Category Archives: Sense of place

What the insurance agent asked

I went to get new automobile insurance today. The insurance agent politely asked me for various pieces of information. “Occupation?” she said, looking at her computer screen while she typed.

“Minister,” I said.

She stopped typing and looked me in the eyes. “Do you mind if I ask you something?” she said. “Are you seeing more people in your church recently? Because of the economy?”

“Not really,” I said. “But I’m seeing more desperate people. People without a job, no money, that sort of thing. I think it’s maybe worse here on the Peninsula because everyone has such high expectations for themselves.”

She nodded. “It’s really bad, isn’t it?” We both sat there for a second, and then she went back to entering information into the computer.

The real April 19

April 19 is the anniversary of the Battle of Concord and Lexington in 1775, a minor military engagement that wound up having major political repercussions. Patrick Murfin has one of the best summaries of the events of that day that I’ve seen in a long time, and you should go check it out.

As someone who lived the first 42 years of his life mostly in Concord, and who worked for several years at the church on Lexington Green, it has been interesting to watch over the years as different political groups have tried to claim that the participants in the Battle of Concord and Lexington agreed with some narrow political ideology of the present day. In 1975, quasi-leftists staged a “people’s” celebration of the bicentennial of the battle, saying that the British colonials who presented armed resistance to His Majesty’s troops were in fact aligned with what was then called the New Left. More recently, right-wingers are wrapping themselves in quasi-colonial costumes, saying that the British colonials who presented armed resistance to His Majesty’s troops were in fact aligned with what is now called the “Tea Party” movement.

Both these claims, and all similar claims, have little to do with historical fact, and must be dismissed as silly. The 18th century men and women in the colonies of British North America inhabited a very different political and social world than we do in the early 21st century. Those 18th century men and women were colonials, subjects of the worldwide British empire. They were also subjects of an 18th century constitutional monarchy, and they owed allegiance to the person of King George. As colonials, they were subject to the laws promulgated by Parliament, yet they had no elected representation in Parliament. As colonials, whatever local government they had could be removed or replace by His Majesty’s government; in fact, that’s exactly what had happened, and the colonials had had essentially no political recourse when their elected officials were removed from office. Any recent citizen of the United States — and that includes the Tea Partyites and the old New Leftists — inhabits a very different political world than the colonials of British North America.

In my years living and working in Concord and Lexington, I saw plenty of political infighting; Lexington had a particularly nasty split between liberals and conservatives. But on April 19, we all tried to put aside our present-day politics. In Concord and Lexington, everyone is a patriot on April 19 (yes, even the guys who dress up as Redcoats in the re-enactments of the battle). We knew that trying to claim the battle for one or another present-day political ideology was bad form, serving merely to distract us all from the serious duties of knowing the historical facts as accurately as possible, and celebrating the courage and commitment of those long-ago men and women.

Even as I write this, the re-enactors have just moved across Lexington Green for the second time today, this time with the colonial militia and minutemen in hot pursuit of His Majesty’s regulars. There’s no one re-enacting the role of Tea Partyites, because there were no Tea Partyites back in 1775, no New Left, no small-minded politicians trying to claim a mantle that wasn’t theirs to claim. There were only men and women, both black and white, slowly and painfully, sometimes bloodily, working their way towards a new political system that was still only vaguely imagined.

Altered Barbie, Episcopal style

Out here in the Bay area, we are used to people who alter Barbie in various ways. After all, San Francisco is the home of the Altered Barbie art show and artist community. But now even the Washington Post has picked up on the altered Barbie trend.

Astute reader E sent along a link to a Post article about Episcopal priest Barbie. The article links to Rev. Ms. Barbie’s Facebook page, which is priceless not just for the beautiful fashion photos showing Ms. Barbie with surplice, cassock, thurible, etc., but also for the many comments, some of which are admiring and some of which are entirely disapproving. The Post also links to an earlier Religion News Online article, which had the headline “Barbie gets ordained and has the smells-and-bells wardrobe to match.” Excuse me, bub, that’s Rev. Ms. Barbie to you. And there’s a link to Unitarian Universalist blogger Peacebang’s “Beauty Tips for Ministers,” who has already posted on Episcopal Priest Barbie.

I note that Rev. Ms. Julie Blake Fisher, the maker of Episcopal Priest Barbie, lives in the midwest, proving yet again that the midwest, not the coasts, is the home of the most subversive craftspeople in the U.S. There are rumors that a midwestern craftsperson is even now working on a similar project for Unitarian Universalist ministers: Rev. Mr. Sock Monkey.

Update: Blogging at Blag Hag, Jen McCreight, a “a liberal, geeky, nerdy, scientific, perverted atheist feminist trapped in Indiana,” has created Atheist Barbie, who wears a Flying Spaghetti Monster necklace. Apparently BoingBoing even picked up on McCreight’s post, which means she probably exceeded her bandwidth limitations this month. I just want to say that from my point of view, a Flying Spaghetti Monster necklace does much more for an outfit than a thurible; accessories really do make the outfit. Did I mention McCreight was from the midwest?

