the 80s. Well anyhow, I had a white stuffed sprite when I was a kid ... and after explaining the non-polluting message of Rainbow Bright, I compaired the sprite to the neighborhood pets if there was a spill. Thats when I dumped the Sprite into a bag filled with Koch (Carbon - pronounced Coke = the toxic substance) to make my point.

Suffice it to say, after being influenced by my speech and those of the other protesters, the council decided not to allow the domes to be built. Benicia still has a flowey reputation and years later the waterfront was turned into a nature park (but sadly with no musuem). I spoke to the School Board about a different matter the following year and worked on the Mayors campain too. But then I got lazy, and the teenage anyst set in and that was all over ...

posted by Lexiefaye @ 3/15/2006