More thoughts from the open road
Last spring I drove out to Wichita, Kansas, from the North Country and found myself pleasantly surprised by the bustle and beauty of the America I was seeing.
Because of a family emergency, I now find myself driving from Wenatchee, Washington to Wichita, Kansas — a different chunk of the country completely but I’m finding myself with the same general impression.
The RV parks (yes, I’m perched at the helm of a massive, 40-foot long Winnebago…) are crammed full. The roads are busy with tractor-trailers, and the farms and ranches seem almost cliched in their trim, well-tended appearance.
The little towns I pass seem tidy and proud and inviting.
The experience is more strange because we have a television in the rig and at night I’m watching far more of CNN, Fox and MSNBC than I usually see in a year’s time.
The general impression one finds there is very, very different: a fraying Union, hectic and furious, beset by illegal aliens, the economy nearly at the point of implosion, the environment unraveling before our eyes.
And everyone — everyone — is angry about something. It’s exhausting and numbing and, at least in significant measure, false.
Anyone who knows my reporting (and my rants over a glass of wine) also knows that I’m no pollyana. There are plenty of problems in the North Country. And plenty of big problems in the country.
But I keep thinking it’s time to push back against the insistence (from the left and the right) that we live our lives constantly as if the house were on fire.
I’ve never known anyone to get much of anything of quality or meaning done when they were panting (or ranting) in that feverish way.
It’s comforting to find that when the sound and fury begin to overwhelm you, you can still get out on the open road of America and find that it’s still a place of richness, generosity, expansive vision, and (yes) opportunity.
Your thoughts? Post below.
There’s nothing wrong with vigorous debate. Where the trouble arises is when it turns into an “us vs. them” competition where all that matters is scoring points against the other side. Very few issues are a zero-sum game, but the media sure likes to make it sound like they all are.
I certainly like the message of your post, but I look to the column on the right and see “Range war pits paddlers against property owners” (and heard the promos over the weekend) and it seems perhaps NCPR is also guilty of stepping up the rhetoric and sensationalizing issues unnecessarily from time-to-time.
Yeh, there are problems…there always are. But, are they really any worse than they ever were? In the late ’60s-early ’70s, we seemed to be on the verge of some kind of rampant violence between the generations or some other dichotomy. Didn’t happen. We’ve been through tough economic times before. We are not immune to failure. As Bret quoted recently, Franklin replied, “A Republic, Madam; if you can keep it”. So far, we have.
To quote Chief Dan George in a pretty good move, “We must endeavor to persevere.”
Much of the media, in particular FOX and CNN, get their ratings by broadcasting what is controversial. In shorty, it makes money. That’s why Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and even Keith Olberman dominate commentary. Controversy = market share = $$$$$$$$. As long as a jaundiced view of the sate of the country pulls in $$$$$$$$, we’ll keep hearing how terrible things are. Unfortunately the few small efforts by the media to show what’s right in America are overwhelmed by the flood of complaint, anger and outrage by those who profit from making the rest of us discontent.
There’s nearly 10% unemployment. With no robust recovery in sight.
That didn’t used to be OK. Now it is.
I find that when anyone, left or right, is putting more energy in trying to make me feel angry or afraid, than they put into giving me solid information–they are trying to get to me ignore the facts and/or to act against my own interests. That leaves my media options pretty thin these days, and any satisfying political discourse hard to come by.
Just give me the information and I’ll sort my feelings out for myself. Right now it looks like a pretty nice day, spent in pleasant company. Plenty of time to be angry later.
Dale Hobson
NCPR Online
First and foremost, I hope your family emergency works out well.
And that makes me think, isn’t that what you are trying to say, that family and community trumps all else?
Sometimes when I watch, read or listen to the news, I find myself saying, “I don’t care.”
I’m not saying I don’t care about bad things that happen all around the state, country and the World. I do. But what happens to family, friends and neighbors is far more important. There we can do something. We can make a real difference.
Caring about things that happen beyond our own little worlds is important but needs to be kept in perspective.
To give a harsh example of what I am trying to say, think of “The Diary of Ann Frank.” Think of the horror that swirled around that little hidden apartment. Then think of her and her family, and how they tried to maintain their humanity while that horror came closer and closer. There was nothing they could do to stop it from coming. But they were able to maintain their humanity without becoming hate filled creatures like those who would eventual kill them.
