Instead of Victory, Defeat, or Compromise, or, Beyond Robert's Rules

 

My first two years in graduate school, one of my best friends was a woman from one of Africa’s oldest countries. She and I were roughly the same age (that is, older than most of our fellow students), and both of us were mothers, but in many other ways our lives, including our undergraduate educations, had been different. She had read philosophers I had not yet encountered, and vice versa. Consequently, we had wonderful long talks on every conceivable subject.

 

Once on a long road trip (we were traveling to a philosophy conference), I realized that our philosophical arguments took a form somewhat unusual for those in our discipline, even students. We would start on opposite sides of an issue, taking polar positions, but it was rare (if it ever happened at all) that one of us would triumph over the other. Listening closely and questioning just as closely, repeatedly one of us would concede a point to the other until, resolved on agreement, we had come to a third position neither of us had held or even initially considered.

 

Why don’t I call this compromise? 

 

Because neither of us gave up anything we cherished. What each gave up along the way were some of our original, contingently held beliefs that had come to be recognized, in the course of mutual exploration, as inferior -- or at least inadequate -- to support a respective initial position. There was no “Oh, all right then!” about it. No giving up in defeat. Both of us were more than satisfied with what we achieved by our newly constructed final position. And this happened over and over. 

 

Another feature I should mention is that our initially opposed positions were much simpler than the final position we constructed in agreement. Over and over, we realized that the question was “more complicated” than either of us had realized before we explored it together. 

 

I keep thinking about these arguments -- or explorations, or discussions, or conversations, or whatever you want to call them -- as those graduate school experiences may relate to hotly contended political issues, local and national. We human beings, it seems, want so badly for questions to have simple answers: yes or no, right or wrong, win or lose, this or that. What if the best outcome isn’t majority rule (one side winning and the other losing) or compromise (both sides getting some of what they want and giving up other parts) but a whole new position or solution or plan?

 

One local Northport issue is that of short-term rentals: Allow or disallow? I like what one Northporter has suggested: “‘Perhaps this is an opportunity to craft ‘a more perfect union,’ a Northport Neighbors type paradigm.”

 

Another issue is the RV park/campground: For or against? Personally, I like the idea but am concerned about the size. Here again, another Northporter suggested a third choice: smaller overall development, with fewer RV sites, more tent sites, a few rental cabins insulated and heated so they would work in winter as well as summer, cross-country trails – in short, fewer people and a lower environmental impact. Sounded good to me.

 

Rarely does one size fit all, and local control means each community working out what best fits their wants and needs.

Life in a Small Village: Errors of Youth and Age

“It’s a public street! Anyone can park there all day, and it's not illegal!” 

 

True, but parking in front of someone else’s business all day, rather than parking in one of the several lots around the village, can be a serious inconvenience to the business owner and to his or her customers or clients. Actions can be inconsiderate without being illegal.

 

Many errors of youth result from inexperience. The young, after all, have never been old! On the other hand, errors of age can easily result from forgetting what it was like to be young. 

 

If we explain calmly and gently, in a friendly manner, to a young person why something they’re doing is working against us, aren’t we more likely to find a receptive audience? All too often, though, an offended old person simply launches instead into a tirade about the inconsiderateness of youth. (A perennial topic throughout human history!)

 

Will a gentle correction really work? Not always, of course. It seems to be human nature that most of us -- at any age -- are embarrassed to be wrong about anything or to hurt someone unwittingly, and embarrassment easily gives rise to defensiveness that comes out in anger. But isn’t the angry “correction” much more likely to be met with defensive anger? 

 

In a small village, pretty much everything becomes personal after a while, and just as happens in a family, daily proximity alone can sometimes be an irritant. Consideration for each other can be a soothing ointment and keep us all happier if we apply it more often. 

Jobs OR Housing? – That Makes No Sense

 

About a month ago, a letter to the editor of the Leelanau Enterprise observed that the “Share the Bay” signs were a clever ploy on the part of the developer’s publicity campaign for the RV park/campground. I checked with Rachel Dean, the person I was pretty sure had come up with the slogan herself, in hopes she would write to the Enterprise to correct the wrong assumption, but she was simply amused that her idea had been taken -- mistaken, that is – as part of a commercial publicity campaign. 

 

The facts are these: Rachel came up with the slogan, ordered the signs, paid for them herself, and everyone who took a sign reimbursed her for it. It was a totally local, grassroots movement. 

