I read the Local Times with great interest last week. Several residents had taken the time to write letters to the Editor. For a community of apparently 650 houses, we have lots of issues.
It’s the speeding, it’s the road to the next town that doesn’t exist, it’s the use of the Community Hall that apparently isn’t allowed, and it’s the murdering of innocent kangaroos. It’s the ‘adult’ jokes in the local newsletter and the “I’ll take the moral high road’ response from the other publication.
For almost 3 years, it has seemed a little ‘Days of Our Lives’ to me. If only Shakespeare lived here. We could have had some fabulous local theatre instead of that terrible stuff I’ve seen in town. There are plots and sub-plots of scheming and deception, themes of power and glory and pen lashings of poisonous arrows and publicly read humiliations. Is this how small urban / ruralish communities work?
Actually most of the time I just laugh uncomfortably and wonder how the other side will adjust their business plan, but it’s the sort of giggle that hides a glimmer of fear and doubt about whether or not I really do want to openly partake of my local community. To date I choose the gardening fork as my wielding weapon of choice.
Call me sensitive, but in the interests of basic self-preservation, I hesitate to openly support any community group where it seems I am likely to be fired upon from a diametrically opposed axis of power. A bit sad really, but there you go. I am the observing fence sitter until further notice.
To quote Rudyard Kipling’s poem IF
“If you can keep you head, when all about you
Are losing theirs …”
…Then you obviously have no idea what’s really going on.
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