We moan and groan, point fingers but have it much better than Ann Frank did. We need to keep this in mind. We need to do what we can, where we can, and that starts here. Not in Albany and certainly not in Washington.
Maybe Pogo said it best. “We have met the enemy and the enemy is us.”
Good luck, Brian.
First off, best of luck and safe travel Brian. Second, I’m just in from a lovely afternoon of tedding hay. Nothing broke, I didn’t get stung by any of the bees nests I ran through and the hay looks good. In my own little corner of St Lawrence Co all is well, at least at the moment. That doen;t mean we don’t have a nation crippled by rampant spending and borrowing, that jobs are darn hard to come by (the actual UE rate is somewhere closer to 18-23% depending on whose stats you look at, over 28% in one study), that our Congress has an 11% approval rating-and I think they polled the optimists at that! NY still doens’t have a budget, costs are rising, winter is coming and the wood pile is low. I’m not running for the hills quite yet, but things are still not what they could be.
Pete brings up a good point about not caring. Honestly? I don’t care about the Gulf oil spill. I feel guilty that I don’t care too. I just can’t muster up the energy to get incensed over the whole thing. Accidents happen. What does make me mad is BP using it’s power to get the Lockerbie Bomber released so they could get some drilling contracts. That just makes me see red. But with so much else going on there comes a point of sheer overload in the caring dept. Zsa Zsa got a new hip? Big whoop. Lindsay Lohan is apparently in jail, finally? Well, she wasn’t on my haying crew so what do I care. I still don’t know who LeBron is. The First Family is taking yet another vacation, my family is trying figure out how to make 3 weeks of money last for 30 days. Teh Republicans are trying to worm their way into the good graces of the Tea Party and the Democrats are trying to shut down dissent. That I can muster a little concern about, but not a lot.
Hey Brian, instead of driving by all those prosperous looking towns why not stop in to the local diner and listen to the gossip. Bertcha they’re saying the same thing we are here.
You mentioned driving through tidy towns and farms. What is your impression of the tiny towns and farms you are driving though as compared to the towns and farms out here in the North Country?
I agree with your comments about the reality of the real actual country and the images falsely created and shown on the various screens.
Hi folks –
Good comments. Solidago, the truth is that yes, occasionally, we add one too many exclamation points to our promotional stuff…guilty.
Thanks for the well wishes. The family will be fine, though these events are scary.
Bret – good news about your hay. My wife says our first ripe tomato just came off the vine, so I’m eager to get home.
Finally, Mervel, I think the comparison of the North Country to what I’m seeing here is pretty equal. Wish I had time to stop and talk with folks, see what they’re thinking — but our noses are to the barn.
Brian, NCPR
Thanks for the update Brian. Folks are folks.
On your way back Brian drive through Detroit and Chicago, hit Michigan real heavy. See how it looks there.
Some of our small towns look pretty sad. Some look pretty good. Probably the same all over the country.
“But I keep thinking it’s time to push back against the insistence (from the left and the right) that we live our lives constantly as if the house were on fire.”
Wouldn’t it be nice to move toward a better future as a nation. But take Jimmy Carter for an example. He put solar power on the roof of the Whitehouse then Reagan came in and ripped it out. Can’t we build together on good rather than tear apart whatever the last guy did? I think some of the right wingers on here should commend Obama on following many of Bush’s policies.
There are no right wingers here.
Even Bret is not that conservative in the grand scheme of things not compared at least to my extended family who really are right wing.
Who cares what Reagan or Jimmy Carter did with the White House, the point is the country the real country made up of working people scattered about is not nearly as divided and crazy as the media would suggest.
Uh, Mervel? I tone it down a lot just to keep my posts from being edited or removed. Just FYI.
Knuck- The problem is Bush didn’t have all that many good policies, and Obama is still using the bad ones.
Still, I agree it would be nice and certainly more efficient if we could get some better long term planning among our elected officials. But, power corrupts and I don;t think they get 2 hoots about whats really best for the country, just whats best for them and the party.
