Happy 4th of July in this troubled summer of 2024. I live in a New Urbanism-inspired Phoenix area exurb so I can walk or bike to the charming faux main street for coffee, while being shielded from the antisemitism and general chaos in many American cities. Still, as a grant writing consultant, I must stay current with public policy news and, like many of us, am experiencing enervating uncertainty*.
My anecdote was to spend a few hours this morning gardening in my bird and bee friendly backyard: mowing the grass for my 110 pound Golden Retriever (AKA Lawn Hippo) to take his daily sunbath, fertilizing (or “foodilizing” as my immigrant used to call it in his broken English) my fruit trees and roses, staking my tomatoes and zennias, and such. As I took a break to enjoy a frosty glass of homemade blackberry lemonade, a pair of curious Anna’s Hummingbirds hovered about two feet above my head for a few minutes before going back to their important work among the lavender.
As I gardened on this 4th of July, I was reminded of July 4, 1977. My 1st ex-wife and me had just bought a small house with a nice backyard in Los Angeles (yes, two low-paid nonprofit workers could afford a house in LA back then). We were positioned somewhere between wannabe hippies and yuppies, vegetarians, and what today would be called progressive activists. So we learned to garden in our cutoff Levi shorts and rock concert t-shirts, growing giant zucchini and more, while smoking pot and listening to Frampton Comes Alive and ELO on the boombox (punk and new wave would come the next year). Yeah, we had two cats in the yard like CSNY’s “Our House,” along with two mutts (the term rescue had not been invented). For those too young to remember, 1977 was not all that different from 2024 with lots of political divisions, social unrest and inflation. I learned back then that gardening is a calming activity and recommend it, even if you only have a balcony, window box or grow light in your living room—it’s impossible to be filled with rage about the bad news of the day when fussing over your tomatoes.
During my 1977 reverie in the garden, Hal Ashby’s great 1979 film Being There came to mind. Regardless of one’s political views, it’s easy to compare both President Biden and President Trump with aspects of Peter Sellers wonderful characterization of Chauncey Gardner, the accidental would-be President. Perhaps America no longer needs a President, just someone like Chauncey to read aphorisms on a teleprompter taken from TV and other media.
This lead me to also think about John Knowles 1959 insightful novel, A Separate Peace. In 8th grade, my spinster English teacher, Miss Cruikshank (not making this name up), forced the class to read it. While I’ve never read it again, the book’s themes of friends growing apart before eventual reconciliation has stayed with me. As this crazy election unfolds, it would be good if we could find a way to make a separate peace with one another. Or, just spend some time in your garden.
* When my oldest son was a freshman at Clark University in Worcester, MA many years ago, he got a memo from a dean that used the phrase “enervating uncertainty.” This is such a wonderful yet meaningless turn of phrase that I sometimes use it in grant proposals. Feel free to steal it.