My mom has been stepping out of grandmotherly family duties, boomer style, to live her best life, more and more. This is the first year she hasn’t hosted some kind of July 4th party, first with my Dad in town in the 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s, and then at the lake house with her new husband for the last few years. No explanation. No alternative venue. Just a quick mention in the group chat that there would be no party, and that was that.
I planned on taking the opportunity to sit alone at the Cabin in the UP enjoying the company of my dad and no one else, as is my only desire these days on this holiday, but it didn’t quite work out that I could stay- so after a quick work trip yesterday, I am home for the holiday, listening to the cacophony of fireworks going off all over the town around me.
I don’t even have a flag up anywhere. It’s americas 250th 4th and for the first time I couldn’t care less. My Dad loved it, and it was a joy to kind of live it through him, with him. The first thing he loved about it was that it was summer and he could perform the entire holiday shirtless. He worshiped the sun, hated the winters. 4th of July, he was in his element. Aviators. Mustache. Cigar. Beer and BBQ. He was a veteran, so he loved anything Flag, Army, Parade, etc related.
It’s interesting, what local trade unions did for my Grandfather- gave him a ‘home,’ and a family so to speak, making him a lifelong union democrat- the US Army did for my father, making him a life long pro-military republican. His whole life he credited the military for getting him out of the rut of poverty by breaking him down and rebuilding him as a functional and responsible member of society. He cited the family element of it a lot- not the idea that the government was your family, but the fact that other men who served were like your brothers anywhere and everywhere you went afterwards. He did a bit better than the rest of his siblings, but I’m not sure the army gets the credit for the entirety of his redeeming qualities. He thought so.
My grandfather was one of the board members that went along with the razing of the old Holy Childhood Boarding School in Harbor Springs, MI- the town I grew up in. It came up in discussion recently on a local discussion board and I had to look away. Every time it comes up I get more annoyed with how people talk about it and remember it- the basic narrative being that it was an evil institution that rounded up native children and brainwashed them into Christianity while abusing them horribly. For the sins of what went on inside the building’s walls, it was condemned to death, and torn down some 10-20 years ago at this point, I can’t remember.
Gilded age architecture of red brick, arched doorways, miles of polished tongue and groove old growth wooden flooring, inner hallways with crystal glass windows to draw light through classrooms and into unlit spaces between, 10 foot tall copper paneled decorative ceilings with crown molding, plaster walls, and steam radiator heat. A beautiful two story wooden stage and auditorium, with ancient red curtain. Full commercial kitchen from the 1940s with a nice walk in cooler and freezer. Basement labyrinth and fallout shelter. Old shower rooms with rows and rows of tall urinals set in seas of tiny square mosaic tiles, laundry rooms, storage rooms, catacombs underneath the parking lot where the coal chutes used to be, potato peeling rooms where vegetables were mass processed- it was an absolute work of art, as a building- assembled by master craftsman from an era of craftsmanship that was unmatched prior, and unmatched since, with building materials that are now essentially extinct, using techniques that have now been largely forgotten.
Just existing in such a beautiful space was life altering for me, and I spent a considerable amount of my childhood in that building. Some good times, mostly bad, all of which I am grateful for. By the time it was up for demolition my own house was probably the only place I spent more time.
Point being, it was mine as much as anyone’s.
And it was a work of art.
And some whiny entitled cunts associated with the Tribe whined hard enough at the guilt stricken democrats on the board, my Grandfather being among them, that a bunch of useless cunts that couldn’t change a tire or identify a crescent wrench got one of the most beautifully and professionally crafted structures I’ve ever seen, destroyed just for some vague political catharsis and the sadistic pleasure of destruction and consumption.
And every time people talk about it, and get to dancing on its grave, it makes me angry. Because not only did it mean a lot to me in a personal way, but the entire narrative we’ve accepted as fact regarding the history of it is a one-sided product of modern political thinking, retconning modern narratives onto historical systems.
All of the allegations of “abuse” turn out to be just 19th century standard German discipline practices. All the allegations of sexual abuse turn out to stem from one of the younger Nuns engaging in relations with some of the older boys. And while I agree that older female teachers should not be banging their students, I’m sorry but I will never place it in the same league as a male teacher banging a female student.
The idea that the children were “rounded up and kidnapped away for brainwashing” is also a major stretch. Most of these kids were deposited by their eager-to-do-so-parents, since it was free three squares a day, room and board, and an education. The only “force” that was allegedly involved, although zero examples of such could I find anywhere, were the leveraging of US Gov Native American Benefits- like free food rations, clothing rations, etc- in exchange for letting the children be assimilated into western culture.
And for these great sins, a bunch of folks who weren’t even there but had summoned to mind all sorts of horrors and abuses and evils, based on their own self pity and (extremely lucrative) addiction to US Government Grievance and special treatment, managed to get one of my Old Homes and a spectacular work of art torn down.
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