The Coonridge Digest: People are still good

Greetings from the Ridge.

I’d heard people joke about root canals all my life until I finally had a couple myself… then I stopped laughing. It’s been over 20 years ago but like a Christmas pageant gone awry, I can remember each terrifying detail. Most unforgettable among the Guantanamo-based memories was the moment the dentist drove a hypodermic directly down the inside of my carved-out tooth. Although the dental school terrorist denied it, I know for a fact that the needle went through my jaw, down my spine, and poked its gnarled head out the bottom of my left heel. Or at least that’s how I remember it.

For much of the world, that’s been the case for the year 2009. A 12-month root canal.

Those who voted for our new President are discouraged by the criticism he’s received and those who never liked the guy have not exactly warmed up to his performance. Of course there’s no news in a President’s plans being unpopular. The Chief Executives who’ve received the highest popularity ratings have often been those who’ve attempted the least. Everybody liked Ike and Gerald Ford didn’t believe in root canals.

Adding to our national pain is the way we increasingly get our news solely from the sources who think as we do. Whether you’re a fan of Fox News or MSNBC, neither is exactly objective. They make our teeth hurt. I recently talked to an average citizen who actually studied the National Health Care plan. Okay, I’ll fess up. I didn’t. I haven’t. And I probably won’t.

And no matter if you’re jobless or comfortably settled into the current economy, it hurts us all to see our neighbors suffer. Whether you peek at the National Debt, the jobless rate, or the GNP, you’ll get a similar pain in your jaw.

Congress? It’s my bet that they’re all former dentists. Sixty Democratic senators automatically vote for a bill and 40 Republicans coincidentally feel the other way? Gimme a break. We could save a carload of congressional salaries by simply electing robots to office. We elect them to work things out among themselves and they simply do not. Eighth-graders could be trained to behave and follow directions. Congress cannot.

And while Washington is inundated with blather and counter-blather, young men and women continue to fight and die in foreign lands, and unlike previous wars, we’re never quite sure anymore as to the meaning of victory.

Yes, 2009 has brought us a few joys… our image in the world seems to have taken a bit of a jump in the right direction, but one unpopular war or a restrictive tariff can erase our popularity overnight. The economy is brightening, but that’s paltry comfort to someone trying to support a household while out of work. We’re taking a serious look at environmental concerns but a good many folks have tucked global warming and energy independence under their arm as a political football.

And of course the best news of all is that people – most people – at least the people that you and I know, are still good. They really are. I suspect that despite the painful headlines, they always have been. A good friend of mine publishes a Midwestern newspaper and a month prior to Christmas he put his writers in search of stories in which common folks were simply giving of themselves. He told me that he was inundated with more acts of kindness, of soup kitchens, of Secret Santa’s, of sacrifice and faith than he could possibly fit into the paper’s Christmas Day edition. Next year he plans to spread the idea out over the entire month of December.

The good news is that the root canal saved my tooth. I guess that a day’s worth of terror in the dentist’s chair paid off in saving the molar. This 12 month root canal may have been painful and no doubt the ache will linger over a bit in 2010, but if we can simply bear it a bit longer. If we can remain servants in a world that seems filled with greed, the throbbing national pain will no doubt subside and we can get back to the corn on the cob.

You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door but you’ll enjoy the trip.