Sad & scary true story for your Halloween weekend:
(part 2 in comments)
…
Guy I know is one of the finest human beings I know. In my mind, he's just a rock of integrity and good. He lives and works in a small-ish rural community ~10k population in city limits, ~30k in the surrounding county and local area that makes their community.
In many ways that community is like my friend: good. Through and through, good people, good solid sustainable local economy, good government and schools, good solid well maintained and supported infrastructure on all levels.
Heck, people and businesses proudly and willingly pay their taxes honestly to contribute their financial support to this place. This is the place where I was first exposed to the idea that a solid well run business is a “corporate citizen” where a local business owner said in all earnest un-ironic veracity that he wanted to pay fair taxes so the community would want him and his company and benefit from his business being there.
…Or, ..,at least they once were and once did. (Cue ominous foreboding and foreshadowing and ill omens with the requisite shadows lurking and creeping and appropriate musical intimations.)
This county and small city has had, for 150+ years at least, maybe longer, very fair and equitable tax and other good solid governance at all levels, good solid well maintained infrastructure, great local schools, responsible well planned and well balanced growth and development with good sustainable long range goals and plans reaching 100 and for some projects and plans 200 years into the future.
Both as a product or result and a cause or origin of all this sane goodness, local government and elected office were always about good quality talented and smart capable people of integrity and character serving their community.
No partisan politics entered into local government nor local elections at all. Never had. There was an occasional infrequent (~10-20 years) hot local election on a single issue or a single office. Many “elected” positions had either the incumbent or new candidate (who often “ran” to fill a position after being mentored and trained when the previous incumbent retired) “run” unopposed.
Everyone knows everyone else and especially their character. Pervasive positive and deep-rooted expectations and standards for ethical plain dealing and up-front no-hidden-agendas civic engagement are the uniformly expected and enforced norm.
Everybody knows who they can trust. And, yes, everyone knows Eileen, who owns and runs the local big salon and day-spa, is a self-centered cold as mid-January frozen steel gatepost yet also a flaming double burner butane bitch who will scratch your eyes out and then, when blind, dispassionately eviscerate you and cremate your remains if you even think of competing with her or maligning her business or her stylists or clients, yet she quietly and preferably anonymously sponsors and outfits a little league baseball team and has since her son, who died at 12 years old of leukemia, started playing in the 1980's together with a girls softball team, two soccer teams and is an anchor yet anonymous sponsor of the city and county beauty/scholarship pageants and a local scholarship fund for financially and otherwise disadvantaged but hard working kids.
And they all know Joe N. is a shoddy contractor who overcharges and builds thrown-together half prefabbed clapboard firetraps that will collapse under their own weight inside ten years who you only use for stop-gap jobs you can tolerate being done late when no one else is a available … yet who insists on only buying tools, supplies and materials, even when – maybe because or especially – they are more expensive from locally owned businesses and he will not frequent any big-box nor go up nor down to “the cities” for supplies nor materials nor labor.
But everyone knows.
Everybody knows the Sheriff, and his father before him, is the one you call personally and he'll call and drive out with the vet when an animal, large or small, is injured or sick or old and needs to be put down. He'll be strong and supportive and professional and ask if you want to stay or let them take care of it all for you. Then when the animal quietly passes with his strong hand on its head or back, he'll remove his immaculate Stetson hat and weep and bawl openly, wordlessly and hug and hold the vet or you, if you're there, as much for his own comfort and support as for yours until both cry it out, then produce a pair of clean pressed handkerchiefs and hand you one while he calmly cleans his eyes and clears his nose and then puts his hat back on to regain his composure and professionally arrange for the necessary removal and burial or disposal of the remains. I thought this and have heard several people say it: I'd sure like Joe [Sheriff] to be the one to be there with Ellen or Sam [the vets] to release me from this mortal coil when it's my time. Seems far more humane and respectful than the way we treat a lot of humans as they linger and suffer.
…continued in comments…