Garden season’s pretty well over for most of us northern-hemisphere Balloon Juice jackals. So here’s a gift from senior beagle rescuer and long-time commentor Tony S — “Halloween: Celebrating American Family, Community Diversity”:
Let’s get real. Heartland America isn’t some 97% white community. Where the true pulse of America beats strongest are in its diverse, growing, vital communities.
I had a realization that night. Thanksgiving isn’t America’s only celebration of family. Halloween does that, too, with an added ingredient: Community.
Once a year, I get to stand on my porch and share with the neighbors I rarely see and the friends I don’t visit with often enough.
Halloween is my wife, Celine’s favorite holiday. Every year, she hands out not just candy, but hand-made goodie bags. This means we have a very good idea of how many people visit our home. This year the number topped 600.
It was wonderful seeing proud parents and thrilled kids grace our spooky, 115-year old home with their smiles, polite “Trick or Treats” and carefully crafted or freshly purchased costumes, from a 52-year old “Disco Grandma” to a spotted baby seemingly straight out of the crib.
Demographic analysts say true American heartland towns are a mix — the ratio is somewhere around 30/30/30 of the most prominent ethnic groups.
Liars, con-men and parasites try and make us fear the other — when they are the other, with their bleached personalities and toxic policies. Last night, in Peekskill, the real America was on view.
Sunday Morning Open Thread: Pushing Back the Darkness & the ColdPost + Comments (155)