By David Fortier
Come Sunday morning the snow will have stopped, even earlier on Saturday, and while there is new precipitation just over the horizon on Monday, there is no telling at the moment if it will be rain or snow, and that just about wraps up how things have been going for the past year. Whether politics or the weather, it’s always something new, and rarely predictable.
For instance, who guessed that Rockwell Park would be open to skaters for three hours on Saturday afternoon. (Actually, skating is available until the ice melts.) Even walking up to lagoon, what remains of it, the path was muddy with melting snow. How long would the ice remain skateable? Long enough for a bunch of people, families and kids, and even people who used to skate at Rockwell—and who remembered that the bath house there was called Mrs. Rockwell’s bath house and who reminisced about walking over from Putnam St. on their own.
I am not naming names, but it was fun reminiscing. And there was lots to reminisce about—how the lagoon covered the area that is now filled in with a soccer field and the pond just beyond it; how the lagoon was filled in with fresh spring water; how the skating was a regular thing. And all that reminiscing before we strolled over to the main building for hot cocoa—and, yes, there was hand sanitizer and social distancing, as well as a flow of traffic, in the front door and out the back.
Of course, there is no way to name Rockwell Park without mentioning Page Park and the family feud that resulted in the families donating the properties to our city.
And of course, by Sunday morning I will have spent another week in quarantine, teaching from home, and it wasn’t so bad. Then there were more tests confirming that we are COVID free, and then there was another phone call that another family member had contracted COVID. The stories about trying to arrange for a vaccine have started to accumulate, pile up, and how it takes many efforts to get on a list, which is frustrating, to say the least, but necessary to persist. Neither Mary nor I have qualified, but we are waiting for the go ahead.
And early on Sunday, TBE will have published Rit Carter’s story about his effort to track the route of an escaped slave, who ended up spending many of his last years here in Bristol. The story is a testament to Carter’s perseverance, and the story has a couple of interesting twists and turns, the most unexpected is that he connected with a historical society in New Jersey which has been trying to find where slaves from the area ended up. Kudos to Carter!
Also, at TBE, Mike Letendre keeps pumping out sports stories. His contributions have to be the best antidote to those suffering from a dearth of sports stories about our local teams and personalities.
We will have continued talking about how to direct our limited resources. If you have any ideas, please send them along to editor@bristoledition.org.
I suppose there will have been a bunch of things to include here, but one that I have been musing about happened by accident. I stumbled across an essay, “A Talk to Teachers,” by James Baldwin. There are luminaries in our present and past who can inform us about our national character—and by virtue of our being of Americans, our local character here in Bristol.
In his essay, Baldwin addresses the role of teachers this way: “The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it – at no matter what risk. This is the only hope society has. This is the only way societies change.”
I hope it’s something to consider, to muse over this next week, to sit with. I will have already started my musings and mulling.
Until next Sunday, be safe and well!
“Come Sunday morning” is intended to be a weekly review, a recounting of the past week and an anticipation of week to come. Among its features will be reviews of old and new books, sharing of favorite podcasts, some family news, Bristol events and happenings, and issues surrounding education, work and community journalism. He can be reached at dfortier@bristoledition.org.