 

Did the letter-writer make a “reasonable assumption”? That’s what he said in his defense when I stopped him on the sidewalk to give him the scoop, because I don’t like “misinformation” circulating in our community. Community, in fact, is the key issue as he sees it, and he finds the slogan, on the other side of the “Share the Bay” signs, “Build our community,” to be a wrongful use of the term. He says community means people who put down roots and commit to a place, not “transients” (his word). 

 

In the course of our brief conversation, I learned that the letter-writer thinks affordable housing would be a better use of the property in question. He says we need affordable housing for (his examples) “firefighters and teachers.” Well, county firefighters are all volunteer: they have other jobs, or they don’t live here. As for teachers, we won’t need teachers much longer if the school keeps shrinking, as it will continue to do without other kinds of jobs.

 

What I see, from having lived and run a business here for 28 years and having spent many a long, cold winter here (working a variety of part-time jobs over the years to pay my winter bookstore bills) is that Leelanau County’s economy has always been seasonal. Agriculture and tourism: that’s the basic economy. Because of farming and summer people and tourists, we have schools and libraries and retail and other businesses. And summer people and tourists provide jobs by keeping businesses in business. Even year-round jobs exist because the seasonal economy carries so many businesses through the calendar year.

 

How long would Northport have a grocery store without “transients”? (That’s a peculiar term to apply to tourists, anyway, isn’t it? And where do “summer people” fit into the equation?) Omena’s post office would have disappeared long ago, had it not been for the old Solley’s bookstore, and believe me, bookstores in these little seasonal villages – Northport, Leland, Suttons Bay, Glen Arbor -- only survive because summer business is good to us!

 

(A former landlord of mine told me years ago, “The key to a seasonal business is to keep it seasonal.” Lately I have begun taking what I call “seasonal retirement,” and at my age I make no apologies for that. My two younger sisters and most of my friends are fully retired. I’m not. And, as I’ve already said, I have spent many winters right here and know whereof I speak.)

 

One of the keys to a viable local community, it seems to me, is understanding its basic economy. Yes, we do need year-round local housing for workers, seasonal and otherwise, but we also need the jobs that seasonal visitors bring. Affordable housing without jobs isn’t going to have many takers. A Habitat house in Cherry Home for a woman whose job was in Traverse City couldn’t hold her long. Financially, it doesn’t work.

 

Another key is listening to what local people say they need, rather than coming in from the outside to tell them what’s good for them. Many of the supporters for the RV park/campground remember the old Timber Shores campground because they worked there, and some of their children worked there. They remember how much positive impact the campground had on the community they’ve lived in for two or three generations. 

 

I live out in the township, not in the village, and I’ll be far away when winter comes, but my bookstore is now launched into its 29^th year, and I can’t imagine moving it out of Northport. This is my home. I would not want to cast a deciding vote on the RV park/campground issue, and I am as concerned as anyone else that it be properly run, if it happens, to prevent any negative consequences for Grand Traverse Bay. Trying to force a choice between jobs and housing, though? That’s a non-starter. 

 

And if the choice were. Between a campground and condos, I’d vote for the campground any day of the week.

Ladies Bountiful and Women in Need

Women's Health Day, up at the old hospital in Northport, started as an ordinary, pleasant, welcome annual event. It filled an important need. On that day uninsured and underinsured women in Leelanau County could receive a free health checkup, including mammogram. Health care was the object, but somehow it was a fun morning! Half the town was there, all ages, and it felt very egalitarian and social. There was nothing embarrassing about it. It was like going to vote, except that people had time to chat in the waiting room.

Then one year it was taken over by a large group of volunteers, women who had no need of the services but a great need to be needed. They put on a big brunch spread and then, having really nothing more to do but not wanting to feel useless, went around the room urging the women who had come for their checkups to avail themselves of the buffet. They themselves were not going to the buffet; nor were they in need of free checkups. Medical attention and food were for the others. 

For the first time, the event was structured by class: on one hand there was the host of ladies bountiful, on the other a crowd of women in need. Those of us who came for the checkup, the supplicants, were dressed casually, many in blue jeans, while the ladies bountiful were set apart in dresses and heels. The fun was gone! The following year I skipped the whole thing. Now the hospital is gone, and so is the event.

I bring it up because of something that concerns me with many do-good projects. So often, in a way, the volunteers are as needy as the recipients of the bounty to be distributed. The givers need projects and purpose and meaning in their lives. They need to feel needed and need to give and need to be recognized as givers. But they don't usually see themselves as needy. They do see themselves, in a helping context. Do they, I wonder, always see those they are so eager to help? 

