SUMMER IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR
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| Looking back doesn't show much, does it? |
Goodbye, summer 2021. I won't miss it. Not that it was terrible. Just blah. For starters, I wrote no posts whatsoever. Somehow or other the air went out of all my thoughts that floated by in the heavy humid air. I accomplished nothing. Things fell apart, and mostly they got fixed. Or done with, or completed in one way or another.
It was a summer of petty annoyances.
The tractor got fixed (after the rain-fed grass grew without restraint and created a mess of cut clumps for the rest of that month),
the valve on the water tank was replaced (having flooded part of the basement at such a rate that it kept me awake emptying a brim-full bucket on a 3-hour schedule),
the car windshield was replaced (cracks happen, so it goes),
there’s a new lock on the front door (the door that had tried to lock me out, save for the existence of another point of entry),
I somehow cracked the band on a ring Ken had given me (not yet repaired), nevermind also losing another opal (also from Ken, and unfixable),
my “natural” pool underwent some rehabbing (how “natural” natural is, is another story*) and is once again inviting (although this didn’t happen until the end of August sos there was little to no swimming),
two family members recovered (one from post-vaccine COVID, another from a very bad mushroom, and me from some mid-summer stomach bug),
there was the continued masking because of the Delta variant...
Enough!
On the purely positive side, a new painting was hung on my wall (commissioned from artist Carly Huston), and I had a couple of lovely days on Monhegan Island. So, all in all, what is there to complain about?
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| BEFORE REHAB: A large amount of algae in the pool, plus an excess of plants around the perimeter. |
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| IN PRODESS: Notice ballooning of the liner because of outside water pressure |
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| IN PROCESS: The pool, drained, with fresh gravel and rocks |
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| Since it's now September, the flowers are done, and there's still a slight greenish tinge, but it's under control. Of course, by now it's also a bit chilly. |
Just about everything has been far better than what has been going on elsewhere. With so much world-wide bad news it was easy to almost overlook small local stories.
Here's one late summer tale that really got to me. It was about the primitive thinking going on the peaceful, remote, unspoiled, beautiful Northeast Kingdom of Vermont–a place everyone loves whether they've been there or not. A story in the digital Vermont news report VTDIGGER that took place in the heart of the Kingdom was so awful I had thought I'd write a blog post about it.
It took place in the little town of Brighton (pop. ~1,222), tucked in a bit south of the Canadian border and a bit west of the Maine border. The story described a meeting held by State Rep Brian Smithwith his constituents from the district of Derby. He set the tone, telling the gathered crowd “I’m really quite proud to be white,” a statement eagerly defended by State Senator Russ Ingall of the Orleans district (also part of the picturesque Northeast Kingdom) who had helped to arrange the occasion. Then, attempting a more statesman-like pose, he added, “You should be proud of any skin color that you’d like,” which of course is a bit like saying “all lives matter,” a statement that is so self-evident it’s like saying you favor gravity. Hence, meaningless.
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| Rep. Brian Smith (R) Proud and white. |
But what struck me as particularly appalling were the comments from the audience which went pretty much unchallenged:
"Immediately after Smith’s comments — about an hour into the recording of the meeting — a white man stood up in front of the seated crowd and said, 'Anybody in this room know who the first slave traders were? They were colored people.'
A voice from the crowd responded, 'Yes they were.'
The man continued, 'They rounded them up, sold them. They come to the United States to work.'
He then spoke of Vermont’s contributions to the Civil War and made the historically inaccurate statement, 'Ninety-nine percent of the colored people stayed in the South because they weren’t treated that bad.'
The man concluded his speech, 'So please don't tell me I'm a racist. I'm not a racist.'"
Most of the audience applauded. The State Senator applauded. (See? There are no racists anymore!)
Shocking, right? Did no one ever manage learning some history? As I began to think about how easy it was, pointing out such primitive thinking. It was too. A cheap shot. Those statements were either a result of a lack of education, possibly stupidity, or of living in a bubble, or perhaps some combination of all three. I’d have felt good, superior, maybe smug, and definitely “woke.” (Aren't all of us good guys, and woke?) It was, after all, a gathering to oppose “critical race theory,” so one would expect the mood of the audience hot for battle. That particular issue, critical race theory, or, in reality, non-issue, is yet another example of Trump’s hold on all too many minds, given that most people never heard about it until our ex-prez called it out as a threat following some FOX news banter after the death of George Floyd and the protests and discussions about race that followed.**
It was a reminder, if I needed it, that even when you live in a beautiful place, that doesn't mean all is beautiful as well. A summer can be just as blah if you live in a less lovely place, or just as wonderful if you revel in it, and are happy with yourself. I felt grouchy, and everything around me was strangely complicit. I welcome fall!
* Thanks to swimming pool owner stepdaughter Christine, I’m no longer a stranger to using chlorine. I have learned, albeit slowly, that keeping a natural pool clear of algae takes more than just pond algaecides and "good" bacteria.
* * For the story of CRT, see the 7/27/2021 NYTimes story by Jacey Fortin titled "Critical Race Theory: A Brief History, or "How a complicated and expansive academic theory developed during the 1980's has become a to-button political issue forty years later."
