Steady Wins the Race

On Wednesday, the rain was coming down slowly, but steadily, when we arrived in Point Roberts.  When we went to the post office, what to my wondering eyes should appear but two guys--one on a ladder, and the other on the actual roof--nailing in shingles on the roof of the community events sign. They had their backs to me more or less and I didn't recognize them from that angle, but whoever they are, good work!  This sign has now been moving through its many phases for almost two years, and each time that another step in its completion is taken, I kind of hold my breath until the next step comes.  This could be dangerous for your health when the spaces get pretty long, of course.

Yesterday, a sunnier day looked upon a roof that appeared to me to be complete.  But the scaffolding was still up, so perhaps there's yet another breath-holding ahead of me.  It hasn't been fast, but it has surely been persistent.  And that, too, is a virtue to be cherished.  However, there is a sign now on that board for a meeting that was held last month...not as current as one might hope.

Sign Still Becoming

Just before we left Point Roberts this week, I spotted yet another advance on the long march of the Community Events Sign: some part of the roof is now in place.  I assume there is to be something yet to cover this roof (shingles, marble, hammered copper, whatever is sustainable).  Also new is the sign on the east side of the sign providing credit for the sign’s construction.  I’m glad it is volunteer labor, rather than conscripted labor or prison labor or whatever other kind of unpaid labor might be available.  However, if I’m around the next time that the sign has to be rebuilt (unlikely), I’ll be speaking up in favor of paid labor.  I’m grateful that the Woodshop and Point Roberts Volunteers are doing this work, but I continue to be sorry that it is taking so long.  Not their fault; after all, they are volunteers.  My sorrow (and my apologies) are directed to whatever Gods may be for my having advertised the sign as a quick project.

And another sight on Point Roberts that took me aback.  The farm house on APA Road is being spiffed up after all these years of abandonment.  As I was driving by (without my camera), I saw there was new white paint on the siding and new dark red trim on the windows.  But subsequently a blog commenter (Hi, Fun Guy!) said he thought that there was a new foundation and a new deck.  Which makes it sound as if the building might actually be being restored.  If that is true, I truly apologize (today is the apology edition of the blog, I guess) for my sharp comments about the ‘No Trespassing’ sign that was put up on the property.  I still don’t think it’s necessary, but I would have balanced that conclusion with the good work of the restoration.

And, finally (although totally unrelated), Whatcom County Council member Barbara Brenner has not yet sent me her amendments to the septic inspection program, but she has requested that those of us with Point Roberts mailing lists clarify a matter at the meeting last Monday.  Specifically, there was some dispute about expensive new systems and their costs and particularly about Glendon systems.  Brenner suggests caution if an inspector tells you that you need an expensive new system, and says: ‘Try to get a second opinion, heck even your first opinion, from someone you trust a lot.’  Which seems like good advice in any case.  Although, it’s hard to know exactly whom to trust ‘a lot.’

Loose Ends

The Magazine Exchange:  Kris, who runs the library, has made everything better.  She obtained a rolling cart from the main library and the magazines for exchange can be left on the cart and the librarians will take it in when the library closes and bring it out when the library opens.   That limits the exchange a bit I suppose since it means only during the library opening times, but better than nothing, and actually very good.  I told Kris today that I would check it at least once a week while I am on the Point to make sure that it is not overflowing and to prune if necessary.  This ought, however, not to turn into extra work for the librarians, so it would be a good idea for everyone who uses it to attend to the tidiness factor, as well. 

The Community Events Sign:  Well, the roof is not yet there, but there are an awful lot of trusses for something that is only about a five-foot span.  I imagine the roof will be made of granite or marble or something like that in order to bear down sufficiently on those trusses.

Economic Development Plan #3001:  I had seen this  For Sale sign frequently, but somehow never quite focused on the hotel plan possibilities.  A few years ago, there was talk of a race track on this property, I believe.  How much more interesting even would a hotel be, right there across from the post office and the USA gas station, and adjoining the community events sign!  Lots of lots and buildings for sale in Point Roberts right now.  Perhaps many hotels as well as B and B’s, motels and maybe even boarding houses.  Transitory Housing R Us. 

Progress

The Community Events sign was, last week, surrounded by scaffolding, suggesting that the roof is finally on its way.  It will be good to see the whole thing finished, although its progress has certainly been something less than a straight line.  The now-defunct Community Association took on the task of revivifying the former Community Events sign almost two years ago.  It wasn’t what anybody much thought the Community Association would be doing, but it seemed like a reasonably small task that somewhat needed doing and that could be done fairly quickly and inexpensively because fairly easy.  In addition, it seemed like an opportunity for the members of the Community Association to get to know one another better through the process and to develop some habits of working together.

None of those goals worked out, of course.  It turned out not to be neither a small, quick, or inexpensive task (perhaps there are no such things in Point Roberts), and by the time it was partly erected, most of the hopeful Community Association members, myself included, had moved on to learn something else with someone else, I guess.

Nevertheless, the people who were doing the hands-on building have admirably stayed with it, though its costs keep going up.  There is talk of copper gutters round the sign’s roof, although when I look around my street, I notice that the rest of us are doing okay with aluminum gutters. 

