The Dawning Of A New Age?
Who would have thought that the Age of Obama, while still in need of a moniker to rival the Camelot of Kennedy’s time, would get its start right here in the Onteora school district. And yet that’s the thought many seemed to take away proudly from the recent Middle East night put on by Tamara Lang and the Phoenicia Elementary PTA… a fun evening for kids and grown ups that would have been unheard of seven, let alone one year ago.
The school’s auditorium/cafeteria was remade as a casbah, with rugs and tapestries and mood lighting. Where the lunch line usually was were a fascinating blend of foods, from grape leaves, couscous and hummus to baklava and mint tea. And the entertainment, including a belly dancer with snake, was truly world class.
Sure, not everyone in the district came and there were entire demographics left absent. But not through any fault of the event’s organizers. Or the kids themselves, who not only learned a lot from the event, but had great fun, one and all.
What was fresh and new was the spirit of interested involvement from all in attendance. The fact that families had come out from the entire school district to share in the fun, and learn about other cultures.
The ideal of our country as a vast melting pot with open arms and minds was once again on display… proudly.
It couldn’t have come at a better time, settling between weeks of the right’s attempts to cast doubts on our new president’s attempts to wrestle forth new ways of dealing with old problems that had spent too long mounting to their own crisis, and that same president’s recent successful tour of Europe, and upcoming visits to Asia, where we have started reshaping America’s role in an utterly changed world.
As well as just before our own state’s release of a final budget that, far from all the doom and gloom talk of recent weeks — with state property tax freezes and major cuts to education and health – ended up solving its problems by raising taxes on the state’s very rich.
Life is shifting, folks. Our needs as a national society, as well as part of a greater world community, have shifted. Opposition for opposition’s sake doesn’t make as much sense, right now, as the search for better means of getting along. Forget “with us or against us.” We are all, in the final rounds, together in more ways than we’re apart.
The recent evening at the Phoenicia School demonstrated this in tangible ways, from the numbers of new and old residents it brought out to share the fun from all ends of our wide school district to the manner in which district school officials joined in the fun, dancing to the beat of the evening’s various drummers.
Why always focus on the worst that can befall us when we can still move our hearts and souls by coming together. What a perfect way to entertain the coming of Spring, as well as what we and many others are hoping is a true new age.
As well as to take a break from the typically cranky politics of the mud season, and get us all ready for the Onteora budget and board voting ahead, as well as local elections come the fall.
We deserve all the good we can gather…
PS