Small Town – America
Pataskala Town Hall
My wife hated to go to Kroger’s (our local supermarket) with me. I was a school teacher, coach, and administrator in the local high school for forty years. When I first began, I made a choice to live where I taught. It was a conscious decision: to be a part of the community more than just the 7:00 am to 3:00 pm “teaching shift.”
So trips to Kroger’s were often more than picking up bread and coffee beans. Somewhere in the store, there always lurked a parent, or an old student, or a fellow teacher. The five-minute “grab the eggs and get home” would become a forty-five minute parent conference; from how “my kid’s” grades were to why he got suspended. I considered it part of the job, and the fact that I hadn’t had enough coffee to think, or had just got off the mower, really didn’t matter.
It happened at Kroger’s, at the local restaurants, even in the restroom at the local bar. I was a teacher in a small town, and I expected that I was “on duty” whenever necessary. It wasn’t always positive, parents who were angry at school were still angry in the bread aisle. But it was part of the job, and a choice I made.
So I guess I don’t feel too bad that Stephen Miller got yelled at by the bartender at the Sushi place, or Scott Pruitt was lectured by a Mom at a restaurant, or Sarah Sanders was refused service at the Red Hen. They have chosen a public life, they make their living “at the public trough;” and they have acted in a manner that raises public ire. There is no way to openly discuss their actions with them, no “parent-teacher conference.” They are public employees who are seemingly without restriction in their thoughts and actions. It’s no wonder that “the public” feels it’s acceptable to approach them and speak their minds.
Many feel that they have gone beyond the bounds of decency. Perhaps they are even trying to provoke public reaction. When Homeland Security Secretary Neilsen and Stephen Miller chose Mexican restaurants in the middle of the “child separation” crisis: they were either being provocative or oblivious.
It is the new nature of our current political divide. While in the past there was always a common standard of behavior (and a common set of facts) today we are divided beyond the “old rules.” We see “the other side” as not just wrong, but inhumane and uncaring. And it’s not just the border crisis; from the President’s new selection to the Supreme Court, to the EPA’s withdrawal of regulations protecting the environment, to the Consumer Protection Bureau moving to protect banks, our nation seems like Orwell’s 1984, with the Ministry of Peace waging war and the Ministry of Truth telling lies.
We are a nation founded on the First Amendment. We, the public, have the right to speak our minds, particularly when it comes to political views. There are many who feel that some in our government have stepped beyond the norms and mores that have governed our collective actions: they seem unreachable and uncaring. So the public is approaching those leaders whenever it’s possible. If that’s in a restaurant or outside of a public hall, then welcome to our small town: America.
In better news – here is another proof of what people can do when they have a common goal and a powerful motivation. Twelve kids and a coach, trapped two miles in a cave, surrounded by water, left for seventeen days; were safely rescued today. It was said you couldn’t save kids that couldn’t swim by diving them out of the flood, and that they were too weak, or would panic and die. They didn’t, they are safe and in a hospital. And the hundreds of folks who risked their lives to achieve this miracle rescue did it without hesitation. One retired Thai “Navy Seal” came back to add his expertise, and gave his life that the thirteen might live. It was a powerful sacrifice. Hoo-rah!!!
