Troops

I decided to restart a book last night that I hadn’t picked up in a while. It is called Downtown Owl, and it’s a great read by the fantastic Chuck Klosterman. It takes place in a small, fictional North Dakota town in the early 80s, and some of the characters remind me of life in Central Pennsylvania where I grew up. I’ve been thinking about my hometown a lot these days, partially because I haven’t been back in quite some time and also because I recently connected with several classmates from High School…people that I haven’t seen or heard from in thirty years.

I romanticize my hometown. That wasn’t always the case, but it is super nostalgic for me now. Of course, that means it probably wasn’t as great as I remember, but who cares? As Klosterman mused in a separate essay, “When you remove yourself from the exciting scrum of American culture, you realize it’s not very exciting, and there is no scrum.” O.K….whatever, Chucky.

I remember our traditional, small-town Main Street…complete with the gas station speed trap where I always got pulled over. It is lined with little shops and storefronts just a short walk away from the high school with football facilities rivaling a small college. It’s got a surprisingly cool, historic restaurant/tavern in a twenties-era hotel with a speakeasy vibe and a perfect view of 19th century train tracks and the adjacent factories. It’s the perfect amalgamation of brick, steel, concrete, blue collars, and our small-town industrial past…pure Americana. I haven’t been back to that restaurant in three decades, but I still remember it as the site of rare, fancy dinners out with my parents. I remember soft serve ice cream afterwards from the shop located nearby in the middle of a fork in the road. And I also remember the pizza place in our perfect town square…the one that also baked the most incredible bread. I still have dreams about that bread. I have many fond memories of my hometown…and of carbs, apparently. It was a nice place to grow up. People were friendly there. People worked hard there. But like everything these days, I can’t help but now see it through a political lens.

Four years ago this month, Donald Trump held a rally in my hometown. It was his largest in Central PA, drawing over 6,000 people. It involved the typical carnival barking about building a wall, Mexico paying for it, locking her up, repealing and replacing Obamacare, his genius and great temperament, etc. Of course it was all bullshit, but I understood how some could justify taking a risk on him. We know much more now despite the consistent attempts of an army of media and Republican sycophants trying to distract from an epically disastrous record. So, despite the fact that we have an economy in shambles with record GDP decline, historically high unemployment, the highest national debt ever, escalating racial tensions, protests everywhere, and the worst response to the pandemic in the world, our polarized public remains the target of an organized troop of apologists and enablers who behave like agitated primates throwing around their feces to distract us.

That’s really a thing by the way. Chimpanzees regularly throw things in the wild when agitated to try and distract. But in captivity, without access to their arsenal of rocks, branches, and other jungle projectiles, they hurl their feces instead. And because of the strong reaction from those who are targeted, they learn that it works; it reinforces the behavior; and they do more of it. By the way, I read somewhere that a group of primates is referred to as a “congress”…like a congress of baboons, etc. While that is certainly evidence of the sheer brilliance of language, it turns out to be untrue…groups of primates are more commonly referred to as “troops”. Also fitting I guess, given the combative nature of our politics. But I digress…

These agitated primates in the Trump Administration focus on distractions because they think people in my hometown and other small towns will continue to vote in a manner that reinforces their behavior. And some certainly will. But this is a historically poor record by our government, and most of the people I grew up with seem to be far better humans and live far more admirable and honorable lives than those that pretend to govern us. I’d like to believe that other small towns are also better than this.

So, to any fellow Pennsylvanians who happen to read this, I leave you with a few parting thoughts…

I think Trump could have and should have done a better job for you, and I wish he had. You deserve better than this. We all do. And regardless of whether you continue to be distracted by these chimps in captivity, I genuinely hope life is good for you and hope it gets even better. I hope your kids grow up safe and happy like we did. I hope the coming years are filled with rich family life and opportunity. I hope politics doesn’t continue to invade your everyday existence. I wish you many more carefree high school football games. And I will think of all of you tonight as I read Chuck Klosterman again. I will think of all of you tonight as I fill out my ballot. I will think of all of you tonight as I vote for something better.

And then I’ll be thinking of that fucking amazing bread.