White Hall Station

Sometimes a chapter needs another walk around the block, and this one did. I went back, rewrote it, and finally gave a little mouse named Archibald MacLeash the explanation he deserved. If you’ve read the book, this fills in the cracks. If you haven’t, well—welcome to the neighborhood.

The night before my induction, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, looking for answers. My heart pounded like I’d just run the 40‑yard dash. A drumbeat I wasn’t sure I could march to — too fast, too loud, too soft, and definitely its own rhythm. But I knew exactly where I did not want to march.

I tried everything: counting breaths, replaying old football games, thinking of my girlfriend, even astral projection — maybe I could end up on some tropical island, safe and away. I wanted to be anywhere but, in that room, in that bed, wondering where I might be tomorrow night. But dread snuck in under the door and settled in my brain. I wasn’t afraid of dying. I was afraid of disappearing — of becoming a number, a uniform, a cog in a machine I didn’t believe in.

The draft lottery — America’s twisted game show of fate — wouldn’t begin until 1969. But in 1964, the draft was still run by local boards, deferments reviewed by hand. At eighteen, I burned my college deferment card, thinking I was making a statement. I wrote letters to President Johnson and to my Staten Island draft board, asking to be reclassified 1‑A. You can’t refuse what you haven’t been offered. And I was tired of hiding behind loopholes, even if I hadn’t meant to hide in the first place.

By ’69, they granted my wish. I was 1‑A — fit for service, next in line to toe the line, or not. Five years of business schools and seminaries had led me here. From the gridiron to leg irons.

And then the morning came.

I was up by 6 a.m. — not that I’d slept. I left a note for my mother saying I’d gone to visit friends. I wondered how long I’d really be gone. I took the bus to the Staten Island Ferry, crossed the Hudson, and walked the two longest blocks of my life to Whitehall Station. Even writing about it now, I can feel that god‑awful sickness in my stomach. I can’t do this.

Fight or flight? Mine was freeze and sit. No exit. Just a heart pounding like a drumline on speed. I was about to jump off a cliff and couldn’t see the bottom. Compared to this, the Coney Island Parachute Jump was a kiddie ride.

Whitehall Station sat in lower Manhattan like a bureaucratic bunker — the place where boys became soldiers or tried not to. It shut down in 1972, two days before my birthday, while I was in Danbury Federal Correctional Institution. I’d wanted it torn down. I’d done my best to see that happen.

As I climbed the steps, I saw Mr. Harold Jones waiting outside. My eighth‑grade science teacher — but more than that. Over the years, he’d become my confidant, the one adult who understood what I was feeling. He made science feel like storytelling, helped along by a fictional mouse named Archibald MacLeish who lived in his coat closet. I never saw him, but I saw him. Still do.

Mr. Jones said he named the mouse Archibald MacLeish after the poet — “because even a mouse can carry big ideas,” he told me once, tapping his temple like he was winding up a thought. MacLeish wrote about truth, about standing your ground when the world tries to bend you, about the kind of dissent that isn’t loud or showy but stubborn and necessary. He believed democracy wasn’t something you admired from a distance — it was something you practiced, even when it cost you. Jones figured a mouse could teach eighth‑graders more about courage and conscience than any textbook. The beret, the cane, the red bandana — that was all me. That’s how I pictured him: a tiny philosopher with a rebel’s wardrobe, the kind of creature who’d whisper, Don’t let them turn you into something you’re not. Archibald showed up whenever I needed him — not as a hallucination, not as a joke, but as a reminder that dissent can be quiet, steady, and small, and still shake the world.

Mr. Jones didn’t say much that morning. He didn’t have to. He told me to stay who I was. Said it was something to be proud of.

Inside, the induction ceremony began. The room smelled of sweat. The air was thick with the breath of boys pretending not to shake. The recruiter’s voice was flat, rehearsed, like he’d stopped listening years ago.

“Please repeat after me…”

“I do solemnly swear…”

Repeat. Repeat? Hell, I could barely breathe.

“…that I will bear true faith…”

And suddenly I wasn’t in Whitehall anymore. I was back on the football field, hearing my coach yell, “Go in hell‑bent for leather, Little Sandy!” My dad was Big Sandy. The coach used that nickname to rile me up. Hell‑bent for leather — without fear.

