Hello Friends,

We're almost at the end of our second season with Bid For Green supplying us the biodiesel we are touring with. We've been fortunate to have a forward thinking bus company who was brave and thoughtful enough to look at the data, then commit to letting us fuel their very expensive buses with biodiesel. For two summers as well as through last winter, we've never had any problems associated with the fuel and we salute them for taking this leap of faith.

You know once you open the green door it's hard to close it. Over the past couple of years we began to find other ways to be more thoughtful about what kind of mess we created and left behind as we traveled from town to town. For two years now we've been recycling our water, beer and wine bottles as well as our plastic forks, knives and spoons, and all soda cans. We wash and reuse the plastic utensils until they get to where nobody wants to use them, then they go into the recycling container. This is a major change from the past when we routinely tossed everything into the trash chute that led to the big can in the bay of the bus. All it took was becoming a bit more aware, and it's now just who we are out there. Bus drivers are now used to dealing with Bid For Green's refueling dynamics as well as looking for places to dump our bins. There is a small mountain of trash that is missing from the planet as a result of this small change of behavior.

We also began asking local caterers to not use styrofoam for our after-show food and there has been great cooperation there as well.

We were around for the era of drugs, sex and rock'n'roll, trashing rooms, leaving behind mountains of debris and all that went with it, but once you've seen the light as far as what it means to the planet, well, you can't help but minding a few more manners. Some say Mother Nature be a bitch, but I say she still deserves to be treated like a lady!

Onward, brothers and sisters!!!

Tommy Shaw