It was a glorious morning in Virginia’s Piedmont. There had been a full moon in a clear sky, one filled with celestial mystery. There was an argument of unusual intensity for the early morning as the circle around the Fire Ring discussed it. Some called the illumination in this burgeoning month of growth the “Flower Moon.” It took a moment for conversation to get rolling, since we had become accustomed to our assigned attorney Amanda being watchful to ensure no proscribed opinions were allowed to jump the firewall and appear in the daily publication stream.

Amanda had regrettably tested “positive” for whatever that pandemic thing was and was in sequestration for two weeks to bend the curve. Or maybe she just wanted to take a vacation from the Fire Ring. Entrenched staffs being what they are, a temporary replacement program to find someone on the payroll with the correct pronounces, melanin sensitivity, body mass and gender was going to take days. So, for the moment, anyway, the Fire Ring was unsupervised.

“OK- keep it down and keep it reasonable,” said DeMille, who hoped that a modicum of moderation might enable him to produce an inoffensive product that still harnessed a couple centuries of actual experience dealing with weapons of mass destruction. To our credit, those who date back to the Vietnam conflict count at least two wars as “successful” in outcome, those being the Gulf and Cold ones, with Vietnam in the loss column and the Global War on Terror still undecided.

Actually, our non-military expert Buck has his doubts about the GWOT. He was concerned about the reaction to 9/11 that brought us the Department of Homeland Security and the Patriot Act that accompanied it. Most of those who had dealt with the intelligence collection systems of the time supported the new information sharing initiatives to make it easier to identify potential terror activity. Buck was still in his teaching prime and had enough distance from the national security structure to be concerned about who got to define what a “terrorist” might be. So, his vote is that we might well be batting fifty-fifty on armed conflicts.

Constant supervision has tempered some of the discussion. No one likes to get yelled at. Splash still subscribes to Sports Illustrated, though he gets his copy on the tablet rather than at the mailbox. He passed his device around to highlight a major change in what used to be the swim-season highlight. It was an attractive lady proportioned in a manner that only a century or so ago might have been termed “Rubenesque.” He did not comment, realizing that characterizations of beauty these days would be immediately characterized as something else, which is a problem with virtually every issue.

Loma recognized a looming issue and glanced at Melissa to avoid any inadvertent microaggressions. “A certain voluptuous aspect of beauty is a welcome change. If we can talk about beauty any more, that is.”

“You mean like that clip on the flat-screen last night when a Mom at the school board meeting was chastised for reading out loud what her daughter was told to memorize for class work?”

There was general laughter at that one, since there had been talk about the three 8th grade males who made the news after being tabbed as “sexual harassers” after failing to use the proper pronouns for a fellow student who had been screaming profanities at them. That episode had not caused as much laughter, since being moderately impolite around people screaming did not use to be an offense that could follow you around as long as the internet is up and running.

Splash gave it a grin. As a military officer, he had been subject to weight control and physical fitness standards for about a quarter century, including the time after the Cold War when looking trim and fit based on recent photographs was considered a means of reducing not weight but the number of officers no longer needed to confront the Soviet Union.

“The idea that we are supposed to appreciate a new standard of appearance is sort of crazy. But times change. It is now late Spring. It was 49 degrees when I got up this morning, and we are supposed to be in the mid-80s this afternoon. That is like a 30-degree change in six hours and it is normal. The Sciency people say that if the temperature goes up more than 1.5 degrees on average the earth is doomed. So, we need to junk everything that seems to work pretty well and try something that didn’t work that efficiently for our grandparent’s grandparents.”

“Climate is something measured over thirty years. So come back in 2050 and tell us how we are doing.”

There was some general agreement to that proposition, since it would put resolution of the problem on some other generation that didn’t make the decisions that got them in whatever mess they are going to have to deal with, though they did not agree to run up the debt they are going to be responsible.

Splash’s voice was rising in tone, an alarming note on a placid lovely morning. DeMille was compelled to rise, almost in keeping with the increase on volume. “Try to keep the resolution of the changes in progress in perspective. Our Grandparents had to live with the consequences of the First War, the Roaring Twenties and the international collapse that led to the Great Depression. So, relax. Our part of the American Century was pretty decent. We were the lucky ones.”

Melissa grimaced with grace. “Just stay away from the lunacy about sex and gender, which are not even the same things.” She looked over at Agnes, who was dropping off some knitted blankets in preparation for the anticipated demand in the Fall. She just shrugged, since she was under no confusion on any aspect of that discussion.

“We can accommodate generational change since we have no choice. We can comment privately to other Boomers about things that don’t seem to make much sense, based on several decades of experience and hard work. If we now seem to be dealing with the inversion of almost everything, so be it. We have collectively abandoned dealing with the world out there and only have to deal with the reality here. There is only an unconstructive alternative.”

That brought a collective set of nods around the Ring. Splash actually laughed out loud. “I was thinking about yelling at the sky to protest.”

“We will have to find an image to start the story that better reflects our consensus. We can’t use that one of the lady in the glasses shrieking upward about a former President. Maybe something artistic,” said DeMille. “I think we can all agree on that.”

Then we started to talk about lunch, which avoided any shouting at the sky or mention about what is likely to come with a lean harvest. The reports are already starting on that crisis. It is partly from decisions made months ago resulting from overseas conflict and spiking prices in the diesel fuel. That is necessary for operating the equipment that makes agricultural production possible. That isn’t news yet.
But it will be this Fall.

There was some hope that there will be a new variant of the eternal pandemic by then sufficiently virulent to keep the Attorney away from the circle long enough to talk about it. Then. Not now.

Copyright 2022 Vic Socotra
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