My heart picked up the chant until it drowned out everything else.

Then came the words: Step forward.

I sat down.

The recruiter blinked, confused. Thought I was sick. I stood, breathed, sat again.

“I’m not moving,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I could even if I wanted to.

The sergeant’s face turned fire‑engine red. My heart was a jackhammer. I was frozen in defiance — or fear. Maybe both. I prayed he wouldn’t hit me. If he did, I wasn’t sure I could stop myself from hitting back. I may be a peacenik, but I know myself. Anger lives in me too. If I struck him, I wouldn’t be going to jail for trying to end a war, but for starting one.

Two MPs grabbed me like a sack of potatoes and hauled me to a holding cell. I expected that part. I was prepared. No blows were thrown. An Army lawyer came in to make sure I knew what I was doing. I asked if he knew what he was doing — and what he was part of. He accepted my yes and left.

Then came the police car, the ride to Staten Island, and my first night in jail. Five miles from the gridiron. A lifetime away.

As they carried me out of Whitehall, I refused to walk — part of my plan for total non‑cooperation. Mr. Jones stood on the grimy sidewalk. He smiled. Gave me a thumbs‑up. I flashed him a peace sign from between a cop’s holster and his arm.

And behind him — I swear — I saw Archibald MacLeish strutting down the sidewalk, beret tilted, cane tapping a rhythm only I could hear. He paused near the induction center door, tipped his hat, and whispered, “Courage isn’t loud. It’s the quiet refusal.” Then he vanished into the crowd.

Mr. Jones arranged to bail me out, though I was released on my own recognizance. I spent the rest of the day at his home — resting, recovering, trying to make sense of what had just happened. And what would happen next. To my mother, I was simply visiting Mr. Jones. I was old enough to say, “Don’t call my parents,” and the authorities obliged.

A trial date was set for April. The weeks leading up to it blurred into paperwork, legal advice, friends’ advice, and panic. I walked Manhattan like I always had, but now I memorized the cracks in the sidewalk, the rhythm of subway trains, the smell of roasted peanuts from corner carts — anything to anchor me.

Oddly, I’d always found the Financial District peaceful on a Sunday morning. Wall Street’s insanity gave way to silence. I walked it a few times in those last days. And Times Square — the lights of Broadway weren’t going to shine on me, but they still shine inside my memory. So do the beaches of Staten Island.

I didn’t know what I was looking for. Only that it wasn’t in New York anymore.

And so the city’s noise faded behind me. The cracks in the sidewalks, the drumbeat of the subway, even Broadway’s lights became part of a memory I carried but could no longer live inside.

What I needed was silence. Steadiness. A place where the ground didn’t demand allegiance.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I could still hear Archibald’s cane tapping — that quiet rhythm he kept for me when I couldn’t keep one for myself. He’d been at Whitehall, and he’d be on the mountain too. Courage travels light.

Emily’s mountain was waiting. Quiet, immovable, patient — just like she was — offering refuge without question.

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Archibald the Mystical Mouse

I’ve been thinking since March 5th of 2026, when I published my book, that I should rewrite it — not because I expect sales to suddenly skyrocket, but because I left out some things, explanations that would have mattered. Like the fact that I have this mystical mouse named Archibald MacLeish who shows up in the beginning. I just assumed everyone would sort of get it, and then it started occurring to me, over and over again, that no, not everyone does get it. What’s the big deal about the mouse?

So let me say it plainly.

In my book, I talk about this make‑believe mouse named Archibald MacLeish. He’s a small, mystical presence who slips in and out of the story, but the name itself comes from something real in my life. Back in school, my science teacher kept a classroom mouse, and he named that little creature Archibald MacLeish. At the time, I didn’t know much about the man behind the name, but my teacher did — and he believed in giving things names that meant something.

Later, I learned who the real Archibald MacLeish was — an American poet who wrote about democracy as something you do, not something you admire from a distance. He believed in dissent, in thinking for yourself, in the dignity of choosing your own path.

So the mouse in my book is that mouse — the one supporting my dissent. Not just the classroom mouse, and not just the poet, but the whole chain of belief behind it: a teacher who saw something in me, a poet who stood for freedom of thought, and a reminder that even the smallest presence can carry a big idea.

