Category Archives: Sense of place

Road trip

Heard while eating lunch today in New Bedford: “I never go to Boston. It’s too far. It’s like going to a foreign country.”

Got in my car just after two, drove to Concord to see Nancy James, the insurance agent I used to use when I lived in Massachusetts before. This past Sunday, she was at the big celebration at the Gloucester Universalist church, the first Universalist church in New England (according to some historians). Nancy’s ancestors were among the people who signed the original charter. So if you want to play the “I-was-born-a-Unitarian-Universalist” game, just remember that it’s almost impossible to beat Nancy.

After spending a year in the midwest, I’m used to driving an hour or more to go shopping. As long as I was in Concord, I slipped over to Maynard, to the Maynard Outdoor Store. I’ve been going there since I was a kid, and some of the same people are still working there. As usual, they had everything I wanted, and cheaper than you can get things through mail order. Still family-owned, too. (Someday I’ll do profiles of “real stores” on this blog….)

Met Carol in Cambridge, where she stays during the week for her job. We had sushi at Whole Foods Market in Cambridge. Great people-watching — from classic nutty-crunchy aging Cambridge hippies, to Muslim women in veils, to tanned-and-fit yupsters, to students — and the cutest little baby sitting at the next booth while we were eating, whose parents apparently were speaking some East Asian language.

Driving back, listened to WUMB, the folk radio station in Boston (which has a repeater in Falmouth, at 91.9 FM, so we also listen to it in New Bedford). It was dark and late, and I was in one of those meditative states you get into sometimes when you drive, and the announcer said, “Neil Young has a new record out, blah blah blah,” and Neil Young’s quavery, slightly out-of-tune voice came on the air. Wait, isn’t Neil Young dead or something? You mean he’s still singing, and sounds exactly the way he did in the 70’s when I used to sit in front of Dad’s big stereo set listening to Captain Ken Shelton play Neil Young every Thursday on the Top 40 Countdown? Either that, or I’m suffering from some kind of hellish flashback to the miserable 1970’s. I turned the radio off.

Stopped at the Bridgewater service station off Rt. 24 to top off my tank. As I pulled in to the gas pumps, I noticed an attractive middle-aged woman pumping gas into her Ford Explorer right in front of me. I took my time getting out of the car, fiddled with my credit card, eventually started pumping gas into my little ’93 Toyota Corolla. She finished filling her tank just after I finished filling mine — I hate to think how much gas she had to put in her SUV, or how much she paid at $2.87 a gallon. And hey, I sympathize with her, I’m feeling it at the pump too. My poor little Toyota used to get forty miles per gallon on road trips, but with age now it’s down to thirty-five miles per gallon.

Tropical

It’s pouring rain right now. Ten minutes ago it was drizzling. Ten minutes from now it might stop. The air is warm and thick and humid. One of those warm intermittent rain storms you get in New England in September, after the worst heat of the summer is done and before the cool air comes in for good. Not even a tropical storm or a hurricane, like the one pounding Cape Hatteras right now and headed our way tomorrow. Just a drenching rain storm, warm and humid.

We have a drum in our apartment with a goat-skin head on it. Over the weekend, the head was taut and smooth. Today, the head hangs loosely in the rim. You can see all the places where I didn’t stretch the head evenly when I was putting it on the rim.

With the rain, not many people at the farmer’s market today. The woman from Quansett Farm had winter squash this week, pretty deep-orange hybrid squash I’ve never seen before. She said she’s got Hubbards and Butternuts, too, but she didn’t bring them. It still seems too early to bring them out, it’s still too warm. We can ignore them, but the squash and these September rain storms are telling us: Autumn creeps closer every day.

Gulls

Our apartment is right in downtown New Bedford, a ten minute walk from the harbor. Needless to say, there are lots of gulls in the neighborhood. A couple of mornings ago, a group of gulls set up shop on the roof of a building near us, and had what sounded like a knock-down, drag-out, sreaming fight over something. My guess is that they were fighting over some little scrap of half-decayed fish guts. Gulls seem to love to fight over that kind of thing.

I don’t mind the gulls fighting and screaming. It adds to the character of the neighborhood. But I do mind the fact that they were doing it at 5:30 in the morning, awakening me out of a sound and blissful sleep. I also mind that the kept up screaming at each other for what seemed like half an hour.

