Tag Archives: change

Driving Around Here

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When I was in high school I drove to school.  Not at first, of course.  My parents, in their ever-giving way as parents, drove me to school.  I couldn’t take the bus.  There wasn’t one.  So they drove me and eventually, at least some of the time, I drove myself.  It was a typical commute for someone in Connecticut, less than an hour.  Traffic was always a concern.

Today I drove to a school at which I work a few days each month.  I drove 28 miles each way.  It took about 40 minutes to get there this morning.  I encountered some traffic but nothing worth noting, at least for me.  I stopped at some traffic lights, went the speed limit on the Interstate, and generally kept moving the whole way.  No big deal.

I do encounter delays some days.  If there happens to be an accident in the right place at the right time, traffic can get snarled.  One morning I was an hour or so late getting to this same school and I had to go a long way around to get back.  My drive home took hours, but that was unusual.

The volume of traffic is way higher than when I first moved to this area.  Driving always seemed to be easy, even at the busiest times on the busiest roads.   My wife points this out regularly.  Having grown up here, she has seen the change.  Even since the days we first began to spend time together in her adult years, there are many more cars on the road.  Her typical questions:  “Where did all these people come from?  And where do they all live?”

The thing is, this is nothing.  I remember listening to traffic reports on my high school commute.  Would traffic on the bridge over the Connecticut River on Interstate 91 be slow?  Should we take the other route?  Should we leave a little earlier?  Could we expect to be on time?  Accidents, or at least breakdowns, were common.  There were a lot of people and a lot of cars, and we didn’t even travel through Hartford.  That was busy.

But the roads are getting busy around here.  When I drive north past Burlington during peak commuting time, cars line the highway southbound waiting to exit toward Vermont’s largest city.  It gets crowded.  We have pretty crappy public transportation, partly because of the still somewhat rural nature of the surrounding communities.  The backed up roads seem a good reason to invest in public transportation.  Rail lines already exist in many areas in northwest Vermont, but there is only one commuter train to speak of.

I don’t mind the driving, knowing that it could be a lot worse.  It did used to be much smoother to get around in a car, but I won’t complain.  If it gets so bad that I feel I need to complain, then I need to make sure I am taking action to make a difference.  I don’t know that I can swing commuting on a bicycle 28 miles and still help the kids get to school in the morning, but if I get it together I could travel to other places by bike.  I am working at home tomorrow, so that helps a little.

Really I would rather take the train, or even the bus, but until that happens I will add to the general melee.  I will be one of those about whom people who grew up here wonder.  “Where do all these people come from?” they might ask.  “And why is that guy smiling in all this traffic?”

Staying Up Late to Watch History

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I had a busy day today and I knew I would have to get up early, but I love election night.  I always feel excited about watching what is happing across the nation.  OK, I understand I am not really watching what is happening right then, just the prediction of the summary of what happened throughout the day, but still, it is exciting and I like to watch it unfold.

Any election is somewhat historic.  It marks a transition of power that unlike so many in the world, is peaceful and (for the most part) fair.  Aside from attempts to keep people from registering to vote, most adults can register and then vote.  That in itself is pretty amazing.  This election was certainly the most historic in my lifetime.  Barack Obama came from a modest background to be elected president of the most wealthy and powerful nation in earth.  Not bad.

I watched Fox News throughout the night because that is the only channel we get that does not have a double image or simply fuzz.  We do not have cable or a satellite dish (why pay at least $30 per month to get a few channels we want and 40 we don’t?) so we make do with what we can receive.  We get our news from The New Yorker, Mother Jones, The New York Times and lots of online sources.  Television news usually doesn’t make the cut in terms of quality or quantity.

But last night I wanted to watch, to see things unfold with sound and pictures.  I was glad I did.  I was skeptical of the Fox News coverage, which seemed to be focused on being the first to report who won each state.  At every milestone they would call a winner for several states.  At 10:00 they were calling the winner in states where polls had just closed.  Literally no results were officially in and they were predicting a winner for the presidential race.  It was hard to believe.  Remember Florida?

At 11:00, right when polls closed on the west coast, and with two states’ polling places still open, they announced Barack Obama the winner.  I was at first, again, skeptical but soon understood that I no longer had to wonder if this man would pull it off.  He did.  And come January, we will have our first president to break through the color barrier.   That is one for the history books.  I had considered going to bed once I heard a result, but I realized I needed to be a witness, in the moment, to history.

That is plenty to celebrate, but Obama’s speech made me cry.  He was humble and honest and inspiring, not because he turned out the usual political jargon, but because he understood that this moment is only partly about him.  It is about this nation and what we have the potential to become.  It is about moving forward in a new and positive way.  He showed in that speech that he understands that we need to make sacrifices and that we all need to roll up our sleeves and get to work.  We can’t sit back and wait for him to do it.  We need to be the change agents ourselves.  I was moved that he said that this is really just the opportunity, the chance to change things.  His election is not change.  We need to make that happen.

He inherits some damaged goods.  I can’t imagine doing the amount of work he will need to do to begin the process of healing the wounds of divisiveness we have faced internally and to create a new image of the United States in the world.  i was dumbfounded when George W. Bush was elected the first time.  i couldn’t even believe he had become the nominee.  I was doubly baffled when he was elected to a second term.  We got what we chose, and I hope enough of us can see that now.  We have work to do and I believe our new president can see much of what needs to be done.  Whether we can really get it done, well, that is up to you and me.