Codger’s Column: The Minefields (a rant)

Codger is feeling oppressed in the midst of a year that has included the loss of two close friends and a beloved dog. And that’s just the personal stuff. 

The nation’s government has booby-trapped the road ahead with chaos and uncertainty and the planet has contributed an unprecedented violence of fire and water. Codger finds it hard to avoid just wanting to shut down under a dome of despair.

But that would be giving up. Worse even than giving in … to preachiness.

Codger can do that.

The rant began to take shape in Sag Harbor’s citadel of art, The Church, while whining to its co-founder, Eric Fischl. He nodded and said, “I call it the minefield. It’s all in front of you and you have to step carefully.”

They were talking about the personal minefield, especially involving age and capabilities, but the political and planetary gave it more shape and context. And the rules were the same. Step carefully, deliberately, without becoming so obsessed with the danger ahead that you miss the chance to celebrate the joys that make staying alive worthwhile, that give you hope and the strength to keep moving through the minefields.

Whoa. Was the rant beginning to sound like an old Hallmark movie? Stay alert. We are talking about a government administration devoted to intimidation and revenge, dominated by incompetence and corruption. Kidnapping workers off the street. Building detention centers for them. 

And yet, we need to keep looking for common ground. It exists, Crone maintains, particularly in the cultural events that offer distraction from despair. Even Trumpies despair, especially lately as their cult unravels. They see they have minefields, too. 

In places like The Church, Codger can remember a life with prospect and briefly tune out that an enemy of the people, Congressman Nick LaLota, is legally empowered to make decisions on our health, money, and most lately, those concentration camps. He is the replacement for the man put in current charge of damaging the environment, Lee Zeldin.  

Codger counsels himself, stay cool, our time will come to rally and resist and drive out the LaLotas and Zeldins. Codger remembers the late great Congressman John Lewis who said: “Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

For now that means demonstrate, write, call, vote, donate to local public radio and television stations, make noise and good trouble. 

Support Shelter Island’s own happy distractions, the Perlman Music Program, Sylvester Manor, the History Museum, Friends of Music concerts (disclosure: Crone is president) among the places to glimpse a calmer, safer life. 

But keep in mind that the Island has its own minefield dangers that include the campaigns to accomplish affordable housing and wastewater treatment systems as well as what often seems like an almost mindless determination to nurture squabbling and dysfunction. Some might think it’s less mindless than conspiratorial: the Democrats are secretly funded by “big city machine politics” while the “new girl” Republicans are still in thrall to the old boy network.

For Codger, one unfortunate example of bipartisan mindlessness is the refusal to consider a professional town manager for day-to-day municipal operations, much as the Suffolk County Water Authority was hired to run the West Neck Water District. The cost of a manager, perhaps necessitating a rise in taxes, is often cited as a reason against such a hire, along with the fantasy that local politicians can do it better. 

Yeah, right. Check out Death Valley, the barren hole in the middle of town, where those main issues of water and housing converge. How much is that ugly place costing the town in taxes and revenues? Imagine it a shining center with stores, a municipal hub and — step carefully but smartly now — maybe even garden apartments for first responders. 

Much of that wasted land is owned by Dan Calabro, who grew up on the Island as did various town leaders. You’d think together they could turn that into common ground. Codger suggests, talk to Dan, find a way, it’s not as if he’s just another lawyer-ed up summer duke for whom you typically roll over when he demands, say, that his illegally-built casino complex get a wetlands variance for expansion.

For Codger, the most chilling vision of the Island minefield is of ICE troopers marching into town. It’s more than a vision. According to rumors, businesses recently tipped off to an impending raid closed and sent endangered workers home. 

A fine act of self-interested resistance, Codger thought, but only a start. The government strategy of harassing people without papers is only part of trying to intimidate everybody. The concentration camps, set in the minefields, are ultimately for us all.