Ten years later

We've been hearing the words "Never forget", and certainly on this tenth September 11th there are many things not to forget. No one will forget the terror of helplessness, the terror of escaping, of watching those firefighters walking into certain doom. Not one of us will forget the thoughts we had of the victims in the airliners and their last terrified moments. Each one of us has our own set of memories from that day we will never forget.

In the past ten years, there are other things we have managed never to forget. We have not forgotten how to send people to wars whose purposes are far from clear.

We have not forgotten how to support and invest in companies who send jobs abroad rather than employ our fellow citizens at home.

We have not forgotten that it's easier to persecute immigrants who will work in low-wage jobs than to persecute the employers who pay those low wages.

We have not forgotten how to mislead homebuyers in order to make a profit.

We have not forgotten that it's easier to ignore political fanaticism/incompentence at home, than it is to demand that politicians make decisions that benefit all Americans, not just the Americans in their party.

We have not forgotten that it's easier to think about a national unemployment rate of 9.1% than it is to think about the 17% unemployment rate among Black Americans.

Paul Simon sang "Sound of Silence" this morning. How sad, but how fitting. Financial services organizations no longer serve their account holders, helping customers and businesses grow and prosper: they only serve themselves. The rich continue to grow rich.  The middle class continues to collapse into the ranks of the poor. Employers have decided that "Unemployed need not apply." We continue to talk without speaking, hear without listening, worship neon gods, and ignore the words "written on the subway walls and tenement halls."

There's a saying that "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Ten years after September 11, 2001, we as a nation are not better, not wiser, not stronger. Given everything we have not forgotten, what in heaven's name have we learned?

Ernie (1995-2011)

The Chief Executive Officer (cats have staff, you know) is no more.  He lived a happy life of 16 years, although this year saw him become an old cat, sleeping more (he would have said "conserving his energy"), less adventurous (he would have said "been there, done that"), moving more slowly (he would have said "What's the hurry?").  A recent cat fight - the first all year- probably overstressed an already-weakened heart (that no one knew about), which led to pulmonary edema and then more heart weakening and more edema - a vicious circle with no good outcome.

I will remember
    = his appearance, from wherever he'd been, to supervise any gardening that took place near the brook
    = seeing him dash across the yard and a few feet up a tree, simply to prove that he still could do it
    = having him lounge on the tarp that covered the stacked wood while I labored to stack more next to him ("Ernie, could you help a little bit, please?")
    = the loud meowing at 9pm, demanding "Where's my ice cream?"
    = his ability to hear, from any part of the house, the sound of cheese being unwrapped
    = having him planted at my feet during dinner, waiting for his teaspoon of salad dressing, and hoping for a piece of broccoli, asparagus, or (believe it or not) brussels sprout
    = right after we moved to Churchill Rd, seeing him leap three feet in the air to take down an inattentive  robin in flight (why couldn't it have been a starling?)
    = and, back in Bloomfield, taking late night walks with Ernie on his leash - who was walking whom?

Ernie's life revolved around food (including the occasional rodent snack) and comfort. His worries were the Churchill's barn cat and cat-chasing dogs.  He was a good traveller (on an empty stomach) and a great companion.

Would that throughout our lives we could always be well-fed, comfortable, with a chance to travel, friends by our side, and only a couple of worries.

Looking back at Irene

There's a hand-lettered sign on a house in Randolph that says "Goodnight Irene 2011."

Vermonters have seen news footage of hurricanes - waves crashing against beaches and beachfront homes - storm surges covering boardwalks - palm trees bent like reeds before the wind - yards and malls  like Willowbrook Mall in NJ surrounded by lakes of water.

What we got with Irene was not like those news pictures.

What has made Vermonters so resilient? Pundits right and left have quoted Coolidge's "brave little Vermont" speech (given a year after the 1927 flood), without thinking about how many more people live here now, without recognizing that far fewer of us are the self-sufficient families that were the Vermonters of 1928.  But that resilience is what has drawn people to Vermont, and we still, as a state, see self-reliance as a virtue.  In rural and even semi-rural areas, we have to be able to take care of ourselves. It's why we haven't yet emptied the buckets of extra water in the kitchen and bathrooms, why we keep an assortment of canned goods in the cupboard, why we put up the food from our gardens, why we always have dry stovewood in the house, why many homes have generators (that's got to go on my list).  And we trust that we can call on our neighbors when we need their help, and that we will in turn help them.

Vermont still has a lot of people who farm, log, and build, and a lot of people in other lines of work who possess many of those farming, logging and building skills. We have businesses who sell and maintain machinery and provide building supplies. Lots of these people have heavy equipment and know how to use it.  We have road crews who are experts at keeping roads open and patching up damaged bridges.  And they have all turned out in droves.  Everyone knows that being cut off, being stranded, can be very dangerous in our state.  Everyone knows that by the end of October  - less than 60 days away - the ground will be hard to work, and that no rebuilding can be confidently started once November starts and the cold weather sets in.

But I think Vermont's biggest asset is its history of Town Meeting.  Many "town meetings" were called: among the homeowners on Riford Brook Road, and in the towns of Pittsfield, Rochester, Waterbury, Wardsboro and others. Today's official Town Meetings  (the ones on the first Tuesday in March) are pretty different from the original ones, but every town in Vermont has that history to draw on - that formal, agenda-driven, Moderator-led, Roberts' Rules-governed, thoughtful process of considering the community's needs and how those needs will be met. Every Vermonter has experienced through Town Meeting how a community can come together, identify needs, marshall resources, and make the decisions necessary to keep people well and to get things done.  And they will do those things they decided on, because the welfare of community depends on keeping its collective word.

Town Meeting and the ethic of neighbor helping neighbor have seen Vermonters through the past week.