That’s the namesake. That’s the reason. That’s why the mouse is Archibald MacLeish. That’s why he shows up at the induction center.

And I should have explained that as an introduction to the little guy — why he’s there and given him the honor and the dues he deserved. I think folks would have felt the depth of his presence.

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A Rambling Harbor Note for Allen Ginsberg’s Born today May 3rd, 1926

There are mornings in Rambling Harbor when the gulls sound like they’re arguing about poetry — loud, insistent, half‑mad, and absolutely convinced they’ve got the line that’ll crack open the universe. And on a day like this, with the tide dragging its feet and the coffee tasting like it’s been through a few revolutions of its own, I find myself thinking about Allen Ginsberg, born in 1926, long before “flower power” became a bumper sticker or a punchline.

Ginsberg didn’t invent the sixties, but he sure as hell lit the pilot light. The man could walk into a room and suddenly everyone was talking louder, thinking stranger, feeling braver. He had that way of seeing the world — cracked, luminous, holy in its brokenness — and he didn’t apologize for any of it. Why would he. The whole point was to not apologize.

I imagine him wandering into Rambling Harbor, beard catching the sea breeze, eyes scanning the horizon like he expected a revelation to come rolling in on the next wave. And maybe it would. This place has a habit of handing you truths you didn’t ask for. Sometimes they’re gentle. Sometimes they hit like a wet rope across the knuckles.

He’d probably stand on the seawall, muttering lines to himself, something about angels and madness and the way America keeps trying to outrun its own shadow. And the old-timers down by the bait shop would look up, squint, and say, “Who’s the guy talking to the ocean?” And someone else would shrug and say, “Poet, probably,” and that would be enough.

Because around here, we know a thing or two about people who talk to things that don’t talk back.

Ginsberg coined “flower power,” but he also carried the weight of the world in his chest. He saw the beauty and the rot, the promise and the poison, and he wrote it all down like he was afraid the country might forget itself if he didn’t keep reminding it. And maybe he was right. Maybe we still need reminding.

So on his birthday, I raise a mug — chipped, stained, honest — to the man who howled at the machinery and dared it to howl back. To the poet who believed the world could be better if we just cracked our hearts open wide enough. To the stubborn, wild, inconvenient hope of it all.

And here in Rambling Harbor, where the wind never quite settles and the stories never quite end, that feels like something worth celebrating.

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Dan Sanders — Born May 20

I write about people’s birthdays, so I figured I’d give this guy a try.

Dan Sanders was born on May 20 in Knoxville, Tennessee, and before he knew much of anything he was hauled into the strange hum of Oak Ridge — the Atomic City, where the sidewalks were clean, the secrets were thick, and the grown‑ups talked in half‑sentences. He spent his first ten years there, learning early that the world doesn’t always tell you the truth straight on.

Then came the moves, one after another, the kind of drifting that teaches a kid to keep his eyes open and his back to the wall. Eventually he landed in New York City with his parents, a place loud enough to either swallow you whole or teach you how to stand your ground. He chose standing.

When the Vietnam War came calling, he not only didn’t answer — he sent a resounding NO echoing through the induction center, loud enough that the walls probably still remember it. And the country made him pay for that honesty. He spent time in federal prison for refusing the war, learning a different kind of geography: steel bars, long nights, and the strange brotherhood of men who wouldn’t bend. It didn’t break him. It sharpened him.

He made his way from New York to Boston, where he built a quieter life without ever losing the grit of where he came from. Over the years he became a broadcaster, a writer, a guy who pays attention to the small moments most people walk right past. His work — whether memoir, poetry, or the stories he tells out loud — carries that mix of blunt honesty and dry wit that only comes from a life actually lived, not imagined.

Born on this day, May 20, Dan Sanders grew up between the secrets of Oak Ridge, the chaos of New York, the hard lessons of prison, and the hard‑earned calm of Boston — carrying all of it in the way he writes, remembers, and tells the truth as he sees it.

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Me and Watergate

May 17th 1973, the Senate Watergate Committee opened its hearings.

On May 17, 1973, most Americans first heard the names E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy—the men behind the Democratic National Committee headquarters break-in that would topple a presidency.

