Pandemic recovery will take time
`Underground Railroad’ an important book to read
The Front Page
Morning Update
Tuesday, August 17, 2021
By Ken Tingley
From my observations locally, the one thing that seems clear is that it will take us some time to recover from the pandemic.
My wife’s favorite event of the year is the LARAC craft show in City Park in Glens Falls. She loves to spend an entire afternoon browsing through the different tents, taking in their creativity, making a few purchases and giving her ideas for the home.
She went on both Saturday and Sunday.
I went with her on Sunday. My first reaction was that it was great to see so many people back in downtown Glens Falls, strolling the grounds. But there were not nearly as many as usual.
This was an abbreviated LARAC event. I would estimate there were a third of the usual number of tents. The Zonta event normally held in the parking lot across the street was not held at all this year. And the number of service organizations selling food and drink was fewer than usual.
This was all because of the pandemic, a wariness not to go too fast.
That is prudent and should be applauded.
I told my wife I liked the smaller event with fewer people.
On Saturday night, we saw the Adirondack Theater Festival’s second show of the season, a high-energy song and dance show that was thoroughly enjoyable. The Wood was not filled. You had to be vaccinated to attend.
Being prudent is good.
Over the past 10 years or so, I try to make a weekly trip to the race track during the summer. I love to crunch the numbers in The Daily Racing Form and wander around the grounds. Hitting an exacta or two is even better.
I was all set to go a couple weeks ago.
I started thinking about lining up at the window to place a bet, and I hesitated.
I didn’t go.
The Covid cases are rising again in our county. A couple of elderly people have died. Our vaccination rate is higher than many places in the country, yet we are not united in keeping each other safe.
Where is the leadership there?
You start to wonder if the way things used to be really will be the “good old days” that will not return.
Underground Railroad
A few months ago I saw an interview with author Colson Whitehead. He has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for his novels. I just finished “The Underground Railroad.”
This was the first fiction I have read in a long, long time. I’ve been ready non-fiction for as long as I can remember.
Whitehead takes you on a journey with a runaway slave pre-Civil War. It’s insights and perspective from the slave’s point of few are subtle, but ghastly nevertheless.
Near the end of the book, there is this one passage from a black man addressing their black community in Indiana. I think it speaks volumes about the definition of America:
“And America, too is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes - believes with all its heart - that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn’t exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft and cruelty. Yet here we are.”
Preorder book
There is still time to preorder The Last American Editor. It is a story about community told through 83 of my columns. You may need it to get through a long, cold winter.
