“Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.”
– Oscar Wilde
Six years ago a snapping turtle walked across my lawn and inspired the inaugural edition of this column.
I don’t expect anyone to care because six is not a big anniversary number.
Numbers count when we talk about anniversaries. They sound more important when they’re divisible by five or by ten.
I think it’s because most of us count with our fingers.
On June 12, 1994 (fifteen years ago) Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were murdered.
At the time and for months afterward it was all most people could talk about. In hindsight, we had better things to do.
Instead, our insatiable hunger for every last sordid detail of this story led to the creation of the modern news industry, dominated by endless hours of talking heads shouting opinions but very few facts, and driving cultural wedges deep into the heart of this country.
On June 4, 1989 (twenty years ago), while anti-communist revolutions were springing up in Eastern Europe, the People’s Liberation Army crushed a student revolt in Tiananmen Square.
The crackdown included suppression of news about this event that continues to this day, especially within Mainland China.
On June 6, 1984 (twenty-five years ago) the USSR almost crushed Western civilization by releasing a secret weapon called Tetris. This attempt at fatal distraction failed because many people did not yet have personal computers. Some years later Microsoft retaliated by bundling Solitaire with Windows.
On June 8, 1949 (sixty years ago) George Orwell’s 1984
In it, Orwell described a dystopia where people were kept under control through the news they were fed by the state-run media. Looking back at the Chinese response to the student democracy movement in 1989 and looking at our own “news” media since the O.J. sensation, I can’t tell for sure which one more closely matches Orwell’s nightmare Ministry of Truth.
On June 6, 1944 (sixty-five years ago) Allied soldiers landed on the beaches of Normandy. D-Day marks the crucial moment in the struggle to liberate Europe.
Sixty-five years after this battle, the youngest remaining veterans are in their eighties. As they pass on, we are slowly losing touch with this historic event. Let’s not forget them or the many who fell in that struggle.
On June 9, 1934 (seventy-five years ago), the people of New Fairfield gathered in front of Town Hall to celebrate the opening of a new addition.
New Fairfield celebrates Town Hall addition, June 9, 1934
(photo courtesy Janice Zackeo / Preserve New Fairfield)
This space was used for square dances, wedding receptions, parties, and town meetings. Most of those things are not associated with government.
When I look at the photo of everyone standing in front of the new Town Hall, I can’t help but wonder if there was anyone in town (population less than 500) who was against the project.
This was in the depths of the Great Depression, after all.
There had to be someone who wrote letters to the local paper. Who did everything they could to stop the project from going forward. Who said that the town’s declining population didn’t need more space. Someone who filed FOI requests and complained about the First Selectman. Someone who drove past the new Town Hall for many years, muttering bitterly. Someone not in that picture.
This year is significant for Town Hall in a bigger way: it was first built in 1759. That’s two hundred and fifty years ago.
We’ll be opening the new Senior Center in a few weeks. Let’s take a picture.
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“Thomas Paine was a champion, in both hemispheres, of human liberty; one of the founders and fathers of this Republic; one of the foremost men of his age. He never wrote a word in favor of injustice. He was a despiser of slavery. He abhorred tyranny in every form. He was, in the widest and best sense, a friend of all his race. His head was clear as his heart was good, and he had the courage to speak his honest thoughts.”
“I believe in the equality of man, and that religious duties consist in doing justice, in loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.”
“It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself.”
“The word of God is the creation which we behold.”
“Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.”
“My opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in doing good and endeavoring to make their fellow-mortals happy, will be happy hereafter.”
“I believe in one God, and no more, and I hope for happiness beyond this life.”
“Man has no property in man.”
“The key of heaven is not in the keeping of any sec!”
(http://www.ushistory.org/PAINE/)
Thomas Paine, was born in Thetford in Norfolk on January 29, 1737, he died on June 8, 1809 at the age of 72 in New York City. Perhaps Mr Thomas Paine would be very proud of New Fairfield and would want us to remember this day in words too.
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