Panic and Grief

Things have been tough lately for a lot of people. The parents of a friend in California were evacuated from Santa Rosa because of the fires there, and may have lost their house. Many people in Puerto Rico are still without water, food and power weeks after Hurricane María blew over the island. In Miami, where I used to live, the main streets downtown were under water because of Hurricane Irma. And Hurricane Harvey in Houston flooded the city and poisoned the waters nearby when chemical plants were destroyed. A man in Las Vegas shot into a crowd at a country music festival. The whole nation is in crisis.

Then there is the current national administration. The President is clueless and vindictive. He models himself on Vladimir Putin. His henchmen, Mike Pence, Scott Pruitt and Jeff Sessions, are bent on destroying individual freedom, environmental progress, and the voting rights of many Americans. The President threatens a nuclear war with North Korea. That would likely be the end of all of us.

I was elected to Morgantown's City Council earlier this year. I was helped by people who are appalled at the clumsy stupidity and arrogance of our national government. In addition to approving bond sales for redevelopment, tweaking the city's codes and fixing the streets, we have signed Morgantown to the Paris Climate Accords, and will pass an LGBT rights ordinance next week. We are doing what we can to fight fascism in the United States. It looked like we would be attacked by bused-in anti-gay protestors, but so far that hasn't happened. Two weeks ago, while we were worried about this, the President was going to visit Morgantown, to be interviewed by Sean Hannity. Friends of mine were planning protests, and a motorcycle gang said they would come and protect the President. Meanwhile, the whole city would be shut down. I had visions of what happened in Charlottesville happening here in my town.

The President cancelled. He traveled instead to Las Vegas to meet with people injured in the mass shooting there. His party will block any attempt to stop the proliferation of weapons in this country. We are all just sitting ducks.

On a personal level, my life is good. I have a strong marriage; we own a modest house and two aged cars. We travel, and I will be at my fifty-year high school reunion this weekend. Suncrest, the neighborhood where we live, is suburban and leafy, but in the city of Morgantown, where I am the first openly gay man, the first in a same-gender marriage, to be elected to Council.

It's strange that what has most disturbed me this week is not any of the above. Last week, tree surgeons parked down the street from us, and started hacking off limbs  from a beautiful oak tree, still mostly green, and towering over a modern ranch house. At first, I thought maybe they would just cut a few branches. After a day, I saw five or six blue jays in the street by this house. Their nests must have been destroyed. I noted also, that some tree limbs were over the roof of the house, and that it was planted too close to the house. Actually, the house was likely built too close to the tree, probably fifty years ago. They cut the whole tree down. When I saw the workers there, I wanted to scream "Murderers!" at them, like I want to do with people who have NRA stickers on their car.

Maybe it's just that this tree was more visible to me than fifty-eight people shot to death in Las Vegas, or people without food and water in Puerto Rico, or the current EPA allowing the use of a pesticide known to have a negative effect on children's brains.  There's so much outrage over everything this administration has done in just ten months, that I can't process it. Instead I use the fallen oak tree as a means to process my grief and rage over every senseless thing that is happening in my country. That's what I think, anyway.