Posted on by rjonakait · 1 Comment

Hope and Kindness (Guest Post From the Spouse)

These days I have not been a half-glass full kind of person, but I have been thinking about how to be hopeful in the face of difficult times. So…in no particular order, here are some things that I find hopeful:

I am of the opinion that our current president is trying to accrue to himself powers to which he is not entitled. It gives me hope that millions of others feel as I do and have taken to the streets to say so.

Despite what the administration tells us about rampant urban carnage, crime is down in New York City and the murder rate is lower than it was in the 1950s.

I am hopeful when I learn that many staff members of the conservative Heritage Foundation resigned to protest their director’s tacit condoning of the white supremacism of Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes.

I am horrified that Hamas butchered Israelis and that Israel has decimated Gaza and destroyed Palestinians in retaliation. But I am hopeful when a Syrian Muslim singlehandedly tackles a man with a gun, saving the lives of many Australian Jews in the midst of celebrating their faith.

While many people have been misinformed about the safety of the measles vaccine and have stopped giving it to their children, I am grateful to know that vaccines for measles and polio and Covid and flu even exist.

Even though the United States as a government seems to have abandoned its role as a charitable donor to the world, it is encouraging to know that other individuals and privately funded organizations continue to bring health and hope to the poorest countries of the globe.

I have a friend, a woman in her 60s, who was trained as a surgical nurse. Three times a year she volunteers to accompany a team of doctors and technicians as they go to areas of Africa, South America, and Ukraine offering surgical relief to those with facial anomalies and horrific battlefield injuries. I find this inspiring.

Watching chained immigrants duck-walked to a foreign prison is a living nightmare. However, there continue to be lawyers and organizations that are working tirelessly to protect their rights.

It is a gift that people continue to write books that inspire, entertain, and educate me.

It is gratifying to see white men helicoptering a black woman and her child to safety after a flood.

I am thrilled to be reminded that Beethoven wrote glorious but challenging choral music, and that people are willing to spend long hours rehearsing that music in order to sing it to me.

It gives me hope when someone opens a heavy door for me.

It gives me hope that pop-up foodbanks appeared to help those suffering during the government shutdown.

In our house it’s good news that the Green Bay Packers made the playoffs.

And it brings me happiness and hope when my husband brings me not one but two cookies from the resident lounge on his way back from the gym.

Posted on by rjonakait · 1 Comment

Snippets

My main exposure to farming in Maine came from my friend and colleague Don. His grandfather had a farm near the New Brunswick border, and Don spent part of his high school summers helping out there. The grandfather seemed to be the last of the New England Yankees. He heated his house with wood, and without power tools he cut and split cords upon cords to be ready for the winter. The grandfather may have grown several crops, but Don only talked about the potatoes and the hard work of tilling the soil, burying the seed potatoes, and then later pulling them out. Unpredictable rainfall made the onerous work even harder some years. Don, who had sensitive skin, did not have to worry about the dangerous sun when he was out in the field. He said that the notorious Maine black flies were so bad that he would only go out in full beekeeper’s regalia, which kept the flies from biting but made the hot work even hotter. When Don told me about these summers, he made clear how miserable he had been.

I thought again about Maine farm work when reading The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters for a book group at my residence. The book’s core is a group of Mi’kmaq people who came from Nova Scotia to pick blueberries in Maine. Haad I even been aware that a lot of blueberries are grown in Maine, I had never thought about how they were harvested. My images of migrant workers are people from south of border cutting lettuce or plucking strawberries, not people from the north harvesting fruit in New England. But now those images include those Canadians, and I wonder about other crops. Who harvests cherries in Michigan or wild rice in Minnesota?

The No Kings protest I attended was peaceful, like the others, but small. It was in suburban New York City. A few hundred people lined an intersection waving signs. (The one I saw most often: “No Faux King Way.”) I wore my tee shirt with the faded lettering: “Trump: His Mother Did Not Have Him Tested.” Maybe one or two people understood it. (N.B.: you have to be a fan of “The Big Bang Theory” TV show.) Perhaps I was hoping to be energized, and perhaps that would have happened if I had attended a truly mass rally of thousands like the ones elsewhere in the country. But mostly I was bored and wondered why I was there.

Nevertheless:

“For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.” Thomas Paine.

“The links in the chains of tyranny are usually forged, singly and silently, and sometimes unconsciously, by those who are destined to wear them.” Tully Scott.

“A king can stand people’s fighting but he can’t last long if people start thinking.” Will Rogers.

“Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.” Thomas Jefferson.

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” James Madison.