Stupid gulls.

Candlelight vigil

First Unitarian hosted a candlelight vigil this evening, sponsored by the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry (RCFM). The Traviglini/Lees amendment is being voted on tomorrow by the state legislature, and there were eight such candlelight vigils around the state to show that there are lots of religious people in Massachusetts who support equal marriage rights. Over a thousand people showed up at the Boston vigil.

We got a late start planning our vigil here in New Bedford. We had managed to get the word out to a few sympathetic local religious groups, and I was hoping for at least fifty people. But yesterday (Monday), there were reports in the media that the amendment was not going to pass — after those reports I fielded one phone call from someone who wanted to know whether or not they should even show up, and I’m sure there were people who just decided to not come.

At 5:45 p.m., fifteen minutes before the vigil was supposed to begin, I went out to unlock the front gates, and I saw city workers blocking off Union Street and County Street in front of the church property. Now, RCFM had pulled a permit for us to use the sidewalk, but we had not expected to have the streets blocked off — in fact the whole point for having the vigil on the sidewalk was to make sure people saw us. I didn’t pull the permit, so maybe there was confusion and we got a permit for a street demonstration or something — or maybe it’s just a standard public safety measure — or maybe someone thought we were too controversial and wanted to protect us. Who knows. But traffic sure got backed up, and if you got stuck in traffic because of our little candlelight vigil, you have my sincere apologies — it wasn’t supposed to be that way!

With traffic getting backed up, nearly everyone was late to the vigil, including the field coordinator for RCFM. But we got going at 6:15.

Rev. Ann Fox, minister of the Fairhaven Unitarian Universalist church, gave the opening words. Mark Montigny, our state senator, spoke about his support for equal marriage rights. He said he sees no reason to mess with our “beautiful state constitution,” which has upheld human rights for centuries. Tony Cabral, another one of our legislators, showed up unexpectedly, and he told us that the fight to preserve equal marriage rights has just begun, for even though it’s likely the Traviglini/Lees amendment will go down tomorrow, the next step will be a voter referendum that will be heavily financed by rich interest groups from outside Massachusetts. John Bullard, former mayor of New Bedford, spoke next, telling us that equal marriage rights is one of the inalienable rights, a part of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Of the nine mayoral candidates here in New Bedford, only Matt Morrisey showed up to voice his support for equal marriage rights, saying that he felt all New Bedford citizens deserved the right to marriage. Amy Mello, field coordinator for RCFM, finally made it by about 6:30, and she filled us in about what RCFM is doing (and to find out more about RCFM, visit www.rcfm.org).

By the time everyone who wanted to got to talk, it was 6:40, and dark enough to light the candles and stand out on the corner of Union and County Streets. I should say, the blocked-off and eerily quiet corner of Union and County Streets. We had about 35 people by that time, far fewer than I had expected, but a nice group — Catholics, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Jews, Pagans, Unitarian Universalists, and maybe some others that I missed — ages from 13 to 70’s — women and men, gay and straight.

Right at seven o’clock, we put out our candles (we wanted to be good citizens, and end right on time so the city could open up the roads again). Rev. Karen McArthur, the pastor at Pilgrim Congregational Church, offered the closing words, pointing out that while some states still had laws prohibiting interracial marriages up into the 1960’s, Massachusetts ended those laws in the 1840’s. Massachusetts, said Karen, has often been at the forefront of equal rights issues.

It wasn’t the most organized candlelight vigil I’ve ever been to (you could say that it was an improvisational event rather than strictly choreographed). But I felt it was well worth my while. We may not have made much of a public statement, but the fact that people from so many different faith traditions got together to support equal marriage rights made it worth my while. And it was good to have politicians, an ex-politician, and an aspiring politician with us. Seems like there is hope for equal marriage rights in this state.

By the way, no one from the press showed up (and yes, RCFM did send out press releases). So this blog entry may be the only report you will read of this event.

Bridge

Carol and I walked to Fairhaven along the sidewalk beside US 6, which leads over a short, low bridge, then Fish Island, then a swing bridge, then Pope’s Island, then another low-to-the-water bridge to Fairhaven. You pass three or four marinas, on the two islands, along the way. But the best part is the swing bridge section, which I have to explain to my readers who don’t live in the area. The bridge rotates about its center axis so that it lies ninety degrees to the main highway, thus allowing two channels for shipping to use to access the inner harbor. Since the bottom of the bridge is only abouteight feet above the water (depending on the tides), it has to be swung open to shipping regularly.

