Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a passing shower and a high of 42. Sunrise is 7:11 AM and sunset 6:08 PM for 10h 56m 40s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 51.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1777, British General John Burgoyne surrenders his army at Saratoga, New York; on this day in 1781, British General Charles, Earl Cornwallis offers to surrender at the Battle of Yorktown (the articles of capitulation were signed two days later on 10.19.1781).
Consider the following question, posed to me over the weekend: Is it too late for Whitewater?
There is one plain answer: No, and no again. It is not ‘too late,’ and the question itself is pessimistically phrased. A few lyrics from today’s FREE WHITEWATER music selection reflect Whitewater’s true and hopeful condition:
Maybe we’ve made mistakesMaybe we’re not the only onesMaybe it’s not too lateTo start overAll the shapes and patterns you’ll see in your mindSomewhere in the worldSomeone’s thinking of you
Of course there is time to remedy challenges in the community; it is certainly not too late. To think otherwise would be an abject and unfounded pessimism.
The tragic optimist, as I am, is grounded in optimism modified with an awareness of the occasionally tragic. Optimism is the foundational outlook. (Difficult moments unsettle or paralyze those under the sway of boosterism or toxic positivity, as they assume that all presentations should shine positive or all conditions should be positive. The tragic optimist by inclination pushes past obstacles or losses with fortitude.)
It was a generation ago, by invitation, that I first arrived in Whitewater, and several years thereafter passed before I became this city’s blogger. No one would have expected this of me. As the ninth generation from another American city, raised to be one link in a chain extending generations thereafter in that same place, Whitewater was unknown to me.
I did not discover Whitewater, find Whitewater, or even choose Whitewater (in the typical understanding of the term). It was offered to me, unexpectedly. My own choosing among alternatives could not, as it turns out, have found anything so beautiful and congenial to me as Whitewater. The city is, understandably, as beautiful and congenial to many others as it is to me.
Our social commitment, as individuals in this community, is first to do no harm, and then to do much good. We each have different talents and roles through which we may advance this commitment.
Our best days are ahead, and there has never been a day, however melancholy it may have seemed at the time, when anyone should have thought otherwise.
The shape-shifting robo-turtle: