Author: Hank Garfield

What does Baseball have to do with Slower Traffic (other than slowness)?

Hank Garfield

I might pay more attention to baseball this year.

Last year I paid no attention at all. We had bigger fish to fry in 2020. I missed swaths of the previous two seasons when I was overseas. I feel like I’ve been away from the game a long time.

But the start of baseball season seems particularly propitious this year. It is a season of new hope, slow to unfold but glorious in its undiscovered potential. And though baseball is indeed slow, as its critics are quick to point out, it is also the most optimistic of sports. A team has a chance to win until the final out. A second-string shortstop can be the hero of the World Series. In spring training, every player’s a star, every team a contender. This year, we all could use an extra helping of hope. 

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After the Storm

Hank Garfield

Welcome to the new and improved Slower Traffic, 2021 edition. I hope you like the changes. If you’re here for the first time, thanks for taking a look. Please allow me to briefly re-introduce myself, and the blog.

Two questions I get fairly often. Yes, I am the Henry Garfield who writes the Moondog novels; and yes, I am a descendent of the 20th U.S. president.  I use Henry for the books and Hank for the blog, but most of my friends call me Hank.

I’m also the guy who lives in Maine without a car. The last year my name appeared on a valid car registration was 2006. In my home community this is still sometimes met with incredulity. “How do you do it?” people ask. Slower Traffic was born from that question.

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2020 Hindsight

Hank Garfield

I started this blog in 2015, which seems like a thousand years ago now. Barack Obama was still president, the United Kingdom was still a member of the European Union, and the Cubs were still lovable losers. I had not yet been to Bulgaria or dismasted a sailboat. And of course, COVID-19 had not yet swept the planet.

The premise of the blog was that we don’t all have to own cars, even in rural places like Maine, where I live; and that our communities and our world will be better off if we curb the proliferation of motor vehicles.

During the past ten months I’ve had time to give this some thought. Perhaps, in this contentious time, it’s not a bad idea for us to revisit the premises of our convictions, whatever they may be, and re-evaluate them, in light of changed circumstances.

I’ve written on many topics in this blog, but it’s usually related to cars, and the liberation of not owning one. Before I decided to go car-free for a year in 2007, I wasn’t sure it could be done, at least not in Maine. Regular readers will recognize the story: one year became fourteen, and the financial and lifestyle benefits have been substantial. 

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