Those names meant something different to me; they weren’t just headlines, but men I actually encountered in the same prison.

Arrested in 1971, I moved through The Tombs and several transfers, arriving at Danbury in 1972before Watergate gripped the nation. When Hunt and Liddy were convicted in early 1973 and already federal inmates, they entered my world.

I played chess with E. Howard Hunt, the former CIA man, whose calm, almost courtly manner made him a polite opponent. That year, G. Gordon Liddy and I were both in solitary, not for the same reasons or in the same cell, but in the same block.

And here’s the strange truth:

Liddy and I shared one thing — an absolute refusal to cooperate with the authorities.  

His refusal came from ideology and bravado; mine, from conscience. But to the Bureau of Prisons, defiance is defiance, and it lands you in the same concrete box.

It was surreal: America watched Watergate on TV while I shared a prison with the men who set it in motion. History unfolded in Washington, but some of them sat across from me at chess or were locked in solitary confinement down the tier.

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Some Thoughts and a Poem

I was just remembering the old Trump slogan “Drill, Baby, Drill,” and while I know a lot of folks are hurting because of the price of oil, I still think this: if there’s no earth left to drive on, the price of gas doesn’t matter.

Oil drilling harms the Earth in multiple, well‑documented ways, affecting land, water, air, wildlife, and the climate. The damage begins long before the first drop of oil is pumped and continues through extraction, transport, and burning.

Oil drilling isn’t just a technical process or an economic talking point. It tears open land that never asked to be touched, poisons water that once ran clear and leaves behind a kind of silence that feels heavier than sound. Every spill, every leak, every plume of smoke is another reminder that the earth absorbs more than we ever admit — and it remembers longer than we ever will.

That’s the ground my poem “The Scorched Land” stands on. It came from the moment I realized the planet isn’t just a stage for our mistakes — it’s a witness. A witness to the forests scraped away for access roads, the oceans slicked with oil, the air thickened by what we pull from below. These aren’t abstract harms. They’re wounds. And the earth carries them the way a body carries scars.

The poem lives in that uneasy space where anger and grief meet the stubborn belief that we can still do better. It’s not political. It’s personal. It’s the voice you hear when the world goes quiet enough for you to notice what’s been lost and what’s still worth saving.

If you’ve ever felt that shift under your feet — that sense that the ground itself is keeping score — then “The Scorched Land” is the part of this post meant for you.

And if you want the part of this story that doesn’t fit neatly into facts or headlines, it’s in the poem that grew out of all this.

The Scorched Land

When the last of us remain on this scorched land,
We will watch the ancient footage of our folly—
How we spurned the cries of nature and her hand,
How we slowly drained the lifeblood of this planet.

We will see the glaciers melt, and oceans rise,
We will see the forests burn, and deserts spread,
We will see storms, floods, droughts, and fires,
We will see the mass extinction of the living dead.

We will wonder how we could have been so blind—
How could we have let our greed destroy our home?
How could we have ignored the signs of our decline?
How could we have sealed our fate with a catacomb?

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Fashion or Conspicuous Consumption on Display

Maybe it’s just me—many times in cases like this it is at least mostly me—and before I go any further, I want to say I did not watch it. Instead, I watched the New York Knicks get some Boston Celtics revenge against the Philadelphia 76ers. But this morning the news is all over the event like bugs on a bumper, and the event I’m referring to is the Met Gala. An evening where individual costumes commonly range from $50,000 to $200,000, the Met Gala is officially known as the Costume Institute Benefit. It exists to financially support the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Unlike other Met departments, the Costume Institute is self‑funded. According to reporting summarized by The New Republic, the Met Gala has raised approximately $166.5 million over the past decade—an average of about $16–17 million per year. What makes this arrangement striking is not simply the sum raised, but the structure behind it: the museum collects the revenue while the immense aesthetic costs are absorbed by designers and luxury brands. The result is an event framed as philanthropy but sustained by a logic that more closely resembles high‑end advertising.

In the end, watching the Met Gala felt less like witnessing fashion and more like staring straight into the neon heart of conspicuous consumption. All that glitter, all that theater, all that money draped over people who can barely walk in it — it hits me like a scream I can’t quite swallow. Maybe it’s just the guy in clean jeans and a sweatshirt talking, but there’s something grounding about clothes meant to be lived in, not displayed like trophies. And standing in the shadow of all that gaudiness, I’m reminded how far spectacle can drift from anything that feels real.

