I keep thinking of my drive last Friday along the back roads of Lancaster County. Young men in suspenders drove horse-drawn plows; cresting one hill I saw a team of seven. Women in long dresses hoed in their gardens (two young ones with bare feet). By a stream, a thick-bearded man walked hand-in-hand with his daughter on one side and his son on the other. A tent appeared, and I asked the young man mending the fence if they were getting ready for a picnic. “Fishing derby,” he told me, and I wished him good luck. Then I passed a boy driving a cart pulled by a pony. Everything was suffused in the golden light of early evening, and I thought how far away the rest of the world seemed: the war in Ukraine, the stock market crisis. It didn’t occur to me then to include mass shootings.
It’s inexplicable, considering recent history, that this country allows for the easy purchase of firearms. But we also have to wonder what it is about this country that produces so many people who wish to use them indiscriminately.
Walking into the gym the other day I saw one of the boaters, who tend to avoid the place, on the treadmill.
"New Year's resolution?" I asked him.
"No," he said. "I usually get my exercise outside. But my phone told me my activity level was low recently."
I almost said to him: Time to get a new phone.
This weekend’s reviews of the life of Bob Dole reminded us of a time when politicians could disagree on the issues but still get along and treat each other with respect. Much of that, I suspect, was due to the fact that, like Dole, many of them served in the armed forces during World War II, when one was thrown into contact with Americans from different backgrounds and cultures. For the most part, today’s Congresspeople have not had the same exposure to people unlike themselves, including those who served in the military. More and more, we live and interact with our own tribes, an unfortunate situation that is only made worse by the new identity culture.