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Just action: the communal kind
By James Jay
Published on 02/04/2010
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“In Minnesota the serious cold arrived/like no cold I’d previously experienced,/an in-your-face honesty to it, a clarity/that always took me by surprise.”
Stephen Dunn starts his poem “The Same Cold” with these crisp lines, then goes on to describe a biting blizzard in his town. With record snows here in Flagstaff, this poem comes quickly to mind. The storms that have fallen on us are in all our thoughts. My e-mails this week have slowed like the snowbound interstate traffic. The weather seems to be doing all the talking. At the pub the Weather Channel plays on mute, and we read the subtitled predictions. (As of the writing of this column, we’re at 50.8 inches of snow in the last five days.) With all of this, I feel obliged to at least spread some of the buzz from the pub, some of the stories, as it’s been this glorious weather that brings out our best behavior.
First, I need to say thanks to Mel in Mountainaire. If there were an agency who gave out MVP awards for snow removal, then Mel would be the Peyton Manning of the thing—he’d just keep winning it.
A beat up, old, yellow F-250 and a front plow and Mel makes the day a bit easier. Most mornings this week I pulled on my coat, grabbed my shovel, and trounced out to find that the first four to five feet of the snow in my driveway had been smashed aside. Looking up the street the same was true of my first neighbor, then the one across road and right along. Before sunrise Mel had downed his morning coffee and made his way up the road, plowing out the hardened and piled up ice at the end of our driveways, saving all of us an hour behind the shovel.
Next, I have to mention Tom Shea. If someone needs anything, then Tom knows about it and makes sure to find a way to help. Last summer, when the truck from the local apiary spilled its load of 50-gallon drums of honey (a sad day to see a person lose their crop and so much labor), Tom was there quickly to help salvage what could be saved, clean up, and divert traffic until the sheriff arrived. This winter I spotted him up in the air, standing waist deep in the snow on neighbors’ roofs and shoveling away. Back on the ground he’d divert traffic around spun out cars and shovel vehicles out of drifts.
I’d call Tom Shea the mayor of Mountainaire, but being descended of strong Irish stock, I don’t think he believes in titles very much. Rather, his decisive and effective actions remind me of the Workers Solidarity Club of Youngstown (WSCY), a highly democratic organization that assisted workers for decades in the steel city of Youngstown, Ohio. WSCY had no elected officers, no membership dues, and no majority rules voting. Rather, things went along the lines of the following: “Hey, while the strike is going on the Francescon family could use some more firewood. I’m going to bring some. Anyone want to help?” They were one of the most effective tools for labor in this country for years and that’s how they did it. And thats how Tom Shea keeps folks safe and warm in his neighborhood. No title. Just action.
Along the lines of mayors though, the word on the street has been very positive about Mayor Presler and the city’s response to the storms. This last Friday I was serving numerous coffees, Rumple Minze and whiskeys for warmth, and I heard all sorts of reports as to how the streets have been cleared the best they can recall. The sidewalks look better than expected. Parks and Rec employees have been clearing Heritage Square. Fire fighters and police are helping out all over town. While perhaps a bit fatigued in the lower back, the whole place is packed with small, kind gestures. Looking up at our clearing blue skies over Humphreys, I’m reminded of the close of that Dunn poem as well.
“Once, on Route 23, thirty below/my Maverick seized up, and a man/with a blanket and a candy bar, a man/for all weather, stopped and drove me home/It was no big thing to him, the savior/Just two men, he said, in the same cold.”
Further Advice:
Stephen Dunn. “Different Hours,” W.W. Norton, New York, 2000.
Slaughton Lynd and Andrej Grubacic. “Wobblies & Zapatistas,” PM Press, Oakland, CA 2008.
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Need a little bartender wisdom? Send your questions to James Jay at bartenderwisdom@gmail.com.
To see recent editions of “Bartender Wisdom,” click HERE.
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