My wife Connie and I own a small cabin on Rattlesnake Island in Lake Winnipesaukee in central New Hampshire and each summer I come back here to write and swim and walk in the woods. Connie has now joined me for a weeklong getaway from the midwest and we’re fixing to power wash our deck which is green in several places owing to the effects of winter snow. But somehow relaxing is a prologue to the work and we find that letting go of the worldly cares remains a near impossibility. While swimming I find myself thinking of Ohio’s acid rain which washes over the New England states. While walking in downtown Wolfeboro I wonder about the kids who are following their parents up and down the quaint shopping district–will those kids inherit a nation that guarantees affordable healthcare for all? Will there be a new era of energy friendly jobs and industries for them to work in? I think about these things as I note the incredible wealth of the nouveau rich home owners who have built startlingly spacious and expensive lakeshore places in a landscape where I grew up and where the lakeshore properties were mostly blue collar places. Are these young, wealthy, showy new consumers the last gold diggers from the era of gasoline engines? Will there be new kinds of wealth in America? Will there be a middle class at all?
And so I find that I’m not a relaxer by nature. I slow down. I swim under the full moon. Will the future of this nation be a noble or tragic affair? Will power washing the green innocent stains of last winter’s snow help me out?
I think I’ll go rowing and imagine a warless, free society.
And how about some fried clams?
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 
The fried clams would do it for me.
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