I don't mean to ignore or deny the genuine humanitarian impulse. It's good to want to do good in the world, and doing good probably needs to be encouraged and, yes, rewarded, too! I'm also sure it's easiest for all of us to see ourselves in positive roles, wherever we are in life, and hardest to see others differently situated in as positive a guise. I don't mean to point fingers. Really. 

But if you think about it for a minute, you know, whatever your station and condition in life, that it can be a lot harder to receive than to give. And when only one group is acknowledged as givers, the other defined as beneficiaries, a dynamic set up: the first group is one-up, the second one-down. And so, while what's given is helpful in one way, it can be destructive in other ways. 

This is a digression, but one of the most memorable lessons life ever gave me was in the example of a friend who suffered severe physical trauma, losing much of the ordinary health and strength the fortunate among us take for granted every day. After the incident that nearly took her life, and after a long, painful period of recuperation, my friend, unable drive a car and without not stamina to walk to and stand at a bus stop, was dependent on friends to drive her to the grocery store. Once there she needed to tour the store in a motorized chair. She needed someone to carry her groceries out to the car and into her house. She needed a lot of help. And yet – this was the miracle and the lesson – she never expressed pity for herself, never apologized for needing help, and neither did she demand assistance in a resentful or autocratic way. She was natural about it all, graciously graceful. It was just the way things were, and we were friends, and we did things together. That was all. And so the way she received the help she needed was a gift she gave to us, her friends. Not many people could pull that off! I doubt I could ever do it with her grace, but if I am ever in a similar position, I hope I will remember her example and try!

I feel uniquely positioned in Leelanau County, with a foot in each camp, not a full-fledged member of either group. For twenty years, before eligible for Medicare, I went without health insurance (Women's Health Day was a godsend to me!), and I have no retirement pension waiting for me down the road. But by education and as a local business owner for nearly a quarter of a century, I am at least a nominal member of the privileged group. 

I understand the desire to help and to give, as well as the need for recognition. My own charitable giving means a lot to me, I am very careful about causes I choose to support, and I wish I could do more. At the same time, I also know, from not having had health insurance for so long and being still unable to sign blank checks for expensive health care, the sting of being designated as "needy," when I work very hard to be independent and provide for myself!

None of this is meant as criticism of any individuals or groups. I “bring it to the table” because the people around the table are generally in the bountiful givers group, and that's no accident. They are the ones with free time, and they are also the ones who feel comfortable and welcome at the table. They are seen as – and feel themselves as -- belonging there.

But those not at the table are "stake-holders," too. They have a stake in the economic wellbeing of their community, in the education provided for their children, and in being recognized as community members.

I don't see inviting the two groups to the table together, however, as the solution or even the beginning of a solution. 

So what is??? 

I suspect a "solution" to the gap in class and need may be something no group can invent, regardless how many hours are spent brainstorming. Maybe it just takes one-on-one conversations, in casual encounters, with a lot more listening on both sides. It might also take, for every single one of us -- me, included! -- looking into our own hearts and being honest with ourselves about what we see there.

What will we find? Then, what will we do with what we find? I don't know.

Sorry this is inconclusive. I have no recipe to offer, only my perspective from the gap, from the social chasm, between rich and poor.

As Ready As I'll Ever Be

Migraine prevented me from cobbling together homemade treats on Friday evening, but grocery store treats seem to be filling the bill, as far as today’s customers are concerned on this Shop Local Saturday 2016. 

Except for a couple bursts of sunshine, the sky has been overcast and grey. All the better, perhaps, to showcase holiday lights. My little tree is twinkling away, and the 4,000 lights on the village tree will be lit in a couple of hours.

But the best, from my point of view, begins 20 minutes from the time I tap out these words: the decorated, horse-drawn wagon will be giving rides around downtown beginning at 4 p.m. I hope to get at least one decent picture of that to include later as a postscript -- because everything in life is better with horses.

Postscript

Okay, my attempts to photograph the horses in the dark were none too successful (although I'm proud that this is one Northport tradition I started and that lines were long with families waiting for the village tour)...

...but the tree lighting was truly MAGNIFICENT!

How Can Anyone Doubt the Dream Power of a Dog?

Or of two dogs?

They Just. Don’t. Get It! (Sigh!)