On the walk back to New Bedford, the bridge operator was climbing up to the control room at the center peak of the bridge just as we were walking across it. We stopped just over the bridge on Fish Island. The gates across US 6 came down, and traffic came to a stop. Most drivers shut off their engines. We watched as he unhitched the bridge roadway from the main roadway, spun it slowly around, watched the large pleasure boat cruise through, and then he swung the bridge slowly back.

My inner five-year-old was immensely pleased to watch this whole process, all ten minutes of it. Heck, my inner adult thought it was pretty cool and wanted to explore the machinery under the bridge and later sit up in the control room and learn how to run it. The small pleasures of living in a working port city.

Organizing

Just got a call from the Religious Coalition for Freedom to Marry, to discuss the candlelight vigil that will happen out in front of First Unitarian on Tuesday (Sept. 13, 6-7 p.m.). Looks like Mark Montigny, the state senator for this area, will be speaking, but that’s not quite definite yet. It’ll be nice if he’s there, but it doesn’t matter as much as getting people to come down, light a candle, and stand in public witness for marriage equality.

And I’ve been spending so much time thinking about Hurricane Katrina that I’ve let other issues slip from my mind. I should be thinking about Hurricane Katrina — but can’t lose sight of the ongoing issues — marriage equality, peace abroad and in our streets, economic justice, everything we keep working for and hoping for.

And in amongst all the organizing, you have to reserve some time for personal renewal — which I’ve been neglecting recently — time to go for a nice, long walk.

Odds and ends

The first week or two of September has been the busiest time of year in all the Unitarian Universalist congregations I have served, as we rev up again after summer slow-down. This week at First Unitarian has been no exception. Church phone ringing, meetings, people stopping in to say hi, lay leaders trying to get thigns done — the usual. On top of that, Carol and I still don’t have DSL service at home, and there’s something wacky with the DSL service here at church. Net result — I haven’t posted anything to this blog since Saturday.

But here are some odds and ends from notes I’ve accumulated over the past few days….

Sunday evening: Candleworks restaurant, two blocks from our apartment, had an outdoors band which was, um, pretty mediocre (to be charitable) and all too audible from our windows. Rather than suffer, um, listen, we took a walk down by the waterfront. Talked with a crew member from the cruise ship docked at the end of state pier — fascinating guy, loves to travel, hiked most of the Appalachian trail a couple of years ago, has gone all over North America, has found perfect job working for a cruise ship. He’ll take a couple of weeks off in the fall to go deer hunting in Michigan, where he comes from. Also spent a couple of hours talking to J. S., director of the port facilities. He regaled us with tales of what it’s like to run a port as a local official having to intereact with state and federal agencies. He grew up on the water in Revere, and rowed all over Boston Harbor in his youth — salt water runs in his veins.

Monday: Carol and I drove to Horseneck Beach in Westport, the big state beach for the Southcoast region. All the lifeguard chairs had already been removed from the beach and stacked behind the showers building. I wandered over to the snack stand, which was still open. “Hi, any hot dogs left?” I asked. “Well if you want hot food, we have fries and clam cakes,” he said. The clam cakes looked soggy. I had fries. I could see the staff emptying out the shelves and scrubbing everything down. The end of summer.

Tuesday: The news from the Gulf Coast continues to be depressing. Might be some refugees coming to Otis Air Force Base near here, and one member of our congregation is working for a non-profit agency that will probably provide services to them. I am following the “blame game” that’s going on in the press — Bush is to blame, the Louisiana state governor is to blame, the Army Corps of Engineers is to blame, local governemtn is to blame. I’d love it if someone in authority just said, “Things aren’t going well, I’m sorry” — but we no longer say “I’m sorry” in our culture, do we? Bush is taking heat for his “weak leadership” — too early to second-guess anyone right now. As a minister what I’ve noticed is that Bush, an avowed Christian, has insulated himself from the poor and destitute. This, too, has become a national trait — those of us who are comfortable don’t want to get too close to the poor, the hungry, the destitute. It’s easy to write a check for disaster relief in a place a thousand miles away, but much harder to have to deal with hunger in someone standing next to us. Maybe that’s why some Americans are so angry at Bush for avoiding the poor and destitute — his actions are merely a reflection of our actions. No one likes to see an ugly reflection of themselves.

