Just Some Thoughts

By G. E. Shuman

          Up here in the Green Mountain State, every other state in the Union, and across the world, 2020 has been one for the books. In fact, it’s been the ONLY one like itself IN the books. The ‘perfect storm’ of a worldwide pandemic, terrible racial unrest in our country, and a very contentious upcoming presidential election has knocked this entire year into a hurricane category of its own.

          Do you remember the movie “Back to the Future”? Of course, you do. I recently heard of an editorial cartoon showing Doc Brown as he emphatically admonished: “Marty, whatever you do, DON’T stop in 2020!”  I thought that was brilliant, and quite good advice.

          To get breaks from what I have come to call ‘Covid Cabin Fever,’ my wife and I, several times a week, get out of the house and just travel the back roads of our beautiful state. We have done this in previous years, but have recently had more incentive to since, this year, there has been little else to occupy our time. I know things are opening up a bit now, thankfully, but for several months we really couldn’t even stop for lunch during these trips. How many take out burgers can you eat in your car without feeling cabin-feverish in there too? (Gaining ten pounds in two months has been a cinch for me.)

          Something I have come to notice during our travels is that nature doesn’t seem all that affected by this corona mess, the presidential race, or even racial tension. The beautiful rivers here still flow as well as last year. The deer and cattle grazing in the fields are still doing just that. Squirrels scamper up the big trees as our car approaches, and countless wild turkeys still hang around the tilled and planted farmland all across the state.

          In general, what I have noticed in all these things is that nature, the natural world, doesn’t seem to need us a lot. We do need it, as do all living things, but it doesn’t really need us. I believe there is a place for us, (and the wild turkeys) here, and that we are free to use the resources of our large, global home. I don’t believe for a moment that we are free to Abuse them, or each other.     

          In so many ways, this strange, almost surreal year of 2020 has taught me some lessons. I have had much more time than usual to think about my family, our state, our country, and our world. Pausing from the usual can be a time to refresh, rethink, and regroup. At least that is what it has meant to me.

          The recent racial tension, stemming from the terrible murder of George Floyd, has added to that rethinking, also, at least for me. I agree with active but peaceful protests of injustice. I have never agreed with violence to prove a point, but I do understand the anger. I have a wonderful, 26-year-old black son and a beautiful 23-year-old black daughter. If either of them had been murdered by someone with his knee on their neck, (regardless of that person’s race,) it might be me destroying the place.  There’s so very much to think about.

          You probably have your own theories as to why, if you think there IS a why, this year has taken place as it has. As a Christian, my thought is that just perhaps God decided that 2020 would be the year to give some of us something closer to 20-20 ‘vision’ about some of these things.

          As always, I invite you to take what you will from my humble column here in this great local paper. This year has been terrible in many ways, but also a jolt that has opened many eyes, including mine. Appreciate the things you have, the beautiful world we live in, and ALL the people around you. You may need them more than they need you, as do I.

         

America, It’s Time to Wake Up!

By G. E. Shuman

          What we Americans and the world have witnessed in our country over the past few weeks is totally appalling, heart-wrenching, and unbelievably wrong. We have seen, in over a dozen US cities, private property being destroyed, people being hurt and even killed, and lootings of things that belong to others. Police departments have been burned and so have apartment buildings occupied by who knows who and of who knows what race. Truthfully, I think all this violence is terrible.

          But… wait a minute. What I wrote above is not the wrong I’m referring to, at least not yet. From what perspective am I, as an old white American guy, viewing all of this? From what perspective are you?  Am I seeing it through the eyes of a race that has been put down in our country for at least the past two centuries? Am I walking in the shoes of people who are at least as smart as I am, but find it difficult to find work and equality in the country that I have always proclaimed as the land of the free and the home of the brave?

          Mr. George Floyd died a few weeks ago. He died an untimely, terrible death because he was, simply, brutally, torturously murdered by a white police officer, while three other officers looked on and did nothing! Others were in the background telling this ‘officer’ to stop. Someone, somehow, was taking a ten-minute video of it all on their phone! How supremely disgusting! How appalling!

          I know little of Mr. Floyd, other than that his skin color was dark, and that he worked at the same nightclub as did his murderer. Why Mr. Floyd was killed might have been because of his color, or because of money, or some hidden crime, or a woman the men were fighting over, or because of something else. This murderer’s accusers assume it was because of Mr. Floyd’s race, but I have no idea if that is true.

          Of the three other officers who stood by and watched a man on the ground, with another man’s knee on his neck while he begged for breath, for ten minutes, two of the names seemed to be of Asian and Hispanic heritage, at least to me.

          Here’s the rub, to my mind, because of my personal family situation. I am the very proud, white father of two fantastic African American children. I’m also the father in law of a wonderful law-abiding and law-enforcing African American man. I’m the grandfather of six mixed-race children, the great-grandfather of two beautiful mixed-race toddler girls, and the proud grandfather of two gorgeous granddaughters of Chinese descent. I have also had two nieces and two nephews of Asian heritage. 

          I’ve heard all about the terrible uprising in our land because of Mr. Floyd’s murder. Some people say, yes, it’s bad, but it’s just one man. Others tout the idea that we need to stop senseless burnings of private property and stop the violence. In some ways I agree with that last statement, but not because I’m an old white guy.

          George Floyd’s brother said recently that it is time for the violence to stop, that his brother would have agreed with peaceful protest, but not with the destruction of private property. To me, that is a noble statement above and beyond the call of duty from this man’s brother. I DO understand why people of Mr. Floyd’s race are doing what they are doing right now. I wonder how I would feel and what I would do if George had been my bother. With my racially varied family he could easily have been my son. My son can NEVER die because of the color of his skin. How disgusting a thought! If he did, it could be me who would begin burning cities. Still, somehow, for the sake of the future, for the sake of all our kids and grandkids, the violence must stop.

          I want to end this column with just one quote of many available on this subject from one of my true heroes, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him. Always avoid violence. If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos. (1956)”

        I have no control over my own age or race. I’m not in charge of either one. I am an old white guy. That’s all there is to it. But as such, I still have no reason to follow the actions of many old white guys of the past, and I choose not to. I have an obligation to my children and our family’s future generations to be better than that. For the sake of all our children, grandchildren, and our country itself, for Pete’s sake, America, WAKE UP!