Ideal First Date: Toxic Tour!

Are things going well with your buxom beauty and you're thinking of making a move? Feel that asking her to "coffee" or "dinner and a movie" won't cut it? I agree. Women expect far more than that these days. And we're competing not only with other men (and sometimes women), but images of what men might be like. I mean, when Sayid wanted to take things to another level with Shannon, he didn't say, "hey, let's go to the bunker and watch the orientation film." No, he said, "Come on, gather your things," and kept walking as she followed him to a makeshift tent. So you need to get creative if you're going to ask a woman out on a date. My suggestion? Take her on a toxic tour.

Toxic tours are organized by community-based organizations and non-profits to raise awareness of the dangerous conditions in which many of the nation's poor and minority citizens live, due to their proximity to industrial land uses. To help you plan your date, here's a travel guide to some of the nation's best tours:

3. Communities for a Better Environment Toxic Tours, http://www.cbecal.org/toxictour/pg1sec1.htm. The weather is mild but the nights really heat up as T Garcia takes you to some of Northern California's finest refineries, chemical processing plants, and brownfields. Your significant other will marvel at the personal accounts by real community members about their brushes with federal officials, contract workers, and flares so bright you'd think it was mid-day at three in the morning. If you have time, be sure to ask Denny Larson of the Refinery Reform Campaign to take you on a more personal, four to seven hour tour of what he calls the Bay Area's "most depressed, lowest income, highest unemployment community," Richmond. Stop by the Drew Scrap Metals Superfund site, the General Chemical railyard (capable of sending 25,000 residents to the hospital with a single oleum leak - ask Denny about July 1993), and the Chevron refinery. Revel in the more than 20 public housing projects built right next to the petrochemical plants. If you really want to impress your friend, mention how relieved you are that it's not December 1, 1991. Take in some local fare before heading over to Peres Elementary for a walk down memory lane. Those kids really know their evacuations!

2. Altgeld Gardens, Chicago, http://www.geology.wisc.edu/~wang/EJBaldwin/PCR/. Meet Cheryl Johnson at the office of People for Community Recovery, located on Chicago Housing Authority property on the south side of the city. The public housing development (perched on a landfill on the banks of a sewage farm) boasts ten thousand regulars, 97% of whom are black. Take in the embarrassment of riches that this toxic doughnut has to offer: 53 toxic facilities, including landfills, oil refineries, waste lagoons, cement plants, coke ovens, and incinerators (many unregulated!), and all in your backyard! Ask Cheryl about how her mother founded the first environmental organization based in a public housing development, so that her neighbors could have water and sewage service way back in 1986. People from all over the world have taken this tour, including your humble travel writer. Cheryl calls it a tour of a toxic doughnut "because everywhere you look, 360 degrees around us, we're completely surrounded by toxics on all sides." Ask Cheryl which of our nation's last two presidents has a firmer handshake. Take home a copy of David Pellow's Garbage Wars as a souvenir.

1. Norco, Louisiana, http://www.refineryreform.org/community_spotlight.htm (click on Take the New Sarpy, LA toxic tour). Meet Dorothy Jenkins, and gaze from her front porch upon the stunningly vast yet serene storage tanks, each holding 500,000 gallons of gas a few yards away. Pray for no lightning on your tour date. Talk to activists about the roots of the town as well as neighboring Diamond, both former plantations and the site of the largest slave rebellion in US history. Looking for a thrilling conclusion to your date? Head out with the local bucket brigade and take an air sample during one of the regular (at one point, an average of one per week) accidental releases at one of the neighboring refineries. Marvel at hundreds of acres' worth of monuments to our nation's addiction to oil - the pipes that crisscross River Road, the flares that can be seen from the highway as you approach from Baton Rouge, and let's not forget the noise! Hissing valves, roaring flares, PA systems, and clanking cars are some of the highlights of the tour. Be sure to stop at the Jr. Food Mart for a bite to eat and treat your loved one to something special at Bill's Dollar Store. The bayous are also steps away. Learn about the tours they used to give over in Diamond, a four-street neighborhood where some used to live several feet from a Shell Chemical plant. Like the tour in April 2001 whose guests included actor Mike Farrell, writer Alice Walker, poet Haki Madabuti, and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters. Ask about the high school's cheerleading squad and its quizzical use of the word "explode" in its cheers.

Remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Taking your love interest on a toxic tour will show her that you care about the environment and your fellow man, and that you have a slightly edgy side. Women love dating men who are a little dangerous. And in the future, if the spark between you and your new girlfriend feels like it's going to fade, you can always reminisce about "that time we strolled along the flares of New Sarpy...I wanted to touch the light, the heat I saw in your eyes."

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence