Progress in America:

(2) Suburban Wildlife

    A few years ago the first warning signs of the invasion occurred.  Woken up by early morning buzzing, I tried to discover what was creating havoc outside my bedroom.  Kneeling in my altogethers to peer out the window above my bed, I saw nothing.  Unencumbered by more clothing, I stood and went to the back window where I found the culprits: a tiny army of mowers had invaded my neighbor’s back yard. 
    There they were, a small lawn tractor, accompanied by two gas burning self-propelled choppers in a skirmish with the grass.  Spewing noise and pollution worthy of a NASCAR race.  Gobbling the tops of the grass blades in his tiny backyard.  NASCAR quality – employed on a lawn that had, till recently, been mowed by my kind neighbor - a recently retired Episcopal minister.  I closed my windows and blearily looked at the time: 7:08.   Thus began my weekly wake ups on Wednesdays during the grass mowing season.  A season that I would discover would soon be extended from March through November.
    Once-a-week wake ups to mechanized fury was bad enough.  But other neighbors rushed to keep up with the friendly, unassuming minister.  Signing lawn care contracts they quickly altered my once quiet piece of the American Dream: first across the street, then behind my house and finally on the other side of my house.  All too soon I was woken up a second, third, and then a fourth day of the week: the disease became a plague. 
    Enjoying the decent exercise I got mowing my lawn with my corded electric mower I was becoming isolated and suspect - probably even targetable by the NSA or the FBI - if they are still distinct entities - as the holdout - the sole person in my corner of suburbia who doesn’t support the patriotic, emerging army of corporate lawn care. 
    Neighbors began to remark (always in the form of rhetorical questions): 

• ‘Don’t you find the cord bothersome?’  
• ‘Isn’t this mowing your own lawn very inefficient?’  
• ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to be inside on such a muggy morning?’  
• ‘Having financial problems?’  
• ‘Are your retirement plans being ruined by the downturn?’ 
• ‘Are you going to be foreclosed?’

     During this same historical period, biking through the neighborhood to do errands became ever more challenging.  Streets were increasingly clogged by the messengers of the growing lawn care industry.  Originally served by a couple of smaller pickups, these had to be replaced by bigger pickups to haul trailers to transport the ever fatter lawn tractors to their destinations.   Even these pickups were replaced by medium sized trucks with large cargo boxes or stake beds filled with lawn care equipment: tractors, mowers, trimmers, and such, each requiring tanks of gasoline to fuel their many-horse-powered motors. 
    Soon truly large trucks appeared.   Each filled and even sometimes hauling a large trailer as the new generations of SUV-sized lawn tractors took over the race to create the aspirations of homeowners for the more utopian lawn.  Of course, such equipment requires massive investments, and hence national franchises.  A new growth industry being born, spawning trucks with corporate names, promising a greener yard, a more perfect horticultural environment.  Trucks delivering more noise, more pollution, closing our streets, leaving the homeowner more time to push the buttons on their remotes, to sit in their Lazyboys, to fume against Obama’s handling of Katrina, and to watch NFL players knock their brains about.  Progress in America. 
    No longer able to move through the blocked streets on my bicycle I have become accepting of the country’s need to support economic growth and surveillance of the unusual.  So I am once again at ease plugging in my Black and Decker and grooming my segment of Paradise. 

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Progress in America:

(1) The March, The Butler & The Future

    50 years on, sitting in front of TV watching the commemoration of the March on Washington.  Listening to the reverberation of those heroes after 50 years.  King’s daughter.  Imagine her strength.  Imagine the Kennedy’s deciding to have her father spied upon as the most dangerous Negro in America.  Imagine her strength after having her father shot.  For supporting Sanitation Workers in Tennessee.  The march in 1963.  I didn’t go because I was moving to Michigan for graduate school I think it was.  Had to be there and find an apartment before Labor Day.  But I’m not really sure.  Anyhow, what a sorry choice it seems after 50 years. 
    Same day, later: went to see The Butler.  A great portrayal of the struggle through the eyes of one black man who saw so much.  His memory squares with mine.  I had less than a bit part in the ‘movement.’  I worked with NSM (the Northern Student Movement).  We were sort of an ally of SNCC, but mainly we worked on education in the inner cities of the North.  I was in DC, tutoring kids in math for summer of ‘63. 
    But don’t kid yourself, I went to an organizing meeting for the Freedom Rides in Spring 1961.  But even though I found the issue of race at the top of my agenda, Freedom Rides were too scary for me.  I didn’t have the backbone.  And I felt shame because I knew that was the reason - being chicken.  Signing up with the NSM was easier.  Something I learned about myself.  It allowed me to appreciate the strength and bravery of others and let me grow to take on more responsibility as time went on. 
    But seeing the story of Cecil and Gloria Gaines’ growth into accepting the importance of the struggle for justice squared with my memories.  I recall that doing that bit for NSM, and later, raising some money for SNCC, I found whites and blacks both equally apprehensive - and enthusiastic - about supporting ‘the cause.’  Many felt the movement ‘didn’t touch them.’  Many felt they ‘weren’t called to be involved.’  Many felt it was best left to others.  But the few that did mobilize made a huge difference here - and elsewhere in the world.  Through their example of accomplishment it was easier - much easier - to mobilize individuals to march against the war and then for women’s rights, for rights for the disabled, and for equal treatment of gay and lesbian relations. 
    But as we sit and reflect on the accomplishments, the agenda that is left undone in this country is appalling.  We are the country without universal medical coverage, with millions incarcerated, with exclusionary laws governing voting rights, a large part of the public denying global warming, environmental responsibility, the lack of economic opportunity for more than half our population, and much more.  We sit in a sea of glorified ignorance where so many citizens are proud to presume our President wasn’t born in the United States, is a Muslim, evolution is a myth, and the proliferation of guns doesn’t threaten individual safety. 
    Democracy without education is like machinery without lubricant.  It grinds to a halt.  Where we have come from is clear and a thing to celebrate.  Where we are choosing to go is another matter entirely. 

Wednesday, August 28, 2013