Upmobile to Return to Lowcountry Struggle Though it's not a Bus

In January, the Planatary gear within the iron, aluminum and titanium heart   of the Hamilton families aging 2010 Prius became uncertain and the little blue car which had done so much for so many struggled to the end of the North Bridge where it finally trembled to a stop on the deserted parking lot of Synagogue Emanuel. No one said Kaddish for the Upmobile as it was towed to the Toyota dealership.

You can help support the work the Upmobile does by contributing to the support of Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit on Act Blue. This will free William Hamilton’s private funds to return the Upmobile to the road. Charleston needs this ride.

Thus might have been the sad and quiet end of the Upmobile which appearance at countless progressive events in Charleston, crammed with gear and activists, roof rack loaded up with tents, was the arrival of our small, but determined Lowcountry Up is Good and Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit cavalry. It was the Upmobile which brought out people to the reelection of Obama, to the fight for the transit referendum, the fight against Trump, the long and unfinished push to force local government to stop stealing our transit funds for road construction and lastly carrying Marvin Pendarvis through a contested primary in 2020 to reelection.

It was to its driver’s seat which Julia crawled on the last, dark night of her life, resolving to drive it to her doctor in the morning, planning to spend the long night in the driver’s seat because she could not climb the stairs. It was from that seat that she was transferred to an ambulance and taken to the hospital for that final trip we all make, for which she did not need a car.

It outlived its driver nearly two years. It kept our activism on life support during the Pandemic with Chris Jackson at the wheel. When he left to lead the national Jackson Traction effort and drive a long haul truck, Rose Peltz took the wheel, piloting it to that last, little sad stop in the West Ashley Parking lot.

I am a transit advocate. I am legally blind and I cannot drive. I wanted to make a radical commitment to a lifestyle free of the automobile. I have retained many of Julia’s cherished things: her 1806 violin, her Ivers and Pond Parlor grand piano, her modest treasures and the golden hoard of her memory. I did not need her car. I take the bus. I live of things delivered. I would be OK.

However, just as the Ukraines need armored SUVs welded together in the junkyards of the Czech Republic to carry the fight to the Russian army, we have struggled to maintain progress against the creeping flood of cruelty which is life in SC. We have spent too much on Uber, which is just seeing your dealer more often for your car fix. Reaching the rural areas that are the edge of the transit fight is expensive and unreliable. We hauled a trailer full of gear. Our backs hurt from carrying too much too far.  We won’t win unless we roll heavy, or at least heavy for us. The little Upmobile carries more and does more damage to SCs occupation of cruelty than most of those right wing pickups with trump flags ever could.

Of course we had a dalliance or two while the Upmobile slumbered at the dealership. There were temptations, but one must always return to their true love. It was a red convertible.

This morning we ordered a near heart of electricity and fire for the Upmobile. It is sourced from Japan where they attempt to keep their economy alive in the face of a plummeting birth rate by taxing cars heavily as they get older. The new/used engine will have less than 35 thousand miles on it and cost $3,500. It lives within the massive aluminum alloy case which protects its gas motor, generator, electric motor and hybrid drive transmission, all now linked to one solid, reliable planetary gear, the one ring to rule them all.  Installation and testing will cost more.

As large as this worn, blue Prius stands in our community, it is no powerhouse. The total horsepower available with gas and electric power pushing is less than 100 horsepower. It struggles to go over 70 miles per hour. It’s an uncomfortable ride on the interstate. It will however, return the activists of Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit and Up is Good to full capability. Tell the Russians and the rednecks to get ready.

Someone suggested we bang out the dents and paint it. How little they understand. We cherish those scars, these wounds we had on Crispin’s day. Those keying scars administered by the Trumpers. Those big magnet signs don’t some off you know. They were long ago welded to the sheet metal by the heat of the Southern sun. There is always more tape to hold the stern cowlings to the rear quarter panels. We like it this way.

We are repairing the car, reusing the motor and recycling the old motor, which ought to count for something. We could retrofit for full electric, but this is our hurricane evacuation ride as well. 

Upmobile May 2013, ending Sanford's

It is our intent to return the Upmobile to service with some ceremony. On the appointed day, we invite you to join us at Fred Anderson Toyota some workday evening soon. We shall set up a popup, Have refreshments, cake the occassion and roll the Upmobile out of the service lot and back on to the battlefield. We do not believe we shall do that alone but expect to be part of a caravan that will carry her to the next engagement in our shared struggle for social justice, joined by people who keep fliers in the glove compartment and a bull horn in the trunk.

I remain a dedicated transit advocate. I am a fan of the battery electric full sized Proterra Transit bus, shiny with chrome and computer driven LEDs. I am a loyal friend to the 3700 series American Flyer buses which are our legacy of the 2000 Atlanta Olympics and are rolling into their two million miles. I continue to believe that the massive red articulated Toronto streetcar, now retired, was and ought to be the Queen of the North American urban roadway.

But with a battery with 30 thousand miles on it and an engine with 35, the Upmobile has another 100 thousand miles in our future. It’s the last car I will own. I will give it up either when the LCRT actually starts running or when they carry me to rest beside Julia at my final stop, a home to which I will summon no grocery deliveries.

