A Letter from the Vineyard, written in segments, during March 2026
Alas, Babylon…
It’s a Saturday night, as I begin to write this. It’s the night we “spring forward,” an exercise always leaves me feeling off, always makes me wonder why I am doing it? Why is the country doing it? British Columbia, apparently, has said: this is it, no more, after this.
It leaves me feeling tired for some reason, more tired than had I jumped time zones.
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We are a little more than a year into the presidency of Mr. Trump; I am exhausted. I woke on the last Saturday of February to find we’re bombing Iran.
The articulated reasons are inchoate and constantly evolving. The notion of boots on the ground is terrifying. Have we learned nothing in my lifetime? Apparently not. But probably Bibi is happy. The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is cheering us on!
Kristi Noem has been fired. Hooray! Markwayne Mullin as a substitute? Not encouraging. Will probably play the game smarter than Kristi [not hard to do] and a Trump loyalist. In the NY Times, the amazing Frank Bruni wrote about how we are being governed by incompetents. If you have a subscription, here’s the article.
The chaos exhausts me.
Really exhausts me. As it does like-minded customers in my store, fellow parishioners at St. Andrew’s, everyone I know who isn’t a die-hard supporter of Trump and his minions.
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Now it’s a Monday; I spent a pleasant day in the bookstore, researching upcoming books and making sure we had the ones I wanted on order – so many books released in a week! The sun was out; it felt springlike and downtown Edgartown was deserted. I think everyone was in their yard cleaning up debris from the storm.
The storm, worst since ’78 said everyone. 1978 was brutal in Minnesota too, the year I fled to California, a decision made on a night when it was 73 degrees below zero wind chill factor. It led to this crazy, wonderful life I’m leading.
Reality is a hard pill to swallow. Especially now, in this dystopian [to me] Trump era when I read accounts of people in this administration talk about what they’re doing. My head explodes.
Pete Hegseth sounds like he is on SNL, except, god help us all, he isn’t. He is really in charge of the Department of Defense. No, wait! The Department of War, which is what he just started, at the bidding of our president, Trump. Undeclared by Congress, by the way. Democratic and Republican presidents have for the last how many decades found ways to bypass Congress in military adventures?
Donald Trump, having kicked the hornet’s nest, has no idea what he has unleashed. He is remaking the world; I wonder will we like the new model?
The Iranian people who rioted against the theocracy just months ago are too busy dodging bombs to rise up again while at the same time they are likely turning against Trump – and all of us.
My friends Misha and Quadri were stranded in Dubai, changing planes when this fresh hell manifested itself, spent harrowing days without any help from the US government. Back in the Obama years, a friend of mine worked at State, was in charge of making sure Americans were helped in situations like this. No more, apparently.
On March 14th Trump said we might bomb Kharg Island again, “just for fun.” WTF. An American president talking about bombing – just for fun? I am profoundly disturbed. Just for fun? From an American president?
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation [didn’t know about it either] has reported troops are being told by some commanders the Iran War is divinely ordained, the trigger for Armageddon as foretold in the Book of Revelation.
The Secretary for War also has also draped his Pentagon in Christian symbolism while declaring we would “give no quarter” which, to some legal heads, is a war crime.
My friend Carolyn pointed out this was fodder for satire in the ‘60’s. But now, 60 years later, satire it’s not.
Trump’s approval rating is falling around affordability issues, not his lack of moral fiber. If I am reading the polls correctly, three quarters of the country disapproves of his actions against Iran. But we are more concerned about prices than the deaths happening because of this fiasco. 175 children because of outdated intelligence among them.
Mr. Trump called NATO members “cowards” for not sending help. Well, Mr. Trump, you have eviscerated them during both your terms. Any wonder they’re not joining? You didn’t even bother telling them before you started bombing. You are successfully breaking down the hegemony which has sustained us through my lifetime.
Robert Mueller is dead, a stoic civil servant if ever there was one. Mueller had investigated Trump. On hearing of his death, Mr. Trump said something like, good, I’m glad. Not surprising from Trump but really? You’re the president. A little decorum? Not going to happen.
Yesterday armed ICE agents arrived at some airports. What can go wrong?
I am hoping we make it out of this life without Trump starting a nuclear war. Seriously, it wakes me up sometimes.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack Friday, September 1, 2017 From the safety of the cottage, tears…
September 3, 2017Earlier today, I went to pick up the mail at the Post Office and as I was about to turn off the car, an interview started on NPR with Andrew White who, along with hundreds of other volunteer Texans, formed what is known as the “Texas Navy” and went out into the flooded streets of Houston. With a sixteen-foot boat and a twenty-horsepower motor and the help of friends, he rescued at least a hundred people, including a man with cerebral palsy and a man who was being treated for cancer and was having a bad reaction to his treatment and needed to get to his hospital. They got him within two blocks of where he needed to go; later the water in the neighborhood of the man with cerebral palsy rose another five feet after the rescue.
Sitting there, tears began flowing down my cheeks. Andrew White’s story was replicated by others all over Harris County which holds the city of Houston, citizen volunteers taking care of other citizens in need. It was the story of what is so often wonderful about this country.
Writing about it causing tears to build in my eyes and I am sniffling.
These are the stories, replicated in all kinds of tragedies around this country, that are the reasons we are great. Oh, we’re miserable S.O.B.’s sometimes but when it comes to disaster, we rise to the challenge in an incredible way and that makes me proud.
From Louisiana came the “Cajun Navy” that formed after Katrina, men and women who knew firsthand what was happening on the ground in Texas and they brought in their bayou boats and lent a hand, calling it “paying it forward.” Just as Texans had come to help them in Katrina.
Houston is home to thousands of refugees from Katrina, people who have found it hard to believe they are living through this twice in their lives.
J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans has raised over $12 million between practices for the coming season, coming off the field to work the phones.
Watt’s hometown is Pewaukee, WI and semis are traveling from there loaded with food and water and supplies. He started out with a goal of raising $200,000 and he just kept on going. Texas billionaire, Michael Dell, has pledged $36 million.
A group of “monster trucks,” organized by a group called Rednecks with Paychecks, is roaming the area, rescuing people and vehicles.
440,000 people have registered for aid from FEMA, as the Mayor of Houston is appealing for an “army” of FEMA officials to help with the claims.
The area that was water covered was larger than the state of Rhode Island. As the water recedes, it leaves behind contaminated water unfit for human consumption, filled with pathogens. Shelters, sometimes islands in a sea of water, are running low or out of food and water.
The damaged Arkema chemical plant can no longer cool the dangerous materials stored there and authorities have evacuated everyone within a mile and a half of the facility. There have been “pops” and plumes of smoke from the plant with no one knowing whether that’s all there is going to be or if it is just the beginning. “Brock” Long, head of FEMA, called the situation there incredibly dangerous.
Bowling alleys are filled with people; Walmart parking lots have been helipads.
And what is amazing and so wonderful and so DAMN great, is that so much of what is happening is unorganized. It is just people getting out to help other people. One man observed that no one was really organizing anything. People seemed to have an instinct for what needed to be done.
Like the “Texas Navy” and Andrew White, who it turns out is the son of a former Texas governor who passed away last month, and the people in the “Cajun Navy.”
People helping other people in a way that moves me to tears, far away, in the soft safety of my cottage.
Tags:Brock Long, Cajun Navy, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, FEMA, Houston Texas, Hurricane Harvey, JJ Watt, Politics, Texas Navy
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