I enjoyed being a student and I loved being a teacher, but I have always looked forward to the summer break. I’ve used those months to relax and ready myself for the big push that starts again in early August. I spend my days reading and sometimes being lucky enough to travel. I take classes to hone my skills or simply to learn something that I never before knew. 

Some summers have been difficult like the one right after my father died which is still a blur in my mind. Then there was the summer of nineteen sixty eight when the United States seemed to be on fire with protests over the war in Vietnam and civil rights. A few years later my husband, Mike, spent the summer in the hospital receiving chemotherapy for blastomycosis, a strange fungal disease that he mysteriously picked up somewhere somehow. There was also the summer of gasoline shortages and long lines at service stations when we bravely took a trip to Colorado on a wing and a prayer, hoping that we would not be stranded without fuel. Most recently there was the summer of the Black Lives Matter movement after the murder of George Floyd that ignited the indignation of Americans across the nation during the height of the Covid 19 pandemic. 

I suspect that we are headed into a long hot and possibly unstable summer again this year. A presidential election is on the horizon and tempers are seething over a variety of issues. I worry that those same feelings will boil over as the long days inch toward the party conventions. I have witnessed the turmoil in the past and I hope against hope that we will not endure such difficulties again, but the signs are pointing to trouble. 

The divisions among us seem to grow ever wider. In fact I sense that there are purposeful efforts to drive us apart by politicians hungering for power. Much like the people in Russia, China, Israel,  and Palestine, we are presently pawns in a high stakes game of political intrigue that is less about our individual welfare and more about determining who will seize power. There will be brave souls who attempt to exercise their freedom of speech in the United States, but ultimately it will be our individual votes here in America that determine what the direction of our nation will be in the next four years and for many years to follow. 

The effect of the lawmakers we choose will be present long after they leave office. The tone of the country is much like the growth of a child. It takes place over time, not in a single moment. What we are witnessing today came to be from the influence of change over decades. It would be wise for us to consider how we want our country to be in the future because the laws of the moment will affect our children and grandchildren for years to come. 

Each of us has every right to voice our opinions, at least for now. We must nevertheless always be vigilant in protecting those rights lest any person or group attempts to use force or punishment to keep alternate ideas silenced. Fascism takes hold quietly and slowly in the beginning and then grows exponentially until people find themselves locked into a prison of silence and fear. We must eschew anyone who tells us of plans to squelch those with whom they do not agree. Promises to get even or force feed one point of view should be viewed as a grave danger to all of us. 

I love the United States of America warts and all, but this does not mean that I am afraid or unwilling to speak of the things that are wrong, shortsighted, or unjust. Ours has been an incremental progression to a fairer way of living, but at times we revert to old habits which may seem to protect us but actually hurt innocents. Progress in our way of governing should not be viewed as being synonymous with surrendering our rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When we widen of the scope of who gets those things we strengthen, not weaken, the dream of our founding fathers.

 Innovation and enlightenment has been at the heart of the United States at the same time that we built on the backs of slaves and the disenfranchisement of women. It took us awhile to rectify the flaws in our democratic republic and we shed blood in the process. Surely we have advanced far enough to be wary of those who would set our country back to a time when minorities were ruled by a small group of powerful men. Our nation is at its best when we welcome and provide opportunities for everyone. It is strongest when we listen to the many voices and many ideas that flourish in a free society. 

I hope that we use this long hot summer to demonstrate the incredible openness and attentiveness of this nation. It should be a time to value our freedoms and to embrace leaders of integrity and unity in moving our great political experiment forward. I will be watching and hoping that we somehow manage to find what is best about us for surely we are on the brink of disaster if we cannot find a way to heal our wounds and move forward together and without rancor. I fear an unsettling time. I hope that I am wrong.