Since Jack is spending his money on a new hybrid drive, you can help pay for more activism for better transit by donating to Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit on Act Blue.

Help Summerville Escape Racism and Congestion Thursday, April 14

 Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit, Inc. and the Alston Foundation spent Monday preparing for Thursday, April 25’s 5:25 pro transit demonstration in Summerville by doing outreach in Dorchester County, reaching over 500 people in Summerville and Ridgeville.

Summerville Town Council

We were followed by the police. We learned that a cabal of government and government sponsored private sector nonprofits were devoting their Monday to deflecting our effort to restore Summerville’s link to the transit system in hopes of maintaining Summerville as a white flight refuge from the racially and economically diverse communities growing up around them. We encountered a pair of delightful Ukulele players.

The leadership of Summerville and their institutions gather around the campfire of racism and class hatred often without consciously realizing it. They describe it with code words like crime and quality of life. Sometimes they don’t even understand what they’re doing, like someone who toasts marshmallows over the coals left from a cross burning after the Klan has returned to their fish camp to drink beer.

Fifty years after desegregation, the practice of suburban racism is engrained the muscle memory of places like Summerville. The kids now running around blowing coal rolling filth on pedestrians probably don’t associate their “rednecking” with their Grandfather’s parking a burning cross in front of Linda Saylor’s Grandfather’s home while he kept them at outside the fence with a loaded shotgun informed by the certainty earned in WWI that he could, if necessary, kill people.

That’s why Linda’s home is surrounded by a Sears installed six-foot chain-link fence with the pointy fence top. I don’t know if Linda still has her grandfather’s shot gun. She keeps that fence locked. You do not what to encounter the psychotic pit bull she has chained in the back yard at night when it believes you aren’t welcome. It is from behind that moat of steel and teeth that Linda runs the Dorchester Unit of Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit and is planning Thursday’s demonstration. She’s also fighting a three woman war against the forced gentrification of Brownsville with her mother, aunt and Civil Rights hero Louise Brown. Linda makes excellent French toast. The house needs a dumpster, but her mother insists they must keep it all.

Original Southern terminus of the Transit Line

Our opposition in Summerville and beyond is powerful, well organized and backed by the Koch brothers. Americans for Prosperity is reenergized and working with Congresswoman Nancy Mace to help get her reelected. They’re not holding meetings about what they want Summerville to be. They prefer to work from behind the curtain. It’s hard for liberals and social justice activists to comprehend what politics is like when thousand-dollar contribution checks can be summoned by a single email. They can purchase control of Town Councils and School Boards for a few ten thousand of dollars, peanuts for the organizations which fund them from other states.

They've been able to get Summerville, Lincolnville and Ladson cut out of the transit line which has been in planning for 25 years. The planned line now ends at the Fairgrounds, miles from Summerville along  a road which lacks sidewalks.   

What these billionaires want in Summerville and throughout the South, is a culturally grounded bulwark against the rise of a racially and economically diverse culture of town and city living in the South. The Southeast is their racially grounded citadel from which they will make war against the rise of an America defined not by the color of people’s skin but by the content of their character. They want to be sure that the music of the song mentioned in King’s great speech, “Free at Last,” never rises from a racially diverse celebration on Hutchison Square or even Doty Park. If they can keep racism at the center of our shared lives, they can make America safe for the rich, two things intimately, but not necessarily connected.

Most of the people in Summerville don’t have a clue this is happening. They just know they spend more of every day trapped in their cars, desperately awaiting their weary reunion with their children who are waiting for a ride to a playdate or a takeout dinner because nobody has time left to cook. Those people hate developers and minorities because they’ve been taught to. They don’t understand that better, different types of development, supported by transit would work. They don’t get a chance to learn and know that all minorities are not criminals. Since they spend three hours a day trapped in their cars, parent with their cars and run the endless creeping errands with their cars, they’ll never learn otherwise.

Since they’re angry, they’ll vote for Trump and when he implodes whoever the Koch organization funds to replace him. Their funeral parades will crawl through the congestion suffocating Summerville with their survivors still believing what they really need are more lanes and lower taxes. The ukulele players sitting on the square on a sunny spring day getting pestered by my transit advocacy on Monday are just an inconsequential distraction, not the revolution they do not comprehend they need.

We’ll see you at Town Hall in Summerville on Thursday, April 14. It’s a significant day, the memorial of the Last Supper, Christ’s last stab at building community and his betrayal by someone funded by the billionaires of that time with 40 pieces of silver. We’re shooting for the shared and blessed supper. We’ll try to shut down the betrayal and return the promised transit line to Summerville. The demonstration starts at the opposite end of the square, near the location of Summerville’s lost train station and moves across the Square to the music of Eyes on the Prize to a short rally in front of Town Hall before the march upstairs to participate in the Town Council meeting, with the hope of putting the body and blood of democracy back into Summerville Town Government. Wear red. Bring your drum.

Full details on the April 14 protest and rally at https://www.facebook.com/BFLowcountryTransit

Information on the entire Summerville to the Sea effort at https://bfltransit.blogspot.com/2022/02/transit-equity-demands-for-sc.html

To Contact us call W Hamilton at 843-870-5299 or email mailto:wjhamilton29464@gmail.com?subject=Summerville%20FOIA%20Request%20Materials