By David Fortier

Come Sunday morning, our little TBE group will have met, some in person and others over the phone, to discuss the week that passed and plan for the coming week. It is very encouraging to see that we have over 700 email subscribers on our website, and many more on Facebook.  

(For our purposes, website followers are the ones we hope to attract so that we can send regular communication, especially since we are looking to establish ourselves as the source for community news here in Bristol. So please consider becoming an email subscriber. And yes, we will figure out the email thing so you aren’t getting notifications every time we post. Thanks.) 

We had a long conversation about our role in general (promoting democracy), how we are perceived (political affiliations), how to handle news out of city hall (we are working full time, so we really do need to figure this out because this is a municipal election year), and of course, how to deal with the latest news revolving around the Charter Revision Commission and term limits (it’s no secret that the Republican Town Committee chair is pushing to make political hay out of the issue). 

So, these conversations are a lot because we have great aspirations for TBE and, at the same time, limited resources, and we know the challenges are significant because we are both educating ourselves about the role of community journalism as well as our readers not only about the news but also about how we go about covering the news.  

Bristol is a large town or a small city—many of us are active in different areas—from politics and coaching, to having people close to us involved in politics (Mary, my wife, is a member of the City Council) and we know a lot of people. We grew up here. We pay taxes here. We live here. We have a history here. That works to our advantage, many times, and sometimes, it doesn’t because people wonder where our loyalties lie.  

For the record, we are pro-democracy—we have a bias for a workable democracy, for civil discourse, for keeping government accountable, for educating our public about citizenship. That said, our role is more than Democratic or Republican, more than liberal or conservative. 

If we succeed, Bristol will be better for it, and of course, we will need your help—more next week. 

In the meantime, this week I spent time with the grandchildren, a first since the pandemic struck and after having been fully vaccinated. Both are just over a year and a couple of months, both at the stage where they are toddering, rather than toddlers, and absorbing everything—words, gestures, books—and navigating coffee tables, kitchen tables, new foods, stairs, windows and more words.  

I have been introduced to stuffed animals, including several Teddys; trucks, blocks, balls, socks, puppets, books and more books, eyes, ears, noses, hand, toes, cheeks, chin, arms, legs, in both English and Spanish—mano, cabeza, nariz, ojos, orejas, boca. 

Feeding time is a trip—little bits of food for little fingers spread out on the highchair, food which ends up on cheeks and in hair; and a wide variety of items, from broccoli to Brussel sprouts to pasta to couscous to spinach to hummus to bananas to raspberries to grapes (cut into pieces, of course) to chicken to cereal and on and on. Gotta love the head shaking, indicating enough is enough.  

And somewhere during the week I read two terrific novels—A Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich and The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. Both cover some tough material, characters facing mental and sexual abuse and racism. Both offer scenes of heart-rending tenderness and hope. Fiction is a good place to face these issues, a “safe” way to confront the issues vicariously, as if we were there so to speak, so that they may be dealt with more realistically in real life—because we have been there, figuratively speaking. It’s a beginning. I highly recommend both, which are available at the public library. 

Until next Sunday! 

“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.