Woe to the grandchildren…
It’s been a while, folks. I know.
Tempus fugit, you know.
There has been a clatter of demands on me which have kept me from putting fingers to the keyboard for this particular task. Busy getting the store ready for “the season,” a spot of computer trouble, toss in a storm of bookstore issues, mix it up with an allergic reaction to a new medication which had me overnight in the emergency room, pumped full of Benadryl, in whose haze I lingered for days. Well, it’s been a time.
So, here I am, crashing into the reality “the season” is actually beginning to wind down even though August, our biggest month, is about to unfold, only a few weeks until Labor Day, a summer which has zoomed by though not on Zoom. Lived in real life, real time. June seemed to last about a day.
There are those who say there have never been more people on island and those who say visitors are down, worried about the ticks, inflation, the economy, what new horror might come out of Washington.
Whatever the truth is, the bookstore, knock on wood, thank God, is doing okay.
The island has had a beautiful summer, causing “old timers” to remark it has been like it used to be, temperate, a place where air conditioning was not needed. There has been a plethora of sun kissed mornings, glorious sunsets, laughter in the streets, the sound of Vineyard Voices, an all-male acapella group, singing in the park next to the bookstore. Idyllic.
In the “real” world back on the mainland…
We have a president who said he’d bring down inflation but has only fueled it. He said he’d keep us out of foreign wars. Not happened.
Washington has decided to cut subsidies for Medicare drug coverage, raising prices for seniors.
It seems even die-hard Trump supporters are becoming disenchanted. Can you blame them?
I am Trumped out. He sucked the life out of the 250th anniversary of this county. The UFC bloodying the lawn at the White House, not far from the ruins of the East Wing? This celebrated America?
The Reflecting Pool repair was a complete disaster; American Flag Blue began to peel days after completion; the water turned algae green in days, the project a triumph of incompetence.
Since February, we’ve been locked in fighting Iran. There’s been no regime change. No complete destruction of Iran’s nuclear program. Now the Houthis are weighing in with a Saudi blockade of the Gulf of Aden. Saudi Arabia and the U.S. coordinated a strike against them, raising the stakes the war will widen. Ukraine blew up an Iranian ship in the Caspian Sea. War heat rising.
Bush started the endless wars that have consumed us since. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran. We have flexed our muscle over and over to no avail. Twenty-five years of war and what do we really have to show for it? Not much. National treasure poured down the drain. Wars fought with muddied goals, lacking exit plans.
Trump has ordered military action in how many countries? 8?
Pete Hegseth slobbers misogyny and racism, blocking the advancement of men of color, of women, based on race and sex. He wraps himself in a Christian blanket. Is this all really Christian? Not to me.
Now he wants a testosterone test for soldiers over 30. Makes me suspect he’s doing testosterone himself, making him pretty angry, which he is, all the time.
Donald Trump spends his nights ranting on Truth Social, many posts incomprehensible, spewing invective, hate, lies. His grasp of facts is just that: a grasp. But then this is not a president whose ever has had a close relationship with truth.
We need to hold this administration to the hot irons of an age which had more respect for the laws of this land, for the expectations of the behavior of a president.
No president has created more wealth in his presidency as Trump.
Trump has grifted his way through life. “The Apprentice,” solidified his reputation as a canny business man while probably saving him from bankruptcy.
Estimates of his financial gain for his first year in office this time come in at about $2.2 billion. It seems to be grating to some of his constituency, those who voted for him, now finding themselves counting pennies, squeezed by inflation. It raises eyebrows. As it should.
We are tainted with the smell of corruption, seen as a capricious country, led by a capricious man who does not understand nor respect the underpinning of the institutions which have sustained this country.
If it can be done, it will take years to undo this mess. Or Trump may have tipped the balance, beginning the long slide of the American Empire. Woe to the grandchildren.
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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