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Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger was born on May 3, 1919, in New York City. He became a legendary American folk musician, songwriter, and activist whose long career made a significant impact on music and social movements. Seeger wasn’t just part of the folk revival — he was one of the engines driving it. In the 1940s and ’50s, most of America listened to crooners and big bands. Seeger was dragging a long-neck banjo across union halls, college campuses, and picket lines. He taught people that folk music wasn’t a museum piece. It was a living language of protest, hope, and ordinary people trying to make the world a little fairer.rer.

When he joined The Weavers in 1948, the group became a kind of Trojan horse for social change. They took traditional songs — work songs, spirituals, Appalachian ballads — and smuggled them into the mainstream. Their version of “Goodnight, Irene” hit No. 1 in 1950, and suddenly millions of Americans were humming a tune from the Black folk tradition. That was Seeger’s quiet genius: he made the radical feel familiar.

But success painted a target on their backs. The early 1950s were the height of the McCarthy era, when suspicion was a national pastime, and anyone with left‑leaning politics was treated like a threat. Seeger had been outspoken about labor rights, racial justice, and peace — long before it was fashionable — and that made him an easy mark. The Weavers were dragged into the anti‑communist hysteria, labeled subversive, and effectively erased from radio and television. Concerts were canceled. Record contracts evaporated. Their career didn’t just stall; it was deliberately strangled. Seeger was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955. He refused to name names or apologize for his beliefs. He did not hide behind the Fifth Amendment. Instead, he told Congress he had a right to sing for anyone he pleased. It was a bold act of conscience, and it cost him dearly. He was indicted for contempt and blacklisted for years.

Even after these setbacks, Seeger stayed active in music. He wrote and made famous songs like “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,” “If I Had a Hammer,” and “Turn! Turn! Turn!” These songs became important for civil rights, labor, and anti‑war movements. His version of “We Shall Overcome” helped make it a key song in the civil rights movement.

Seeger was also a committed activist beyond music. He worked for environmental causes, especially the cleanup of the Hudson River, and remained involved as he aged. He inspired artists like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen to continue his tradition of songs about social issues.

Seeger died January 27, 2014, at 94, but his songs and beliefs continue to inspire. He believed music could unite people.

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Earth Day at the Harbor

Today is Earth Day, and every year it rolls around, I think about how it didn’t begin with a parade or a proclamation, but with a book — Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring back in 1962. One woman sitting at a desk, writing about pesticides and poisoned water, managed to shake the country awake, at least for a moment.

And then there was Gaylord Nelson, a senator from Wisconsin who must’ve felt like he was shouting into the wind. He went on speaking tours, trying to get pollution onto the national radar. The people heard him. The politicians mostly shrugged and went back to whatever they were doing.

So the people did what people sometimes have to do: they organized themselves. They made enough noise that the country couldn’t ignore it anymore. That noise became the first Earth Day in 1970.

Standing here in Rambling Harbor, watching the tide drag the morning light across the water, it’s hard not to think about how long we’ve been warned, and how slow we’ve been to listen. The planet keeps sending messages. The question is whether we’re finally ready to answer.

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Nixon lies + Trump parallel Morning Ramble,

Every time I look back at Nixon’s Vietnam “we’re winning” routine, I hear an echo.

Here’s the Nixon highlight reel: • “Vietnamization is working.” (It wasn’t.) • “Peace is at hand.” (It wasn’t.) • “The enemy is weakening.” (They weren’t.) • “I have a secret plan.” (He didn’t.) • “We’re withdrawing because we’re winning.” (We weren’t.) • “The bombing is working.” (It didn’t change the terms.)

And now we’ve got a whole new era of leaders who pull the same trick — declare victory, deny reality, and hope nobody notices the smoke pouring out of the engine room.

Boston folks can smell that a mile away, and I hope the United States still can.

History doesn’t repeat, but the sales pitch sure does.

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My Easter Ramble.

