Summer, 2025

Over the years, the wife and I have typically spent a chunk of the summer traveling to far-off places, one of the options available to teachers who claim the season for renewal and refresh. This summer, however, was a different story, with one thing after another claiming time and energy to such a degree that neither of us left South Dakota at all. Not even Minnesota, only a half an hour awy. It's no tragedy, not spending part of the summer traveling, but there's a different weight to it, a feeling as though we've been pinned down by events and people in need. Being home for the entirety of the summer gave us time to watch a sad destruction unfold next door, as an empty lot next to ours has had its entire stand of trees removed, and it now is a vast expanse of dirt and crushed saplings, all its mature trees, including some century-old cottonwood trees, pushed over and plucked out by workers in heavy machinery that too was parked next door all summer. In the aftermath, we now can see the houses and sheds and hear the children and vehicles of people who live more than a block away, who were once hidden and silenced by the trees and shrubs in the now-empty lot. Our back yard seems smaller now, somehow, though we can see further, hear more. In our country, the sense is that if you own a piece of land, you can do with it as you wish. No notice to us was given of the plans next door. Machines showed up one day and the destruction began. It took weeks. Meanwhile, the deer and rabbits and other wildlife that lived in the small forest, adjacent to our own stand of trees, now have to find a new place to be. So our summer, our staying at home and watching that destruction, has given us a close and visible counterpart to the national destruction of agencies and institutions that have served the American people well. There on the news another agency is gutted, and another tree falls next door. Each day, another attack on the country's systems, another swipe at the lot next door. There will be another summer. Soon, houses will appear in the chopped-up parcel next door, and we'll live on. But it won't be better.