It’s been some years since I’d seen my brother, Mike, and he blew into town recently for a 3-night visit. We spent most of our time laughing at ourselves, each other, politics, grammar, media, pepperoni, whether or not it’s true that people in Chicago eat food by the foot, and how when we say we’re going to throw something away, we know there’s no such place.
Politically, we’re worn down. Neither of us understands what has happened, yet both of us know it has. Mike wondered how Trump failed financially multiple times, but Deutsche Bank bailed him out anyway. When DJT then defaulted on his repayments, he sued the bank, saying his predicament was all the bank’s fault, and any suspicious transactions or misdeeds were absolute nonsense.
If you or I walked into CS, Equity, Bank of 1889 or Arvest and said it’s your fault I’m broke and I need way more money so I can pay back what I owe you, what do you suppose they would say?
Mike didn’t want to see anything around town. He simply wanted to sit and talk. The beat of our conversations was slow, steady and unexpected. He wanted to know why our hospital is in such disarray. He has a subscription to ESI, reads it cover to cover, and doesn’t understand how, or why, a board would ever influence anyone other than the manager they hired.
He also asked how private landowners can make decisions about wind turbines that adversely affect their neighbors while leaning into anti-zoning and “my land, my rights,” arguments, knowing that their actions are solely for their temporary benefit and their neighbor’s perpetual detriment.
He alluded to that pesky national debt saying he was more comfortable with a $1 trillion debt than a $4 trillion debt in our country, knowing that whatever the debt, his life would likely not be affected. He’s not a farmer, not a laborer. He’s a golf course marshal, a retired executive, veteran, and will be a great-grandpa in a couple of weeks. He delivers Meals on Wheels in a Colorado mountain town.
He asked why we were getting a $34 million opera house, why downhill bike trails are the focus of Eureka Springs marketing, and why people have such a love affair with a town that offers a road grid as twisted as a box of nightcrawlers, has precious little parking, brags about its potholes, and has restaurants that close for the season because who gets hungry in the wintertime?
I told him Eureka Springs gets away with a lot because it’s beautiful, not flat, not sprawling, loaded with individually owned businesses, and it attracts smart, experienced, contentious people who need an outlet, so they either volunteer to be on a commission or become an artist. He understands that even if our country goes dormant for 20 years, artists will be the ones who bring its spirit back.
We talked about how the United States feels like a furious teenage nation that hates us rather than a stable big brother nation that loves us. We decided it’s because people are responding to anger with louder anger. Mike said politics is like religion and fire – useful when you’re thoughtful, disastrous when you’re not. He mentioned that love brought the United States together and behavior is all that can keep it together.
We didn’t go anywhere special; didn’t visit friends he knows. We parked ourselves in chairs and had three nights of sibling therapy.
Five Stars. Would Recommend.