Watch where we step

To the Editor;

The recent back and forth about the county commissioners throwing stones at Gov. Mills, because of restrictions for COVID are causing area businesses to suffer, has made me think. I have stories, I realize that I am getting older and  more and more of my experiences fill my head. I think of how much better we can get along, and what odd times we are in. I shake my head and think.

It brings to mind a story of several years ago. I was taking a friend to Paris, one of my objectives was to lay flowers at the grave of Edith Piaff. It is the sort of thing my kind likes to do apparently. Piaff was a revered French singer, who had tragedy all through her life. She was born into poverty, an orphan really, and survived the cruelties of poverty in a time when there was only your wits and circumstances to keep you alive. At that time she lived  in the city, where kindness was short in supply. She had great talent, and she grew to be one of Frances’s best and beloved singers. She was a heroine to the soldiers of World War II. I have heard her singing while a fishbowl with a fish swishes back and forth on top of a moving  car. You may know the one. The one sung in French!

In Paris, the day had come when we exited the subway and walked to Pere LaChaise Cemetery, the largest and most celebrated in Paris with old monuments — famous people like Jim Morrison of The Doors are buried there. I bought a bouquet of flowers from a shop on the street not too far from the entrance to the cemetery. We proceeded to walk to Piaff’s grave, but nature called, and I said to my friend, I must disappear behind a tomb and I would be right back. I did my business as fast as I could because I did not want to keep my friend waiting. We walked a little bit more, and we arrived at Piaff’s grave. My friend got his camera out to document the grand event, walked back a bit and held the camera up. I leaned over the grave, and turned slightly, smiling for the camera. He barked that I needed to get further down, to make the picture better, and then he said again. I still needed to get down further, in an unnatural, distorted position and as I laid the flowers on top of the dear Piaff’s grave.

Then I took a deep breath and was horrified by a pungent odor dog feces  in my nostrils. I took a step back and took my foot off the part of the granite of the grave I had rested my foot upon. Looked and realized that I had smeared dog feces on the grave of Piaff. How could I have done this so carelessly? I was preoccupied and had stepped into dog feces behind the tomb when I did  my business. Then I was in a hurry to her grave,  all  in the name of making a statement I felt was important. I did not really know all the “gifts” I was actually bringing to her grave in hindsight.     I ended up defiling the grave of the Little Sparrow of France. I wondered if Piaff would ever forgive me.   

So it is with those grand intentions and roads paved with gold we think we are doing good. We fail to realize the unintended consequences, especially if we act out of our own self interests, outside of the greater good just to make a good point or two. COVID,  in this case, is keeping people safe and opening our lives at the same time.  Back and forth, who is right and is wrong? Those who defend health and safety over a living wage and those who defend a living wage over health and safety. One blowing the danger out of proportion and the other dismissing the COVID all together. The fact is both sides know we do need to open up our businesses and our lives,  to earn money, put food on the table and prosper. For many of us, we work hard for what we have, we do not want to rely on outside assistance and bankrupt our country. We do not want to lose. That is our strength. We are Americans, I agree.       

We live in the greatest human experiment the world has ever seen, based on the insights of great philosophers of the age of reason. I wonder how well we have been taught as to what are the founding principles of this great nation and what risks those principles present. Yes, risks, you heard me, risks. Your individual freedoms are in constant conflict with others and their individual freedoms. For instance wearing masks, I think of  it as  the whole smoking debate all over again. Yes, smoking debate. The question of freedom is much more complicated than we realize. There are at least two sides, at least two sides to every argument, every right. Do not even pretend our coexistence  is simple, if you do, you never have really stopped and thought about it. Our founding fathers did think about these questions, formed a more perfect union within the constructs of cultural norms of their time. We should always try to make this union more perfect, it is ongoing, and hopefully it will always be.   

Let’s look at wearing a mask. As for me,  I tell you, just wear a mask out of love and compassion. If you refuse to wear a mask, this makes you a terrible and hateful person? Thinking that does not get  us anywhere. What will help  us through this pandemic is working together. How do we do that? I would say have respect for science and the rule of law. Wearing a mask is not giving anything up, but to control the  pandemic spread. Stop  the pandemic, open up our lives again. This is not for anybody’s political end. To think otherwise is crazy. We and the government are in what is known as the “social contract.” You do not know what the contract is? You should. We all should.

To those you would care to listen, let’s figure out the glue that keeps us all together, holds the contract together, that is where the real fight is. If you want to put your energies somewhere, put it there. Those making the decisions, and yes, you, the citizens who follow the contract, are all part of the plan. It has always been like that, maybe no one ever told you. The plan was and is, how do we work together and stay together. Some would look to the United States Constitution as our guide, not to mention what is written on the American dollar bill “E Pluribus Unum.”   From Many One, right?   

So I am not going to change anyone’s mind here. It is not my place to do so. But, I can ask those who do throw stones, make policies or post or “like” ridiculous theories with no proof on social media, that we can at least remember a few things. We use respect to settle our differences, and the Golden Rule whenever possible. Sprinkle in some truth and virtue with that tall order while we are at it. We are Americans and we do not all travel at the same speed, I understand that.

So I can offer a bit of advice, to those in a position of authority, to those indignant individuals feeling the heat that  his or her freedom is slipping away. Fear not my friends, and let’s try to get away from “catch and kill” thinking shall we. You do not need to go after anybody. But most importantly as we go forward,  and  as  we go  to  lay our flowers upon what is sacred, and no matter how incumbent it is upon us, that is to say, for us to act  with certainty and conviction, understanding who we are,  that we may ……  before we so confidently lay those flowers down for others to see, do this: keep our backs up, our positions straight, and most importantly, make sure we look at the bottom of our shoes, and then and only then, watch where we are stepping.   

Christopher Clukey 

Dover-Foxcroft