Wednesday: Had an appointment over at the Standard-Times, the daily newspaper here in New Bedford. Fun to walk through a real newsroom, although it looks nothing like the photos we have of the newsrooms my grandfather worked in. One picture shows him with the green eyeshade, sitting at a big wood desk covered with papers, sleeve garters, a couple of guys witting near him smoking cigars. The Standard-Times newsroom — big modern open space, fluorescent lights, windows looking out over the downtown, cubicles, computers on every desk. I was talking with Linda Rodrigues of the Standard-Times, and we discovered we are both interested in the new news media. Newspapers are moving more and more to Web sites, blogs, and so on. But I’ll bet the move away from newsprint will not change the basic newsroom — the computers are already there on everyone’s desk.

P.S.: Latest news this morning is that no one will be relocated to Otis Air Force Base.

Update — September 10, 2005: Evacuees have been relocated to Otis.

Saturday

Ferry Beach Conference Center, Saco, Maine

I was hanging out last night with some people from a music conference who were doing a little impromptu singing. One of them wanted to sing “Ode to Billie Joe,” originally recorded by Bobby Gentry, but no one could quite remember the lyrics. So they turned to the laptop that one of them had brought and did a quick search of the Web to find the lyrics….

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin’ cotton and my brother was balin’ hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And Mama hollered out the back door “y’all remember to wipe your feet”
And then she said “I got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge”
“Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”

One of the musicians later said how pleased he was to be able to sit around and play music that was not electronic. And none of the instruments, none of the voices, was electronically altered in any way. But I’m in a postmodern, deconstructionist mood today, and very interested in how finding song lyrics on the Web alters the reality of folksinging.

Which makes me think about something else. In the next room over from where I’m sitting, there’s a workshop going on. Although I can’t hear much, I can tell from the rhythms and tones of the voices, by how many people get to speak at once, by the occasional bursts of polite laughter, that this workshop is using techniques of group process that grew out of the ferment of 1970’s pedagogy and group work — the human potential movement, second wave feminist group process, and so on. They are using, in fact, the same techniques I typically use when I lead small groups.

But in my present deconstructionist mood, I’m questioning whether those techniques still match the reality of our lives (almost definitely not). And wondering whether we can reconstruct new ways of teaching and learning that move beyond the tight limitations that I have begun to see in those old group process techniques. And thinking that teaching and learning are even more limited than I had ever thought.

Hey, just call me a postmodern kind of guy.

Friday

Ferry Beach Conference Center, Saco, Maine

I’m spending a couple of days at Ferry Beach Conference Center. I was supposed to attend a small church conference, but it was canceled at the last minute. I decided to come up here anyway and spend a couple of days doing a sort of study-retreat.

I left Concord at about 4 p.m., after having lunch and a long talk with a good friend. Traffic was heavy and slow on Interstate 495 headed north, and I didn’t arrive at Ferry Beach until 6:30 p.m. First stop was Huot’s, a seafood restaurant in the village of Camp Ellis. At their takeout window, I got fried clams, French fries, and cole slaw, and started the ten-minute walk back to the conference center. But I couldn’t wait to start in on the clams, and began eating them out of the bag as I walked.

“Is there going to be any left the time you get home?” said a man sitting on the wide front porch of one of the summer rentals. He had a good-natured grin on his face.

“No, I don’t think so,” I said. He just laughed.

Today, I’ve been working my way through Faith without Certainty: Liberal Theology for the 21st Century by Paul Rasor. I skimmed some of it back in June when I bought it, but now I’m sitting down and reading it straight through. I sat at the picnic table at my campsite on this perfect summer day, the sun glinting down through the trees, a chipmunk running back and forth between some trees, a few late summer birds calling idly every now and again.

And Paul writes clear prose that’s almost entirely free of the obfuscatory, precious academic jargon that’s endemic in theological circles. I have been particularly enjoying the way Paul clarifies the postmodern challenges to liberal theology.

It’s too bad the small church conference was canceled, but I have to say this is the perfect setting to catch up on my theology reading.