Socially Distanced Lock Down Drills:

Boston, We Have a Problem

Showing their colors at the Dogwood Bread Company, Wadhams, NY

I made a pilgrimage to a big box store in Plattsburgh, New York last week. Seeking succor from the heat and needed provisions for a 1930s farm house. I secretly cursed myself for crossing the “blue line” and not shopping local.

Retracing my route from an earlier voyage on Patriots day in 2013, I reflected on the differences wrought by Seven years of Continuity and Change. It was there in the outskirts of Greater New England when I first caught wind of the Marathon Bombing. I had no idea of the repercussions.

As I paid, the cashier asked me if I was a veteran.

“No,” I answered, “but I feel like it sometimes.”

I am a veteran of teaching history in the Massachusetts public schools. The tally:

Two presidential impeachments, two more threatened.

Two elections where the electoral college “trumped” the popular vote.

Uncountable racial protests, (Can we agree that we can focus for a while on Black Lives, or Indigenous Lives, or Women’s Lives, or children’s lives, while not denying the dignity of sacredness of ALL LIVES?)

More school shootings than my brain can comprehend.

Grizzled veterans were in classrooms on 9/11 and the Monday after the Boston Marathon…