[edits and an addendum added 9/2/19]
I am doing my daily morning reading compiled or presented by various sources as I am mulling over the state of the world, America, and me. I have been sorting out and synthesizing thoughts percolating for a few weeks in the multi-track recorder of my mind that will need to be remixed due to events and commentaries of the past week that include the 40th anniversary of Solzhenitsyn’s commencement address at Harvard and the death-by-suicide of Anthony Bourdain.
I hear the familiar squeaks and rattles of a truck and trailer coming down the street and I know what is about to happen. It is 8:45am on this Sunday morning. Usually they come much earlier.
About two minutes later, right on cue, the big standing lawn mower roars to life as do a couple of gas-powered trimmers, and a backpack blower as the rented house across the street gets it’s scheduled mowing. The racket destroys the (rare) relative tranquility of the neighborhood on this cloudy morning and will continue to do so for at least twenty minutes. Then the crew will load up their tools and be off to destroy the morning of another neighborhood somewhere else, just like they did at least once before coming here. Did I say they usually come earlier?
Are you old enough to remember when this would never be allowed or tolerated, when Sunday’s (and holidays) had a purpose and were not treated as just another day to make a dollar?
So I end my reading and begin writing with a clear sense of purpose that is this post.
Addendum: It is Monday, Sept 2, 2019…Labor Day…a holiday for most, but not for all, myself included as I will be going to work later this afternoon. My morning has been interrupted by the sounds of a landscape service working down the street…in the rain. The mind boggles at the combined lack of respect and idiocy…yes, let’s go with those mild concepts instead of the other adjectives and utterances I could have written if only this site didn’t have rules.
