EAST MONTPELIER – Making hay while the sun shines and the roads are free of slippery impediments to travel, I did a little extra driving this past weekend. In the process, I got a better-than-usual view of my beloved country, on the car radio, passing through small towns, on my cell phone, and from some old friends. Kiki, as constant a companion as is my cell phone, went everywhere with me. The moon roof on my little hybrid makes it possible to leave her in the car for a short while if I have to be away.
We left for my friend Bea’s house in Nahant on Friday, the thirteenth, listening on the way to a Harvard anthropologist discussing triskadekaphobia, the ancient superstitious fear of the number thirteen. Even presumably well-educated people still are extra-careful on the date, and many hotels and office buildings don’t have a thirteenth floor. I’m above all that, of course, and Kiki seems utterly unaware of it. But I’ll admit I was a bit more cautious than usual as we plunged once more into a congested I-93 and later, a seven-mile obstacle course on I-95.
NPR accompanied us most of the way, filled with news and speculation about the competing events of the following day (Flag Day, a mild-mannered holiday now, sadly, observed only spottily): President Trump’s 79th birthday, the date of a grand, North Korean style military parade in downtown Washington, DC; and the occasion of a nationwide mass protest against the administration in general, but especially its bully-boy tactics in collecting and exporting presumed undocumented immigrants. The prospects for a lively weekend were excellent.
Saturday morning we drove to the farmers market for bunny-proof plants (Nahant is loaded with cottontails, in spite of the supposed presence of packs of coyotes) and on the way drove haltingly past a pretty healthy turnout lined up along the oceanside promenade in Swampscott. The district congressman was scheduled to talk nearby at noon, and everyone clearly expected a stemwinder. I’m no judge of crowds, except their moods, but it looked to me like about two thousand fired-up people. There must have been a run locally on sign-making materials. The theme, as all across 50 states, was “No kings!” But there was one sign suggesting the real problem: “No eggs in the supermarket. All the chickens are in Congress.”
Sunday, we drove an hour north for brunch with old friends of mine from Outward Bound days. They’d been busy the day before protesting in Portland. They were just back from a fairly long visit with a daughter and grandchildren in China, and were loaded with information about the changes since their years of working there: a preponderance of electric vehicles, blue skies over the cities in place of the thick smog that threatened the Olympics years ago. Listening, I got the distinct impression that Donald Trump ought to pay better attention to his security briefings and spend less time insulting the Chinese. This may be their century.
The parade was probably the least-reported major event of the weekend. It took place during the evening under a threat of thunderstorms, and from the reports I’ve been able to glean from the coverage, it was a somewhat desultory affair. The troops marched with a less-than-North Korean precision, historic armor creaked past a small crowd quiet enough that the squeaks were dominant. The president seemed to fall asleep, as is his wont lately, which the amateur geriatricians of the media pounced upon gleefully. To a performer obsessed with the size of his crowds, the contrast between, say, the incredible crowd of protesters on the Golden Gate bridge, so great that it actually depressed the roadway, and the empty seats along his parade route must still be unnerving, at least.
The news reports came in one after another: judges placing stays on executive actions challenged as illegal; millions of people, newly energized and connected by social media, organizing around a national theme to protest; Kristi Noem cosplaying in fireman’s helmet, flak jacket, and wetsuit; a United States senator taken down and handcuffed at a press conference for trying to ask a question. It gets better and better. Almost none of this is specifically the result of presidential actions; it’s created by the hundreds of semi-anonymous minions toiling away behind the scenes.
The metaphor that comes to mind is that of a wooden ship captained by a half-crazy skipper and infested with teredos. After a while the pumps can no longer keep up with the rot in the hull. With the skipper screaming orders, down she goes.
Willem Lange is a contractor, writer and storyteller who lives in East Montpelier, Vermont.
