Going Around in Circles

Yet another mention of my beloved Buy Nothing group for you this morning. I’ve been finding new homes for a stack of those ornately designed coloring books for adults. You know, the kind that are supposed to reduce stress but actually remind you just how poor your fine motor skills are. Little by little folks have been dropping by the house for contactless porch pick up. But the last two had a bit of an adventure.

The recipient informed me that she was now quarantined and would be getting a COVID test the next day. I offered to drop them off instead. That’s when the adventure began. I had her address, put in into my GPS app, and off I went.

In circles.

My route took me to the intersection of Thunder Hill and 175, off to the right into Blandair Park, past a construction site for a beautiful new destination playground and...around Sohap back onto Thunder Hill Road.

Huh?

And then around again, 175, Blandair, very cool playground - - when will that be open, I wonder? - - Sohap, and Thunder Hill Road. It was a lovely day. I had nowhere to be. And yet, this route did not seem ideal. I pulled over and re-read the message I had. Oh, her house was off of Farewell in Stevens Forest?

Heck, I know where that is. My GPS doesn’t, though.

I dropped off the coloring books. A friendly-faced woman tapped on the glass and signed “thank you”. It was, as the young folks say. “All good.”

Blandair Park has been developing in sections for so long over in my part of town. My husband talked about it when I moved here in 1999, of what was to come. Alas, when the first playground section was opened our daughter was almost too old to play there, but it’s still a great place for walks for all of us, especially during the isolation of the pandemic.

It means a lot to focus this much investment in amenities for families on the East Side of town. And I hope it will also bring folks from other parts of the county to see how we really live over here. It’s rather hard to keep this in mind during such a hard time.

But my little round-about in the park reminded me.

Comments

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents. When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word. Days passed. They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts. Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public. So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that. But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...

Separate and Unequal

Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not. It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...

Village Green/Town²

Search This Blog