Four Years Ago
Diane and Sunshine, May 2020
Looking back four years, many of my memories are blurred. Or fuzzy. Perhaps because of my advanced chronological experience, perhaps because so many unusual things were happening and they were happening all at once. Sunny joined us in January. Diane finished her last round of chemo in February. The pandemic shutdown started in March. One kid a senior in university, another a senior in high school, both going to school virtually, both ready to graduate in May into an uncertain world. Hate and racism joined COVID and the world was a lonely, deadly place. There were silver linings but overall, the loss of friends to the virus and the further division of America was tragic. Our neighborhood post office was hit hard by COVID, killing our mailman, Billy. We hunkered down and adjusted. Few masks were available at first, no sanitation wipes, supply chains for many things were drying up. We felt lucky to get groceries, although toilet paper was a challenge to find. Then the finger pointing started, “anti-this” and “anti-that” and the virus became political. Science took a backseat to rhetoric and to “mine is bigger/better than yours.” And still, people were dying by the thousands.
Four years later, few seem to remember the dead, the sick, the sacrifices health care workers made, and the emotional costs of that year. Instead, we’ve taken the political issues from those days and made the dangerous rhetoric and emotions palpable. I guess this is our human condition, to battle one another in the name of religion or some other tribal righteousness. It’s too bad. I’d hoped for better after the 60s when civil rights and Vietnam protests created a dialogue across political and economic divisions with solutions made possible by compromise. Compromise is a fighting word now. My generation failed after its progress in the Days of Disco. I’m not sure how things got out of control but I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t fight our way out of this mess. We need to learn to talk. Easy to say, almost impossible to do in today’s world. I’m reading Erik Larson’s “The Demon of Unrest” and find some things have changed little since 1860.
I could go on but can already feel the hate mail building up. The moderate center, what Nixon called the “Silent Majority” is afraid. Fear and intimidation at the ballot box. Scare tactics and violence in school board meetings. Book banning. Bullying as a family value and hate as a political rallying call. I hope the younger generation has a better sense of humanity and can fix it but old white men like me are reluctant to change. No…I’m willing, certainly others, too.
Seneca Quarry Ruins, June 2020