The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon - by Bill McKibbin

 

It is certainly trendy to blame everything that is wrong with the world on my generation ("Okay, Boomer") and, to be fair, there is plenty of blame to go around, but as McKibben points out we Boomers were born during a rather long span (the years 1946-1964) - a population over about 70 million people which "means you're making generalizations about populations larger than France or England". We can look at Zoomers (those born between 1997-2012 - a population which includes my own child) and find fault with their addiction to fast fashion and shake our heads at the problems of sustainability it causes. At the same time I can also see that they are leading the way in seeking racial justice, fair wages, and health care reform. 

McKibben grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts, just up the road a piece from my own home in the Bay State. He describes his childhood home as "like a child's drawing of a suburban home: a square block with a door and a window on the ground floor and two windows on the story above". I expect that the second story in the "child's drawing" was triangle shaped. This describes my own house as well. McKibben uses the house as a starting point in the book and moves from there to descriptions of his schooling, first jobs, and the history of the area to explore some bigger questions on race and the common good.

McKibben is clearly a fan of libraries and indicates that he has made good use of them throughout his life. Early in the work he describes a lecture given in 1970 by Ralph Nader at the town library in which he [Nader]

blast[ed] both air pollution and hot dogs, which he called "innovations to relieve food companies of all their crud". 

I've always been a fan of Nader and voted for him in the epic presidential election of 2000.

Further McKibben describes walking past the town library in 1971 (where he was "already a regular in the downstairs children's room") as part of a protest of the Vietnam War, led by another later presidential hopeful John Kerry, leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

As a high school student McKibben got a job giving tours of the Lexington Battle Green. Donning a tricorn hat he regaled tourists with tales of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. In order to get such a job 

you needed to pass a test...administered by the venerable rector of the local Episcopal church...He handed you a reading list, and you repaired to the town library's local history room for long days of study.

In one passage he demonstrates the importance of libraries through their absence. Eighteenth century Lexingtonians, according to Richard Kollen "the most determined chronicler of the town's religious history", would have 

attended an average of seven thousand sermons in a lifetime, that meant they heard fifteen thousand hours of preaching from their pastor. (And of course that was pretty much all heard, in an era with no theater, no library, no radio, no internet).

It would seem that today's far right politicians and Christian Nationalists would prefer that we return to this as they remove books from libraries and attempt to censor legislators who speak out for an end to gun violence, and basic rights for transgender people. 

Meanwhile, McKibben tells us that people's interest in libraries, theater going, and even sports has been waning in recent years.

Everything that the affluent possess in private has swelled in size... and what we share in common has been allowed to decay.

 This is evident in California's passage of Proposition 13 in 1978

which sharply limited the ability of cities and towns to assess taxes. Local property tax revenues dropped 60 percent overnight, and though the state filled some of the gap, services like education suffered immediate hits from which they never recovered...They cut maintenance, assistant principals, librarians...in south LA, or the north-eastern San Fernando Valley the library opens rarely...

City and town libraries suffered as well with summer and after-school programs cut. Some branches were closed, or hours had their hours shortened.

Finally, McKibben gives props to "Lexington's superb Cary Memorial Library" in providing access to back copies of the Lexington Minuteman which allowed him to do the research for this book.

Post Script:

To answer the question posed by the subtitle of this work ("What the hell happened?") I submit that we really should have listened to Bill McKibben back in 1989 when he wrote The End of Nature. But we didn't. 

National Library Week - There's More to the Story

This year we’re going to party like it’s 1981! That’s because book banning has never been so popular. After Ronald Reagan was elected president we saw the rise of the Moral Majority headed by Jerry Falwell. Book banning, in order to protect children, became a popular pastime of the religious right. As a high school student I found the book banners laughably naïve. What on earth did they think they were protecting us from? 

I kicked off National Library Week a few days early this year by watching Judy Blume Forever, a new documentary available on Amazon Prime, over the weekend. I highly recommend this film for all. Fans will be thrilled with the way eighty-five year-old Blume is honored by young and old, authors, readers, and librarians alike. Those who are not already fans will surely want to find out more by reading some of her books. My almost-sixty-year-old husband has called her a “national treasure” now that he has not only seen the new film, but also listened to her most classic work Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret on audio, and watched her in some Zoom discussions during the pandemic. 

