End Summer Night's Dream

This opinion piece appeared in the Townsman, August 28 2008 edition

Tuesday had settled into a perfect evening and what better place to enjoy it than on the patio of one of Woodstock's charming restaurants in the company of friends. The summer so rapidly approaches its end I considered a conversation on its merits, the moderate temperatures, generous rain and a village green never so pleasingly colored by its array of flowers and shrubs. The streams remained full the summer long, and cries of a dry well were not heard. Was it my imagination, or did the early mornings sing with more flocks of birds? Is it my aging, or did the youths competing in the Beijing Olympics - which wholly entertained me - look more graceful, more dexterous, more handsome and lovely than ever? Yes, these were thoughts, and others like them, that crossed my mind and were about to exit the door of my mouth when…

…When the beeper belonging to a volunteer fireman in my company went off.
A car accident. Near the elementary school. And ZOOM, off he went running across the street, into his truck and then toward the mishap. A few moments passed before vehicles with blue lights (belonging to volunteers) raced by. Moments later came the emergency vehicles; two fire trucks and an ambulance, sirens blaring. I recognized almost all the people in the vehicles. They were each men and women who had worked all day at their various occupations, were probably right in the middle of their suppers when the call came.

One might think that for a reverie so blaringly interrupted one should feel disturbed or annoyed. No, it was yet another very pleasant sound in a summer that had been filled of them. It was the sound of caring. Of helping. Of involvement. Of sacrifice. It made me wonder again, Which can be more beautiful, nature that surrounds us or the people who inhabit nature? Each can be very, very beautiful, but for that moment the people won by a mile. It is true that people can also equal nature in cruelty, but as I looked at our volunteers that balance was for the moment forgotten. We live in a community where fortunately that dark ambition is rare, and kindliness is not.

A half an hour later my friend was back. It was not, as it turned out, a terribly serious accident. The car was made useless by its attack on a telephone pole, but because of airbags the driver was not made senseless. I listened to the report thinking, ahh, another nice sound of the summer.

* * *

For those of you anxious to see a Democrat in the White house next year, I have the perfect solution to the Obama - Clinton imbroglio. Yes, sadly, there are many dissatisfied Hillary supporters who still have not reconciled themselves to the fact that their candidate came up short for the Democratic nomination, attributing the setback to among other things sexism. No comment. But after listening to Michelle Obama's speech on Monday night, I say MICHELLE FOR PRESIDENT. Obviously she would get her husband's support, and how can any woman in her right mind not support her? Come on, fellow Townsman, contact your representatives now.

* * *

Hunker down, the fall is coming and then the winter. Hopefully they will be as gracious as has been the summer. I'm leaving now to listen to Hillary's speech. I want to see if BLOCK HEAD made any impression on her when she visited our town last week. (By the way, there were a number of you who contacted me wondering who BLOCK HEAD is; to no surprise most of you guessed right even before asking.