Back a few years ago, our local, county-wide bank was bought by a large, out-of-state bank, and one of the first thing “Corporate” did was to install those chrome stands you see in movie theatres, the kind with thick, velvet-covered ropes or chains, to indicate where customers should line up for tellers at the counter. Cries of outrage greeted the innovation. We are not livestock! We don’t need to be herded through cattle chutes! We know how to wait our turn! Things reverted to the way they were before, and everyone calmed down. This year “Corporate,” guided by “Marketing,” has made many more changes, most of them pointless, some of them downright irritating.

For starters, work by local artists was banished from the walls and replaced by promotional posters for the bank. (Why all the strenuous effort to sell what people are already buying?) All branch offices were painted in tones of beige and green, a new logo appeared on the outside of the bank, and the doors sprouted new green Lucite handles. When I went to the bank in Leland one morning, I was asked, “Do you feel like you’re in Northport? Because that’s the aim.” The aim of all this branding and homogenizing, I guess: make every branch feel like every other branch. Well, let’s get something straight. When I’m in Northport, I want to know I’m in Northport. When I’m in Leland, I want the feeling of being in Leland. And if I’m in Traverse City or Empire, I want to be clear about that, too. Each of these towns is unique, and that’s the way we like it Up North. Big box banks? Not appealing at all, folks!

My husband says that when he goes to the bank these days, he is annoyed the minute he sees the green door handles. Well, I can live with those, and if I were a teller, I’d probably be okay with the new uniforms: they are attractive, and employees have a choice of colors and coordinating articles of clothing. (Less figuring out “what to wear” every morning would have appealed to me back when I worked in offices.) The free pens have been a big hit. I’m told (and this surprised me) that the new 24-hour grace period before overdraft charges netted the bank a nice number of new customers. Twenty-four hours does not seem like a big deal to me before an overdraft charge of over $30 per check is assessed (I do not overdraw and so do not keep current on the penalty figure), and I wouldn’t have guessed that such a short grace period would bring in new customers, but hey—whatever!

What I find most—no, what I found most annoying, until a few days ago, is the new video display on the wall behind the tellers. It’s like a big, wide-screen TV, constantly in motion, and I have to hold a hand up over my eyes to block it from my view. When I’m talking to a teller, I want to be paying attention to the teller, not being distracted by a video display of the bank logo (who cares?) and “products” the bank is trying to sell me. In my case--and I suspect I am not alone in this--the annoyance of the distraction makes me, if anything, less likely to consider deepening my relationship to the corporation.

What makes local banking attractive in the first place? (1) The bank is here. (2) The workers, people we know, are friendly and courteous. (3) The staff knows the bank’s procedures and are helpful to customers. That’s it. That’s all we care about. The free pens are nice, but we lived without them for years and could live without them again. We just want the bank to be here and for the employees to do their jobs and be pleasant. If another bank bought up the current bank, we would switch “allegiance” without hesitation, as long as the bank was here and the employees—our friends and neighbors--pleasant and efficient. “Brand loyalty”? There is no such thing in today’s world. I can’t believe the marketing wonks haven’t heard the news.

And how much has all this “branding” nonsense cost? Because, no, there is one more thing bank customers would appreciate and that would be better interest rates, so instead of wasting customers’ money on such unnecessary and annoying changes, how about if “Corporate” just upped the interest rates a noodge? We would appreciate that!

Ah, but the changes weren’t over yet--and maybe they still aren’t, which is a scary thought—because just the other day, turning my gaze from the offensive video display to the clock on the wall, I saw—the clock was gone! Up there on the wall all alone was a silly double outlet, too high to be useful for anything, nothing plugged into it. Where was the clock? Can you guess? Ah, yes! “Marketing,” those chipper, eager, bright-eyed youngsters down at “Corporate,” decided it would be better not to have a clock in sight. People might time how long they were waiting in line. I’m not kidding. At least, this was the only rationale anyone could come up with.

Corporate, Marketing—get a clue! These branch banks are in small towns! We hardly ever have to wait in line, and when we do, no one minds, because we use the time to visit with one another. It's a break in the day for us! The occasional impatient person, usually a tourist off a yacht in the harbor, doesn’t understand small town life, either, and clearly doesn’t know how to be on vacation, the point of which is to slow down. Please don't gear our life to their ways!

Clearly, the marketing people are city people, and no doubt they’re very young. To their credit, they want to earn their salaries. So they come up with ways to change things. But if we wanted to live at a city pace, in anonymous city surroundings, we wouldn’t be here in Northport. Many of us, however, are still working for a living, and we do need to keep track of the time, so please put the clock back! Is that so much to ask?