And the sign itself, as can be seen in the two photos seems now to be conceptually metamorphosing.  First, the posts have sprouted a second sign space which seems to be a permanent sign for a new organization.  One wishes it well, but it seems a little premature, given the history of Point Roberts’ community organizations, to begin with a permanent sign.  Or, self-defeating, since a sign that is always there quickly becomes a sign that no one sees.  And, second, the idea of community seems to have broadened substantially since the main sign space is largely occupied by an event that is taking place in Bellingham.

Ah, well. . . as it says in the very small print at the bottom of the sign on the left-hand lower corner, ‘some rules may apply.’ And, presumably, some may not.

Sign of the Times

The Point Roberts Events sign continues to get heavy use, even though our summer festivalizing is largely over.  As you can see from this photo, however, we have this Saturday not only a Seafood and Music Festival (I think of it as the Singing Salmon Festival), but also a Historical Society Potluck Reunion, and a Classic Golf Memorial.  Regular AA meetings have come to us only in the last few years, presumably as a result of a sudden inflow of new residents from ROTUS where they are a little more organized.  The Sustainability Group is, I think, new, and is beginning with a forum on Ridek (an electric car, whose inventor is a Point Roberts resident).

But what I am looking to write about is the ‘Help Our Country’ sign, which seems less an event than a plea.  What struck me about it was that I couldn’t immediately tell whether it was the work of the left or the right (although the ‘God Bless America’ suggests the latter, not because only the right has religion but because the left is less likely to incorporate its religious messages in its political messages).  But both sides of the political spectrum are up in arms these days about the threats to the Constitution.  We all have our views about this, but it seemed to me that the urging to read the Constitution itself was not a bad piece of advice, regardless of its origins.

And so, after taking the photo, I went home, printed the text of the Constitution out and sat down and read it.  And then I had Ed read it.  And then we talked about what we read.

I recalled that the great Constitutional expert Sam Irvin (U.S. Senator from North Carolina and chairman of the Watergate Investigation Committee hearings) used to say that he always carried a copy in his pocket and read it every day.  Neither of us had ever felt that compelling a need, but over the years we had both read it  for one reason or another, mostly in connection with some organized educational endeavor, but we didn't remember that much, so our expectations were somewhat open.  (Our copy, as it happened, did not include the Bill of Rights or the Amendments.)

We were struck with how short it was; how (for the most part) right to the point and comprehensible it was.  Nowadays, such a document would require an introductory chapter before it could even get around to describing what it was intending to do.  But here, in the initial 50 words, the writers pretty much nail it.  The point of the enterprise is to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

The authors have a few things to say about each of these in the following 3-4 pages, but it is interesting to note the things it worried specifically about and the things it didn’t specifically mention but that its writers were very much worried about, and things not mentioned because either they were worried, or they weren’t and thus didn’t think them worth mentioning.  For example, the famous elimination of ‘titles of nobility.’  It seems odd, by now, to think that would be uppermost in their minds.  But that tells one a lot about how the context and culture in which you live naturally arranges your priorities.  They had plenty of problems from ‘titles of nobility.’  Today...not so much.

Slavery is, of course, not directly mentioned, although the text does permit ‘importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit,’ which I think refers indirectly to slavery, since the document refers to immigration as different from’importation of persons’.  I was surprised to see that that permission was allowed to extend only until 1808, at which time Congress could prohibit such state-sanctioned immigration or importation of persons.  They were indeed hopeful about getting a handle on slavery if this was, indeed, intended to refer to that issue.

A second indirect reference to slavery comes later when the document addresses the matter of  persons ‘held to service or labor’ in one state who find themselves in a different state.  This of course required the return of escaped slaves to their owners.

We were pleased to note that the Constitution’s text, itself, reminds us that the President is the Commander in Chief of the military and, by its phrasing, makes clear that he is NOT the Commander in Chief of the People or even of The Country.  We are not a great Army led by the President.

And finally, the all-time-great one-sentence paragraph: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”  I think that’s about all that needs to be said on that topic, although my granddaughter, interning in D.C. this semester, recently reminded me that the Supreme Court had found Lincoln’s suspension of Habeas Corpus during the Civil War unconstitutional on the grounds that, as long as the Courts were functioning, the Constitution's prohibition could not be overcome.   Lincoln and the Military ignored the ruling, but we are a nation of laws, not men, and that’s why we were reading the Constitution today.

Finally, what’s it got to say about religion?  Only one thing: “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”  No mention of the U.S. being a Christian nation nor of God having some special interest in our trajectory.  Just for the record, I mention this.

So that was our Constitution Event.  The next day, when I drove by the Community Events sign, the announcement signs had all been re-arranged, but the ‘Read the Constitution’ sign had been removed.  I guess it didn’t seem like a community event.  But maybe we could make it one.  We could all meet at the Community Center and have somebody read it out loud to us once a year, and we would listen with care.  It wouldn’t take more than 15 or 20 minutes, I’d guess.   We could then go home and choose our own discussants.  And if we had questions, we could ask Google. [added: the granddaughter tells me that today is Constitution Day, so it really was even-oriented.]