Tag: immigrants

Our border with Mexico is not the problem

Sachem butterfly, female
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Beyond the walls of our domicile, all borders are figments of our imagination, maintained by mutual fear of those who live on the other side. — T.S. Emery; author, philosopher, nemophilist

My family moved to Maine the summer I started Fourth Grade. We took up residence on the shore of a 500-acre lake, populated by mostly moose and loons in summer and snowbound silence in winter. It was widely accepted in town that the previous owner, also from a Big City, got the better end of the deal by selling 50 acres of mostly swamp land to a fellow City Slicker.

But there was sufficient dry land on the parcel and Mom and Dad had no designs of building more than a home for their budding family and maybe a couple of cabins they would rent out to fellow New Yorkers to help pay the mortgage.

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A time to thanks give

The last pieceI can almost smell the mincemeat and apple pies, sitting on the porch rail to cool, and woe to the child who even contemplated poking a finger in one before The Big Meal.

In my youth, this was an aromatic week, culminating in a table full of turkey, at least one type of squash (and I love them all, in sooth), a humungous bowl of mashed potatoes, a heaping pile of hand-squooshed biscuits and a bowl of cranberry sauce. When cranberry sauce became available in cans, Mom was sure anyone who used the stuff would be consigned to the lower reaches of the eternal furnace.

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We’re all House Sparrows

A few months ago, a pair of English House Sparrows began guarding what they intended would eventually be the place they raised their offspring. Like most of us, they chased away interlopers, including the bluebirds we human yard owners hoped would make a home there.

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