Small town America

I had my only day off yesterday that I’ll have for the next 10 days at my still to be unnamed catalog retailer where I’m working for Christmas. In the morning, I interviewed a former semi-pro and town team player from my former hometown, for my book, When Towns Had Teams.

I spent the morning with Stan Doughty, who played local baseball for 23 years. Doughty had been a tremendous player, who I got to see play when he was nearing the end of his playing career. Even at the age of 38, he was still a formidable hitter. Doughty was a high school teacher of mine at Lisbon High School, as well as being my athletic director for four years. Prior to my entering high school, he had coached the baseball team at Lisbon for 20 years. I remember advice he gave me when I was a 15 year old pitcher, playing for him during my first summer of American Legion baseball. I was a tall, lanky pitcher, but got the idea I could be cute with hitters and drop down on the side to righties. He told me that with my 6’4” height, I should come straight over the top. He obviously knew what he was talking about as I went on to win 20 games in my high school career with only one loss.

Each interview I’ve done has revealed new information about town team baseball. I’ve now spoken with over 20 various players from a by-gone era for my book. I feel very privileged that they’ve felt comfortable enough with me to open up and talk about an important, but often neglected part of their lives. I’m looking forward to being able to get this book out to people, as I think readers are going to be surprised and intrigued by the baseball that once existed in Maine’s various communities.

In the afternoon, my wife and I drove to the quaint little town of Damariscotta. This town, located on the Damariscotta River, which flows into the Atlantic, is bordered by the Great Salt Bay, a thriving wetland habitat that is unique to Maine. With its vibrant Main Street, including one of Maine’s best libraries and even a movie theater, the town is a great place to spend an afternoon enjoying a true small town. What’s nice about downtown is the number of locally-owned stores that this town possesses. One of the reasons for the vitality of some of the Midcoast downtowns like Bath, Damariscotta and Belfast is the lack of Wal-Mart stores in this area of the state. All three of these towns also have an old-fashioned department store that is owned by a Maine family. The Reny’s stores are fixtures in many of the more vibrant local downtown shopping areas. I am reminded of my youth when I go into one of the Reny’s stores, as department stores were part of the memories I have of growing up in the 1960’s and early 1970’s in Maine. The last few years, my wife and I have decided to forsake the malls and chain stores and have done our Christmas shopping in Bath, with its many great shops and stores, which also includes a Reny’s Department Store.

Probably the best part of my day was visiting Maine Coast Book Shop. With its welcoming, friendly atmosphere, large assortment of books, including many Maine writers, as well as a great café, it is one of the main attractions in downtown Damariscotta. An independent bookstore that’s been part of the downtown for over 30 years, the staff are readers and writers themselves. As I was perusing the Maine author’s section of the store, the store's manager asked if I needed assistance. I told her I was looking at Maine books to get some ideas of the various publishers publishing books in the state. I told her I was in the process of writing my first book. She happened to have her own book on the shelves in front of me. The Cows Are Out! Two Decades on a Maine Dairy Farm by Trudy Chambers Price is a wonderful book about her 23 years on a Maine dairy farm. Capturing the never-ending work involved in farming, as well as the simple pleasures of life, it’s a great book for anyone wanting to know about Maine outside of yuppie enclaves like Portland or shopping ghettos like the Maine Mall or Freeport.

Price was very interested in my book and gave me some welcome advice regarding publishing. She told me she has been very happy with her publisher, Islandport Press. This is Price’s first book and it has sold out its first printing of 2,500 books in less than a year. It’s set to go to a second printing, which is excellent for a regional book.

Last night, I spent a couple of hours reading from my newly purchased book and found it so poignant and evocative. Dairy farming, like fishing, logging and other rural economic lifelines, is dying out in Maine. Reading Price’s book made me realize the special nature of life in rural America and how it’s all being swallowed up by our hyper-consumerism that is propelled by the corporate machine.

While places like Damariscotta still exist, I’m going to take advantage of visits to them in order to maintain my sanity in an increasingly insane world. Since I still haven’t perfected my time machine, I’ll settle for the next best thing—visiting people and places unspoiled by box stores, malls and rampant commercialization.

Blogging here; blogging there

One of the problems of having two blogs is duplication. While most of what I'm writing about on Words Matter is different than what I write about at my website, occasionally there will be some overlap. Today is an example of that.

Last night, while driving home from my shift on the phones at an unnamed catalog retailer, I caught NPR's Marketplace segment on a visionary program instituted by a CEO. While I'm often critical of the business community in their lack of concern for people over profits, this segment illustrated a concept that I've held onto, despite being told it doesn't hold true any longer--that you can still treat people fairly and with respect, while being profitable.

If y'all would be so kind and scoot over to my blog at my website, I'd be forever grateful. That will save me from double-blogging on this subject.