Spring

The rain stopped, the clouds went away, the plants and trees are incredibly green, and today the sky seemed impossibly blue. Right now that blue sky is beautiful.

Four months from now, after we’ve had nothing but blue sky day after day, after grasses go dormant and turn the hillsides brown, after the leaves of trees fade to dull green, I’ll be longing for the rain to return.

iPad mania in Silicon Valley

Carol took this picture of the line outside the Apple store last night. Yes, it was raining. Yes, someone brought a tent.

Right after she took this photo, Carol saw Steve Jobs getting into a silver Mercedes without a license plate. She turned to some people near here, and said, “Was that really Steve Jobs?” “Yes,” they said. “His car didn’t have a license plate,” she said. “Steve Jobs doesn’t need a license plate,” one of them said, “he has the iPad.” “We need a life,” one of the others muttered.

Ark for sale in Acton, Mass.

Massachusetts and Rhode Island were hit by heavy rainstorms in March. Bristol County, where we were living last year, has been declared a federal disaster area; Middlesex County, where we lived seven years ago, is also a disaster area, as are Essex, Norfolk, Plymouth, Suffolk, and Worcester counties.

The photographs of flooding on the Boston Globe Web site show places that we know well: water pouring over the dam at Moody Street in Waltham, broken culvert at Route 119 in Littleton, Cambridge Turnpike in Concord closed due to flooding, Route 140 in Freetown closed due to flooding, duck boats helping people get to their houses in Wayland, flooding in Peabody, and on and on. My favorite photo was from Acton, the town where my sister lives — someone took a piece of plywood and some red spray paint to make a big sign: “ARK FOR SALE.”

If you’re in Massachusetts, I’d love to hear from you. Are you flooded out? Has it stopped raining yet?

Spring

One of the little bushes just outside the window of my office rustled, so much so that they caught my eye. A black furry tail poked out of the bush; one of the fat black squirrels 1 that lives on the church grounds was in the bush. I was surprised that it bore its weight.

Five minutes went by. The bushes started rustling again. This time, it was a gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis). I realized that a couple of Oregon Juncos (Junco hyenalis oreganus) were chirping at the squirrel; maybe the juncos were nesting in the bush and the squirrel was going after their eggs! I ran outside and scared the squirrel away. I looked quickly in the bush for a nest, didn’t see one, then retreated into my office because if there is a nest I don’t want to drive the birds away from it.

The juncos are still noisily chirping away. The squirrels have returned to stealing food from the trash cans. I still don’t know if there’s a nest out there or not.

Later

A gray squirrel came back (perhaps the same one again), and nosed around beneath the bushes outside my window. A junco harassed it constantly, chirping, flying at the squirrel’s head, causing the squirrel to duck and twitch. At last the squirrel gave up, and scampered off with the junco chasing it.

1 Melanistic form of the Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), an invasive species which has been introduced into the San Francisco Bay region.

The eternal Spring of the Bay area

San Francisco Bay, the land of eternal springtime: there are flowers in bloom all the year:

“San Francisco is built on sand hills, but they are prolific sand hills. They yield a generous vegetation. All the rare flowers which people in ‘the States’ rear with such patient care in parlor flower-pots and green-houses, flourish luxuriantly in the open air there all the year round. Calla lilies, all sorts of geraniums, passion flowers, moss roses — I do not know the names of a tenth part of them. I only know that while New Yorkers are burdened with banks and drifts of snow, Californians are burdened with banks and drifts of flowers, if they only keep their hands off and let them grow.” (Mark Twain, Roughing It)

At the moment here in San Mateo, the rains have just ended, and for most of twelve hours a day the sun shines out of a cloudless sky, and everything is green and beautiful. The acacia trees are covered in thousands of little yellow blossoms cover acacia trees; bright orange California poppies appear along the roadsides; white flowers, purple flowers, red flowers, there are flowers everywhere.

Nor is the beauty only visual; the rich heavy scent of flowers fills the air. I wheeze and find it hard to breathe; our downstairs neighbor sneezes explosively about ten times an hour; our car is covered with a faint yellow film of pollen and I have to wash the windshield twice a day. It is beautiful in this land of eternal springtime, except that I can’t breathe and the pollen in my eyes makes me want to claw them out. I wish we could have a good hard frost and maybe some snow to end this eternal springtime and kill all these damned flowers.

Spring

It was warm enough yesterday that we opened most off the windows in the apartment. I spent the afternoon building a planter box for our little balcony, and a raised bed for our small garden. Overhead, the California sky was as blue as it ever gets in midsummer. The breezes were gentle, the air was perfumed with springtime flowers. Intellectually, I believe that the weather is as nice as it is, but since I’m a New Englander to my core there’s a part of me that’s quite sure it will snow again before spring really comes, or a hard frost will come and kill off whatever we plant in the garden.