The American Library Association (ALA) declared April 24 as National Right to Read Day, so as a follow-up to the movie the ALA and Prime video sponsored a Zoom event featuring a panel discussion with Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok (directors and producers of Judy Blume Forever); Lessa Kanani’opua Pelayo-Lozada (ALA President); Suzanne Nossel (CEO at PEN America) and Pat R. Scales (author and retired librarian). The panel was moderated by Chris Finan (Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Censorship). Pardo and Wolchok discussed the villainizing of Blume and her books during the 1980s, explaining that they expected it to be a small part of the film, but that they had no idea what was still to come. In one segment of the film we see a clip of Blume on the television show Crossfire with Pat Buchanan. Buchanan, who has clearly not read her books, attacks Blume, repeating the same sentence from her book Deenie. Finan mentioned the segment during the panel discussion, letting audience members who might have been too young to remember Buchanan, that he was a “blockhead from the eighties”. I couldn’t have said it better myself!

Judy Blume shows off some books in her bookstore Books & Books in Key West, FL

One of the panelists mentioned fear as a parental motivation for the sudden rise in book challenges. As I said, even in the eighties the whole thing seemed rather simple-minded, but today when we know that children can find whatever they want on the internet, and as children deal with real issues such as gun violence, abject hunger, and church-sanctioned pedophilia, I can only see this new wave of book banning as a deflection. Parents cannot control what is available online, but they can try to control what books are in their public schools and libraries, no matter how futile it may be.

The theme of this year's Library Week is "There's More to the Story". And, in fact, I have a lot more to say. Listen to me on The Dissident's podcast talking about libraries, library work, and book banning for National Library Week. 

Over the Edge - the movie

Sometime in the mid 2000s my town decided that the public library wasn't important enough to fund. It closed completely for a few weeks, and then reopened for about 15 hours a week. I can't remember how long that went on, but I believe within a year the library was back to (almost) its previous level of service. It is now open six days (55.5 hours) a week. During the period that it was closed the town powers-that-be also determined that shutting down the town skateboard park was advisable, leaving not much to do in the center of town. Not surprisingly (to me anyway) within the next few weeks the local paper reported on a mini crime wave of petty theft and vandalism in town. Of course public safety had been spared when the town voted on the budget, which turned out to be a good thing since it was then needed more than ever (can you hear my sarcasm here). To those who would defund libraries and recreation in order to ensure funding of public safety I say this: libraries are public safety, as are recreation centers and parks. 

This 1979 film (Matt Dillon's debut) illustrates what happens when a town decides that business is more important than pleasure. Teens in New Granada have nowhere to go after school except a sad little recreation center located inside a depressing-looking quonset hut. Exactly one adult runs the place. Business owners (and police) determine that the rec center isn't good "optics" when investors for a new Industrial Park come to town and ask to have it shut down for the day. When the director refuses she is fired and the center is shut down for good. The restless teens turn to sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, and increased vandalism of public and private property to fill their free time. Tragedy strikes when a fourteen-year-old boy (played by Dillon) is killed by the sheriff. Things go from bad to worse from there. There is some indication that the film is based on real events, but it is unclear exactly where, when, or how much.

The film features a 1970s PSA in which students are admonished not to destroy things. Within the PSA is a scene in which some students vandalize a library (among other things). This presaged the decimation of the New Granada Junior High School library (among other things) by the town's (now very angry) teens.

I remember watching this film on cable television sometime in the early 1980s. I don't think I'd seen it since. Talking about it with my husband afterward we discussed that while the motivations of the adults (and the children) were clear, the film really only scratched the surface of any of the characters' feelings. It really missed an opportunity for insight, but at least there was a lot of blowing things up.

What's the T? The Guide to All Things Trans and/or NonBinary - by Juno Dawson

Juno Dawson's book This Book is Gay is often in the news as it is frequently challenged and appears on lists of banned books. I imagine we will be hearing more about this work as well in the coming months. Dawson, a trans woman, speaks frankly of her own experience while offering support and advice to other trans and nonbinary folx.

While her intended audience is other trans, gender queer, or questioning people she also speaks to cisgender people, and has a specific chapter for people like me "Advice for Parents and Caregivers". She offers that each reader has their own purpose for reading her book and provides a list of possible reasons why one might have picked it up including (among others) that "Maybe it's in your school library and it has a nice cover". 

In her chapter "Doctor! Doctor! I Think I'm Transgender!" she offers some advice to young trans and nonbinary people seeking treatment

For people under eighteen, I always think the first port of call is an adult you trust. This could be a teacher, librarian, school counselor or family doctor.

I hope that everyone knows that librarians will provide information on any topic without judgement, and that every young person knows a librarian whom they trust. However, in today's political climate that includes a rash of anti-trans legislation, book challenges that seek to remove all LGBTQ literature from school and libraries  ("nice covers" not withstanding), and the targeting of educators (including school librarians) who provide such information, I am afraid that finding such trusted adults and reliable information will be more difficult than ever. 

Dawson reminds readers that trans people have always been part of our history and suggests that we learn their stories. "When transphobic people accuse you of being 'trendy' or act like being trans is something new, be ready to open the library. Reading is what? Fundamental".