North Country, NH; some thoughts

A single smokestack stands against the gray winter skyline of Berlin, it's billowing emissions dissipating as quickly as the hopes of the city's residents. In the distance, over a small height of land, lay two more stacks, silent and overridden by gnarled vines, snuffed out by the forward march of society into a brave new global economy.

Citizens, unable to understand the events that have cast this once prosperous city onto hard times, have taken to blaming imaginary enemies. A few times a day, some tired soul will walk into my office, and snarl invectives about "wetbacks" or claim that they could never support that "colored fellow" (this is the PG version of their word choices), not realizing that there is no minority population to speak of within the city limits (in fact, my coworker and I together make up the area's sole whole Latino).

One allure of organizing is that you have the ability to reach into the depths of a community's soul and grasp its pulse. In an area whose youth have fled for the greener pastures of Portland, Manchester or Boston, older residents are eager to share their experiences and stories with new arrivals, for they fear that their beloved town is losing a war of attrition which they cannot win. Last night, I spoke with a diminutive older woman, whose gray eyes held a strong flicker of life, and she recounted to me numerous tales which reflected her fears and concerns for the future. She spoke for twenty minutes, and though I couldn't offer her much in the way of comfort (not without lying, anyways), I was happy I was able to hear what she had to say, because, as she said "people have just stopped listening to one another."