Witch-hunts in academia

Columbia University students pay dearly for the privilege of obtaining their Ivy League diplomas. I'm not sure what the price tag is, but I'm sure it's somewhere in the range of $40K per year. Apparently, freedom of speech is no longer part of the curriculum, however.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger vowed to take swift action against professors and lecturers who dared to speak out against Israel. Bollinger, caving in to pressure from the Zionist Anti-Defamation League, promised ADL national director Abraham Foxman that "the matter will be handled immediately".

The right-leaning New York Daily News published an article in Sunday's paper naming names and publishing photographs of the school's transgressors.

While university presidents have never been known for their ability to stare down alumni threats, particularly from wealthy benefactors, to threaten "swift action" means what? Will Bollinger demand resignations? Fire the tenured professors? This all smacks of academic McCarthyism.

Not all agree with Bollinger's plans to take action. Jewish Rabbi and Visiting Professor of Humanities at New York University, Arthur Hertzberg takes issue with the possibility of limiting academic freedom.

According to Hertzberg, "Certainly some blood does boil within the veins of concerned people, but I am very much afraid that those who would like to win arguments by charging that adversaries have limited their academic freedom may soon discover that those who would win by this sword can also lose in the same melee. "

If $40,000 doesn't buy you an education that instills critical thinking, then what's the purpose of education at all? When the supposed highest institutions in the land haven't the academic backbone to stand up to censors and demagogues, then why are we sending our best and brightest to these places at all?

Arrested for Nothing

In a news item that could only be considered weird, if it wasn’t for the reaction that it caused; three women, dressed up as marketers for “Nothing”, were arrested at their local shopping mall. Apparently in America, if you ‘ain’t shopping at Xmas time, you are asking for trouble.

The local rent-a-cops—seriously lacking in any measure of humor—got freaked out and called for state police backup. In the course of the exchange, the three women, all sisters, were handcuffed and taken to the state police barracks for processing.

One of the sisters, Anna White, had the following thoughts on the entire affair, which were posted at Atrios’ site, Eschaton.

“Our small action and the drastic response to it raises a variety of important questions and issues, such as: What is so very dangerous about a humorous promotion of purchasing NOTHING? In an era of declining public spaces and the rise of malls as the new "town centers" (and many actually naming themselves such), should not "freedom of speech" extend to these quasi-public commercial spaces? Why are taxpayer-funded state police protecting private commercial interests from citizens' free speech? How much longer can the devastating environmental and social impact of voracious American-style consumerism be ignored?”

White raises some pertinent questions that ought to be answered, but probably won’t. Americans want their freedom, as long as it doesn’t cost too much. And please, don’t you dare to encroach upon their right to consume a little more junk made in third world countries by exploited workers. That would be so gauche and anti-American. Good lord! That might even be communist!!

What this little episode illustrates loudly and clearly for me is this; you can get away with many things in America including murder, if you are the government. But if you are a member of the hoi polloi, don’t ever fuck with capitalism and commerce, or you’ll probably end up in the klink.

An accepting faith

Religion has always been a losing proposition for me. As I’ve written about before, the organized variety of faith I have encountered has often left me confused, hurt, angry, or some combination of these emotions. Without resetting the scene, let me just say that while I consider myself spiritual, I no longer consider myself religious.

My father and mother-in-law had the opposite experience when they joined a Unitarian-Universalist congregation in a nearby town. My late father-in-law, one of the most intellectually honest men I’ve ever met, found the UU community a comforting way station for the end of his life’s journey. For the last 20 years of his life, he and my mother-in-law found this church to be a place that allowed them to continue their quest for knowledge and truth in an affirming and non-judgmental environment. My mother-in-law still attends regularly and today, I went to the morning service as the congregation dedicated a new sound system in my father-in-law’s memory. Since he believed that all people had dignity and were worthy of a hearing, my father-in-law had encouraged the church to look at upgrading their sound system in 1998. After he passed away from cancer in 1999, a fund was set up to purchase a new system “so that all may hear”. With the recent purchase of the new sound system, with engraved plaques on each of the speakers, it is a fitting way to remember this man and what he stood for.

Being part of the service this morning with my extended family was rewarding. It made me reflect upon the wonderful people that my in laws are (and were)—committed to the worth and special qualities of all people—as well as recognizing that not all faith communities force you into a narrow box.

With the moral values of fundamentalist Trinitarians supposedly guiding voters during the election, I found the seven principles of Unitarian Universalism to be a welcome contrast to the absolutism of many religious leaders currently basking in the media spotlight. For those unfamiliar with Unitarian Universalism, here are the seven principles that all congregations affirm and promote:

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person
• Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
• Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
• The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
• The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
• Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Not a bad set of guiding principles, if I do say so myself.