On Saturday morning the nice young lady at the counter of the bakery café explained that that my order would be ready in a minute. For some reason, the usually weekend crush of customers hadn’t appeared, so, the two of us had a touch of time to kill.
I asked the significance of the tattoo on her left arm (every tattoo comes with a story), then she asked what was my favorite bagel?
“Pumpernickel.”
Her stare went blank. I talked about rich, gritty dark brown rye made into a dense bagels, easily found in University City decades ago. She kinda nodded. (I think she preferred talking about her tattoos).
Alas, a good pumpernickel bagel just ain’t much of a thing anymore, just as the rare pumpernickel bread at local stores now lists “wheat flour” as its first ingredient. That nice young lady probably would never get a chance to bite through the crunchy, slightly salty skin on a true pumpernickel bagel and experience the sweet texture inside.
She’s also never lived in an America which is not involved in multiple foreign wars.
Remember, for the past 18 years Americans have died fighting in southwest Asia. That means from the day that cashier first looked at a television, “America at war” has been a thing. And, at her age, it’s likely young people she knows will end-up fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, or, possible soon, Iran. Peace remains hidden, unreachable.
During the 19th Century the British Empire squandered a great portion of its young men on, by Wikipedia’s count, 35 wars and rebellions At times the Crown sanctioned three or even four conflicts at once, basically playing Whack A Mole to preserve dominance over much of Africa and Asia – as well as keeping those pesky French, Russians and Americans in line. Indeed, even in the 20th Century the British fought to preserve what it had taken, most notably in Ireland.
What happened to the British Empire? It died.
Now, we Americans don’t consider ourselves empire builders. Yet, for the second century in a row, we’ve fallen into the same trap that snagged – and weakened – Great Britain. We send troops all about the globe and fill oceans with aircraft carriers. Still, like the English (and the Russians) we’ve learned it easier to get into Afghanistan to start a war than to win and leave. We grow ambivalent about “nation building:” meanwhile, Iran seems to be annexing Iraq despite trillions of dollars and thousands of Americans lives expended.
Speaking of Iran…Note that the Iranian government faces civil unrest. The ruling Crown Prince in Saudi Arabia faces a war against Yemeni rebels, tensions with Iran and international pressure over the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Benjamin Netanyahu faces legal and political woes on the eve of tomorrow’s election in Israel and, repeatedly, speaks out against Israel’s arch enemy, Iran. And, America remains under the rule of Donald The Last.
What could go wrong?
A part of me wants to track down some authentic pumpernickel bagels, a few for me and one for that young lady. Another part of me figures she’s quite happy without pumpernickel because she’s never known it. Like peace.
Glenn Koenen
Excellent statement.