So you WANT to be called right wing? Well okay I stand corrected.
Bret,
Last year we hit Michigan real heavy. Took a week long road trip through it. It was wonderful. Lots of gorgeous areas, interesting little towns with active main streets. Not every place we stopped was our cup of tea, so to speak, but they all seemed to be doing just fine.
Now, we didn’t hit up Michael Moore’s Flint, or hang out around 8-mile in Detroit, but we saw A LOT of that state… and it didn’t seem to be any worse for wear than any other place we’ve been to. Basically, we had the same reaction Brian has when he travels. We just couldn’t reconcile what we were actually experiencing with what we see, read and hear on national news. I’m sure there are people struggling and areas we didn’t visit that are having really tough times. But there was no grand depression, no imminent implosion, no overwhelming malaise that we witnessed. Nor did anyone we talk to suggest it.
Photos and stuff from our trip, if interested: http://www.townsandtrails.com/michigan-road-trip-full-trip-report
Dave, did you go to any of the areas near the auto factories? I talk on other sites with guys from Michigan all the time and they make me look like the President of the Optimists Club. Were talking people having to move in with relatives, losing homes, major unemployment, food banks, etc. But you wouldn’t see that in the tourist areas, just as the people going to Lake Placid don’t see our trailers and unemployed.
Hey, I’m a left-winger somebody on the right is a right-winger. No big deal, I didn’t say wingnut.
And it is nice to agree with Bret once in a while. We do need better long term planning in this country.
Knuck, I haven’t found you to be all that left wing in many cases. You seem to have a bit of common sense. Or maybe you just tone it down even more than I do. Either way, I’m for voting the rascals out.
Merv- yeah, you can say I’m a right winger, just don’t call me a Republican.
Honestly Bret I am pretty liberal but I hope I have some common sense about it. I know some liberals who drive me crazy with their fuzzy-headedness.
Okay okay.
But don’t you agree both of you that you, I mean the real you, is not a political label? You are much much more than someone’s definition and label of a “right winger” or a “liberal”. I think that sort of self identification is not really very accurate and maybe does not help us?
Well yeah, but in this place, a political blog, your identity is your political outlook. Generalized political labels aren’t accurate in the first place, but that’s life.
Okay I see your point particularly on a political blog. But I don’t think even then you can really peg people as bi-model, either right wing or left wing along some spectrum. So along the spectrum there is pre-defined talking points, if that is the case there is no reason to talk about anything political as all of the answers are already given you just pick your spot on the line and pull out the pre-defined answers.
But it goes to Brian’s point on this thread about driving across the country and you know things look okay people are not burning up and at each others throats we still grow our food we still have places to live for the most part. As he says and I totally agree why do we have to always live as if the house is on fire?
You don’t. But, appearances are deceiving. Yesterday we took the 3 hour trip to Nana and Poppas to help do yard work. It was nice day, the roads were full of expensive Harleys and BMW’s and Mercedes, particularly around Minvera. The bars were full and Long Lake was all a-bustle. By this standard the North Country looked like a booming place, ripe for jobs and business. But anyone who lives here knows that after Labor Day you fire a cannon down main street in Long Lake and not hit a soul. The grocery and hardware will close and reality will return. Same thing in Minerva, Tupper, etc. Hit Raquette Lake in April and tell me how things look, or drive some of the back roads around Canton/Potsdam and see the difference between Sorority Row and Trailer Life Illustrated.
Appearances mean nothing and while Brian and some other may take solace in tidy looking farms and prosperous looking villages that’s hardly an accurate way to judge an area.
Brings to mind my experiences when driving from Offutt Air Force Base, Omaha, Neb., in 1991 (while there on reserve duty). The first leg of the trek was out to central Neb. to view the migrating sandhill cranes around Grand Island. I then headed south, passing the Willa Cather Memorial Prairie and into and through the farming town of Hastings, Neb. Finally, I entered Kansas and found myself driving a little further south to a wonderful little spot known, far and wide, as the geographic center of the 48 contiguous states. (Google it for more details). Anyway, these are the kinds of places that most Americans will never experience, given the hours they spend watching Tee Vee, playing video games, mowing the lawn, etc. Too bad.