Author: Hank Garfield

What’s the Big Deal about Empathy?

Hank Garfield
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In the West there was panic when the migrants multiplied on the highways. Men of property were terrified for their property. Men who had never been hungry saw the eyes of the hungry. Men who had never wanted anything very much saw the flare of want in the eyes of the migrants. And the men of the towns and the soft suburban country gathered to defend themselves, and they reassured themselves that they were good and the invaders bad, as a man must do before he fights.

— John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

I am lucky to have a livelihood that can adjust to the pandemic in relative safety. I teach creative writing at a university. For me, working from home is merely an inconvenience, while many of my fellow citizens are unemployed or at risk at work.

The University of Maine has welcomed students back on campus (and seen at least one COVID-19 outbreak). But I won’t be in a classroom this fall. Half of my classes were online before the virus, and it wasn’t hard to convert the others.

Maine isn’t a bad place to be marooned in. We’ve been spared the worst of COVID and we have, so far, avoided the violence around street protests in other parts of the country.

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Things Have Changed

Hank Garfield

These are trying times for an American dedicated to not owning a car. The Concord Coach bus that used to get me back and forth to the coast has suspended operations indefinitely, and I’m wary of city buses and taxicabs. I have my bicycle, and my feet, but I’ve probably done more driving in the past four months than in the last two calendar years combined.

As regular readers know, I live in a two-person, one-car household within walking distance of downtown Bangor. But for the past two weeks, the lovely Lisa’s vehicle has been undergoing one of its increasingly frequent old-car hospitalizations. Like victims of the virus, its recovery is uncertain.

One of the silver linings of COVID-19 is that the world’s car owners are driving much less than before, and air quality has significantly improved. Lisa’s car, even when healthy, has sat idle for days at a time while we both work at home. But we do rely on it for one or two things, like grocery shopping, and transporting heavy objects. At times we’ve used it for trips out of town, when the sameness of staying at home gets to be too much.

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We Live in a Political World

Hank Garfield

Everyone asks, so I’ll get it out of the way up front: yes, I am related to James Garfield, 20th President of the United States. I’m a great-great grandson. I can’t claim any credit for this. It was an accident of birth.

James Garfield was a Republican, but I can state with near certainty that he would not be a Republican today. Hell, Eisenhower would not be a Republican today.

I’ve steered away from partisan politics in this blog, but like the Civil War in which my famous ancestor served, we are living in an age when one must choose sides. I think auto racing is the most boring sport in the world, but I commend NASCAR for removing the Confederate flag from its events.

Today’s Republicans accuse their detractors of “hating America,” as if their point of view were the only legitimately American one. Want universal, tax-funded health care? You hate America. Believe that minorities have legitimate grievances about their treatment by rogue cops and police departments? You hate America. Support the right of athletes to engage in peaceful protest while the national anthem is played before a game? You hate America.

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