My 'hood and my horror

Sam Smith - Lately I have become increasingly conscious of the fact that the folks I live near are dramatically different than many of those that I write about. The former are a constant reminder of what it means to be human and the latter the result of rewriting this role, mainly in the name of power, publicity and pride. 

The other day I realized how my experiences as a youth summering in Maine had affected my adult perspective. Farming and sailing, for example, were two activities where you couldn't talk your way out of a problem; you had to know how to deal with it. The only bullshit that was useful was that you found in a field or a barn. 

Having five siblings helped as well. I learned very early that those close to you were not likely to be the same as you and yet you had to live, learn and act along side them. 

It was a good lesson for a white guy in Washington DC where at one point about 70% of the city was black. I worked on civil rights issues and never was mistreated because of my ethnicity. 

Covering national stories and the powerful is, on the other hand, telling about people who are frequently false in their descriptions, defenses, analyses, and other opinions. And like Trump, they spend an inordinate amount of time wronglyfully promoting their false wisdom or skills. 

When I think of those who taught me to be who I am, they were very low on the power  list. Instead I recall my parent's farm manager, Jimmy Mann, teaching me at the age of 14 to drive a six wheel truck including double clutching. Or my parents' black cook rightly claiming that she raised me. Or our English nannie who introduced me to journalism by listening each night to Edward R. Murrow. Or the wonderful teachers at my Quaker high school. 

I was blessed by the decent rather than the presumptuous and by the rational rather than the self righteous. It helps to study our own past and our own community to assess those who are running our country these days. Did you have an instructor who was as outrageously dishonest as Donald Trump? Who were the people down the street you learned to follow because of their true wisdom, decency and perception?