This moment comes from a stretch of my life when I was being moved across the country by U.S. Marshals—an experience that was tense, surreal, and, somehow, funny. I learned early on that if I could get the Marshals to crack a smile, the miles went by a little easier. This particular memory landed on Easter Sunday, somewhere in the endless wheat fields of Kansas, when the only thing to do was look out the window and try to keep the mood human.

“The one day I am sure of on this trip was Easter Sunday, and I remember that because as we traveled through the wheat fields of Kansas—miles and miles of nothing but wheat—I said to the Marshals, ‘You guys know it’s Easter?’ and one replied sarcastically, ‘Yeah, ya’ want to go to church?’ I replied, ‘No, I’m not much on churchgoing, but I thought we might have an Easter egg hunt, and I’ll be glad to play the part of the egg.’ This was the second time I made them laugh.”

For the whole story, the complete book follows the bouncing link at the bottom. But to help avoid Amazon’s paranoid algorithm, I’ll borrow a line from the Grateful Dead:

“Just one thing I ask of you, just one thing for me

Please forget you know my name, my darling Sugaree…”

Shake it, shake it, Sugaree — just don’t tell them that you know me.

Here’s the link to the full book: Here’s the link to the full book: https://a.co/d/016MrqUQ

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Rambling Harbor — Evening Edition Ramble AKA WTF Again

Tonight’s tide brought in a story I wish I didn’t recognize.

Evening settles over the Harbor like a worn jacket, the kind you keep by the door because it knows your shape better than you do. The light goes soft, the gulls quiet down, and the world finally stops shouting long enough for you to hear the small truths rattling around in your own chest. That’s when the news found me tonight — not with a bang, but with that familiar sting that comes when history gets pushed around like furniture someone’s tired of looking at.

Another round of funding carved out of Black museums. A Black heritage sign quietly taken down in Boston, as if memory itself were something optional, something you could tuck away when it makes the wrong people uneasy. It didn’t surprise me, but it sure as hell set something off — not a blaze, just that low, steady rumble from a place that’s been paying attention for too many years.

And this isn’t the first time I’ve felt that rumble. A few years back, I resigned from an organization I’d given time and heart to. Not because I heard the man say anything — I never did. This was all online, all at a distance. But then I read he was running for political office in Texas, and one of his proud public stances was opposition to what was then being called “critical race theory.” That was enough. I didn’t need a speech or a meeting or a debate. I just knew I wasn’t going to stay in a place led by someone who wanted to shut down the teaching of systemic racism and the harder truths of American history. If the truth makes you uncomfortable, maybe the problem isn’t the truth. So I walked. Quietly. Cleanly. And I didn’t look back.

And now here we are again, only the stage is bigger, and the stakes are heavier. Grants pulled from the Massachusetts Museum of African American History because the work doesn’t “align with priorities.” Heritage markers taken down like they were never there. Museums and cultural programs frozen out because they dare to tell the story straight. And the language is always the same — “divisive concepts,” “ideological concerns,” “restoring sanity.” Whenever politicians start talking about restoring sanity, you can bet they’re about to erase something.

It’s the same old dance: erase, rename, sanitize, repeat. Pretend it’s about budgets. Pretend it’s about neutrality. Pretend it’s anything except what it is — a slow tightening of the blindfold. And the people doing the tightening always swear they’re the ones protecting us from indoctrination. Meanwhile, the museums they’re defunding are the ones holding the receipts, the records, the stories this country has spent centuries trying to bury.

And what really gets me is the déjà vu of it all. I’ve seen this movie before. I’ve walked out of rooms — and online spaces — over it. And now it’s happening on a national scale, with institutions and memory and public truth on the line. Every time someone says “critical race theory,” what they really mean is “stop telling the parts of the story we don’t like.” Every time a sign comes down, or a grant disappears, they’re hoping the story goes with it.

So here I am, evening deepening over Rambling Harbor, the tide pulling at the edges of the day, and I’m thinking about how fragile memory becomes when people in power decide it’s optional. I’m thinking about how many times we’ve had to fight just to keep the truth in the daylight. And I’m thinking about how history isn’t fragile at all — but apparently some people are.

That’s the ramble tonight. The Harbor’s quiet, but the headlines aren’t. And somewhere out there, the truth is still trying to speak, even if someone keeps reaching for the dimmer switch.

From Rambling Harbor, I ask again: what do we do now?


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